Posted on 09/29/2014 5:59:16 PM PDT by right-wing agnostic
In D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court stated that (emphasis added, citations omitted, as usual),
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
[Footnote: We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.]
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Just because something has been around a "long" time, does not mean it is right.
It hasn't been so long that the rear pickup windows at the local high schools were adorned with rifle racks, generally full.
If the owners can't enter government buildings with our firearms, how come our servants can?
Conditions and qualifications? What part of "...Shall not be infringed." eludes the author?
If they would keep the truly dangerous locked up they wouldn’t have access to guns when they choose to ignore the law.
I used to be able to visit a Federal building without a search and without an ID.
Times change.
That is the true 280 years of real practising of the right to bear and keep arms before machine guns were banned in 1922, yet from 1880`s til 1922 they were LEGAL--
There is no limit on the second amendment because there were no limits in the Colonial laws which preceded it, upon which the 2nd Amendment is based.
The colonial remnant can be seen in the 1795 federal and NY State treaties which were copies of the 1763 colonial treaties with the Iroquois Nation which guarantee firearms FOREVER on the reservation-
IT gives NO RESTRICTIONS on types of weapons or persons who can possess firearms. My cousins on the reservations know the treaties give them unlimited access to any kind of weapon.
Believe me, we have the same rights as the Iroquois Nation to have any kind of weapons we want. All these gun control craps actually violate the treaties and the Second Amendment..
Dred Scott vs Sanford.
What the SCOTUS thought about gun control in the pre Civil War era.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html
It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished;
and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs,
and to KEEP AND CARRY ARMS wherever they went.
A few notes about this.
1) If someone committed a federal felony, at least on the surface it is clear cut that they could be denied their rights as a natural extension of their conviction. That is, they could be prohibited from having guns or voting while in prison and probation or parole; but this prohibition is just a continuance of their conviction for the rest of their life, like their legally having to identify themselves as a felon for some employment.
2) However, if they committed a state felony, this becomes problematic. It could be argued they could just leave the state to again restore their rights, unless the federal government precluded it as an interstate restriction. But it could also be argued that a felony in one state could be a misdemeanor in another state.
Perhaps an analogy is for a doctor or lawyer who lose their right to practice in one state can move to another state, take the appropriate exam, and practice there.
Or, we could go the other way: slavery has been the rule, not the exception, for the vast majority of human civilization over its recorded history — if it's been around a long time
is an adequate justification then it justifies the [re]institution of slavery.
I would argue that it does not — for if one is to serve one's sentence, then one has paid their debt to the law. To have a perpetual debt (that of firearms, voting, etc) is to assert that the person can never pay that debt and institutes a second class of citizen: one's whose rights have been converted to privileges, granted by the magnanimosity of the state.
In a sane world.
This already exists, in that parole and probation have been extended long past their original limited intent, as well as restrictions to employment. For many or even most felons, there is little or no chance for employment outside of a few businesses willing to hire ex-cons.
Sex offenders, a blanket term that covers a litany of things from petty offenses to crimes of arguably death penalty severity, now are often on permanent registry, cannot move without police notification at both old and new residence, and have large buffer zones where they are prohibited from living. And courts have upheld that there are entire towns where they cannot live without violating a buffer zone.
This being said, their ability to own guns, though perhaps extremely important to felons, is almost eclipsed by their not being able to live at all.
And pretty much zero public sympathy to them as well.
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