Sorry for the late reply but its obvious to everyone that you’re an idiot and you stay out of great debates because without insults and logical fallacies you don’t have any argument at all.
I just jumped in here.
The hell? RTFirefly referenced an historical fact. If such 19th century laws were illegal, they presumably would have been overturned in the 19th or early 20th century.
Look, I accept Heller. But to say that it carved new constitutional territory isn’t exactly controversial. So did Roe V Wade. So what?
From the Cruikshank case in 1876 and for decades afterward, the US Supreme court rejected incorporation of the Bill of Rights under the 14th Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities clause, and held that rights were only protected against government infringement, not the actions of private individuals- virtually the exact opposite of our modern conception of court-protected rights. Firearms were hardly the only rights so violated. Local courts issued ad hoc rulings to uphold the prevailing social order, and what cases did make it to the SCOTUS usually found no relief.
For example, in Robertson v. Baldwin (1897), the court ruled that the Bill of Rights was subject to “exceptions” inherited from previous common law- effectively grandfathering in violations; and upheld that merchant sailors could be forced to complete their contracts involuntarily, the Thirteenth Amendment not withstanding. During World War One and immediately after, the court issued several rulings upholding laws that made virtually any public dissent against the war effort punishable as sedition. It upheld the draft of men directly into the federal army (rather than the militia), despite the fact that the Founders had considered soldiers to be virtually slaves of the state.
The modern push to firearms rights is an attempt to go back to before this shockingly illiberal and authoritarian period, to something closer to anti-government sentiments of the revolutionary period.
Who is the real idiot - the person who says idiotic things or the person who feels the need to respond to them? If you read threads from a dispassionate point of view - it’s clear during the course of discussion who the bomb throwing idiots are. Not every moronic quip requires a response.
It’s not nice to tease the mentally ill, Bone.
“the Second Amendment will be restored to the meaning it had for most of America’s history.”
This is the statement that I was asking for a cite on.
Not all unconstitutional laws get challenged.
Heller may be new constitutional territory but it did not overturn law that had been standing for most of America’s history. In fact Heller does not purport to overturn anything. Heller was an interpretation of the law, not a reinterpretation of the law.
:o
Well, you’re right of course but after the invasion of Iraq, I have ever been on the lookout for the big lie. When I see some posters use a combination of lying and shouting down their opposition, it makes me worry that somebody might come along and believe their bullshit.
Yet, ironically on this subject, it is you who is persistently lying and spouting bullshit.
I admit I only have a vague idea of what you’re talking about. (That’s a confession, not at all a boast.) That said, there’s a whole lot of constitutional history between 1898 and 2008 where the self defense aspect of the 2nd amendment was never mentioned.
Damuri Ajashi: For American history up to Heller, there was no constitutional basis for a self defense interpretation of the 2nd amendment. It was thought to be either a) a highly dubious interpretation of the 2nd amendment (following John Paul Stevens) or b) a possible interpretation of the 2nd amendment.
“Heller may be new constitutional territory but it did not overturn law that had been standing for most of America’s history.” Well it was a 33 year old law. I doubt whether it could have gotten overturned before, say, 1995.
I was arguing against the notion that Heller overturned jurisprudence and a view of the second amendment that has been inplace for most of america’s history. I don’t think it was. I don’t know if we ever tested whether the second amendment conferred an idividual right before heller.