Amnesty International
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[Amnesty International] argues that “The Constitution was . . . drafted with international law as a set of background norms, and this Court should construe the Constitution accordingly.” However, none of the alleged “background norms” that AI cites existed in 1791 when the Second Amendment was ratified, or in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment made it enforceable against the states.

Indeed, the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, was drafted and ratified an intent to counter contemporary norms. For example, while many nations allowed (and still allow) censorship, the Constitution generally forbids it. While unlimited arms control was (and still is) the norm in much of the world, America’s Framers wanted to ensure that government didn’t have a monopoly on the implements of violence because they knew, based on experience, that government could not be trusted with such a monopoly. Whatever the harmful consequences of preventing a government monopoly of force, the Founding Fathers (in 1789) and Founding Sons (in 1868) believed that the alternative was far worse.

Even if the U.S. Senate had ratified an international gun control treaty, “No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints in the Constitution” Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 16 (1957) (Black, J.) (plurality op.).

— Eugene Volokh in Amnesty International brief against right to bear arms

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78 COMMENTS

  1. It’s so *cute* they think they are better than us… 🙂

    • “better then us”,, it depends. a camel is better then a horse in a desert. but a horse is better then a camel on a prairie.
      ^
      That’s B.S.
      Money=power, power makes you better, enough of it and you can rule the rulers.

      • “Money=power, power makes you better, enough of it and you can rule the rulers.”

        So, *that’s* why you are building that neutron bomb in your burrow.

        So humans will bow to their Marsupial masters… 🙂

    • Bunch of hypocrites. They’ll campaign on on people being locked up and enhanced interrogated for political, religious, or social reasons. But for your sporting affiliation, lock ’em up, throw away the key, and give them extra voltage. Local agency has made themselves very unpopular with gun owners.

    • “It’s so *cute* they think they are better than us…”

      you don’t understand at all. they don’t think they’re better than us. they think that they’re the humans and that the rest of us are talking animals put here by god to serve them, to be eliminated if we don’t.

    • Yep, they had enough work hammering out a national gov’t framework arranged around individual liberty, let alone throwing international considerations into the mix. We’ll do us, you do you.

      • “We’ll do us, you do you.”

        Boo, hiss, pffftttt, nananana!

        The founders were all “America First”, and created an illegitimate nation concerned only with its narrow, small, compact interests. The founders cared nothing for the betterment of the rest of the vast world. The founders didn’t even have a concept of foreign aid, demanding that if other peoples wanted to benefit from the bounty that was America, those other peoples had to endure great difficulty to immigrate; the founders had no intention of exporting their blessings around the world.

        Worst of all, the founders made no provision for protecting, around the world, the human rights they enjoyed. Where were the American agencies promoting social justice for minorities in Europe or Asia? Protections for LBQ…….XYZ and TG persons in other nations?

        The founders (especially Geo. Washington) publicly declared that creating a league of nations for the benefit of all was to be avoided. The founders didn’t lift a finger to prevent climate change, in the US, or the world. Fossil fuels? Fuggidaboutit. The founders had a vast area ripe for alternative fuel sources, and did nothing; no wind; no solar; no nothing.

        In short, the founders of America were just a bunch of meanies. And they are to this day.

        • Sam, are you serious? Or a Twit? I’ll take GW’s position any day of the week. What (man made) Climate change or Fossil fuel existed in 1776? I do hope your posting a spoof. Or are you really that liberally inept?

    • They quit doing that decades ago. Now they mostly just bitch about Israel and work to keep victims of ongoing genocides defenseless.

    • The totalitarians running China DGAF about Amnesty International, and the elites in the US and EU are making too much money off of trade with China to do anything China would care about.

  4. Just call it “defensive Jihad” and AI should be okay with it.
    Maybe toss in some anti-semetic tropes to really appease them.

      • Actually I was referring to the Arab tribesmen (who for some reason call themselves the Janjaweed) in Sudan who are committing genocide in Darfur. And by smoking I meant performing fellatio.

        • “And by smoking I meant performing fellatio.”

          I used to work with an escapee of eastern Europe, when attempting to leave would literally get you shot.

          He told me once the translated meaning of “suck my d!ck” in his native tongue was “Smoke my leather cigar”…

        • Well you learn something new every day.
          Feilsh mah tay oh., was the the last .
          Before that that was something about dunking dim dawl doozies.
          Cho bah

  7. How about amnesty international and for that matter their butt buddies over at the United Nations collectively bend over and kiss my ass?

    Maybe they should get back to doing what they do best, selling bumper stickers with candles on them that I can put on the back of my 1976 Datsun.

  9. It is still a free country AI. At least we can say Let’s go Brandon without getting jailed or suppressed

  11. Amnasty International has NEVER, EVERY, supported the human right to armed self-defense. They got Sting and many other people to perform at concerts, to raise money for this fraud. I followed their lies back when I was a kid.
    They and many others used the Rev King assassination to raise money. But they all hid the fact that he was a gun owner. And had applied for and was denied a carry permit. Because of his race.

  14. I’m ‘Murican. I don’t give the smallest fart in the wind about international law. I do give a small fart about Old English Law, on which our own legal structure was based. That’s a small fart, mind you. I only really care about the Constitution, United States Code, state laws, and local laws. That’s all that matters to an American. End of debate.

  15. I read the entire article by David Kopel, and the brief by AI. David did an excellent job of dismembering the AI brief.

        • In Belgium, and throughout the civilized world, ‘grits’ are fed to livestock, not to humans. In some locales, the very WORD ‘grits’ can provoke a sudden, violent response, and severely thrashing the one who utters it in polite company is legally justified.

          ‘Okra’ is regarded similarly.

  17. They sound bout as dumb as sovereign citizens citing other laws to fit the desire of the moment

  18. …. have a feeling that miner and little d are busy in mom’s basement composing a twentyfive hundred word essay of how AI hits the nail on the head and should be forced on “Capitalvania” to protect us like the rest of Civilized Utopian countries….

  19. Lets NOT go by the global norms. If you consider what some of those likely are based on population percentages:
    -Slavery
    -Corruption (more than we have in the US, although we have plenty)
    -Forced marriage/child rape
    -Murder
    -Theft of property via force
    -Censorship
    -No freedom of religion
    -no right to a fair trial
    -No free elections
    -Everything a dictatorship, communism and the likes bring.

    No thanks, I’m good with out the “norms” of the world. American Exceptionalism is exceptional and although I wish more people globally would take that mantle up I’m okay not doing what the rest of the world is.

  21. One gets the impression that Amnesty International exists to protect those who commit robbery, rape and murder from their victims.

  22. If you didn’t follow the link to the article from “Reason”, you should. Chock full of interesting analysis, and information useful to finding weak points in anti-gun raving.

    Especially interesting, and useful, was recalling Scalia’s Heller opinion where Scalia declared: “The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. . . . [T]he enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.”

    Also noteworthy is this little jewel: “In the 1804 U.S. Supreme Court case Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64 (1804), Chief Justice Marshall wrote: “an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other possible construction remains.” Which I leave it to each to contemplate the implications.

    • “an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other possible construction remains.”

      well the rebellion against the king of england certainly violated THAT consideration ….

  25. Amnesty international can take a long walk off a short peer for all I care. They don’t know what they are talking about. Whats worse, they complain about the atrocities that have occurred in other countries by the big bad government or petty warlords. Hey amnesty, you know why those poor souls were butchered? They could not defend themselves due to being disarmed. Oh I get it amnesty, you claim to be out to help people, but if you had no one to help, you would be out of a job. So this attack on 2A is your attempt at job security. Got it! Go screw yourselves amnesty international!

    • “Hey amnesty, you know why those poor souls were butchered? They could not defend themselves due to being disarmed. ”

      Tough crap.

      Allowing victims to be armed, and killing their attackers is violating the right to life of the attacker. Two wrongs, and all that.

      “Do come along, Bond.”

  26. @Take Pity

    “Of course Geoff is a jerk. But it’s at least partially excused because he has never known a woman in the biblical sense.”

    U R kinda new here; didn’t recognize the inside joke.

    • It raises a question (or more than one) in my mind. How would this InterWebs incel possibly know whether a complete stranger to it, perhaps thousands of miles away, is not merely just commonly heterosexual, but amazingly, shockingly so, with veritably Herculean performance levels so far as his abilities go in relationships with the females of his species? For all this twerp knows, Geoff could be a regular Jim Jones but without the Flavor Aid and prussic acid, or Bill Clinton but with no need for a State Trooper.

      Question two would be, why would it care? Three, why should Geoff? For that matter, why should we? Where’re my socks? Kamala, is this thing on? Do I answer questions? Who are these people? Do they have chocolate?

  27. “For example, while many nations allowed (and still allow) censorship, the Constitution generally forbids it.”

    The constitution doesn’t “generally” forbid censorship. It forbids it. Period. Full stop. Sheesh.

    Even while they’re speaking like they’re kinda, sorta on our side, these people still seem to think a little bit of dictatorship is A-Okay.

  28. “No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints in the Constitution”

    the ones behind all this think THEY are the constitution.

  29. The constitution is not to be ‘construed’. If you want to do that, or rather if you’d like to attempt that, it’s called an amendment and good luck adding one of those at this current state.

  30. @John in AK
    ” ‘Okra’ is regarded similarly.”

    Agree…if you are talking about steamed Okra. But fried? Whole ‘nuther country.

  31. @DOUGLAS
    “Can’t tell if serious…LoL”

    A little uncertainty sharpens the senses.

    But, you picked up on the gag.

  34. @Ol’Sarge
    “Sam, are you serious? Or a Twit? ”

    You’ve been around here long enough to recognize ridicule, mockery, sarc. The entire content was a clue, but the last words were the giveaway.

  36. “Well that post worried me,”

    Don’t read everything with the idea of responding with a knee-jerk reaction; relax, and enjoy yourself.

    Maybe you could share my commentary with your neighbor. Claim it is an expression of Dim/Lefty whose intellect you can actually admire. See if they bite on it.

Comments are closed.