RCOB - Red Curtain Of Blood

RCOB. It's Kim-speak. From his website:

(acronym) Red Curtain Of Blood; that horrible thing which falls over my eyes when I read or see something horrible, like a Bill Bastard Clinton interview on TV, or a Molly Ivins column in the newspaper. It strips me of manners and restraint, and fills me with bile so that I spew hatred, break coffee mugs and refer to the 42nd President as an evil fuckface, or similar.

Everyone has their RCOB moments and triggers. Some of us have more of them, (whatcho lookin' at me like that for?) and I had another one today after reading this trash.

I believe the right to keep and bear arms is a fiction. Legal experts I respect have all held that the Second Amendment confers no right of individual gun ownership.

Too bad the Supreme Court of the United States disagress with you, asshole! I can normally read Leonard Pitts without much vitrol. In fact, even though I normally disagree with him, he usually presents logical arguments that make you think and/or re-consider your position in a different light. But that one statement... how the hell can an educated man in America make a statement like that? The Second Amendment does not leave room for interpretation!

"A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

And for those who argue that the "People" are not a militia, let's look at what the Founding Fathers thought, shall we?

Patrick Henry: "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."

Alexander Hamilton: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of the original right of self-defense which is paramount to all forms of positive government."

Thomas Jefferson: "No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

John Adams: "Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense."

And last but not least, the government has the very definition of what a militia is!

~~Title 10, Section 311 of the U.S. Code: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age..."

So tell me Mr. Pitts, just what the hell is fiction here? Perhaps I've misjudged you, since you seem to think that the Second Amendment is a "fiction". Try to take away my guns and I'll show you some full metal jacketed "facts", in 30-06 size.

The best quote I've found from a modern politician also came from a Kim du Toit essay.

Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp of Texas: "How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."

Yep.

Side note: I could write a book on why I own guns, and how I feel about gun ownership. But Kim du Toit has done that before I even thought about it. He as fourteen different essays regarding gun ownership, and they sum up my feelings quite nicely.

UPDATE: Found a great quote from a piece at DANEgerous:

"...when law-abiding citizens are forbidden by their government from protecting themselves, they become easy prey for those to whom a gun ban is just one more law to break."