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 ...
To say that regulation of the components required to make a working nuclear weapon is not regulation of those weapons is absurd.
It's absurd of you to ignore what I wrote, just above. We can regulate storage/possession of such materials without infringing on our RKBA's. We do, in the case of privately owned nuclear power plants.
My argument is against those who claim that the 2nd amendment guarantees US citizens the right to the same, if not greater, level of weapons available to the federal government.
Why? Why do you want to give government the power to decide that 'assault weapons' can be prohibited?
If the critical components of those weapons are regulated, then the weapon is effectively regulated. The effect is no different than permitting firearm sales but regulating all aspects of gun powder manufacture, distribution and purchase.
Reasonable regulations on C/N/B materials storage and on explosives, gunpowder, flammable fuels, etc, are a fact of life. We can, and do, regulate storage/possession of such materials without infringing on our RKBA's.
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...Feel free to rant on about 'dogma', while you make ludicrous leaps of logic about "unbounded rights".. It's amusing.
What is far more tragic than amusing, though, is the plainly creepy philosophy promoted by some that our founding fathers intended that every citizen of the USA have free access, limited only by the economics involved, to WMDs, and guaranteed that right with the 2nd amendment to the Constitution.
You make that leap of "creepy" logic, not me.
That's precisely the kind of craziness that makes gun grabbers giggle with delight. If that isn't your stand, then we have no argument.
IF??? -- After all this, you claim we have no argument? Now that's creepy.
I'm a staunch supporter and defender of 2nd amendment rights.
Yet you claim the Feds/States can prohibit 'assault weapons'.
If denying nukes to average Joes makes me a left-wing nutcase gun grabbing lunatic, then I suppose I'll have to plead guilty.
Due process, then.
And if a frog had wings he wouldn't be dragging his a$$ on the ground.
Here's the point, Jimbo. The courts haven't ruled, the second amendment is not incorporated, and gun ownership in a state is defined by the state constitution, not the U.S. Constitution.
Excuse me, but I just get a little frustrated with people like you who equivocate with words like "if" and " was meant to", rather than coming right out and admitting that the 14th amendment does not incorporate, and has never incorporated, the entire BOR.
"Safer ground". Hardly.
The U.S. Constitution was a document which defined of federal power. The states did not give the federal government the power to "regulate" arms -- quite the contrary, the second amendment says that the federal government shall not infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Since the power to "regulate" arms was not given to the federal government, that power was retained by the states. The state constitution, therefore, defines the level of arms "regulation".
The problem we have with the argument on your side is that there is no non-arbitrary non-hysterical rationalle for drawing "the line", which amounts to agreeing with VPC et al that a line should be drawn arbitrarily, you just squabble over where.
By what principles do you draw the line? How can that line be drawn without it creeping downward toward Nerf bats? Be keenly aware that The Line has already been drawn, and that already prohibits common citizens from owning standard modern militia arms: despite being standard issue to soldiers around the world, you cannot keep and bear a real M16 or AK47 in this country (save a very few old worn way-overpriced overtaxed tightly-regulated grandfathered ones)! Your very argument for banning personal WMDs is moot - you're limited to semi-autos even soldiers don't want, and even that category has been on the verge of total prohibition for quite some time. This travesty exists precisely of your "it's too much destructive power for one person to possess, so it's really not what the Founding Fathers inteded" argument.
The Founding Fathers wrote "arms" and "shall not be infringed", knowing what they were doing. From their later laws and writings we see that a minimum was expected of all people, with no limit of arms scale indicated. At most, some requirements could be argued for assurance of safe use (armed ships post bond before voyage); this would equate today to assurances of safe storage and posting bonds against misuse.
By simply declaring "no WMDs", you join the VPC reasoning that leads to "no battleships", "no A10 Warthog", "no M1 Abrams", "no M2 Ma Deuce", "no M82A2 Barrett", "no .338", "no .308", "no .223", "no .22", "no slingshots". How do you draw a line? seriously, we've been begging you and Jim and justshutupandtakeit to explain: without the anti-big-stuff hysteria, and knowing that even the M4 is banned now, how do you seriously propose drawing a line? the Founding Fathers didn't - how will you? and why?
But as QUILICI V. VILLAGE OF MORTON GROVE, 695 F.2d 261 (7th Cir. 1982) demonstrated, "arms" may be defined by the state. to wit:
In contrast, Morton Grove alleges that "arms" is a general term which does not include any specific kind of weapon. Relying on section 22's (of the Illinois State Constitution -rp) language, which they characterize as clear and explicit, Morton Grove reads section 22 to guarantee the right to keep only some, but not all, arms which are used for "recreation or the protection of person and property." It argues that the Ordinance (banning all handguns -rp) passes constitutional muster because standard rifles and shotguns are also used for "recreation or the protection of person and property" and Ordinance No. 81-11 does not ban these weapons."
Seems Jim believes the Constitution doesn't apply until a court says it does. The understanding of most here is that the Constitution always applies; a court's job is to insist it does when the executive or legislative branch tries to say it doesn't.
The 14th Amendment subjects all states to the 2nd Amendment, period. Unfortunately, SCOTUS has failed to say "follow the law as written" to states who say "make me".
Which, oddly enough, is not in fact what the Constitution says. Which is what we've been trying to get through to you for years now.
The newly freed slaves were not Citizens (capital "C") of any state. The 14th made them "citizens (small "c") of the United States, and extended the privileges and immunities of the United States to them.
Those privileges and immunities consisted only of those which owe their existence to the Federal Government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.
"Among those which it then identified in the Slaughter-House Cases were the right of access to the seat of Government and to the seaports, subtreasuries, land officers, and courts of justice in the several States, the right to demand protection of the Federal Government on the high seas or abroad, the right of assembly, the privilege of habeas corpus, the right to use the navigable waters of the United States, and rights secured by treaty."
"In Twining v. New Jersey, the Court recognized ''among the rights and privileges'' of national citizenship the right to pass freely from State to State, the right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances, the right to vote for national officers, the right to enter public lands, the right to be protected against violence while in the lawful custody of a United States marshal, and the right to inform the United States authorities of violation of its laws."
"Earlier, in a decision not mentioned in Twining, the Court had also acknowledged that the carrying on of interstate commerce is ''a right which every citizen of the United States is entitled to exercise.''
That was the limit of the "rights" of the newly freed slaves under the 14th amendment. Certainly if they were made a Citizen of a state, they were entitled to the protection of rights outlined in the state constitution.
The 14th also extended the equal protection of state laws to any person, and prohibited the state from depriving life, liberty, or property from any person without due process.
Over the years, the courts have ruled that some of the rights protected from federal infringement by the BOR (free speech, for example) were so fundamental to the concept of liberty in the 14th amendment, that "due process" demanded that the right be "incorporated" into liberty and therefore be protected by the state, also.
Let's see. Is is your understanding, as is the understanding of "most here", that the second amendment applies to the states. But, unfortunately, SCOTUS doesn't agree.
Do I have that right? Unfortunately, they don't agree?
Well, unfortunately, that means that the second amendment does not apply to the states, despite your "understanding".
Futhermore, the second amendment has never applied to the states, AND it was the intent of the Founding Fathers that NONE of the BOR apply to the states. James Madison himself submitted an amendment which would have applied some of the BOR to the states, and it was defeated.
The 14th amendment prevents the states from depriving "liberty" from any person. Over the years, the courts have been trying to determine those rights which are fundamental to liberty, and should therefore be protected by the state, also.
As of this date, the RKBA is not one of them. Should it be? Of course, in my opinion. But I'm not SCOTUS and neither are you and "most here".
Here's the point.
The courts haven't ruled, the second amendment is not incorporated, and gun ownership in a state is defined by the state constitution, not the U.S. Constitution.
383 robertpaulsen
Liar.
Yes take away our Second Amendment rights from law abiding Citizens so that law breaking idiots will just use a gun Anyway. My mother is a Second Amendment sister and I am in the NRA and damn proud of it. If they take away our guns what's next? Knives? Laser Pointers? They're probably even trying to get rid of Paintball guns. Thank GOD for our Right Wing Americans defending our rights! HOOAHH!
I like that ... "clearly says". No, here's what the 10th amendment clearly says:
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.
The powers, not the rights. The state (or the people of that state, same thing) retains the power to regulate arms, and the Founding Fathers wouldn't have it any other way.
Now, maybe you want to start over by referencing the 9th amendment? The one that says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
What do you mean by that? What does it say? Let's be specific here.
Let's be clear. You have a fundamental right to own any arm you desire. Any arm. Whether your state protects that right is another matter altogether.
That you, and many in our judiciary and legislatures, have tried to alter the plain language over the last 100 years... speaks more to your agenda than anything else.
The quotes posted time and again from the Founders themselves do not dent your impervious ideology. Nor do direct quotations from the Constitution. It doesn't fit your agenda, ergo, it is invalid. It isn't what was written in the Constitution, or by the Founders ABOUT the Constitution, you place more validity in modern corrupted interpretations from power mongers, tin pot dictator wanna-be's, and left over racists.
Why is that?
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