Supreme Court upholds the Right to Bear Arms

[godthedog 0]

you could also ask how to find the "right to privacy" in the first ten amendments, and how that allows abortion.

[At Home 0]

Set boobie traps.

 

 

 

Best post of the thread.

[SuperJerk 0]

you could also ask how to find the "right to privacy" in the first ten amendments, and how that allows abortion.

I could, but I didn't because (a) I already know the answer, and (b) that's a discussion for another topic.

 

Can anyone explain how the "well regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment is supposed to work?

[Jingus 0]

A lot of it had to do with military infrastructure, or lack thereof. At the time, America didn't have a massive army of full-time professional soldiers. If they went to war again, it would mostly be a bunch of ordinary men leaving the farm and going off to fight the good fight. Which is pretty much what happened in 1812. Part of this had to do with the Anti-Federalists' paranoia about a standing federal army which wasn't under any sort of civilian control; they seriously believed that the federal government might use such an army to take over the individual states by force. They much preferred to have a more informal group of local militias in each state to handle military matters, and the wording of the second amendment is partly a concession to their demands. Furthermore, they didn't have warehouses full of extra guns just sitting around to arm their forces in case of an unforseen conflict. Many of the new soldiers had to bring their own personal weapons with them, so it was important to have those guns in the first place.

 

Plus they were very much still influenced by what they'd gone through under the British government. Why do you think they dedicated an entire amendment to banning the practice of quartering troops inside domestic residences? Same thing with the first amendment; it was phrased specifically about the government not respecting the establishment of a religion, since that's exactly what the Church of England was all about. In a similar vein, in the early days of the American Revolution the British goverment tried to force the colonist citizens to disarm in attempts to quell the violent outbreaks. Just in case they had to fight another guerrilla revolution, the Founders wanted to be ready for it, and they built a lot of that readiness right into the Constitution.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

In today's terms, how about calling it the right to have a bunch of dudes get together with some guns? That's a militia in a nutshell.

 

Doesn't necessarily mean they're trying to overthrow the governent or are up to no good. They'd lose anyway.

[SuperJerk 0]

I mean today in 2008, not how it worked in 1788.

 

Because we now have a standing army, we can ignore the first part of the amendment while the last part stands absolute and unchallengable?

 

We can't regulate civilians with guns, even though the constitution says we can, because we now have a standing army?

[Jingus 0]

I mean today in 2008, not how it worked in 1788.

Well, the National Guard is kinda sorta along the lines of a civilian militia. But it's still largely under federal control, so it's not a perfect comparison. In fact a whole lot of the founders like Hamilton would be really pissed off if they found out just how much control the federal government exercised these days.

 

We can't regulate civilians with guns, even though the constitution says we can, because we now have a standing army?

What? We do regulate them. We regulate the hell out of them. Sure, you have the right to bear arms... as long as you're an adult, a US citizen, haven't been convicted of any felonies, or ever been in a mental institution, or are under any restraining orders, or have otherwise been designated by law as not being fit to own a gun, and have the time and money to complete all the paperwork and wade through all the red tape that your particular state requires in order to be legally registered and permitted, and then only the kind of arms which the government deems to be legal for civilian use. According to the law, that's the only situation in which you are allowed to own a firearm. Of course, all this gun crime involving people which did not meet the above criteria might suggest that maybe the current laws, they are, how you say, not enforced so well.

[SuperJerk 0]

We can't regulate civilians with guns, even though the constitution says we can, because we now have a standing army?

What? We do regulate them. We regulate the hell out of them. Sure, you have the right to bear arms... as long as you're an adult, a US citizen, haven't been convicted of any felonies, or ever been in a mental institution, or are under any restraining orders, or have otherwise been designated by law as not being fit to own a gun, and have the time and money to complete all the paperwork and wade through all the red tape that your particular state requires in order to be legally registered and permitted, and then only the kind of arms which the government deems to be legal for civilian use. According to the law, that's the only situation in which you are allowed to own a firearm. Of course, all this gun crime involving people which did not meet the above criteria might suggest that maybe the current laws, they are, how you say, not enforced so well.

I didn't say that very well. I know we DO regulate them...I meant hypothetically, according to 2nd Amendment advocates, how far and how much regulation can there be?

[Jingus 0]

The main problem is that we have no idea what the Founding Fathers would have wanted in our current situation. I doubt they expected their exact laws would still be followed and debated over two hundred years later. The Constitution was written to be the ideal governing document of that time and place, and much of what is written within is simply not very applicable to today's world. Does anyone now worry about troops being quartered in their homes? Would the men who'd survived through the hell of Valley Forge think that waterboarding comes anywhere near being cruel and unusual punishment? And lots of it is only followed in theory. Someone needed to inform Judge Ito that OJ Simpson was supposed to get a "speedy" trial. And the government is notorious for not giving true "just compensation" for any land or property they sieze via eminent domain. Hell, the entire Electoral College was a system specifically designed for an 18th century world, before instant long-distance communication and mass media made the whole original intention of the EC into a quaint anachronism which we've just never gotten around to getting rid of. The Founders went out of their way to try and cover everything they could think of when drafting the Constitution (having a few years of examples of how not to run the country under the Articles of Confederation probably helped), but they were still ordinary fallible men and couldn't possibly predict the radical changes that technology and everything else would bring about in the years to come.

[SuperJerk 0]

Those are all good points. And if the founding fathers had envisioned government run standing armies and firearms that could kill dozens of people in a few seconds, would they have written the second amendment the way they did? We'll never know. They did, however, give us the okay to regulate firearms even if their reason for doing so (citizen militias) doesn't exist anymore.

[Nightwing 0]

Those are all good points. And if the founding fathers had envisioned government run standing armies and firearms that could kill dozens of people in a few seconds, would they have written the second amendment the way they did? We'll never know. They did, however, give us the okay to regulate firearms even if their reason for doing so (citizen militias) doesn't exist anymore.

 

I disagree, actually. I don't think it would change that much, since I think they'd be much more harsh on the idea of the massive standing army that we have today (We never had a big one until post WWII). Let's also consider that they probably wouldn't be fans of the far-more-powerful version of the Federal Government that is around today, either. When it comes to them looking at the common people vs a giant governmental monolith, they'll side with the former rather than the latter. The 2nd Amendment would stay, and the standing army would likely be diminished greatly so that the people actually stand a chance to overthrow it.

 

Not only this, but I don't think it fits their social values to blame "the weapon", so to speak; No one blamed the pistol for killing Alexander Hamilton, or even the honor system that brought about his death. They blamed Aaron Burr. I think they'd much rather focus on the "character" of those committing the crimes rather than the weapons themselves. If they redid the Constitution, we might see restrictions based on class or education rather than the weapons themselves.

 

But that's just me. I always find these "What would the founders think?" arguments to be iffy at best. So if they agree that the 2nd Amendment shouldn't be there (or be as expansive), that's okay... but if they change the 1st Amendment's Free Speech guarantee to not be as expansive, since they didn't really want a cross in a bottle of urine to be covered, is that also right?

[SuperJerk 0]

As far as blame for gun violence goes...gun control isn't about BLAMING. It's about PREVENTING.

 

 

 

You're right, though, "What would the founders think?" arguments are iffy. They never had to live in our world. Sure, they'd hate taxes and the standing army, but other things the founding fathers probably wouldn't be happy out might include:

-The Industrial Revolution.

-Nuclear Bombs.

-Women voting.

-Negroes running around free.

They've been dead 150-200 years. Does it really MATTER what they would think at this point? They gave us some good ideas, and they also gave us some fucking shitty ones.

 

Can't we just keep the ideas that still work and revise the others?

 

These are the same men who gave us the necessary-and-proper clause and the 9th Amendment. They knew their ideas weren't perfect. They wrote an archaic amendment into the constitution, but they also gave us the mean to work around it.

 

Also, Washington might have objected to the cross in the bottle of urine, but I bet Thomas Jefferson would have found it hillarious.

[At Home 0]

Other things the founding fathers probably wouldn't be happy out...

-The Industrial Revolution.

 

In all fairness, that's probably just Jefferson.

[Nightwing 0]

I don't think you realize that I agree with you on the "Who cares about what they think?" camp. I just wanted to say that I don't think the way you were pitching the argument worked, as I don't think they would have changed that part of the Constitution in response to what you were talking about. That's all. Don't get all hostile about it.

 

If you want my interpretation, I'd say that the wording would say that most outright bans are illegal (That's an obvious infringement), but that things like mandatory gun registration would (and should) be endorsed by the "well-regulated" part. Other things like weapon training courses for those who want to own certain weapons, as well as increased government scrutiny (as already outlined by Jingus and is pretty much already in place) for certain weapons.

 

Summed up, I'm for the regulation of guns rather than the prevention of guns.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

If you want my interpretation, I'd say that the wording would say that most outright bans are illegal (That's an obvious infringement), but that things like mandatory gun registration would (and should) be endorsed by the "well-regulated" part. Other things like weapon training courses for those who want to own certain weapons, as well as increased government scrutiny (as already outlined by Jingus and is pretty much already in place) for certain weapons.

 

Wins the thread.

[SuperJerk 0]

I concur.