Quote of the day—Emily Miller

The District needs to realize that it cannot choose to exempt itself from a fundamental provision of the Bill of Rights.

Emily Miller
March 6, 2012
MILLER: Gun owners win a round: Second Amendment rights advance in District and Maryland
[Unfortunately such a realization seems to require a (figuratively) 2×4 between the eyes. Fortunately we have such a 2×4 with SAF and Alan Gura. It’s tragic it took over 30 years to connect for the first time and so many people had, and still have, their rights infringed upon and no public official has ever gone to jail over it.—Joe]

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4 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Emily Miller

  1. Joe, you keep on saying that politicians should go to jail for violating civil rights. Sometimes I think that such a sentiment is harsh…perhaps a compromise between your hard-lined attitude of justice and my spineless attitude of mercy is in order.

    I would suggest that we call for an amnesty: Every politician that has voted for a law that has violated fundamental provisions of the Bill of Rights, need not go to jail, if they successfully repeal the laws they have passed, or at least do all in their power, through voting, pulling favors, and campaigning to repeal said laws.

    It’s only reasonable to give these politicians this chance. After all, some of them were blinded by legal scholars, who falsely claimed that gun control does not violate anyone’s rights.

    Of course, if the city governments of Chicago and Washington, D.C. are any indication, even if we offer such amnesty, public officials would still be going to jail over this…assuming we can get the government to prosecute such criminals, though.

    (And come to think about it, I have a second reason for opposing putting such miscreants in jail: I have reached the ratheer wacky conclusion that jail and prison should not be used by a free people as a means for punishment. What’s left, then? Recompensation to the victims of their actions–in this case, gun owners–and possibly corporal punishment, up to and including slaying by some “avenger of death” (although such avengers would be limited to the family members of anyone who has died, because they couldn’t defend themselves, due to such laws). Even if we were to follow these forms of punishment, however, I would *still* like to offer an amnesty.)

  2. Harsh? People have and are dying because of these infringments. This country has fought wars and 100s of thousands of have died to defend freedom and some jail time for infringing upon these rights is “harsh”? I could see death by wire brush and blow torch being harsh but jail time is more like a slap on the wrist.

  3. And that’s exactly why I described my sentiment for amnesty as “spineless”. And that’s almost certainly too…nice…of a word. 🙂

    Of course, the chance of any politician being put into jail, or even passing a law granting amnesty to those politicians who will turn to repeal their laws of infringement, is wishful thinking, either way…

  4. “…no public official has ever gone to jail over it.”

    And that right there is the problem. Though whatshisface (douchebag) did recently go to jail for getting cought trying to sell his Senate seat. They see little Plausible Threat to them for being scumbags, and since they have no principles, there’s nothing stopping them. But that Plausible Threat can be built. Alan Gura is showing us one way. There are of course others.

    Wishful thinking? Let me see if I can put that statement into perspective. Say you want to push out the most powerful country, with the most powerful military, in all of planetary history. Say you have little more than a largely agrarian society, with little manufacturing capacity and practically no navy. Say your only sources of fighters are farmers, shopkeepers, old men and kids, all with no military training. You have no official training infrastructure and no communication technology beyond word of mouth, paper and pen, and an 18th century printing press here and there, and yat you have a LOT of territory to clear out. Say the enemy has infiltrated your society at all levels and is deeply entrenched. Say the majority of your population doesn’t know you and if they did they wouldn’t care much for your cause one way or the other. Say you’d have to fight some of your own people at the same you’re fighting the Major Power described above, and you know for sure that the fight will reach your very own property and your family. The only thing you really have going for you is a sense of purpose, a few friends and a sense of divine providence.

    You know by now exactly what I’m talking about. Lives, fortunes and sacred honor. Until risking all of those things is worth it to us, we have essentially no chance. You may have to let go of everything to win everything. The Enemy knows this, and has been taking full advantage of it for a very long time. As long as we sit back and hope that someone else will fix it, or that maybe we can live our individual lives without too much trouble (and that tolerance level for trouble is constantly rising) or that some miracle will take care of things so we don’t have to, The Enemy will be growing and building its power structure.

    BUT

    If we have understand that we as individuals can make change in the positive direction, if we have hope, knowing that The Enemy is weak on countless levels, and cowardly, if we understand that the simple light of truth shone on The Enemy can frighten it literally out of its wits and make it do stupid things, if we understand that others before us have faced equal and worse challenges and won, THEN we have a chance. Wishful thinking? Don’t wish. Plan.

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