UPDATE: Video added below
What is the deal with MSNBC folks being anti-Second Amendment lately? Last week it was fill in host Craig Melvin and this week it's analyst and Huffington Post writer Alex Wagner.
Wagner was on Real Time With Bill Maher and when asked about what should be changed in the Constitution, Wagner said we should get rid of the Second Amendment.
Bill Maher, HBO: "Let's ask Alex. What would you change in the Constitution?"
Alex Wagner, Huffington Post: "Well, I'm going to be pilloried for this. I think get rid of the second Amendment, the right to bear arms. I just think in the grand scheme of the rights that we have; the right of assembly, free speech, I mean, owning a gun does not, it does not tally on the same level as those other Constitutional rights. And being more discreet about who gets to have a firearm and right to kill with a firearm, I think is something that would be in our national interest to revisit that."
Thankfully, Rep. Darrell Issa was on the same panel and set her straight.
Issa: We have a problem in America which is we misunderstand quite frankly what the Second Amendment is for, it's for law abiding citizens to have a right both to protect themselves and to be protected from living under tyranny.
My question for Wagner is this: What happens when you no longer have a right to free speech? The Second Amendment holds up the First Amendment. Criminals don't care if a right to bear arms is in the Constitution, they arm themselves anyway. Disarming law abiding citizens only makes them sitting ducks and victims of violence from criminals and victims of oppression from their government.
History lesson: What was the first thing the Nazi's did? They disarmed the citizenry so they could have total control over the people, and we all know how that ended up.
Adolf Hitler's use of firearms registration lists to confiscate guns and the execution of their owners teaches a forceful lesson -- one that reveals why the American people and Congress have rejected registering honest firearm owners.
The Night of the Broken Glass (Kristallnacht)--the infamous Nazi rampage against Germany's Jews--took place in November 1938. It was preceded by the confiscation of firearms from the Jewish victims. On Nov. 8, the New York Times reported from Berlin, "Berlin Police Head Announces 'Disarming' of Jews," explaining:
The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been "disarmed" with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment.
On the evening of Nov. 9, Adolf Hitler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, and other Nazi chiefs planned the attack. Orders went out to Nazi security forces: "All Jewish stores are to be destroyed immediately . . . . Jewish synagogues are to be set on fire . . . . The Führer wishes that the police does not intervene. . . . All Jews are to be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately."
You can watch the video clip here.
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