Posted on 11/03/2005 2:24:08 PM PST by inquest
There's a new poll up on the side. Do you think the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution authorizes federal laws against narcotics and firearms? Now lest everyone forget, this isn't asking whether you personally agree with such laws. It's about whether your honest reading of the Constitution can justify them.
While you're thinking it over, it might help to reflect on what James Madison had to say about federal power over interstate commerce:
Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.I'll be looking forward to your comments.
I'm saying that my guess is that the Supreme Court would attach this as a condition of allowing the ownership of machine guns, assault rifles, and 50 cals as part of a militia. You don't think so?
Those guys said all that, and yet they meant for the Supreme Court to tell them where and how to keep their weapons?"
They wrote the second amendment in an attempt to keep the federal government from doing just that.
No, I don't think so. I still don't see where the Court would get that power.
Fine. You're entitled to your (biased) opinion.
That's not an answer, it's a question. You're lookin' mighty slinky there, Roscoe.
Thus overextending themselves, as per their usual procedure.
I don't follow those cases as closely as perhaps I should. Got a citation? I'm wondering if the courts actually made that distinction and, in effect, wrote it into law, or if the legislature(s) made that distinction, and the courts have upheld it.
I don't think the legislatures should have the kind of power you are suggesting, to own and keep all militarily useful arms, because of the 2nd amendment. I don't think the courts should have it because courts should not be in the business of writing such regulations, IMO. Either way, I have a problem with it, but I'm left wondering which problem.
If you were to read the second amendment the way the federal courts have, it makes perfect sense for the state to store the militia arms. After all, isn't the second amendment concerned with the "security of a free state"? How will the state be free if it disarms her citizens?
Why do these gun threads always end up with Letters of Marque and cannons?
You're the one who wants courts to make law.
Your argument suffers a total meltdown and you just alter the terms.
A STATE OF THE ART aircraft carrier runs around 11 to 12 billion dollars. A drug dealer would have to sell a lot of medical marijuana to buy one. Ping me when one tries.
It was.
Well, if the Founding Fathers had cannons, surely that proves that the Constitution was meant to protect dopers operating meth labs?
Why do these gun threads always end up with Letters of Marque and cannons?
Because you two clowns make pointless observations about them..
Yeah, and I'm a gun grabbin' dope smokin' commie to boot! Shhh! Don't tell the others!
Sometimes you're a bit too obtuse. Which argument, which meltdown, and where did I alter terms?
Someone who takes my guns and stores them for me away from my property has disarmed me. I don't care if they still bother to call them mine or not. Who controls a thing owns a thing.
And it still doesn't make perfect sense to me that the Court could mandate rules of storage. I don't even think the Congress has that power, let alone the Court, which lacks that kind of rule-making power.
It doesn't? States mandate rules of storage and it passes the state constitutional test.
"A new study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provides evidence that the child access prevention (CAP) laws for firearms enacted by 18 U.S. states significantly reduced suicide rates among young people 14 to 17 years old. CAP laws require gun owners to store their guns so as to prevent unsupervised access by children."
But a court saying a machine gun, used only in conjunction with a militia, must be properly stored is unconstitutional?
All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for. You want a U.S. Supreme Court showdown on guns, knowing that every lower federal court (save one) has ruled that the second amendment only protects the formation of a state militia from federal infringement? You want your machine guns, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and 50 cals?
You'll get your wish.
"Warships", cannons. No, not warships and cannons! STATE OF THE ART warships and cannons!!
So what kinda payment schedule you looking at on your eleven billion dollar hypothetical purchase? Or were you planning to build your own from a kit?
-- a court saying a machine gun, used only in conjunction with a militia, must be properly stored is unconstitutional?
All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for.
You want a U.S. Supreme Court showdown on guns, knowing that every lower federal court (save one) has ruled that the second amendment only protects the formation of a state militia from federal infringement?
Yes robbie, we want that 'showdown', -- because either the USSC will reaffirm the 2nd as an individual inalienable right, -- or it will renege on our Constitutional contract.
We can then proceed to redress our grievances.
You want your machine guns, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and 50 cals? -- You'll get your wish.
Ah yes, the threatening voice of the bureaucratic big brother mind.. 'Do it our way or we'll send in the troops'.
Gotta love it paulsen, when you show us the real you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.