Cognitive dissonance -- it goes against what they "know" to be true. If they were to accept it, they'd start vibrating like Scanners and their heads would explode.
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 ...
These were exactly the kind of rights-circumventing notions that the Founding Fathers plainly wanted to avoid, and did so by writing a Constitution that granted the government limited powers, and laid out specific limitations on those powers, in a manner designed precisely to ward off terms oft abused by government leaders, terms like "reasonable regulations" (i.e.: "ban 'em all"), "strict scrutiny" (i.e.: "it really doesn't say that"), and "compelling state interest" (i.e.: "state interests trump individual inalienable rights").
Yes, we're libertarians. And you're a totalitarian - admit it.
That's exactly what you've done to many other threads.
The 14th Amendment did change things. Appealing to "but it was different before then!" doesn't help what it says in total now.
Whatever. Hey, it's obvious you're not posting to debate -- you're simply looking for little "soundbites" you can post out of context.
I don't play that game. So we're done -- not only on his thread, but all others.
I'm asking you nicely, don't post to me again. I will return the favor.
Stop being an ass - I am hardly in the state right crowd. If you'd bothered to read my previous posts you'd see that I wrote how horrible I thought it would be for Georgia to be the protector of my personal liberties.
I guess you also group John Marshall into the state rights crowd too - lol. You really should read up on Barron v Baltimore.
The simple fact of the matter is that before the passage of the 14th amendment, the Bill of Rights did not applied only to the federal government. This is one area where both liberal and conservative constitutional scholars agree.
Like I said before, we've all grown up in a post 'incorporation' world so the thoughts of the Bill of Rights only applying to the federal government seems like an alien concept. I'm sorry, but that is just the way it was.
Our Founding Fathers - including those at the state levels - intended to move away from the "omnipotent state" notion, that including "police powers" acquired truly only by force of superior firepower, and wanted to create a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" where the government's powers would limited to those granted by the people and derived from and for their inalienable rights. They specifically wanted to minimize/eliminate the gov't trampling individual rights as a means to a government securing its own ends - individual rights come FIRST.
Unfortunately, some persist in the notion of practically unlimited police powers, with such ideas as "you have a right to self-defense, but the state has the police power to deny you any tools vital to exercising that right." Such people are totalitarians, enemies of liberty.
So there were no 'serious readers of the Constitution' for the first 150 years of the republic?
Your thoughts fall in the face of both conservative and liberal constitutional scholars - one of the very few things that they agree on.
If the supremacy clause is such a slam dunk argument then why did no one think to bring it up in 150 years? Oh yeah, they did in 1833 and it didn't work out.
Look, if you'd stop being an ass and trying to group me into the "state rights" crowd you'd realize that we're on the same side - it's just that I understand history while you want to rewrite it to suit your political agenda.
Denying that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government until the 14th amendment is like denying that Clinton was president for 8 years. It might not be what we'd like to believe, but it's fact.
Yes, I am splitting hairs, but important hairs. The point is that a overt act causing objective damage is not necessary for legal intervention. A credible threat to do so is sufficient. Merely having the means to do so is not sufficient, absent evidence of intent.
To be fair, dependent clauses modify independent clauses. If a person writes a sentence consisting of a dependent and independent clause, the reader can't eliminate the dependent clause and expect the sentence to have the same meaning.
Any idea on why this point is so hard for many to grasp? It was common knowledge for 150 years.
Cognitive dissonance -- it goes against what they "know" to be true. If they were to accept it, they'd start vibrating like Scanners and their heads would explode.
Because the point is irrelevant now. That 150 years is passed. The 14th applies the BoR to all at all levels now. If someone doesn't grasp nuances of law that stopped applying nearly a century ago, does it really matter to the debate at hand?
Humans have always had inalienable rights, regardless of gov't recognition thereof.
Some 230 years ago, our federal government was explicitly restrained from infringing on a particular inalienable right.
Some 80 years ago, that restraint on infringing that right was extended to the states.
Some 5 years ago, a US high court clarified that the right in question applies to individuals.
Some 2 weeks ago, a US high court clarified that the right in question applies to individuals.
Some 3 days ago, a state high court clarified that the right in question applies to individuals.
What will it take to convince some that RKBA applies to all, without infringement, period?
No, it is not irrelevant because not all parts of the Bill of Rights have been incorporated. The 2nd amendment is among the ones that have NOT be incorporated and states are free to do whatever they want.
That's because SCOTUS is denying the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment. Either all of the BoR is incorporated, or none of it is. They're trying to avoid full incorporation by a selective "well, what does THIS right REALLY mean?" evasion. Once SCOTUS declares that there really is an individual 2nd Amendment right, they'll be hard pressed to not explicitly incorporate it.
All the wording is there for a comprehensive individual inalienable RKBA - despite those being dragged to that conclusion, kicking and screaming that it doesn't exist or (thru some obscurity) doesn't apply.
Of late, as my mid-life crisis sets in, I'm becoming increasingly aware of the long multi-generation cycles humanity must go thru to come to certain conclusions. That RKBA is an individual right is one of those conclusions.
Question. What does state mean "in being necessary to the security of a free state" mean if not refering that the individual states and their citizens? My thought is that the states and federal govt are explicity bound in that wording.
One point made earlier but not addressed is the language in Article VI Clause 3:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
If the Bill of Rights was only to apply to the federal government, then why do state officials take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States -- a Constitutioin with provisions for amendment in it, and with amendments already in it?
It seems clear to me that state officials take an oath to support the Bill of Rights.
-PJ
Brilliant catch.
"-- This is a public forum. If you are going to hold forth, you must be prepared to defend your thesis. --"
Unfortunately, that is not true in all cases. -- If you become desperate, unable to defend your thesis, you have an 'out'.
-- You can demand that your opponent no longer "post to or about me"; -- in effect shielding yourself from direct questioning -- at least from the one individual giving your thesis the most trouble.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Congrats ctdonath2, -- you've just made the 'cut'. -- We are becoming quite a band of brothers, opposed to a totalitarian agitprop, but unable to address it directly.
Some forums have solved this problem by installing 'bozo buttons', - wherein the bozo who can no longer tolerate criticism of his thesis is free to cut himself off from what you say about his theory.
They are supporting the Constitution - the Bill of Rights only applies to the federal government (prior to incorporation) so those provisions were irrelevant to them.
Again, just because the federal government puts restrictions on itself, that does not mean that the states inherit those restrictions.
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