The Second amendment

[Seth]

Black man exercising the misinterpreted (1900s) amendment

Wrong. What he was doing is perfectly legal and his rights were indeed violated by the first officer on scene. I hope he kicks their ass in court.

[Tero]

“Like most rights,” Justice Antonin Scalia noted, “the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. The “Second Amendment right to bear arms,” he added, 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 urged policymakers to take note that its opinion should not be understood to cast doubt on 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 sale of arms.

The court also noted that the Second Amendment protects the possession of the sort of weapons that were “in common use at the time” of the adoption of the Second Amendment, in 1791, meaning that the “historical tradition” permits a prohibition on carrying dangerous and unusual weapons.

Here in Florida, the “any regulation of gun ownership violates Second Amendment rights” claim gave us the dangerous law (dangerous mostly for the children of Florida) that threatens doctors with the loss of their license should they initiate conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home, particularly in a home where there are children. Fortunately this law is not in effect because it is tied up in a constitutional challenge brought by several physicians and medical groups with the support of the ACLU.

Lawmakers apparently enacted this law (signed and championed by Gov. Rick Scott) out of concern that even talking about gun safety somehow threatens the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Enough of the misleading if not disingenuous claims about threats to the Second Amendment — and enough of the bogus constitutional analysis.

http://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/2016/0 ... /78996808/

[Seth]

“Like most rights,” Justice Antonin Scalia noted, “the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. The “Second Amendment right to bear arms,” he added, 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.”

That's a "time, place and manner" regulation that must pass the strict scrutiny test, which most such laws did not used to do, but now all 50 states do (by SCOTUS command) have laws that DO "reasonably regulate" such carrying. However, that doesn't mean that gun bans are authorized.

The court urged policymakers to take note that its opinion should not be understood to cast doubt on 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 sale of arms.

Yup, reasonable regulation meeting the strict scrutiny test is permissible.

The court also noted that the Second Amendment protects the possession of the sort of weapons that were “in common use at the time” of the adoption of the Second Amendment, in 1791, meaning that the “historical tradition” permits a prohibition on carrying dangerous and unusual weapons.

Blatant misquote. The Court noted that AT THE TIME IT WAS ENACTED it protected the commonplace weapons of the day, and that therefore, as the technology of weapons advances and the types of weapons that are in common use at any given time are also protected. This happens to include the most popular and most commonplace sporting rifle in the US today, the AR-15 pattern semi-automatic rifle. It DOES NOT mean, contrary to your mendacious implication, that ONLY those arms in common use at the time of ratification are protected.

Here in Florida, the “any regulation of gun ownership violates Second Amendment rights” claim gave us the dangerous law (dangerous mostly for the children of Florida) that threatens doctors with the loss of their license should they initiate conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home, particularly in a home where there are children.

That's because it's none of a doctor's business whether or not a family member owns a gun. That is not a medical issue and the law was proposed to prevent an attempt at the federal level to declare gun control to be a "medical emergency", which would putatively authorize the CDC to pass unconstitutional and not-congressionally originated laws and regulations affecting gun ownership, something the CDC has no authority to do. The intent of the federal government was to gather information from medical records (now held by the IRS) about who owns guns and where they are. It's a back-door registration scheme and Florida wasn't going to allow it.

Fortunately this law is not in effect because it is tied up in a constitutional challenge brought by several physicians and medical groups with the support of the ACLU.

Fortunately it will be in effect eventually.

Lawmakers apparently enacted this law (signed and championed by Gov. Rick Scott) out of concern that even talking about gun safety somehow threatens the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Bald faced lie. The concern was, as I said, that doctors were going to be used as proxies for federal government invasions of privacy with respect to firearms with the specific intent of using federal laws regulating doctors and medical records under Obamacare to create gun ownership lists, and more nefariously to worm into social services the ability to seize children from their parents if the parents own a gun under their "guardianship" authority. The purpose of doctors asking was to get an affirmative answer on the medical record of the child that would be accessible to Child Protective Services investigators who, with a few other sneaky changes in the meaning of "at risk" as applied to children (like by non-legislatively imposing a regulation defining a gun in the house as an inherent "risk" to the child) so that Social Services would have essentially unlimited authority to invade and steal the children of anyone who happens to own a gun, which is an authority with so much compulsive power and threat that it in effect denies anyone with children the right to keep and bear arms because if they do so their children will be taken away from them and they can be prosecuted for "child abuse or neglect" simply for owning a gun.

This is not the simplistic agenda this ass-wipe author says it is, it's a deep, nefarious and entirely unconstitutional back-door attempt to seize guns and deny people their rights.

And that's what the fuckwit who wrote this doesn't want you to know.

Enough of the misleading if not disingenuous claims about threats to the Second Amendment — and enough of the bogus constitutional analysis.

He's a lying sack of shit and so is anyone who repeats his bilge.

[Hermit]

Here in Florida, the “any regulation of gun ownership violates Second Amendment rights” claim gave us the dangerous law (dangerous mostly for the children of Florida) that threatens doctors with the loss of their license should they initiate conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home, particularly in a home where there are children. Fortunately this law is not in effect because it is tied up in a constitutional challenge brought by several physicians and medical groups with the support of the ACLU.

Lawmakers apparently enacted this law (signed and championed by Gov. Rick Scott) out of concern that even talking about gun safety somehow threatens the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

What a delicious constitutional conundrum. If initiating conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home contravenes the second amendment, the prohibition of initiating such conversations contravenes the first.

The court also noted that the Second Amendment protects the possession of the sort of weapons that were “in common use at the time” of the adoption of the Second Amendment, in 1791, meaning that the “historical tradition” permits a prohibition on carrying dangerous and unusual weapons.

I see two intertwined problems here.

Firstly, the appeal to "weapons in common use at the time" is utter nonsense. Muskets and front-loading, single shot rifles are no longer "weapons in common use". Armies commonly bear fully automatic rifles and rocket propelled grenades these days. The point of having "a well regulated militia" is precisely to match the weaponry of any army with dangerous weapons of its own. As for "unusual" weapons, the court just threw that irrelevancy in to emphasise the fact that the author of an opinion, even if that author happens to be a judge sitting on the Supreme Court bench, can have a total brain fart.

Secondly, using “historical tradition” as an authority to reinterpret the constitution is also fundamentally flawed. "Historical tradition” alone cannot do that. Only further amendments can. Without them the US would still have the historical tradition of slavery (abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment) and the historical tradition of not letting women vote would also still exist (fixed with the Nineteenth Amendment).

[Seth]

Here in Florida, the “any regulation of gun ownership violates Second Amendment rights” claim gave us the dangerous law (dangerous mostly for the children of Florida) that threatens doctors with the loss of their license should they initiate conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home, particularly in a home where there are children. Fortunately this law is not in effect because it is tied up in a constitutional challenge brought by several physicians and medical groups with the support of the ACLU.

Lawmakers apparently enacted this law (signed and championed by Gov. Rick Scott) out of concern that even talking about gun safety somehow threatens the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

What a delicious constitutional conundrum. If initiating conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home contravenes the second amendment, the prohibition of initiating such conversations contravenes the first.

No more so than the requirement that anti-abortion family planning counselors are compelled to give clients information on abortionists. It's a "commerce clause" issue having to do with the doctors operating under federal rules. You have to understand that the "initiating conversations" was not to be optional, it was to be mandatory and enforced by the feds through sanctions on doctors who refused to do so who accepted federal funding. As recipients of federal funding (medicare/medicaid) they are required to ask certain questions as a part of their agreement with the federal government. The Florida legislature passed the law to give doctors the right to refuse to do so by making it a criminal offense to require them to do so.

The court also noted that the Second Amendment protects the possession of the sort of weapons that were “in common use at the time” of the adoption of the Second Amendment, in 1791, meaning that the “historical tradition” permits a prohibition on carrying dangerous and unusual weapons.

I see two intertwined problems here.

Firstly, the appeal to "weapons in common use at the time" is utter nonsense. Muskets and front-loading, single shot rifles are no longer "weapons in common use".

Indeed.

Armies commonly bear fully automatic rifles and rocket propelled grenades these days. The point of having "a well regulated militia" is precisely to match the weaponry of any army with dangerous weapons of its own. As for "unusual" weapons, the court just threw that irrelevancy in to emphasise the fact that the author of an opinion, even if that author happens to be a judge sitting on the Supreme Court bench, can have a total brain fart.

Actually, they threw it in as a sop to the liberals on the Court so that rather than making an absolute ruling supporting gun rights they left loopholes open for federal regulation by leaving the definition of "dangerous or unusual" weapons carefully undefined, thereby leaving it up to the feds (using Obamaesque administrative abuses) or by Congress to define away people's rights. In other words, they punted the decision as far down the road as they could so they (the cowards) wouldn't have to do what they have an obligation to do, which is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. They've been punting this for more than a hundred years, and we're exceedingly fortunate to get the rulings we now have in Heller and McDonald, which never would have been heard if the scholarship on the actual meaning of the 2nd Amendment had not been done in the last 20 years or so.

Secondly, using “historical tradition” as an authority to reinterpret the constitution is also fundamentally flawed. "Historical tradition” alone cannot do that. Only further amendments can. Without them the US would still have the historical tradition of slavery (abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment) and the historical tradition of not letting women vote would also still exist (fixed with the Nineteenth Amendment).

Yup. That's what gun banners and environuts fail to understand. Just because Obama is frustrated that Congress is refusing to act on his pet projects doesn't give him authority to bypass Congress. If Congress declines to do as he asks, he just has to suck it up and faithfully enforce the laws Congress DOES pass.

If gun banners want to ban guns, then they have to try to do so by amending the Constitution, not that they would be allowed to do so even if they did.

[Tero]

Professors post opposition to Heller
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk ... -amendment

[Seth]

Professors post opposition to Heller
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk ... -amendment

You mean these professors?

An important statement of what is generally referred to as the collective-rights interpretation—the idea that what the Second Amendment protects is the people’s collective right to keep and bear arms to form militias for the common defense—is an amicus curiae submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller, signed by fifteen eminent university professors of early American history, including Pauline Maier, Fred Anderson, and Pulitzer Prizes winners Jack Rakove and Alan Taylor. It concludes,

"Historians are often asked what the Founders would think about various aspects of contemporary life. Such questions can be tricky to answer. But as historians of the Revolutionary era we are confident at least of this: that the authors of the Second Amendment would be flabbergasted to learn that in endorsing the republican principle of a well-regulated militia, they were also precluding restrictions on such potentially dangerous property as firearms, which governments had always regulated when there was “real danger of public injury from individuals.” "

The problem with this statement is that it is mendacious in the extreme. In other words, it's not only just an unfounded and factually incorrect opinion, it amounts to a lie when repeated by the author of the article.

Why, you ask?

Well to begin with these so-called "professors" improperly conflate the reasonable regulation of the operation of arms with the otherwise peaceable keeping (possessing) and bearing of those arms. Does the 2nd Amendment "preclude restrictions on such potentially dangerous property as firearms?" No, it does not. What it precludes is not "restrictions," what it precludes is infringement on the right to keep and bear firearms. What this very dishonest and entirely unscholarly quote demonstrates is a devious attempt to classify firearms as "potentially dangerous property" in order to justify banning them as one might ban the possession of stockpiles of Sarin gas or the keeping of high explosives in residential areas.

The term "such potentially dangerous property as firearms" is another deliberately and mendaciously loaded term that was concocted in order to demonize inanimate lumps of metal, plastic and wood as being somehow as inherently dangerous and uncontrollable as a crate of crystallized dynamite. Of course the notion is ridiculous because firearms are only dangerous when they are operated by a human being and are no more dangerous than is a 10 ton front-end loader when properly operated. But when operated for criminal purposes, a 10-ton front-end loader is probably more dangerous than a firearm, as some Israelis discovered.

The other gross propagandistic mendacity is where they say "which governments had always regulated when there was “real danger of public injury from individuals." Here they conflate the widespread lawful, peaceable keeping and bearing of arms with unlawful use and operation of firearms by "individuals" in an attempt to argue that the Founders would be "flabbergasted" at the prospect of trusting the vast, overwhelming majority of honest, law-abiding citizens to properly and safely keep and bear their arms. What they, and you utterly ignore in a most dishonest and propagandistic fashion is the simple fact that the Founders themselves were armed, the citizenry was armed, the citizenry needed to be armed for more than defense against tyranny, and in many cases the citizenry was required by state law and Colonial ordinances previously to be armed.

What these so-called scholars are doing is purveying bald-faced lies about the history of the thirteen Colonies and the United States and they are manufacturing opinions about what the Founders thought and intended, not to mention what they might feel today, out of whole cloth. Worse, their lies cannot be put off to gross ignorance as much of your bilge can be. They know better, which means that they are deliberately lying about history as a part of a political agenda that renders everything they say suspect and dismissable.


This statement by the author, Jill Lepore, for example, is flatly a lie.

The assertion that the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to own and carry a gun for self-defense, rather than the people’s right to form militias for the common defense, first became a feature of American political and legal discourse in the wake of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and only gained prominence in the nineteen-seventies.

It's not a modern "assertion" to state that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right, it's a historical fact. How do I know this? Because that's what the Founders said when they wrote the Amendment and that's what the Supreme Court affirmed in both the Heller and McDonald cases. This liberal twit author mouths the same lie that every other liberal anti-gun twit mouths, and the same one you constantly try to foist off as a truth because they, and you, hope that by telling the Big Lie over and over and over again it will become the perceived truth. And that is why I refute it when I see it.

You see, the Supreme Court doesn't "invent" anything when it rules on a constitutional interpretation. What it does is to examine the historical record contemporaneous with the Founders and their writings on the subject in question to determine what they originally meant and intended by what they wrote and ratified. And when the Court did so, what it found was what it ruled: the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected to membership in a militia.

That the debate became a matter of widespread public interest is entirely the fault of anti-gun democrats and liberals who sought to deliberately, intentionally and knowingly misinterpret the 2nd Amendment as a "militia only" authority in their quest to ban, in particular, handguns and so-called "assault weapons" back in the eighties. This push culminated in Clinton's 1994 assault weapons manufacturing ban, which galvanized gun owners to action to defend their rights, which were then, and remain today, under heavy attack by liars like Lepore and you. What happened as a result is that widespread and organized research into the history of the 2nd Amendment, which was indeed largely "forgotten," began in earnest and was conducted by scholars and academics with credentials that could not be questioned.

Twenty years of detailed research provided a mountain of evidence proving what the Court eventually ruled to be true. And now that the evidence has been collated and ruled upon by the Supreme Court, one would think that rational, reasonable people would quit trying to lie about it, but you and Lepore are still at it. But we have the 2nd Amendment and the Supreme Court ruling on our side, so the issue is pretty much moot except for the loophole the Court left regarding the definition of "especially dangerous" arms, which will of course have to be adjudicated, probably many times at great expense. But we're determined to wage that final battle to the end if necessary, just as we were willing to wage the battle to destroy the specious "militia only" canard you keep spewing.

Next, the propagandistic characterization of the Militia Clause as "insurrectionist" is pure Big Lie propaganda.

Levinson also discussed what is called an insurrectionist interpretation, in which the Second Amendment is thought to allow for a militia of armed citizens standing “ready to defend republican liberty against the depredations” of a government become tyrannical.
...

Garry Wills called Levinson’s essay, which had been embraced by the N.R.A., “frivolous,” and reported that he found “a vast outpouring of articles justifying individual gun ownership on the basis of the Second Amendment” to be muddled and tendentious. Wills also noted that, in advancing gun-rights arguments, the same people who offered the individual-rights interpretation usually also endorsed the insurrectionist one. “Only madmen, one would think, can suppose that militias have a constitutional right to levy war against the United States, which is treason by constitutional definition,” Wills wrote. “Yet the body of writers who proclaim themselves at the scholarly center of the Second Amendment’s interpretation say that a well-regulated body authorized by the government is intended to train itself for action against the government.” As to whether those who advocate these positions had been ignored, Wills wrote, “Perhaps it is the quality of their arguments that makes them hard to take seriously.”

The term "insurrectionist" is a disparaging term of art used by Lepore to derogate the principle behind the militia clause by loading it in advance with a pejorative burden.

The truth however is that the Founders were keenly aware of the potential for government, any government, to turn to tyranny, no matter how benignly it might have once been constituted. In order to provide a bulwark against a predatory government the Founders protected the individual right to keep and bear arms in part so that the people could call up militias to defend the "security of a free state." Wills and Lepore choose to mischaracterize this bulwark as an "insurrectionist" interpretation because it suits their narrative to do so, but what the Founders meant, and intended, was that the People, from whom all just powers exercised by government are derived, always have the right to put down a tyrant who has subverted and taken over the machinery of government to create a tyrannical, not a free, state.

Thus, the bulwark of an armed citizenry with the ability to rise up against "the government" is precisely, exactly and intentionally "a well-regulated body authorized by the government is intended to train itself for action against the government." What Wills and Lepore both mendaciously elide is what government the militia is intended to be used against. By using the term "insurrectionist" they imply that the militia is intended to be used against the legitimate government, but that is not the case. The militia clause of the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms by the people it protects is intended to ensure that the People always have the arms and ability to overthrow an illegitimate and tyrannical government.

That's what the Founders had just done to Mad King George. What he called "insurrection" was actually "revolution" aimed at freeing the people from despotism and tyranny, which the Founders clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence, made his "government" and his authority illegitimate, which justified the Colonies in overthrowing it's rule.

So, when Wills writes, "Only madmen, one would think, can suppose that militias have a constitutional right to levy war against the United States, which is treason by constitutional definition," and Lepore quotes him, and you quote both of them you are all ignoring the very principles upon which the United States came into being in the first place. This principle is well stated by the following:

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. (emphasis added)

So, as we see, you, Lepore and Will are all either despicable liars or ignoramuses of such magnitude that you should be shut up in a mental institution.

The "insurrectionist" interpretation is anything but. It's a reservation of the right of the People to determine how they will be governed and a preservation of the ultimate means of ensuring that they can always make such a determination even if they have the boot-heel of an illegitimate tyrant on their necks.

The key is that any government that does not obey the will of the People is not a legitimate government and therefore taking up arms against such tyranny is neither treason nor insurrection, it's armed defense of the Constitution and the rights of the People against those, like you, who would usurp the power we, the People, have authorized our legitimate government to exercise on our behalf and for our benefit.

So, once again your agenda is defeated by history, facts and reason.

[Hermit]

Here in Florida, the “any regulation of gun ownership violates Second Amendment rights” claim gave us the dangerous law (dangerous mostly for the children of Florida) that threatens doctors with the loss of their license should they initiate conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home, particularly in a home where there are children. Fortunately this law is not in effect because it is tied up in a constitutional challenge brought by several physicians and medical groups with the support of the ACLU.

Lawmakers apparently enacted this law (signed and championed by Gov. Rick Scott) out of concern that even talking about gun safety somehow threatens the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

What a delicious constitutional conundrum. If initiating conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home contravenes the second amendment, the prohibition of initiating such conversations contravenes the first.

It's a "commerce clause" issue having to do with the doctors operating under federal rules. You have to understand that the "initiating conversations" was not to be optional, it was to be mandatory and enforced by the feds through sanctions on doctors who refused to do so who accepted federal funding. As recipients of federal funding (medicare/medicaid) they are required to ask certain questions as a part of their agreement with the federal government. The Florida legislature passed the law to give doctors the right to refuse to do so by making it a criminal offense to require them to do so.

Most of Florida’s Firearm Owners Privacy Act provisions are commonsensical and unobjectionable, and if the bit of your post I took the liberty to bold was what else the Act was about, I'd see nothing wrong with it either. The problem is that the Act goes further than that. Look at §790.338(1);(ii)

A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 shall respect a patient’s right to privacy and should refrain from making a written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in a private home or other domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient.

The way it looks to me is that medical practitioners are not given the right to refuse to ask certain questions as a part of their agreement with the federal government - they are enjoined to not ask them under pain of prosecution. That enjoinment makes it a First Amendment rather than a commerce clause issue.

[Tero]

>>
Well to begin with these so-called "professors" improperly conflate the reasonable regulation of the operation of arms with the otherwise peaceable keeping (possessing) and bearing of those arms. Does the 2nd Amendment "preclude restrictions on such potentially dangerous property as firearms?" No, it does not. What it precludes is not "restrictions," what it precludes is infringement on the right to keep and bear firearms. What this very dishonest and entirely unscholarly quote demonstrates is a devious attempt to classify firearms as "potentially dangerous property" in order to justify banning them as one might ban the possession of stockpiles of Sarin gas or the keeping of high explosives in residential areas..<<
Restrictions, infringement whatever. Heller decided the right is not unlimited.

The professors have no arms agenda. They just interpret historical documents. So do you but always in favor of guns. Selective and biased.

[Seth]

Most of Florida’s Firearm Owners Privacy Act provisions are commonsensical and unobjectionable, and if the bit of your post I took the liberty to bold was what else the Act was about, I'd see nothing wrong with it either. The problem is that the Act goes further than that. Look at §790.338(1);(ii)

A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 shall respect a patient’s right to privacy and should refrain from making a written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in a private home or other domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient.

The way it looks to me is that medical practitioners are not given the right to refuse to ask certain questions as a part of their agreement with the federal government - they are enjoined to not ask them under pain of prosecution. That enjoinment makes it a First Amendment rather than a commerce clause issue.

Actually the word "should" renders your argument inapplicable. That word means it's optional but recommended, not a criminal offense to do so. It does require that a doctor "respect a patient's right to privacy" which likely means that even if an inquiry is made the doctor is obliged to treat the information as he would treat any other medical information, which is as being privileged information not to be disclosed to others without permission or necessity. This would likely be used to forestall a demand by the feds to access a doctor's notes, if any, on the subject, by evidently defining such information as being privileged medical information. It seems more a defense of patient privacy, which doctors are, and may lawfully be required by law to respect and defend. Doctors do NOT have the right of free speech with respect to patient medical records, that much is certain. The "should" seems to me to be a strong warning against doing so that will, by implication, be enforced using the patient privacy provisions of Florida law with respect to the use or release of any such information that might be collected to the feds or anyone else.

The legislature could have simply said that "any such inquiry and the answers to such questions shall be deemed to be private, privileged patient medical information that may not be shared with anyone without the prior written permission of the patient under penalty of law."

[Hermit]

Most of Florida’s Firearm Owners Privacy Act provisions are commonsensical and unobjectionable, and if the bit of your post I took the liberty to bold was what else the Act was about, I'd see nothing wrong with it either. The problem is that the Act goes further than that. Look at §790.338(1);(ii)

A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 shall respect a patient’s right to privacy and should refrain from making a written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in a private home or other domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient.

The way it looks to me is that medical practitioners are not given the right to refuse to ask certain questions as a part of their agreement with the federal government - they are enjoined to not ask them under pain of prosecution. That enjoinment makes it a First Amendment rather than a commerce clause issue.

Actually the word "should" renders your argument inapplicable. That word means it's optional but recommended...

That is not how the judges of the appeals court read the act. In the words of the majority (Tjoflat, Coogler) it "requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others." Wilson, dissenting on the issue of the constitutionality of the Act, declined to pen another dissent on the grounds that he has already written it up twice before and prefers to rest on them, agrees with them on this point.

[JimC]

...requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others...

That seems reasonably broad, in that it should allow them to inform authorities if there is a reasonable chance of one of their patients harming themselves or others with a gun...

All it does is stops them gossiping about private information if there is no good reason to do so.

[Hermit]

...requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others...

That seems reasonably broad, in that it should allow them to inform authorities if there is a reasonable chance of one of their patients harming themselves or others with a gun...

All it does is stops them gossiping about private information if there is no good reason to do so.

The purpose of the First Amendment is not to stop gossip, and the patient has every right to refuse to answer.

[Tero]

The second amendment was originally the 4th, with an extra comma
http://www.constitution.org/billofr_.htm

Meanwhile

Obama OK:d to control guns but system will be overloaded

Citing the Gun Control Act, which lists people such as felons or domestic abusers who are not allowed to purchase a firearm, as well as the Heller Case, where the Supreme Court clarified and held up Second Amendment rights, Lynch said the steps taken by the President are lawful and "built on work that's already underway."

While Lynch said she "has no illusions that these measures by themselves will end gun violence in America," they may have prevented the Charleston church mass shooting with enhancements to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) database.

In addition, Lynch said some 1,300 guns each year recovered from crime scenes turn out to be lost or stolen, and that the executive actions would result in law enforcement's ability to begin investigations sooner.

With more than 23 million background checks going through the NICS system last year, a system Lynch characterized as "overwhelmed," the Justice Department would need $121 million to hire new NICS employees in addition to moving to a fully electronic platforms in order to implement Obama's executive actions, she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/20/politics/ ... e-actions/

[Seth]

The second amendment was originally the 4th, with an extra comma

What a load of horseshit. Now you're trying to argue that unratified drafts of the Bill of Rights constitute some sort of precedent? How much more legally ignorant can you possibly get?