NEWS FROM THE GUN FRONT

According to a Drudge link, the Supremes intend to immediately release
audio recordings of the hearing today regarding the DC Gun Ban, the
Heller case. Further, there may be witnesses, reporters, in the
courtroom.

The questions asked by the justices to the attorneys on the opposing
sides will be most instructive, it seems to me.

We are in an almost unprecedented situation, 'at war' and not doing
well in Iraq, the financial situation dire. I repeat, I cannot imagine
the Court deciding that the right to keep and bear arms is a simple
right-- I cannot imagine them loosing the whirlwind of a resurgent
notion of individuals possessing a REAL set of rights.... and
particularly that KEY right, the right of self determination with the
force at hand, individually, to enforce the individual's will.

It has been demonstrated, over and over, that 'modern' governments
accept NO philosophy that espouses an individual's possession of ANY
true rights. All 'rights' are to be carefully parceled out through
government, reducing all 'rights' to regulated and restricted
privilege. And thus will this decision be-- the 'individual right'
will be 'affirmed', but in such a way as to place it in the category
of all other such rights-- that is, all carefully metered by the
'masters' in government.... as privilege.

To do otherwise will shatter their whole notion of control of the
people. To affirm real rights gives tacit admission that truly the
people are the sovereigns, that government is nothing more than
subservient employee. This just ain't a'gonna happen... not with the
notion of governance currently in vogue that places government as
absolute master and self-sovereign. A sovereign tolerates no other
sovereignty... and decades and decades of effort, and the War Between
the States, and Reconstruction, and the Federal Reserve, and the Great
Depression, and The Great Society and the constant drumbeat of the
controlled media reinforcing 'government uber alles' has been expended
to remove the notion of individual ANYthing, much less absolute
sovereignty of the individual.

My opinion. I won't be shocked if the Court finds 'no individual
right'. But I absolutely expect that there will be found 'an
individual right', but that the government has such a 'compelling
interest' that the 'reasonable regulations and restrictions' now in
place are appropriate.

Least of all, I expect a simple affirmation of the individual right to
keep and bear arms, and thus the destruction of ALL anti-gun laws
throughout the state and the federal governments. I would love to be
proven wrong... but that's the view from this vantage.

I will repeat a point I often make-- should any judge in the land
issue an order worded thusly: 'thou shall not come within 100 yards of
this building', and should the individual subject to the order
willfully violate the order, the judge in question would be duly
outraged and impose maximum sanction on the individual violating the
order.

But somehow, it seems that 'modern jurisprudence' fails to see that
clearly written prohibition: 'shall not be infringed'. The context and
phrasing is clear-- the original intent is clear-- government is the
most likely violator, the most likely target of individuals forced to
act through the auspices of the Second Amendment. And, therefore, the
greater the claimed 'compelling interest' of government in regulating
the right, the less ability governments should have to infringe by
regulation.

SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED..... but, come June or so, view the
oh-so-carefully worded infringement which the Court shall issue. And
thus the 'right' to keep and bear arms shall join the rest of our
so-called 'rights' on the scrap heap of government meddling. Look at
the Patriot Act, the surveillance acts, and realize that the First,
Fourth, and all the other rights secured by amendment are hollow
shams. And so shall be this final 'declaration' by government on our
'right' to keep and bear arms. Roosevelt killed the right with the
1934 so-called Machine Gun Act. This upcoming declaration by the court
of the Second Amendment as a 'regulable right' will simply be the
funeral of ALL our rights.

Mike Kemp