Posted on 02/19/2003 2:17:30 PM PST by Skooz
Pretty interesting that the intent of the ammendment was to prop up the right of citizens to protest their government and if necessary overthrow it. The reason liberals have a problem with this is that their endgame is socialism and socialism can't stand up to an armed populace - it requires meek unarmed sheep who cannot stand up for themselves. The first step to a socialist society is preventing the tools of protest from reaching the masses. The more we strengthen the individual, the less the liberal socialists will like us and the louder they will get. The louder they get, the more likely we are to see a greater route of them from power in the next election. It's time the socialists in this country decided to either become americans or revoke citezenship and go live somewhere that puts up with them; but, wait - most socialist regimes wouldn't put up with their nonsense.
Cases such as Miller and Cruickshank are often cited. If one reads the entire decision, one will find that the rulings are often exactly opposite in intent from the position of the ACLU.
I don't have time to cite chapter and verse, but the info is there for anyone to read.
I understand the plain English of the 2nd, and have further read of the intent of the Founders, who wrote it. I could care less what the USSC, or the ACLU has to say about the matter. You can't reason with someone who is arguing from a position of blind ignorance.
Someday these morons are gonna push too far, and they will get a proper, bloody and expensive education in the true purpose of the 2nd.
If you are actually defining "constitutional" as meaning "approved by the U.S. supreme court", then I suppose you're right. However, I dispute that definition. "Constitutional" is no more a legal term (OR moral opinion) than "dead" is. Yes, a person can be declared legally dead by a court, but that doesn't change their metabolic condition. If a dead person is found to be living by a court, they're still dead.
Constitutionality is a matter of fact. Either a law IS consistent with the U.S. Constitution, or it is not. Court declarations cannot change that reality.
You conspicuously didn't answer Skooz's last question... If SCOTUS declared a part of the Constitution to be unconstitutional, would it be?
I guess my question boils down to this - if a weapon is not in current military use, nor has it historically been used by the military, and does not appear to be useful in "contributing to the common defense" -- then apparently the SCOTUS permits it to be regulated or banned by the states. Is this correct?
You make it sound like the Court just made this up out of thin air, when in fact it was introduced via the Fourteenth Amendment. If anything, the Court as been insufficiently consistent in taking this position, as the clear intent of the amendment drafters was to incorporate the individual rights (it simply never occurred to anyone in those days that another interpretation was possible) recited in the First through Eighth Amendments.
How can I answer an unanswerable question? The SCOTUS can no more declare a part of the Constitution to be unconstitutional than it can declare white to be black.
Yes, a person can be declared legally dead by a court, but that doesn't change their metabolic condition. If a dead person is found to be living by a court, they're still dead.
The supposed conflict here is that you're using the same word for two different terms. If a person is declared legally dead, then they are dead for the purposes of the law. In fact, the courts themselves recognize that legally dead does not necessarily equal metabolically dead, so there's no conflict.
"If you go and read the opinions, the reasoning in them is really quite abominable,"And understand that this isn't coming from someone who can be called "pro-gun".
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shallseem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
How would people do this withOUT guns?
Nice try. Guns in 1790 were much MORE deadly than they are today.
Any wound to the torso was fatal, usually resulting in lingering agonizing death. Many wounds to the limbs also resulted in slow agonzing death of a period of days, or at best an amputation that did not get septic, but usually did.
Today OTOH, gang bangers today are routinely shot and patched up and put back on the street in a week.
As far as "kill a score in as many seconds" that could also be done with a shotgun loaded with dirty shot. And the wounded would spend days screaming in agony as their infections raged. However, people rarely went on shooting rampages that I have ever seen recorded.
The courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, have been known to hand down decisions that make about as much sense as declaring that white is black.
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