Posted on 03/20/2007 4:04:15 PM PDT by neverdem
On March 9, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a groundbreaking ruling. It declared in a 2-1 decision that the Washington, D.C. ban on handgun possession in private homes, in effect since 1976, is unconstitutional. The court reached this conclusion after stating unequivocally that the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms applies to individuals and not just "the militia."
It is quite likely that this ruling will be appealed to Supreme Court, which hasn't offered an interpretation of the Second Amendment since 1939.
Appalled by the District Court ruling, the Washington Post editorialized that it will "give a new and dangerous meaning to the Second Amendment" that, if applied nationally, could imperil "every gun control law on the books."
The Post accused the National Rifle Association and the Bush administration's Justice Department of trying "to broadly reinterpret the Constitution so as to give individuals Second Amendment rights."
But actually, to argue that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals is a reinterpretation of the Constitution and the original intent of the founders.
One of the major concerns of the anti-Federalists during the debate over the Constitution in 1787 was the fact that the new document lacked a Bill of Rights. In order to get the Constitution ratified, the framers promised to pass a Bill of Rights during the First Congress as amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment with its right to keep and bear arms became part of that package.
What was the original intent of the Second Amendment? Was the right to bear arms a collective right for militias, or an individual right for all citizens? The "Dissent of the Pennsylvania Minority," from the debates of 1787, is telling. This document speaks...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
So, the purpose of letting all the people own and read books would be to ensure that the libraries would be well staffed? Can you actually write this with a straight face?
The 2nd is quite clear on its own. Those who insist on denying its plain meaning will not be persuaded by more words.
What we need is a mechanism clarifying that those enumerated rights are enjoyed by all US citizens, being pre-existing inalienable rights, regardless of whether a given state explicitly protects them. ...oh wait, the 14th does that already. ...and hey, the Declaration of Independence made it pretty clear too.
Just accept that some people are intent on redefining certain rights into oblivion, and pursue whatever course needed to stop them.
You're defining "damage" pretty loosely there, aren't you slick? Sounds to me that if a person is offended, embarrassed, shocked, or insulted, they've been "damaged".
"When those laws conflict with Constitutional rights"
I agree. But that's not what I asked. I asked why our laws should be LIMITED to that.
His arguments are crumbling pretty thoroughly in this thread, more than usual. Notice how he's not responding to some really key posts that shred his interpretation.
Won't stop him though. He'll just abandon this thread, and start over on another one, trolling for more arguments.
If it is an unalienable right to defend one's life, liberty and proprerty, and if a state cannot pass laws that infringe on those right by your own statements, then for a state to fundamentally restrict the unalienable right to self defense as regards the common arms of the day, measn that said state would infringes on and violates that right to self defense and would therefore itself unconstitutional.
From my perspective, the founders understood this and wrote it, unambiguously into the constitution.
... a free republic, of course.
Police power may be used to render the innocent more helpless against crimals?
That's like saying liberty is inalienable, but liberty outside of a particular enclosed space is not. When you constrain the method of exercise of a right, you reduce it from real to theoretical.
Moreover, you described property as one of the inalienable basics. How then do you justify disallowing the basic ownership of the Glock, let alone its use for defensive purposes? How can you say you have the right to property, but only the property approved by the government? How can you say you have the right to defend your life, but only the weapons approved by the government? And what is to prevent the government from limiting the choices of approved weapons or property to the point of inaccessibility, and thereby completely alienating the inalienable?
I'm still not following why the Article VI supremacy clause doesn't already do this.
-PJ
You haven't answered the ovbious question:
Given that "right" (written and understood, as you did, regarding books), would a government be justified in forbidding personal ownership of books? or of large categories of books (say, fiction)? or of carrying books outside a library? or personal libraries?
Because the Bill of Rights are restrictions on the federal government only.
The supremacy clause only means that federal statutes are superior to state ones - it does not mean that restrictions placed on the federal government are also automatically placed on state governments.
A Book Club is where "the people" get together to discuss books, have reading groups, etc. We would, of course, have state-appointed moderators.
Yeah, I think this analogy is more in line with the second amendment, don't you?
Why not? If citizens have inalienable rights, and the Constitution - being supreme law of the land - notes that citizens have these rights, and these rights shall not be infringed, why shouldn't that apply all the way down?
And be just as ludicrous an interpretation as your first. Book clubs are formed to benefit the club members, but the club members don't exist to benefit the club.
You cannot have a collective right to do something that the individual members in the collection do not have individually. A Militia is simply the right of individual self-defense exercised with other individuals in a group setting, for mutually beneficial purposes. The Militia has no rights of its own; it exists to serve the purposes of its members, not vice-versa. So, how can a non-infringable right exist to only benefit the Militia and not the individual needs of its constituent members?
Go google "police power". You really don't know what you're talking about and I'm getting tired educating you.
Because the the protections from being infringed were directed at the federal government, not the state government. It sucks, I know, but is the way it was prior to incorporation.
Here is an example, congress passes a law that states that federal law enforcement officers cannot search anyone's car. That statute would not affect local law enforcement because it was directed at the federal government only - just like the Bill of Rights.
No, I asked you a question you have yet to answer: what are the objective criteria that define your arbitrary partioning of rights into categories? And you have yet to substantively respond to half of what I posted.
If you cannot, just admit you were talking out of your a$$ and be done with it.
Ah, the inevitable resort to ad hominem that signals the end of the discussion.
Have a nice day.
And notice that the women's rights movements and womens sufferage movements started to take off around the time that women were able to be easily armed
Analogy accepted.
Consequences accepted?
Could individuals be prohibited from keeping or reading books not approved by the Book Club?
Could the books used by that club be required to be kept in a gov't-owned library?
Could private ownership of books be outlawed, leaving available only those books handed out during the established meeting times, and must be returned at the end thereof?
Could private book clubs - without state-appointed moderators - be banned?
Who writes the books? could authors be prohibited from writing if they lack gov't-provided licensing - and that only to write certain kinds of books?
Could fiction be banned? (doesn't provide concrete social benefits, right?)
Could anyone found with an unauthorized private library be subject to $250,000 fine & 10 years prison - for _each_ book?
Could concealed carry of a book outside a library require paid licensing?
Could unlicensed possession of a printer, copier, or pen be punishable?
Go ahead. Answer the questions.
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.