Category Archives: Second Amendment

Republicans who had gathered for the morning workout before Thursday nights annual congressional baseball game were blunt about their sense of vulnerability.

Five people were shot at a morning practice about five miles from the Capitol, the police said.

The field was essentially a killing field, said Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who was there when the shooting happened. You had no way to defend yourself.

The emboldened response on the right illustrated how much the center of gravity has shifted in the gun debate. As Republican lawmakers grow more uniformly conservative and centered outside urban areas, few prominent voices in the party are willing to support gun control measures.

This is a striking departure from recent political history, when clashes over gun rights often fell along regional rather than partisan lines. The Republican majorities on Capitol Hill have blocked every attempt to enact significant gun control legislation, most recently after the massacre of 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub last June. Measures to block people on the federal terrorism watch list from buying weapons and to close background-check loopholes failed in the Senate.

And that was before President Trump was elected with far more help from the National Rifle Association than Mitt Romney got in 2012. Mr. Trump received more money from the N.R.A. than any other outside group.

You came through big for me, and I am going to come through for you, he told N.R.A. members at the groups annual convention in April, the first time a president had addressed such a gathering in person since Ronald Reagan. The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end.

Witnesses describe the scene of the shooting that injured Representative Steve Scalise and others Wednesday morning. President Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders made statements.

With no appetite in Congress or the White House for restrictions on gun access, Democrats have become all but resigned to inaction. And with one of their colleagues in critical condition, many were muted on Wednesday.

The problem is that nobody looks for a middle ground, said Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee.

Mr. Cohen said part of the difficulty was that many Republicans in right-leaning districts are more afraid of conservative primary challengers than of Democrats in general elections. And few interest groups have as much clout among Republican primary voters as the N.R.A.

They have an N.R.A. rating they want to keep, he said.

Stymied in Washington, gun control activists have taken their fight to state capitals, city halls and corporate boardrooms.

This is a marathon, said Shannon Watts, who leads Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group that sprang up after the 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Ms. Watts reeled off the gun restrictions the group has helped enact since shifting its focus away from Congress. Seven states have passed laws tightening the sale of firearms at gun shows since the Newtown massacre, and retailers such as Target and Chipotle have begun asking patrons not to bring in weapons. Any new federal laws, she conceded, would take several more elections.

As for the calls from Republicans to empower more people to carry weapons, Ms. Watts said, if more guns and fewer laws was the best solution, we would be the safest country in the world.

But with death threats against members of Congress already on the rise before Wednesday, Republican leaders are in no mood to rethink their gun rights stances.

Mr. Garrett, who has received threats this year, said it was not only lawmakers who deserved the right to protect themselves.

There shouldnt be one standard for members of Congress and another for citizens who otherwise have the same right to self-defense, he said.

To many Republicans, the issue is fundamental.

Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who helped apply a tourniquet on Mr. Scalise, wasted no time dismissing a question at the Capitol about whether his views on gun rights had changed.

As with any constitutional provision in the Bill of Rights, there are adverse aspects to each of those rights that we enjoy as people, Mr. Brooks said. And what we just saw here is one of the bad side effects of someone not exercising those rights properly.

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A version of this article appears in print on June 15, 2017, on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Their Own Targeted, G.O.P. Lawmakers Want Looser Gun Laws, Not Stricter Ones.

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Their Own Targeted, Republicans Want Looser Gun Laws, Not Stricter Ones - New York Times

At the center of the gun control debate, few things are as hotly disputed in the United States as the Constitution's Second Amendment.

History of the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment provides U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. Ratified in December 1791, the amendment says:

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.

James Madison originally proposed the Second Amendment shortly after the Constitution was officially ratified as a way to provide more power to state militias, which today are considered the National Guard. It was deemed a compromise between Federalists those who supported the Constitution as it was ratified and the anti-Federalists those who supported states having more power. Having just used guns and other arms to ward off the English, the amendment was originally created to give citizens the opportunity to fight back against a tyrannical federal government.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the inalienable rights of citizens.

Interpretations of the Second Amendment

Since its ratification, Americans have been arguing over the amendment's meaning and interpretation. One side interprets the amendment to mean it provides for collective rights, while the opposing view is that it provides individual rights.

Those who take the collective side think the amendment gives each state the right to maintain and train formal militia units that can provide protection against an oppressive federal government. They argue the "well regulated militia" clause clearly means the right to bear arms should only be given to these organized groups. They believe this allows for only those in the official militia to carry guns legally, and say the federal government cannot abolish state militias.

Those with the opposite viewpoint believe the amendment gives every citizen the right to own guns, free of federal regulations, to protect themselves in the face of danger. The individualists believe the amendment's militia clause was never meant to restrict each citizen's rights to bear arms.

Both interpretations have helped shape the country's ongoing gun control debate. Those supporting an individual's right to own a gun, such as the National Rifle Association, argue that the Second Amendment should give all citizens, not just members of a militia, the right to own a gun. Those supporting stricter gun control, like the Brady Campaign, believe the Second Amendment isn't a blank check for anyone to own a gun. They feel that restrictions on firearms, such as who can have them, under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are available, are necessary.

The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment

While the right to bear arms is regularly debated in the court of public opinion, it is the Supreme Court whose opinion matters most. Yet despite an ongoing public battle over gun ownership rights, until recent years the Supreme Court had said very little on the issue.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

One of the first rulings came in 1876 in U.S. v. Cruikshank. The case involved members of the Ku Klux Klan not allowing black citizens the right to standard freedoms, such as the right to assembly and the right to bear arms. As part of the ruling, the court said the right of each individual to bear arms was not granted under the Constitution. Ten years later, the court affirmed the ruling in Presser v. Illinois when it said that the Second Amendment only limited the federal government from prohibiting gun ownership, not the states.

The Supreme Court took up the issue again in 1894 in Miller v. Texas. In this case, Dallas' Franklin Miller sued the state of Texas, arguing that despite state laws saying otherwise, he should have been able to carry a concealed weapon under Second Amendment protection. The court disagreed, saying the Second Amendment does not apply to state laws, like Texas' restrictions on carrying dangerous weapons.

All three of the cases heard before 1900 cemented the court's opinion that the Bill of Rights, and specifically the Second Amendment, does not prohibit states from setting their own rules on gun ownership.

Until recently, the Supreme Court hadn't ruled on the Second Amendment since U.S. v. Miller in 1939. In that case, Jack Miller and Frank Layton were arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines, which had been prohibited since the National Firearms Act was enacted five years earlier. Miller argued that the National Firearms Act violated their rights under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed, however, saying "in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

It would be nearly 70 years before the court took up the issue again, this time in the District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. The case centered on Dick Heller, a licensed special police office in Washington, D.C., who challenged the nation's capital's handgun ban. For the first time, the Supreme Court ruled that despite state laws, individuals who were not part of a state militia did have the right to bear arms. As part of its ruling, the court wrote, "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

The court would rule on the issue again two years later as part of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which challenged the city's ban on private handgun ownership. In a similar 5-to-4 ruling, the court affirmed its decision in the Heller case, saying the Second Amendment "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Despite the recent rulings, the debate on gun control continues. Incidents like those in Aurora, Colo., and Sandy Hook, N.J., only serve as motivation for both sides to have their opinions heard and considered.

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The Second Amendment & the Right to Bear Arms

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Posted: Jun 18, 2017 12:01 AM

All lives matter. As do Second Amendment rights.

Which is why the killing of 32-year-old Philando Castile last July was disturbing, and the acquittal of St. Anthony, Minnesota, police officer Jeronimo Yanez, this past Friday, so troubling.

Castiles girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who live-streamed the chilling aftermath of the shooting on her cell phone, assumed the traffic stop was for a broken tail-light. But Officer Yanez, four years on the force, stopped Castile believing he might be the perpetrator of a recent robbery. Castile was not; he was merely the same race (black), roughly the same age, and had the same hair-style (dreadlocks).

Of course, many men in the Twin Cities metro area fit those characteristics.

Much about the incident remains unclear and in dispute. What seems indisputable is this: Philando Castile told the Latino officer that he was carrying a gun, for which he had a concealed carry permit. That doesnt sound like an admission someone would make if planning to whip out that pistol and start blasting away.

Also certain is the fact that Officer Yanez fired seven times into the automobile carrying Castile, Reynolds and Reynolds four-year-old daughter. Five bullets struck Castile, two in the heart. One bullet barely missed the toddler strapped into a car seat in the back. Castile later died at a local hospital.

The audio on the cellphone footage, which began after the shots were fired, has Yanez yelling: I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hand out.

You told him to get his I.D., sir, his drivers license, Ms. Reynolds responds, almost eerily calm. Please dont tell me, please dont tell me my boyfriend is gone. Please dont tell me hes gone. Please Jesus, no.

Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm. The officer testified in court that he fired his weapon after seeing part of the gun emerging from Castiles pocket. Reynolds told jurors that Castile was slowly pulling out his wallet in response to Officer Yanezs request, definitely not his handgun.

The jury was initially deadlocked, ten jurors voting to acquit and two to convict. But the judge urged them to continue deliberating. Though whites outnumbered African Americans on the jury five to one, some jurors told reporters that the two jurors initially favoring conviction were not the two black jurors.

Late in the deliberations, the jury requested to again review several videos introduced into evidence. The two videos the judge allowed them to re-watch were an interview of Diamond Reynolds and the dash-cam recording from the police car. The dash-cam recording has not been released to the public.

Last Friday, the jury unanimously acquitted Officer Yanez of all three charges.

Mistakes happen. Deadly ones, even. One can certainly sympathize with the plight of police fearing for their safety at traffic stops, which they know can turn deadly in an instant. Yet, law enforcement officers cannot go around blowing away innocent people because they are scared.

A young man who worked as a supervisor at a public school cafeteria and had no criminal record is dead. Many others black and white are dead in incidents that suspiciously lack good explanations. There is nothing in our American can-do spirit that accepts fatal errors. Especially repeated ones.

What to do?

Lets outfit police with body cameras. And lets write the rules for those cameras as voters in Ferguson, Missouri, did last April by passing a ballot initiative such that (1) police face repercussions for not having the cameras on, and (2) the footage is made publicly available, so people know there will be accountability and no cover-ups.

Then-President Obamas Justice Department investigated the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and found that Brown was at fault, as the aggressor, not the police officer. Had body cam footage been publicly released the riots that followed may not have erupted. Citizens would have been saved millions in property damage and spared the divide along racial and political lines all across the nation.

In other instances, body cams might help convict the cops.

Still, even with body camera footage available, it seems difficult to gain convictions against police when they clearly err by killing innocent folks. Numerous cases of police shooting unarmed men have been caught on video and yet either not resulted in officers being prosecuted or with officers acquitted of charges.

Like Officer Yanez, the officers are often removed from the police force. But too late.

Police need better training on how to protect both themselves and citizens they encounter. Too much of the current training appears to encourage a warrior ethic of shoot-first and ask-questions-later. In fact, Officer Yanez attended a controversial seminar called the Bulletproof Warrior in 2014, which some police forces have discouraged their officers from attending.

Yet, even with better training, and with cameras always rolling, the problem wont be solved completely. I do not have all the answers, but as Americans we must find those answers.

Rarely do I agree with Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, but hes hard to rebut when, after police killed Philando Castile in Minnesota and Keith Lamont Scott in North Carolina, last year, he wrote, If you are a black man in America, exercising your constitutional right to keep and bear arms can be fatal.

Black lives matter. Blacks Second Amendment rights matter. If we cannot protect black lives and rights, we cannot protect white lives and rights. Much less all lives and rights.

Originally posted here:
Black Lives, and Black Second Amendment Rights, Matter - Townhall

BELCHERTOWN, Mass. (WWLP) A Springfield native, who gained national attention for his controversial politics, returned to western Massachusetts Saturday.

Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is best known for his anti-immigration tactics, but on Saturday, he came to talk about a different controversial topic hes passionate about, Second Amendment rights. I had a posse of 3,000 people, I armed 500 to carry weapons. I believe citizens, private citizens should be able to carry weapons, he said.

Arpaio was one of several gun activists invited to speak at the fourth annual Second Amendment Rally at the Swift River Sportsmans Club in Belchertown Saturday.

Lou Hermanson told 22News, their goal is to educate others on what the right to bear arms means to them. There are so many people who are fighting against it, and not enough people for it. I think a lot of it is education, people dont understand what weapons can do, or what their use is for, he said.

One man from New Hampshire told 22News, hes a supporter of Second Amendment rights, but accepts the fact that many other New Englanders are not. Unfortunately, theyre misunderstanding the fact theyre law abiding citizens just like them. We respect their right if they dont agree with the Second Amendment, but they should respect ours that we do agree with it, he said.

The debate over the SecondAmendment has continued to heat up in recent years. According to the National Violence Archive, there have been 154 mass shootings this year alone.

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Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio returns to western Massachusetts for 2nd Amendment Rally - wwlp.com

A year ago, Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives staged a sit-in demanding a vote on federal gun-safety bills following the shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The National Rifle Associations lobbying was largely blamed for no vote happening. But looking deeper, the Second Amendment, with the unique American individualism wrapped around it, underlies all. It is Americas fundamental gun problem.

As Michael Waldman at the Brennan Center for Justice suggests in Politico Magazine, the NRAs construing of the Second Amendment as an unconditional right to own and carry guns (a right beyond actual constitutional law in Supreme Court rulings) is why it thrives and has clout.

Without clout derived from Second Amendment hyperbole, we might not have, for instance, stand your ground laws in more than 20 states starting with Florida in 2005, laws that professors Cheng Cheng and Mark Hoekstra report in the Journal of Human Resources do not deter crime and are associated with more killing.

Pockets of America were waiting for the NRAs Second Amendment fertilizer.

For many gun advocates, the gun is an important aspect of ones identity and self-worth, a symbol of power and prowess in their cultural groups. Dan Kahan at Yale University with co-investigators studied gun-safety perceptions and wrote in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies how those most likely to see guns as safest of all were the persons who need guns the most in order to occupy social roles and display individual virtues within their cultural communities.

Or, as the essayist Alec Wilkinson writes more starkly on The New Yorkers website, although the (gun) issue is treated as a right and a matter of democracy underlying all is that a gun is the most powerful device there is to accessorize the ego.

A gun owner carrying his semiautomatic long rifle into a family department store, like Target, in a state permitting such if asked why will likely say because it is his right. He is unlikely to reveal the self-gratification gained from demonstrating the prowess and power of his identity, gained from using the gun to accessorize the ego. The Second Amendment here is convenient clothing to cover deeper unspoken needs, needs that go beyond the understandable pleasures and functions of typical hunting, for instance.

Australia is often mentioned as an example of nationwide gun-safety legislation reducing gun violence. Following the 1996 massacre of 35 people in Port Arthur, Australia, the government swiftly passed substantial gun-safety legislation. And as Professors Simon Chapman, Philip Alpers and Michael Jones wrote in JAMAs June 2016 issue, (F)rom 1979-1996 (before gun law reforms), 13 fatal mass shootings occurred in Australia, whereas from 1997 through May 2016 (after gun-law reforms), no fatal mass shootings occurred.

But Australia also has nothing akin to the Second Amendment.

Anthropologist Abigail Kohn studied gun owners in the U.S. and Australia who were engaged in sport shooting. She describes in the Journal of Firearms and Public Policy (2004) how it is immediately apparent when speaking to American shooters that they find it impossible to separate their gun ownership, even their interest in sport shooting, from a particular moral discourse around self, home, family, and national identity.

And thus, American shooters are hostile to gun control because just as guns represent freedom, independence the best of American core values gun control represents trampling on those core values.

In contrast, the Australians view guns as inseparable from shooting sports. And perhaps most importantly, Australian shooters believe that attending to gun laws, respecting the concept of gun laws, is a crucial part of being a good shooter; this is the essence of civic duty that Australian shooters conflate with being a good Australian. While the Australian shooters thought some gun-safety policies were useless and stupid, they thought that overall gun-safety measures were a legitimate means by which the government can control the potential violence that guns can do.

Unlike Australia (itself an individualist-oriented country), America has the Second Amendment. And that amendment has fostered a unique individualism around the gun, an individualism perpetrating more harm than safety.

Maybe someday the Second Amendment will no longer reign as a prop serving other purposes and, thus, substantive federal gun-safety legislation happens. But as Professor Charles Collier wrote in Dissent Magazine: Unlimited gun violence is, for the foreseeable future, our (Americas) fate and our doom (and, in a sense, our punishment for (Second Amendment) rights-based hubris).

The Second Amendment, today, is a song of many distorted verses. A song of a uniquely American tragedy.

Fred Decker is a sociologist in Bowie, Md., with a background in health and social policy research. He wrote this for the Orlando Sentinel.

Originally posted here:
Second Amendment: An American tragedy | Local | azdailysun.com - Arizona Daily Sun

Your NRA-ILApreviously reported that Governor Greg Abbott signed two important pro-Second Amendment measurespassed by the Texas Legislature during the recent 140-day session into law:Senate Bill 16, priority legislation of Lt. Governor Dan Patrickthat slashes the cost of an original License To Carry from $140 to $40 and reduces the price of a renewal LTC from $70 to $40 to bring fees down to among the lowest in the nation; andHouse Bill 1819which revises Texas statutes to track federal law regarding ownership and possession of firearm sound suppressors. [The Texas Penal Code currently requires these devices to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives. If the Hearing Protection Act that eliminates this federal requirement were to pass Congress before the Texas Legislature meets again in 2019, suppressor owners would have no way of complying with state law and could be guilty of a felony offense without this important change.] An amendment was added to HB 1819 in the Senate to clarify that non-NFA, short-barreled firearms with a pistol grip -- such as the Mossberg 590 Shockwave -- are not unlawful to sell or own in Texas. The Lone Star State is one of just two states where this particular gun cannot currently besold lawfully. Bothlaws take effect on September 1, 2017.

Governor Abbott has nowalso signed the following bills into law, which also have an effective date of September 1:

Senate Bill 263repeals the minimum caliber requirement (.32) for demonstrating handgun proficiency during the range instruction portion of the License To Carry course. This unnecessary provision negatively impacts LTC applicants with hand injuries or arthritis who would benefit from being able to use a smaller caliber handgun.

Senate Bill 1566contains provisions fromHB 1692 andSB 1942 to allow employees of school districts, open-enrollment charter schools and private elementary or secondary schools who possess valid LTCs to transport and store firearms out of sight in their locked cars and trucks. These employees had been left out of the 2011 law banning employer policies restricting the lawful possession of firearms in private motor vehicles.

Senate Bill 2065includes language fromHB 421 andHB 981 to allow volunteers providing security at places of worship to be exempt from the requirements of the Private Security Act. This could include License To Carry holders approved by congregation leaders, since the prohibition on possession of firearms by LTCs at places of worship is only enforceable if the location is posted or verbal notice is given.

House Bill 1935repeals the prohibition on the possession or carrying of knives such as daggers, dirks, stilettos and Bowies, by eliminating them from the prohibited weapons section of the Texas Penal Code. Restrictions remain in place for possession or carrying of knives with a blade over 5 inches long in public places and penalties are enhanced for carrying those in the same locations where the possession of firearms is prohibited, generally.

House Bill 3784allowspersons approved by the Texas Department of Public Safety to offer an online course to cover the classroom portion of the required training for a License To Carry. The measure alsoexempts active military personnel and veterans who have received firearm instruction as part of their service within the last 10 years to be exempt from the range instruction portion of the LTC course.

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Texas: Governor Abbott Signs Remaining Pro-Second Amendment Bills from 2017 Regular Session - NRA ILA

After a gunman opened fire on several Republican congressmen and their staffers at a baseball field in Virginia on Wednesday morning, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told reporters that the attack could have ended in a massacre had it not been for the Capitol Police.

Sen. Paul was sitting in the batting cage when he heard the gunshots; he had been practicing with the GOP congressional baseball team. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and four others who were also in attendance were injured, but Capitol Police officers quickly engaged with and apprehended the perpetrator, whom police later identified as 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson from Illinois.

Everybody probably would have died except for the fact that the Capitol Hill police were there, Paul told MSNBC. Unfortunately, [Rep. Scalise] was hit and I hope he does well, but also by him being there it probably saved everyone elses lives because if you dont have a leadership person there, there would have been no security there.

Paul also released a statement echoing his praise and appreciation for the Capitol Police officers who stopped the shooter.

The incident quickly ignited a gun control debate online where the shooting was utilized by those who advocate for stricter gun laws, on one hand, as well as those believe looser gun laws could have prevented such an attack and helped stopped the one that occurred.

Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, a debate on the availability of gun silencers scheduled Wednesday afternoon was delayed after the shooting.

As the heated debated centered on Second Amendment rights intensifies once again, one of Sen. Pauls own tweets resurfacedone that some suggest smacks of hypocrisy, given his press statements.

In June last year, a tweet from Pauls official account quoted Fox News contributor Judge Napolitano while livetweeting an event, writing: [We] have a Second Amendment to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!

The senators office tells the Daily Dot thata staffer, not Paul,wrote the tweet.

Paul has presenteda pro-gun stance throughout his political career, with a voting record to show it. He has opposed legislation he believed impinged on the constitutional right to ownership, which maintains the right to bear arms as necessary to the security of a free State.

However, on Wednesday, critics claim, Paul found himself at the wrong end of the argument above when he was targeted himself.

Update 7:22am CT, June 15:Sen. Pauls communications director, Sergio Gor, told the Daily Dot in an email: Senator Paul never said those words. The tweet you reference was part of livetweeting of someone elses speech and it was done by a staffer.

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Sen. Rand Paul's year-old Second Amendment tweet resurfaces after shooting - The Daily Dot

BY: David Rutz June 15, 2017 12:21 pm

The liberal hosts of "The View" were well-armed with dubious talking points about gun control and the Second Amendment during a fierce debate Thursday in the wake of Wednesday's shooting that left House Majority Steve Scalise (R., La.) and four others wounded.

Host Sunny Hostin said "more guns is not the answer." Fellow host Joy Behar boasted of living in New York State with its strict gun laws, claiming that she would be afraid to live in an open-carry state and would never take public transportation.

"I'd be afraid that some guy on the subway would have a fit, just go mad because he was upset somebody took his seat and shoot somebody else," she said, not noting that the exact same thing could happen in New York.

Non-liberal hostJedediah Bila countered, however, saying she felt safe in states like Arizona and Texas.

"I'm not worried about law-abiding citizens carrying guns," Bila said. "They don't make me nervous."

Host Whoopi Goldberg cut over Bila to ask her if she had been around "afraid people with guns."

"I have," Bila said.

"I don't believe you, Jed. I don't believe you," Goldberg said.

"I'm a conservative! They're a very pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment [group]," Bila said, laughing.

Goldberg said that when assailants start shooting, people run, and the police may not know how to shoot if there were multiple people carrying guns. She did not point out that citizens bearing arms may be able to defend themselves against an attacker before the police arrived.

"The problem is, if the Capitol Police weren't there there would have been a massacre there," Bila said.

Told that's "their job," Bila was incredulous.

"If you live in a society where only the police have guns, that's called a police state," she said. "That is not the United States of America."

Goldberg then offered a dubious examination of the Second Amendment.

"The Second Amendment is about a militia," she said. "That's what it says."

It actually says more than that. Its full text 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."

"It's the right to bear arms, to protect yourself and your family," Bila said.

Hostin said quietly that being able to defend one's self and family was "not what the Second Amendment is about."

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'The View' Explodes Over Second Amendment Debate, Goldberg ... - Washington Free Beacon

NewsBusters (blog)

WATCH: The View Lies About the Second Amendment, Wishes We ... NewsBusters (blog) The View, ABC's morning talk program that elevated Raven-Symone to political punditry, engaged in one of its more oafish rants Thursday on one of the many ... Second Amendment: An American tragedy | Local | azdailysun.comArizona Daily Sun all 5 news articles »

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WATCH: The View Lies About the Second Amendment, Wishes We ... - NewsBusters (blog)

BELCHERTOWN Joe Arpaio, former sheriff of Arizonas Maricopa County who has styled himself Americas Toughest Sheriff, will be a guest speaker this weekend at a Second Amendment rally in town.

Arpaio, who turns 85 this week, will speak at Belchertowns 4th Annual Flag Day Second Amendment Rally, which starts at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Swift River Sportsman Club.

Dave Kopacz, organizer of the rally, said Arpaio will probably speak around noon, though the official schedule for the event is still in the works.

Arpaio is a Massachusetts native, born in Springfield. He became nationally known in the last 15 years for his hardline stances on immigration, for battling findings of racial profiling in his sheriffs department, and for his campaign to prove that President Obamas birth certificate was forged, which he continued to wage as recently as last fall.

After 24 years in office, Arpaio lost his latest re-election bid in November. His trial in federal court on a criminal contempt charge in connection with racial profiling is pending.

The Belchertown rally will also feature several other speakers, including Jeanette Finicum, the widow of Robert LaVoy Finicum, one of the occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon who was shot and killed during the armed standoff in January 2016.

Kopacz said he sees gun rights and property rights as connected. He believes the issues surrounding federal land use that came to a head in Oregon are similar to issues surrounding land trusts in Massachusetts.

We want to make sure we connect and parallel that with what is going on here, he said of the Oregon occupation.

Local Second Amendment activists will speak at the rally, too. Kopacz said both national and local speakers are important for the event.

I use the national guys to bring in the crowds, and the local guys to put them to work after, Kopacz said.

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Joe Arpaio, former Arizona sheriff, to speak at Second Amendment rally in Belchertown - Amherst Bulletin