documents:cosproject:surge:article_4-isthesecondamendmentrisk
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revisionNext revision | Previous revisionNext revisionBoth sides next revision | ||
documents:cosproject:surge:article_4-isthesecondamendmentrisk [2018/03/19 23:39] – Oliver Wolcott | documents:cosproject:surge:article_4-isthesecondamendmentrisk [2018/03/25 13:11] – Oliver Wolcott | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 8: | Line 8: | ||
//Long Time Constitutional Law Litigator for the NRA// \\ | //Long Time Constitutional Law Litigator for the NRA// \\ | ||
- | **An Open Letter Concerning The Second Amendment and The Convention of States Project** \\ | + | ===== An Open Letter Concerning The Second Amendment and The Convention of States Project |
+ | Our constitutional rights, especially our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, are in peril. With every tragic violent crime, liberals renew their demands for Congress and state legislatures to enact so-called “commonsense gun control” measures designed to chip away at our individual constitutional right to armed self defense. Indeed, were it not for the determination and sheer political muscle of the National Rifle Association, | ||
- | Our constitutional | + | Constitutional law has been the dominant focus of my practice for most of my career as a lawyer, first in the Justice Department as President Reagan’s chief constitutional |
+ | The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V convention of the states, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does. \\ | ||
+ | {{: | ||
+ | ---- | ||
+ | The federal government’s unrelenting encroachment upon the sovereign rights of the states and the individual rights of citizens, and the Supreme Court’s failure to prevent it, have led me to join the Legal Board of Reference for the Convention of States Project. The Project’s mission is to urge 34 state legislatures to call for an Article V convention limited to proposing constitutional amendments that “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, | ||
+ | {{: | ||
+ | ---- | ||
+ | The Framers of our Constitution carefully limited the federal government’s powers by specifically enumerating those powers in Article I, and the states promptly ensured that the Constitution would expressly protect the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” by adopting the Second Amendment. But the Framers understood human nature, and they could foresee a day when the federal government would yield to the “encroaching spirit of power,” as James Madison put in the Federalist Papers, and would invade the sovereign domain of the states and infringe the rights of the citizens. The Framers also knew that the states would be powerless to remedy the federal government’s encroachments if the process of amending the Constitution could be initiated only by Congress; as Alexander Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, “the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority” it claims. So the Framers wisely equipped the states with the means of reclaiming their sovereign powers and protecting the rights of their citizens, even in the face of congressional opposition. Article V vests the states with unilateral power to convene for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments and to control the amending process from beginning to end on all substantive matters. | ||
- | practice. For almost three decades, I have represented dozens of states and many other clients in constitutional cases, including many Second Amendment cases. In 2001, for example, I argued | + | The day foreseen by the Framers – the day when the federal |
- | rights group against me and many other con-stitutional conservatives because we have urged the states to use their sovereign power under Article V of the Constitution to call for a convention for proposing constitutional amendments designed to rein in the federal | + | **Charles J. Cooper is a founding member |
- | The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V conven-tion of the states, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does. The federal government’s unrelenting encroachment upon the sovereign rights of | + | ---- |
+ | Sign the COS Petition, be a leader https:// | ||
+ | Volunteer here https:// | ||
- | //Continued on back page// | + | ||[[https://conventionofstates.com|{{ :cos-footer-logo.png |}}]] || |
- | + | (540)441-7227 | [[https://conventionofstates.com|CONVENTIONOFSTATES.COM]] | [[https://facebook.com/conventionofstates|Facebook.com/ | |
- | lieve that Congress and state legislatures are free not only to restrict firearms owner-ship by law-abiding Americans, but to ban firearms altogether. If the Liberals get one more vote on the Supreme Court, the Sec-ond Amendment will be no more. | + | |
- | + | ||
- | Constitutional law has been the dominant focus of my practice for most of my career as a lawyer, first in the Justice Department as President Reagan’s chief constitutional lawyer and the chairman of the President’s Working Group on Federalism, and since then as a constitutional litigator in private | + | |
- | + | ||
- | Our constitutional rights, especially our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, are in peril. | + | |
- | + | ||
- | The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V convention of the states, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does. | + | |
- | + | ||
- | //Continued from front page// | + | |
- | + | ||
- | the states and the individual rights of citi-zens, and the Supreme Court’s failure to prevent it, have led me to join the Legal Board of Reference for the Convention of States Project. The Project’s mission is to urge 34 state legislatures to call for an Article V convention limited to proposing constitutional amendments that “impose fis-cal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, | + | |
- | + | ||
- | The Framers of our Constitution carefully limited the federal government’s powers by | + | |
- | + | ||
- | specifically enumerating those powers in Article I, and the states promptly ensured that the Constitution would expressly protect the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” by adopting the Second Amendment. But the Framers understood human nature, and they could foresee a day when the fed-eral government would yield to the “en-croaching spirit of power,” as James Madi-son put in the Federalist Papers, and would invade the sovereign domain of the states and infringe the rights of the citizens. The Framers also knew that the states would be powerless to remedy the federal govern-ment’s encroachments if the process of amending the Constitution could be initiated only by Congress; as Alexander Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, “the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority” it claims. So the Framers wisely equipped the states with the means of reclaiming their sovereign powers and protecting the rights of their citizens, even in the face of con-gressional opposition. Article V vests the states with unilateral power to convene for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments and to control the amending process from beginning to end on all sub-stantive matters. | + | |
- | + | ||
- | The day foreseen by the Framers – the day | + | |
- | + | ||
- | when the federal government far exceeded the limits of its enumerated powers – arrived many years ago. The Framers took care in Article V to equip the people, acting through their state legislatures, | + | |
- | + | ||
- | **Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. Named by The National Law Journal as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Wash-ington, | + | |
- | + | ||
- | Website: ConventionOfStates.com E-mail: info@conventionofstates.com | + | |
documents/cosproject/surge/article_4-isthesecondamendmentrisk.txt · Last modified: 2021/02/23 16:14 by 127.0.0.1