Posted on 01/18/2005 11:25:23 AM PST by newsgatherer
Handgun Control Inc. says it wants to keep handguns out of the hands of the wrong people. Guess what. If you are a law abiding citizen who owns a handgun you have the "wrong hands."
Banning guns works. That is why New York and Chicago have such high murder rates.
Washington D.C. which has strict gun controls has a murder rate of 69 per 100,000. Indianapolis, without them has an awesome murder rate of 9 per 100,000. Gun control works.
You can incapacitate an intruder with tear gas or oven spray. If you shoot him with a .357 he will get angry and kill you.
A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman standing with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
The "New England Journal of Medicine" has some excellent articles on gun control just as "The American Rifleman" carries equally great articles on open-heart surgery.
The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, refers to the National Guard which was created in 1903, 112 years later.
The "right of the people peaceably to assemble" and "the right of the people to be secure in their homes" refers to individuals while "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.
One should consult an automobile technician for vehicle repairs, a computer programmer for problems with your hard drive and Sara Brady for firearms expertise.
Most citizens cannot be trusted so we need firearms laws because we can trust citizens to abide by them.
If you are not familiar with most of the above you have not been following the firearms debate. In fact you haven't tuned in to the liberals who still have their hands in your pockets and on your firearms even though the pounding defeats ...
(Excerpt) Read more at Christian-news-in-maine.com ...
There is not a scintilla of evidence that any arm greater than a individual arm was ever considered as an arm to be kept or provided by an individual militia member.
Look up the references to Letters of Marque and Reprisal in the Constitution. I'd say that is a pretty heavy indication of cannon in private citizen's hands.
I am obviously NOT getting through here. I will try again. There is a very specific distinction throughout the body of Constitutional law between what is specifically beyond the realm of state or Congressional restriction and what is simply allowed. Small arms suitable for a militia are protected because these very types of arms were discussed in detail by the founders, were listed in the Militia Act and have been repeatedly protected by federal court decisions as being a class of weapons that States and Congress cannot preclude. They are protected by the Second Amendment. Other forms of arms may or may not be owned or regulated. Cannon fall into this class as do private vessels designed and outfitted for war. They are NOT protected under the body of Constitutional law under the Second Amendment.
That does not mean that one cannot own them. It does not mean they have not been owned in the past by historic figures and it does not preclude such ownership in the future. All it means is that the protection of the second amendment does not extend to such ownership.
One can quote the 10th amendment till the cows come home BUT the body of law that actually applies does not extend 2nd amendment protection in the manner you wish it did.
You confuse personal wishes with the rule of law, always a mistake.
Agreed.
Kinda makes yu shake your head doesn't it?
That is tyranny. Plain and simple.
And you think this is just peachy? Or am I mis-reading you?
Militias were virtually useless against a real army. They may have had some use against Indians but were the bane of Washington's existence during the Revolutionary War. Only by training a Continental Army was he able to win it.
Had there only been militia we would have lost that war.
However, the protection of individual ownership of weapons only applies to those weapons an individual actually owned and could carry to gather at a moment's notice. Artillary were owned and controlled by militia units not individuals fantasies aside.
It appears some "facts" are still to be established as fact.
Actually, I think you can own a cannon lol.
Then Equal Protection (certainly Due Process) says that if the citizens of Vermont have concealed carry, then it would be unconstitutional for other states to deny that second amendment right to their citizens.
Why has that NEVER been brought up in any court, anywhere, anytime?
Go back to bed. You have absolutely no idea what's going on or what you're talking about.
Excellent, thank you.
Thank you.
What in the world does that have to do with the editorial?
I've read Miller. The Fed Gov had no just power, powers given by the Constitution, to even rule on the issue. The case should have been thrown out. Period.
Agreed. Furthermore, Miller was deliberately "wrongly" decided. How can I prove this? Easily...
The "arm" in contention in the Miller case was a sawed-off shotgun, was it not? The contention was that a sawed-off shotgun had absolutely no use on the battlefield, which was patently untrue, at the time Miller was decided.
If you have read Miller then you know the case you make was NOT a case the court heard. There was no effort made to prove the weapon in question was suitable for militia use so the court ruled it was not. It is the responsibility of the lawyers present to lay out a case. The case considered did not include your very correct points. If it had the law of the land might be different today. Until the Court considers a similar case and such a defense IS made, it is illegal to own an unregistered shotgun with a barrel length of less than whatever.
Your opinion on the constitutionality of a law, while interesting, is irrelevent.
Has that Act been expanded in the intervening years? Surely you are not going to claim it does not "infringe" on ownership are you?
I claimed that the 2d does not protect the right to own artillary. It refers to the arms of a militiaman.
Now how can you rationalize the unconstitutional prohibition of owning the most advanced arms, nuclear warheads? What makes their ownership unprotected and others protected?
You disclose to the insurance company that information? It just says "oh, you won't be charged for storage of powder in your basement"
Those private ships also were armed with cannons...
but seriously, the left views their worldview as the "incumbant" position. The MSM intentionally kept Democrat challengers blue instead of the historic red for challenger as in the past.
Since the left does not believe in individual rights, only collective rights of the group, then the MSM will follow.
It really is like tax dollars or money in Social Security, who owns the individual money you earn and pay? The left says then own the money paid to social security and other taxes. Normal thoughtful people say they own their own money. This includes conservatives and the mushy middle.
Very well...
Article. IV.
Section. 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
As can be plainly seen above, and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers prove out, the above portions of the Constitution make the powers of the fedGov strictly limited. It also puts the Amendments listed in the BoR off limits to any government body, State or Federal, as they are protections for some of the more basic Rights of Man.
I suppose now you'll pull out some twisted court decision or even your tired old Dred Scott bullsh*t to bolster your opnion?
Right and merchant ships did not just turn around and become privateers without changing the makeup of the ships and their crews. Ship owners were not stupid.
They were on the high seas not on US territory.
No, all it means is that the protection of the second amendment in regards to such ownership has not been discussed in courts.
Again: "arms" was not defined as having any limiting factor. That there was much talk of muskets and little talk of cannons (which, practically speaking, are just big muskets) does not mean one is included in "arms" while the other was not. The term "small arms" presumes the concept of "large arms" and a broader category of "arms" in general.
Funny how discussion of "arms" includes nukes and aircraft carriers (as in "arms control treaties") ... until the 2nd Amendment comes up.
The second amendment doesn't *create*, the right, it forbids the government from infringing upon it. The bill of rights was a response to the perceived power of the federal government created by the Constitution. One of those powers was over the state militias, which could be ordered into federal service and whose organization and weapons were to be "provided for" by Congress.
The first part of this is right on. As to Militias, the feds enacted specific laws concerning the Militia, how it was to be armed and how it was to be controlled when federalized. The states were expected to write their own enabling legislation to facilitate this federal law, perhaps our first unfunded mandate. The states did exactly that.
BASED ON WHAT??? Your own oft-repeated gut feeling doesn't count.
There is no problem with MY understanding that such things can be prohibited but there is a gigantic problem in seeing how the Absolutists can reconcile "shall not infringe" with such prohibitions.
Rationality in this regard is good to see but is antithetical to the Absolutist viewpoint.
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