The Second amendment

[Seth]

You are entitled to your opinion. The current interpretation is only decades old. If the founding fathers wanted to specify freedom to own muskets, they would not have had to specify militias. Arms is arms, why add the militia clause?

Go read Heller and McDonald. The Supreme Court carefully explains exactly why.

[Seth]

You are entitled to your opinion.

Actually I'm entitled to the Supreme Court's opinion, which is the one that counts, and it's opinion is that you lose.

[Tero]

You are entitled to your opinion. The current interpretation is only decades old. If the founding fathers wanted to specify freedom to own muskets, they would not have had to specify militias. Arms is arms, why add the militia clause?

Go read Heller and McDonald. The Supreme Court carefully explains exactly why.

That's just the republican/NRA appointed court. Not founding fathers. The only solution is to repeal and rewrite the amendment.

[Seth]

You are entitled to your opinion. The current interpretation is only decades old. If the founding fathers wanted to specify freedom to own muskets, they would not have had to specify militias. Arms is arms, why add the militia clause?

Go read Heller and McDonald. The Supreme Court carefully explains exactly why.

That's just the republican/NRA appointed court. Not founding fathers. The only solution is to repeal and rewrite the amendment.

God, your arguments are so full of shit...

Anyway, good luck with that repeal and rewrite. I hope you live long enough to see your cause lose yet again.

[rainbow]

You are entitled to your opinion. The current interpretation is only decades old. If the founding fathers wanted to specify freedom to own muskets, they would not have had to specify militias. Arms is arms, why add the militia clause?

Go read Heller and McDonald. The Supreme Court carefully explains exactly why.

That's just the republican/NRA appointed court. Not founding fathers. The only solution is to repeal and rewrite the amendment.

I'm sure it was angels that came down from heaven and revealed the second amendment to the founding fathers, so you can't change it.

...or maybe it was inscribed on golden tablets, or something, but I'm pretty sure the Creator had something to do with this.

What I don't get is, if it is cast in stone, why wasn't it in the original constitution?

[Seth]

You are entitled to your opinion. The current interpretation is only decades old. If the founding fathers wanted to specify freedom to own muskets, they would not have had to specify militias. Arms is arms, why add the militia clause?

Go read Heller and McDonald. The Supreme Court carefully explains exactly why.

That's just the republican/NRA appointed court. Not founding fathers. The only solution is to repeal and rewrite the amendment.

I'm sure it was angels that came down from heaven and revealed the second amendment to the founding fathers, so you can't change it.

...or maybe it was inscribed on golden tablets, or something, but I'm pretty sure the Creator had something to do with this.

What I don't get is, if it is cast in stone, why wasn't it in the original constitution?

On June 8, 1789 Representative James Madison introduced a series of thirty-nine amendments to the constitution in the House of Representatives. Among his recommendations Madison proposed opening up the Constitution and inserting specific rights limiting the power of Congress in Article One, Section 9. Seven of these limitations would become part of the ten ratified Bill of Rights amendments. Ultimately, on September 25, 1789, Congress approved twelve articles of amendment to the Constitution and submitted them to the states for ratification. Contrary to Madison's original proposal that the articles be incorporated into the main body of the Constitution, they were proposed as "supplemental" additions to it. On December 15, 1791, Articles Three–Twelve, having been ratified by the required number of states, became Amendments One–Ten of the Constitution.

[Tero]

“The Second Amendment was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several states,” then-Justice John Paul Stevens correctly noted in his minority opinion, joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. “Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms.”

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-th ... n-control/

If you want to pass laws about not registering guns and individual rights, do those on a state by state basis.

[Seth]

You are entitled to your opinion. The current interpretation is only decades old. If the founding fathers wanted to specify freedom to own muskets, they would not have had to specify militias. Arms is arms, why add the militia clause?

Go read Heller and McDonald. The Supreme Court carefully explains exactly why.

That's just the republican/NRA appointed court. Not founding fathers. The only solution is to repeal and rewrite the amendment.

I'm sure it was angels that came down from heaven and revealed the second amendment to the founding fathers, so you can't change it.

...or maybe it was inscribed on golden tablets, or something, but I'm pretty sure the Creator had something to do with this.

What I don't get is, if it is cast in stone, why wasn't it in the original constitution?

It is. The Bill of Rights is part of the "original constitution." The Constitution was not ratified separately from the Bill of Rights, the Bill of Rights is an integral part of the Constitution that makes explicit some of the constraints on the power of government to interfere with the rights of citizens, and the Constitution would not have been ratified (and was not submitted for ratification) without the Bill of Rights. You merely misunderstand the history of the drafting of the Constitution and think, wrongly, that the Bill of Rights was an afterthought. It wasn't.

The document that creates the framework and structure of our national government and which states which specific powers are granted to the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches is called "the Constitution" as a matter of convenience to distinguish it from the Bill of Rights because the functions of the two documents differ. The Bill of Rights does not describe the structure or powers of government as the Constitution does, it is instead a document that explicitly RESTRICTS and LIMITS the powers granted by the Constitution as they apply to particular rights enjoyed by the people.

But they are both part of the same document which is the Constitution as a whole.

[Seth]

“The Second Amendment was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several states,” then-Justice John Paul Stevens correctly noted in his minority opinion, joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. “Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms.”

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-th ... n-control/

If you want to pass laws about not registering guns and individual rights, do those on a state by state basis.

Individual rights guaranteed against infringement by Congress or the states (through the 14th Amendment) are not subject to infringement by the states because they are superior universal rights protected at the national level.

And it is true that states may regulate the private civilian uses of firearms, as they universally do, there are constraints on the degree of regulation that is acceptable under the 2nd Amendment. The primary constraint of the 2nd Amendment that applies to all states is that no state can ban outright the manufacture, distribution, sale, acquisition, possession or peaceable use of firearms.

Another constraint is that states may not forbid their citizens to keep and bear arms entirely because doing so interferes with the superior authority of Congress to raise and equip armies. One purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that the Unorganized Militia is able to report for duty with their own arms and ammunition, and preferably with adequate training in the manual of arms necessary to make them an effective military fighting force with a minimum of training time and without burdening the federal government with the task of acquiring, storing and distributing military arms to those soldiers. This is also why states cannot prohibit or indeed even substantially interfere with the right of armed citizens to "drill" with their weapons to maintain marksmanship proficiency by outright banning the discharge of firearms everywhere.

Also, consistent with recent Supreme Court rulings, states may not forbid otherwise qualified citizens from keeping and bearing handguns or other arms for their personal protection in the home.

That being said, states can and do regulate the USE of firearms quite stringently, dictating with great precision when, where and how a citizen may actually DISCHARGE a firearm. This is as opposed to the simple POSSESSION of a firearm, something states cannot forbid. And such laws are in fact created on a state-by-state basis.

But, the nature of the right protected requires that such regulations be both reasonable and that they pass muster under the "strict scrutiny" test of laws affecting fundamental civil rights, which I have previously described and which is now called the "Lemon Test." Further information on that test can be found at Wikipedia.

Therefore, states, and even political subdivisions of states, do not have plenary authority to regulate (much less ban) the otherwise peaceable keeping and bearing of arms, including firearms.

[Tero]

Lies. Overreading simple text meant for revolutionary times.

[Seth]

Lies. Overreading simple text meant for revolutionary times.

The Supreme Court of the United States, along with every state legislature, along with Congress, along with the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States, specifically including the 150 million gun owners, disagree.

[Tero]

Constitutional lawyers use imagination (to back up lies).

[Tero]

Actually, the supreme court justices were "adjusting the data" and recalibrating the 1700s ideas to NRA dictated goals. Or as we say in the climate thread, lies.

[Drewish]

From my cold dead hands.

[laklak]

How they gonna kill you? They don't have any guns.

If I were a gun control proponent I'd be damn worried about a Republican getting the Presidency. The next prez will get at least 2 and maybe 3 SCOTUS appointments, and with a GOP congress he can appoint whoever the fuck he wants.