Hunting the 2nd Amendment

There are many reasons not to vote for Rudy Giuliani for president of the United States.

He is pro-abortion.

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He supports the continued homosexualization of America in all of its insidious forms.

His own personal life if full of crises and scandals.

But here's an example of an issue where Giuliani is not only in direct conflict with the Constitution, he is apparently even blissfully ignorant of what the Bill of Rights say and why they say what they say.

In California last weekend, he boasted that New York City's outright and complete ban on the private possession of firearms was a key tool in his fight to reduce crime. Actually, he was a little disingenuous about that. The total ban on firearms in New York predated Giuliani's administration as mayor. He may have enforced the laws more vigorously. But Giuliani has embraced the New York model of Soviet-style gun confiscation in his campaign for the White House.

"I used gun control as mayor," he said. "I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms," adding, those kinds of restrictions would have no effect on hunting.

Now let's try to dissect what it is Giuliani is saying here, because his words are very important. Giuliani is a front-runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. He is being endorsed by people claiming to care about the Constitution and American freedom and limited government.

What Giuliani presided over in New York City was not "gun control" as we have come to think about it in America. It was gun banishment. If Giuliani believes the firearms laws of New York City are in line with the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms, he is simply using Orwellian doublespeak.

There are essentially only two kinds of people with guns in New York – cops and lawbreakers. That, apparently, is the kind of society Giuliani would like to build in the rest of the U.S. – a police state, in which law-abiding citizens cannot be entrusted with their own self-defense or with their own self-governance.

It's about as basic and fundamental as it gets. We'll have Nancy Pelosi trying to San Francisco-ize the country, and Giuliani trying to make us all live like New Yorkers.

But the most amazing part of Giuliani's statement about guns was his reference to hunting.

Apparently, he either believes or would like you to believe that the Second Amendment protection of firearms possession had something to do with hunting. It did not – at least not hunting game.

If you read the Founding Fathers' justifications for the Second Amendment, you quickly understand it had one major purpose – protection from tyranny. They never suggested guns were necessary for hunting, though they knew that. They never suggested guns were necessary for the purpose of individual self-defense, though they knew that. They took those positions for granted. They saw them as self-evident.

What they did write about was the need for a balance of terror, if you will. If the government was ever permitted to have a monopoly on firearms, it would have a monopoly on force. That was not the kind of government our Founders would have tolerated, as they made clear at Lexington and Concord.

No, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting – unless you're talking about hunting down tyrants. That's why it's part of the Constitution. Without the Second Amendment, all the talk about freedom is just that – talk.

The Second Amendment was meant to ensure that a tyrannical government could never stand against a well-armed American people.

Remember, a man or woman elected to the presidency must swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. If they don't know what it says, or if they purposely distort and mangle what it says, they are disqualified from serving in the White House – just as surely as if they had not been born in this country.

First and foremost, make sure the next president is one who understands the Constitution and will actually uphold it and defend it – honestly, sincerely and vigilantly.

Rudy Giuliani just disqualified himself for the office – just as surely as if he committed a felony, wasn't old enough to serve or hadn't been born in this country.

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