Posted on 02/04/2008 11:35:06 AM PST by ctdonath2
Today, attorneys challenging Washington, D.C’s 31-year-old gun prohibition laws filed their written arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at dcguncase.com ...
The rights secured by the first eight amendments were not conjured at random, but in reaction to specific outrages of the King’s rule. The Second Amendment is no exception. While Petitioners and their amici may not believe that English law secured an individual right to arms for self-defense, colonial Americans certainly did, and it was the repeated, wanton violation of that right that led them to demand and ratify the Second Amendment.
What did the National Guard do about the Korean storekeepers when they arrived?
Nothing that I am aware of. The Korean shopkeepers, at least some of them, were on the roofs of their buildings where they had a view of the building entries. Even L.A. rioters know that you don't attempt to rob or vandalize a well-armed shopkeeper. By the time the National Guard arrived, the rioters were long gone and the shopkeepers would have been back in their shops.
True, but the most important interpretation of a Constitutional legal term is the interpretation at the Founders' time, or subsequent SCOTUS interpretations. In each case, "well-regulated" has been found to translate to "controlled by government", sad to say.
I can't provide cites for my assertion, but it was a pretty well-cited FR posting that taught me this.
1 PARLIAMENTARY REGISTER, 14TH PARLIAMENT, 1ST SESSION 58 (1802).North Carolina’s colonial governor, Josiah Martin, decried the new militias that “submit to the illegal and usurped authorities of [patriotic] Committees.” William Hoyt, THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 44 (1907); see also Vernon Stumpf, JOSIAH MARTIN 112 (1986) (“they are now actually endeavoring to form what they call independent Companies under my nose”). Virginia’s Governor, Lord Dunmore, complained that “[e]very County is now Arming a Company of men whom they call an independent Company for the avowed purpose of protecting their Committee, and to be employed against Government if occasion require.” Letter to Earl of Dartmouth, Dec. 24, 1774, in 2 WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 445 n.1 (Worthington Ford ed., 1889). Loyalists were horrified by the rise of extragovernmental militias, but Patriots such as John Adams would have none of the criticism:
“The new-fangled militia,” as the specious [Loyalist] calls it, is such a militia as he never saw. They are commanded through the province, not by men who procured their commissions from a governor as a reward for making themselves pimps to his tools, and by discovering a hatred of the people, but by gentlemen, whose estates, abilities, and benevolence have rendered them the delight of the soldiers. . . .
SCOTUS, Do Your Duty!
This brief is contradicting that by the plain language found within communications and writings made during the day. For instance, immediately following the quote to which you replied, it states:
In turn, “discipline” in relation to arms is defined as “training in the practice of arms.” 3 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 416 (1933). Notably, prerevolutionary Americans forming voluntary associations for the purpose of resisting British rule, including Washington and Mason, employed the term “well regulated militia” to describe their associations. 1 Kate Mason Rowland, LIFE OF GEORGE MASON 428 (1892). These organizations were decidedly not sanctioned by any governmental authority.In addition, with regard to the above portion in bold, as of page 27 of the brief, it has repeatedly shown and substantiated, even by words of the Founding Fathers, that the militia was formed CONTRARY to any governmental decree; rather, in DEFIANCE of the King and governors.
Respondent does not suggest that members of private paramilitary organizations have a right to commit violent acts under the auspices of acting as a citizen militia. See, e.g., Va. Code § 18.2-433.2; Cal. Penal Code § 11460. The Framers, who organized the militia under the new constitution, doubtless agreed that citizens should not compete with legitimate government authority. “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes. . . . Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, para. 2 (U.S. 1776).But as expressed in the Declaration, the Framers saw no tension between accepting the lawful authority of an imperfect and even frequently unjust government, while retaining the ability to resist tyranny. The notion that independent, armed militia would engage in the treason and insurrection forbidden by the Constitution is spurious. The Framers, who used militia organized in direct defiance of the government they deposed, envisioned the militia as a tool for restoring the Constitution in the event of usurpation. See THE FEDERALIST NO. 46 (James Madison), supra; THE FEDERALIST NO. 29 (Alexander Hamilton).
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and it will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.2 Story, COMMENTARIES, supra, at 607.Cooley agreed, explaining that the Second Amendment “is significant as having been reserved by the people as a possible and necessary resort for the protection of self-government against usurpation, and against any attempt on the part of those who may for the time be in possession of State authority or resources to set aside the constitution and substitute their own rule for that of the people.” Thomas Cooley, The Abnegation of Self-Government, 12 PRINCETON REV. 209, 213-14 (1883). The individual use of Second-Amendment-protected arms to check despotism, “far from being revolutionary, would be in strict accord with popular right and duty.” Id.
Pages 44, 52, and 65.
And certainly, the difference between an AR-15 an an M-16 is less than a buck - the semi-auto version is a bit more expensive to produce, by a few pennies.
I have to think about your common use argument - while I like it, I am not sure that the court would buy it.
I admit I read it with paranoia.
My G_D, who wouldn’t.
How would they then be able to state that "the people" are selectively "bestowed" upon the Bill of Rights and Constitutional protections, depending upon in which state, territory, or province they reside? The Bill of Rights is for the people, not for the states or territories.
Also, if they remove particular rights from the people because they reside in D.C., what other rights are they then allowed to remove?
And then would this not, thereby, define that the District of Columbia is not a part of the United States?
BTTT...
That the Second Amendment was designed to secure a personal right of the citizens is clear from Madison’s notes for the speech introducing the Bill of Rights. “They [the proposed amendments] relate first to private rights,” 12 PAPERS OF JAMES MADISON 193- 94 (C. Hobson et al. eds., 1979). Madison thus initially proposed placing the Second Amendment alongside other provisions securing individual rights in Article I, sec. 9—following the habeas corpus privilege and the proscriptions against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, together with his proposed protections for speech, press, and assembly. THE COMPLETE BILL OF RIGHTS: THE DRAFTS, DEBATES, SOURCES, AND ORIGINS 169 (N. Cogan ed., 1997).If “bear arms” had the exclusively military connotation urged by Petitioners, no one would have proposed qualifying the phrase with “for the common defence.” But the Senate rejected just that proposal. JOURNAL OF THE FIRST SESSION OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 77 (1820). Some collective rights adherents speculate that “common defence” was considered redundant, but more plausibly the Senate did not wish to narrow “bear arms” to a purely military usage. After all, the first Congress knew how to condition individual rights on militia service. E.g., U.S. CONST. amend. V (no presentment or indictment right “in cases arising in . . . the Militia, when in actual service. . . .”)9
Indeed, House debates on the Second Amendment reveal the Framers’ reluctance to adopt text that might denigrate the individual character of the right to arms. Collectivists assert that a proposal to include a conscientious objector clause in the Second Amendment confirms the military character of “bear arms.” But the proposal was defeated after Rep. Gerry warned “that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms.” 1 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 778 (1834).
Now.......that is more than interesting (and more than frightening), indeed!
Indeed, if rejected language is any clue as to the meaning of that which was accepted, perhaps the most telling example was the Framers’ rejection of the following proposed amendment:“That each State respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same. . . .” FIRST SENATE JOURNAL 126.This proposal stated, in unmistakably direct and concise fashion, exactly that meaning which Petitioners would divine in the Second Amendment through tortured linguistics, fanciful explanations, and “hidden history.” And it was rejected by the Framers. “[H]istory does not warrant concluding that it necessarily follows from the pairing of the concepts that a person has a right to bear arms solely in his function as a member of the militia.” Robert Sprecher, The Lost Amendment, 51 AM. BAR ASS’N J. 554, 557 (1965).11
Petitioners claim that the Second Amendment is derived from the seventeenth of certain amendments proposed by Virginia, and that Virginia “[s]eparately . . . proposed amending the Militia Clauses directly: ‘11th—That each state respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same.’ ” Pet. Br. 26 (citation omitted). Yet both proposals originated in the same document, the Second Amendment’s precursor among provisions “constituting the bill of rights,” and the militia amendment among what the convention labeled “[t]he other amendments.” David Young, THE ORIGIN OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT 462 (2d ed. 2001).If guaranteeing the people’s “right to keep and bear arms,” with reference to a “well regulated militia” and “a free state,” were intended to secure the states a right to arm their militias, the Virginia Convention would not have separately proposed an explicit reservation of the states’ militia powers. That the Second Amendment’s direct precursor came to Congress in a “bill of rights,” alongside a state militia power among “other amendments,” strongly suggests the two are not identical.
Indeed, if rejected language is any clue as to the meaning of that which was accepted, perhaps the most telling example was the Framers’ rejection of the following proposed amendment: “That each State respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same. . . .” FIRST SENATE JOURNAL 126.
This proposal stated, in unmistakably direct and concise fashion, exactly that meaning which Petitioners would divine in the Second Amendment through tortured linguistics, fanciful explanations, and “hidden history.” And it was rejected by the Framers. “[H]istory does not warrant concluding that it necessarily follows from the pairing of the concepts that a person has a right to bear arms solely in his function as a member of the militia.” Robert Sprecher, The Lost Amendment, 51 AM. BAR ASS’N J. 554, 557 (1965)
Who the hell was hunting or sport shooting in 1776 and wanted it in the Constitition?
No one! I just prey that the court sees the logic in that.
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