Americans Continue to Arm Themselves In Record Numbers

Americans Continue to Arm Themselves In Record Numbers

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

The last two months of 2011 saw Americans buying guns in record numbers.  December 23^rd saw more guns bought in one day that ever before.  It set a record.

In an article at “The Telegraph,” a British News site, entitled: “Americans buy record numbers of guns for Christmas,” Nick Allen writes:  “According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas.


It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November.


On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks, making it the second busiest single day for buying guns in history.


The actual number of guns bought may have been even higher if individual customers took home more than one each.” (SOURCE)

Mr. Allen goes on to say:  “Explanations for America's surge in gun buying include that it is a response to the stalled economy with people fearing crime waves. Another theory is that buyers are rushing to gun shops because they believe tighter firearms laws will be introduced in the future.” (SOURCE)

To be sure BOTH the explanations mentioned above are valid -- but there’s more to it that that.

Back in January of 2009, in an article entitled: “Americans Are Arming Themselves.  Why?” I wrote the following:  “The popular explanation is that Americans are afraid of what this socialist Congress and president will do to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Well, that is CERTAINLY a PART of it, but I think there is more, much more, and a far more serious explanation… and, I am convinced the government believes as I do.

See, I think the American people are preparing themselves to go toe to toe with their government.  I believe the American people are making a statement.  That statement is:  “This Far and No Farther!”  In other words, “We are going to give you socialists a chance.  But, if you step over the line, if you attempt to deprive us of our constitutional right to keep and bear arms, we will not tolerate that.”

Some of us older Americans remember what happened when the socialist took over in Russia in 1917. It is NOT going to be allowed to happen here.

I think it is meant to counter the act of the Bush, and soon, Obama Administrations of bringing combat troops back to The States and stationing them here, on US soil, reportedly for population control in the event of “social unrest” or massive acts of “civil disorder or disobedience” keyed by any number of things including the economy going through the floor, or, well, I’ll let your imagination fill in the blank, because, frankly, the subject is so delicate, I don’t even want to touch it! 

I have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that Americans are sending a signal to their government.  That signal is:  “We won’t be bullied. There will be a price to pay if you dare step over the line.”  Congress and the President had better pay attention.  It is low profile stuff at the moment, but it can get very big, very fast.  And… it is VERY dangerous!”  (SOURCE)

Our overseas cousins have great difficulty understanding American’s love of the gun.  But it really IS quite simple.  You see -- America was born at the muzzle of a gun.  We won our freedom at the muzzle of a gun.  We expanded our country from the Atlantic to the Pacific at the muzzle of a gun.  We fought our own war over state’s rights at the muzzle of a gun.  We preserved our freedom by defeating the Japanese and the Germans at the muzzle of a gun and we have assisted a number of countries to maintain, or regain, their freedom at the muzzle of a gun. Even now, as I write, the US military is patrolling the waters of the Persian Gulf to protect the transport of approximately 40% of the world’s oil and ensure it’s passage through the Straits of Hormuz -- at the muzzle of our big naval guns, and we continue an attempt to salvage Afghanistan and drag it into the 21^st century by fighting off religious fanatics -- at the muzzle of a gun.

Americans understand the importance of the ability of every man to defend himself, his family, and his freedom.  We also understand the importance of assisting our global neighbors in defending their freedom -- for the loss of their freedom brings the threat one step closer to our shores.

Americans have a scared duty to halt the encroachment of domestic tyranny. Freedom is our birthright and we WILL defend it.

Many Americans are deeply concerned over the state of the world today.  We remember what happened in the 1930’s when the world found itself in similar circumstances to today.  It led to a world war.

Then, too, there is this:  We rather like the rogue nations, the terrorists, the tyrants, and tin-pot dictators to know that the American public is armed to the teeth, ready, and willing to defend our country should they, through some mental aberration, have designs on it.  The LAST thing you want to confront is a PO’ed American with a gun!

Oh, … and we like to hunt, too.

J. D. Longstreet

Guns and America

Guns and America.
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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It is impossible to separate the two... guns and America, I mean. Guns obtained and secured the country we now know as “America” for the people we now know as “Americans.”

As the settlers/pilgrims stepped ashore in the New World they carried their trusty weapons, guns. When the frontiersmen dipped their toes into the waters of the western sea, the Pacific, no doubt they clutched in their hands a later variant of the same weapon the Pilgrims had in their grips when their toes touched the sand of the Carolina, Virginia, and New England beaches. It had been a long journey but guns had fed, clothed, and protected these new people, called Americans, as they laid claim to a new land destined to become the leader of the free world, if not the entire world.

When these restless people, the Americans, decided their “King” was demanding more from them than they were willing to give, the gun won them their Independence. Some eighty years later, these same restless peoples decided to fight a war amongst themselves over, depending upon how you decipher history, “States Rights” or “Slavery”. (In my case, I have done the research and know that States Rights was the cause of the American Civil War simply because the facts, when laid bare, support that interpretation. Yes, slavery BECAME an issue in the war but only after the war had raged for nearly two years and when Lincoln needed political support, badly, from the abolitionists, for the war he was losing! All this is for another day, in a different venue, so I will cut it short by urging you to actually read the “Emancipation Proclamation” if you are REALLY interested in learning just how many slaves were freed by that piece of political propaganda. The answer was, of course, NONE.). In any event, the gun, carried by both sides in the conflict devastated the countries and some say forged a single entity known as the UNITED States of America. Only recently, frankly, have I begun to question that.

In all the wars since, the gun has taken the war to America’s enemies and protected the Americans wielding it and managed to secure the freedom and liberties our forefathers put their lives and their fortunes on the line for back in the 1700’s. Together, we have come a very long way the gun and America.

But, just as there were two camps in the days preceding the American Civil War, there are two camps today as regards the gun and the American citizen. One camp made up of folks who think Americans have no need of the gun, and those in the second camp who feel Americans and the gun are inseparable… and should be.

“Society benefits from ordinary people who accept the responsibilities of firearm ownership. Society does not benefit from gun control.” I have no idea who said that first, but it would make an excellent motto for the Americans who believe Americans and guns are inseparable.

The argument over guns flares up, it seems, with each new Presidential Administration’s entrance into the White House. Much the same thing happens after each congressional election and when a new Justice is vetted for the US Supreme Court. As we are just a few weeks into all three happening, both camps have applied their war paint and are looking for opportunities to make thie positions known and likewise feel out the new people in the White House, on The Hill and on The Court.

When our forefathers wrote the constitution their collective wisdom was based upon all the collective wisdom from creation up to their day. To our knowledge, there were no “seers” or clairvoyants among them. In other words, no one could see the future or what it held for this brand new country and, indeed, the world. Had there been, I expect the final version of the constitution would read much differently from the end version we have today.

Recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that the constitution actually meant what it said about US citizens having the right to keep and bear arms. The 2nd Amendment says: “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.”

It is important to notice that the decision in favor of the Forefathers won by a single vote of the Court. The vote was 5 – 4 in favor of interpreting the 2nd amendment so Americans did not have to turn in their guns or have the US Government confiscate them.

The obvious problem with this vote is that it will instigate more litigation until finally, at some point, those who wish to take away that right will succeed. In fact, many feel the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court may, in fact, be the final straw and the next time the second amendment is tried before this court Americans will lose their right to keep and bear arms.

Thinking about it for a while now, I have concluded that we may have at least two more chances before we lose our guns. Until the liberals in America manage one more seat on the court, we may, and I say “MAY” with trepidation, get one more case decided in favor of my side, (the side in favor of allowing Americans their right to keep and bear arms) before we lose the next case and, along with it, our right to keep and bear arms. (By the way, define “ARMS.” Does it cover knives? If so, how long? How many edges? Hilt or hiltless? , etc, etc.)

As one who favors the right to keep and bear arms I am concerned over the Sotomayor appointment to The Court. Why? Well, first of all, I accept that she will be seated on the court. It is a done deal. But there are indicators from her past that concern me. These indicators cause me to believe that when the chips are down she will vote to ignore the obvious meaning of the second amendment and support taking away the right of Americans to keep and bear arms. Lets looks at some of those indicators:

She has spoken out against the Heller decision in which the Supreme Court recognized the individual right to Keep and Bear Arms.

She has expressed disdain for private gun ownership dating back to her senior thesis at Princeton University, where she wrote that America has a "deadly obsession" with guns and that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to firearms ownership.

In United States v. Sanchez-Villar, she stated: "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right."

And In addition to her record opposing the Second Amendment, she has also strongly advocated judicial activism. (In some ways, this worries me more about Ms. Sotomayor than her obvious problem with the 2nd Amendment!)

If this Sotomayor record does not give you pause, then, frankly, I don’t know what will.

So America edges ever closer to losing the citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, quite possibly even the right to carry a knife. There can be no doubt that a knife, in the time of our forefathers, was, indeed, a weapon. It would, no doubt, fall into the category of “arms.” There can also be no doubt as to why the forefathers felt it important to place this amendment in the constitution as a part of the original 10 amendments that made up the Bill of Rights. They had just fought a war against a tyrant to gain their freedom - and they did it with a citizen’s army composed of men who owned their own weapons!

George Washington, the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army and the first President of the United States said the following: "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."

Thomas Jefferson said the following: "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

And finally, words from the most well known of the tyrants of the last century, Adolf Hitler: “The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.”

It is good, I think to note that the Forefathers felt so highly of the right to keep and bear arms that it is the SECOND Amendment. The first being, of course, freedom of speech, religion, etc.

We must tread softly, yet boldly, as we attempt to protect our rights these days. America has two generations of citizens trained in socialism as products of the Public (Government) School System. Like “Pavlov’s Dog” they await only the ringing of the bell to respond in defense of the “greater good.” But, like the other dog, chasing it’s tail, they haven’t the reasoning ability to ask of themselves what they intend to do with the tail if, and when, they DO catch it?

J. D. Longstreet

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Conservative+Guns+America+Constitution

Scotomayor ~ vs ~ Guns

Sotomayor on the SCOTUS takes US one step closer to Americans losing their right to keep and bear guns.
J. D. Longstreet



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“………….. The Maloney opinion is, on this issue, entirely consistent with Judge Sotomayor's opinion in a 2004 case: "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right." United States v. Sanchez-Villar, 99 Fed.Appx. 256, 2004 WL 962938 (2d. Cir. 2004)(Summary Order of Judges Sack, Sotomayor & Kaplan), judgement vacated, Sanchez-Villar v. United States, 544 U.S. 1029 (2005)(for further consideration in light of the 2005 Booker decision on sentencing).Judge Sotomayor's record suggests hostility, rather than empathy, for the tens of millions of Americans who exercise their right to keep and bear arms. From: THIS WEBSITE. More HERE.

As the next few days and weeks reel off the pages of the calendar, be prepared for a flurry of activity on Capital Hill as the Democrat Socialist Party pushes the Sotomayor nomination for the Supreme Court through as quickly as possible. Nothing much will change in the way The Court makes decisions now as Sotomayor is simply replacing another liberal, David Souter. However, the stage is being set for the N E X T opening on the court coming soon, I expect, much sooner than any Americans might believe. Once the Democrat Socialist Party controls the SCOTUS, they will have a complete lock on the government of the United States - and if you think you have seen socialism at work in the past few weeks, believe me when I tell you, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Now, I want to say something - something that is on a lot of commentator’s minds, but many, however, are afraid to express their concerns about it. For the first time since the American Civil War, Americans are afraid that their free speech guarantee is worthless. And, to a degree, they are correct in feeling that way.

I want to be absolutely clear here when I say I do not want to see this country torn apart by another war such as we experienced in the mid 1800’s. Yes, I refer to the War Between the States. Some call it the Civil War. (The War Between the States is the congressionally approved name for that conflict.)

I love the US and I do not want to see her spilt again. But, if one steps back and looks objectively at what is happening in this country today it is actually quite easy to see that we are on the brink of just such a horrible, horrible, thing happening all over again. As a nation we stand today on the razor’s thin edge. We could easily fall either way.

As a member of an international organization which studies the era of the American Civil War, the people involved, and the reasons for the war, including the mistakes made that led to the war, I can tell you I am frightened for my country. Why? Because I see the US making the same mistakes it made then and I see the very same reactions by the citizens of the country toward the government today that our ancestors had in 1861. The faultline that divided the country then, and that many had hoped had been filled-in and was gone forever, is again pushing upward and breaking the surface in warning with an admonition to Americans that the slightest tremor will bring the bursting open of that gap splitting the country apart once again.

As conservatives try to put together a political party of their own and rid themselves of the anvil around their necks (the GOP) there has been much talk from northern and northeastern politicians of the Republican and Democrat Socialist Parties of the formation of a regional party by conservatives. For the uniniated, that is code for a “Southern Party.” As a conservative, I can tell you that is NOT the intention of the conservatives. It is NOT what we want. But, having said that, it is becoming clear the politicians who will not accept the cultural differences between the two regions of this country are pushing us in that direction.

Probably the most glaring cultural difference between the Southern American culture and the remainder of the country is our relationship with guns. We are a gun culture. In many southern homes the Bible and the gun share near equal respect. Needless to say the southern American is greatly concerned over Sotomayor’s’ stance on gun control. She has affirmed that she believes the constitution only ties the hands of the federal government in restricting the right to keep and bear arms. In other words, she believes the individual states can restrict gun rights, pretty much, as they choose. Last year, in August 2008, Sotomayor affirmed the district court opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo, which ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit state governments from restricting the right to bear arms.


We recommend you read: "Sotomayor Ruled That States Do Not Have to Obey Second Amendment" here:

www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48718


In that decision the court said that “the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right [that is the right to bear arms]. Needless to say, this is extremely troublesome to southerners and, of course, other gun owners across the nation. I would venture to say the “sovereignty movement”, in so many of the southern states today, was, at least, partially triggered by the fear of the government taking, confiscating, our guns. If there is one single overriding issue that would cause the creation of a “Southern Party” and, eventually, another serious “secessionist movement”, it would be a move by the government to confiscate our guns, through what the so-called “gun-grabbers” refer to as reasonable gun control. To a gun culture such as my region of the country there is no such thing as REASONABLE GUN CONTROL.

The problem is, our fellow Americans in the northern and northeastern states, as well as some of the liberal west coast states, do not, cannot, and never will, understand that. We southerners, on the other hand, have no intention of giving one inch on our belief that no government body whether federal, or state, or county, or even a lowly city council, has a right to take our guns. We believe, way down in our bones, that any so-called reasonable gun control is the “camel’s nose under the tent” type of Incrementalism and to allow even what may seem, on it’s face, as “reasonable” only allows the camel to push it’s nose deeper into the tent, until pretty soon the entire camel is in the tent with you - and your guns are gone!

Just as the southern states warned the federal government, beginning in the 1820’s and continuing throughout the 1830’s, the 1840’s and 1850’s, that those unfair taxes levied against the southern states would eventually blow up in the federal government’s face, current warnings about gun control are, also, going unheeded. The “gun culture states” have been warning the government for decades now that a serious gun control campaign by those governments will blow up in their faces with truly awful consequences. THAT is just how serious this is to southerners.
The Judicial Confirmation Network has issued a statement we recommend you read. It is titled: “JCN Statement on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court” and you will find it HERE.
As a conservative I have no doubt Sotomayor will be approved by the US Senate and will take her seat as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. But you need to understand that her seat is simply a building block toward complete and utter control of the Supreme Court by the liberal/socialists running the US government today.


J. D. Longstreet

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Conservative+Sotomayor+SCOTUS+Guns+Control