The Second Amendment Was A Failure From The Start, And Should Have Been Repealed 200 Years Ago

[2aguy]

If the 2nd Amendment said, only the militia is allowed to keep and bear arms, you might have a point.

Yeah....they can never explain that.....

 

[BLUE COLLAR]

The militia isn't shut down. It's never shut down. And a lie by implication is a lie just as much as an explicit lie. And an ignoramus is an still an ignoramus.

I object your honor.

Ignoramuses can be educated which is what I'm trying to do here: Educate the grammar challenged.

 

[BLUE COLLAR]

If the 2nd Amendment said, only the militia is allowed to keep and bear arms, you might have a point.

I appreciate where you are trying to go, but I'm not trying to challenge the right to keep and bear arms, the right to protect self and mine. Rather, I protest the notion that gun ownership and conduct cannot be regulated. It can and already is.

 

[woodwork201]

But, but, you stated that it would be okay to shut down the militia until there's another war. What's next, the standing army, the navy, Top gun?


I think you better read what Scalia actually wrote. The Heller decision is not what you project, not even close.

Well, if the prefatory clause, as you suggest, is still in force, where are the fucking regulations? I want to know the name of your Commanding Officer so I can ask that you to be relieved of your duty.


Good grief, there is no militia, well-regulated or otherwise. When was the last time the militia showed its face? Wait, I could be wrong. Was that the militia that Trump called to action on Jan 6?

Besides being completely ignorant on the topic of gun control and the right to keep and bear arms, demonstrated over and over again but never so clearly as when you didn't even know that current Federal law already requires background checks from all sales by licensed gun dealers, you are also a very dishonest person.

I never said it would be ok to shut down the militia until there's another war. This is yet another lie. Your credibility on this site goes down with every post you make.

And since the Navy is provided for in the Constitution, it would taker an amendment to shut down the Navy as well.

And top gun? Really? You're as ignorant about the military as you are about guns. I'm starting to think it's mental deficiency rather than ignorance; I think you're at least as much of a moron as you are just ignorant. Top Gun is a program within the Navy's Aviation Warfare program to train the best pilots in tactics and practices, both in the plane and their on-the-ground work, so that they can go back to their commands and train the pilots in their commands. I the end, it's simply a train the trainer course. Moron.

 

[BLUE COLLAR]

It was a meme, dumbass, not a cartoon.

Lol. Such a child.

Yes, you've been making a fool of yourself for days here.

Quite the opposite, actually. You're just too stupid to comprehend your own position, dope.

You being here proves that theory incorrect.

I see that you're again engaging your favorite topic, me.

 

[Orangecat]

I see that you're again engaging your favorite topic, me.

Favorite punching-down bag, that is.
My post you responded to was from 2 days ago.
If you didn't crave the attention, you would let it go, kid.

 

[flan327]

.

"They" are the Assclowns on Capitol Hill ... I need not make any other distinctions.

I am a Classical Liberal, and your political inclinations do not change the words or meaning of the Constitution.
It doesn't matter what you think is reasonable if the Federal Government hasn't been granted the Power to do it ...
And it doesn't matter how many people you can get to agree with you.

If you would like things to be different, then you are going to have to take it to the States and the People
in order to amend or repeal a portion of the Constitution.
Ask yourself why "they" and you haven't done that.

That is what is required and there is a process defined in the Constitution for doing just that.

.​

Which takes HOW MANY DECADES?

 

[flan327]

Favorite punching-down bag, that is.
My post you responded to was from 2 days ago.
If you didn't crave the attention, you would let it go, kid.

Absolutely

Like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum because he got the ORANGE cup rather than the RED cup

 

[woodwork201]

I object your honor.

Ignoramuses can be educated which is what I'm trying to do here: Educate the grammar challenged.

That's right; ignoramuses can, presumably or at least are not, by definition, unable to, read and learn, correcting the deficiency in their knowledge and understanding. Morons, on the other hand, are incapable of learning even many simple concepts. That is why it is becoming more and more clear that your lack of understanding of even the most basic facts on every topic about which you post cannot be attributed to ignorance and must, therefore, be attributed to mental deficiency.

There are sites and forums where grammar is the topic. This isn't one of them. But even so, your understanding of grammar is lacking. Either, once again, you haven't done the study and are ignorant, or more likely, you are just not capable of learning and we can tell you a hundred times that the prefatory clause may justify the operative clause but it does not change the meaning of the operative clause. As I also pointed out (we'll get to that response in a moment), the justification provided in the prefatory clause is not necessarily the only justification for the operative clause and removal of the prefatory clause does not eliminate the meaning of the operative clause. The prefatory clause could easily be replaced by any other justification or by no justification at all. For instance: I like apples.

And, most important, the thing that makes you wrong about your understanding of the prefatory clause in the 2nd Amendment is that the militia has never been removed as a constitutional portion of the defense of the United States. The constitutionally optional part is the standing army, not the militia.

There is no need for a general or commanding officer in the militia. Congress can fund and Congress can establish training requirements, and governors can choose to train or not train, the militia but neither can eliminate the militia. The amount of regulation, or what regulation is in place Congress and governors can, within reason, decide.

It is also important to understand that words and their meanings evolve over time but the Constitution must be interpreted based on the definitions at the time and the context used at the time. Regulation in that day and context was not about rules but meant, instead, similar to what it would mean today to put a regulator on a water source to make the flow and pressure consistent. Or a voltage regulator in a car to keep the voltage consistent. By well-regulated, they meant things like all of the militia might have a firearm that can share parts, such as an AR-15/M-16 platform, or use the same ammunition, such as 9mm or 5.56mm.

It is accepted by some, mostly by fools, that the militia is the National Guard, but the government has no power whatsoever to send the militia to fight on foreign shores. The Constitution explicitly limits the power of the Federal Government to use the militia for incursion and insurrection and violation of federal law. So, no, the National Guard is not the Militia of the Constitution.

So what is the militia?

In Presser v. Illinois in 1886, Justice William Woods said:

“It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United states, as well as that of the states; and in view of this prerogative of the general government as well as of its general powers, the States’ cannot, even laying the constitutional provisions in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the General Government."​

Or the words of Tench Coxe, capitalization and italics are Coxe's own, the red is mine:

The power of the sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for THE POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANRY OF AMERICA FROM SIXTEEN TO SIXTY. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? are they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American. What clause in the state or federal constitution hath given away that important right . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”​

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Which takes HOW MANY DECADES?

What are you waiting for? Get to work.

 

[woodwork201]

The above is not a syllogism. Let me help.

All men have dicks.
Woodie is a man.
Therefore, Woodie has a dick.

Of course, in the example just given, the logic is called to question because Woodie is a Dick.

Once again, you prove ignorance. The 2nd Amendment is not a syllogism. A syllogism requires two or more logical premises that, when combined, yield a result or conclusion that is true every time the premises are met - a syllogism requires a total of at least 3 parts and that is the first clue that the 2nd Amendment is not a syllogism; it is the 10th clue that you're an idiot.

The 2nd Amendment is simply a compound sentence. You'll likely not find a single suggestion by any intelligent constitutional scholar suggesting that it is a syllogism; I certainly was not able to.

 

[BlackSand]

Which takes HOW MANY DECADES?

.

Are you suggesting we should ignore the Constitution if it doesn't fit your immediate desires?

How does that grant the Federal Government the Power to do what you want,
if the only thing that establishes the Federal Government you want to do it, is the Constitution you want to ignore?

Sounds more like shortsighted doomed to fail cherry picking.

.​

 

[FA_Q2]

I object your honor.

Ignoramuses can be educated which is what I'm trying to do here: Educate the grammar challenged.

You keep saying this over and over again but the explicit explanation of the grammar you keep complaining about has been directly addressed by M14 and you have repeatedly and consistently ignored it.

considering that you have refused to address those specific points and continually show that you are not aware of the law in the first place concerning guns, I fail to see why you think any of us following the thread should take your position seriously.

Unless you can point to the post where you actually address those points....

 

[Weatherman2020]

Laws about freedom of speech don’t just shift when it comes to content and context, they’re also constantly updated to address something else: technology. Radio. Movies. Television. The internet. Even comic books. All have sparked changes in what is permitted and how speech is regulated. But somehow, we pretend that guns are different; that words written when the most deadly weapon required a ramrod and black powder mean that we can’t make adjustments for a semi-automatic rifle and a 30-round clip.

The truth is that guns are different. Because the right to bear arms is a lesser right. A right that was never intended to exist at all.

What makes individual gun ownership a lesser right? It’s a right that only exists in the minds of a handful of hard-right Supreme Court justices who happen to be on the court at this moment. Until 2008, no federal court had ever ruled that the Second Amendment included a right to individual gun ownership. It was always understood as it was written: Guns were allowed in individual hands as a means to supply the armed forces.

Here’s the Milwaukee Independent looking at how Chief Justice Warren Burger discussed the Second Amendment.

That the Second Amendment exists at all is more an accident of timing than an attempt to put guns in the hands of every American.
The amendment grew out of a fear that having a standing army would leave the nation open to depredations by an authoritarian leader, or that the nascent democracy would be overthrown by a military junta. To that end, they explicitly inserted the Second Amendment as an alternative means of providing national defense.

There were multiple drafts of the Second Amendment. Every one of them includes text explaining that this amendment exists only because it’s needed to provide for the nation’s defense.
Just a year after the Constitution was ratified, George Washington nudged Congress to create an official U.S. military, but the still-fearful Congress limited that force to just few hundred soldiers and officers. It would be another six years before it was allowed to grow significantly. When war came in 1812 two things were immediately obvious: The number of soldiers then in the official U.S. military were far from enough to defend the nation, and the poorly organized civilian militias for which the Second Amendment was created were an absolute failure when it came to national defense.

In the next year, the professional military of the United States grew by over 300%. “Second Amendment solutions” were on their way out.
The Second Amendment is failure. It never worked for its intended purposes. It was born from the understandable fears of a new nation engaged in a radical new scheme. But it was a mistake. It may be the most costly mistake this nation has ever made other than failing to end slavery at the outset.

The right thing to do would be to recognize that mistake and pass a new amendment that simply ends the Second Amendment, just as the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933. (Take a drink.)

Instead, we get statements like this piece of profound ignorance. One that is wrong. Wrong. Wrong again. And then … still wrong.



Recognizing that an actual repeal of the Second Amendment—while absolutely just—isn’t likely, the next best thing is to simply recognize that the right to individual gun ownership is a lesser right, one whose appearance in that useless amendment subjects it to practical constraint.

The Second Amendment was a failure from the start, and should have been repealed 200 years ago

There is no such thing as an unconstrained right. Speech has limits. Religion has limits. Assembly has limits. The idea that any of these things can be completely “free” of government oversight is a pipedream, and everyone from the founders to the...

www.dailykos.com

Individual gun ownership rights are the result of a Supreme Court decision. Specifically Heller v DC

Just like abortion rights are the result of a Supreme Court decision. Specifically Roe v Wade

The current court is ready to take away Roe v Wade.

A future court can do the same with Heller v DC.

Will you just put a big sign on your front door saying

THIS HOUSE HAS NO GUNS FOR SELF PROTECTION

and shutup?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Bullshit.
The protection fell on its face in Texas when those nineteen kids were slaughtered. Their young lives might have been saved had a simple background check been required.

The TX shooter bought his guns legally, inclduing a background check.

 

[M14 Shooter]

.I live in San Diego, CA where we have fairly strict gun laws. Over the last twenty years or more, the per capita murder rate in San Diego is virtually half the national average.

This is where I ask you ro demonstrate the necessary relationship between these laws and this lower rate of murder.
You will respond by avoiding, if not running away, from the challenge.

 

[M14 Shooter]

They do background checks in Texas? I'd like some detail on that.

Federal law. Been in place since 1993.

 

[M14 Shooter]

You are also ignoring the prefatory clause in the 2ndA by use of a nearly incoherent rendering of its grammar.

As you know, the prefatory clause does not in anyway create a restriction on the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms by the people.

It is therefore entirely sensible that the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens’ militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified in a written Constitution. Justice Breyer’s assertion that individual self-defense is merely a “subsidiary interest” of the right to keep and bear arms, see post, at 36, is profoundly mistaken. He bases that assertion solely upon the prologue—but that can only show that self-defense had little to do with the right’s codification; it was the central component of the right itself.

Please demonsttate this to be unsound.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Rather, I protest the notion that gun ownership and conduct cannot be regulated. It can and already is.

Sure.
So long as those regulations do not infringe of the exercise of the right to keep an bear arms.

 

[BLUE COLLAR]

You keep saying this over and over again but the explicit explanation of the grammar you keep complaining about has been directly addressed by M14 and you have repeatedly and consistently ignored it.

considering that you have refused to address those specific points and continually show that you are not aware of the law in the first place concerning guns, I fail to see why you think any of us following the thread should take your position seriously.

Unless you can point to the post where you actually address those points....

The above post is humorous in the fact that it commits the very sin which it charges. It does so in spades. There isn't a single sentence that addresses the topic of this thread other than in belching empty opinions of me.

That said, I'll be happy to briefly explain my position on the grammar of the singular sentence that is the 2ndA.

The Second Amendment to our Constitution is a complex sentence consisting of two clauses: a prefatory (dependent clause), and the main clause (independent). By independent it does not mean that the main clause stands on its own. It means (grammatically) that it could stand on its own if one wished to remove the prefatory clause but that would change what the founders meant. Had it been their intent to simply convey the right to possess and bear arms, the founders could have simply used the independent clause. THEY DID NOT!

In short, I read the whole sentence while some choose to ignore or demote the prefatory clause.

As for M14, we've butt heads several times on various topics and levels. If you have a problem with something I wrote in one of those exchanges, spell it out. Put some hair on your fucking point.