Judging Freedom - Biden is Absolutely Wrong on Guns

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Biden says Second Amendment is 'not absolute' in call to reinstate assault weapons ban #Biden #guns #guncontrolSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Good morning everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, June 3rd, 2022. It's about 9.45 in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. I hope you didn't waste your time watching President Biden, who addressed the nation last night at about 7.30 Eastern Time. But if you did, you probably share my views. And if you didn't, we're going to extract about five clips from what he said, and then I'm going to comment on them. He basically made arguments which are against the Constitution and against common sense. The theory of what he argued, the bottom line is that somehow someone

willing to kill innocents, whether they be adults in a supermarket, doctors in a hospital, or children in a classroom, that that person, that maniac is somehow willing to obey gun laws and of of course, none of that makes sense. The other thesis is the long, slow, slow march toward the confiscation of guns. I know he says he doesn't want to confiscate guns, but the people around him certainly do. The progressives in Washington, D.C. would love nothing more than for the police that they control to be the only ones that have guns so that if a monster does take over the government

or tries to take over the government, like what's happening in Ukraine, the people will be helpless and will not be able to resist. This country has a long history of rugged individualism and when James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights, he referred to the right to keep and bear arms as a right. It's not a gift from the government. It's not a privilege that the government can grant and restrict like driving on a government highway. It's a natural right. When Justice Scalia, and you're going to hear a misquote from the president, misquoting Justice Scalia in a few minutes. When Justice Scalia

wrote a District of Columbia versus Heller, the 2008 Supreme Court opinion that at long last defined the right to keep and bear arms as a personal individual right. He characterized it as the modern extension of the ancient right of self-defense. The ancient right of self we have. They're not that long. There may be seven to 15 seconds. And then I'll comment on each of rights, the rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited. So he makes two fundamental mistakes here by saying that a right is granted by the Second Amendment. Justice Scalia never said that because Justice Scalia understood that rights come from our humanity. So the Second Amendment doesn't grant the right to keep and bear arms. It protects the right to keep and bear arms. Even if the Second Amendment were repealed as the late Justice John Paul Stevens, after he left the court, once argued, we would still have the right to keep and bear arms because it's part of our natural rights. It's part of our humanity. And yes, Justice Scalia did say that the right to keep and bear arms is not absolute. I'm sorry to say this. He was my dear friend.

My friendship with him during the last 10 years of his life was one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given me, he was wrong. Because if the government can restrain it, can turn it on and off like a spigot with water, then it's not a right. It's a privilege. Like driving your car on a government roadway, you get in too many accidents, they take that privilege away from you. But you have a right that comes from your humanity. The government can't take it away unless you give it up. I wish old Joe, graduate of a very fine law school, University of Syracuse Law School, would understand that, but he doesn't. Here he is again last night. We need to ban assault weapons in high-capacity magazines. And if we can't ban assault weapons,

then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21. And then the next thing you want to know is they'll raise the age from 21 to 25 and then lower the top age so that older people can have them. They'll lower that age from 72 to 64. This is a gradual, gradual nibbling and wearing away of our rights, again, by the elites, the class of people in the government who are protected by guns, don't want you to be able to protect yourself with guns. If you're old enough to vote, if you're old enough to shoot in the military, whether you're well-trained or not, you're old enough to buy, if you're old enough to shoot in the military, whether you're well-trained or not, you're old enough to buy a weapon to protect yourself. You've heard me say it before. Those two

18-year-olds would not have obeyed any law. They were willing to slaughter people. The only language they understood in the case of one of them was to have his head blown off, which is how he died, the guy in Texas. And the other was to drop the gun when the police surrounded him. If someone in the school had had a gun, as is the case in 137 Texas school districts where there have been zero shootings, if someone in the supermarket had a gun, as is not the case in any supermarket in New York, because New York has emasculated its population, those people would have been stopped long before all their killing. Next cut of President Biden. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability. Okay, so we will charge General Motors as liable for an automobile accident if you're driving a Chevy truck or Ford, if you're driving a Ford truck and you're in an accident. That's ridiculous. That's absurd. That violates due process because it's fundamentally unfair.

If a crazy person gets a gun and uses the gun, how can it possibly be the fault of the manufacturer? That's why we have due process, the essence of which is fairness. And to switch liability from the crazy person who's willing to kill innocents to the person who made the gun simply is unfair. It's like switching liability from the driver of the car to the manufacturer of the car. Or in Great Britain, from the person who uses the steak knife to assault a police officer to the people who manufactured the steak knives. The American public will not tolerate this kind of shifting of liability, of shifting of blame. And old Joe, if they did, if you made gun manufacturers liable

for the misuse of their product, what would happen? Well, the gun manufacturers would buy very expensive insurance, and that would make the price of guns go way up, and then only the rich could have them. The rich already have people protecting them with guns. Poor people wouldn't be able to afford guns because of your crazy legislation, Joe. Next cut. We should expand background checks to keep guns out of the hands of felons, fugitives, and those under restraining orders. Felons, fugitives, and those under restraining orders. Felons, fugitives, and those under restraining orders. I can't repeat it with a straight face.

They already are prohibited from having guns. You can commit a crime like a bank fraud where you cheat a bank out of money. You lie about your wealth and they loan you more than they should have loaned you and you get caught and you go to jail. You get out of jail, you're a felon, you still can't carry a gun even though your crime had nothing whatsoever to do with guns. Felons, fugitives, and those under restraining orders already are prohibited from having guns. Do they get them? They do. Bad people find a way to get guns. That's why the only way to stop them is for good people to have guns. I wish you could understand that, old Joe. Next clip. We should also have national red flag laws so that a parent, a teacher, a counselor can flag for a court that a child, a student, a patient is exhibiting violent tendencies, threatening classmates or experiencing suicidal thoughts. is for someone to file a secret complaint with a judge and for that judge to take away a person's

lawfully owned property, not because of what they've done, but because of what they might do. We don't do that in the United States. They did it in the Soviet Union and they do it in Russia and China. They punish you for what they think you might do. Due process requires that you have a notice of the charges against you and that the charges against you be based upon something you did or allegedly did, not something you might do. Old Joe, where the hell is your copy of the Constitution? Because you really are trying to turn it on its head. There are a few things more unconstitutional

than to deny life, liberty, or property, in this case, liberty and property, on the basis of an anonymous complaint of something that might happen. We don't do that in America. We never will. Every war that we fought against tyrants was to make sure that that type

of tyranny did not come here. And now you want to bring it here just because you were elected president? Not going to happen, Joe. Last clip. All right, that was the last clip. I'm getting a little carried away. I think a lot of you probably agree with me. And one more thing, when he complains about high capacity magazines, why do you need 30 bullets in a magazine? This is a little crude, the analogy that I'm going to give you, but you'll remember it because of its crudeness. Why do you need 30 rounds? Why do you need a lot of toilet paper? Why do you need more than one sheet? Because shit happens. Yes, you don't think it happens? Turn on the television, turn on CNN or MSNBC or Fox and look at what's happening in the Ukraine. That's why you need the same capacity magazines

that the government has. I wish that people would understand a right comes from our humanity and no one can take a right away. God bless you, my dear friends. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.