Posted on 12/12/2010 11:33:59 AM PST by driftdiver
If you look at the values and the historical record, you will see that the Founding Fathers never intended guns to go unregulated, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer contended Sunday.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Breyer said history stands with the dissenters in the court's decision to overturn a Washington, D.C., handgun ban in the 2008 case "D.C. v. Heller."
Breyer wrote the dissent and was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said historians would side with him in the case because they have concluded that Founding Father James Madison was more worried that the Constitution may not be ratified than he was about granting individuals the right to bear arms.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It’s because of Supreme Judges such as Breyer that the Founders wrote the 2nd Amendment.
The scales of liberty are teetering at 5-4 way too often. It would only take one change to tip the other way.
I like the way Hadley Arkes turns it around, “Why does the government want to restrict my right to protect myself, my children and my family?” Breyer totally rips it out of historical context, as Madison’s contemporaries on the frontier certainly required their guns for protection.
They may have until the Bill of Rights came along.
I thought that was Souter’s town in New Hampshire that wanted to take away his house...maybe Breyer’s home town tried it on him too.
It sounds like the same selection bias regarding foreign law.
Simple Question:
Was there a Cannon Control Act similar to the Gun Control Act of 68?
Didn’t think so.
Sarah can increase the number and pack the court when we elect her in 2012.
We almost didn’t have a second amendment, because they thought those things were so self evident they didn’t need to be in writing. Thankfully they did write them down.
What’s far more disturbing is that — excepting most of those here at FR — so few “citizens” even understand that let alone reject it.
What an a-hole.
The Constitution is clear, there are no restrictions on guns and there are no restrictions on speech.
bflr
Of course the 2nd means exactly what it was intended to mean as written.
People who debate the gun issue have been found citing Madison one way, and Mason another way.
Mason, et al, finally voted for the Constitution ONLY after being assured by Madison (etc) that the State's lists of enumerated rights for the people would not be endangered by the absence of a Bill of Rights at the federal level
Breyer takes that as an argument that only the militia rights of the states were at risk of a federal problem. This is "EVASIVE BEHAVIOR" that clearly suggests that he, Breyer, KNOWS he is lying about both Mason and Madison when it comes to the Bill of Rights.
Wouldn't trust that puke near an empty cashregister.
It would be difficult for Breyer to have looked into what Madison and Mason thought about the Bill of Rights without recognizing that for the Founders knowledge of the plight of the Huguenots in France was still important.
Many Americans knew that their own grandparents were Huguenots and that they had refused to surrender their arms at the end of the Religious Wars (in France) and knew that those arms were all that stood between them and a tyrant.
In the end they were correct, which is why the Huguenots had to flee France forever. So, it wasn't concern over "the militia" that was at issue, but "freedom of religion" which had to be understood in America as best protected by private individuals armed to the nines!
Breyer is such a enemy to the American people ~ can we send him back where his kind came from?
"Do you like to shoot pistols at targets? Well, get on the subway and go to Maryland."
Dear Lord, what an idiot.
By his reasoning, he should ask some law-breakers living in Maryland---Do you like to shoot pistols at people? Well, get on the subway and go to D.C., where if I had my way everyone would be defenseless.
The Founders placed restrictions on black slaves owning guns.
Bump!
In the matter of the right to keep and bear arms, the relenat question is not what the intent of the Founders was, but rather what was the intent of the author of the 2nd Amendment, and the intent of the States that ratified it.
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