A Question for Gun Owners

Great Debates
41

Well, I accept the interpretation that provides for private gun ownership as well…it’s been pretty well institutionalized, U.S. v. Miller notwithstanding. I’m just saying that an argument from original intent quite possibly doesn’t work in this case, and that in an ideal world gun-control opponents would use a different tack to demonstrate their case. Like I said, I think Ninth Amendment rights could easily be asserted here–that people have the unenumerated right to own guns just as they have that right to own cars, or toolboxes, or any private property not explicitly proscribed through circumstance (such as the commission of a crime). I agree with you: government should not ban private ownership of guns, virtually nobody in government wants to ban private ownership of guns, and the public would never stand for an attempt to ban private ownership of guns.

Daniel, sqweels ably handled the registration question. The only reason that registration would be necessary after the fact, rather than at point of sale, is because there are a hell of a lot of unregistered guns out there. Do you think it’s a significant infringement on the privacy of gun owners to have their guns catalogued, assuming for the sake of argument that there was no chance of eventual confiscation (except in the case of crimes)? Again, that’s an honest question…I think it could go either way.

And the scope and importance of militias in the late Eighteenth Century has been vastly overstated; the Militia Act was in part enacted due to general apathy among eligible citizenry, and even then was not stringently enforced.

42

No, I’ve no idea why I capitalized “eighteenth century.” Shoot me now. (And if you’re using someone else’s unregistered gun to do the deed, so much the better. :P)

43

Driving is not a Constitutionally-guaranteed right, while both voting and gun ownership are.

Actually, the Constitution does not guarantee the right to vote per se - some of the later amendments just prevent the government from placing certain types of restrictions on who can vote.

44

RoboDude said:

Hmm. I guess that argument can be made. But I sure wouldn’t want to make it in front of SCOTUS.

Amendment 26 says:

That definitely seems to say that a right to vote exists…

45

Yeah, but it doesn’t grant the right. It simply says that the right can’t be taken away on account of failure to pay tax. It doesn’t prohibit a State from taking away the right to vote on account of, say, registering as a Republican.

46

He’s not arguing that the right doesn’t exist, but that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly grant the right. It’s inferred, sort of like the right to choose your spouse. You do have that right, but it’s not actually spelled out in the Constitution specifically.

47

Fine. But to steer the thread back on course, what relevance does something being a constutional right have in permitting a system of registration being imposed if the need arises?

48

OK, I’ll concede, in the interest of not hijacking. I think, though, that arguments could be made that saying things like “The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states” could be construed to guarantee the right to vote more as a procedural issue than a natural rights one, but that’s a topic for another thread. :slight_smile:

49

None at all. Every right Constitutionally guaranteed is subject to restriction. I cannot see on the face of it that registration or any of the other restrictions mentioned in the OP are in any way a violation of the Constitution even if one accepts the second ammendment as applying to private ownership. One may argue that specific laws derived from those propositions place an undue burden on the citizen, but I don’t see the actual propositions themselves as doing so.

50

sqweels said:

I agree with Ptahlis: Registration doesn’t to my mind run into any constitutional issues. I was arguing that requiring someone to pass a firearm aptitude test would be a restraint on their rights, not a registration program.

Others in this thread were, I believe, arguing against it based on the “slippery slope” line of thinking. And, that would probably be a good way to go law-wise, if SCOTUS thought that was a valid argument for anything but First Amendment issues. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with the recent erosion of the Fourth, they don’t. :frowning:

51

Skweels :how would having your gun registered stop you from holding up a liquor store with it? Why would you care? Do you think that after you use a gun in a crime you toss it on the floor of the liquor store on the way out? Look, I work w/ law enforcements officials every day, and THEY think that is to laff. Oh, sure, there are a few crimes solved with butterfingered crooks dropping their gun, or wallet, or something else, but these are REALLY rare, and we get to read about them in whatever “stupid crook” column you get.
True, sometimes after a crook shoots someone, he disposes of the gun, but that’s what the east river is for. Hey, in Australia, they promised when they registered the guns, they wouldn’t confiscate them, but they did. And they won’t need a door to door saerch. They will just send out a freindly notice to all the registerees, asking them to bring the guns into the police dep’t. Oh, they won’t do it all at once, 1st they will do “assault weapons” (just about a reality here in CA), then “saturday nite specials”, then “handguns”, then… and it will take years, if not decades. They aren’t stupid. And, I am afraid that there ARE lots of pols who would ban guns, especially local pols. One of the east bay counties just banned carrying guns in schools, and they intend it to include the POLICE!

And as far as having every gun firing a test bullet, and keep them on file,it is completely ridiculous, impractical & useless. Do you know ANYTHING about forensic ballistics? Do you really think guns are so much different that you could take a bullet fired in a crime, run it thru a computer, and have it match up? HAR! First, as guns are used, they wear, in fact, one of the best “bullet signatures” is an odd pattern of wear or scratches in the barrel, hence the bullet. Next, altho if you give the ballistic guys a gun, and a bullet supposedly shot from that gun, they can, usu give you a 90% match ( unless there are some weird/unusual after purchase scratches in the barrel, in which case they can give you 99%). But now think about that 90%. Fingerprints & DNA are 99.999%+ accurate, this then is over 10000 times less accurate. So they ran a check, (and this would only work if the gun fired at the time of the crime was nearly new), then the computer comes up with over 100,000 possible matches. Take THAT # to a judge for a warrant–listen to the horselaugh, get kicked out of courtroom. If the gun had been used a lot after the “test bullet”, there would be no match.

But we forget the other reason fro not using a “test bullet”
the same reason why they can’t make everyone in the USA give their fingerprints or DNA, it is unconstitutional, or so the Supremes say.

52

“…the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be infringed.”

Registration is infringement because it gives the government the right to decide who can and can’t keep a firearm regardless of that persons standing as a citizen. You can be a fine upstanding citizen with a clean record but have teh local registrar decide not to let you have access to a firearm (at least not legally).

If any of you grew up in a state with regit=stration, such as New York, you would be able to see this first hand. For many years permirts were issued only to ex-cops. They reformed it, but it can be impossible to get a pistol permit.

53

And this, sqweels, is why it’s necessary to separate the right of private gun ownership from the language of the Second Amendment, or at the very least clarify–like I tried to do–that all evidence suggests that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” was meant to be applied exclusively in the context of militias.

Mr. Zambezi: Under what grounds can a local registrar deny a “fine upstanding citizen” a gun? I don’t buy it.

Carry on; I’m still reeling from the lashing I’m taking on my other thread.

54

Which is exactly wrong. I would direct you to Cecil’s column on this. THey meant for individuals to have teh arms so that they could form Militias.

Check out http://www.guncite.com for more on what the Founding Fathers intended. There is no evidence that the Framers were ever thinking of a “militia.”

You can argue that the constitution should be amended, but you will have a hard time finding evidence to support your assertion here.

55

Mr. Zambezi: No offense, but did you even read the post I wrote about this subject on the first page? From all appearances, the Second Amendment was meant to confer the right to bear arms–that is, equip yourself while in military service–to individuals solely in the context of that military service. I am not suggesting we don’t have a right to own guns; I’m saying that arming citizens who are not members of well-regulated militias was NOT what the Framers had in mind.

56

I read your post. The Framers were indeed saying that individuals who are not members of a militia should be ** allowed** to have private ownership of guns.

I think that that is crystal clear. “No freeman”…not “no militia member”

now please show me something that shows that prevailing wisdom at the time was to keep arms from individuals.

All of that said, as far as the OP, I would argue that only 7 is constitutional, though the courts disagree.

But we went through all of this twice before. Take a look at the old threads. I promise that I will let the hostages go and leave the plane. THe highjack is over.

57

Notice: I’m not a gun owner, but I have friends who own firearms, and while I have no intention now to buy a gun, I want to be able to purchase a gun in the future should I feel that the need arises.

Second Notice: While I’m applying the logic and cases from some of the other Bill of Rights amendments to the Second Amendment in the way that I think they would be applied IF politics didn’t enter into the picture, don’t be surprised if and when the U.S. Supreme Court rules totally contrary to what I write here. :slight_smile:

All that said, here goes:

“1.Mandatory registration of firearms”

Constitutional. Even though the First Amendment gets the highest level of protection from the courts, regulations that reasonably restrict the “time, place, and manner” of expression without regulation content or viewpoint have been upheld. Specific to this question, periodicals are required by some federal postal statute adopted during the New Deal (I don’t recall the cite) to regularly publish a disclosure of their ownership, editorship, and circulation.

I put one proviso on this: one must actually be able to register their firearm by providing the required information and a reasonable fee. If the Second Amendment were held to the same standard as the First, ordinances that require gun registration, followed up by a decision to accept no registrations except for renewals of pre-existing registrations (Chicago re. handguns), would be struck down as a sham.

“2. Mandatory licensing of firearm owners”
Constitutional, so long as the licensing isn’t so restrictive or unduly conditioned that it is a pretext – a prohibition disguised as a mere regulation. That is, if a person satisfies reasonable conditions (including minimum competency testing) set forth clearly in the law, they are entitled to receive a license.

“3.Five day waiting period.”
Reasonable time, place, and manner regulation, as long as there’s an exception to get a firearm immediately if one can demonstrate to a judge that they are under immediate threat of physical harm. This “rule” is similar to the court cases regarding ordinances that require permits for marches and protests.

“4.Two week waiting period.”
Really iffy. Is this a reasonable restriction on time, place, or manner? I personally don’t think so. And it smells of pretext.

“5.Prohibition on ownership of automatic weapons.”
“6.Prohibition on ownership of grenade launchers.”
Reasonable restrictions on time, place, and manner – you can still buy shotguns, handguns, and non-automatic rifles – so long as “automatic weapons” are defined in a manner reasonably related to the purpose of keeping high-fire-rate weapons out of the hands of people who don’t need them. An example of an unreasonably-related definition of a banned weapon – the “assault weapons” ban that banned weapons based on their appearance, not their firing capabilities, so that a rifle with a certain kind of stock is illegal while the same weapon with a different stock is legal.

Would a prohibition on handgun ownership be a reasonable restriction? I don’t think so. A rifle or a shotgun is not a reasonable substitute to the handgun for self-defense, as it is not easily carried in an accessible state on the person or in an automobile and is not nearly as useful for defense at close range.

“7.Prohibition on firearm ownership by felons.”
Clearly constitutional. Gun ownership has been recognized from colonial times as one of the civil rights restricted or revoked by a felony conviction. The Founding Fathers would have had this in mind in their drafting of the Second Amendment, and didn’t spell out such a prohibition because it was pre-existing.

58

JOHN: that section does NOT regulate periodicals. Any asshole with a printing press or a copier can print & publish any damn thing they like. That section regulates which peri’s get to qualify for special mailing rates. True, if you don’t follow the rules, you don’t get the rates, which can hurt your chances of making $, but you can publish all you want.

Note, that I feel there should be few restricions of gun OWNERSHIP ( OK are no felons, no minors, no lunatics), but gov’ts can & do put restrictions on CARRYING a weapon loaded & concealed. There, it is proper to ask for a reason, no criminal record of note (ie, they could say NO to a person who has been recently convicted of several misdemeanors and arrested for felonies), a gun safety class, and a reasonable fee for fingerprints, etc. But again, you can’t hide a prohibition by regulating it beyond reason.

Gun registration (I am differing here “registration” which is where you are required later to register all guns you own, and restrictions on purchasing, such as filling out forms, background checks, etc)has NO purpose other than eventual confiscation.

So far,none here has given a good reason for ex-post-facto registration, or waiting periods beyond the time needed for a background check.

And again Gadarene, your not reading these posts. Guns are restricted to the Militia because the MILITIA is everyone who has a gun. The MILITIA has nothing to do with the army or the National Guard. Every gunowning ablebodied man in the US is a member of the MILITA. Of course you have to be a member of the miliita to have a gun, because once you have one, YOU’RE a member of the Militia. It’s kinda like the Posse. Its like saying driving is restricted to those who have a car. (and I know you can drive w/o a car).

59

I feel I should post this article that I recently found, concerning the grave media imbalance when reporting on firearms: Loaded Coverage: How the news media miss the mark on the gun issue.

If you don’t like clicking links, or the link above breaks somehow, here’s the scoop: over a two-year period, the Media Research Center counted 653 gun-related stories; of those, 357 advocated more gun control, while 36 opposed more gun control, or a ratio of 10:1 in favor of restricting guns.

Another interesting example, quoting the linked article:

In light of this reporting imbalance, is it any wonder we pro-gun folks get a bit vocal? We have to scream to be heard sometimes…

Anyway, back to the debate. I feel that only #7 should be considered valid under the Second Amendment. And I again cite Cecil’s articles concerning Amendment 2:

What does “the right to bear arms” really mean?

Original intent of Second Amendment

Original intent of Second Amendment (cont’d)

Quoting the second article:

So, you wanna argue that the amendment wasn’t intended to be an individual right, take it up with Cecil.

60

Sqweels: I am interested in any articles you have concerning registration leading to a decrease in gun use by criminals. Everything I have read on criminology points to the face that criminals, especially violent criminals, do not ponder the notion of being caught (the exception being mass murderers who typically expect to go out in a hail of gun fire). Most criminals believe their actions to be perfectly justifiable or at least necessary. The fact that their weapon is registered won’t make the slightest difference to the criminal mindset. Certainly, we can apply a “locks are designed to keep honest men honest” principle here, i.e. “a person who wouldn’t use a gun will find it easier to resist the temptation to using their gun because it is registered”, but what does that really mean? Do we really expect a decrease in violent crime because good citizens who wouldn’t normally use their gun have a decreased temptation above and beyond the fact? Do we really think that locks prevent honest people from becoming thieves?