A Question for Gun Owners

Great Debates
1

I know this subject has been rehashed ad nauseam(hey! Latin!), but I wanted to get a clarification on something.

In the opinion of gun owners on this board, which, if any, of the following do you feel to be violative of the Second Amendment? Why?

[list=1]
[li]Mandatory registration of firearms[/li][li]Mandatory licensing of firearm owners[/li][li]Five day waiting period[/li][li]Two week waiting period[/li][li]Prohibition on ownership of automatic weapons[/li][li]Prohibition on ownership of grenade launchers[/li][li]Prohibition on firearm ownership by felons[/li][/list=1]

This is in no way a troll; I’m genuinely curious as to the responses. Thanks.

2

1&2 are clearly agin the 2nd
3&4 are possibly " "
5&6 are unlikely to be " "
7 is clearly not. The Supremes have ruled Felons have very few rights.

Registration leads inexorably to confiscation. It has every time. There is also no use to 'register" guns, as opposed to the SALE of guns, which is allowable.

3

#5 would seem to violate the 2nd. Not that I think that many people running around with legal automatic rifles would be great, but there doesn’t appear to be anything in the second amendment about excluding certain action mechanisms. Grenade launchers is where (for me) it starts to get a little gray - same with anti-aircraft pieces. The rest of the list does not seem to violate the 2nd amendment directly.

My two cents.

4

I don’t believe any of the rights guaranteed by the constitution are absolute ones. There are laws limiting the maximum extent of the rights to free speech, the press, religion, and even search and seizure. Gun ownership rights are not necessarily violated by making certain types of firearms illegal.

5

1-6, surely, although few people argue for a need for grenade launchers. The constitution is clear, but so are the needs of society. The constitution must be changed, as those needs outweigh the designers’ intent. The current state of the constitution makes us all culpable.

6

That’s easy, #1-4 don’t infringe on gun ownership rights per se, they just make it more time-consuming and troublesome to acquire weapons. Not much problem there. But #5-7 actually restrict the rights of certain people to own certain types of weapons. This may cause problems, depending on how you define “arms” and whether or not you think convicted felons should be protected along with ordinary citizens.

Personally, I’m with spartacist – things get a little fuzzy when you start talking about grenade launchers and bazookas. I don’t think most sensible gun owners belive that your average Joe should have access to heavy artillery, including machine guns, so #5 and #6 don’t strike me as second amendment violations. I don’t think convicted felons, especially those convicted of violent crimes, should be allowed to own guns, so scratch #7 from the list.

So basically, my answer is none of the above.

-JB

7

1-2. Not really, as long as the process of getting the license or registering the gun isn’t unreasonably difficult or expensive.

3-4. Probably. Any limitation on a right listed in the Constitution must be justified through conflict with other’s rights or to a limited extent, benefit to society. Waiting periods do nothing more than annoy responsible, law-abiding gun owners.

  1. Yes. The Second Amendment only refers to the right to “keep and bear arms”. It does not say anything about what kind. Now, I know many of you view automatic weapons as instruments of mass killing, but let me explain something: Killing lots of people with an automatic weapon isn’t nearly as easy as it looks. The recoil produced by automatic weapons makes it very difficult to keep the gun steady, and the clips on automatic rifles generally run out after a few seconds. If someone were to grab an automatic rifle, walk into a school, store, post office, or wherever, and open fire (on full auto), he’d be lucky to kill 2 or 3 people.

  2. Maybe. From what I’ve heard, the Second Amendment was intended to cover “small arms”, which I think refers to handheld weapons. While grenade launchers might be approaching the limit of what the Second Amendment was meant to cover, banning them isn’t as necessary as people think - there is little, if anything, that criminals would probably want to do with them that can’t be done with homemade explosive devices and/or common firearms.

8

Y’all know where I’m going with this, but I’m gonna go there anyway.

RoboDude: Thanks. You answered my question really well, with nary an internal contradiction. I may disagree with you about the efficacy of waiting periods–the argument can be made that the background checks facilitated by waiting periods are of great benefit to society–but I see your point.

Daniel, on the other hand… :smiley: You say:

Couple of follow-up questions–directed mostly at Danielinthewolvesden, but anyone who shares his perspective can play.

First, in what way does “well-regulated” have meaning if the ability to, um, regulate the gun owners well–registration and licensing–is counter to the spirit of the amendment? I know that it’s a separate clause, and that an argument can be made that the Second Amendment provides for the general right to bear arms so that well-regulated militias can be constituted (as opposed to the right to bear arms for members of a well-regulated militia, if you take the distinction), but do you really think it guarantees the right of gun owners not belonging to militias to be unregulated?

Second, since exactly when does “registration lead inexorably to confiscation?” It has every time? That’s by far the most hyperbolic statement I’ve ever heard!! (heh heh) Seriously, that’s a pretty amazing assertion–I’ve been impressed with the research you’ve done on the Bible threads, care to do some here? In your opinion then, should cars not be registered? How about newlyweds? :smiley: Are you saying that there is danger in registering guns, or that it’s unconstitutional (see point one, above), or both?

And what’s wrong with waiting periods? If you get your gun within a week, or two weeks, how’s it impinging upon your right to bear arms? Plus, it keeps out the felons! (The dirty rightless bastards.) I guess what I’m asking is, could you explain how waiting periods are possibly violative of the Second Amendment? (And no fair cribbing from RoboDude!)

I’m neither pro- nor anti-Second Amendment rights as they’re interpreted today…I just like hearing consistent arguments from both sides. Daniel, I’d be interested in your response.

9

Oh, and I forgot one:

  1. Mandatory gun safety tests for gun owners.
    Whaddya think? Violate the Second Amendment?
10

What did you mean by this statement?

If you don’t mind me asking.

Just putting in my 2sense

An armed society is a polite society. -Robert Heinlein

11

Gadarene: I won’t bother with dictatorships, “it can’t happen here”, but Australia just confiscated near every gun. In Britian, handguns are out, rifles are very rare, and shotguns are severly restricted. Both started with “we just want to REGISTER them, what’s your objection to that?” Canada did the same, but with pistols only, it’s still enuf of a wilderness that many absolutely NEED rifles & shotguns to survive (a small % of the population, maybe, but much higher than here, and WAY higher than England).

And even if registration or licensing doesn’t lead to out& out confiscation, they will simply fee & paper your gun out of your hands. There are fees as much as $5000 to register a gun. Ok, those are mostly in small townships, but here in Silicon Valley, the Anti-gun Sheriff & Supervisors has made the fee for carrying a gun (after you show you have a clear need to) to $500-800, plus a psychiatric evaluation. If they have the right to collect $1, or require 1 restriction, thye have the right to charge $10,000, and require impossible restrictions. “Once the camel’s nose is in the tent”. Now, I do feel that a permit to carry is something that should be restricted, but every county & city should not have the unrestricted right to make whatever fees & restrictions they want, based simply on Politics.

But what use is registration? I am not talking about restrictions on BUYING, I’m talking about AFTER you have met those restrictions, then they keep raising the bar every year so you can keep the Gun you bought legaly. What is the USE?

AH, but you bring up car registration & marriage licenses. You DO know you can OWN all the cars you want, and never license them, as long as you don’t drive them on public streets? (analogous to having no restrictions on owning guns, but many on carrying) And that a marriage performed by your minister is legal, if you are both adults, license or no? (perhaps some juristictions have some restrictions, but they are basicly unenforceable). Personally, I would love to see a requirement to have a permit to have kids. One bad parents, raising worse kids has a worse effect on socirty than any lone nut with a gun. In fact, where do you think those “nuts” come from?

But in any case, you can’t compare cars to guns, as there is nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to keep & drive cars.

12

Oh, and GADARENE, thanks for the Kudos :D. I thought that this was where you were going, and I have no problem with it.

13

If I’m not mistaken, it has always been very difficult to legally obtain a gun of any kind in England. It is not that they started registering and then it became difficult to have one.

Given that I believe in looking at the WHOLE clause, I believe that arms are allowed expressly for the purpose of a well-regulated militia. None of the ideas listed in the OP would violate this. That doesn’t mean that they are automatically good ideas, but remember that Am2 says nothing about the “rights” of hunters or homeowners. (I won’t stretch things so far as to say that “keep” means “have in possession on loan from the militia.”). In many many instances, we have people argue for guns from an Am2 perspective without ever bringing the militia aspect into play.

Bucky

14

Gadarene: I thought I should point out that there is a big difference between being a gun owner and being pro-2nd. Of course, the media and certain politicians would like to paint all gun owners as slavering “must have my gun because I have a right to have it” but that is somewhat far from the truth. Some people simply recognize the value of the gun in their “total self defense package” (I love that phrase, makes me sold like a used car salesman) as a means of using the ultimate in countervailing violence when appropriate.

So, your question is which of the following is a violation of the 2nd as it is written. A different question would be which of this would gun owners support. I mention that for clarification of my reply.

  1. Depends on the nature of the registration. As mentioned a slippery slope, although a logical fallacy, is often the reality of politics. The ownership of firearms shall not be infringed, doesn’t mean they can’t be registered but it does mean that this registration can not be prohibitive.

  2. As with #1 above.

  3. The question here with this is if a 5 day waiting period is prohibitive. Technically, I think it is because it infringes on gun ownership for 5 days without due cause.

  4. Same with 3 above.

  5. Yes. The intent of the 2nd was at a minimum to allow the people to be a militia in times of the country’s need or to counterbalance the possibility of those in authority from seizing power without fear of an armed response from the populace. The automatic rifle if the mainstay of the modern day infantry and so belongs if desired in the hands of the people.

  6. Maybe. As with 5 above. The problem is that the 2nd never really allowed for a citizen to have cannon for example, and could it have been forseen that a person could some day have a portable cannon? Would the founding fathers have written in a stipulation to prevent any mass explosive device from being in the hands of citizens? Tough to say. But again, if we take the 2nd to be such that the people form the equivalent of infantry in time of need or to prevent tyranny in the gov’t then it makes sense to allow the people access to most everything that the modern infantry soldier has.

  7. Maybe. The second doesn’t say anything about felons. It talks solely about the people. So, is a felon who has served his time to society no longer part of the people? Does he lose his rights? Why only the rights in the 2nd? Why not those of the 1st too? For example, lets say a racist leader provokes a riot that kills several people. He is convicted of 2nd degree murder but is released 10 years later on parole. Would you be in favor of revoking his 1st amendment rights to free speech so that he could no longer invoke riots? Of course, any reasonable person would point out that there is the counterbalance of the safety of innocent people at stake. So, that’s why it is a maybe. But looking at it strictly from the perspective of rights and the 2nd, then no.

15

I pretty much agree with Robo, but I think that taking 2nd rights away from felons is OK; if we can keep them from voting, we can keep them from owning a gun.

On your last point, though:

I have a problem with this one, though it’s often bandied about by anti-gun people. Does this mean that if you fail the test, you don’t get a gun? I guess I don’t understand how this is different than a poll tax, or a test to determine intelligence before voting. I know the Supreme Court has found poll taxes unconstitutional. I suspect they would do the same (if you could ever get them to take on a Second Amendment case) with mandatory tests.

16

I make a distinction between 1 and 2, registration and licensing. Licensing would imply that you do not have the right to own a gun unless the government grants it after you have jumped through certain hoops. Registration means you simply have to fill out a card and send it in after you’ve obtained your gun.

FYI on #5, automatic weapons: A semi-automatic weapon may be owned like any other hunting rifle. This despite the pathetic Assault Weapons Ban, which bars the manufacture or importation of certain types of “military” semi-automatic weapons. Fully automatic weapons–machine guns–are very tightly restricted:

  1. You have to submit to an extensive federal background check and pay a $200 license fee before taking possession of the gun.

  2. You must grant the ATF the right to enter you home at any time to inspect the weapon.

  3. Only “collectors” items are permitted. You can have a Thompson or and old .30 cal Browning machine gun but you can never legally own a fully automatic AK-47, Uzi, or AR-15. (clarification, anyone?)

These regulations arguably infringe on the rights of citizens to form militias and arm themselves effectively enough to battle the tyrannical government, so I’m surprised that the gun lobby has not yet assailed them.

Now then, let’s look at the issue of registration leading to confiscation. A political movement or the body politic is a very complex device. It does not follow the basic laws of physics. A slippery slope (forget about the stupid camel) is a situation where gravity is pulling you down along a surface–accelerating–with no friction or forces to enable you to stop or move back up. There is no such thing as anti-gravity, but there is such a thing as anti-liberalism. Did Clinton’s health care plan put us on a slippery slope to socialism? No, it provoked a massive backlash which ushered the Republican into power in Congress and forced Clinton to concede “The era of big government is over”. You can’t predict how powerful a backlash is going to be, but they’re always part of the mix.

17

How would you feel if it were not prohibitive? Say if it read “mandatory gun safety instruction”?

18

Necros,

I really don’t see the similarity between gun safety tests and poll taxes–there’s a much stronger parallel, in my opinion, between gun safety tests and driver’s licenses. What’s wrong with demonstrating your ability to properly handle, clean, and care for a gun? Hell, the government could provide free gun safety classes–there would seem to be a societal benefit in ensuring that as many gun owners as possible were competent with their firearms anyway–so your ability to possess wouldn’t be contingent upon ability to pay, like poll taxes, but ability to operate…something that can be, and should be, learned by everyone.

Could you clarify the comparison you’re making? Should teachers not have to display competency in order to teach a certain subject? Can we just assume that they’re competent? Will they be?

19

Glitch: Great post. I know there’s a difference between gun owners and those who are “pro-2nd,” though “pro-2nd” is a nebulous term, depending on how you’re interpreting the amendment. My question was directed at those people who view the rights conferred by the Second Amendment in a manner roughly consistent with the position of the NRA. But that’s a hell of a lot to fit into a subject line, so I figured “gun owners” would be more succinct and generally encompassing. I appreciate the clarification, though.

You’re also right that there’s a difference between what people consider to be unconstitutional and what they feel should be unconstitutional, which is why I phrased my OP as specifically as I did. For example, I don’t think “In God We Trust” should be on U.S. currency, but I recognize the fact that the Supreme Court has basically given the practice a stamp of approval. Anyway, like RoboDude, you seem to have a good handle on the constitutionality, so I won’t challenge your views. My only question is whether or not you consider the background checks engendered by waiting periods to be due cause to justify the infringement. (Or do you think the background checks exacerbate the infringement?)

As Ptahlis points out, none of the rights enumerated by the Constitution are absolute. One of these days, I’m going to start a thread in support of Stanley Fish’s contention that there’s no such thing as free speech in America (it’s an ideological construction that vests its meaning in the subjectivity of the time, and the line that blurs between speech and action–shouting fire in a theater is effectively action, and can be restricted, while depiction of pornography is effectively speech, and can be protected–makes delineation of free speech meaningless as an absolute). I’m interesting in finding out the degree to which people feel their rights to bear arms can be restricted by other concerns–protection from felons, well-being of society, fulfillment of the “well-regulated” clause, cultural mores–while remaining true to the intent and/or practice of the Second Amendment, particularly within the context of the Court’s treatment of the Bill of Rights as a whole.

Whew.

My next post will be shorter; it’s just another direct question.

20

For everyone: In the context of the Second Amendment, what does the phrase “well-regulated” mean to you? How should that phrase be taken into account when interpreting the amendment today?

(Okay, it was two direct questions.)