which is why it took so long to come up with the constitution and bill of rights, THEN it all had to be ratified by WE THE PEOPLE. you really should just stop talking before you look any more moronic.
the 'intent' is all about the end result. not anything that WAS NOT RATIFIED.
don't go away mad, just go away.......moron.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
Do you understand how that proves you and your "well regulated" mantra wrong?
The right to arms is not granted, given, created or otherwise established by the 2nd Amendment, thus the right is in no manner dependent on the words of the Constitution. AND, because the organized, official militia is a structure that is itself entirely dependent upon the Constitution for its existence, the right to arms can not be argued to be qualified upon a citizen's membership in the organized militia (established by Art I, § 8, cl's 15 & 16), or conditioned upon a citizen meeting any training standard that is created under militia law authorized by the militia clauses of the Constitution.
Face it, you are just irredeemably wrong on every point you present. When SCOTUS says, neither is the right to arms in any manner dependent on the Constitution it means, THE RIGHT IS IN NO MANNER DEPENDENT ON THE CONSTITUTION . . .
SCOTUS has been boringly consistent re-re-re-affirming this principle for 131 years and counting:
Supreme Court, 1876: "The right . . . of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose" . . . is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, . . ."
Supreme Court, 1886: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, . . . "
Supreme Court, 2008: "it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in . . . 1876 , “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed … .”
Sweetpea, the ONLY thing that can be concluded from reading the 2nd Amendment is that, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56."
Supreme Court, 2008
domer76 (12-10-2017)
Why do you think the founding fathers did not simply shorten the second amendment to, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"?
It's a VERY limited document in its verbosity. Rights like free speech get only two words, "free speech". Yet, they added a lot of words to the second amendment in addition to the above - why.
evince (12-10-2017)
As long as the right's protection sphere is filtered through whether the weapon has military usefulness / its use can contribute to the common defense, the civilian possession and use of arms that are -- not usual -- for civilized warfare can be restricted, AKA, "dangerous and unusual", see US v Miller's sawed-off shotgun.
The reason concealed weapon prohibitions were not considered violations of the 2nd Amendment is because the 2nd Amendment was not enforceable against state or local laws until McDonald v Chicago, 2010.
As usual, an anti "forgets" to include footnote 26 which has been proven to be the significant legal statement of the Heller decision.
26 We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive."
Since Heller, lower federal courts have accepted argument questioning all gun control laws, even those seemingly unquestionable under Heller like felon dispossession laws as only being "presumptively lawful", forcing the government to present evidence and argument that the law passes constitutional muster. In 2011 the 3rd Circuit said:
"As the Government concedes, Heller’s statement regarding the presumptive validity of felon gun dispossession statutes does not foreclose Barton’s as-applied challenge. By describing the felon disarmament ban as “presumptively” lawful, the Supreme Court implied that the presumption may be rebutted." -- U.S. v. Barton, 633 F.3d 168 (3d Cir. 2011)
Of course felon disablement of gun rights were/are sustained because they are founded on legitimate exercises of government authority which have been upheld many times using a wide range of legal reasoning under constitutional and common law.
Now, on the other hand, the hundreds of gun control laws that were upheld by citing US v Tot or Cases v US (and their many illegitimate progeny) and reasoned upon the "collective right" theories that the 2nd does not secure an individual right, WILL BE STRUCK DOWN.
"Dangerous and unusual" is not a descriptor that the government gets to label a gun and advance gun control. "Dangerous and unusual" is what an arm is after it has failed ALL the protection criteria established by SCOTUS in Miller.
Only if the arm is NOT of a type that constitutes the ordinary military equipment and/or of a type that can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens and/or if it is of a type in common use at the time by the general citizenry, can it be described as "dangerous and unusual" and the government can argue that a power should be recognized to allow government to restrict its possession and use by private citizens.
If the arm meets ANY of the criteria, the citizen's right to keep and bear that arm will be preserved and any authority claimed by government to restrict its possession and use must be repelled or invalidated.
Because the federal provisions were a product of the suggested amendments submitted by the states. The states all lumped together standing army, military subordination and citizen RKBA into one amendment in their constitutions, it was what they were familiar with.
1776 North Carolina: That the people have a right to bear arms, for the defence of the State; and as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power. . . .
1777 Vermont: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State—and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.
1780 Massachusetts: The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.
1790 Pennsylvania: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination, to, and governed by, the civil power.
The separate prongs of these directives were never considered interdependent (that all must exist for any to be actionable, i.e., that if a standing army does exist, the right to arms of the people doesn't).
Actually, it is clear that the standing army declarative clauses can never actually be brought to fruition. They are merely declarations of inactive principle. It can't possibly refer to state action because the states are forbidden to keep troops by the federal Constitution and it certainly can not be interpreted to prevent the federal government from exercising its supreme Art I, § 8, cl's 11, 12, 13 & 14 powers.
The declaration in the federal 2nd Amendment, "[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" is inextricably meshed (philosophically) with, "as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up." To the framers each represented the same sentiment . . .
The declaratory clause of the 2nd Amendment only re-affirms what once was a universally understood and accepted maxim; that the armed citizenry dispenses with the need for a standing army (in times of peace) and those armed citizens stand as a barrier to foreign invasion and domestic tyranny (thus ensuring the free state).
So, without a doubt the inactive, dependent declaratory clause can only be said to be a statement of why the AMENDMENT exists and as such it does not create, qualify, condition, modify or constrain the pre-existing right; it only states one reason (the political one) for why the fully retained BY THE PEOPLE right is being forever shielded from government interference.
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Last edited by Abatis; 12-09-2017 at 06:34 PM.
it was a reason to denote just why, exactly, the right of the people shall not be infringed. not that the people must be well regulated by the government, but it's definition at that time of we the people being trained and have well working arms and equipment to live in a secure state.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
I think that's mostly a fair point. But it's also fair to note that since we've gone from 'no standing army' to a VAST standing army with military spending almost the same as the rest of the world, ally and adversary, combined, and since the large majority of the
country now lives in urban environments where almost none did then with everyone living in rural environments, with guns killing many thousands a year, the context for the right can certainly be said to have changed.
With the right to self-defense recognized, it can be argued that self-defense in today's cities would mean a ban on things like handguns rather than the right to have them.
But gun advocates do not want to admit or address any of these changes.
That's not fair at all. That's not how the powers of government are expanded. Besides, if there is one sphere of power in society that government possesses with near plenary authority, it is to arrest, prosecute and imprison criminals. That government is derelict in this duty and criminals are free to rampage and kill citizens without repercussion does not create a condition where the rights of the law-abiding citizen are drawn into question and cancelled or sacrificed (and I'm not agreeing that such cancelling or sacrificing can even be done).
Uhhhhh, no. Unless government is willing to alter the longstanding legal truth that government agents like police are not duty bound or legally responsible for the personal security of any person, they can not extinguish the citizen's right to self-defense.
Besides, handgun bans have already been invalidated and are officially "off-the-table". Assault weapon bans will certainly follow the same outcome when one finally reaches the High Court.
Correct. I will never accept any statement or proposal that the benchmark for my rights as a law-abiding citizen is the behavior of anti-social criminals.
Your thinking is very backwards. Government is not derelict in preventing crime. Smothering the society in handguns easily available to very would-be criminal, THAT is the cause of the crime and there's nothing government can reasonable do to prevent that crime EXCEPT reduce the number of available handguns to the criminals.
No matter how much you want to say the 'good guy with the gun' solves everything, as long as would-be criminals easioly have handguns, they will ALWAYS be able to use getting to choose when and where to commit a crime and the element of surprise to their advantage and if EVERY 'good guy' in the country had a gun at all times it would not stop large numbers of crimes from happening and the criminals often not getting caught.
And yes, changing circumstances DO affect how rights are interpreted. Otherwise, the rights end up being meaningless and trampled as changing situations and technologies make the old literal versions obsolete.
are you seriously trying to say that there would be no more crime if all handguns disappeared?
is there a criminal out there that would choose to commit a crime if there were 3 or more people carrying a gun in the vicinity?
they are only affected by interpretation from people who believe they can alter the rights of others to feel safe or by people who believe government has unlimited power and authority to adapt to situations as they see fit. constitutions become worthless at that point.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
Well, when government has the power, duty and the responsibility to do something and it refuses, that's dereliction. That you want to give government more power, over people who have done nothing wrong, is just insanity (or totalitarian fantasy).
You can rationalize that you just want government to reduce the number of guns available to criminals but the mechanism to achieve that is to make guns unavailable to everyone, even law-abiding citizens . . . Problem is, government doesn't have that power; doing that is specifically and expressly forbidden.
I'm not arguing that an armed citizen owes or performs any service to society; my argument is strictly confined to what government is allowed to do according to the powers granted to it in the Constitution. The citizen is free to act according to his own conscience as he sees fit, arming himself if he wishes . . . It is a "right" right?
Again, the actions of criminals is not the scale used to define /delineate the rights of the law-abiding citizen.
You should be advocating a strong criminal justice system that can efficiently bring criminals to justice and protect society. Criminal homicide is a crime of narrow geography and demographics, we know where it happens most often and to whom . . .
Over 60% of criminal gun homicide occurs in less than 2% of US counties.
You wanting to direct gun control laws and restrictions on people who are least likely to commit any gun crime is kindasorta goofy; that the people who are actually responsible for gun crime are never going to be impacted by your proposed laws seems lost on you (assuming that you are not a statist absolutist and totalitarian control over the citizens isn't your ultimate goal).
Some rights (legally deemed "fundamental") are the foundation upon which all other conceptualizations of rights is built upon and understood. By their foundational nature they are unalterable.
The "right to abortion" is a derivative of the right of privacy which was legally recognized to spring from the "penumbras and emanations" of the first eight rights secured in the Bill of Rights (Griswold v CT).
If one really wanted to drill down into rights theory, the hostility the left has for the right to arms could be used to argue that the legal reasoning by which the right to privacy was recognized (invented) is facially invalid . . . If the right to arms can be disrespected, excised out and discarded, then the "rational continuum of liberty" the Bill of Rights represents, is a myth thus the entire legal structure that has been built upon that fiction, is illegitimate (privacy, abortion, contraception, LGBTQ rights).
People like you and evince and dormer76, that demonstrate such little real understanding of the Constitution, its foundational principles and its operation, should be careful what they wish for . . .
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