The 2nd amendment does not say "Except for felons" or "Except as provided by law". Why not?

[ChrisL]

It does say....A well regulated militia being necessary for a free state

It just declare a sentence. What is the purpose of that sentence? It's a literal term that doesn't imply anything.

The people who wrote it were lawyers. They struggled over ever sentence. If they wanted to give an absolute right to bear arms they would simply say.......The right to bear arms shall not be infringed...PERIOD

Of course you know that is exactly what they meant. The "militia" part was due to the fact that they expected every able bodied person to be armed and ready. They had just fought a war and what helped them win were exactly those tactics. Just regular people defended their communities against invaders.

Very true

They had just fought a war and understood the need for a well regulated militia....not just a bunch of armed gun nuts

What The Founding Fathers Said About the 2nd Amendment (Original Intent)



Founder’s quotes on 2nd amendment

”The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.” (George Washington)

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” (George Washington)

“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that is good” (George Washington)

“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” (George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia’s Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788)

“On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” (Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322)

 

[Ernie S.]

I had wondered why there had been no conditions placed on arms myself and looked to historically relevant justification.
Seems it may have something to do with the 1st Amendment. It seems that not all that long before the founders drafted the BILL OF Rights, the right of Catholics in England to keep and bear arms had been severely restricted. This was probably in the back of their minds as they debated the 2nd Amendment.

Edited to add "in England" in red above

 

[NYcarbineer]

"The 2nd amendment does not say "Except for felons" or "Except as provided by law". Why not?"

Because the Constitution exists solely in the context of its case law

The standard excuse fabricated by people who want to violate the Constitution.

"If the Constitution says one thing and the Courts say another, the courts should prevail."

People who say that, know they could never get the American people to accept and ratify their agenda into the Constitution. So, rather than obey the Constitution, they try to pretend the Courts can change it by fiat.

The 1st Amendment protects the right to publish c

I want to talk about why there are no stated exceptions to the 1st Amendment rights, and yet we have clearly allowed exceptions,

Feel free to open another thread on that subject.

But kindly stop trying to hijack this one.

lolololololol

It's the central theme of your thread that there can't be exceptions to amendments that don't mention exceptions.

Where does the 1st Amendment say that child pornography is not protected by freedom of the press?

You're an asshole,

except in the sense that even a real asshole has a legitimate biological function,

you, on the other hand, are totally useless.

 

[Care4all]

The 2nd amendment does not say "Except for felons" or "Except as provided by law". Why not?

The 4th amendment bans searches and seizure, but not all of them: It specifically names unreasonable searches and seizures.

The 5th amendment says that no one can be jailed or executed etc... but makes an exception: unless there is "due process of law".

Even the 13th amendment that prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude, makes an exception: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

But the 2nd amendment, which forbids government from taking away or restricting our right to keep and bear arms, is conspicuously devoid of any such language. As written, it permits NO exceptions or "reasonable restrictions". Period.

Why?

There's an important characteristic of the people's right to keep and bear arms, which might explain why the 2nd is written without qualifications. It says "Since X is so, the people's RKBA cannot be taken away or restricted." Unlike the 4th, 5th, and 13th, the 2nd does NOT say "except by due process of law". And it does NOT say "unless the person is a certain type of extreme criminal", and etc.

To make up an extreme example, suppose some guy goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun and blows away half a dozen people. The cops show up and surround him, and one cop says, "Give me your gun right now." The guy says, "Sorry, the 2nd amendment says my right to KBA cannot be taken away or restricted, PERIOD, so you have no authority to make me give you my gun." And this with gunsmoke in the air and bodies bleeding on the floor next to him.

Many of the people who wrote the 2nd were lawyers, and knew well the effect that certain words have when included, or omitted, from legislation. And yet they chose to omit ANY exceptions to the ban on government taking people's guns away. Strictly speaking, that would even include the extreme example I just gave: Cops can't take away the gun of a murderer at the scene of his crime.

Many people use this as the reason why the 2nd amendment MUST have been intended to implicitly allow for exceptions: It's impossible that the Framers could have intended for murderers to retain their weapons immediately after committing their murders. Yet a truly strict reading of the 2nd, forbids any govt official (including police) from taking the mass-murderer's gun.

So what could the Framers' intention have been, in omitting any exceptions?

Remember that it is GOVERNMENT that is being forbidden from taking away people's weapons. And the foremost reason it's forbidden, is so that the people can use them against government itself, if/when the government becomes tyrannical. And the Framers knew that if government were given even the tiniest exception, there would be a tendency to turn that tiny loophole into more and more twisted, warped excuses to take guns away anyway, far beyond the "reasonable" exception of being able to take away a mass-murderer's gun at the scene of his crime.

The only way the Framers could find of avoiding the far-greater evil of a tyrannical government disarming its people, was to make NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER to an explicit ban on government disarming even one of us.

So where does that leave us on the question of the cops taking the mass murderer's gun at the restaurant?

It's inconceivable that the Framers would want the murderer to retain his gun even as they haul him off to jail.

But it's VERY conceivable that the Framers would want government to have NOT THE SLIGHTEST EXCUSE, NO MATTER HOW "REASONABLE", to take away the weapons of their populace in general. Because the slightest excuse, the tiniest exception, could be stretched into a huge loophole. And the Framers regarded a government that could somehow finagle its way into disarming its own people, as a far greater threat than the occasional murderous nutcase in a restaurant.

And history has proven the Framers right, time and again.

Should we amend the Constitution, changing the 2nd amendment to officially empower government to take away the right of, say, murderers, to own and carry guns?

Some would think it's obvious that we should, to make the law "really" right. But consider the potential cost.

My own guess is, the Framers intended for an exception to be made in such a case... but not by any government official. The restaurant mass-murderer tells the cops they have no power to take his gun. The cop responds by cracking the guy's skull, hard, and taking away his gun anyway. Did the cop violate the strict words of the 2nd amendment by doing so? Yes. But is there a jury in the world that will convict the cop for it? Probably not.

The Constitution puts the ultimate fate of anyone accused of breaking laws, into the hands of a JURY. A groupd of the accused guy's own peers, people pretty much like him. NOT government officials. And that was so the only people who can find, or even invent, exceptions to the law, are ordinary civilians: the ones on the jury. Today this is called "Jury Nullification". And I suggest that this is exactly what the Framers had in mind when the wrote the 2nd amendment with NO exceptions and NO "reasonable restrictions" on guns and other such weapons.

The 2nd amendment is a restriction on GOVERNMENT. But not on a jury.

So when the murderer from the restaurant brings charges against the cop for taking away his gun, the cop gets a chance to explain to a JURY why he did it. His explanation will probably take less than ten seconds. And the jury (whose members wouldn't be there if they hadn't been accepted by the cop) will certainly decide that the cop should not be found guilty of violating the clear language of the 2nd, in that case. Because the JURY (and nobody else) has the power to make "reasonable exceptions".

But at the same time, when government makes the slightest move toward disarming even a little of its populace by legislation, they can be met with the absolute, no-exceptions ban codified by the 2nd amendment. No loopholes, no "reasonable exceptions", no nothing. ANY legislation that infringes on the absolute right to KBA, is unconstitutional. Period.

I suspect that's how the Framers expected this particular law to work.

Can I prove it? No. When I meet one of the Framers, I'll ask him. Until that time, I can only guess, based on the records they have left behind... and the fact that they put NONE of the usual qualifiers, into the 2nd amendment. If anyone can come up with a better guess, I'd be happy to hear it.

At the time that the founding fathers wrote this, it seems they wrote no restrictions and with no exceptions....by the FEDERAL GVT...it's the only thing that makes any sense...they were NOT restricting the States from imposing their own rules on how they wanted their Militia to be armed, because it was the State's own Militia...a Militia formed by the State from the citizens, that could find it necessary to raise up against the federal govt....there was an underlying distrust in a federal gvt, becoming more powerful than the State itself perhaps?

At one point, what was believed by some who took a "states' rights" approach, under which the Amendment only protected the right to keep and bear arms in connection with organized state militia units. (which I think I disagree with the previous) Moreover, it was generally believed that the Amendment was only a bar to federal action, not to state or municipal restraints.

After all, the Federal government should not be dictating how a State forms their Militia or how citizens protect themselves within that State....the Federal government should not infringe on a State's own security and rules for such...their own Militia and how to set one up etc...this should be solely up to the State itself for what the people should be allowed to own or carry for self defense protection in their State...

The Feds were not responsible for felons or exfelons or crazy rampage murders within the State, the State's own law enforcement and own legislative rules and regs govern that, and the Feds don't govern what ex felon can or can not have a gun...this is all up to the State itself that has tried and convicted the felon....to put any restrictions on gun ownership or Militia preparedness....

And if you look at History, this is pretty much the way the law has been interpreted...?

Now that would mean the Fed should NOT have the right to federally ban anything within the States regarding the State's Militia or the gun ownership of the people within the State....

And in some case the feds HAVE put restrictions like the AK 47 restrictions...so this should be a no no...if the presumption is that the 2nd is a restriction on the Federal Gvt and not the State gvt...but if the State itself wants to restrict such, then so be it...

REMEMBER, there was no Federal Army.... the Feds, according to the constitution, calls up the Army FROM THE STATE Militias, and only for two years at a time...max, till they have to vote again.....

 

[NYcarbineer]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

 

[turtledude]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

 

[NYcarbineer]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

 

[turtledude]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

 

[Ernie S.]

The 2nd amendment does not say "Except for felons" or "Except as provided by law". Why not?

The 4th amendment bans searches and seizure, but not all of them: It specifically names unreasonable searches and seizures.

The 5th amendment says that no one can be jailed or executed etc... but makes an exception: unless there is "due process of law".

Even the 13th amendment that prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude, makes an exception: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

But the 2nd amendment, which forbids government from taking away or restricting our right to keep and bear arms, is conspicuously devoid of any such language. As written, it permits NO exceptions or "reasonable restrictions". Period.

Why?

There's an important characteristic of the people's right to keep and bear arms, which might explain why the 2nd is written without qualifications. It says "Since X is so, the people's RKBA cannot be taken away or restricted." Unlike the 4th, 5th, and 13th, the 2nd does NOT say "except by due process of law". And it does NOT say "unless the person is a certain type of extreme criminal", and etc.

To make up an extreme example, suppose some guy goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun and blows away half a dozen people. The cops show up and surround him, and one cop says, "Give me your gun right now." The guy says, "Sorry, the 2nd amendment says my right to KBA cannot be taken away or restricted, PERIOD, so you have no authority to make me give you my gun." And this with gunsmoke in the air and bodies bleeding on the floor next to him.

Many of the people who wrote the 2nd were lawyers, and knew well the effect that certain words have when included, or omitted, from legislation. And yet they chose to omit ANY exceptions to the ban on government taking people's guns away. Strictly speaking, that would even include the extreme example I just gave: Cops can't take away the gun of a murderer at the scene of his crime.

The men who wrote the 2nd amendment never applied it as you insist they meant the 2nd amendment to be applied. You are offering us an extreme, absolutist interpretation that the founders never followed. The purpose of an armed public was so they could be ready to serve in the militia.

Not so they could reload over the corpses of their victims so they could fire on the local constabulary.

The frst thing to realize about the founders is that they were generally practical, thoughtful men. When a principle was taken to a ridiculous extreme, they recognized it was ridiculous.



Many people use this as the reason why the 2nd amendment MUST have been intended to implicitly allow for exceptions: It's impossible that the Framers could have intended for murderers to retain their weapons immediately after committing their murders. Yet a truly strict reading of the 2nd, forbids any govt official (including police) from taking the mass-murderer's gun.

So what could the Framers' intention have been, in omitting any exceptions?

Remember that it is GOVERNMENT that is being forbidden from taking away people's weapons. And the foremost reason it's forbidden, is so that the people can use them against government itself, if/when the government becomes tyrannical. And the Framers knew that if government were given even the tiniest exception, there would be a tendency to turn that tiny loophole into more and more twisted, warped excuses to take guns away anyway, far beyond the "reasonable" exception of being able to take away a mass-murderer's gun at the scene of his crime.

The only way the Framers could find of avoiding the far-greater evil of a tyrannical government disarming its people, was to make NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER to an explicit ban on government disarming even one of us.

So where does that leave us on the question of the cops taking the mass murderer's gun at the restaurant?

It's inconceivable that the Framers would want the murderer to retain his gun even as they haul him off to jail.

But it's VERY conceivable that the Framers would want government to have NOT THE SLIGHTEST EXCUSE, NO MATTER HOW "REASONABLE", to take away the weapons of their populace in general. Because the slightest excuse, the tiniest exception, could be stretched into a huge loophole. And the Framers regarded a government that could somehow finagle its way into disarming its own people, as a far greater threat than the occasional murderous nutcase in a restaurant.

And history has proven the Framers right, time and again.

Should we amend the Constitution, changing the 2nd amendment to officially empower government to take away the right of, say, murderers, to own and carry guns?

Some would think it's obvious that we should, to make the law "really" right. But consider the potential cost.

My own guess is, the Framers intended for an exception to be made in such a case... but not by any government official. The restaurant mass-murderer tells the cops they have no power to take his gun. The cop responds by cracking the guy's skull, hard, and taking away his gun anyway. Did the cop violate the strict words of the 2nd amendment by doing so? Yes. But is there a jury in the world that will convict the cop for it? Probably not.

The Constitution puts the ultimate fate of anyone accused of breaking laws, into the hands of a JURY. A groupd of the accused guy's own peers, people pretty much like him. NOT government officials. And that was so the only people who can find, or even invent, exceptions to the law, are ordinary civilians: the ones on the jury. Today this is called "Jury Nullification". And I suggest that this is exactly what the Framers had in mind when the wrote the 2nd amendment with NO exceptions and NO "reasonable restrictions" on guns and other such weapons.

The 2nd amendment is a restriction on GOVERNMENT. But not on a jury.

So when the murderer from the restaurant brings charges against the cop for taking away his gun, the cop gets a chance to explain to a JURY why he did it. His explanation will probably take less than ten seconds. And the jury (whose members wouldn't be there if they hadn't been accepted by the cop) will certainly decide that the cop should not be found guilty of violating the clear language of the 2nd, in that case. Because the JURY (and nobody else) has the power to make "reasonable exceptions".

But at the same time, when government makes the slightest move toward disarming even a little of its populace by legislation, they can be met with the absolute, no-exceptions ban codified by the 2nd amendment. No loopholes, no "reasonable exceptions", no nothing. ANY legislation that infringes on the absolute right to KBA, is unconstitutional. Period.

I suspect that's how the Framers expected this particular law to work.

Can I prove it? No. When I meet one of the Framers, I'll ask him. Until that time, I can only guess, based on the records they have left behind... and the fact that they put NONE of the usual qualifiers, into the 2nd amendment. If anyone can come up with a better guess, I'd be happy to hear it.

Well, not exactly like meeting Jefferson, but he did say this:

“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. Laws that forbid the carrying of arms laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they act rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Quoting Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment

 

[NYcarbineer]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

English, please.

 

[turtledude]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

English, please.

its a legal argument, dipshit, Come back in three years when you get a law degree from Yale or Columbia. Then you will be in a position to understand what I tell you.

 

[Ernie S.]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

English, please.

It's plain enough to me.... Perhaps you are intellectually challenged?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Has the OP come out demanding the courts protect the 1st Amendment rights of child pornographers?

IMHO, he has, but I welcome arguments to the contrary.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The RWnuts don't want felons to vote,

but they want them to have any gun they can get their hands on.

Amazing.

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

English, please.

its a legal argument, dipshit, Come back in three years when you get a law degree from Yale or Columbia. Then you will be in a position to understand what I tell you.

Start by telling us what RKBA means.

 

[turtledude]

stop lying you pos. its liberals who want to make working conditions for felons safer

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

English, please.

its a legal argument, dipshit, Come back in three years when you get a law degree from Yale or Columbia. Then you will be in a position to understand what I tell you.

Start by telling us what RKBA means.

if you don't know that its shorthand for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, then you have no reason to even be here

 

[frigidweirdo]

The 2nd amendment does not say "Except for felons" or "Except as provided by law". Why not?

The 4th amendment bans searches and seizure, but not all of them: It specifically names unreasonable searches and seizures.

The 5th amendment says that no one can be jailed or executed etc... but makes an exception: unless there is "due process of law".

Even the 13th amendment that prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude, makes an exception: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

But the 2nd amendment, which forbids government from taking away or restricting our right to keep and bear arms, is conspicuously devoid of any such language. As written, it permits NO exceptions or "reasonable restrictions". Period.

Why?

There's an important characteristic of the people's right to keep and bear arms, which might explain why the 2nd is written without qualifications. It says "Since X is so, the people's RKBA cannot be taken away or restricted." Unlike the 4th, 5th, and 13th, the 2nd does NOT say "except by due process of law". And it does NOT say "unless the person is a certain type of extreme criminal", and etc.

To make up an extreme example, suppose some guy goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun and blows away half a dozen people. The cops show up and surround him, and one cop says, "Give me your gun right now." The guy says, "Sorry, the 2nd amendment says my right to KBA cannot be taken away or restricted, PERIOD, so you have no authority to make me give you my gun." And this with gunsmoke in the air and bodies bleeding on the floor next to him.

Many of the people who wrote the 2nd were lawyers, and knew well the effect that certain words have when included, or omitted, from legislation. And yet they chose to omit ANY exceptions to the ban on government taking people's guns away. Strictly speaking, that would even include the extreme example I just gave: Cops can't take away the gun of a murderer at the scene of his crime.

Many people use this as the reason why the 2nd amendment MUST have been intended to implicitly allow for exceptions: It's impossible that the Framers could have intended for murderers to retain their weapons immediately after committing their murders. Yet a truly strict reading of the 2nd, forbids any govt official (including police) from taking the mass-murderer's gun.

So what could the Framers' intention have been, in omitting any exceptions?

Remember that it is GOVERNMENT that is being forbidden from taking away people's weapons. And the foremost reason it's forbidden, is so that the people can use them against government itself, if/when the government becomes tyrannical. And the Framers knew that if government were given even the tiniest exception, there would be a tendency to turn that tiny loophole into more and more twisted, warped excuses to take guns away anyway, far beyond the "reasonable" exception of being able to take away a mass-murderer's gun at the scene of his crime.

The only way the Framers could find of avoiding the far-greater evil of a tyrannical government disarming its people, was to make NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER to an explicit ban on government disarming even one of us.

So where does that leave us on the question of the cops taking the mass murderer's gun at the restaurant?

It's inconceivable that the Framers would want the murderer to retain his gun even as they haul him off to jail.

But it's VERY conceivable that the Framers would want government to have NOT THE SLIGHTEST EXCUSE, NO MATTER HOW "REASONABLE", to take away the weapons of their populace in general. Because the slightest excuse, the tiniest exception, could be stretched into a huge loophole. And the Framers regarded a government that could somehow finagle its way into disarming its own people, as a far greater threat than the occasional murderous nutcase in a restaurant.

And history has proven the Framers right, time and again.

Should we amend the Constitution, changing the 2nd amendment to officially empower government to take away the right of, say, murderers, to own and carry guns?

Some would think it's obvious that we should, to make the law "really" right. But consider the potential cost.

My own guess is, the Framers intended for an exception to be made in such a case... but not by any government official. The restaurant mass-murderer tells the cops they have no power to take his gun. The cop responds by cracking the guy's skull, hard, and taking away his gun anyway. Did the cop violate the strict words of the 2nd amendment by doing so? Yes. But is there a jury in the world that will convict the cop for it? Probably not.

The Constitution puts the ultimate fate of anyone accused of breaking laws, into the hands of a JURY. A groupd of the accused guy's own peers, people pretty much like him. NOT government officials. And that was so the only people who can find, or even invent, exceptions to the law, are ordinary civilians: the ones on the jury. Today this is called "Jury Nullification". And I suggest that this is exactly what the Framers had in mind when the wrote the 2nd amendment with NO exceptions and NO "reasonable restrictions" on guns and other such weapons.

The 2nd amendment is a restriction on GOVERNMENT. But not on a jury.

So when the murderer from the restaurant brings charges against the cop for taking away his gun, the cop gets a chance to explain to a JURY why he did it. His explanation will probably take less than ten seconds. And the jury (whose members wouldn't be there if they hadn't been accepted by the cop) will certainly decide that the cop should not be found guilty of violating the clear language of the 2nd, in that case. Because the JURY (and nobody else) has the power to make "reasonable exceptions".

But at the same time, when government makes the slightest move toward disarming even a little of its populace by legislation, they can be met with the absolute, no-exceptions ban codified by the 2nd amendment. No loopholes, no "reasonable exceptions", no nothing. ANY legislation that infringes on the absolute right to KBA, is unconstitutional. Period.

I suspect that's how the Framers expected this particular law to work.

Can I prove it? No. When I meet one of the Framers, I'll ask him. Until that time, I can only guess, based on the records they have left behind... and the fact that they put NONE of the usual qualifiers, into the 2nd amendment. If anyone can come up with a better guess, I'd be happy to hear it.

All rights have limits. But the Founding Fathers probably didn't envisage the modern world where we'd want people who had been criminals barred from legally owning weapons. They didn't have massive cities, lots of people live in the countryside, or the countryside was really close and lots of people went hunting. They also probably didn't consider mass murder of innocents very much either.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Are you illiterate? The OP is claiming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of felons to buy and possess guns.

Wake up, Noddy.

listen moron. the federal government does not have any proper power to deny felons the RKBA. However, the states do. Just like the states can deny those convicted of felonies the right of ASSEMBLY, the right of FREE SPEECH, the right to be free from searches etc.

English, please.

its a legal argument, dipshit, Come back in three years when you get a law degree from Yale or Columbia. Then you will be in a position to understand what I tell you.

Start by telling us what RKBA means.

if you don't know that its shorthand for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, then you have no reason to even be here

Beyond that is what the right to keep and bear arms actually means.

It's the right to own weapons and the right to be in the militia.

 

[rightwinger]

It does say....A well regulated militia being necessary for a free state

It just declare a sentence. What is the purpose of that sentence? It's a literal term that doesn't imply anything.

The people who wrote it were lawyers. They struggled over ever sentence. If they wanted to give an absolute right to bear arms they would simply say.......The right to bear arms shall not be infringed...PERIOD

Of course you know that is exactly what they meant. The "militia" part was due to the fact that they expected every able bodied person to be armed and ready. They had just fought a war and what helped them win were exactly those tactics. Just regular people defended their communities against invaders.

Very true

They had just fought a war and understood the need for a well regulated militia....not just a bunch of armed gun nuts

No, they didn't want a government controlled army. They were totally against that. They wanted citizens to be armed and members of the militia.

Actually they were busted economically and could not afford a standing army. Better to rely on militias you could call up when you needed them

 

[Little-Acorn]

At the time that the founding fathers wrote this, it seems they wrote no restrictions and with no exceptions....by the FEDERAL GVT...

Were you about to point out where in the 2nd amendment it restricted its effect to only the Federal govt?

Good luck with that.

 

[ChrisL]

It just declare a sentence. What is the purpose of that sentence? It's a literal term that doesn't imply anything.

The people who wrote it were lawyers. They struggled over ever sentence. If they wanted to give an absolute right to bear arms they would simply say.......The right to bear arms shall not be infringed...PERIOD

Of course you know that is exactly what they meant. The "militia" part was due to the fact that they expected every able bodied person to be armed and ready. They had just fought a war and what helped them win were exactly those tactics. Just regular people defended their communities against invaders.

Very true

They had just fought a war and understood the need for a well regulated militia....not just a bunch of armed gun nuts

No, they didn't want a government controlled army. They were totally against that. They wanted citizens to be armed and members of the militia.

Actually they were busted economically and could not afford a standing army. Better to rely on militias you could call up when you needed them

As you can see by my post, you are wrong. They did not want a federally funded military. They wanted the people to be able to defend themselves and their communities. That was the whole point of the 2nd amendment. The Bill of Rights is about WE the people and OUR rights, not the government's ability to restrict our rights.