Incorporation Strikes Back

Blame Green Tip Bullet Ban on the NRA

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “Every time I talk about bullets and guns and incorporating the Second Amendment, people get angry.  I’m not sure why anger is the response to truth.  Just because someone else has lied to you and has misled you does not mean that you should be angry at the person that’s trying to set the record straight.  I also believe that you’ll have a healthier gun culture and a greater ability to protect yourself if federalism reigns.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  The last two callers were asking me about the green tip bullets.  Every time I talk about bullets and guns and incorporating the Second Amendment, people get angry.  I’m not sure why anger is the response to truth.  Just because someone else has lied to you and has misled you does not mean that you should be angry at the person that’s trying to set the record straight.  I also believe that you’ll have a healthier gun culture and a greater ability to protect yourself if federalism reigns.  I don’t think you want the national government administering what you think is this right, the Second Amendment right.  I didn’t even get into that.  That would be my incorporation doctrine opinion of it.  That’s not the constitutional opinion.  I just want to read something to you.  Many of you are still convinced that incorporation is legal, that’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way you want it.  That is error in thought, and I can prove it to you.

Again, my CD Spirit of ’76: The Story Continues has 46 minutes of “Militias Are Good & They’re Good For You Too Part I” and “Militias Are Good & They’re Good For You Too Part II.”  That’s the new stuff that was added to the end – we can’t add it to the end of Spirit of ’76 because all three CDs are taken up.  It basically has another 46 minutes and it covers the Bill of Rights.  That struggle begins in the Virginia Assembly in November of 1788.  That’s when it begins.  It ends with the twelve amendments, not ten, being passed by both houses of Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

The State of Virginia and other states requested these amendments.  It’s just foolish to think that they would have to request for the freedom for their own citizens to bear arms or to have free speech or to not suffer cruel and unusual punishments, etc., etc.  Read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  That’s why they’re in there.  They didn’t have to argue that.  They already had these things.  The whole point of the Bill of Rights is we want to limit the new general government.  Class dismissed, end of story.  This is what was sent to the governors of the then eleven states that had ratified.  Remember, North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified yet.  They didn’t get a copy of this.  I’m reading from it verbatim, from the National Archives.

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[reading]

Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers . . .

[end reading]

Mike:  Now, who are they talking about might abuse their powers?  The State of Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina, New York?  No.

[reading]

. . . adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers . . .

[end reading]

Mike:  Congress, Constitution.  Congress is empowered by the Constitution.  This is aimed at Congress.  There is no debate on this.  There’s not a historian that’s ever read this that could disagree with it.  Let’s read the whole thing:

[reading]

. . . expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added . . .

[end reading]

Mike:  Okay, geniuses.  Added to what, the Virginia Constitution?  The New York Constitution?  No!  The federal constitution.  How does Congress get powers?  From the Constitution.  This is obviously aimed at the Congress.  Again, I don’t know how this could be more clear.

[reading]

. . . And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

[end reading]

Mike:  Then they get into the twelve amendments.  My friends, ladies and gentlemen, this is not an issue.  It never was an issue until the 1920s.  There was never any issue.  There was never any discussion about this.  Everyone alive that ever lived under the Constitution agreed.  Even Lincoln agreed.  Why don’t people agree today?  Number one, because we don’t have education on the Constitution any longer.  We have education now on Supreme Court precedents that have happened after the Constitution was ratified.  Number two, because people, quite frankly, are just lazy.  Believing that a ginormous, singular blob of America ought to be running everything, and then simultaneously bellyaching about it, is great sport.  This is what we do.  We’re an arguing people.  Much of this is just for the sake of being argumentative.

Those are the facts as they exist in the historical record.  It is my job as an historian, if I were one – I’m just a low-rank amateur.  It is my job as an historian to review the historical record.  What does the record actually say?  It’s not my job to go seeking to prove a point.  It’s my job to review the record and then do the best I can to relay what that record says.  That’s the job of the historian.  The revisionist historian goes in with a preconceived notion of what it is that he or she wishes to prove.  The historian that seeks truth goes in to find the truth.  I believed in the Incorporation Doctrine, too, like it was an article of religious fervor and faith.  In reviewing the record, it’s clear.  There is no ambiguity here, none.  There are a lot of famous men that we can rely on for what they wrote and said about this.

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I am fully aware some of you will probably inform me today, when this show is concluded, [mocking] “Well, I can tell you, buddy, on this day in Congress a debate was held and this was said.  Look at that semicolon right there.  That just defeats your argument.”  No, it doesn’t, it most certainly does not.  The argument is: What was sent to the states to ratify and what did the sates understand they were ratifying?  The same thing applies to the Constitution in general.  You want ratified intent when it comes to Article I, Section 8, but at the same time in your own brain you can hold the thought that you don’t want ratified intent when it comes to the Bill of Rights.  Why?  Can you walk me through the logic of that?  I do not believe that you can.  It’s not logical.  [mocking] “Well, that’s just your opinion, man.”  No, it’s not my opinion.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have to give you an opinion on this.  I can just quote the writings and the ratifications and the acts of the legislatures and what was said about it all the way up until the 1910s.  You’d then say, [mocking] “That was just Patrick Henry’s opinion, man.”  No, it wasn’t just his opinion.

By the bye, Henry is the center figure in all this, not Madison.  Patrick Henry is the central figure.  He was defeated in the Federal Convention.  He wanted to stop the Constitution from being ratified.  He was defeated.  He and George Mason and those that wished – because they thought the Constitution was dangerous.  It did not have amendments in it, so they’re the ones that forced the issue.  Henry actually told little Jimmy Madison: If you don’t get these amendments through Congress and send them back to us as we have sent them to you, we will use your little Article V and we will call for a new convention.  You’ll be out of a new Congress, pal.  That’s pretty much what Henry told Madison, what he told the new Congress.

Mike has been talking about many different ways to deal with the American Union & it’s attack dog, the “Federal” government -There’s Article V & Nullification too.

The historical record on this is very clear.  It’s not my opinion.  I don’t like to do this just so I can hear myself talk, although it’s amazing that some of you seem to think that what I’m supposed to do is come in here every day and play the highlight reel from television shows on the Fox Network, and then to play the highlight reel from television shows on MSNBC and scream and holler about how imbecilic and stupid they are.  That’s not my job as it was proposed to me.  But I digress.  I say these things to you so that you will not be in error.  If you want to be a constitutionalist, I would love to help.  I would love to aid and assist.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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