1st Amendment Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Bullets First

My problem with the Utah CCW Permit

You would think that a state founded by people who faced government oppression would have a healthy distrust of the Federal Government. After being driven from their homes in the east, having their First Amendment rights stripped, and having their territory whittled away by DC cartographers in order to minimize their influence and power in government, one might imagine the state of Utah would be a little less willing to play ball with the Federal Government. Utah just passed the 500,000 mark for issuing concealed carry permits. That’s about 25% of the population of the state. That doesn’t mean that 1 in 5 Utahns are walking around armed, though that’d be a great start. Around 60% of those permits are for out of state residents who live in places that their state license might not grant them a great deal of reciprocity. A Utah CCW will get...

The NFL Promotes Sex and Booze, Bans Self Reliance in Super Bowl Ads

The NFL has banned an advertisement of a gun vendor from the Super Bowl. Was the ad promoting violence and a disregard for human life and went beyond all human decency? Hardly. It didn’t even have a gun in the ad, simply a man saying that it was his right to protect his family in the manner of his choosing. You can see the ad in its entirety below: You know what I see in that commercial? A man taking responsibility for protecting his family. The NFL though, somehow sees this as too offensive. The hypocrisy of that stance is galling. The fact that the NFL would have the nerve to say a man speaking existentially about protecting his family is offensive while still promoting alcohol guzzling ads of beer companies and ubiqutious strip teases of Godaddy.com is pathetic. Here’s a taste of what the NFL deems appropriate http://youtu.be/9nvpD_eQgTo...

Gettysburg revisited

Seven score and ten years ago, Abraham Lincoln went to the site of a battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. After a two hour oratory Edward Everett, Lincoln took the stage and gave a two minute speech that has gone down as one of the greatest in American History. Brief and to the point, Lincoln hearkened back to what this country was founded on. I believe that 150 years later it is a lesson that we must rehear. Nearly everyone knows how the Gettysburg Address starts but it is what follows that should be remembered. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are...

It is the veteran…

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion. It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble. It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the VETERAN, not the politician, Who has given us the right to vote. It is the VETERAN, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag, whose coffin is draped by the Flag. And for those who have passed; eternal rest grant them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Veterans know that the oath of allegiance has no expiration date. Despite what messes politicians make that erode our liberty,...

Federal Judge Rules Lawfully Exercising Right = Nullification of 4th Amendment

While taking a walk one day, legally open carrying a firearm, Christopher Proescher was stopped by police, questioned and arrested. The local prosecutor, seeing the Mr. Proeshcer committed no crime dropped all charges. In response to the false arrest Proescher reasonably filed a lawsuit against the officers. Fast forward to Federal judge William S. Duffey Jr. who made the inane decision that while the arresting officers were wrong in arresting Proescher (you know, because he didn’t break any laws) that carrying a pistol openly constitutes reasonable suspicion of a crime, which authorizes officers to detain the person who is carrying and as such the officers acted properly. Allow me to rephrase: By exercising your legal right, you have forfeited your 4th Amendment Rights and as such will be subject to detention and false arrest with no recourse. That is what Judge Duffey has ruled. I think of other Rights that this could impact,...

Did the TSA have it coming? LAX, an inevitability?

When I ask if the TSA had it coming, i’m not referring to the TSA official, Geraldo Hernandez, who lost his life in Los Angeles at the hands of alleged shooter Paul Ciancia, but rather did the way the TSA as an organization harass, molest, humiliate and intimidate people over the last decade lead to this as an inevitability. Are the TSA and it’s agents little more than the bullies we find in situations like Taft Union High Schol and New Bedford Massachusetts? Situations where those being bullied and picked on eventually were driven to crazed acts with terrible consequences. I’m not condoning their actions, but I see public service announcements every day decrying the evils of bullying and how people should not tolerate it. I shake my head because, just like real life, telling someone usually just makes it worse. If you don’t stand up against a bully...

If Gun Controllers Read The Other Amendments Like They Do The 2nd

Gun control zealots love to get hooked on the semantics of the 2nd Amendment. Due to the forefathers elegant writing that is more verse than prose, gun control zealots have harped on misinterpreted syntaxes of the 2nd Amendment for years. 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 gun controllers like to say that since there isn’t an “and” between State and the right of the people that somehow invalidates the intent of founders. The intent being found in the other writings of the time. George Mason: “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” Sam Adams: “And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the...

The Right to Bear Arms: From Flintlocks to Lightsabers, what will the government control?

A common fallacy that the gun control crowd likes to put forth is that the 2nd Amendment limits the weapons available to the people of today to those available in the 1700’s. Basically muskets, flintlock pistols and swords. While that makes as much sense as the limiting of the First amendment to single page press machines and speaking at town squares (thus excluding television, phones, internet etc), with the advance of technology I can only imagine what the controllers will say when I want to keep and bear my lightsaber. Lightsaber?!?!?! Yes, lightsaber. A team of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physicists have discovered a molecule that behaves exactly like the weapon made famous by Luke Skywalker. You can read the story about how they inadvertently discovered the “lightsaber” molecule here. With the gun controllers getting their panties in bunch over a sporting rifle being...

The Journal News Not Only Hates Gun Owners But Is Apparently Racist Too

The Journal News, as you may recall, is the New York based newspaper that made national headlines by producing an interactive map detailing exactly where gun owners lived in Westchester and Rockland Counties. While the newspaper’s hostility toward gun owners and disregard for people’s privacy is well documented the Journal News abject racism towards blacks has been only recently exposed. In the Westchester County Executive race this fall, the Journal News has actively joined the election to suppress voices from blacks. The incumbent, Republican Rob Astorino, who did not care for the Journal News’ invasion of his constituents privacy is up for re-election against Mayor of New Rochelle, Noam “Back of the Bus” Bramson. Noam Bramson Yet when the New Rochelle Lincoln Zuber Riders for Justice (a local org made up of prominent black citizens) bought a full page ad in the Journal News to highlight Bramson’s long history of...

9/11/13 : Twelve years of letting the terrorists win

I’m going to sidestep the normal gun heavy discussion I tend to have and focus on my Libertarian roots. I cannot help but look at the past twelve years and see all that we lost. Starting with the 2700+ killed in New York, the 343 fire fighters who died in the line of duty, those in the pentagon and those in the plane that struck it. Then I think of Flight 93 and the heroes on board. The first and the last victory the people of this country had against the war on terror. Because everything afterward has been a continued and steady victory for terrorism. See, when terrorists commit to something, dying is pretty much a moot point. Therefore killing them doesn’t actually change the scoreboard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for killing terrorists, but that is just a show to cover the continuing defeats that we...

Gun owners act with class…the hateful left acts with crass

Depending on where you live, the chances are you have come across those who disagree with your choice to exercise your right to keep and bear arms. There is also a chance you have found businesses that do not recognize your 2nd Amendment rights. There are plenty of those of the “tolerant” left who have causes they believe in as well. The difference between in how gun owners react to rejection and the way those of the hateful left is quite telling. If a business is anti-gun, we as gun owners will most likely avoid it in order to support another company that believes in the 2nd Amendment. We’ll let others in our community know that a certain business is anti-gun and may even reach out to that business to let them know that they are losing business but it doesn’t extend further than that. Then you have the...

Being Gay trumps being a Gun Owner in New Mexico

The Supreme Court of New Mexico has ruled that, by refusing to photograph a gay wedding, a photography studio violated the law. Long story short, private business owners, Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin don’t agree with gay marriage and chose not to provide photography services to a lesbian couple. According to the New Mexico Supreme Court,the case “teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others. A multicultural, pluralistic society, one of our nation’s strengths, demands no less.” Compromise. Funny, this doesn’t seem like a compromise but rather forcing a someone to do something they are diametrically opposed to. The court goes on to say: The owners of Elane Photography, Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin, “are free to think, to say, to believe, as they wish, yet in the world of the marketplace, of commerce, of public accommodation, the...

Legality aside, why would Docs need to know if there’s a gun in your house?

The Heritage Foundation did a great write up about the legality of barring doctors from snooping into the non-medical related business of their patients, but I wanted to put the legality of the issue aside for the moment. My real question is, Why? Why would a doctor need to know whether you have a gun in the house? And also, why is Obamacare encouraging doctors to ask about gun ownership? Considering that patient information will be privy to the government in the new Obamacare database, I can understand why the Obama Administration (enemy to the 2nd Amendment) would want that information. I’m still wondering though, what the rationale that doctors hide behind in order to ask the question in the first place. I don’t think a doctor of mine ever asked what kind of car I drove or whether I have a Ginzu knife set or a sawzall. Those...

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