"Repeal the Second Amendment" -- article

[berettafan]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1
Firearms make poor nail drivers.

I think Bill Wilson would disagree....

[72doug2,2S]

Is "the people" defined as individuals or as a State Militia?

Individuals = State Militia

What's the problem?

[Racerbvd]

Originally posted by Dantilla
How come nobody ever questions the first amendment?

They do, if you are white, you don't have that right.

[berettafan]

Originally posted by Lothar
And what elitist ruling-class type do you propose should decide what the "average citizen" needs.

The Second Amendment makes no mention of what type or how many arms a citizen might "need". It simply protects the right of people to bear arms by prohibiting the government from infringing on that right.

Gun control, by its very nature, infringes on the right of the people to bear arms and is therefore unconstitutional.

Very well said. This is exactly where gun control is heading.

[Moneyguy1]

That still does not answer the question.

individual= one citizen

militia= an organization of individuals, generally sanctioned by a state authority with the purpose of providing protection and order to the public in the case of natural disaster or some other kind of general threat.

See the difference?

Doggone it....Why is there not a straight answer here?

[Racerbvd]

Originally posted by Matt Holcomb
Repeal the Second Amendment

The best way to reduce the odds of another blood bath like the one at Virginia Tech is to amend the Constitution and abolish the right to bear arms.

By Walter Shapiro

Apr. 18, 2007 | Fifteen unambiguous words are all that would be required to quell the American-as-apple-pie cycle of gun violence that has now tearfully enshrined Virginia Tech in the record book of mass murder. Here are the 15 words that would deliver a mortal wound to our bang-bang culture of death: "The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

Even Pollyanna on Prozac would acknowledge the daunting odds against repeal. Steering an anti-gun constitutional amendment through, say, the Montana or Missouri legislatures (approval of three-quarters of the states is required for ratification) would be a task on par with cleaning the Augean stables. But the benefits of separating gun owners from their extraordinary constitutional protections should not be ignored. Without the Second Amendment, firearms could be regulated by the federal government in the same fashion as any other potentially dangerous devices, from coal-mine elevators to single-engine planes. While there is no way to guarantee that another Cho Seung-Hui would be deprived of access to a Glock, hitting the delete button on the Second Amendment surely would lower the odds against future mayhem.

Questioning the very existence of the Second Amendment would also transform the increasingly sterile congressional debates -- when they even occur -- over firearms. Gun control has become one of those quixotic crusades that conjure up noble intentions, overblown rhetoric and political defeat. The cause seems as moribund and musty as a Dukakis sticker on a Volvo. Congress even lacks the political gumption to revive the expired Clinton-era ban on assault weapons, firearms that are more useful for storming beachheads than hunting deer. Instead of regulating guns, the Republican Congress moved boldly in 2005 to shield gun manufacturers from class action suits. And just last month, a federal appeals court overturned the no-nonsense District of Columbia law outlawing handguns as a violation of the Second Amendment.

Despite a decade-long string of such political victories, the National Rifle Association still revels in the apocalyptic imagery of liberal jackboots trampling on the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of gun-loving patriots. After the Democrats took control of Congress last November, the NRA issued a brochure that began ominously, "Second Amendment freedom today stands naked in the path of a marching axis of adversaries far darker and more dangerous than gun owners have ever known."

Small wonder that liberals have become timorous under fire from the NRA militants. When even the most modest reforms -- such as regulating gun sales between private individuals -- are ridiculed as radical nostrums, it is hard for politicians to justify squandering their political capital on a seemingly hopeless cause. Frustrated by the constraints imposed by the right-to-bear-arms language in the Second Amendment, proponents of gun-control legislation have always worked on the margins. "Close the gun-show loophole" is not likely to be remembered as one of the most stirring slogans in political history.

The result has been a blunt form of cost-benefit analysis among politicians. If federal gun-control efforts mandating background checks and waiting periods do not solve the larger problem of too many unstable Americans shooting first and asking questions later (insert Dick Cheney reference here), why risk political defeat to uphold and expand these modest laws? Even in the battle to save lives from gun violence, senators and congressmen are understandably reluctant to gamble with their own careers.

Since the NRA would probably claim that legislation to ban private possession of atomic weapons is part of a plot to destroy the Second Amendment, maybe it is time for liberals to stop denying the charge. Authenticity and truth-telling often work better in politics than weaselly and palpably insincere statements like, "No one is more dedicated a hunter and lover of the Second Amendment than I am, but..." If gun-control advocates are going to be hanged in effigy for their views, they should at least have the momentary enjoyment of making a speech from the scaffold expressing their true sentiments. Without having to endlessly fret about the constitutionality of any regulatory effort to reduce gun-related deaths, liberals might be able to directly discuss the benefits of such legislation in terms that even open-minded members of the NRA might appreciate.

Looking at the Bill of Rights with more than two centuries' hindsight, it is simply irrational that firearms have a protected position on par with freedom of speech and religion. Were Americans -- liberal or conservative -- writing a Constitution completely from scratch today, they probably would agree that something akin to "freedom to drive" was more far important than the "right to bear arms." The rights of state militias (which many liberal legal theorists argue is the essence of the Second Amendment) are as much a throwback to an 18th century mind-set as restrictions on quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime (the little-remembered Third Amendment).

At the moment, of course, repealing the Second Amendment seems as politically plausible as welcoming Iraq as the 51st state. But think of how many other causes have gone from the radical to the routine in a single generation. Not even a decade ago, civil unions for gay couples seemed laughably utopian. Now it is the bipartisan middle-ground position in both parties (insert second Cheney reference). When the conservative Federalist Society was founded in 1982 with the goal of combating the liberal tilt to the federal judiciary, not even its founders could have imagined how successful they would be a quarter-century later.

Times change, generations pass and attitudes evolve. As fears of crime recede in many places, nervous homeowners may no longer be obsessed with having a .45 by the bedside to blow away phantom intruders. There is also an implicit racial component here with the bygone Archie Bunker generation having a specific image of exactly whom they feared climbing in a window at night. Even the fearsome NRA may well sharply decline as a political force, much as once-fierce-jawed interest groups like the American Legion and the labor movement have grown increasingly toothless over the past quarter-century.

Against this backdrop, liberals should look at the firearms issue from a long-term perspective, instead of going into a fetal crouch over how gun control will play in the next election. A repeal movement would at best take 15 to 20 years to reach critical mass, so this is not the moment to play litmus-test politics and require White House contenders to take self-defeating positions guaranteed to be excoriated in attack ads in West Virginia. But this would be an appropriate time for overly earnest gun-controllers to rethink their tone and their rhetoric to better understand why their opponents are so politically adept at tarring them as elitists. After all, hunters and marksmen no more need the Second Amendment to practice their sports than archers and race-car drivers require similar constitutional protection.

Rather than ducking a debate with the conservatives over the eternal primacy of the Second Amendment, gun-control backers should embrace it. Since right-wing Republicans are zealously championing constitutional amendments on everything from abortion to a balanced budget, it would take intellectual jujitsu for them to explain why the First Amendment is worthy of improvement (by severing flag burning from free speech), but the Second Amendment unquestionably must remain sacrosanct. For only in Tom Clancy-esque mythology are weekend hunters carrying assault weapons a bulwark against tyranny. Only in a nation forged by 18th century concerns about liberty and states' rights do firearms have a hallowed place in the Constitution.

It doesn't have to be that way. Any more than we as Americans have to continually face the real-life meaning of that gruesome, blood-soaked, gun-toting word "massacre" because of the outmoded language of the Second Amendment.

He was in a Gun Free Zone that didn't do a a lot of good did it?? Of course I woudn't expect you to understand. Take away my guns, I'll just build one, places like here;
http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/ZipGun.shtml

Did you notice where that site is from???? Another Gun Free LOL!! country

[stomachmonkey]

Originally posted by Racerbvd
They do, if you are white, you don't have that right.

Take that BS back to the other thread.

[berettafan]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1
That still does not answer the question.

individual= one citizen

militia= an organization of individuals, ********generally sanctioned by a state authority************ with the purpose of providing protection and order to the public in the case of natural disaster or some other kind of general threat.

See the difference?

Doggone it....Why is there not a straight answer here?

Please note the part I put asterisks around. What you are describing is the National Guard. The National Guard has absolutely zero in common with the intended 'militia'.




Oh and here is some more 1911 porn.........

[lendaddy]

Can you point to any comments by the founders even hinting that they intended only regulated militia members be armed? It does not matter how you define militia as the intent was individual. Countless quotes by the founders prove this out. If I've missed their writings of only armed militias I would love to read them.

[lendaddy]

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788

[lendaddy]

"The right [to bear arms] is general. It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been explained elsewhere, consists of those persons who, under the laws, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon.... [I]f the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of the guarantee might be defeated altogether by the action or the neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in so doing the laws of public order."
-- Thomas M. Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law, Third Edition [1898]

[Moneyguy1]

len....Your statement simply points out the abiguity of the second amendment. It still does not answer the basic question since there is, apparently, no consensus at any level on that part of the law's meaning. It is subject to individual interpretation.

I would be very interested in the sources you have. Seriously. If I am in error and the issue has been legally decided, I would be glad to admit it.

B.F. :I assume the photos are a means of intimidation? BTW: "National Guard"...your reference; not mine. Another "straw man" argument.

Too much emotion involved in this subject; not enough common sense.

[lendaddy]

Bob, if the intent were that the milia only could be armed then we would certainly find quotes from the founders saying things like "the untrained and unloyal shall not have means to a cannon" or some other flowery denial. I have never seen such a thing and I don't question why as it's obvious to me.

[72doug2,2S]

Yes, it does answer the question. Reread.

Individuals = State Militia

[Moneyguy1]

This has been a very good and for the most part civil discussion. Thanks.

I am not disagreeing. I was looking for a source that state what to many is obvious.

[berettafan]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1

B.F. :I assume the photos are a means of intimidation? BTW: "National Guard"...your reference; not mine. Another "straw man" argument.

Intimidation? WTF have you been smoking lately?

As i stated (RTFP as they say) the pics are just woody material for my fellow gun-owning p-car buddies!

Put the frappaccino decaf down and quit being such a nancy

[berettafan]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1
This has been a very good and for the most part civil discussion. Thanks.

there is nothing 'civil' about accusing a fellow of trying to intimidate you by posting pics of finely crafted firearms. that, my friend, is a window to your true attitude on this subject.

[Jeff Higgins]

Second Amendment

– Right to keep and bear arms.
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.

Fourth Amendment

– Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


Ninth Amendment

– Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment

– Powers of states and people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Who "The People" of the Second Ammendment are, Bob are not ambiguous in the least. There is no room for "interpretation" on who these people are; they are the same "people" of the 4th, 9th, and 10th Ammendments.

[FrayAdjacent911]

It is made very obvious, through what Jeff posted, that 'THE PEOPLE' means individual American citizens.

Thus the operative clause in the Second Amendment that defines WHAT is protected and to WHOM the right belongs:

The right OF THE PEOPLE to KEEP AND BEAR ARMS shall not be infringed.

[Lothar]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1
That really doesn't answer the basic question. Is "the people" defined as individuals or as a State Militia?

HOLY CRAP!!!

You leftists just don't get it. The People means Individuals. Our entire nation was founded on the notion of individual soveriegnty!!! Rights are from The Creator not your bloody stupid government.

What is so friggin hard to understand about that. You "collectivists" will be the death of this republic yet.