http://www.reagancoalition.com/articles/2013/20130401001-ny-bill-life.html

http://youtu.be/9-nXT8lSnPQ

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing China..the "old men in the polit bureau" realized the "Regional Forces" would not "gun down" unarmed protesters or "run them down" with tank as seen worldwide, as the young protester defiantly stood in the path of an on coming columb of tanks eventually climing upon one to plead with the crew....the world was amazed that in "Red China" this would be possible. Here comes the twist...China represent about 20% of the world's population and there is no one "countrywide" language ie. Mandarin, Cantonese, and several others. The "Ole Men" replaced the "Regional Force" with an "Army from the Mongolian province. Without a "common language" and no family ties to the local population...BOOM! INSTANT SLAUGHTER!!!...

This "foreign presence on our shores" is exactly that...how much "mercy", "pity,compassion will these "U.N. MERCENARIES" SHOW OUR PEOPLE???

A POINT WAS MADE IN THE VIDEO THAT ALL THE VARIOUS NATIONAL GUARDS THAT WOULD POSSIBLY "OPPOSE" SUCH A MOVE HAVE BEEN STRIPPED OF "ALL OF THEIR HEAVY EQUIPMENT" IT HAS BEEN LEFT IN "AFGANISTAN" BECAUSE OF SEQUESTRATION MAKES IT "TO EXPENSIVE"{ TO RETURN TO THE STATES FROM WHICH THEY CAME....GOVERNORS OF SEVERAL STATES ARE FORMING JOINT MILITAS SCAVAGING FOR PROPER ARMAMENTS....READ THE FOLLOWING AND PASS IT ON

S  E  L  A  H

RUSSIAN TROOPS IN US NATIONAL PARKS

This is a story that needs widespread dissemination...shouting from every roof top in the country...it was posted on the "WESTERN CENTER JOURNALISM"

SITE THE BYLINE: 

Are America’s treasured National Parks being co-opted

Apr 01, 2013 01:25 pm | Suzanne Eovaldi

Led by the New World Order under the guise of designating them World Heritage Sites, thus allowing foreign troops and United Nations agencies to take over our country in a soft coup d’etat? A blogger has photographed heavily equipped armored vehicles carrying the “Special Response Team” logo in and around the Great Smoky Mountains National Heritage site in Gatlinburg, TN. (1) ”It is a deadly serious piece of equipment never before used inside the US until now,” says the blogger “Sherrie” who then adds, “The vehicles don’t come more heavily armored.”

Sherrie has put up several pictures of these in-country tanks which she said she saw on and near Interstate 75 when she was traveling back roads near Winchester, Richmond, KY, and lists Rt. # 627 as an area of interest. “This spot is (around) the US Army Chemical Depot” which covers 14,000 acres in Kentucky backwoods,” the blogger says on the video which the Liberty web site is putting up for general viewing. She mentions chemical weapons involving 523 tons of nerve agents and shows aerial photography of train tracks going up to several buildings in this compound! “I’m not sure what they are,” she says, positing the notion of a possible FEMA camp in the Kentucky woods.
Now in addition to sighting of MRAP vehicles, “Sherrie” tells readers that “Russians were stopping and questioning people in the Gatlinburg, Smoky Mountain Parks region.” She quotes a high ranking individual in a local area state militia organization who she says she trusts as being truthful. The scenario developed when these apparently foreign troops wearing DHS uniforms with the Eagle insignia tried to enter Tennessee from Kentucky. “They were NOT Americans. . .appeared to be Russian or Eastern European!”
The Tennessee State Guard is being formulated as part of the 22 state Governors’ Militia Organization of volunteers which answers only to the Governors, not to the Federal government. (2) What has developed is the confiscation of equipment belong to National Guard Units nationwide. Trucks and other equipment sent to Iraq are not being replaced or returned to the states by the federal government because it is “too expensive” to transport the vehicles and equipment back into the country. This has prompted 22 governors to form State Militia Units paid for by the states and thus kept out of the reach of the federal government. (2)
Has the Division of Homeland Security partnered with the United Nations One World military apparatus with a sleight of hand operation known as World Heritage Site designation? The observant blogger lists these US treasures also as being so designated: Statue of Liberty, Everglades, Mammoth Cave, Yellowstone, Yosemite, all former National Parks. Folks, this designation and UN involvement coincides with the ten region DHS map of the United States! Has this under-the-radar give away of America already taken place, thus allowing the constitutionally prohibited onus of foreign troops being stationed on American soil? What is your Congress doing about this?

The Economist has been fairly consistent in its stand that carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources are the chief cause of global warming. But in an editorial this week, it sounds less certain.

Global warming predictions haven’t panned out as predicted in the past decade, but the why is a bit fuzzy, the magazine admits.

Greenhouse gas emissions have soared during the past 15 years, the magazine notes, with 100 billion tons of carbon having been added to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. Still, both air and ground temperatures during that time have remained virtually unchanged.

In fact, the editorial notes, surface temperatures have been at the bottom of the projected range of various models since 2005. If they remain flat, they will actually begin to fall below projections shortly.

Read: http://www.newsmax.com/SciTech/Economist-Mismatch-Greenhouse-Gases/2013/03/30/id/497052?s=al&promo_code=12FC0-1#ixzz2PEQhYb4a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO06ud70HSg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://youtu.be/mO06ud70HSg

I try not to be unnecessarily confrontational, but when there is an
"obvious" contradiction concerning this community's mission I must
speak up. The fact this nation is in a struggle for it's future and
literally for it's life, unity of purpose is "power". Now anything or
philosophy that bring "suspicion, opens old wounds, causes division"
needs to be confronted. If I felt this community was just a "smoke
screen" for a "hidden agenda" such as justification of the
"Confederacy and everything it stood for" I would become one of
it's most outspoken opponents. That being said there are elements
within this community that are wolves in sheep's clothing striving for
acceptance and legitimacy by attempting to be "apologist" for the
Confederate cause. Throwing mud on the Union's response to their
rebellion as "aggression",and Abraham Lincoln the oppressor. This
has been the whole "engine" for the perpetration of hate and
atrocities from reconstruction until this day...With our movement
they are able to "Hide in plain sight"...I say stop making excuses for
this behavior and call it what it is "Racism". I refuse to believe the
lie of the MSM that this is the true nature of the "TEA PARTY
MOVEMENT"...but when I see portraits of Nathan Bedford Forrest the
father of the KKK posted, and out of context quotes from Abraham
Lincoln portraying him as a tyrant and aggressor, what can I say? As
a minister of the LORD the only thing I can say to those in the
community that hold this position...REPENT!!! YOU LOST THE
STRUGGLE BECAUSE OF BEING ON THE WRONG SIDE OF
THE ARGUMENT AND AGAINST DEVINE PRINCIPALS...YOU
DON'T BREAK GOD'S PRINCIPALS THEY BREAK YOU!!! GET
OVER IT.

 S E L A H

It isn't about the blacks or whites in the back of the bus!

It's the psycopathic muslim bus driver who pretends to be black!

It's time to toss him off the bus before he kills all of us!

MY DAD'S GENERATION...WE WERE THERE OUR NATION OUR BLOOD WE SHARE...OUT OF EVERY KINDRED,PEOPLE,TONGUE AND NATION...OUR COUNTRY UNDER "GOD" THE "LORD"OF CREATION...BY "HIS" BLOOD WE HAVE RELIEF FROM THE WAGES OF SIN WHICH IS DEATH....SO THIS DAY THE FAITHFUL CELEBRATE,REJOICE AND ANTICIPATE THE RETURN OF OUR KING...VICTORY AND JOY FOR ALL ETERNITY "HE"BRINGS...
S E L A H

http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_33051.php

There sits in our white house a man and his wife who have done nothing but, lie, cheat, steal , murder and break the laws of this  nation, yet, in response to a petition I signed this is the response I receive and rest assured the petition was to combat the libs. evil incarnate:

Speaking Out Against and Preventing Violence Based on Religious Affiliation

Thank you for signing this petition. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on Whitehouse.gov. However, consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines to comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.
...

It is with great horror that I have discovered that living babes are ripped from the wombs of their mothers and left laying on cold metal tables, like garbage, fighting for life, struggling to keep breathing. This reality has stripped me of my tolerance, of my willingness to try to understand the view of a lib. All of you must reach this point. They don't have a view, they do not  have a utopia view, they are evil, they are sick , they are twisted! We have enabled them and we must end that! They did not manage to get us where we are today by following the laws, they did it and are still doing it by breaking the laws. The time for peace is over, there is no law , you all need to understand that. The time to fight for what is right has come, the time for you polite and caring attitudes towards these libs has come. Yes, you are polite and you are caring! You don't want to break their laws, you don't want to cross their boundaries, well, they crossed yours and mine and if we want to take back our lives, take back morals and values , well, you are going to have to break their laws, just as they did ours. I want to be very clear here, for those who believe in right and wrong you can only have one attitude , hot!  Libs are evil incarnate, you are for all intents and purposes fighting Satan! My tolerance ended today, it ended with the fact that they condone and protect the murder and torture of living , breathing babes! I mean living breathing babes that some piece of slime decided it did not want to live! I'm sorry , but, I know many of you were already aware of this and still you talk , still you will not cross their boundaries! Well, either you put aside your selfish security or you are defeated, not just in this life either, in the next as well. The time for forceful action is here, has been here for years and we have done nothing. We are too busy being politically correct! So, go ahead , call me radical, tell me not to say what is true, kick me from here! I don't care, You are either hot or you are cold and there is no in between! And every babe that dies from this day forward, every babe I cannot save, their blood is on my hands and your hands! Of all the issues we have today, there is one I have not seen here, the murder and torture of helpless babes! I have lost faith with man, with myself, I turn to God now and only there will I find truth and I pray salvation. We are all sick , twisted and demented! We make excuses for our lukewarm actions, at least the libs are hot in their pursuit of satans work! Understand this, because libs are hot in their satanic believes they are succeeding , because we are luke warm or cold we are failing! The time to forcefully end the horrors being perpetrated by libs was yesterday! I am going to run hot, I'm done with pretending like I fight for good, I am going to fight for good! So, all of you, think long and hard on this, why have the libs, evil incarnate been successful Because they broke Gods Law and mans Laws and as long as you keep trying to follow the laws of the libs , you will fail.  You are either hot or you are cold! I expect this post will be deleted, it is not politically correct and I am telling you to cast off mans law, fight to preserve Gods laws! The war is here , you will not win it working within the confines of the evil, you must break their evil laws or bow to them and be one of them!

My tolerance has ended, my lukewarm attitude is gone , I am hot, I will fight for God's laws! I am a sinner, but, I am a sinner who has faith in our Lord's laws , I fight to protect those laws on a personal level , I will now fight to protect those laws on a universal level, I will lose, I am but one , but, I will die in peace knowing I fought for our Lord!

So many of you profess to be Christians, can quote scripture word for word, I cannot do that, but, I do remember some of the scriptures, and this  one "So then because thou art lukewarm ... I will spue thee out of my mouth - Referring, perhaps, to the well-known fact that tepid water tends to produce sickness at the stomach, and an inclination to vomit. The image is intensely strong, and denotes deep disgust and loathing at the indifference which prevailed in the church at Laodicea. The idea is, that they would be utterly rejected and cast off as a church - a threatening of which there has been an abundant fulfillment in subsequent times. It may be remarked, also, that what was threatened to that church may be expected to occur to all churches, if they are in the same condition; and that all professing Christians, and Christian churches, that are lukewarm, have special reason to dread the indignation of the Saviour." Admins, go ahead, kick me! I will no longer participate with the lukewarm  , I am looking for those who are hot.

Every time a helpless babe dies, we will be held accountable, make no mistake about it!

God does work in mysterious ways. I have just discovered that the people of this nation condone the murder and torture of innocent babes. The horror of that, the reality of that, has left me cold and disdainful of mankind, ripped away hope, laid to ruin my belief that people have any goodness in them what so ever. At this very time , this very second, a friend reached out to me. My horror and disgust of mankind still remains but hope returned. There are a few out there yet who believe in love, compassion , loyalty, God, right and wrong. My battle against those of you who murdered and torture innocent babes will continue, but, at least I know you are not the rule , you are the exception. So, a little seed of hope. Do expect to see me soon planned parenthood and do expect me to take forceful action, do expect me to be willing to go to jail fighting for the life of innocent babes, do expect me to feel disgust for the evil that libs are - that does not change. What did change is there is a little seed of hope that all is not lost and that all mankind are not the epitome of evil. I am supposed to pray for the evil that you libs are but I am human and cannot. My prayer would not be for God to have mercy on your evil , my prayer would be to end your evil in this life and the next. That's right libs, I have sinned, you disgust me, I cannot pray for you, I want to see the end of your evil. God will be most unhappy with me, I am sinning, I judge you libs. I judge you as evil. I will fight your evil with every fiber of my being! May God forgive me and have mercy on my soul for the hate I feel!

President Obama approved a temporary spending bill this week that averted a  government shutdown but also riled a slew of groups that say one provision  protects Monsanto and other makers of genetically modified seeds and crops from  federal courts.

The so-called Monsanto Protection Act essentially requires the Agriculture  Department to approve the growing, harvesting and selling of such crops, even if  the courts rule environmental studies are incomplete -- undermining  the  judicial review system and posing potential health risks, critics say.

The biotech rider was included in spending bill HR 933 and signed Tuesday by  Obama, despite White House protests and at least two petitions, including one by  the group Food Democracy Now that got more than 250,000 signatures.

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/30/obama-signs-bill-that-protects-makers-genetically-engineered-crops-from-federal/#ixzz2P3oaCWUU

and ? how do you do ? new pope (cariocorne in jupiter and mercure) run elvis

http://blackroberegimentpastor.blogspot.com/2013/03/standing-up-and-doing-word-no.html

“Standing Up And Doing The Word 'NO' “

It would appear that many Americans have lost the notion of just how powerful and equally important our words are coupled with action. Arguably, here in the USA--- I believe the word “No” to be the most powerful word in the English language. In fact, saying the word “No” to someone, anyone...depending on how the word is used in context, can arouse so many deep feelings in the person receiving and hearing “No.” There is no word completed with the following through of action that can result in such tremendous as well as devastating consequences to a person or organizations ego. If American's only knew just how powerful this word was and is. If only cultures and nations around the world also only knew how powerful this word is as well. The word “No” used in the right context and with the correct application by a majority, even a minority of people, can and does change whole countries including policies and attitudes. I repeat... there is no more powerful word then the word “No.”

                                                                   

Unfortunately, many American's have learned the power of expressing the word “No” but have increasingly used that word in the wrong context and for the wrong and unhelpful reasons. In fact, a great example of what I am expressing here is the fact that most Americans have responded saying “No”, to others when being asked to stand up and remove evil here in our nation. Equally important and the truth also be known, many Americans have also said “No” when there are opportunities standing right there before them to get up off their butt's and do something about all the evil that overwhelms our nation today. How horrible and tragic instead, most Americans do not cease the opportunity to remove evil through “No” in action, but do nothing instead but watch their “boob tube” and drink their beer. Sadly and unfortunately, while other nations and even our own government plots and takes actions to destroy us and our God given rights, poison our food, murder innocent men women and children, the majority of US Citizens when called upon to take a real and substantive stand against evil, just say “No” by doing nothing. It is the obvious mind set that these same folks who do nothing, believe that their American government has their best interest in mind. Crazy as it may sound, these same foolish people also believe that the US and it's State Government's are there to protect them or is actually there to help them. They are sadly mistaken and will be find themselves among the first to soon be slaughtered because of their idiotic belief system.

Speaking now to those who have simply been hesitant in using the word “No” in action against evil, what the heck are you waiting for ? I am pointing my question to all those “Oath Keepers”, “militias” and others who purport to be “defenders of freedom and the US Constitution.” How much longer do you wait in saying “No” in action while everyday the US Constitution is being increasingly raped and innocent American Citizens murdered ?You are telling everyone to“promise to uphold the US Constitution” but without action, words become meaningless. How much more evil and destruction of our US Constitution and nation do you wait until your “No” becomes “No” with action ? Personally, I don't see this nation rebounding because to many people are full of “hot air” when they say to the devil; “No.” Evidence and fact prove that this nation slides further and further into the pits of hell. Homosexuality, abortion, Islam, Communism, Feminism, and other sinful and evil issues plaque our nation. Cannot people see the increasing negative consequences of saying “No” to evil without action ?Warnings from Godly Christian pastors and Christians are everywhere but very few are listening and responding in repentance. Surly, the word “No” in action against all forms of evil cannot be communicated, expressed in action-enough. 

Those who love God of the Bible and all those who are lover's of good now see their latest actions of petitions, grievances, protests and marches against evil especially government sponsored evil, have become useless, and impotent. There are no longer enough people in America who care. Apathy rules the hearts of many Americans. It is so very evident that if Christians and others had stood up and declared “No” to evil years ago, we wouldn't be in this horrible predicament today. As they say though,... It is what it is... Now all of must make a conscious decision to either say “No” and mean it or go along with the program of increasing evil. I pity those in the end who believe in their heart that they can some how hide or pretend to be on the side of evil just to get a long. My friends, if that is you, you are making a very bad mistake. In the end, at some point... you will have to make a decision of whom and what you believe and what you avoid today, will eventually need to deal with anyway.

Today is of the final days of standing up in action and saying “No” to evil and government sponsored terrorism against it's citizenry. What does this mean for you ? This means no more agreeing to and allowing to government sanctioned evil. For some of you, this will be very difficult as you will no longer be allowing your U.S issued Social Security Number, your state issued Driver's License and other government ID's and documents to be used for government profiteering and exploitation of evil. You may even like I, give up certain government issued licenses and go on in life to follow God and Natural Rights instead. Saying “No” to government and evil manipulation, control and other wicked acts should never be tolerated by anyone, doing so is how this nation got to be in such a demonic mess to begin with. Our government elected and non-elected leaders, courts, police and others are steadfastly engaged in matters which God calls wrong. My warning to all; If you “go along to get along”, you are doing yourself a disservice. Equally, if you believe that your decision to do nothing about evil makes no difference, you are wrong... you have in fact chosen the side of evil.

Indeed, utilizing the word “No” with action is powerful if used for the right and Biblical reasons. People can come up with many excuses in not using this word in action properly. I do hope and pray that everyone reading this article “gets it” now. There is no more wiggle room for folks to do nothing about the one-hundred percent removal of evil and standing up with the word “No.” You are responsible and you are required to act in concert with what God tells you to do and act. With that, I advise you to use the word “No” in action and in frequency every time evil raises it's ugly head.

Matthew 5:7 “But let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil.“

Rev Paul Waldmiller~Black Robe Regiment Pastor

"Unhappy Life of the Sinner: and Happy Life of Him who loves God" by St. Alphonsus De Liguori, taken from his book entitled "Preparation For Death", Consideration XXI.

"There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord." Isa. xiviii, 22

"Much peace have they that love Thy law." Ps. cxviii, 165

The World Cannot Make Us Happy

"In this life all men seek after peace.  The merchant, the soldier, the man who goes to law, labor with the hope of making a fortune, and of thus finding peace, by worldly fortune, by a more exalted post, by gaining a lawsuit.  But poor worldlings seek from the world that peace which the world cannot give.  God alone can give us peace.  The holy Church prays in the following words:  'Give to Thy servants that peace which the world cannot give.' (Da servis tuis illam, quan mundus dare non potest, pacem).  Not; the world with all its goods cannot content the heat of man: for he was created not for them, but for God alone: hence God alone can make him happy and content.  Brute animals, that have been made for sensual delights, find peace in earthly goods.  Give to an ox a bundle of hay, and to a dog a piece of flesh, and they are content, they desire nothing more.  But the soul that has been created fo no other end than to love God, and to live in union with Him, will never be able to find peace or happiness in sensual enjoyments:  God alone can make it perfectly content."

The Second Amendment as an Expression of First Principles

 “Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”

EDWARD J. ERLER is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino. He earned his B.A. from San Jose State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. He has published numerous articles on constitutional topics in journals such as Interpretation, the Notre Dame Journal of Law, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He was a member of the California Advisory Commission on Civil Rights from 1988-2006 and served on the California Constitutional Revision Commission in 1996. He is the author of The American Polity and co-author of The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on February 13, 2013, at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C.

We are currently mired in a frantic debate about the rights of gun owners. One example should suffice to prove that the debate has become hysterical: Second Amendment supporters, one prominent but less than articulate member of Congress alleges, have become “enablers of mass murder.”

Special animus has been directed against so-called assault rifles. These are semi-automatic, not automatic weapons—the latter have been illegal under federal law since the 1930s—because they require a trigger pull for every round fired. Some semi-automatic firearms, to be sure, can be fitted with large-capacity magazines. But what inspires the ire of gun control advocates seems to be their menacing look—somehow they don’t appear fit for polite society. No law-abiding citizen could possibly need such a weapon, we are told—after all, how many rounds from a high-powered rifle are needed to kill a deer? And we are assured that these weapons are not well-adapted for self-defense—that only the military and the police need to have them.

Now it’s undeniable, Senator Dianne Feinstein to the contrary notwithstanding, that semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15 are extremely well-adapted for home defense—especially against a crime that is becoming more and more popular among criminals, the home invasion. Over the past two decades, gun ownership has increased dramatically at the same time that crime rates have decreased. Combine this with the fact that most gun crimes are committed with stolen or illegally obtained weapons, and the formula to decrease crime is clear: Increase the number of responsible gun owners and prosecute to the greatest extent possible under the law those who commit gun-related crimes or possess weapons illegally.

Consider also that assault rifles are rarely used by criminals, because they are neither easily portable nor easily concealed. In Chicago, the murder capital of America—a city with draconian gun laws—pistols are the weapon of choice, even for gang-related executions. But of course there are the horrible exceptions—the mass shootings in recent years—and certainly we must keep assault weapons with high-capacity magazines out of the hands of people who are prone to commit such atrocities.

The shooters in Arizona, Colorado, and Newtown were mentally ill persons who, by all accounts, should have been incarcerated. Even the Los Angeles Times admits that “there is a connection between mental illness and mass murder.” But the same progressives who advocate gun control also oppose the involuntary incarceration of mentally ill people who, in the case of these mass shootings, posed obvious dangers to society before they committed their horrendous acts of violence. From the point of view of the progressives who oppose involuntary incarceration of the mentally ill—you can thank the ACLU and like-minded organizations—it is better to disarm the entire population, and deprive them of their constitutional freedoms, than to incarcerate a few mentally ill persons who are prone to engage in violent crimes.

And we must be clear—the Second Amendment is not about assault weapons, hunting, or sport shooting. It is about something more fundamental. It reaches to the heart of constitutional principles—it reaches to first principles. A favorite refrain of thoughtful political writers during America’s founding era held that a frequent recurrence to first principles was an indispensable means of preserving free government—and so it is.

The Whole People Are the Militia The Second Amendment reads as follows: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The immediate impetus for the amendment has never been in dispute. Many of the revolutionary generation believed standing armies were dangerous to liberty. Militias made up of citizen-soldiers, they reasoned, were more suitable to the character of republican government. Expressing a widely held view, Elbridge Gerry remarked in the debate over the first militia bill in 1789 that “whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia.”

The Second Amendment is unique among the amendments in the Bill of Rights, in that it contains a preface explaining the reason for the right protected: Militias are necessary for the security of a free state. We cannot read the words “free State” here as a reference to the several states that make up the Union. The frequent use of the phrase “free State” in the founding era makes it abundantly clear that it means a non-tyrannical or non-despotic state. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), rightly remarked that the term and its “close variations” were “terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a free country or free polity.”

The principal constitutional debate leading up to the Heller decision was about whether the right to “keep and bear arms” was an individual right or a collective right conditioned upon service in the militia. As a general matter, of course, the idea of collective rights was unknown to the Framers of the Constitution—and this consideration alone should have been decisive. We have James Madison’s own testimony that the provisions of the Bill of Rights “relate [first] . . . to private rights.”

The notion of collective rights is wholly the invention of the Progressive founders of the administrative state, who were engaged in a self-conscious effort to supplant the principles of limited government embodied in the Constitution. For these Progressives, what Madison and other Founders called the “rights of human nature” were merely a delusion characteristic of the 18th century. Science, they held, has proven that there is no permanent human nature—that there are only evolving social conditions. As a result, they regarded what the Founders called the “rights of human nature” as an enemy of collective welfare, which should always take precedence over the rights of individuals. For Progressives then and now, the welfare of the people—not liberty—is the primary object of government, and government should always be in the hands of experts. This is the real origin of today’s gun control hysteria—the idea that professional police forces and the military have rendered the armed citizen superfluous; that no individual should be responsible for the defense of himself and his family, but should leave it to the experts. The idea of individual responsibilities, along with that of individual rights, is in fact incompatible with the Progressive vision of the common welfare.

This way of thinking was wholly alien to America’s founding generation, for whom government existed for the purpose of securing individual rights. And it was always understood that a necessary component of every such right was a correspondent responsibility. Madison frequently stated that all “just and free government” is derived from social compact—the idea embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which notes that the “just powers” of government are derived “from the consent of the governed.” Social compact, wrote Madison, “contemplates a certain number of individuals as meeting and agreeing to form one political society, in order that the rights, the safety, and the interests of each may be under the safeguard of the whole.” The rights to be protected by the political society are not created by government—they exist by nature—although governments are necessary to secure them. Thus political society exists to secure the equal protection of the equal rights of all who consent to be governed. This is the original understanding of what we know today as “equal protection of the laws”—the equal protection of equal rights.

Each person who consents to become a member of civil society thus enjoys the equal protection of his own rights, while at the same time incurring the obligation to protect the rights of his fellow citizens. In the first instance, then, the people are a militia, formed for the mutual protection of equal rights. This makes it impossible to mistake both the meaning and the vital importance of the Second Amendment: The whole people are the militia, and disarming the people dissolves their moral and political existence.

Arms and Sovereignty The Preamble to the Constitution stipulates that “We the people . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.” It is important to note that the people establish the Constitution; the Constitution does not establish the people. When, then, did “we the people” become a people? Clearly Americans became a people upon the adoption of its first principles of government in the Declaration of Independence, which describes the people both in their political capacity, as “one people,” and in their moral capacity, as a “good people.” In establishing the Constitution, then, the people executed a second contract, this time with government. In this contract, the people delegate power to the government to be exercised for their benefit. But the Declaration specifies that only the “just powers” are delegated. The government is to be a limited government, confined to the exercise of those powers that are fairly inferred from the specific grant of powers.

Furthermore, the Declaration specifies that when government becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established—the “Safety and Happiness” of the people—then “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” This is what has become known as the right of revolution, an essential ingredient of the social compact and a right which is always reserved to the people. The people can never cede or delegate this ultimate expression of sovereign power. Thus, in a very important sense, the right of revolution (or even its threat) is the right that guarantees every other right. And if the people have this right as an indefeasible aspect of their sovereignty, then, by necessity, the people also have a right to the means to revolution. Only an armed people are a sovereign people, and only an armed people are a free people—the people are indeed a militia.

The Declaration also contains an important prudential lesson with respect to the right to revolution: “Prudence . . . will dictate,” it cautions, “that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” It is only after “a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object,” and when that object “evinces a design to reduce [the People] to absolute Despotism,” that “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” Here the Declaration identifies the right of revolution, not only as a right of the people, but as a duty as well—indeed, it is the only duty mentioned in the Declaration.

The prudential lessons of the Declaration are no less important than its assertion of natural rights. The prospect of the dissolution of government is almost too horrible to contemplate, and must be approached with the utmost circumspection. As long as the courts are operating, free and fair elections are proceeding, and the ordinary processes of government hold out the prospect that whatever momentary inconveniences or dislocations the people experience can be corrected, then they do not represent a long train of abuses and usurpations and should be tolerated. But we cannot remind ourselves too often of the oft-repeated refrain of the Founders: Rights and liberties are best secured when there is a “frequent recurrence to first principles.”

The Current Legal Debate In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that for the first time held unambiguously that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual the right to keep and bear arms for purposes of self-defense. Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia quoted Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, a work well known to the Founders. Blackstone referred to “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation,” which necessarily entailed “the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense.” Throughout his opinion, Justice Scalia rightly insisted that the Second Amendment recognized rights that preexisted the Constitution. But Justice Scalia was wrong to imply that Second Amendment rights were codified from the common law—they were, in fact, “natural rights,” deriving their status from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

In his Heller dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens boldly asserted that “there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution.” In a perverse way, Justice Stevens was correct for the same reason Justice Scalia was wrong: What the Framers did was to recognize the natural right of self-defense. Like the right to revolution, the right to self-defense or self-preservation can never be ceded to government. In the words of James Wilson—a signer of the Declaration, a member of the Constitutional Convention, and an early justice of the Supreme Court—“the great natural law of self-preservation . . . cannot be repealed, or superseded, or suspended by any human institution.”

Justice Stevens, however, concluded that because there is no clause in the Constitution explicitly recognizing the common law right of self-defense, it is not a constitutional right and therefore cannot authorize individual possession of weapons. What Justice Stevens apparently doesn’t realize is that the Constitution as a whole is a recognition of the “the great natural law of self-preservation,” both for the people and for individuals. Whenever government is unwilling or unable to fulfill the ends for which it exists—the safety and happiness of the people—the right of action devolves upon the people, whether it is the right of revolution or the individual’s right to defend person and property.

Justice Scalia noted that those who argued for a collective-rights interpretation of the Second Amendment have the impossible task of showing that the rights protected by the Second Amendment are collective rights, whereas every other right protected by the Bill of Rights is an individual right. It is true that the Second Amendment states that “the people” have the right to keep and bear arms. But other amendments refer to the rights of “the people” as well. The Fourth Amendment, for example, guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizure.” But there seems to be universal agreement that Fourth Amendment rights belong to individuals.

And what of the First Amendment’s protection of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances?” Justice Stevens argues that these rights are collective rights. After all, he avers, “they contemplate collective actions.” It is true, the Justice concedes, that the right to assemble is an individual right, but “its concern is with action engaged in by members of a group, rather than any single individual.” And the right to petition government for a redress of grievances is similarly, he says, “a right that can be exercised by individuals,” even though “it is primarily collective in nature.” Its collective nature, he explains, means that “if they are to be effective, petitions must involve groups of individuals acting in concert.” Even though individuals may petition government for redress, it is more “effective” if done in concert with others, even though “concert” is not necessary to the existence or the exercise of the right.

With respect to assembly, Justice Stevens argues, there cannot be an assembly of one. An “assembly” is a collection of individual rights holders who have united for common action or to promote a common cause. But who could argue that the manner in which the assemblage takes place, or the form that it takes, significantly qualifies or limits the possession or exercise of the right? We might as well argue that freedom of speech is a collective right because freedom of speech is most effectively exercised when there are auditors; or that freedom of the press is a collective right because it is most effectively exercised when there are readers. Justice Stevens’ argument is thus fanciful, not to say frivolous.

The Court in Heller did indicate, however, that there could be some reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. “Longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” for example, will continue to meet constitutional muster. Laws that forbid “carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” are also reasonable regulations, as are “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” The prohibition on “dangerous and unusual weapons”—including automatic firearms—fall outside Second Amendment guarantees as well.

But the Heller decision is clear that handgun possession for self-defense is absolutely protected by the Second Amendment. Can handguns be carried outside the home as part of “the inherent right of self-defense?” The Court indicated that handguns can be prohibited in “sensitive places,” but not every place outside the home is sensitive. And if carrying weapons in a non-sensitive area is protected by the Second Amendment, can there be restrictions on concealed carrying? These are all questions that will have to be worked out in the future, if not by legislation, then by extensive litigation.

The Supreme Court took a further important step in securing Second Amendment rights in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), ruling that these rights as articulated in Heller were fundamental rights, and thus binding on the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We have to remember, however, that both of these cases were decided by narrow, 5-4 majorities, and that new appointments of more progressive-minded justices to the Court could easily bring about a reversal.

For the moment, Second Amendment rights seem safe, but in the long term a political defense will be a more effective strategy. As Abraham Lincoln once remarked, “Whoever moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.” Shaping and informing public sentiments—public opinion—is political work, and thus it is to politics that we must ultimately resort.

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In the current climate of public opinion, Congress will have little appetite for passing an assault gun ban. More likely, it will be satisfied with passing legislation aimed at gun trafficking and tightening background checks. We must remember, however, President Obama’s pledge: “If Congress won’t act then I will.” He has already issued 23 gun-related executive orders, and some of them are rather curious. One of them notes that there is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that prevents doctors from asking patients about guns in the home; another directs “the Centers for Disease Control to research the cause and prevention of gun violence.”

The President’s power to act through executive orders is as extensive as it is ill-defined. Congress routinely delegates power to executive branch agencies, and the courts accord great deference to agency rule-making powers, often interpreting ambiguous legislative language or even legislative silence as a delegation of power to the executive. Such delegation provokes fundamental questions concerning the separation of powers and the rule of law. Many have argued that it is the price we have to pay for the modern administrative state—that the separation of powers and the rule of law have been rendered superfluous by the development of this state. Some of the boldest proponents of this view confidently insist that the triumph of the administrative state has propelled us into a post-constitutional era where the Constitution no longer matters.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 gives the President the discretion to ban guns he deems not suitable for sporting purposes. Would the President be bold enough or reckless enough to issue an executive order banning the domestic manufacture and sale of assault rifles? Might he argue that these weapons have no possible civilian use and should be restricted to the military, and that his power as commander-in-chief authorizes him so to act? Or perhaps sometime in the near future he will receive a report from the Centers for Disease Control that gun violence has become a national health epidemic, with a recommendation that he declare a national health emergency and order the confiscation of all assault weapons. Congress could pass legislation to defeat such an executive order; but could a divided Congress muster the votes?—and in any case, the President could resort to his veto power. Individuals would have resort to the courts; but as of yet, we have had no ruling that assault weapons are not one of the exceptions that can be banned or regulated under Heller. We could make the case that assault rifles are useful for self-defense and home defense; but could we make the case that they are essential? Would the courts hold that the government had to demonstrate a compelling interest for a ban on assault rifles, as it almost certainly would have to do if handguns were at issue?

Are these simply wild speculations? Perhaps—probably! But they are part of the duty we have as citizens to engage in a frequent recurrence to first principles.

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