US Supreme Court justices seem favorable to constitutional gun rights for Americans

news.aol ^ | 2008-03-18 20:12:41 | AP/AOL

[robertpaulsen]

Dellinger was knocked off-track with the first question, never to recover. The justices could have asked him his name and he wouldn't have been able to answer.

To expect him to present my stunning, insightful, well-crafted and well-researched "rich white guys" argument would have been beyond his capabilities.

[Abundy]

Ginsburg may surprise you, she was pretty hard on Dellinger.

[wardaddy]

SCOTUS seems more favorable to rolling back firearm regs than at any time in my 50.

[beltfed308]

To expect him to present my stunning, insightful, well-crafted and well-researched "rich white guys" argument would have been beyond his capabilities.

Go ahead and submit it to your Brady Bunch pals. That is right up their alley and you might get that Christmas bonus from them after all. Don't be modest RP by keeping it all to yourself.

[Abundy]

However, the Founders knew that simply arming the population (all the militia) was insufficient. Training was required. And training everyone to the proficiency required for battle was impossible.

So they settled on a select group of "well regulated" Militia -- trained, disciplined, organized, armed and accoutered, with officers appointed by each state. It was this "well regulated Militia" that was necessary to the security of a free state, not an armed populace.

Their RKBA was protected by the second amendment.

Here you go again. Do you have a brain Mr. Dellinger?

If you had actually listened to what the justices were telling you with their questions you would know that you lost yesterday and you would know that a majority of the justices disagree with your theory.

They were clear that if your theory were true the amendment would have read "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Why don't you stop spreading your bravo sierra and admit that you are, and have been, wrong in your contention that the second amendment only protects the militia.

The justices clearly believe it protects the individual's right to keep and bear arms, regardless of association with a militia. That's how they will rule in June wrt the specific question presented to them.

[Abundy]

Too bad Mr. Dellinger didn't use your “only white,property owners are people” argument.

After listening to Dellinger yesterday, I've come to the conclusion that RP is Dellinger.

[Abundy]

You’re what we call a “domestic enemy”.... you’re someone who lives in this country that wants to impose YOUR will on everyone else, because you don’t like that they have guns. Tough, RobertPaulsen, you’re a TROLL now and that’s all you’ve been in all these threads. Here, you’re an enemy of the people of the United States.

Amen. And thank you for your service.

[beltfed308]

After listening to Dellinger yesterday, I've come to the conclusion that RP is Dellinger.

Now come on. Anyone listening yesterday knows that Dellinger is much more articulate than RP.

[robertpaulsen]

"Thomas Jefferson told us very CLEARLY what the 2nd amendment means. Unfortunately social facists and a intentional dumbing down of our education system has created a very contitutionally stupid american citizen. "

Apparently. Anyone who thinks he said "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms" and that he was referring to the 2nd amendment must be a product of such a system.

Thomas Jefferson was proposing the wording for an amendment to the 1776 Virginia State Constitution. The second amendment wasn't written until 1791, so he couldn't have been referring to it.

Second, what he actually proposed was, "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands or tenements." Big difference.

Third, he used the term "freeman" not "free man". A freeman (or freeholder) was a citizen with full rights, including the right to vote.

Lastly, the Virginia legislature rejected his wording and went with:

"SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Not even close to what he proposed.

[Abundy]

LOL...true.

[Abundy]

Unfortunately social facists and a intentional dumbing down of our education system has created a very contitutionally stupid american citizen.

You are arguing with living proof of this statement.

[stevie_d_64]

I think you may be on to something there!

But to have all those ‘city-folk” coming out to the country may be a bit too much of a culture shock for them...

I say we regulate city-dwellers ability to travel into the country/rural areas...

Besides, they wouldn’t be happy there anyway...No Starbucks, not much internet...Americal idol you have to pick up with the directional rabbit ears antenna...

I hear next year the TV folks are going totally digital, there will not be any more broadcast TV anymore...

Halleluja!!!

The “collective” IQ of America may just increase a tad bit...People may just rediscover books...

Things are looking up!!!

(yes, this post is a bit tainted with sarcasm...You may now return to your regularly scheduled blogging)

;-)

[robertpaulsen]

"Go ahead and submit it to your Brady Bunch pals. That is right up their alley and you might get that Christmas bonus from them after all. Don't be modest RP by keeping it all to yourself."

Aw, shucks! Ya think? I don't know.

[Rick.Donaldson]

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”
— Adolph Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations 403 (Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens trans., 1961)

[Rick.Donaldson]

Apparently. Anyone who thinks he said "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms" and that he was referring to the 2nd amendment must be a product of such a system.

Paulsen you're FULL of it and full of your elitist self. I don't give a rats ass if you read anything I have written, but you'd do well to read the following and educate yourself because it has become obvious that you're a shill and your words are a hateful statement against the United States itself. You speak against the Constitution consistently and inaccurately, in your meager attempts at twisting and debasing the words of the Founding Fathers.

Not ONE of these men spoke of arms in terms of "hunting" nor regulation thereof. Not even Jefferson in your own twisted thinking believed that regulation of arms, ANY weapons, to include swords, or military weapons, should be "regulated" by the government in ANY FORM.

Every, single one of these men spoke of the USE of these weapons as keeping and defending OURSELVES from an unjust, and ridiculous government - which is becoming more and more obvious you prefer over the God given rights and freedoms we already HAVE. The Constitution doesn't GIVE these rights. It ENUMERATES them as Rights NO MAN or GOVERNMENT can or will take.

Your continued insistence upon 'government controls' of these rights is the VERY reason we have them, to prevent maggots like yourself from taking them from us.

You are a disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, inarticulate, liberty-sucking, trollish ignoramus. Your belief that guns are bad is an in-bred, Socialist-Leftist-Nazi concept and you'd do well to change in your attitude or go elsewhere to peddle your mealy mouthed crap.

Read, and LEARN instead of living out the rest of your life as an ignorant sap.

"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
-- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

"Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."
--Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... "
-- Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
--Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356

"The right of the people to keep and bear ... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country ..."
-- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789

" ... to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380

" ... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights ..."
-- Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms ... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard, against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible."
-- Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator, Vice President, 22 October 1959

" ... most attractive to Americans, the possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave, it being the ultimate means by which freedom was to be preserved."
-- James Burgh, 18th century English Libertarian writer, Shalhope, The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment, p.604

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "
--Samuel Adams

Finally about the remarks YOU made about Jefferson.. here's his OWN WORDS about what he said... which are vastly more accurate, and different than your own, ignorant interpretation thereof:

I was extending the right of suffrage (or in other words the rights of a citizen) to all who had a permanent intention of living in the country. Take what circumstance you please as evidence of this, either the having resided a certain time, or having a family, or having property, any or all of them. Whoever intends to live in a country must wish that country well, and has a natural right of assisting in the preservation of it. (http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndjef.html - Read the WHOLE article as written and cited there).

Finally... Patrick Henry said, "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone...Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation...inflicted by those who had no power at all?" June 1778, Virginia ratifying committee against Edmund Pendleton who argued, not unlike RobertPaulsen and other Leftists, AGAINST the Bill of Rights.

[Rick.Donaldson]

Again, I restate this for emphasis.... "Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." --Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788. NOT IN THE HANDS OF THE MILITARY, or POLICE. In MY hands. In the hands my Sons and Daughters, in the hands of those of use who have sworn to and protected the United States, the Constitution and even those libelous maggots who would try to take our guns. Not ON MY WATCH. moˈloːn laˈbe!

[Centurion2000]

What the hell makes anyone believe that SCOTUS will not strip us of our rights under the second amendment?

Civil war and 70 million gun owners. We tolerate a lot in the interests of going along to get along, but let the SC rule that 2nd Amendment is not a right and a HUGE red line will have been crossed in the eyes of an armed populace.

The Justices are not stupid and even they can see this.

[7mmMag@LeftCoast]

You Sir are a Godsend.

"....do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; ..."

I too swore that oath more than once in my Naval career, 13 years after retirement, I most assuredly intend on honoring that oath.

[robertpaulsen]

"The justices clearly believe it protects the individual's right to keep and bear arms, regardless of association with a militia."

Clearly.

The second amendment is certainly not a "dead letter" with the U.S. Supreme Court, despite the fact that we no longer have the kind of militia evisioned by the Founders. What better time to "breath some life" into the second amendment and give it new meaning (literally)?

Hey. "Giving new meaning" is what the U.S. Supreme Court is all about -- they gave new meaning to free speech wih CFR, nude dancing and flag burning, new meaning to priacy with abortion and sodomy, a brand new meaning to eminent domain, etc.

So color me unsurprised.

[Brilliant]

“The ONLY way to change the Constitution is by a Constitutional amendment...”

You’re talking in theory. I’m talking reality. They change it every time they issue an opinion these days.