The Right To Bear Arms

[Dreamy]

Many times over the SC has reaffirmed this interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Private citizen Berger spoke those words in that article for Parade magazine in Dec. 1991. He was not even on the bench(retired in 86) Not one 2nd Amendment case came before his bench in 1980 or anytime after. The Supreme Court has not heard a 2nd Amendment case since 1939.

 

[Lakhota]

Many times over the SC has reaffirmed this interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Private citizen Berger spoke those words in that article for Parade magazine in Dec. 1991. He was not even on the bench(retired in 86) Not one 2nd Amendment case came before his bench in 1980 or anytime after. The Supreme Court has not heard a 2nd Amendment case since 1939.

Since 1939? Really...?

 

[whitehall]

Thanks to the union based education system everything is confusing to the left.

 

[Lakhota]

 

[Lakhota]

 

[OODA_Loop]

Obama says he supports the individual protection of the 2A.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Send O a letter asking him to repeal it then if you don't like it. I'm 100 percent sure that you would lose.

 

[Harry Dresden]

A distinguished citizen takes a stand on one of the most controversial issues in the nation

By Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (1969-86)
Parade Magazine, January 14, 1990, page 4

Let's look at the history.

First, many of the 3.5 million people living in the 13 original Colonies depended on wild game for food, and a good many of them required firearms for their defense from marauding Indians -- and later from the French and English. Underlying all these needs was an important concept that each able-bodied man in each of the 133 independent states had to help or defend his state.

The early opposition to the idea of national or standing armies was maintained under the Articles of Confederation; that confederation had no standing army and wanted none. The state militia -- essentially a part-time citizen army, as in Switzerland today -- was the only kind of "army" they wanted. From the time of the Declaration of Independence through the victory at Yorktown in 1781, George Washington, as the commander-in-chief of these volunteer-militia armies, had to depend upon the states to send those volunteers.

When a company of New Jersey militia volunteers reported for duty to Washington at Valley Forge, the men initially declined to take an oath to "the United States," maintaining, "Our country is New Jersey." Massachusetts Bay men, Virginians and others felt the same way. To the American of the 18th century, his state was his country, and his freedom was defended by his militia.

The victory at Yorktown -- and the ratification of the Bill of Rights a decade later -- did not change people's attitudes about a national army. They had lived for years under the notion that each state would maintain its own military establishment, and the seaboard states had their own navies as well. These people, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, remembered how monarchs had used standing armies to oppress their ancestors in Europe. Americans wanted no part of this. A state militia, like a rifle and powder horn, was as much a part of life as the automobile is today; pistols were largely for officers, aristocrats -- and dueling.

Against this background, it was not surprising that the provision concerning firearms emerged in very simple terms with the significant predicate -- basing the right on the necessity for a "well regulated militia," a state army.

In the two centuries since then -- with two world wars and some lesser ones -- it has become clear, sadly, that we have no choice but to maintain a standing national army while still maintaining a "militia" by way of the National Guard, which can be swiftly integrated into the national defense forces.

Americans also have a right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that. Nor does anyone seriously question that the Constitution protects the right of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting game any more than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep fishing rods and other equipment for fishing -- or to own automobiles. To "keep and bear arms" for hunting today is essentially a recreational activity and not an imperative of survival, as it was 200 years ago; "Saturday night specials" and machine guns are not recreational weapons and surely are as much in need of regulation as motor vehicles.

Americans should ask themselves a few questions. The Constitution does not mention automobiles or motorboats, but the right to keep and own an automobile is beyond question; equally beyond question is the power of the state to regulate the purchase or the transfer of such a vehicle and the right to license the vehicle and the driver with reasonable standards. In some places, even a bicycle must be registered, as must some household dogs.

If we are to stop this mindless homicidal carnage, is it unreasonable:

1. to provide that, to acquire a firearm, an application be made reciting age, residence, employment and any prior criminal convictions?
2. to required that this application lie on the table for 10 days (absent a showing for urgent need) before the license would be issued?
3. that the transfer of a firearm be made essentially as with that of a motor vehicle?
4. to have a "ballistic fingerprint" of the firearm made by the manufacturer and filed with the license record so that, if a bullet is found in a victim's body, law enforcement might be helped in finding the culprit?
​

These are the kind of questions the American people must answer if we are to preserve the "domestic tranquillity" promised in the Constitution.

More: Ex-Chief Justice Warren Burger in Parade Magazine

how many times are you going to post this topic?....is not 5 threads enough?....

 

[Lakhota]

Obama says he supports the individual protection of the 2A.

So do I and most responsible gun owners. It's the extremist views of the NRA gun nuts that many of us don't support.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I think Chief Justice Burger made it very clear what the original intent of the 2nd Amendment was and why it's obsolete today.

and until he said something you agree with.....he was a "Nazicon"....fucking phony....

 

[Dreamy]

There are two problems with the Second Amendment. First, under any circumstance, it is confusing; something that an English teacher would mark up in red ink and tell the author to redo and clarify. Secondly, there are actually two versions of the Amendment; The first passed by two-thirds of the members of each house of Congress (the first step for ratifying a constitutional amendment). A different version passed by three-fourths of the states (the second step for ratifying a constitution amendment). The primary difference between the two versions are a capitalization and a simple comma.

DETAILS: Confusion -- the wording of the Second Amendment | Occasional Planet

Please let me assist YOU and yours with YOUR confusion about the 2nd Amendment:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wC8M12m9rM"]The Inconvenient Truth about Gun Control & the 2nd Amendment - YouTube[/ame]

 

[OODA_Loop]

Obama says he supports the individual protection of the 2A.

So do I and most responsible gun owners. It's the extremist views of the NRA gun nuts that many of us don't support.

No.

You dont support the Heller decision.

El' difference es grande.

 

[Dreamy]

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed...."- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787

 

[OODA_Loop]

You also don't support any type of criminal control or serious punitive consquences.

The President's effort today was devoid of any mention of it.

 

[Nosmo King]

What is tyranny? The argument for an armed citizenry is to suppress tyranny, right?

So, what is tyranny? Who can define it for the purposes of this conversation? Give examples and provide strategy for fighting it.

 

[OODA_Loop]

What is tyranny? The argument for an armed citizenry is to suppress tyranny, right?

So, what is tyranny? Who can define it for the purposes of this conversation? Give examples and provide strategy for fighting it.

You'll know it from the whirrrrrr of the Predator engine.

 

[Nosmo King]

What is tyranny? The argument for an armed citizenry is to suppress tyranny, right?

So, what is tyranny? Who can define it for the purposes of this conversation? Give examples and provide strategy for fighting it.

You'll know it from the whirrrrrr of the Predator engine.

Are you plagued by predator drones? Have they been keeping an eye on you?

Seriously folks, if you want to suppress tyranny, we'd like to know what it is first.

 

[Lakhota]

In the movie, Red Dawn, it wasn't the U.S. government attacking its own people.

 

[Dreamy]

Many times over the SC has reaffirmed this interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Private citizen Berger spoke those words in that article for Parade magazine in Dec. 1991. He was not even on the bench(retired in 86) Not one 2nd Amendment case came before his bench in 1980 or anytime after. The Supreme Court has not heard a 2nd Amendment case since 1939.

Since 1939? Really...?

United States versus Miller.

I stand corrected. There were four more since that date:

Federal Cases Regarding the Second Amendment

 

[Nosmo King]

In the movie, Red Dawn, it wasn't the U.S. government attacking its own people.

The operative phrase. In the movie The Godfather they shot Sonny on the causeway. But I would never deign to use that as a reason to ban assault weapons.