When you say, "nonexistent 'power to prohibit'" I am a bit confused.
Fed and State legislators have a power to reasonably regulate, -- not to infringe upon [or to prohibit] our rights.
Are you saying that the federal government lacks authority to disarm those who have been adjudicated mentally defective? Or do you mean that the states lack that authority?
All levels of gov't have a very questionable authority to adjudicate who is mentally defective, -- particularly when the objective is to disarm 'the people' protected by the 2nd.
I will agree that when the Framers wrote the Second Amendment, these issues tended not to come up. Partly this was because psychosis was much rarer in early America than it is today. Psychosis rates, for example, increased about 9x from 1880-1980.
Good grief; - I'd sure like to see the proof of that remarkable bit of info.
Partly this is because most Americans lived in towns of a few hundred people, and you pretty much knew which of your neighbors was a bit odd, and shouldn't have a gun.
Are you actually claiming that small towns in America used what power [majority rule?] to disarm mental defectives? Again, I'd sure like to see the proof of that remarkable bit of info. Got any?
Partly this is because the procedures in effect for hospitalization of the mentally ill were much more informal in those days than they are now.
Yep, and they should stay that way, imho.
So there's no authority to disarm convicted murderers? On what basis do they disarm people who are in jail or prison? All levels of gov't have a very questionable authority to adjudicate who is mentally defective, -- particularly when the objective is to disarm 'the people' protected by the 2nd.
Sorry, but even at the time of the Revolution, governments had the authority to determine that a person was mentally ill and lock them up if dangerous. And the primary objective of determining that someone is mentally ill is not to disarm them.
I will agree that when the Framers wrote the Second Amendment, these issues tended not to come up. Partly this was because psychosis was much rarer in early America than it is today. Psychosis rates, for example, increased about 9x from 1880-1980.
Good grief; - I'd sure like to see the proof of that remarkable bit of info.
E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller, The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
Are you actually claiming that small towns in America used what power [majority rule?] to disarm mental defectives? Again, I'd sure like to see the proof of that remarkable bit of info. Got any?
Actually, what I was claiming was that people that were clearly a bit dangerous had a hard time buying a gun. If you lived in a town of 250 people, and Old Joe was widely recognized as paranoid schizophrenia--blathering on about voices telling him to do things--would you sell him a gun? Would anyone in town do so?
Partly this is because the procedures in effect for hospitalization of the mentally ill were much more informal in those days than they are now.
Yep, and they should stay that way, imho.
Then how do you deal with the problem of psychotics with weapons? Wait until they go on a rampage and kill someone?