Bill O'Reilly Advocates Confiscating Firearms in "Weather Emergencies"
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 10:51PM On tonight's O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly interviewed Oathkeepers founder Stewart Rhodes. O'Reilly attempted to paint Rhodes' position as "extreme" but it was in fact O'Reilly himself who ends up advocating the suspension of the Second Amendment during a "state of emergency."
I can think of no time when I would want a firearm more to protect my family with than during a "state of emergency." Confiscating legally owned firearms from citizens is also illegal and unconstitutional. From the Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds:
O’Reilly calls the opposing position “extreme,” but such gun confiscation is illegal under federal statute, and as a matter of constitutional law; in fact, the city of New Orleans lost a lawsuit over gun confiscation during Katrina. But then, O’Reilly’s no libertarian, to put things mildly. And he’s consistently weak on the law, also to put things mildly. Still, he should have been better briefed for this show, as he came across looking like a fool, and making his “extreme” guest look sober and well-informed by comparison.
Ben Froland
Kudos also to the Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, for the video.
Ben Froland
The day after advocating the collection of lawfully possessed firearms from American citizens, O'Reilly found himself defending his position to his own audience. Not surprisingly he received numerous e-mails concerned about the stance he took against the Second Amendment. Defiantly he pointed to Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War to justify his opinion. Unfortunately this ignores the fact the the Constitution itself specifies in Article I, Section 9 that Habeas Corpus can be suspended "when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." There is no such exception for the Second Amendment. Additionally, after the war, the Supreme Court ruled "the writ of habeas corpus could only be suspended by Congress, and even then only in a situation where the civil courts were not operating."
O'Reilly also asserted that the government can do as it pleases and it is up the the Supreme Court to later rule if their actions were justified. This is nonsense. We relinquish a limited amount of rights to the government and retain the rest for ourselves. We do not regularly rely on the Supreme Court to reaffirm our unalienable rights.
