Thanks, Todderbob.
The inevitable further implication is that other than Ordinary Military (as in well-regulated militia) Equipment is not protected. Nor is it banned. It just isn’t addressed at all.
Heller added both self-defense and hunting “equipment” to that protected category, no matter their lack of basis in the actual Constitution. But, it too is now law, again like it or not.
Our friends do actually know that, I trust. If not, there’s no excuse.
Lumpy… I think I love you…
That was an eloquent, intelligent, well thought out post that I fear will zip right over the heads of those who believe in absolutism.
Have no fear; it will.
Thanks Lumpy. I avoided this thread for a long while precisely because it devolves into the same bullshit from the same shrill parties with absolute views.
To make a parallel here; we don’t ban the Martial Arts out of fear of people learning how to beat the shit out of each other.
While it is most certainly true that there are people in every dojo who are learning those skills precisely because they DO want to learn how to beat people up (I’ve met plenty of them in my time in the dojo), for the most part, Martial Artists are peace loving people who want to learn how to defend themselves, get in better shape, learn to better control their bodies, and learn more about themselves.
The vast majority of gun owners are not out there owning guns with the secret hope of killing or shooting people; loonies posting “shoot the bastard!” in home invasion/home defense threads to the contrary. Hell, I’ve owned guns for over 30 years and have never shot anyone, despite carrying one on the job for over two of those years and living in a shit neighborhood for more than a decade.
One of the great frauds of society is the idea that if we outlaw something, it will magically cease to be a problem. We can see the lie in that propositon every time we drive down the highway (speeding is illegal!), without ever getting into larger issues like prostitution, drugs, murder, and on and on, including guns.
Of course, the absolutist argument is that we need to work harder, make stricter laws, make harsher penalties to finally wipe out the problem. This is a “solution” that turns us into monsters, that ends with tyrrany and death. It is an idea based not in reason or rational solution, but in irrational anger, fear and hatred of the thing the ideolog wishes to wipe from the face of the Earth.
Thus the absolutist Ideolog is a much more dangerous enemy of Humanity than the thing they seek to ban.
Alright. My reading of Miller is that the possession of a firearm is not protected under the Second Amendment if that firearm is not suitable for ordinary military use. Note that this agrees closely with the quotation provided by Todderbob.
Unless we’re having a catastrophic failure of communication, it seems to me that your contention is that Miller says that the Second Amendment does not protect individual possession of firearms; only possession as part of a “well-regulated militia.”
You went on to say:
Quite so. However, have you not been arguing that this means that only the actual use of such weapons in a well-regulated militia is protected? That is quite thoroughly outside the scope of the Miller ruling. If this is not in fact what you have been arguing, I apologize for misinterpreting you: however, it has been difficult not to misinterpret you when you keep saying things like this:
A handy quote from D.C. v. Heller, listed on the same page that Todderbob linked to:
“Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons. It is particularly wrongheaded to read Miller for more than what it said, because the case did not even purport to be a thorough examination of the Second Amendment.”
To restate: the entire nature of the ruling in Miller was that certain types of weapons were not subject to Second Amendment protections. Nothing was said about their actual use, only about their suitability for the purpose of a well-regulated militia.
I believe I have substantiated my interpretation well enough. If yours is not in fact different from mine, I humbly await a well-deserved correction of my misapprehension of your stance. Otherwise, I’ll thank you to provide even a shred of evidence supporting your point of view.
I would also like to take a moment to applaud Lumpy’s appeal to reason and decency in this debate. :o
Lumpy, that was a great post. I’ve copied it and will store it away - I know that it will be useful in the future.
Isn’t it great when someone brings a breath of fresh air into something like this?
Oh, and on a note from earlier in the discussion:
Nope; the militia of the United States of America is still statutorily defined to include all able-bodied males aged 17 through 45, as per 10 USC §311. It’s blatant sexism, I tells ya! NOW really ought to be pushing for equality on this one. 
Nice effort, Stealth Potato. I made an identical argument to Elvis in The Pit about 2-3 years back, with no luck.
The whole “collective rights” position seemed to be fabricated out of whole cloth in U.S. v. Tot (1942), wherein:
Maybe you can find the words to convince him, where I couldn’t. Good luck.
:dubious: Firearms are not a consumable resource. Even if you can confiscate and destroy every legally owned firearm in the country, and somehow stop new guns from being smuggled into the country, it’s going to take a while before the guns already possessed by criminals are found by the police.
Oh, I know. I just wanted to put my position out fairly on the off chance that I really had been misunderstanding what he was trying to say. I’m just an optimist, I guess. 
Unless he changes his story or provides some evidence, I’m done responding to him; this thread has seen enough derailment already.
Upwards of $1,000? My shotgun’s worth over that, and it’s… interesting, but not top grade. Top grade, you’re looking 20k worth of gun there.
But not because I’m a pacifist; but because if the police and government have something, it isn’t completely illegal.
Garbage. The gun lovers support the Republican Party, because the Republican Party is the party of authoritarianism and guns. The party of thugs. The party of gay bashers and doctor killers. The gun lovers either want to kill people, or want their guns and are willing to sacrifice everyone and everything else to that chunk of metal. They don’t want peace, or freedom, or safety, or justice or prosperity; just guns, and they will sacrifice all of those things on the altar of guns.
Oh, please. In the real world, bad people are at least as brave as good people. In the real world a mob with guns against a few people with guns will take a casualty or two and massacre the outnumbered defenders.
They do make those death squads more efficient, especially when it’s the side that doesn’t have a gun fetish that is the target.
“Oh, sorry Sis. Thought you were a burglar.”
But hey, it doesn’t matter if you accidentally kill someone. They might have died, but they died for the only thing that matters to those like you : guns.
Tell me, in your proposed world of “Guns are completely illegal for everyone, even the government and cops,” how does a nation defend itself from another nation?
How does a police officer defend a citizen from an armed criminal?
1st: I’d thank you to get your quotes right, I didn’t say that.
2nd: Not all gun owners support the Republican Party.
Your statements are equally absolutist, and equally extreme. They are akin to the statement ‘all blacks are bad,’ in that they are equally unfounded and ignorant.
Mob Mentality breaks very easily in the face of potential personal harm.
If you think attackers are as brave as defenders, you’re intentionally ignorant and obtuse.
Defenders have their lives at risk, they can’t leave. Attackers can end a confrontation by simply walking away.
I don’t have any sisters.
I also wouldn’t fire a weapon unless I knew, without question, who was on the other end of the barrel.
It’s become blatantly obvious from this post that you don’t care about reason, you simply care about getting the last word in and being right. Your world is one of false ideals and extremism. I’m glad I don’t live in it, and I’m glad reality doesn’t reflect it.
I would like to introduce you to Pink Pistols. In case you don’t feel like clicking the link the Pink Pistols are a gay gun rights organization in the United States and Canada. Their main motto is “Armed gays don’t get bashed”. These people are not gay bashers nor thugs. These are people, who because of their sexual lifestyle, have been bashed and bullied and thugged about. These are people who realize that guns are tools to be used in self-defense. These are people who choose not to be victims. And I can guarantee you the majority of them are not Republican.
Guys, seriously, can we stop the defense thing? Der and Elvis deserve each other. It’s just the same old issue anyhow, let them howl. The main question’s been answered pretty well.
Yeah, I think Der Trihs has ascended to the level of self-parody now, and any challenge to his hatred and his prejudices will go unheeded. I guess he feels that repeating the same bigoted nonsense over and over again, in increasingly spittle-flecked tones, will somehow validate his absurd caricatures of gun owners.
I mean, honestly. I don’t like NASCAR, and I didn’t even watch the Superbowl. What kind of gun owner am I? :dubious:
A good Seattle one. Sports has been dead up here for years.
Shut it down Tom…it’s totally off the rails and I think I got my answer already.
-XT
Hoarding won’t work. The stash will simply be taken from them, when the time comes, unless they can organize.
Hey, I still cheer for the Mariners… as painful as that may be most of the time. 