A Convention of States Versus A Constitutional Convention

    Many in today’s culture often confuse the Convention of States with a Constitutional Convention. Article V of the Constitution gives the right for the states to call a convention in order to propose and ratify amendments “...on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments..." A Constitutional Convention is when, if all the current states agree, the entire Constitution is thrown out and a new one is written. Many people are against a Convention of States because they mistakenly fear that the Constitution would be re-written, but that is a Constitutional Convention and not a Convention of States. There is a major difference between adding amendments and rewriting the Constitution.

     Article V states that the states can call a “convention in order to propose and ratify,” and that they become “…part of this Constitution when Ratified...” this means that new amendments are added to the current Constitution, not a new one. If people are worried that the Convention delegates will take advantage and re-write the Constitution somehow, they need only realize that three-fourths of the states still have to agree to ratify these new amendments.

     The quotations for the remainder of this paper, unless otherwise specified, are from the Convention of States website. One difference between a Convention of States and a Constitutional Convention is that “A Convention of States requires two-thirds of the states to call, whereas a Constitutional Convention requires unanimous consent of the states that are going to be bound to it.” So a Convention of States is an easier way to positively affect the entire country because it is easier to call. A Constitutional Convention must have the entire nation agree to negate the Constitution itself, and that is far more unlikely.  In addition, many states may be controlled by the liberal minorities’ unwillingness to cooperate. The majority of people in the country are then forced to submit to abuse of the Constitution without hope of change.

     “At a Convention of States, amendments are passed by a simple majority versus at a Constitutional Convention, which is passed unanimously by the states that are present.”  In order to create a new Constitutional document the entire nation must agree on its contents. This will, as stated above, give the minority power over the majority. At a Convention of States, the majority rules, much like today’s voting system.  

     “At a Convention of States amendments are passed and ratified by the states individually versus a Constitutional Convention, which is passed and ratified by the states as a whole entire document.” If at a Convention of States, a certain number of amendments are proposed, they are passed individually, so certain amendments may be passed while others are not. In contrast, at a Constitutional Convention, the entire document must be agreed upon unanimously, so if one state disagrees, the new Constitution is thrown out, or changes are made to satisfy all the states present.   

     “At a Convention of States, amendments are ratified by three quarters of the states and bind all the states versus a Constitutional Convention, which only binds states that ratify it.” At a Convention of States, to ratify the proposed amendments, three-fourths of the states must agree on them, if they do, the new amendments are added to the current Constitution and become law for the entire nation. At a Constitutional Convention, amendments are only law to the states that ratified it. This would divide the country into two different sides, each with their own Constitutional foundation for which to base their laws.

     These differences are very important to the foundation of our federal law. Therefore, the document that is supposed to be the “supreme law of the land” should be correctly understood by the people who have to follow it.

     Many of the current Constitution’s amendments and clauses have been manipulated and stretched to new limits that our Founding Fathers never intended.  Voters may place blame on the President and the White House officials, but there are many others at fault. The Supreme Court, who is supposed to interpret the laws of Congress and rule whether they are Constitutional or not, have given themselves more power than ever before. They have single handedly changed laws they claimed to be unconstitutional, when, in truth, there was nothing written in the Constitution on the subject of the law in question. When this occurred they should have rejected the case and left it to the states, but instead, they embraced it has an opportunity to expand their power. As a result, they have created new laws themselves, which contradicts the very principle of self-government. Only legislators elected by the people can make laws.  

     In the Supreme Court’s decision in Troxel v. Granville, the Court struck down a Washington state law, granting visitation rights to any third party. The Court justified their decision saying that parents have a Constitutional right to allow and disallow visitations.  Justice Scalia wrote a dissent, saying that the Court should never have taken the case because parental rights are not a Constitutional issue since parental rights are never mentioned in the Constitution.

    The Supreme Court has been honoring current cultural trends and personal feelings more than the positional mandate they swore to uphold.  They have obliterated moral integrity by denying the state legislatures the power to make laws that are based on the values of the majority of its citizens.

     The Congress however, is more to blame than both of these groups. They have not fulfilled their positional mandate as specified in the Constitution; they have allowed the President to trample them and applauded him for doing it. They have not done their duty to remove the corrupted Judges on the Supreme Court, or to remove the President from office when he overstepped his bounds. The Federal Government has changed the laws so much; that to save what’s left of our country, we must do something dramatic, for we need dramatic change.

     The Convention of States is a legal “back door” for the states to take back some of the power that the Federal Government has usurped. It enables the states to add, nullify, or clarify certain parts of the Constitution that the government has perverted. "Fortunately, our founders knew the federal government might one day become too large and too powerful and they specifically inserted a mechanism that gives states a lawful and orderly mechanism to restrain a runaway federal government; it's Article V of the Constitution,"(Bill Taylor, a legislator and Convention of States leader for South Carolina)"When the framers agreed on Sept. 15, 1787, to add a provision in Article V for the states to amend the Constitution, they in effect were telegraphing a message to us in 2013, a message to us showing us the way back inside the fence of the Constitution." (Bob Menges, a Constitutional law professor and the state director of the South Carolina Convention of States Project). The Convention of States is a Constitutionally supported way to bring our nation back to how it was intended to be.

     The objective of a Constitutional Convention is to create a new document to govern our country. Some would argue that for truly dramatic change we should throw out the Constitution and write a new one. This is unnecessary. There is nothing wrong with our Constitution, it was written by men who were far wiser than any of our leaders today. The problem is the perverted interpretations of it by today's government. They have read into the laws with lenses muddied by their personal beliefs and agendas. If we want to embrace the vision of our Founding Fathers, then we must look through their lenses. They wisely put the Convention of States into the Constitution because they knew what might happen one day. Americans today don't understand what submitting to another country is like. They have been "spoiled" by their freedoms and take them for granted. Because of this they cannot discern the symptoms of the disease called tyranny. Our Founding Fathers had to literally fight for this country's creation, and we need to see what they saw and think how they thought if we are going to preserve this nation. We don't need a new Constitution; we don't necessarily need new leaders; we need to hold our government accountable for their actions. The best way to accomplish this is through a Convention of States. We can clarify the laws and add new amendments to hold government officials in check.

(For more information on the Convention of States, click the link on the side of the page.)

Exquisite Cinnamon Roll Company V. United States

     For our last day of Constitutional Law class, we performed a moot court. The issue before the Court was whether the United States Congress could pass a law, under the Commerce Clause, standardizing the making, selling, and baking of cinnamon rolls. The United States won in the District Court, the Cinnamon Shop appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, who also sided with the United States. The shop appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court

The Attorney (my sister Emily) for the Cinnamon Roll Shop

The attorney brought some samples (that she baked herself)

The Court listens to Justice Sotomayor (A student who uses Skype)

The Cinnamon Shop attorney shares some rolls with the United States attorney

Justice Ginsburg (me) snores, as the Chief Justice tries not to lose it

The Court ruled in a 5-4 decision, that the Cinnamon Roll Company's case was valid and that Congress had unconstitutionally enacted the law. The Court remanded the case for further proceedings. JUDGES: ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO joined. SOTOMAYOR, J. filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J. BREYER, J. and KAGAN, J. joined.

The Second Amendment’s “Right to Bear Arms” is an Individual Right

     The second amendment of the Constitution states: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." There has been vast speculation whether the "right to bear arms" is an individual right, or if it was intended for only members of the militia. There is also the argument made that the "right to bear arms" only applies to specific weapons. When this amendment was written, our Founding Fathers had just finished the war with England for independence. They knew the benefit of the people owning firearms; Thomas Jefferson said, "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Notice he said "no free man" not just members of the militia. The second amendment was meant as an individual right for the people.

     The second amendment does not just apply to the militia. In the majority decision of District of Columbia V. Heller, Justice Scalia found that the right to bear arms was an individual right. Scalia wrote that “requirement of logical connection may cause a prefatory clause to resolve an ambiguity in the operative clause,” but that the “prefatory clause does not limit the operative clause.” He found that the wording “The right of the people…” was used again in the first amendment and in the fourth amendment, and that when used in these amendments the wording “unambiguously refer to individual rights, not ‘collective’ rights…” and that “nowhere else in the Constitution does a ‘right’ attributed to ‘the people’ refer to anything other than an individual right.” Justice Scalia’s opinion is consistent with that of our Founding Fathers. 

     George Mason said; "To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." He said this with respect that all governments, unless hindered by the people, would become tyrannical and that disarming the people would be the first step toward tyranny. Thomas Jefferson agreed saying; "What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms." Our Founding Fathers intended for all the people to be armed and willing to fight to keep their freedom, they never thought that the people would be so misled that they would be doing the tyrannical government's work by disarming themselves.

     Some Americans have become afraid of guns due to the mass shootings taking place across the country. They are scared of political unrest in their own country and do not know who to trust. American citizens who think this way need only look at the pattern of historical tyrants: Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Idi Amin established gun control only a few years before committing mass executions. Nations such as Turkey, China, Guatemala, and Cambodia also exterminated masses of people after establishing gun control. It is estimated that approximately fifty-six million total victims lost their lives at the hands of their own governments in the last century on the heels of strengthened gun control laws. As recently as 2009, North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong -il, strengthened its gun laws in order to keep control of society as his health deteriorated and as he prepared to transfer his leadership to his son. 

     Many in today's culture are worried that with guns, crime rates will climb, shootings will increase, and people will suffer. Ironically these people are “shooting themselves in the foot". Thomas Jefferson said: "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Meaning that if guns are outlawed, crimes will only increase, because law abiding citizens will no longer carry guns, and criminals, not obeying the laws anyway, will attack with more confidence. "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery," (Thomas Jefferson) is a statement that all Americans should wholeheartedly embrace.

       The second amendment is not outdated. Today, there is debate whether or not the second amendment applies to modern weapons. Some would argue that it only applies to muskets, the weapon used by our Founding Fathers; others argue that only assault weapons should be outlawed.  The idea that only muskets should be legal is based upon the belief that only the weapons that were around when the second amendment was written should be allowed. This is faulty reasoning, as we interpret the rest of the Constitution to take on modern meaning. For instance, the United States recognizes, and must protect, religions that did not exist when the Constitution was written. The fourth amendment protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons and papers; there is little question that this now applies to cell-phones and computers. There is no basis for this idea; it is a desperate attempt by anti-gun activists to outlaw guns.

     The term “assault weapon” is subjective. In the hands of law-breakers anything can be an assault weapon. Should we outlaw kitchen knives and rolling pins because someone was attacked with one? George Washington made his opinion quite clear: “A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." According to this statement, the people should have sufficient arms to that of any who might try to limit their independence. If our government uses “assault weapons”, then we, as protectors of our own independence, should also be allowed to carry them. Many liberals argue that since our nation has such a strong military, the people need not carry guns; this is exactly what our Founding Fathers were afraid of. If we limit our rights based on the might of the government, then we have already given into tyranny. Benjamin Franklin strongly voiced his opinion on this; “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

     The Second Amendment's "right to bear arms" is an individual right reserved for the people. Arguments made that say otherwise can be refuted by the Supreme Court's majority decision in District of Columbia V. Heller, and by the original intent of our Founding Fathers. The right to bear arms is for all guns, including “assault weapons” as the Founders intended. Americans must fight for this freedom, or be subjected to a tyrannical government. We should have the courage to defend the freedoms that our Founding Fathers provided.