2nd Amendment by Dr. Faria
Friends,
We have found out from a friend that another company, Lycos, Inc., a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon University, is attempting to change the wording of the Second Amendment on their website, similar to what EnCarta (Microsoft) tried to do a few months ago. Here is a copy of the letter I sent to Lycos and InfoPlease.com. I thought this would be of interest to you.
Sincerely,
Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D.
Editor-in-Chief, Medical Sentinel of the AAPS
Dear Sirs:
Your misreading of the Second Amendment is despicable. I refer to your definition of the Second Amendment in your dictionary (InfoPlease.com). If Lycos can lie about a Constitutional issue, it probably lies about its products and services as well. I will surely do what I can to publicize your egregious moral transgression and deception. Another company tried to get away with a similar intellectual subterfuge. Apparently, it's a concerted effort to do an end run around the Constitution. To its credit, EnCarta (Microsoft Corporation) quickly corrected its error. I suggest you do the same---quickly!
You grossly misprinted the text of the Second Amendment which actually reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
And regarding this very issue, I should refer you to the article which I wrote and which appeared in Human Events, "The Second Amendment Conveys Individual Rights" (February 4, 2000):
"In public pronouncements, Attorney General Janet Reno¹s Justice Department and other administration officials have implied erroneously that the Second Amendment refers to a collective right rather than an individual right. Never mind that when James Madison, the father of the Constitution, wrote 'The advantage that Americans have over every other nation is that they are armed,' and Patrick Henry proclaimed, 'The great objective is that every man be armed; everyone who is able may have a gun', they were elucidating the Second Amendment referred to an individual right rather than a collective right.
"The same Congress that passed the Bill of Rights (with the Second Amendment) also passed the Militia Act of 1790, which defined the militia as 'every able bodied man of military age.' More recently, in the U.S. v. Verdugo decision of 1990, the Supreme Court held that when the phrase, 'the people' is used in the context of the Second Amendment, it means 'individuals' as to mean 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'; these are the same 'people' mentioned in the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights. "The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to limit the power of leviathan government, and individual rights were enumerated in this sacred document, so that they would be specifically protected from the monopolistic tendency of government to wrest power away from the individual citizen. That is why when the great Virginian George Mason thundered rhetorically, 'I ask, sir, what is the militia?' He continued, 'It is the whole people except for a few public officials. To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them.'
"Although, there have been no recent Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment regarding a collective versus an individual right, various courts have ruled that the individual has the right to keep and bear arms: Presser v. Illinois 116 U.S. 252 (1886); U.S. v. Cruickshank 92 U.S. 542 (1876);
Miller v. Texas 153 U.S. 535 (1894); Robertson v. Baldwin 165 U.S. 275 (1897); and Miller v. U.S. 307 U.S. 174 (1939). In this last case (Miller, 1939), the Supreme Court explicitly stated the Second Amendment protected an individual right to keep and bear arms, particularly protecting military-styled (assault) weapons which are considered 'part of the ordinary military equipment.' The Supreme Court affirmed this even when Miller and his attorney failed to show up for the hearing and could not be found, and thus, only government lawyers presented their side without rebuttal. No wonder Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has stated that it may be time for the Supreme Court to revisit the Second Amendment, calling it --- like his predecessor, Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) --- the palladium of our liberties.
"Between 1980 and 1995, of 39 law review articles, 35 noted the Supreme Court¹s prior acknowledgment of the individual right of the Second Amendment and only four claimed the right is a collective right of the states (three of these four were authored or co-authored by employees of the gun control lobby).
"Since 1995, a consensus has been emerging and constitutional scholars 'from across the political spectrum' have concluded that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, a view that is referred to as the 'Standard Model' by University of Tennessee Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds. The nation¹s leading legal and constitutional scholars, including Laurence Tribe of Harvard, Akhil Reed Amar of Yale, William Van Alstyne of Duke University, Sanford Levinson of University of Texas Law School, Don B. Kates of the Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research, attorney David Kopel of the Independence Institution, and noted Fairfax, Virginia attorneys Jeffrey Snyder and Stephen P. Halbrook, all subscribe to this 'Standard Model.' "Finally, Profs. Laurence Tribe and Akhil Reed Amar, writing in The New York Times (Oct. 28, 1999), opine that both the freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms are subject to reasonable regulations which we have known all along. You cannot scream 'fire!' in a crowded theater, nor prevent law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves and their families from criminal predators with firearms. And yes, we can lock up criminal predators and keep them away from firearms."
Thus, for the benefit of your clients and the impressionable minds of children who might use your dictionary and who are just beginning to familiarize themselves with our form of government, I suggest you make the appropriate modifications in your text. I will checking your site tomorrow and the next day until you do so. All you have to do is simply print the Second Amendment as it appears in the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land. Although the text is clear, if you need an interpretation, call me and I will provide you with one or direct you to someone, a Constitutional scholar, to help you do so.
Sincerely,
Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D.
Editor-in-Chief, Medical Sentinel of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)
Clinical Professor of Surgery (Neurosurgery, ret.) and Adjunct Professor of Medical History, Mercer University School of Medicine Author, Vandals at the Gates of Medicine (1995) and Medical Warrior:
Fighting Corporate Socialized Medicine (Macon, GA, Hacienda Publishing, Inc., 1997)
Website: http://www.haciendapub.com
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