Bull.
This is what I mean when I say "Second Amendment".
I mean, suppose there's a LOT of deer? Suppose they are all inside armored vehicles? What do I do then, hmmmm?
Posted on 01/07/2005 9:56:54 AM PST by neverdem
Readying for a constitutional showdown over gun control, the Bush administration has issued a 109-page memorandum aiming to prove that the Second Amendment grants individuals nearly unrestricted access to firearms.
The memorandum, requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was completed in August but made public only last month, when the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel posted on its Web site several opinions1 setting forth positions on various legal issues. Reaching deep into English legal history and the practice of the British colonies prior to the American Revolution, the memorandum represents the administration's latest legal salvo to overturn judicial interpretations that have prevailed since the Supreme Court last spoke on the Second Amendment, in 1939. Although scholars long have noted the ambiguity of the 27-word amendment, courts generally have interpreted the right to "keep and bear arms" as applying not to individuals but rather to the "well-regulated militia" maintained by each state.
Reversing previous Justice Department policy, Mr. Ashcroft has declared that the Second Amendment confers a broad right of gun ownership, comparable with the First Amendment's grant of freedom of speech and religion. In November 2001, he sent federal prosecutors a memorandum endorsing a rare federal-court opinion, issued the previous month by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, that found an individual has the right to gun ownership. President Bush adopted that view as well, saying that "the Constitution gives people a personal right to bear arms," and doesn't merely protect "the rights of state militias," in an interview published days before last year's election in National Rifle Association magazines.
The new Justice Department memorandum acknowledges that "the question of who possess the right secured by the Second Amendment remains open and unsettled in the courts and among scholars," but goes on to declare that...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I couldn't have said it better.
law professors, with a straight face, argue the entire issue can be broken down into mere grammar. The mere grammar denies this ONE amendment as an exception to all the OTHER INDIVIDUAL rights in all the amendments.
Never mind that such gramar games may not apply across the years. Remember s and f were interchangable, so I would argue ENGLISH should be applied. Of course these types of law professors are the first ones lined up and shot in any revolution so they have a legitimate fear of individual rights.
They had historical precedent going back the colonies.
Actually, not among serious scholars either. Lefty Alan Dershowitz USED to hold the "state militia only" position, but reversed himself after doing some research. No one who has seriously researched the matter can find that the 2A doesn't grant the right to individuals.
I'll miss Ashcorft on 2A issues -- but not on much else.
If you believe that Hillary should decide if you may have a gun, I guess you're good to go.
Fortunately "shall not be infringed" is still the law or the land, regardless of the opinions of Bush, Ashcroft, or Hillary.
It's restricted in the same reasonable ways that other Bill of Rights rights are restricted. The First doesn't give you the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or barge into a public school (funded with federal and state money) classroom and drown out the teacher with your rant on your pet issue. Writings by the framers of the 2A made clear that they did not intend that insane people or habitual felons should have an unfettered right to keep and bear arms (of course, back then "felon" didn't mean someone who still had a firearm for which your registration/license had expired), and common sense holds that we should be able to take guns away from people who are actively threatening to use them to commit crimes.
Are you now suggesting that a priori restraint of our Rights on Second Amendment issues is just peachy?
Either charge us all with crimes that would entail the restriction of our 2A Rights as punishement, or get the hell out of our way.
Residing in CA as you apparently do,
YOU have quite enough state law to
attack, but I guess you'd rather bash Bush.
Bull.
This is what I mean when I say "Second Amendment".
I mean, suppose there's a LOT of deer? Suppose they are all inside armored vehicles? What do I do then, hmmmm?
They will find something else to complain...
Such as???
Exactly what purpose do you suppose the memo was drawn up if not to perhaps address some of your concerns? Mere busy work, tossing in historical context for the heck of it?
I wanna go hunting you with. Just for the humor value of it if nothing else. Watching you trying to skin a deer turned inside out by one round from that thing would be worth the price of the beer....
Oh, I don't hunt for the meat.
I hunt to watch the prey vaporize.
That'd pretty much do the trick. Serbu-50 for gophers?
Who is "you" and why are they needing to "get people to read" anything? If you're saying the intention is already clear, that may well seem so to you, me and most Freepers, but as noted, there has been a problem over the years with judicial interpretations and this adminstration is addressing that in particular and it's not up for a vote, it's a matter they're trying to get straight in the law.
Good for him, good for the Republic.
For gophers -- being as they can duck underground quickly -- nothing less than this:
Way out of my price range. That, and trying to find a semi-auto with a mag big enough for them is a b*tch...
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