In her best George III imitation, Representative Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) is coming for your ammunition.
Esty’s proposed legislation caps magazine capacity at 10 rounds.
“Think of the damage that someone could do in the U.S. Capitol with 30 rounds,” insisted Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a vocal proponent of the bill.
Esty’s H.R. 752 would “prohibit the transfer or possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” Currently, the bill benefits from the support of 107 co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats.
Esty insists that the number of co-sponsors for her legislation has “doubled since last year.”
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“The support is growing,” she said. “The momentum has not stopped.”
She’s right. The momentum in D.C. toward the unconstitutional disarmament of civilians is increasing daily.
Sadly, there are many so-called conservatives who call out Murphy and Esty for their gun grabs, but they allow for certain “common sense” restrictions on the type of arms and ammunition common people can own.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: There is nothing in the Second Amendment that excludes ownership of certain weapons from within its protection. In fact, the text of the Second Amendment is very clear regarding the government’s ability to qualify this most basic liberty: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Many “gun rights groups,” though, believe that the government has the right to give and take away the right to own firearms depending on whether the person has complied with “reasonable” federal guidelines. This is treachery!
Although Americans have allowed this right to be redefined by Congress, the courts, and the president, the plain language of the Second Amendment explicitly forbids any infringement on this right that protects all others.
In fact, the reason for inclusion of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights had little to do the British and more to do with future attempts by an out-of-control, all-powerful central authority disarming the American people as a step toward tyranny. Take, for example, theses statements by our forefathers regarding the purpose of the passage of this amendment:
In commenting on the Constitution in 1833, Joseph Story wrote:
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
In his own commentary on the works of the influential jurist Blackstone, Founding-era legal scholar St. George Tucker wrote:
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
Writing in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton explained:
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state.
Furthermore, Esty’s bill would grant a monopoly over all weaponry to the very entity (government), various forms of which were responsible for over 300 million murders in the 20th century.
In fact, her legislation would leave private citizens powerless to oppose future slaughters.
An irrefutable fact of armed violence unaddressed by the Esty bill in its seizure of large capacity magazines is that all the murders committed by all the serial killers in history don’t amount to a fraction of the brutal killings committed by governments using the very weapons over which they will exercise absolute control.
According to the text of the “Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act,” anyone caught owning a large capacity magazine (or bringing one into the country) will be “imprisoned not more than 10 years.”
Currently, the bill is awaiting consideration by the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American. Follow him on Twitter @TNAJoeWolverton.
