Connecticut (et al)

[JimC]

And how do you come to equate "liberty" with "semi-automatics with high capacity magazines, howitzers, tanks, M2 machine guns, and whatever else you and your friends have"?

Because they have a delusion that they could use such military supplies stop the big, bad government from being mean to them...

[Seth]

The 2nd Amendment was not intended to mean that anybody who wants to buy an AR-15 should legally be allowed to do so any more than it means that anybody who wants to buy a howitzer should legally be allowed to do so.

Um, for someone who's supposed to be a spook, you know absolutely nothing about the law. It IS legal to own a howitzer. I've got a friend who owns half a dozen of them, and a tank (with operating gun), and a bunch of 105mm recoilless rifles, and grenades, and artillery rounds, and machine guns and all sorts of good stuff like that. It's all perfectly legal under the NFA to own. You just have to pass a background check and pay a $200 tax on each NFA item.

Let me repeat, it is perfectly legal to own machine guns, artillery pieces, hand grenades, 40mm grenade launchers, Claymore mines, rockets and rocket launchers and any other kind of military arms that you are willing and able to acquire within the law. You can even build your own explosive devices and suchlike, if you have an SOT (Special Occupational Taxpayer) license, which costs you $1000 per year and must be issued to anyone who legally qualified to get one who can pay.

The point always manages to go right over your head, doesn't it? Seth, I wasn't talking about the handful of jerkoffs (including your friend) who jump through paperwork hoops and pay special fees to own things like this. I'm talking about what is available over the counter to anyone without so much as a look at a driver's license let alone with a federal background check or having their weapons noted in a registry.

But that's not what you said. You said, "...anybody who wants to buy a howitzer should legally be allowed to do so." I proved that you are wrong because anybody who wants to buy a howitzer can legally own one, provided they are not disqualified from possessing arms and ammunition.

Since you're so interested in the law and interpretating the 2nd Amendment, I'm sure you're aware of how much more restrictive the laws were regarding firearms in the early years of the Republic. In many cases they were considerably more restrictive than today.

By "early years" I presume you mean prior to and immediately after the Civil War. Yes, indeed, there were many laws which forbade people from possessing arms...specifically black people. The greatest fear of southern slave owners, and after the war southern people in general was that blacks would arm themselves and engage in retribution against whites for a century of slavery. This was not an unfounded fear, although it took a long time for the various laws and precedents that were enacted during that time to be wiped off the books by civil rights laws.

But those laws rarely applied to white folks, and even if they did so facially, white people in the south were almost never prosecuted and were able to get special dispensation (permits) that exempted them from the law.

Since then the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, which has traditionally been deliberately misinterpreted by legislators and courts, has returned to the original intent of the Founders thanks in large part to the scholarship and historical research of people like David Kopel of the Independence Institute and many other legal scholars and historians who have compiled a massive body of work that irrefutably proves precisely what the Supreme Court affirmed in Heller and McDonald; that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a pre-existing natural right held by all persons, and that the 2nd Amendment bars Congress, and through the 14th Amendment the states, from "infringing" on that right.

The 2nd Amendment has never been stronger and interpreted more favorably for firearms owners than today, and we're not going to let it go backwards to fit some hoplophobe's idiotic notions.

[Jason]

Perhaps a majority of the population will eventually equate "liberty" with "freedom from crazy people with all that military hardware".

[Seth]

And how do you come to equate "liberty" with "semi-automatics with high capacity magazines, howitzers, tanks, M2 machine guns, and whatever else you and your friends have"?

Because it is our right to keep and bear them, and therefore we are at liberty to do so. That's an essential aspect of liberty because it is those arms that guarantee all of the other rights that Congress is prohibited from infringing upon by the Constitution.

My possession of arms is a danger to no one but criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic and the Constitution, so there is no reason to bar me from having them unless you are a criminal, traitor or enemy of the Republic and the Constitution. Indeed, in my view, attempting to infringe upon my right to keep and bear arms makes you a criminal, a traitor (if you're a citizen) and an enemy of the Republic and the Constitution because the only possible reason that someone would have to do so is to weaken me and our Republic and make us all vulnerable to criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic and the Constitution.

I resolve not to allow that to happen on my watch.

[Seth]

And how do you come to equate "liberty" with "semi-automatics with high capacity magazines, howitzers, tanks, M2 machine guns, and whatever else you and your friends have"?

Because they have a delusion that they could use such military supplies stop the big, bad government from being mean to them...

Yes, and it means that I can use such supplies to stop the big, bad criminals from being mean to me as well. I can also use them for hunting and recreation.

Blowing shit up is a LOT of fun. You should try it sometime...oh, wait, you can't because your Nanny State won't let you.

Poor baby sheeple.

[Seth]

It's just rhetoric used as a baby blanket. It meant something back in the late 18th Century. He and his crowd thinks it still makes perfect sense.

Indeed. That's because it does mean something. Something very important. Important enough that we are willing to resist attempts to divest us of that right using whatever means or force is necessary to achieve that end. Let's hope the ballot box works, because one of the next options is the cartridge box.

[Jason]

My possession of arms is a danger to no one but criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic and the Constitution, so there is no reason to bar me from having them unless you are a criminal, traitor or enemy of the Republic and the Constitution. Indeed, in my view, attempting to infringe upon my right to keep and bear arms makes you a criminal, a traitor (if you're a citizen) and an enemy of the Republic and the Constitution because the only possible reason that someone would have to do so is to weaken me and our Republic and make us all vulnerable to criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic and the Constitution.

So anyone who, by legitimate and democratic process, seeks to make changes to the laws which you hold as self-evident truths and inalienable rights, is a criminal and a traitor and so is placed in danger by people like you who possess arms and hold these views? Sounds a lot like tyranny doesn't it?

[Seth]

Pretty much. A civilian militia is a bad joke.

We need to make a distinction between a civilian militia, and a properly organised Army Reserve, where there is regular yearly training, and it is controlled by the regular army.

There is a distinction. Several of them in fact. Not only is there a federal Unorganized Militia, there are, in most states, state guard or state militias in which citizens have a duty to serve when called by the Governor.

The Organized Militia is trained and regulated by Congress, but is under the command of STATE-selected officers, and are not under Congressional control until formally called to duty by Congress. Until then they comprise the state and national guards which are under the command of the governors of the states.

None of them are under the command of the regular army until they are activated by Congress.

It's set up that way deliberately, to prevent National Guard troops from being misused by the military or called to duty without the consent of the Governors and Congress.

[Seth]

My possession of arms is a danger to no one but criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic and the Constitution, so there is no reason to bar me from having them unless you are a criminal, traitor or enemy of the Republic and the Constitution. Indeed, in my view, attempting to infringe upon my right to keep and bear arms makes you a criminal, a traitor (if you're a citizen) and an enemy of the Republic and the Constitution because the only possible reason that someone would have to do so is to weaken me and our Republic and make us all vulnerable to criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic and the Constitution.

So anyone who, by legitimate and democratic process, seeks to make changes to the laws which you hold as self-evident truths and inalienable rights, is a criminal and a traitor and so is placed in danger by people like you who possess arms and hold these views? Sounds a lot like tyranny doesn't it?

As long as it's a legitimate democratic process that respects the Constitution and the inherent, natural and unalienable rights of the People I'm fine with it. Attempting to repeal the 2nd Amendment or infringe upon the RKBA is not, however, respecting either the Constitution or my rights, and is sedition, treason and makes one an enemy of the Republic.

You see, the right to keep and bear arms is not granted by the Constitution or the 2nd Amendment, it pre-exists and exists independent of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or any government anywhere. It is a natural and inherent right of every individual on the planet.

So, even if the 2nd Amendment were repealed (good luck with that) the right to keep and bear arms would still exist, and it would still be a violation of that right to infringe upon it, regardless of what the majority wants to do. The "democratic majority" can no more vote away my right to keep and bear arms than it can vote away my right to own property or my right to life and liberty.

It can try to do so. It can claim it's done so, but the only way to enforce that decision is by killing those who refuse to acknowledge that tyrannous act by the majority. And that is WHY we keep and bear arms of a military nature, so that if anyone attempts to divest us of our rights, under color of law or otherwise, we have the power to resist and put down such a despotic regime and restore the Constitution and the Republic.



That's precisely as the Founders intended, having just done exactly that same thing themselves.

[Seth]

Perhaps a majority of the population will eventually equate "liberty" with "freedom from crazy people with all that military hardware".

Won't matter, this is not a matter of majority rule.

[Jason]

Perhaps a majority of the population will eventually equate "liberty" with "freedom from crazy people with all that military hardware".

Won't matter, this is not a matter of majority rule.

So your precious 'right' to bear arms trumps the will of the people and you hold them hostage to your predilections. Tyrant. There is no democracy here.

[Ian]

Seth, I couldn't help noticing that in your response you ducked the issue of background checks: y'know, the entire point of the post that you responded to?

Something to chew on: Illegal purchases at gun shows have replaced theft as criminals' preferred method of obtaining firearms.
http://www.vpc.org/studies/tupfour.htm

Ninety-something percent of the public favors 100% background checks on all weapons sold. Three-quarters of NRA members favor it as well. The NRA leadership does not. Where do you stand? I suspect it is actually with the majority of the public - in which case you are, indeed, in favor of more restrictions (quite a bit more, considering 40% of all guns sold in the US require no background checks), despite having claimed that you are in favor of fewer restrictions.

Something else to ponder: why do you suppose the NRA leadership likes to keep this rather huge loophole open? Is it ideology, or because they know which side their bread is buttered on?

[Ian]

By "early years" I presume you mean prior to and immediately after the Civil War.

Nope, I was referring to the first few decades of the US. When the 2nd Amendment was new.

The 2nd Amendment has never been stronger and interpreted more favorably for firearms owners than today, and we're not going to let it go backwards to fit some hoplophobe's idiotic notions.

Thus you're admitting that it is interpreted very differently from what the founders had in mind. So quit bitching about the intent of the amendment if you know full well that it is thoroughly misinterpreted by gun lovers like you today. You like to wave it around because it is tilted favorably towards you today. That's fine, but you shouldn't wave it around as proof that the law will always be on your side. It wasn't always, and I don't think it always will be.

Good luck not getting anything at all to go backwards though. In think you're in for a frustrating year.

[FBM]

I think much of what this guy says applies well whether you're arguing for or against guns.

[Jason]

I couldn't hear him over that unsecured phaser in a pouch on his gunsafe over his left shoulder.