LOS ANGELES - A federal appeals court upheld California's assault weapons control act on Thursday, ruling that there is no constitutional right for individuals to keep and bear arms, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

The 3-0 decision, declaring that the 2nd Amendment protects only the right of states to organize and maintain militias, is at odds with the position of the Bush administration and a decision last year by a federal appeals court in New Orleans.

California adopted the nation's most sweeping assault weapons ban in 1999. It prohibits the manufacture, sale or import of weapons including grenade launchers, semiautomatic pistols with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, semiautomatic rifles that use detachable magazines and guns with barrels that can be fitted with silencers.

In February 2000, a month after the law took effect, a group of individuals who either own assault weapons or want to buy them challenged the law in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, contending that it violated the 2nd Amendment, the equal protection clause and other constitutional provisions.

U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb dismissed all of the plaintiffs' claims last year. Thursday's decision by the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Shubb's ruling on the 2nd Amendment and one granting an exemption to the law for off-duty police officers. The appellate court overruled Shubb on another point, declaring that there was no rational basis for retired police officers to be exempt from the law.

California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, whose office defended the state law in court, applauded the decision, which was also praised by attorneys for gun control organizations and denounced by leading gun owner associations, the Times said.

The plaintiffs could ask the full 9th Circuit to rehear the case or could directly appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not ruled on the issue for more than 60 years.

The U.S. Justice Department under Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has taken the position that individuals have a constitutional right to bear arms.

At issue is the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, which 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."

Now here are the findings of our Founding Fathers, all of which are at direct odds with the findings of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"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." - The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress...to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms..." - Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, l789 "To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." - RICHARD HENRY LEE writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788) "A militia, when properly formed are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." - RICHARD HENRY (LIGHT HORSE HARRY) LEE, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169. "A free people ought...to be armed...." - GEORGE WASHINGTON. Speech of January 7, l790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle, January 14, l790 "On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p322 "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms... The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William S. Smith, 1787, in S. Padover (Ed.), Jefferson, On Democracy (1939), p. 20. "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - THOMAS JEFFERSON, Proposal for a Virginia Constitution, June 1776. 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed. 1950) "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...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." - THOMAS JEFFERSON, Thomas Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764 "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature,are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks." - THOMAS JEFFERSON, Encyclopedia of T. Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed., 1967). "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - ALEXANDER HAMILTON, of New York, The Federalist Papers at 184-8 "If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens." - ALEXANDER HAMILTON of New York, The Federalist, No. 29 "The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States...Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America." - Gazette of the United States, October 14, l789 "The whole of the Bill of Rights is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals...It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." - ALBERT GALLATIN of the New York Historical Society, October 7, l789 "The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." - ZACHARIA JOHNSON, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646. "The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - SAMUEL ADAMS, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1786-87 "The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." - SAMUEL ADAMS of Massachusetts, Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788 "The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." - JAMES MADISON, 1 Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789). "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - JAMES MADISON, of Virginia, Federalist Papers, #46. "Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense..." - JOHN ADAMS, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 (1788) "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - TENCH COXE in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution." Under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789. at 2 col.1 "Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - TENCH COXE of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788. "The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them." - TENCH COXE of Pennsylvania, An American Citizen, Oct. 21, 1787 "Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - TENCH COXE of Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788 "As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - TENCH COXE of Pennsylvania, Federal Gazette, June 18, 2022 "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel." - PATRICK HENRY of Virginia. Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention "Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress?" - PATRICK HENRY, 3 Elliot Debates at 48. "Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" - PATRICK HENRY, 3 Elliot Debates 168-169. "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - PATRICK HENRY, 3 Elliot, Debates at 386. "...the people have a right to keep and bear arms." - PATRICK HENRY AND GEORGE MASON, Elliot, Debates at 185 "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." - GEORGE MASON, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426. "When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.". . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers." - GEORGE MASON - Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788 "That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defense of a free state." - GEORGE MASON - Within Mason's declaration of "the essential and unalienable Rights of the People," Later adopted by the Virginia ratification convention, 1788 "A string of amendments were presented to the lower house; these altogether respect personal liberty." - SEN. WILLIAM GRAYSON of Virginia in a letter to Patrick Henry. June 12, 2022 referring to the introduction of what became the Bill of Rights "To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." - RICHARD HENRY (LIGHT HORSE HARRY) LEE, writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788) "A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms...To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." - RICHARD HENRY (LIGHT HORSE HARRY) LEE, of Virginia. Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788 "The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them..." - THOMAS PAINE, I Writings of Thomas Paine at 56 (1894) "Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." - THOMAS PAINE, of Pennsylvania, Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775 "What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty... Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." - REP. ELBRIDGE GERRY, of Massachusetts, U.S. House of Representatives Debate, August 17, 1789. Also in Annals of Congress at 750 (August 17, 2022). "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power." - Noah Webster of Pennsylvania An Examination of The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787 "The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people." - FISHER AMES, of Massachusetts, Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 2022

It is impossible to find but only one tenable position. Either the findings of the 9th Circuit is correct, or the findings of our Founding Fathers of this nation when they wrote the Constitution that the 9th Circuit is interpreting. Which is it?

Dare I say, the real warfare today one between the judges and the People. Only one can prevail. It is inevitable that either the judges will  destroy this nation completely, or the People will destroy their enemies now sitting upon the bench. There can be no other conclusion. The People cannot rely upon their legislators or the executive to do the job for them, as they are benefiting from keeping things just as they are. The Judiciary is the alligator mote around the Legislative and Executive Castle. The judicial accountability offered by J.A.I.L. is the ONLY Answer!