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By Paul M. Bangiola
About thirty years ago I saw Jerry Rubin, one of the “Chicago Seven” defendants, debate Abbie Hoffman, also one of the Chicago Seven, about the meaning of the “Sixties Revolution.”
Abbie was an un-reconstructed radical, then recently emerged from years underground. Jerry Rubin was a young capitalist, declaring an end to the revolution. It was, according to Jerry, time to make money.
“We won! It’s over!” he said. Abbie called him a sellout.
My takeaway from their debate was a good one-liner by Jerry to Abbie: “It’s OK to be against authority, unless it’s your authority.”
Now, this comes to mind when it comes to gun control. I hear many gun rights activists say they might need a gun for self-defense:
“What if somebody breaks into my house!”
No quarrel with me, buddy. You can just get yourself a handgun, a shotgun, a rifle, maybe a moat with alligators in it, and I hope the bad guy falls in !
Oh, one thing, by the way: Please keep those guns away from kids, particularly your own unhappy adolescent.
“But now,” I say, “tell me again about why you need a Bushmaster assault rifle with a 30-bullet clip filled with armor- piercing cop-killer bullets?”
“Well,” they say, “the Second Amendment is supposed to protect me from the Government in case we need an armed revolt. After all I might need to ‘get revolutionary’ and assert my ‘Second Amendment remedies’ (to quote a failed US Senate candidate of the R-Tea Party-persuasion).
And then I say: “Whoa, partner! It’s okay to be against the Government unless it’s your government. Treason is a crime in this constitutional republic of ours, and there is nothing in the Second Amendment that requires, say, that just because our military has F-18s jet fighters, you can get one too–just to keep the battle even when you decide you don’t like the way a vote on the town council went, and persuade yourself that a revolution of one is required.
Maybe our government needs an edge against a guy who is listening to voices and maybe even the guy who just can’ t quite get his mind around losing, or being powerless, rejected, or the recipient of one of fate’s thousand slings and arrows. I think so.
Paul M. Bangiola, Esq., is a Morristown lawyer, former municipal prosecutor, former Morris County Democratic Chairman, a 2000 New Jersey Presidential Elector, and a campaign adviser.
Mr. Paul Bangiola is either in denial or unaware that the Constitution was made to work the way it was written and not as interpreted by the Supreme Court (right to contract Legal and binding). Furthermore it is the majority of the states that are to ratify new amendments Like the IRS that was only ratified by 2 out of 50 states. To infringe on any of the amendments or articles therein by lawyers or courts is in direct violation of article 5 and yes it is treason Mr Bangiola The Supreme court follows the Constitution not the other way around. This is why we the People have subverted the GOP and put people in places of power that understand the Constitution is the Government of the Peoples Republic. The norm today is the liberal attorney with a criminal background and zero integrity this is why Killers Rapists and child molesters today get out of prison after 10 years and late abortions are normal because the Supreme Court and Liberal attorneys do what fits them and then when they are confronted try and backtrack This shows zero integrity With more Conservative lawyers on the rise attorneys like Mr. Bangiola pretty soon will only be able to practice in Russia and China The 2nd amendment will not be infringed on and those who attempt to infringe will be exposed look around the Liberal Communist agenda is falling worldwide Liberal Lawyers are barely making a living anymore. Yet conservative Lawyers have some of the biggest corporations as clients
to DF: Keep in mind that not much more than 50 years down the road, the lever action rifle was invented. Also, the second amendment reads:
“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.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment
To DF: Yep you are right in that muzzle loading muskets were the common weapon of the time that the constsiution was drafted. Those muzzle loading weapons were the EXACT EQUAL of what the military was using at the time. Therefore I submit to you that the founding fathers fully intended that the people be allowed to own and carry arms equal to those of the military.
We must remember that when the Constitution and Bill of Rights was written in 1789 that the Right to Bear Arms was based on a musket that takes 5 minutes to load and fires one bullet. Not one of our founding fathers would have foreseen that their words could have been misconstrued to mean the right to carry assault weapons with no restrictions whatsoever. We live in a democracy – in a country with more freedoms and liberties than just about any other country in the world – but living in a society means there are some limitations on our freedoms. Just as your right to free speech has limits – you cannot yell “Fire” in a crowded theater, your right to bear arms has some restrictions as well. That is the price of freedom.