The Right To Bear Arms

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

Under the Constitution there can be no extra-legal rights, period. There are no God-given rights, no inherent rights, no natural rights, no unalienable rights; there are only legal rights. There are no rights without law, no rights contrary to law, no rights superior to law. That's the way it is, the way it must be, and no other way. Get used to it.

I have a friend who is a civil rights attorney who has won many cases before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and he would agree with you 100%. You are spot on.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

No. It is the Cato Institute that is revising history. Contrary to popular belief, the Declaration of Independence was not a foundational document; it was a declaration of our independence from the colonial rule by the English Monarchy, and an act of war. It was also, idealistically, a pretty piece of propaganda! Likewise, it may come as a surprise (even a shock) for some to learn that Thomas Jefferson’s ideas about natural rights were not adopted by the framers of our Constitution. (Jefferson was not a framer of the Constitution. He was serving as Ambassador to France at the time of the Constitutional Convention; and except for his correspondence with some of the delegates, what resulted was largely the work of James Madison. Even his draft Constitution and Declaration of Rights for Virginia was rejected in favor of the model of George Mason.) Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed . . . ." The framework of our government, however, did not incorporate the ideals expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The intoxicating ideas of Rousseau and Locke that Jefferson so admired, and that inspired our revolution (and that of France as well), gave way to a more sober expression of our rights and freedoms in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The framers of our Constitution created a nation of laws and not men; which represents a compromise between the rights of individuals and the power of the state. All men are not created equal, they are equal under the law; and the rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" are not unalienable, they are subject to law. In this compromise - this social contract that is our Constitution - rests the security for our individual rights and liberty.

Spot on!

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

The Declaration of Independence is not authority for anything. The Declaration of Independence is not a foundational document.

I love how progressive nutbags work overtime to overthrow our government by revising history.

Yes, but he or she happens to be a correct progressive nutbag.

He or she has not "revised history". He or she has a legal understanding of the Constitution rather than an emotional one.

 

[earlycuyler]

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

I believe in the right to arm Bears.

 

[M14 Shooter]

No. It is the Cato Institute that is revising history. Contrary to popular belief, the Declaration of Independence was not a foundational document; it was a declaration of our independence from the colonial rule by the English Monarchy, and an act of war. It was also, idealistically, a pretty piece of propaganda! Likewise, it may come as a surprise (even a shock) for some to learn that Thomas Jefferson’s ideas about natural rights were not adopted by the framers of our Constitution. (Jefferson was not a framer of the Constitution. He was serving as Ambassador to France at the time of the Constitutional Convention; and except for his correspondence with some of the delegates, what resulted was largely the work of James Madison. Even his draft Constitution and Declaration of Rights for Virginia was rejected in favor of the model of George Mason.) Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed . . . ." The framework of our government, however, did not incorporate the ideals expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The intoxicating ideas of Rousseau and Locke that Jefferson so admired, and that inspired our revolution (and that of France as well), gave way to a more sober expression of our rights and freedoms in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The framers of our Constitution created a nation of laws and not men; which represents a compromise between the rights of individuals and the power of the state. All men are not created equal, they are equal under the law; and the rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" are not unalienable, they are subject to law. In this compromise - this social contract that is our Constitution - rests the security for our individual rights and liberty.

Fact:
All rights - life, liberty, property, self-determination and the derivatives thereof - pre-exist government, and are therefore do not depend on government for their existence.
This is illustrated by the fact that nowhere in our system of government or law are these rights granted to us.

Fact:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

 

[Nemo]

No, there are no natural rights. The problem with the concept of natural rights is that it is egocentric; i.e., it places the individual in the center of importance. It assumes, falsely, that man, as Locke espoused, has certain inherent rights; or, as Jefferson phrased it, unalienable rights. However, that is not how things are ordered. There are no inherent rights; there are no unalienable rights; there are only legal rights. The words “inherent” and “unalienable” do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution created a nation of laws and not men. It is the recognition, from the time of Magna Carta to this day, that no person can be above the law; for it is not the individual that is sovereign, it is the law. To say that one has a right to anything need must admit that such right exists by law. Indeed, there is nothing in the varied course of human events, from the moment of life’s conception to the final disposition of one’s mortal remains and property after death, that is not governed by law. Natural rights are a fiction - a philosophical construct - airy nothings. Real rights are legal rights; rights that are provided and protected by law.

 

[M14 Shooter]

No, there are no natural rights.

All rights - life, liberty, property, self-determination and the derivatives thereof - pre-exist government, and are therefore do not depend on government for their existence. This is illustrated by the fact that nowhere in our system of government or law are these rights granted to us.
Disagree?
Cite the text of the constitution or law that grants us the rights so mentioned.

 

[Nemo]

No. You cite one right that is not subject to law. You can't because there are none - not one. All rights exist only by law - even unto the very air we breathe. Get used to it.

 

[buckeye45_73]

No. You cite one right that is not subject to law. You can't because there are none - not one. All rights exist only by law - even unto the very air we breathe. Get used to it.

Ah a true atheise/marxist....nice.....well thank you for allowing us our rights...we appreciate that.......Stalin and Hitler love you

 

[buckeye45_73]

No, there are no natural rights. The problem with the concept of natural rights is that it is egocentric; i.e., it places the individual in the center of importance. It assumes, falsely, that man, as Locke espoused, has certain inherent rights; or, as Jefferson phrased it, unalienable rights. However, that is not how things are ordered. There are no inherent rights; there are no unalienable rights; there are only legal rights. The words “inherent” and “unalienable” do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution created a nation of laws and not men. It is the recognition, from the time of Magna Carta to this day, that no person can be above the law; for it is not the individual that is sovereign, it is the law. To say that one has a right to anything need must admit that such right exists by law. Indeed, there is nothing in the varied course of human events, from the moment of life’s conception to the final disposition of one’s mortal remains and property after death, that is not governed by law. Natural rights are a fiction - a philosophical construct - airy nothings. Real rights are legal rights; rights that are provided and protected by law.

yeah they were in the declaration, which along with the federalist papers, has as much weight in the US as the constitution.....wow......I knew liberals hated the constitution, but the declaration too? and I'm sure you dont even know what the Federalist Papers are.

 

[Nemo]

Happily, our rights are secure by law, and not such men.

 

[Nemo]

I am not a liberal. I am a founding member of the Federalist Society.

 

[M14 Shooter]

No. You cite one right that is not subject to law. You can't because there are none - not one. All rights exist only by law - even unto the very air we breathe. Get used to it.

I accept your conession of the point, that you indeed cannot cite the text where the constitution, or the law that stems from it, grants us the rights so mentioned.

Absent those citations of grant, it is impossible to soundly argue against the fact that these rights pre-exist government, are not dependant on government for their existence, and would continue to exist should the government somehow suddenly disappear.

Unless you can show -- that is, cite the text - where the government specifically granted the rights so mentioned, you donlt have a leg to stand on.

 

[Nemo]

No, it is implicit in the Constitution that our rights are derived by law; which is the prerogative of the legislative power, and enforced by the executive and judicial powers. It is the law that provides our rights; it is the law that protects our rights. To say that you have extra-legal rights is simple nonsense.

 

[M14 Shooter]

No, it is implicit in the Constitution...

If you cannot provide a cite, you have no argument.
Nothing you can say or do will ever change that.

 

[Nemo]

You have not stated a single right that is not subject to law. You have no support for your position.

 

[M14 Shooter]

You have not stated a single right that is not subject to law. You have no support for your position.

We both understand that you know you cannot cite the text where the constitution, or the law that stems from it, grants us the rights to life, liberty, property, self-detemination and all of the rights so derived, and so, we both know that you know you cannot soundly argue that government granted us the rights so mentioned.

These rights unquestionably exist.

Since these rights, which unquestionably exist, were not granted to us by the government, they then necessarily pre-exist government, they cannot be dependant on government for their existence, and they will continue to exist should the government somehow suddenly disappear. Point proven.

It is impossible for you to soundly argue otherwise.

 

[Nemo]

You are living in a dream world. You will learn for yourself the true nature and source of your rights when you have need to enforce them. There is no provision in the Constitution for any imprescriptible rights of any kind. Quoting the Bible or John Locke or Thomas Jefferson is no authority and will get you nowhere; and unless you have a legal basis for your claim of right you’re SOL. God-given rights are only good in heaven; natural rights are no good in court; and in the real world, one need have recourse to the law.

 

[M14 Shooter]

You are living in a dream world.

I understand that you are upset that your premise is unsound and that you cannot soundly argue against mine, but that's on you, not me - you CHOOSE to hang on to your unsound premise, and no one but you can force you to choose otherwise.

Fact of the matter is that unless you can cite the text that grants the rights in question, then those rights -MUST- pre-exist government, cannot be dependant on government for their existence, and will continue to exist should the government somehow suddenly disappear.

You don't have to like that fact, but, at this point, the only intellectually honest thing you can do is accept it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

In U.S. V. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (939) the Court upheld a federal law criminalizing the shipment of a sawed-off shotgun in interstate commerce. Concluding that the "obvious purpose" of the Second Amendment was "to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness" of the state militia, the Court refused to strike down the law on Second Amendment grounds absent any evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." The Court added that without this evidence, "we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

What a softball...

Had the Court, in Miller, believed that the Second Amendment protects only those serving in the militia, it would have been odd to examine the character of the weapon rather than simply note that the two crooks were not militiamen. You can say again and again that Miller did not turn on the difference between muskets and sawed-off shotguns, it turned, rather, on the basic difference between the military and nonmilitary use and possession of guns, but the words of the opinion prove otherwise.

The most you can plausibly claim for Miller is that it declined to decide the nature of the Second Amendment right, despite the Solicitor General’s argument (made in the alternative) that the right was collective. Thus, Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons.

Bottom line: if the NRA flunkies REALLY are into the Constitution to justify gun ownership, then they would have to JOIN A MILITIA...which is currently in the form of the NATIONAL GUARD....and abide by their rules. I don't think they could or want to do that.

Bottom line:
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home