Gun owners should worry about the property rights ruling

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By Larry Pratt
CNSNews.com Commentary
June 28, 2005

The recent 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court legislating away property rights in the United States should give pause to all gun owners, as well as all Americans.

The plain language of the Fifth Amendment limits eminent domain to the taking of private property for public purposes. "Public purposes" has been understood for more than 200 years to consist of roads, government buildings and similar public uses. This is still the general understanding by all but a handful of folks in black dresses.

The idea that the owner of a higher tax-yielding use should be able to get the government to grab another owner's property and give it to the user that pays higher taxes is quite simply a theft. In one afternoon, the Supreme Court has done away with private property in the U.S.

Do gun owners think they will remain immune from such tyrants? Already, at various times, six of the nine justices have said that U.S. law should conform to foreign law -- especially European law and UN treaties. How long until our gun laws are made to conform to say, England''s, where they have an almost total gun ban?

If the U.S. Constitution is no longer a protection against government, disarmament and tyranny are simply details to be worked out.

Gun owners have been telling the country for years that the courts are out of control and view the Constitution with contempt. Judges have told me to my face that my constitutional arguments could not prevail because court rulings went counter to what I had shown to be the clear meaning of the Constitution. Judges believe that they are above the law!

Maybe many Americans figured that, well, "that is just those gun nuts squealing." And, hey, even if the Constitution does protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, what's the matter with some gun control, right? I mean, who cares if judges today tend to twist the true meaning of the Second Amendment? Well, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. And now that the gander is being sauteed, we gun owners are hearing a lot of honking.

OK, enough of that. Let's not prolong the "I told you so" moment. The important thing now is to determine what must be done.

Remember the Democrat cry that went up when Tom DeLay complained about the judges in this country, and how they should be held to account for their actions? Could it be that this Court decision has now changed people's attitudes and convinced a majority of Americans to support the impeachment of judges?

Has the latest outrage finally brought a majority to the point that they support Congress' role in exercising the Article III powers of the Constitution to remove jurisdiction of a whole bunch of subjects from the federal courts? And, most immediately, has the majority come to the point where we are ready to see states do what our forefathers did when the feds got out of control?

During the presidency of John Adams, the Sedition Act went on the books. It was a kind of McCain-Feingold campaign act, only less subtle. It said that a newspaper writer would go to jail for criticizing a federal official. Virginia and Kentucky issued stinging rebukes to the backers of this legislation in 1798 and threatened to nullify the law within the borders of their states if Congress did not repeal the unconstitutional ban on free speech.

Later, some 22 states passed laws nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act following the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision which upheld it. It became impossible for federal marshals to apprehend and return escaped slaves in the north to their southern masters, in spite of federal law.

To save our gun rights, indeed, to save all of our freedoms, the time has come to bring the courts back under control.

States need to study the history of nullification. Congress needs to do its part to rein in the judges. In the words of the defenders of freedom on Flight 93, "Let's roll."

(Larry Pratt is Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, a national gun lobby based in Springfield, Va.)

If we the people would exercise our Second Amendemnt rights, we could make the corporate pigs and their government lackies think twice before taking our homes.