Posted on 06/22/2016 4:25:09 AM PDT by lowbridge
But those who constantly appeal to that sentence in the Constitution as an obstacle to reasonable gun regulation are ignorant about the Founders’ own views about gun regulation.
Any honest historian of the early Republic will tell you that lax gun laws are not in fact pro-Second Amendment; they are anti-Second Amendment.
-snip
Pennsylvania, in its 1776 Constitution, was the first state to include an express provision affirming the right to bear arms. It also passed a stringent loyalty oath that disarmed a large proportion of its population.
Similar oaths were in force in most of the other states. When Congress considered amendments to the federal Constitution, New Hampshire offered an alternative to the text of what eventually became the Second Amendment. That proposal would have prohibited Congress from disarming “any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.”
Congress wisely rejected this extreme measure because it would have made America at the time less secure. But the State of New Hampshire had disarmed loyalists during the Revolution. No one disputed that it was perfectly legal for the state to do this; the concern was giving Congress the same power that states had already exercised repeatedly.
The Founders were also aware of a variety of common-law restrictions on keeping and bearing arms. Under common law, any person in the community could approach a justice of the peace and demand that an individual be preemptively disarmed if they posed a danger to public safety. Such persons would be required to post a peace bond, much like a modern bail bond.
All of which is to say, the right to keep and bear arms was never an absolute freedom. It was always balanced against public safety.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Note that he quotes not a single founding father.
Saul tells us what the founder fathers meant to say in the 2nd Amendment.
While talking out his a** to do it.
The stupid is strong in this one.
Very weak argument.
Article IX
Sect. XXI. To bear arms. That the right of the citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned. PA State Constitution of 1790 (successor to 1776 Constitution and in line with the 2nd Amendment, US Constitution).
Freedom of the press is NOT absolute. You can’t print libel, sedition or treason.
Freedom of speech is NOT absolute. You can’t yell “Fire” in a crowded theater or “Bomb” in any public place.
So too, the 2nd Amendment is NOT absolute. There are weapons that truly have no business in the hands of the people - nuclear weapons, tanks, ships of war, etc. - and those restricted to licensed people - i.e., automatic weapons.
Let’s Review-
Accusing others of being ignorant while being ignorant yourself.
Cherry picking examples.
Redefining words.
Strawman arguments.
Re-interpreting the stated intent of the founders.
Ignoring contrary arguments.
All in all your typical media/academic anti 2nd amendment article.
The phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state," does not in any way imply or require that a person be a member of a militia in order to exercise their right keep and bear arms. It simply says that a well drilled militia is necessary to the security of a free state.
The purpose of the article is just to confuse the issue. I suspect the truth is that Mr. Cornell actually hates the idea of "a free state" and is using his academic position to the best of his ability to destroy it.
From 1765 to 1783, we were under British rule or fighting British rule. The laws that were in effect then have nothing to do with the meaning or intent of the Bill of Rights that followed that long war - except that the BOR was written to correct the grave injustices under British laws. The Bill of Rights was written in 1789, and the fact that those rights were occasionally violated before its approval is evidence of why the Second Amendment was and still is needed, not that it was or is meaningless.
headstamp 2 wrote: Saul tells us what the founder fathers meant to say in the 2nd Amendment.
His argument is simple: since some gun ownership was banned under some circumstances to some persons, we can ban all gun ownership under all circumstances to all persons.
Hey Saul I wonder if you can tell me what the British were up to and where they were going when the American Patriots stopped them and “the shot heard round the world” was fired. the Americans drew the line at that point and were willing to fight the most powerful army in the world to keep the British from completing the mission. what were the British doing?
A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America 1st Edition
"Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong.
"Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He shows how the modern "collective right" view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders. Likewise, the modern "individual right" view emerged only in the nineteenth century.
"The modern debate, Cornell reveals, has its roots in the nineteenth century, during America's first and now largely forgotten gun violence crisis, when the earliest gun control laws were passed and the first cases on the right to bear arms came before the courts. Equally important, he describes how the gun control battle took on a new urgency during Reconstruction, when Republicans and Democrats clashed over the meaning of the right to bear arms and its connection to the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Democrats defeated the Republicans, it elevated the "collective rights" theory to preeminence and set the terms for constitutional debate over this issue for the next century.
"A Well Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must read."
and here is the highest rated Amazon critical comment:
A Book Whose Case Is Simply Not Well Argued, February 19, 2011 By Kevin Currie-Knight
This review is from: A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America (Paperback)
The "right" views our second amendment "right to keep and bear arms" as a right of private citizens to own whatever weapons they choose. The "left" sees this right as only valid if used for militia purposes (and, thus, practically obsolete in today's very militia-less US). Historian Saul Cornell has written a book that suggests something of a middle ground: the second amendment, Cornell tells us, was largely borne of a belief that standing armies should be avoided and, therefore, owning arms was necessary as a civic duty to ensure that state militias could exist. Thus, the second amendment did not preclude the government from regulating firearm possession, but only precluded them from disallowing firearm use.
The author goes through history in attempt to prove his thesis. In the aftermath of the American revolution, he notes, there was a palpable fear among the people of the nation having a standing army during peacetime. Militias made up of citizens were the equivalent of an army then, and to ensure that they continue and remain effective, states had an interest in making sure individuals were armed, but also in regulating what those arms could be and could be used for. States could also call on citizens to fight on behalf of the state (a form of conscription).
The author also suggests that the second amendment owes its existence to the anti-federalist writers whose key rationale for a right to bear arms as a fear of the national government obliterating state militias by banning ownership of arms to the common man. Through a variety of court cases, the author suggests, Jeffersonian judges gradually changed the meaning of the amendment into a more individualistic granting of freedom to anyone to possess any weapon for any purpose. What was once seen as a civic duty to bear arms, in other words, now got twisted into an absolute, individual right.
My big problem with this entire thesis is that the author proves very little of it. He certainly DOES show that the amendment was largely shaped by the anti-federalist writers, and that they feared a standing national army. And he DOES point to occasions where states used their militias for state purposes (but also shows just as many instances where militias rose up against the state's purposes).He certainly does not show much evidence that states did much of any regulation of firearms (pointing out the occasional regulation of firearms for purposes of hunting). And maybe I don't recall it (because the author says he will do it), but I don't recall the author giving examples of laws mandating that each able citizen own a firearm.
Lastly, there are many problems reconciling the author's viewpoint with the text of the constitution itself. Ever other amendment in our original Bill of rights was a right against the state, not a proclamation of a civic duty. Our first amendment talk of our right to free speech against state censorship, rather than any civic duty we have to speak. Our third amendment talks of our right not to be forced to quarter soldiers, rather than our civic duty not to quarter soldiers. But somehow, our second amendment - according to the author's thesis - breaks the mold by being the single only amendment that protects a civic duty, rather than an absolute right? I don't get it, and the author does not attempt to address the problem.
Anyhow, the thesis is interesting and there appears to be some thin support for it. But I can't call the author's case anything but really underwhelming.
“Pennsylvania, in its 1776 Constitution, was the first state to include an express provision affirming the right to bear arms. It also passed a stringent loyalty oath that disarmed a large proportion of its population.”
Perhaps Mr. Cornell can explain how a colonial Pennsylvania law in 1776 relevant to the Bill of Rights ratified by all of the states of the new republic of the United States of America in December 1791? It apparently hasn’t occurred to the professor that after a long war to achieve independence from Great Britain, the good people of the former American colonies (including Pennsylvania) recognized the need to protect the right of citizens to own guns. Experience changes perspective. Had the American people been disarmed in 1776 there would have been no American Revolution.
“Any honest historian of the early Republic will tell you that lax gun laws are not in fact pro-Second Amendment; they are anti-Second Amendment.”
Forgot to put this one on my list in post #7.
Accusing your opponents of dishonesty while being dishonest.
OK mr history professor, show us a list of all the gun control laws in the early republic. Compare those with the 10s of thousands of gun laws currently on the books. When were gun control laws more “lax”?
Another idiot history Professor teaching college who doesnt know his butt from a ham sandwich.
All he has is a straw man argument. I’ll bet he makes his students buy his books.
This leftie doesn’t know jack squat about American history or the Second Amendment.
Also, “well-regulated” in the 18th century meant “well-trained.” A fact lost on Saul the dimwit.
I’m no Constitutional scholar. I don’t debate the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
Is it possible the Founders had a more Swiss model in mind? All able men between the ages of 18 and 60 with required training sessions. It’s possible but it’s not what was written. We know it’s not about hunting. We know they understood the concept of defense of home and family.
His source is probably Bellsiles book “Arming America.”
It was a lie from start to finish, but won all sorts of awards because it said what the gun grabbers wanted to hear.
It is the only instance where the Bancroft Prize for history was rescinded. The falsification of the supporting research was proven beyond a doubt.
“Reasonable” can mean many things.To the typical Rat Party operative it’s “reasonable” for a fella to go into a ladies’ room because he feels pretty at a particular moment.
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