The Right To Bear Arms

[danielpalos]

Before 2A was drafted, several colonists used firearms to defend themselves because they usually lived far from each other. At the same time, communities also established militias for various purposes, including slave patrols. The right to defend oneself was considered natural, with the right to bear arms connected to it and part of English common law.

After the Revolutionary War, Washington wrote about the poor quality of some militias.

While 2A was drafted and revised several times, framers debates on the need to avoid a large standing army, state rights to have their own armed groups, the desire to avoid tyranny, and threats including European invaders, whites who could rebel, slave riots, and Native Americans. They negotiated and ratified an amendment that argued that to ensure the availability of regulated militias, the right to bear arms would not be infringed. The idea sounds too obvious because several colonists were already armed and it was considered a natural right, part of the need for self-defense. This explains why 2A doesn't grant the right to bear arms but protects it: the right is natural and exists even without 2A, the Constitution, or even a nation. Still, the added something obvious because they wanted to show citizens that their right to defend themselves would not be infringed.

So, what's the connection between that and regulated militias? The framers didn't argue that the right to bear arms is granted by the government or that the right only exists if there are regulated militias. Rather, the right to defend oneself, which is natural, was used to justify the need to defend the country. Since they didn't want a large standing army, they resorted to militias, and since they didn't want ill-trained militias, they made sure that there were regulated ones.

What does "regulated" mean? It is defined in Art. 1 Sec. 8, which states who will organize these militias and their purpose, which is to serve the government.

How was the formation of regulated militias made operational? It is explained in the Militia Acts, which required all white males of a certain age range, and with few exceptions, to obtain battle rifles and report for training.

Thus, the purpose of 2A is not merely to protect the right to bear arms but to use it to ensure mandatory military service, which is what happened via the Militia Acts.

The problem is that what Washington complained about persisted as armies became more professional and complex. The country learned that the hard way during the War of 1812, when they realized that a small standing army with militias would not be enough to deal with professional armies. It still took awhile, even when blacks were included among males to serve given a subsequent Militia Act. But it was the last one, in 1903, that led to the formation of the National Guard, and eventually made 2A irrelevant. As military forces became increasingly complex, the country had to rely on reserves trained in the same way as the standing army, with conscription employed in case more troops were needed.

Today, what is left of 2A is the Selective Service System, where male citizens are merely required to register, with the government given the option to conscript them if necessary.

But, still... the federal government should have no gun laws. They are still ALL unconstitutional, as the intent of the 2A was to limit federal power.

Until somebody amends the 2A, fed gov power over arms should be NOTHING. ZERO.

.

Some want to simply ignore it and call it antiquated. That is improper.

.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not individual rights; it expressly says so in the first clause.

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

 

[Rigby5]

But, still... the federal government should have no gun laws. They are still ALL unconstitutional, as the intent of the 2A was to limit federal power.

Until somebody amends the 2A, fed gov power over arms should be NOTHING. ZERO.

.

Some want to simply ignore it and call it antiquated. That is improper.

.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not individual rights; it expressly says so in the first clause.

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

First of all, a free State is not the national federation of free states, but only one of them.
The point of the Bill of Rights was not to define between individual or state issues, but merely to limit federal authority.

The motivation for the 2nd amendment was the same as the motivation for all of the Bill of Rights, which was to ensure federal limits, so that states would be willing to sign on to the federation.
But it is foolish to claim one badly understood motivation would be the only one.
When clearly the rest of the 2nd amendment says that the "right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed".
It does not say the authority of any level of government, but the right of the people.
And only individuals have any rights at all.
Governments do not have rights.
They only have delegated authority or jurisdiction.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Well, at least bump stocks finally got banned. That's a start...

How? With thousands of these in private hands, one was used in one attack in a country of over 320 million people.......are you really that deranged that you would think a ban on a gimmick used once for crime makes any difference?

It doesn't happen over night. It will take up to 10 years to get most of them. And some will stay in some gun locker for a very long time and you will never be aware that it's there. It took them about 10 years to get a handle on the Thompson MG.

No, it will never happen.
The war on drugs was started under Nixon in 1971.
It was never won, never ended, and only got much, much worse every single year.
And it is the War on Drugs that is the most responsible for the excessive amount and use of weapons, just as Prohibition did.
The 1934 gun control act did NOT at all solve the problem of the Thompson machineguns, but it was the end of Prohibition in 1929 that ended the Thompson machinegun problem.

You can not at all solve any weapons problem by legislation.
Weapons are easy to make, and all legislation does is make them more profitable.

If the Thompson was ended, it had nothing to do with the ending of the Prohibition. When the illegal booze became legal, the mobs just moved onto something else like Heroin and the like. Getting rid of prohibition didn't end the Thompson, the vigorous enforcement nationwide ended it. If you got caught with a servicable Thompson, you would get a mandatory 10 year federal pen sentence. Do a crime with one and you were a goner for a life sentence for each life taken. Use it in a crime where no one was killed, you were still looking at 25 to life.

It all depends on how serious the sentence is for the possession. You want to stand there in front of a cop who is also armed with a thompson and scream, "You can't tell me what to do". The old time cop would stitch your mid section with 45 projectiles unless you cooperated post haste. Cops just got tired of dying. And in inner cities, that's about where the cops are today. They are tired of dying.

 

[Rigby5]

Well, at least bump stocks finally got banned. That's a start...

How? With thousands of these in private hands, one was used in one attack in a country of over 320 million people.......are you really that deranged that you would think a ban on a gimmick used once for crime makes any difference?

It doesn't happen over night. It will take up to 10 years to get most of them. And some will stay in some gun locker for a very long time and you will never be aware that it's there. It took them about 10 years to get a handle on the Thompson MG.

No, it will never happen.
The war on drugs was started under Nixon in 1971.
It was never won, never ended, and only got much, much worse every single year.
And it is the War on Drugs that is the most responsible for the excessive amount and use of weapons, just as Prohibition did.
The 1934 gun control act did NOT at all solve the problem of the Thompson machineguns, but it was the end of Prohibition in 1929 that ended the Thompson machinegun problem.

You can not at all solve any weapons problem by legislation.
Weapons are easy to make, and all legislation does is make them more profitable.

If the Thompson was ended, it had nothing to do with the ending of the Prohibition. When the illegal booze became legal, the mobs just moved onto something else like Heroin and the like. Getting rid of prohibition didn't end the Thompson, the vigorous enforcement nationwide ended it. If you got caught with a servicable Thompson, you would get a mandatory 10 year federal pen sentence. Do a crime with one and you were a goner for a life sentence for each life taken. Use it in a crime where no one was killed, you were still looking at 25 to life.

It all depends on how serious the sentence is for the possession. You want to stand there in front of a cop who is also armed with a thompson and scream, "You can't tell me what to do". The old time cop would stitch your mid section with 45 projectiles unless you cooperated post haste. Cops just got tired of dying. And in inner cities, that's about where the cops are today. They are tired of dying.

I disagree.
The Thompson came from the depression, Prohibition, and the usual and known causes of crime.
The penalty for murdering someone with a machinegun is the same as murdering someone with a shotgun. Until around the 1970s, the penalty was death. It not only did not matter what weapon you used, but it is not at all clear criminals even care what the penalties are, since they don't think they are going to get caught.

And no, cops were not dying then or now.
No one is shooting at cops except to try to distract them as they try to get away.
Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals.

The reality is that it is a fake issue, deliberately lied about in order to oppress the general population even more. And the people should not be taking it. Unfair taxes that allow such wealth disparity, and causing the lowest percentage of owner occupied housing in US history, is a disgrace. We need public health care, free college tuition, housing subsidies to equal the tax benefits landlords get, the end of wars of aggression, a 50% reduction in military spending (peace dividend we were promised), etc.

If not, then we not only should strike down all gun control laws against the general population, but start to enact laws to disarm the police and severely curtail the military.
It should be clear that guns in the hands of individuals is NOT at all the problem.
It is the overly armed government that is the entire problem.

 

[anynameyouwish]

Well, at least bump stocks finally got banned. That's a start...

How? With thousands of these in private hands, one was used in one attack in a country of over 320 million people.......are you really that deranged that you would think a ban on a gimmick used once for crime makes any difference?

It doesn't happen over night. It will take up to 10 years to get most of them. And some will stay in some gun locker for a very long time and you will never be aware that it's there. It took them about 10 years to get a handle on the Thompson MG.

No, it will never happen.
The war on drugs was started under Nixon in 1971.
It was never won, never ended, and only got much, much worse every single year.
And it is the War on Drugs that is the most responsible for the excessive amount and use of weapons, just as Prohibition did.
The 1934 gun control act did NOT at all solve the problem of the Thompson machineguns, but it was the end of Prohibition in 1929 that ended the Thompson machinegun problem.

You can not at all solve any weapons problem by legislation.
Weapons are easy to make, and all legislation does is make them more profitable.

If the Thompson was ended, it had nothing to do with the ending of the Prohibition. When the illegal booze became legal, the mobs just moved onto something else like Heroin and the like. Getting rid of prohibition didn't end the Thompson, the vigorous enforcement nationwide ended it. If you got caught with a servicable Thompson, you would get a mandatory 10 year federal pen sentence. Do a crime with one and you were a goner for a life sentence for each life taken. Use it in a crime where no one was killed, you were still looking at 25 to life.

It all depends on how serious the sentence is for the possession. You want to stand there in front of a cop who is also armed with a thompson and scream, "You can't tell me what to do". The old time cop would stitch your mid section with 45 projectiles unless you cooperated post haste. Cops just got tired of dying. And in inner cities, that's about where the cops are today. They are tired of dying.

I disagree.
The Thompson came from the depression, Prohibition, and the usual and known causes of crime.
The penalty for murdering someone with a machinegun is the same as murdering someone with a shotgun. Until around the 1970s, the penalty was death. It not only did not matter what weapon you used, but it is not at all clear criminals even care what the penalties are, since they don't think they are going to get caught.

And no, cops were not dying then or now.
No one is shooting at cops except to try to distract them as they try to get away.
Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals.

The reality is that it is a fake issue, deliberately lied about in order to oppress the general population even more. And the people should not be taking it. Unfair taxes that allow such wealth disparity, and causing the lowest percentage of owner occupied housing in US history, is a disgrace. We need public health care, free college tuition, housing subsidies to equal the tax benefits landlords get, the end of wars of aggression, a 50% reduction in military spending (peace dividend we were promised), etc.

If not, then we not only should strike down all gun control laws against the general population, but start to enact laws to disarm the police and severely curtail the military.
It should be clear that guns in the hands of individuals is NOT at all the problem.
It is the overly armed government that is the entire problem.

"Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals."

Still...it can be dangerous and IS dangerous in some areas.

And they are first responders to some grizzly scenes that I wouldn't want to see.

Plus they have to actively try to help people who have been shot, stabbed, been in a terrible car accident (or any kind of accident) and are still alive but in desperate straights....


fuk man

My hat is off to them.

I don't think I could stand some of the situations that is demanded of them.

 

[Rigby5]

How? With thousands of these in private hands, one was used in one attack in a country of over 320 million people.......are you really that deranged that you would think a ban on a gimmick used once for crime makes any difference?

It doesn't happen over night. It will take up to 10 years to get most of them. And some will stay in some gun locker for a very long time and you will never be aware that it's there. It took them about 10 years to get a handle on the Thompson MG.

No, it will never happen.
The war on drugs was started under Nixon in 1971.
It was never won, never ended, and only got much, much worse every single year.
And it is the War on Drugs that is the most responsible for the excessive amount and use of weapons, just as Prohibition did.
The 1934 gun control act did NOT at all solve the problem of the Thompson machineguns, but it was the end of Prohibition in 1929 that ended the Thompson machinegun problem.

You can not at all solve any weapons problem by legislation.
Weapons are easy to make, and all legislation does is make them more profitable.

If the Thompson was ended, it had nothing to do with the ending of the Prohibition. When the illegal booze became legal, the mobs just moved onto something else like Heroin and the like. Getting rid of prohibition didn't end the Thompson, the vigorous enforcement nationwide ended it. If you got caught with a servicable Thompson, you would get a mandatory 10 year federal pen sentence. Do a crime with one and you were a goner for a life sentence for each life taken. Use it in a crime where no one was killed, you were still looking at 25 to life.

It all depends on how serious the sentence is for the possession. You want to stand there in front of a cop who is also armed with a thompson and scream, "You can't tell me what to do". The old time cop would stitch your mid section with 45 projectiles unless you cooperated post haste. Cops just got tired of dying. And in inner cities, that's about where the cops are today. They are tired of dying.

I disagree.
The Thompson came from the depression, Prohibition, and the usual and known causes of crime.
The penalty for murdering someone with a machinegun is the same as murdering someone with a shotgun. Until around the 1970s, the penalty was death. It not only did not matter what weapon you used, but it is not at all clear criminals even care what the penalties are, since they don't think they are going to get caught.

And no, cops were not dying then or now.
No one is shooting at cops except to try to distract them as they try to get away.
Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals.

The reality is that it is a fake issue, deliberately lied about in order to oppress the general population even more. And the people should not be taking it. Unfair taxes that allow such wealth disparity, and causing the lowest percentage of owner occupied housing in US history, is a disgrace. We need public health care, free college tuition, housing subsidies to equal the tax benefits landlords get, the end of wars of aggression, a 50% reduction in military spending (peace dividend we were promised), etc.

If not, then we not only should strike down all gun control laws against the general population, but start to enact laws to disarm the police and severely curtail the military.
It should be clear that guns in the hands of individuals is NOT at all the problem.
It is the overly armed government that is the entire problem.

"Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals."

Still...it can be dangerous and IS dangerous in some areas.

And they are first responders to some grizzly scenes that I wouldn't want to see.

Plus they have to actively try to help people who have been shot, stabbed, been in a terrible car accident (or any kind of accident) and are still alive but in desperate straights....


fuk man

My hat is off to them.

I don't think I could stand some of the situations that is demanded of them.

About once a month we see a video of police accidentally or wrongly shooting an unarmed person. Often the person was totally innocent and did not thing wrong. At worst, some of the videos show the person trying to run away and being shot in the back by police.
And in not one single video of these shootings, do you see a single cop performing any first aid at all. They don't even put on pressure to stop the bleeding.

Maybe some police are doing a better job than that, but then why are they not saying more themselves when you see all these video of wrongful death by police?
Sorry, but unless police are willing to police themselves, then they are all collectively guilty.
And until the US no longer has the highest % of imprisoned in the world, then clearly the main problem in the US has to be the police.

 

[danielpalos]

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not individual rights; it expressly says so in the first clause.

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

First of all, a free State is not the national federation of free states, but only one of them.
The point of the Bill of Rights was not to define between individual or state issues, but merely to limit federal authority.

The motivation for the 2nd amendment was the same as the motivation for all of the Bill of Rights, which was to ensure federal limits, so that states would be willing to sign on to the federation.
But it is foolish to claim one badly understood motivation would be the only one.
When clearly the rest of the 2nd amendment says that the "right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed".
It does not say the authority of any level of government, but the right of the people.
And only individuals have any rights at all.
Governments do not have rights.
They only have delegated authority or jurisdiction.

Nice story, bro.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not any implied right wing story.

 

[buckeye45_73]

But, still... the federal government should have no gun laws. They are still ALL unconstitutional, as the intent of the 2A was to limit federal power.

Until somebody amends the 2A, fed gov power over arms should be NOTHING. ZERO.

.

Some want to simply ignore it and call it antiquated. That is improper.

.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not individual rights; it expressly says so in the first clause.

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

 

[ding]

By Peter Weber

That's the opinion of Rupert Murdoch's conservative New York Post. And it's not as far-fetched as it may seem.

Well, let's read the text of the Second Amendment, says Jeffrey Sachs at The Huffington Post:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.​

It's astonishingly clear that "the Second Amendment is a relic of the founding era more than two centuries ago," and "its purpose is long past."

As Justice John Paul Stevens argues persuasively, the amendment should not block the ability of society to keep itself safe through gun control legislation. That was never its intent. This amendment was about militias in the 1790s, and the fear of the anti-federalists of a federal army. Since that issue is long moot, we need not be governed in our national life by doctrines on now-extinct militias from the 18th century.​

"Fair-minded readers have to acknowledge that the text is ambiguous," says Cass Sunstein at Bloomberg View. Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in Heller, was laying out his interpretation of a "genuinely difficult" legal question, and "I am not saying that the court was wrong." More to the point: Right or wrong, obsolete or relevant, the Second Amendment essentially means what five justices on the Supreme Court say it means. So "we should respect the fact that the individual right to have guns has been established," but even the pro-gun interpretation laid out by Scalia explicitly allows for banning the kinds of weapons the shooter used to murder 20 first-graders. The real problem is in the political arena, where "opponents of gun control, armed with both organization and money, have been invoking the Second Amendment far more recklessly," using "wild and unsupportable claims about the meaning of the Constitution" to shut down debate on what sort of regulations might save lives.

More: Is the Second Amendment obsolete? - The Week

Not as long as there are standing armies.

 

[danielpalos]

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not individual rights; it expressly says so in the first clause.

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

 

[buckeye45_73]

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

Define security problem and free states.

 

[danielpalos]

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

Define security problem and free states.

Any alleged need for alleged wars on crime, drugs, or terror are alleged security problems. We should have no security problems in our free States.

 

[Rigby5]

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

First of all, a free State is not the national federation of free states, but only one of them.
The point of the Bill of Rights was not to define between individual or state issues, but merely to limit federal authority.

The motivation for the 2nd amendment was the same as the motivation for all of the Bill of Rights, which was to ensure federal limits, so that states would be willing to sign on to the federation.
But it is foolish to claim one badly understood motivation would be the only one.
When clearly the rest of the 2nd amendment says that the "right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed".
It does not say the authority of any level of government, but the right of the people.
And only individuals have any rights at all.
Governments do not have rights.
They only have delegated authority or jurisdiction.

Nice story, bro.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not any implied right wing story.

Of course the 2nd amendment is about the security of a free state, and that requires absolutely NO central weapons control, but maximized individual rights of a democratic republic.
Gun control is the opposite of a democratic republic, where you don't trust the people to be armed, so you instead eliminate all access to the freedom of weapons except by a monopoly or the elite few.
The 2nd amendment clearly says the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.
Only people have rights.
Governments, and even states have no rights.
Instead they have delegated authority from the individuals who are the actual source of all inherent rights.
It does not say that the police or the military shall not be infringed in their bearing of arms.
It says the people.
Do you trust the people or do you instead want the government to have authoritarian dictatorship?

 

[Rigby5]

BS. The entire Bill of Rights is a list of absolute restrictions on federal authority. Nothing else.
If the 2nd amendment was only about "the security of a free state", whatever that is, then it would not have said, that the right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed.
It would have said the authority of a free state to bear arms shall not be infringed.
ONLY individuals have rights.
Whenever you read the word "rights", the writing is referring to individuals.

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

As long as we have a functioning 2nd amendment, then if the people are watchful, we should have no problem with any free state.
But as soon as the federal government is allowed to ignore the Bill of Rights restrictions on federal power, than all is lost.
And the line in the sand is federal gun control.
Clearly any federal gun control is totally and completely illegal, just like waterboarding at Guantanamo or the lies about Iraq having WMD.

The only problem is that the 2nd amendment is useless if we let the federal government ignore it.

 

[Rigby5]

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

Define security problem and free states.

Any alleged need for alleged wars on crime, drugs, or terror are alleged security problems. We should have no security problems in our free States.

The war on crime, drugs, and terror are all fakes created by the federal government in order to frighten us so that we will accept total domination in order to feel safe.
But the reality is that it is the federal government we need to be frightened of, with all their fake wars and attempts to frighten us.
If there was no federal government at all, the states would all be much better off.
We could have just as strong of a defense against invasion, because no one has ever even tried to invade us since 1812. The whole thing is just a fraud to scare us.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Well, at least bump stocks finally got banned. That's a start...

How? With thousands of these in private hands, one was used in one attack in a country of over 320 million people.......are you really that deranged that you would think a ban on a gimmick used once for crime makes any difference?

It doesn't happen over night. It will take up to 10 years to get most of them. And some will stay in some gun locker for a very long time and you will never be aware that it's there. It took them about 10 years to get a handle on the Thompson MG.

No, it will never happen.
The war on drugs was started under Nixon in 1971.
It was never won, never ended, and only got much, much worse every single year.
And it is the War on Drugs that is the most responsible for the excessive amount and use of weapons, just as Prohibition did.
The 1934 gun control act did NOT at all solve the problem of the Thompson machineguns, but it was the end of Prohibition in 1929 that ended the Thompson machinegun problem.

You can not at all solve any weapons problem by legislation.
Weapons are easy to make, and all legislation does is make them more profitable.

If the Thompson was ended, it had nothing to do with the ending of the Prohibition. When the illegal booze became legal, the mobs just moved onto something else like Heroin and the like. Getting rid of prohibition didn't end the Thompson, the vigorous enforcement nationwide ended it. If you got caught with a servicable Thompson, you would get a mandatory 10 year federal pen sentence. Do a crime with one and you were a goner for a life sentence for each life taken. Use it in a crime where no one was killed, you were still looking at 25 to life.

It all depends on how serious the sentence is for the possession. You want to stand there in front of a cop who is also armed with a thompson and scream, "You can't tell me what to do". The old time cop would stitch your mid section with 45 projectiles unless you cooperated post haste. Cops just got tired of dying. And in inner cities, that's about where the cops are today. They are tired of dying.

I disagree.
The Thompson came from the depression, Prohibition, and the usual and known causes of crime.
The penalty for murdering someone with a machinegun is the same as murdering someone with a shotgun. Until around the 1970s, the penalty was death. It not only did not matter what weapon you used, but it is not at all clear criminals even care what the penalties are, since they don't think they are going to get caught.

And no, cops were not dying then or now.
No one is shooting at cops except to try to distract them as they try to get away.
Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals.

The reality is that it is a fake issue, deliberately lied about in order to oppress the general population even more. And the people should not be taking it. Unfair taxes that allow such wealth disparity, and causing the lowest percentage of owner occupied housing in US history, is a disgrace. We need public health care, free college tuition, housing subsidies to equal the tax benefits landlords get, the end of wars of aggression, a 50% reduction in military spending (peace dividend we were promised), etc.

If not, then we not only should strike down all gun control laws against the general population, but start to enact laws to disarm the police and severely curtail the military.
It should be clear that guns in the hands of individuals is NOT at all the problem.
It is the overly armed government that is the entire problem.

I watched a news clip during the early 70s of a Denver Cop (who was Black) questioning a black person on the street. Both of them were constantly changing position. The Black Civvy didn't want to get accidently shot by a round meant for the cop and the cop wanted to use the civvy as a shield. It wasn't real healthy to be a Denver Cop in some areas. Denver had the highest Cop Assassination rate for any Metro at that time. You are using today as a yardstick for the days of yesterday. And the Thompson was being used almost on a daily basis for Mob or Gang shootings which also killed innocent bystanders in the 20s and 30s. By the 40s, the automatic weapon crime was gone. And even the Cops started getting rid of theirs in the 50s.

BTW, if you were involved in a crime using a Thompson or a Grease Gun during the 20s and 30s you probably would not get the chance to ever get the death penalty. Not many made it that far. They were killed by gunfire either by a rival or by the cops. After they started to dry up the Thompson supply, if you did use one in a crime, you probably would not make it to be arrested. It was a much more violent time than today even in the inner cities.

The Cops today are armed with the Colt 6920 which is a high quality AR-15. In the 90s, the cops discovered that they were severely outgunned when a shootout came to be. They turned too Colt and colt put out the LE6920 Semi Auto which is nothing more than a Military Grade AR-15 that you can buy just by special ordering it in most states. All of a sudden, the Cops were either equal to or were the ones that outgunned the bad guys. This has NOT caused a problem. It's taken care of a problem. Try facing a couple or three AR-15s with multiple 30 round mags with 5 cops with handguns. It's not a fiar fight by a long shot. In this case, Law Enforcement had to upgun to the Civilian standards. Along with the LE6920, the Law Enforcement also went to special training that gave them a much more professional force. So there was another upside.

California has banned the AR-15 and it's various clones completely with the exception of on duty law enforcement and military. That didn't stop the ex marine from shooting up a dance hall and even taking down a couple of armed cops. He used what he had available at the time which was one semi auto handgun with multiple mags. He was a combat trained killer. With a body count of 13 with the handgun, imagine what he could have done with an AR with multiple 30 round mags? He very well might have exceeded the Nevada shooters record. He had the skills. It ended up being stopped when the cops upgunned with the LE6920s and he knew his seconds were numbered. Luckily, the instances of this type of special trained and skill set person isn't the normal mass shooter. But if the cops did not have the LE6920s, he could have continued killing and killed even more cops in the process. Cops just aren't trained for that kind of Firefights but a Combat Marine is.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

It doesn't happen over night. It will take up to 10 years to get most of them. And some will stay in some gun locker for a very long time and you will never be aware that it's there. It took them about 10 years to get a handle on the Thompson MG.

No, it will never happen.
The war on drugs was started under Nixon in 1971.
It was never won, never ended, and only got much, much worse every single year.
And it is the War on Drugs that is the most responsible for the excessive amount and use of weapons, just as Prohibition did.
The 1934 gun control act did NOT at all solve the problem of the Thompson machineguns, but it was the end of Prohibition in 1929 that ended the Thompson machinegun problem.

You can not at all solve any weapons problem by legislation.
Weapons are easy to make, and all legislation does is make them more profitable.

If the Thompson was ended, it had nothing to do with the ending of the Prohibition. When the illegal booze became legal, the mobs just moved onto something else like Heroin and the like. Getting rid of prohibition didn't end the Thompson, the vigorous enforcement nationwide ended it. If you got caught with a servicable Thompson, you would get a mandatory 10 year federal pen sentence. Do a crime with one and you were a goner for a life sentence for each life taken. Use it in a crime where no one was killed, you were still looking at 25 to life.

It all depends on how serious the sentence is for the possession. You want to stand there in front of a cop who is also armed with a thompson and scream, "You can't tell me what to do". The old time cop would stitch your mid section with 45 projectiles unless you cooperated post haste. Cops just got tired of dying. And in inner cities, that's about where the cops are today. They are tired of dying.

I disagree.
The Thompson came from the depression, Prohibition, and the usual and known causes of crime.
The penalty for murdering someone with a machinegun is the same as murdering someone with a shotgun. Until around the 1970s, the penalty was death. It not only did not matter what weapon you used, but it is not at all clear criminals even care what the penalties are, since they don't think they are going to get caught.

And no, cops were not dying then or now.
No one is shooting at cops except to try to distract them as they try to get away.
Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals.

The reality is that it is a fake issue, deliberately lied about in order to oppress the general population even more. And the people should not be taking it. Unfair taxes that allow such wealth disparity, and causing the lowest percentage of owner occupied housing in US history, is a disgrace. We need public health care, free college tuition, housing subsidies to equal the tax benefits landlords get, the end of wars of aggression, a 50% reduction in military spending (peace dividend we were promised), etc.

If not, then we not only should strike down all gun control laws against the general population, but start to enact laws to disarm the police and severely curtail the military.
It should be clear that guns in the hands of individuals is NOT at all the problem.
It is the overly armed government that is the entire problem.

"Cops complain about how dangerous their job is, but the reality is that fewer than 50 cops a year are killed, and something like 75% of those deaths are from traffic, not criminals."

Still...it can be dangerous and IS dangerous in some areas.

And they are first responders to some grizzly scenes that I wouldn't want to see.

Plus they have to actively try to help people who have been shot, stabbed, been in a terrible car accident (or any kind of accident) and are still alive but in desperate straights....


fuk man

My hat is off to them.

I don't think I could stand some of the situations that is demanded of them.

About once a month we see a video of police accidentally or wrongly shooting an unarmed person. Often the person was totally innocent and did not thing wrong. At worst, some of the videos show the person trying to run away and being shot in the back by police.
And in not one single video of these shootings, do you see a single cop performing any first aid at all. They don't even put on pressure to stop the bleeding.

Maybe some police are doing a better job than that, but then why are they not saying more themselves when you see all these video of wrongful death by police?
Sorry, but unless police are willing to police themselves, then they are all collectively guilty.
And until the US no longer has the highest % of imprisoned in the world, then clearly the main problem in the US has to be the police.

You don't see the life saving because it's not newsworthy and not political. But it happens on a daily basis. Cops save one hell of a lot more lives than they take. Not to say that we don't need to get rid of the bad cops, but we need to see more of the good ones saving lives all the time. But that would not be good for the negative for politics.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

Define security problem and free states.

Any alleged need for alleged wars on crime, drugs, or terror are alleged security problems. We should have no security problems in our free States.

The war on crime, drugs, and terror are all fakes created by the federal government in order to frighten us so that we will accept total domination in order to feel safe.
But the reality is that it is the federal government we need to be frightened of, with all their fake wars and attempts to frighten us.
If there was no federal government at all, the states would all be much better off.
We could have just as strong of a defense against invasion, because no one has ever even tried to invade us since 1812. The whole thing is just a fraud to scare us.

And we would be speaking and typing something other than American English. Thanks, but no thanks, I think I want to keep the Federal Military even if it's not perfect.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

First of all, a free State is not the national federation of free states, but only one of them.
The point of the Bill of Rights was not to define between individual or state issues, but merely to limit federal authority.

The motivation for the 2nd amendment was the same as the motivation for all of the Bill of Rights, which was to ensure federal limits, so that states would be willing to sign on to the federation.
But it is foolish to claim one badly understood motivation would be the only one.
When clearly the rest of the 2nd amendment says that the "right of the PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed".
It does not say the authority of any level of government, but the right of the people.
And only individuals have any rights at all.
Governments do not have rights.
They only have delegated authority or jurisdiction.

Nice story, bro.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not any implied right wing story.

Of course the 2nd amendment is about the security of a free state, and that requires absolutely NO central weapons control, but maximized individual rights of a democratic republic.
Gun control is the opposite of a democratic republic, where you don't trust the people to be armed, so you instead eliminate all access to the freedom of weapons except by a monopoly or the elite few.
The 2nd amendment clearly says the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.
Only people have rights.
Governments, and even states have no rights.
Instead they have delegated authority from the individuals who are the actual source of all inherent rights.
It does not say that the police or the military shall not be infringed in their bearing of arms.
It says the people.
Do you trust the people or do you instead want the government to have authoritarian dictatorship?

You contradict yourself.

If you place your trust in the people over that of government, then clearly the Second Amendment has nothing to do with the ‘security of a free state.’

The bulwark against tyranny is the will of the people, as expressed through the democratic process, safeguarded by the rule of law – not by the people ‘taking up arms’ against a government subjectively perceived to have become ‘tyrannical,’ not by an ‘armed insurrection’ against a lawfully elected government reflecting the will of the people, and not through a ‘force of arms’ absent the consent of the majority of the people as expressed through the political process.

You can’t have it both ways.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Where does it say that in our federal Constitution? It is express not implied. All terms in our Second Amendment are collective and plural.

You would have to know nothing of the Bill of Rights to not know they are just all federal restrictions.

{...
The Bill of Rights limits the (federal) government by enumerating the rights of the people and listing the things the (federal) government cannot do. For example, the Bill of Rights states that the government cannot pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or religion.

The Bill of Rights is a term that refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution of the United States. The lack of a Bill of Rights was one of the main points of disagreement between federalists and anti-federalists. James Madison wrote the 10 amendments as a response to calls from several states for constitutional protection for individual liberties. The end result, approved by the House and ratified in 1791, is a list of limits on the powers of government. According to the Third Amendment, no soldier can be quartered in a private house in a time of peace without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from intruding in a citizen's home. According to the Fifth Amendment, no one can be held to answer for a capital crime in the absence of a grand jury. The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from imposing excessive bail or fines on citizens and from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
...}

How Does the Bill of Rights Limit the Government?

As to the exact wording of the Bill of Rights, here is the preamble and beginning:

{...
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
,,,}

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription


It should be totally clear that the Bill of Rights was entirely additional prohibitions, limits, and restrictions on federal authority, powers, and jurisdictions.

Our Second Amendment is about the security of a free State not Individual rights; it says so in the first clause.

Yeah, the founders were happy to quarter soldiers, so much so they made the 2nd and 3rd amendments...you are retarded......why do you want a defenseless public?

Nobody takes the right wing seriously. Propaganda and rhetoric is all they know.

We have a Second Amendment and should have no security problems in our free States.

As long as we have a functioning 2nd amendment, then if the people are watchful, we should have no problem with any free state.
But as soon as the federal government is allowed to ignore the Bill of Rights restrictions on federal power, than all is lost.
And the line in the sand is federal gun control.
Clearly any federal gun control is totally and completely illegal, just like waterboarding at Guantanamo or the lies about Iraq having WMD.

The only problem is that the 2nd amendment is useless if we let the federal government ignore it.

You keep posting this over again and it’s just as wrong and ignorant as the first time you posted it.

The Federal government is in fact at liberty to enact firearm regulatory measures consistent with Second Amendment case law, laws which are in no manner ‘illegal.’

Period.