I credit myself with having read more than the average person on constitutional issues. Including works by the founding fathers. But I don’t recall the works you appear to be referring to. Do you have any recommendations that will give insight into what the founders meant by the Second Amendment?
I think it was mostly technological development. Guns used to mean one shot muskets. Issues like concealed carrying and mass shooting didn’t exist as a possibility. There also weren’t any major corporations that had a vested interest in the sales of firearms.
That is not really the purpose of the Second Amendment. It’s also not at all a realistic assessment of what people would do if the government became tyrannical. Many if not most gun owners would support a dictatorship.
Dictatorships don’t arise in opposition to all the people. They almost always have lots of support.
But how is this related to the Second Amendment? If the purpose of the amendment is to create a pooled of people who can be called upon for militia duty, then it’s not being followed. I theoretically belong to this militia force. But I don’t own a gun so I wouldn’t be able to show up armed and ready to fight. I’ve never participating in any militia training. And I’m unaware of any procedure that would contact me and tell me when and where to show up at.
And you seem unclear about what the purpose of this militia is. Is it supposed to defend the government or attack the government? What happens if a group of people decide the government has become tyrannical and they band together to overthrow it. And then the government responds to the threat of being overthrown by notifying the people in the group that they’re being called into service to defend the government from being overthrown.
And let me address to you similar questions I asked Shodan. If the purpose of the second amendment is to support a militia, do people who are unable to serve in a militia (like disabled people) have the right to keep and bear arms? Are weapons that aren’t useful for militia use covered by the second amendment? If the government decides that it has enough people to man the militia as needed, can it tell the rest of the people that they can’t own a gun? Can a person opt out of militia service and if they do so, do they forfeit their right to own a gun? Can the government store weapons at some central location and then issue them as needed when the militia is activated? Can the government require people to store their militia weapons at home when they’re not using them for militia service?
I find it interesting how people who oppose any form of gun control say we should respond to mass shootings in public places by having more armed police assigned to these area. How is having armed uniformed government agents stationed on our streets, in our public meeting places, in our businesses, in our schools, and in our transportation centers not conducive to establishing a tyranny?
It’s just about a love of guns. The problems with creeping tyranny are otherwise NEVER mentioned by 2A enthusiasts. You will never see a Fox News talking ahead complain about the huge standing army, militarized police, voter suppression, corporate oligarchy, or any number of other things that have a negative effect on a republican form of democracy. It’s only guns.
Why would I do that? I don’t need any militia attachment or association to exercise the right to arms. The only entities that are impacted or damaged from the lack of a citizen militia are the state or federal governments. The entities that should have complained are state governments since their self defense and ability to keep civil order during emergencies is what is being impacted.
That there wasn’t a huge uproar from the states about the Dick Act, and legal action with them as the plaintiffs claiming the immunities of the 2nd Amendment, sure does belie the “state’s right” perversion inserted in the federal courts in 1942, in Cases v U.S. Reality of course is that the “state’s right” theory was dead before it was hatched; the Dick Act became law in 1903 and the final nail in state militia powers’ coffin was driven in 1916 with the National Defense Act.
When Congress chose to obliterate state militia powers, they did give the states lovely parting gifts of “State Defensive Forces” that the states would fund and organize according to laws and regulations they establish. Neither State Defensive Forces nor the federalized State Guard are Art I, §8, cl’s 15 & 16 militia, both are authorized under, and what’s now the National Guard is organized and provided for under Art I, §8, cl’s 12 & 14.
There is no “letter” of the 2ndA to be obeyed by the people; as SCOTUS has said, “[t]his is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government”. It is absurd to argue that the 2nd Amendment creates nebulous government defined demands upon “the People”, when “the People” are who the 2ndA was enacted to protect from federal government powers.
The “spirit” of the 2nd Amendment is that it does not really “do” anything at all but redundantly forbid the federal government to exercise powers it was never granted. It simply reminds government that it can’t do what it was never allowed to do . . . IOW, “We the People” don’t possess the right to arms because the 2nd Amendment is there; “We the People” possess the right because “We the People” never granted to the federal government, any power that would allow it to infringe, to permit any interest in the personal arms of the private citizen.
The federal and state governments certainly did have an interest in the one gun a citizen who was liable to perform militia duty and enrolled in their militia, chose to muster with when called. That’s where the government interest, oversight and control begins, and ends. And that interest existed and was enforceable from powers emanating from Art I, §8, cl’s 15 & 16, not the 2nd Amendment.
How does the realization that actually following the process set-out in the Constitution (to modify the Constitution to allow government to restrict the right to arms) is a false hope, . . . morph into “freeing you up” to use other means to limit or restrain a pre-existing, fundamental right of the people that is recognized and secured in the Constitution?
Perhaps they would be horrified but they would know that the Constitution they enacted could not in any way, shape or form be construed to empower the ***federal government ***to take action against the right of the people to keep and bear arms or to restrict any of those other things.
Well, that’s your first mistake . . . Reading the 2nd Amendment with any intent to discern what the right to keep and bear arms is. As SCOTUS has said in boringly consistent fashion, for going on 140+ years, that the right to arms is not granted by the 2nd Amendment, thus it is not in any manner dependent upon the Constitution for its existence.
So, not only is it illegitimate to “interpret” the words of the 2nd to limit the right, it is also illegitimate to say that the right is dependent upon a structure that is itself, ENTIRELY DEPENDENT UPON THE CONSTITUTION for ***ITS ***existence – that structure being, the organized, Art I, §8, cl’s 15 & 16 militia.
To really learn the full and complete extent and scope of the right to arms, you should be reading the body of the Constitution to see what powers the federal government has been expressly granted to have any interest in the possession and use of the citizen’s personal arms. That’s your answer!
That explains what the Art I, §8, cl’s 15 & 16 federal powers were to be, over what was obviously then, the “unorganized militia” and tries to allay fears about granting the new federal government these powers.
It explains the benefits and the significant drawbacks of actually demanding the unorganized militia to be taken from their avocations and families to undergo the necessary training and military exercise. This training was recognized to be quite a significant inconvenience if it was to actually have the corps attain the degree of expertness in military exercise that would allow them to earn the accolade of “well regulated militia”.
It explains so much of what you are confused about and does it without the 2nd Amendment even being there, compounding your confusion.
Give it a read, that is if you are actually interested in having your confusion relieved.
Well, gun owners could be said to be better situated to become organized militia but owning a gun is not a requirement of being considered militia (either organized or unorganized).
Under the Militia Act of 1792, you needed to be an able-bodied White male citizen between 18 and 45 years old to be “in” the militia. Six months after enrollment and being notified of your assignment, you were required to “provide yourself with a good musket or firelock”.
Providing yourself with a firearm ***before ***you were enrolled and notified or after you aged out, or now, when there is no law that calls on citizens to perform militia duty, would just be an exercise of the right to be armed, not any impressment of real or imagined militia obligation.
I don’t get that vibe at all, I’ve always made a distinction between the “founding fathers” and the"framers". The founders set out the reason for independence based on “founding” principles and the framers established the compact based on those principles . . .
You come across as someone who has read other people’s analysis of the writings of the founders. I see you preferring to read Saul Cornell’s A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America and considering it to be an authoritative rendering of the founder’s sentiments, in lieu of reading original sources.
Your positions negate the founders / framers basic understanding of what rights are and contradict what they understood the Bill of Rights was and what it did.
I would recommend reading Federalist 84 and Madison’s Introduction of the proposed amendments. Any review of their consideration of what rights were and especially what the dangers were in adding a bill of rights, should divest you of some of your beliefs.
Do you apply your standard to any other protected means for exercising rights? Are only quill pens and Franklin Presses protected means of exercising 1st Amendment rights?
Never a 2nd Amendment issue. Setting the manner of carry has always been and I believe will remain a power of the states. That’s not to say that a 2nd Amendment secured right to carry (bear) a gun for self defense in public will not be an federally enforceable right (under the 14th); just that states will be left to decide if they will issue a permit to carry concealed or simply have unrestricted carry (open and/or concealed).
Well, there was only one corporation making gunpowder in the States in 1775, the Frankford Mill which was down the road from where I lived for 30+ years. It wasn’t making enough for the war effort so we raided the British stores on Bermuda and we made a bunch of Dutch and French merchants rich selling the Revolutionary forces gunpowder made in Europe.
That the “object” of the 2nd Amendment is to perpetuate the general militia concept is uncontested. Nothing needed to be “created”, by the 2nd Amendment, only protected from illegitimate government action. The 2nd Amendment has no militia implications, it has never been inspected to inform or held to direct anything pertaining to militia. In cases deciding militia issues, SCOTUS ignores the 2nd Amendment.
For the citizenry, particularly today, there is nothing to “follow” that flows from the 2nd Amendment. When there was a militia duty obligation and rules to “follow” they flowed from Congress exercising its Art I, §8, cl’s 15 & 16 powers, not anything to do with the 2nd Amendment.
Correct. Since 1903, Congress has chosen to relieve the citizens from any militia duty obligation. You don’t owe the government anything.
Well,when the Militia Act was being written it assumed that the governments were acting within their delegated powers and the citizen’s duty was to operate within the regulations that direct the militia.
That body of armed citizens was also recognized as being a force to respond and repel illegitimate government action, especially defending states against a out of control national government. Federalist 46 addresses this specifically and it plainly assumes that the federal militia regulations have organized the citizens but circumstances have developed that demand the states defend themselves using that organization against the federal standing army:
[INDENT]"Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.[/INDENT]
So Madison said in a nation of 3.5 million total souls, the armed citizen militia would outnumber the standing army by a factor of 17-20 to 1, and when all those “able to bear arms” (but like you, didn’t own one), are factored in, the ratio is about 25 to 1.
Today, those ratios that Madison refer to remain damn close . . . We have 325 million total souls, the active duty and reserve “standing army” military is just under 1% of that, about 2.5 million . . . And to them are “opposed” at least 75 million armed citizens, for a factor of 30 to 1. Hey, we are a bunch of gun nuts!
See, the 2nd Amendment is working fine; all that the 2nd Amendment was ever intended to do is just maintain the people’s numerical superiority over the nation’s armed forces.
Yes, as long as they are not subject to some imposed dispossession after due process.
There is a long historical standard of prohibiting the possession and use of weapons that are “dangerous and unusual”. Arms that were only used by ruffians and not useful in warfare can be restricted. This is a two pronged test, the arm must be dangerous to the peace and safety of the public ANDnot usual in civilized warfare.
This has been set-down in US law by SCOTUS that arms that can be shown to be part of the ordinary military equipment and of a type that’s use could contribute to the common defense and/or, are in common use by the citizens (at the time of the Court’s inspection) are protected by the 2nd Amendment. This has been the protection criteria since US v Miller (1939) and it was re-affirmed in Heller (2008).
No, the right to posses and use a gun is not dependent on any attachment or association with the militia.
States had penalties for refusing to serve and some states allowed you to pay someone to serve in your stead, but gun dispossession was never part of it.
Sure. Militia companies were ordered to take a “return of militia” that recorded type of gun and caliber. Militia members were required to supply a small amount of ammo (the powder, balls, patches, flints, cartridges, etc, whatever their particular gun required) The militia company would know then, how many of each gun would be mustering and have on hand enough of those supplies to keep all the guns of the company in operational order and condition. Knowing that not all members would have “provided themselves” with an appropriate gun, it would be expected that some guns would be kept in that same storage.
Since men who didn’t own a gun were required to “provide themselves” with one, and then they were required to muster with it and the accouterments also required, I think it would be a good bet that they would be keeping their militia arms at home.
Start with the rest of the Constitution. Fascinating reading; I highly recommend it.
I was asking about the change in understanding of the 2nd - are you claiming that the mass availability of technology whose purpose is mass killing actually reinforced the claim to an individual right to it? That makes no sense, especially when you consider that the nascent availability of full-auto machine guns quickly led to their virtual ban for civilian use. What *does *make sense is that the availability of these “technologies” spawned the desire to possess them, among those so inclined, and that desire was manipulated by the same gun lobby that also invented the individual-rights interpretation.
Except for the part that says it does.
Miller.
That’s pretty rich from somebody who can actually refer to Article 1, Section 8. :rolleyes: Do you really think “suppress” means “enable”?
Let’s just skip the “How’s that going for ya?” part and go right to the part where you distinguish between “the people” and “the nation”. To wit, Huh?
The word’s appearance in the declaratory clause does not mean that it has any legal weight WRT militia, that it directs or controls or mandates any structure or action or condition to exist.
No, Miller doesn’t say that. Miller didn’t say anything about the man and his militia status; that is a total misreading and misrepresentation. The Miller decision was focused only on the type of gun and whether it had any military / common defense usefulness, having no evidence presented that a sawed-off shotgun did have such usefulness, the Court did not invalidate the NFA’s restrictions on the possession and use of that arm. It didn’t really uphold them, the Court sent the case back down, but, Miller being dead, no more legal action took place.
What I’m actually talking about is how the 2nd Amendment is non-existent in actual militia cases; Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) (1820), Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) (1827), Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1917) and Perpich v. Dep’t of Defense, 496 U.S. (1990). These are cases that the Court accepted and decided militia issues and conflicts.
The only words of the Constitution the Court examines to direct its reasoning and understanding of the organized militia is Art I, §8, cl’s 15 & 16 and laws enacted under those clause’s authority (e.g., The Militia Act of 1792, and state militia regulations – in this case, Pennsylvania’s).
In Houston v Moore, the Court states unequivocally (emphasis added):
[INDENT]“The laws which I have referred to amount to a full execution of the powers conferred upon Congress by the Constitution. They provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasion. They also provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States; leaving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training them according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”[/INDENT]
The “full execution” of militia powers is only to be found in the body of the Constitution; the 2nd Amendment has noting to offer and is ignored. There are no latent, undefined powers to be found in the 2nd Amendment that would allow it to be interpreted the way you do. Your position is a complete perversion that has no support in the philosophical foundation, historical record or legal precedent of this Republic.
While the 2nd Amendment has no legal action WRT militia, it was mentioned one time in those militia cases, in Justice Story’s dissent in Houston v. Moore. I guess he thought should at least look at it to see if it said anything about militia issues, but he discovered:
[INDENT]“The [Second] Amendment to the Constitution, declaring that “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,” may not, perhaps, be thought to have any important bearing.”
[/INDENT]
If SCOTUS long ago decided the 2nd Amendment does not have any militia implications, no connections or any latent influence on the organized militia and really has nothing to say on the subject, why can’t you accept that? More importantly, how do you justify claiming the 2nd Amendment has this influence, especially imparting militia conditions and qualifications on the people’s right to arms?
Insurrection assumes the government is legitimate and operating within the powers granted to it and the principles of its establishment. What Hamilton was discussing is the government when it is no longer operating within the confines of the Constitution and thus has lost the power to declare such action an “insurrection”. If this sentiment is widely held, no other militia would respond to the fed’s call to suppress their fellow countrymen.
The purpose of rescinding our consent to be governed is to take back the supreme, preemptive powers we lent to the federal government, denying it the protections of the Constitution including what you mention.
The thread topic is what the writers meant, and how it influences current policy. Well, they fucking *told *us what they meant, didn’t they?
Your claim was “it has never been inspected to inform or held to direct anything pertaining to militia.” Thanks for conceding your error. Thanks also for providing so many other refutations on your own.
“A well-regulated militia …” Oh, what’s the use? :rolleyes:
And the people who get to decide that are whom? Local yahoos who respond to a democratically passed law by forming gangs, calling themselves a militia, and shooting cops who try to enforce it? That’s the only sort of real-world scenario that ever gets brought up.
Since you insist on continuing your use of avoidance tactics: Please explain why you distinguish between “the nation” and “the people”.
The right of the people - people in general, where “people” means the same thing as “people peaceably to assemble” - to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. If someone has been adjudicated to have lost one or more of his or her rights, like being a felon or dangerously mentally ill, then their right can be removed - that’s not what “inalienable” means - but then the due process clause kicks in. You can send someone to prison for violating the law even though there is an inalienable right to liberty; you can remove the right to vote for felons even though there is an inalienable right to vote, etc. But “you use a wheelchair therefore you cannot own a gun” isn’t the same thing.
No, although it is a gray area (of course). If you mean things like nuclear weapons or poison gas, those kinds of inherent unsafe-to-possess weapons could be regulated in the sense of requiring them to safely stored even if that made it impractical to possess them. If you just mean automatic weapons, yes - IMO the ban on automatic weapons is a violation of the 2A.
No, the right of the people in general to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. The 2A doesn’t say that the government can decide when “enough” people have exercised their right and therefore they can infringe on the rest. That would be like saying that two political parties is enough to elect federal representatives, therefore we can ban the Green Party.
Yes, they can opt out (unless Congress re-institutes a draft). No, they don’t forfeit their right to own a gun, because the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. People can opt out of their right to own a gun whenever they like, by not owning a gun. But just like people who don’t vote or run newspapers retain the right to free speech, choosing not to exercise a right doesn’t cause you to forfeit that right.
No, because the right of the people to bear arms cannot be infringed.
No, because the right of the people to bear arms cannot be infringed.
Again, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. In general, the militia clause does not create exceptions; it is the justification. The argument about non-militia weapons is almost separate - the idea that someone cannot keep and bear a handgun or a shotgun or a semi-automatic rifle is pretty much a non-starter, because those weapons are pretty obviously something that a militia could want.