Let's Visit With Chuck Again, He's So Much Fun

From the most recent column by Chuck Norris:

Reading the news this past week, one could easily conclude we have lost our minds as well as any remaining connection with our Founding Fathers. Three headlines thrice prove we are heading down three wrong roads.

Guns in the news

First, there was the Supreme Court's wrangling with the Second Amendment. Should it allow private citizens or only public servants ("state militias") "to keep and bear arms"?

Is someone joking? Could 27 words be any clearer?! "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."

Yes Chuck, someone is joking. I believe it is you. The Second Amendment is the MOST disputed section of the entire Constitution.

A somewhat random search of the internet gives us some examples. First, someone I would presume is on Chuck’s side of the fence when it comes to gun control. Even he notices that there is a dispute. From The American Jingoist:

The dispute between those who favor gun controls and those who don't is predicated on their respective interpretations of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and specifically on the term, "a well regulated militia."

Next let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about the Second Amendment. Hmm, the first thing I notice is: “This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.”

From The Carpetbagger Report we get:

It’s hard to believe that after over two centuries, the Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on whether the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s right to “keep and bear arms.”

But that’s about to change. The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will hear a DC case that will probably settle the question, at least for now.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal from the District of Columbia, whose gun-control law — one of the strictest in the nation — was struck down by the lower federal courts earlier this year. The case will probably be argued in the spring.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down sections of the Washington gun law that make it exceedingly difficult to legally own a handgun, that prohibit carrying guns without a license even from one room to another, and that require lawfully owned firearms to be kept unloaded.

The Second Amendment, surely one of the most disputed passages in the United States Constitution and one whose punctuation is not always rendered consistently, states this in its entirety: “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 Supreme Court has never directly addressed the basic meaning of that passage. When it last considered a Second Amendment case, in 1939, it addressed a somewhat peripheral question, holding that a sawed-off shotgun was not one of the “arms” that the Founding Fathers had in mind.

The debate is specifically over the language of the amendment itself. Lyle Denniston posed the question nicely: “[D]oes the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to have a gun for private use, or does it only guarantee a collective right to have guns in an organized military force such as a state National Guard unit?”

Denniston added that the justices may be predisposed to favor a more conservative, individual approach.

And back to Wikipedia. From another entry:

In the United States, the meaning of "bear arms" is a matter of recent dispute and continuing political debate. One argument is whether the expression involves the rights of the individual to 'bear arms' meaning to 'have arms', or whether it relates to a military service meaning of 'bear arms' as with the functioning and maintenance of a militia.

Let’s examine three of the many definitions of the word “clear”:

• Free from flaw, blemish, or impurity.
• Plain or evident to the mind; unmistakable.
• Free from doubt or confusion; certain.

My advice Chuck; put down your Bible once in a while and pick up a dictionary instead. When you write "we have lost our minds" you may include yourself in that group if you like, but please don't include me.

Apparently the disconnect with our Founding Fathers concerning the declaration of war does not concern Chuck, as long as he gets to keep his guns.

Oh, and one last thing. How and why does a headline prove anything?