If they come at you with their military vehicles the best option would be to drive away ... fast.
All this talk about being prepared for when the US Government comes after us suggests a silly case of testosterone run amok.
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Repeal the 2nd Amendment
- Thread starter Jayhawker Soule
- Start date
All this talk about being prepared for when the US Government comes after us suggests a silly case of testosterone run amok.
(I deserved that
well done.)
We all deserve to have fun.(I deserved that
It's the social lubricant which makes vigorous discussion friendly!
The recent case of a bakery forced into bankruptcy for refusing to sell a wedding cake when religious conviction violated government policy suggests that such fears are not totally unfounded.
Ask the Native Americans, African Americans and Japanese Americans about the innate moral decency of the Federal Government and how much complete and total trust it deserves. We believe that 'governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed'. Do you really believe that there is absolutely no difference between the consent of an armed governed (even if it is just the Constitutionally protected hypothetical right to purchase a weapon) from a completely unarmed governed with absolutely no such rights?
Defenseless against what? Am I unusual in never having had the pleasure of a law enforcement officer pointing his gun at me?
And even if an LEO pointed his gun at you and told you to stop whatever you're doing, who would ultimately win that battle even if you owned a machine gun?
Given the holding of Heller, the (continued) proliferation of handguns seems to be inevitable. In order to prevent that continued proliferation, it seems that either the Court will have to overturn that holding or the Amendment will have to be repealed. (I think the former is more likely to occur sooner than the latter.)
These are precisely the uses that Madison excluded from the Amendment.
These are purposes that are obsolete. Modern, civilized Americans do not want citizen militia gun-nuts going and threatening or shooting at government officials.
The second part of the sentence is limited by the prefatory clause by the fact that uses of firearms for purposes such as "in defence of themselves" and "hunting" were excluded.
It obviously doesn't make sense to write a sentence that is supposed to secure a right of self-defense in the home by the use of handguns by beginning the sentence with a clause about a well-regulated militia and the security of a free State.
So, do you think these homophobic bakers (et al.) would be better off today if they had pulled out their machine guns and mowed some people down?
Do you think that enforced attitude change will stop at homophobic bakers?
Why did the ACLU fight to allow neo-nazi marches? (Probably not because they supported Nazi ideology).
Taylor Seraphim
Angel of Reason
If you had actually read my statements I was telling you what the founding fathers intended when the amendment was made, I made no comment on how it should be done now.
Taylor Seraphim
Angel of Reason
Will you please argue intelligently and not try to pull strawmans?
Sure, go right ahead. While you're at it, repeal that pesky first one too.
Curious George
Veteran Member
why assume that one prefatory statement is exclusionary? Why would the right apply to people and not members of the militia if such was the case? You assume too much. Self defense is certainly implied by the right to life. People owned guns, people used those guns for self defense. I see nothing that expressly suggests such a right was not valued or expected. I see nothing that suggests any of the drafters perceived that such a right should be subject to laws. And even if we were to allow that interpretation, the choice to limit handguns in the home is still not necessarily something that should be compromised.
Why should we not want laws that prevent the government from infringing on our rights to be interpreted in a narrow fashion? What exactly do you think that the right of the people to keep and bear arms clause was intended to do? I am pretty sure that it was intended to keep the government from taking away arms without a damn good reason (now it would be considered a "compelling" reason). The bottom line here is that the operative clause secures the right. Had the constitution read "slaves, being a necessary part of agriculture in the south, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This would not mean that the right disappears once slavery disappeared. That is absurd. The constitution was designed to limit federal control, yet we now have found reason for it to be designed to limit both federal and state control. I assume that you don't disagree with this. But in this discussion we are not talking about a some clauses that we have to balance. We are talking about one clause which specifically states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And another clause that says "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state." Your reading would imply that the drafters didn't no how to use words like "to" or "because" or any other simple modifications that would make this supposed limitation expressed. Do not mistake my argument for suggesting that I do not see the reasoning for such an interpretation, but the reasoning is far from conclusive. I would rather our rights be interpreted in a broad fashion when there is a question of interpretation.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
The 2nd is geared towards the states in that it was viewed that the states would better represent "the people" in terms of being protected from federal overreach. At no time, even including the latest SCOTUS decision was it ever the view of the court that this was an automatic right extended to all people at the personal level and with any weapon of their choice.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
The Heller Decision was a 5-4 one that broke some precedent as previously mentioned, and it is this part that was "out of the blue". As far as Scalia's comments being "bizarre", I went on to mention the fact that, after Heller, he made a comment that maybe even hand-held surface-to-air missile launchers might be legal under his interpretation of the 2nd.
In the minority opinion, Stevens blasted the decision as being "a strained and unpersuasive reading", and Breyer wrote "there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden areas".
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
I agree.
(1) What the hell are you talking about? Whose “attitude” about anything was “forced” to be changed?
The homophobic bakers were merely required to pay a fine because they violated the public accommodations law. I feel certain that they are as homophobic as they ever were.
Can we change American gun-lovers’ sick attitudes about guns by levying fines? If so, I’m all for it.
(2) How the hell is the case about the homophobic bakers and their violation of public accommodation law supposed to relate to the Second Amendment?
I asked you if you think the homophobic bakers would be better off if they had deal with the enforcement of the public accommodation by shooting people. Your lack of response to the question but continued focus on these mentally ill bakers cause me to suspect that that’s exactly what you consider to be the relationship between them and the Second Amendment.
(3) BTW: The homophobic bakers who violated the local public accommodation law and were fined for doing do so apparently were not “forced into bankruptcy,” as you claimed. These homophobes are still in business selling dry cakes: http://www.sweetcakesweb.com/
Moreover, according to reports, because these bakers crowd-funded their violation of the law and because homophobia is such a commonplace mental illness among Americans, these bakers received donations more than double the amount of the fine:
An Oregon bakery that was fined for refusing to prepare a cake for a same-sex wedding has raised $352,500 in around two months, setting a record for the website that hosted its fundraising campaign.
Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery owned by Aaron and Melissa Klein, originally began a crowdfunding campaign on the website GoFundMe after the businesses was shuttered in 2013, but was kicked off the site in April due to complaints from same-sex marriage supporters. In the Kleins’ time on GoFundMe they raised $109,000, which they were permitted to keep after the site changed its policy to ban their campaign.
The Kleins then began another campaign on the website Continue to Give on May 5, which bills itself as “a faith based giving platform” and asked for donations to support their family in the wake of their bakery’s closing and subsequent legal battles. The founder of Continue to Give, Jesse Wellhoefer, told the Washington Times that the Klein family has already broken the three-year-old site’s record for highest total raised and is continuing to raise funds.
The couple originally began crowdfunding after the Oregon labor commissioner ordered them to pay $135,000 in damages to a same-sex couple. Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, the couple in question, requested a cake from the shop for a commitment ceremony in June 2013, but were denied by the Kleins, who cited their religious beliefs as prohibiting them from taking part in the celebration.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/...s-by-melissa-fundraising-120153#ixzz3g3MZe2ou
And I was pointing out that your claims are false, which has already been shown on this thread. Click the link and continue reading:
The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several States. Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution.
In 1934, Congress enacted the National Firearms Act, the first major federal firearms law.[1] Upholding a conviction under that Act, this Court held that, “[i ]n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” Miller, 307 U. S., at 178. The view of the Amendment we took in Miller--that it protects the right to keep and bear arms for certain military purposes, but that it does not curtail the Legislature’s power to regulate the nonmilitary use and ownership of weapons--is both the most natural reading of the Amendment’s text and the interpretation most faithful to the history of its adoption.
Since our decision in Miller, hundreds of judges have relied on the view of the Amendment we endorsed there;[2] we ourselves affirmed it in 1980. See Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55 , n. 8 (1980).[3] No new evidence has surfaced since 1980 supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to curtail the power of Congress to regulate civilian use or misuse of weapons. Indeed, a review of the drafting history of the Amendment demonstrates that its Framers rejected proposals that would have broadened its coverage to include such uses.
[. . .]
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”
The preamble to the Second Amendment makes three important points. It identifies the preservation of the militia as the Amendment’s purpose; it explains that the militia is necessary to the security of a free State; and it recognizes that the militia must be “well regulated.” In all three respects it is comparable to provisions in several State Declarations of Rights that were adopted roughly contemporaneously with the Declaration of Independence.[5] Those state provisions highlight the importance members of the founding generation attached to the maintenance of state militias; they also underscore the profound fear shared by many in that era of the dangers posed by standing armies.[6] While the need for state militias has not been a matter of significant public interest for almost two centuries, that fact should not obscure the contemporary concerns that animated the Framers.
The parallels between the Second Amendment and these state declarations, and the Second Amendment’s omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense, is especially striking in light of the fact that the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont did expressly protect such civilian uses at the time. Article XIII of Pennsylvania’s 1776 Declaration of Rights announced that “the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state,” 1 Schwartz 266 (emphasis added); §43 of the Declaration assured that “the inhabitants of this state shall have the liberty to fowl and hunt in seasonable times on the lands they hold, and on all other lands therein not inclosed,” id., at 274. And Article XV of the 1777 Vermont Declaration of Rights guaranteed “[t]hat the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State.” Id., at 324 (emphasis added). The contrast between those two declarations and the Second Amendment reinforces the clear statement of purpose announced in the Amendment’s preamble. It confirms that the Framers’ single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee “to keep and bear arms” was on military uses of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias.
In 1934, Congress enacted the National Firearms Act, the first major federal firearms law.[1] Upholding a conviction under that Act, this Court held that, “[i ]n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” Miller, 307 U. S., at 178. The view of the Amendment we took in Miller--that it protects the right to keep and bear arms for certain military purposes, but that it does not curtail the Legislature’s power to regulate the nonmilitary use and ownership of weapons--is both the most natural reading of the Amendment’s text and the interpretation most faithful to the history of its adoption.
Since our decision in Miller, hundreds of judges have relied on the view of the Amendment we endorsed there;[2] we ourselves affirmed it in 1980. See Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55 , n. 8 (1980).[3] No new evidence has surfaced since 1980 supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to curtail the power of Congress to regulate civilian use or misuse of weapons. Indeed, a review of the drafting history of the Amendment demonstrates that its Framers rejected proposals that would have broadened its coverage to include such uses.
[. . .]
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”
The preamble to the Second Amendment makes three important points. It identifies the preservation of the militia as the Amendment’s purpose; it explains that the militia is necessary to the security of a free State; and it recognizes that the militia must be “well regulated.” In all three respects it is comparable to provisions in several State Declarations of Rights that were adopted roughly contemporaneously with the Declaration of Independence.[5] Those state provisions highlight the importance members of the founding generation attached to the maintenance of state militias; they also underscore the profound fear shared by many in that era of the dangers posed by standing armies.[6] While the need for state militias has not been a matter of significant public interest for almost two centuries, that fact should not obscure the contemporary concerns that animated the Framers.
The parallels between the Second Amendment and these state declarations, and the Second Amendment’s omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense, is especially striking in light of the fact that the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont did expressly protect such civilian uses at the time. Article XIII of Pennsylvania’s 1776 Declaration of Rights announced that “the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state,” 1 Schwartz 266 (emphasis added); §43 of the Declaration assured that “the inhabitants of this state shall have the liberty to fowl and hunt in seasonable times on the lands they hold, and on all other lands therein not inclosed,” id., at 274. And Article XV of the 1777 Vermont Declaration of Rights guaranteed “[t]hat the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State.” Id., at 324 (emphasis added). The contrast between those two declarations and the Second Amendment reinforces the clear statement of purpose announced in the Amendment’s preamble. It confirms that the Framers’ single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee “to keep and bear arms” was on military uses of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html