Posted on 03/28/2002 2:08:03 PM PST by RogueIsland
This is far too restrictive. Our Founders intended to protect the very right to defend ourselves which they used to defend themselves. Patriots dragged large cannon across a frozen northeast from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston in order to expel a tyrannical government. They would not have recognized any limitations on their ability to bring force to bear on their enemy to defend their freedoms.
It's really a shame that our Founders didn't include a mechanism for amending the Constitution just on the off chance that arms might be developed that were sufficiently lethal and indiscriminate that they might be denied to the people.
Oh...Wait...They did include such a mechanism. Perhaps we don't have to pretend that they meant something that they didn't say. We just have to have the courage to take our own destiny in our hands and establish new powers for our limited government. What a concept!
thats a good argument. a lot of things meant different things in the days the constitution was written. including "arms".
And which amendment guarantees the "right to keep and bear cars".
Basically, the ACLU believes political speech must be tightly regulated and the first ammendment only protects kiddie porn.
They are just a bunch of immoral commie thugs.
The standard misrepresentation of the Miller case.
The national board has in fact debated and discussed the civil liberties aspects of the Second Amendment many times.
I bet. And not one person who wanted to argue the pro RKBA viewpoint was ever present, I am sure.
Except that I happen to believe that SCOTUS is wrong on that point. The "priveleges and immunities" referred to in the 14th amendment are not the same as rights. There's no way the Constitution could force states to respect everyone's rights, because there's an unlimited supply of them, as the 9th amendment makes clear. Now the 9th makes perfect sense in a federal context, since the feds only have very limited powers to begin with, but on the state level, it would be totally, what the lawyers call "void for vagueness".
It's also interesting to note that the courts didn't start interpreting the 14th that way until over half a century after it went into effect.
Why do I waste my time? As a matter of fact, I won't from now on...
A unanimous Court ruled that the Second Amendment must be interpreted as intending to guarantee the states' rights to maintain and train a militia. "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument," the Court said.I do not see anything in this that says ANYTHING about the right being limited to states.....
meaning the argument isn't as simple as "back then it meant something different". its not a brain dead liberal idea that the constitituion be re-interpreted -- its a fact.one that you and i have have to contend with. back them "arms" mean personal muzzle loaders. neither i nor you would argue thats what we should limit the 2nd ammendment to.
Im proud to be one of the "few".
There is plenty of evidence that "bear" means either "to transport" or "bring forth" not "carry". The phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" today would be "the right of the people to hold as private property and as needed transport Arms". It makes much more sense when read that way considering the Framers intention for a non-standing army that was capable of defending a nation and wresting control from a tyrannical government should it ever need to.
Evidence for this interpretation exists, as noted above, in the form of stories of privately owned artillery used in the revolution and the existance of Letters of Marque but can be directly inferred from some of the writings of the Founders.
Thomas Paine, in "Common Sense", addressed a concern of the day that supports this interpretation. He was proposing an idea for a navy that would not be unnecessarily financially burdensome to the nation during times of peace as the British navy was considered to be (Clinton? Peace dividend?) and would still be fully capable of defending our country and shipping at a moments notice if need be. His plan was to have merchants arm their ships as they wished. The merchants would be compensated for the tonnage displaced by armaments with the understanding that should we need them, they would step forward like a naval militia, reinforced by a few core actual naval vessels. This addressed both the cost concern and the defense concern as he put it, "To unite the sinews of commerce and defense is sound policy; for when our strength and our riches play into each other's hand, we need fear no external enemy."
Now whether we think that this is a sound idea today is really neither here nor there. The point is that it was Paines understanding that a man with the desire and financial means could have armaments cast for himself. There was no requirement or suggestion that one first acquire a destructive devise permit or pay any special tax. Also important is that once the armament was complete one could could transport and use it as needed, no prerequisite appeal to congress for permission to defend the country, no license for interstate travel to get it to the ship or yard.
Without the transport provision in the amendment then some would claim that you can own an item but only keep in in government specified facilities, which really then isnt full ownership because it would fly in the face of what the Founders definition of what private property was and leave the object ulitmately in control of the government like the English storage facilities of today. Full legal ownership to everyone but transportation and usage restrictions on the majority certainly wasnt anything new. The English already had a long history of allowing sales, purchase and ownership and then forbidding everyone or certain groups from using them in any way including obviously carrying for defense.
The Second Amendment recognizes a previously existing right and establishes an immunity from infringement upon that right.
But like I said, the ninth amendment also establishes an equal "immunity" from infringement upon a hundred other pre-existing rights. The second amendment, along with the rest of Nos. 1-8, only lists examples of rights that can't be infringed. The fact that they're listed explicitly doesn't make them any more special, from a legal standpoint.
And I thought you said 'There's no way the Constitution could force states to respect everyone's rights,' and that I had implied this was irrelevant to the point in question because the Constitution was saying States are to respect (presumably established) immunities.
Now from my point of view 'The fact that they're listed explicitly...' may or may not '...make them any more special, from a legal standpoint,' but their listing does eliminate a lot of argument as to whether or not they actually exist If they are not listed, we have to go a lot of trouble to get them listed in law through the legal system. Of course (sarcasm alert) the legal system has done wonderfully in that area (end sarcaxm alert).
I don't believe we are going to come to an agreement, but at least you've made me think.
Same here, definitely.
If they are not listed, we have to go a lot of trouble to get them listed in law through the legal system.
That pretty much is the point that I was trying to get at. If it's established that the states are to be forced to respect the rights that are listed, then it would have to follow, as far as I can see, that they would also have to be forced to respect the rights that aren't listed. And that opens up a huge can o' worms (Roe vs. Wade being among the nastier of those worms).
Don't misunderstand me - I'm hugely in favor of gun rights. I'm just nervous about giving judges virtual carte-blanche power over a state's laws. And I don't believe the authors of the 14th amendment intended that, either.
I don't believe we are going to come to an agreement
At least not until I come up with a better way of saying what I'm trying to say. <8-|
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