Wednesday March 10th is IGOLD.  It stands for Illinois Gun Owner Lobby Day.  On this day, people, who are mindful of their own Liberty, and how  government often abuses and denies it, descend on the capitol building in Springfield searching for redress of grievances. Unlike a Tea Party protest, this gathering sees everyone enter the capitol itself, with the thousands in attendance making their way to legislators’ offices to personally deliver written messages of support and opposition.

9-12ers may find themselves wondering what this has to do with them. Maybe they couldn’t care less about firearms or maybe they outright oppose them. Here is why attending this event is due consideration regardless of your individual position on firearms.

Freedom.

Illinois government specifically criminalizes and punishes the exercise of what is a natural right. If that body is willing and able to do that to one inalienable right, everyone must ask themselves what will stop it from doing the same to other natural rights.  For folks who don’t think that happens already, look to the April 15th gathering that was denied permission. The right to peaceably assemble in public was ignored.

Could Illinois government decide that people must ask its permission to pray? Think about that, it is no different.

This year, like no other, IGOLD has significant importance — far beyond just the issue of firearms. On Tuesday, March 2nd, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in the case McDonald versus Chicago. To be sure, this case is about gun ownership in Chicago but it is about so much more than that. What is often billed as a Second Amendment case is, in fact, a serious Fourteenth Amendment case. It’s decision has profound ramifications affecting all of us and all of our Inalienable Rights.

Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Bill of Rights did not apply to state and local government. Go figure, inalienable rights simply don’t apply. If you ever looked around and wondered why things are the way they are, there is your answer.

The McDonald decision can change that.

At issue here is how the Second Amendment can apply to state and local government in the eyes of the legal system. Over time, there was developed what is called the Selective Incorporation Doctrine. The Court has held some parts of the Bill of Rights as applied to state and local government. This has long been accomplished via the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The McDonald case seeks Incorporation via the Privileges or Immunities clause. In other words, it seeks to have the Fourteenth Amendment mean what it actually says.

As part of Reconstruction, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery itself. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to stop states from basically ignoring the Thirteenth Amendment. At last, the states would have to abide by natural rights too, most especially as they pertained to former slaves and their posterity.  Alas, judicial activism stifled the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment shortly after it was adopted. The McDonald decision can restore the power of the Fourteenth Amendment, if We The People demonstrate our demand for it to do so. This we must do.

This is why IGOLD is so important this year. As the Supreme Court ponders the decision it will deliver in June, it will be forced to take note of one of the largest non-partisan Liberty based gatherings that Illinois’ capital has ever seen. The time to stand up for Inalienable Rights, for Individual Liberty, for the Constitution itself,  is now.

Here is a link to the PDF transcript of the Court Proceeding. Alan Gura’s opening and closing statements are quite powerful.

MR. GURA: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
Although Chicago’s ordinances cannot survive the faithful application of due process doctrines, there is an even simpler, more essential reason for reversing the lower court’s judgment.

The Constitution’s plain text, as understood by the people that ratified it, mandates this result. In 1868, our nation made a promise to the McDonald family that they and their descendants would henceforth be American citizens, and with American citizenship came the guarantee enshrined in our Constitution that no State could make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of American citizenship.

The rights so guaranteed were not trivial. The Civil War was not fought because States were attacking people on the high seas or blocking access to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment were understood to include the fundamental rights honored by any free government…..

Responding to Chief Justice Roberts about Privileges or Immunities clause Incorporation, Gura closed with:

MR. GURA: We believe that it’s more limited because that — that text had a specific understanding and that there are guideposts left behind in texts and history that tell us how to apply it, unlike the due process. But at least we know one thing, which is that in 1868 the right to keep and bear arms was understood to be a privilege or immunity of citizenship, and if the Court is considering watering down the Second Amendment perhaps it should look to text and history.

Notice that? A right was understood to be a privilege.  They were the same thing.  The historical record proves this to be true.  Think about what that means.

What is more than clear to all those with open eyes is that the entire Bill of Rights has been watered down with Due Process Incorporation. Due Process implies that government grants us rights by its own machination and this is how it supports requiring us to gain permission to exercise them. It is also how it gets away with denying them altogether. We must right that listing ship before we are unable to do so.

Here are some various websites with pieces about the hearing that took place on Tuesday, March 2nd.

L.A. TIMES, BIG GOVERNMENT, CNN, CHICAGO SUN TIMES,

SCOTUS BLOG, SJ-R, CHICAGO CBS2, MY WAY NEWS, ABC,

VOLOKH, WSJ LAW BLOG, WSJ NEWS

A common theme found within some of them is that so called journalists present the notion that the Second Amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms. It is no wonder so many opine about the court dismissing the Privileges or Immunities Incorporation. They like big government in control and believe rights come from government.  A Privileges or Immunities Incorporation would force them, and most lawmakers as well, to completely revise how they view the Constitution and the Rights it recognizes and is tasked with protecting.

It is time we show that We The People  know better, that we understand that our rights are Endowed by our Creator, not afforded to us by government. IGOLD is an unmissable opportunity to do exactly that.

Please visit the website http://igold.isra.org/ if you missed the IGOLD links above. There you can find more in depth and important details needed if you decide to attend.

There will no doubt be thousands of people attending, there was over 5000 people last year. The question is, will you be one of them this year?  I most certainly hope so.