After ICE killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, right-wing defenders of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation strategies blamed the victim for coming to a demonstration bearing a weapon. This is despite the state’s clear right to carry a gun openly, the Second Amendment, and the GOP’s longstanding arguments in defense of its own who did the same thing in the past.
The Right To Bear Arms—Well, It Depends
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
2 Comments. Leave new
There is apparently no 2nd Amendment guarantee that individuals’ guns will be “bigger” than those of the government.
Like voting, if the government thought that individual gun ownership was a threat, it would not be legal.
If the government had any fear of an armed populace, there would have been very different interpretations of the 2nd Amendment in the courts. For example, mentions of the so-called “well regulated” Militia within the body of the constitution so skillfully & critically ignored in a recent, landmark SCOTUS pro-gun-toter ruling (2008) allowed arms possession for individuals’ self-defense.
However, the purpose of said Militias, whose existence justified individual gun ownership (in the text of the 2nd Amendment), is stated in Art.I, Section 8: “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” So the self-defense justification is pure logical, political and, presumably, NRA-lubricated fantasy since individual gun ownership was justified for service to, and protection of, the government.
The gun-huggers own, collective fantasy of their weapons as prevention against government tyranny seem to have ignored such qualifying governmental abuse as the extremely efficient, if silent, weapon of mass murder, “economic austerity.” Of course, the real proof of the ultimate protective “value” of personal weapons against more easily recognized, shoot-em-up, government tyranny, occurred 23 years prior to the above SCOTUS hallucination. Philadelphia City police department performed aerial bombing of a house of armed and shooting, civilian combatants. The fire thus produced spread to destroy 61 homes. The grim tale: tinyurl.com/5b6txy4j
Yes, this was a Black neighborhood but, to be sure, THAT started, also, with lethal shooting to faces and backs.
Ted’s cartoon contains a telling point: the victim’s gun is in its holster (i.e., is not a weapon, simply a piece of ironmongery). The thug’s gun is drawn. Under these circumstances, the victim is what is called “unarmed.”
The gun is not a gun until it is in your hand and the safety is off.
Alex Pretti’s gun never left its holster either — until it was stolen by one of the ICE gang and carried away. Remember: ICE murdered an unarmed man.