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Feinstein on July 10th wrote a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell,
complaining about Attorney General John Ashcroft's position on the Second
Amendment and how the State Department had used his stance to help formulate
the US position at the latest UN small arms conference. The letter was heavily
publicized by Feinstein, the basic idea of the letter being that Ashcroft was
an ignorant running dog of the NRA.
In the
letter, Feinstein quoted the Miller Supreme Court decision. I have read this
decision, and didn't recognize an important phrase that Feinstein said was in
the decision. It made a substantial change in the meaning of the decision,
compared to what I remembered, in a way that made it seem that Miller supported
a favorite talking point of Feinstein and her fellow fascists. I thought to
myself "Now, there's NO WAY Dianne Feinstein would misquote a Supreme
Court decision, in a highly publicized letter to an important government
official. It's so easy to check. It would be so embarrassing to her if someone
found out. Did I forget something about Miller?" So I to looked up Miller
and read the section Feinstein "quoted" again.
Feinstein
HAD changed the wording of the Miller decision, put quotation marks around it
as if she was quoting exactly, and even put in old style capitalization to make
her fabrication seem authentic. Details follow.
I'm
quoting (exactly - I'm just copying and pasting) the paragraph of Feinstein's
letter to Powell:
"In
rejecting a motion to dismiss the case on Second Amendment grounds, the Court
held that the 'obvious purpose' of the Second Amendment was 'to assure the
continuation and render possible the effectiveness' of the 'state Militia.'
Because a sawed-off shotgun was not a weapon that would be used by a 'state
Militia' (like the National Guard), the Second Amendment was in no way
applicable to that case, said the Court."
Here's
what Miller really says (again I'm just cutting and pasting):
"The
Constitution as originally adopted granted to the Congress power--'To provide
for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress
Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and
disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be
employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively,
the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.' With obvious purpose to
assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces
the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be
interpreted and applied with that end in view."
No mention
of "state Militia". Or "state militia" either. In fact,
NOWHERE in the entire Miller decision is the phrase "state Militia"
or "state militia" mentioned. And the "state Militia" (like
the National Guard) that Feinstein falsely inserted are NOT the
"forces" referred to by the REAL Miller language. State militia which
are like the National Guard are part of the organized militia. The organized
militia is a very different entity than the Militia referred to by the
constitutional language that the Miller decision quotes (they are just one
component of the Militia.) Militia refers to all men in the country capable of
bearing arms. The organized militia are units of part time professional
soldiers (indeed like the present day National Guard.) Militia, organized
militia, and unorganized militia are all different things, and they are all
well defined in 10 U.S.C. 311(a)-(c).
The reason
that this is significant is that Feinstein et. al. want you to believe that the
Second Amendment just says that the states can keep their own militias, it
doesn't have anything to do with individual rights. The falsified language that
Feinstein invented and inserted into her quote makes it sound like Miller
supports her claim of what the Second Amendment means.
So I guess
I was wrong that Feinstein wouldn't dare do this, or that someone would expose
it if she did. As far as I know, nobody has mentioned her lie.
In this
message, I don't have time to discuss several important issues related to
Miller that don't relate to the Feinstein lie. For instance, why the Miller
decision strongly supports the individual right interpretation of the Second,
or why the Miller decision is wrong when it says that the Second's only purpose
is to render possible an effective Militia. See me sometime at a meeting if
you're interested.
If you
want to see the whole Feinstein letter to Powell, email me and I'll email it to
you (it's too long to insert here.)
If you
want to read the entire Miller decision, go to
http://www.2ndlawlib.org/court/fed/sc/307us174.html
(HTML)
or
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/wbardwel/public/nfalist/miller.txt
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