The POTUS and his in-Justice Department has asked the SCOTUS to suspend the rights of Americans to Keep and Bear Arms.
One of the co-authors of this report, Saul Cornell, is a big anti-gunner. [url](http://volokh.com/posts/1173746455.shtml[/url]) Also note an advertisement on the webpage that this article comes from that endorses Obama. This report is not from a random group of historians that got together and objectively decided that the 2nd Amendment does not support the individual right to keep and bear arms, but rather anti-gunners getting together with an agenda.
The fact that the English Bill of Rights allowed for goverment regulation of firearms does not limit the American constitution from specifically forbading this. If the writers of the American Bill of Rights had wanted possible regulation, they would have said so. Instead, that used the blanket “shall not be infringed”.
From the aricle: “Nothing in this argument challenges the idea that eighteenth-century Americans had ready access to firearms, or that they valued the concept of a well-armed citizenry. Individuals were legally free to purchase and keep weapons as they could other property; but like other forms of property, the keeping of firearms was subject to extensive legal regulation.”
What regulation? That slaves couldn’t own guns? That is all I ever heard of.
“They rejected language that would have modified that authority, including a qualifying provision, proposed by the House of Representatives, defining the militia as “composed of the body of the people.” Acceptance of that definition would impair congressional authority to determine how extensive membership in the militia should be.”
While militia membership was an important reason to keep and bear arms, the lack of it does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms. The militia phrase of the 2nd Amendment does not limit the “shall not be infringed” phrase. The milita phrase is a declaration of intent, but is no restrictive in anyway.
Fore more info: [url]http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html[/url]
IBrp
...ok, now I can go read the article...
I guess Noah didn't get the same notification as the articles authors...
It's nice the Brits started moving toward indiviual rights in 1689, but 'the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed' seems simplistically clear, no matter how hard the leftists in this administration attempt to muddy up the meaning.
Mark my words.
Buy guns! The more we buy, the less likely they will try to come and get them. But if they do, the less likely they’ll be successful at it.
Context...
Any "extensive legal regulation" (hyperbole!) was the KING'S regulations. This author is essentially stating..."well, since there were regulations when we were ruled by the King of merry ol' England, then that is the premise upon which we must factor our understanding of our constitution. Horsey pucky!
It is from exactly that monarch's rule we wished to Declare our Independence. So to use the monarch's law as a basis for understanding our forefathers' intent is silliness in the extreme. The best way to understand any author's meaning is to let the author explain it, not let his sworn enemies deifine his intent! And we can read the needed explanations in the Federalist papers and the various quotes from our Founding Fathers.
The King had subjects who only had rights the government decided they had.
We declared ourselves to be citizens, based upon rights our Creator gave us.
The author needs to revise many of his premises before printing this leftist drivel.
Howeve, on another note...we could probably make a strong argument for basing our understanding up Scottish Law....riiiiiight?.../s
Obfuscation; the central question is whether the language is enough to decide the right or to disallow it.
Why would any reasonable man conclude that if the government was to hold that right to itself would it be so central to the all-important Bill of Rights to then include it as the penultimate right of a free society?
What an incredible argument.
The authors of the brief are suggesting that Congress has the power to define the militia as consisting of only infants below the age of two years, and that, therefor, all other people can be disarmed. No state could form a "well-regulated Militia" if Congress had such power.
The situation today demonstrates clearly that Congress could and has neglected the arming and organizing of anything that could be mistaken for a state militia. This makes it all too obvious that Congress does not have the power to disarm THE PEOPLE regardless of how they define the militia.
The brief is suggesting that the struggle to obtain and possess arms during the oppression of their government played no part in the passage of the Second Amendment. It is historical nonsense of the highest degree.
The cannon which were instrumental in ejecting the occupying military forces from Boston were taken by force of arms from the existing government of the day at Fort Ticonderoga. The protection of the right of "the people", not the militia, to keep and bear arms was to relieve them of having to obtain them from an oppressive government.
Any particular reason we should use the English examples of laws when they are the very people that we fought in order to gain our freedom???
They can’t legally do it.
But governments have taken many of our rights away illegally. They do it a little at a time, so that one day we wake up and we are in the soviet union.
I’d like to see them deny all citizens the right to bear arms.
It won’t end up pretty.
right - something to which one has a just claim: as
a: the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled
b: (1): the interest that one has in a piece of property —often used in plural
(2)plural : the property interest possessed under law or custom and agreement in an intangible thing especially of a literary and artistic nature
infringe - to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another
What are the liberals and gun-grabbers CONSTANTLY forgetting about this amendment?
"We the People of the United States..."
The people wrote this document. The people ratified this document. The people are protected by this document. It is for the benefit of "We the people".
I am "justly entitled" to keep, and bear, arms. That is my right as an American. And that right cannot be infringed.
94 replies and RobertPaulsen hasn’t pooped all over this thread? He must not be feeling well.