Thankfully, for the Anti-federalists.
The Federalists notion that a Bill of Rights was not necessary, becauce , as Alexander Hamilton saw it, if it was not addressed in the Constitution, then it was out of the purview of the Federal Government.
Thankfully, the Anti-federalists were aware of government’s tendency to assume powers not specifically denied to it, and basically demanded that the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution.
I’m not so sure, actually. You frequently hear “you can’t do that, it’s against the [Xth] amendment!” but when do you ever hear “You can’t do that, it’s not authorized by the Constitution”?
Unless you buy that the interstate commerce clause essentially means the rest of the Constitution is meaningless (this is a very slightly hyperbolic position that politicians seem to nearly universally believe), then about 95% of what our federal government does is illegal. But unless it specifically violates part of the bill of rights, no one seems to care.
I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off without a bill of rights, where people had to give more thought to what a government can and can’t do as a way of protecting our rights, rather than a specific enumeration of a few. Maybe I’ll start a GD thread on that.
Just because you don’t hear it doesn’t mean it’s not there or true.
*The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. *
Sound familiar?
Don’t misinterpret me. I’m big on the Constitution. It disgusts me that it’s essentially ignored. And that was my point - the bill of rights is superfluous, because if you actually followed the Constitution, you wouldn’t create any laws that would abridge those freedoms anyway.
But the Bill of Rights gives some the impression that those are a list of our rights, therefore if the government does something that doesn’t violate them, it’s fine. It ignores the very purpose of the Constitution - a document limiting the government to being able to do certain very specific things.
I think that Hamilton was essentially correct. Having a Bill of Rights may have ended up being counterproductive.
Alright, I’ll tone it down. But while I’m fairly new here, does his insults mean nothing? They may spin it however they want, but I came to this topic with pretty much a simple question, and for that I got sarcasm and an invitation to drink lard, and my clothes replaced with a sack. From what you quoted, I called him a liar (which, if it counts as a major insult, you’ll have to tell me because I call a spade a spade), said he lost his emotions, and compared him to a crazy person (which I’ll admit was insulting). That’s it, hardly worse than what he’s said. I could list all the things I’ve been called here but its pointless I guess
I’ll respond to this thing after I finish reading it. Give me a bit.
Try reading the stickies at the top of the forum.
Good luck skewing that to defend your position, it’s pretty blunt.
Here’s a hint though, the stickies might just answer your questions.
Much like learning about guns would save you from making such glaring mistakes as claiming that you’d use an AK to hunt anything larger than a small deer.
Also, as a point of fact, I correctly stated what your own words were, and that you’d shifted the goalposts and added additional rationalizations after your first argument was shown to be absurd. That was the truth. That is the truth. That will be the truth. Calling the truth a lie is about as effective as your tactic of claiming that hand guns and shotguns or hand guns and high powered long range rifles are fungible. Reality remains impervious to your distortions. Go figure.
Your original risible rationalization for violating the Bill of Rights was “necessity”, only.
Once when you realized how poor a metric that was, you added in additional rationalizations. And then started claiming that since you shifted the goalposts once you were caught, that it was somehow a lie to point out what your original argument had been.
Maybe…not likely.
The 9th is not so broad as to be inclusive of everything. Near as I can tell they like to interpret it for things that are implied by the Constitution already (say a right to privacy).
Now, one may argue that a right to bear arms implies a right to hi-cap magazines. That is fine except as noted the term “arms” is a very broad word. You do not have a right to a tank or a howitzer or an MLRS and so on although technically they fall under the umbrella of “arms”. So, since we are well on the road to drawing distinctions and drawing limits on what exactly you have a right to a case can be reasonably made to limit hi-cap magazines.
It may or may not succeed but I believe the question is sufficiently gray enough that a good argument for it can be put forward and not discarded out-of-hand as you would have it.
There is a world of difference between “Howitzer” and “magazine.”
Comparing or conflating the two, and implying that because you may not own Howitzers you should not own ammunition feeding devices is a horrible gap in logic and very disingenuous.
One is a destructive device (not a small armament) and the other is a metal (or plastic) tube.
The issue I am addressing is “can you circumscribe a Constitutionally protected right?” The answer to that is a resounding “yes”. It is done on many things, not just the 2nd Amendment.
The question then becomes, “Where do you draw the line?” Or, “How far is too far when restricting these rights?”
Is there a big difference between a howitzer and a hi-cap mag? Absolutely. Yet when determining what it is your “right” to have we look to the same place for both of those things, the 2nd Amendment. Sorry that amendment is not more specific and includes an overly broad array of things but it is what we have to deal with, like it or not.
You can and have argued that a hi-cap magazine restriction would be in violation of the 2nd Amendment. I have argued it would not be. We disagree on this yet I think we both have fair cases to be made on either side of the argument. Indeed there already was a ban on hi-cap mags (albeit with a monstrous loophole) which apparently met constitutional muster so I think I am on safer ground than you here.
The ban never made it in front of a court, IIRC.
The lack of which can only be laid at the feet of the NRA and their ilk. They are certainly not shy about legal challenges nor are they stupid. Doubtless they calculated their chances and found something lacking so did not bother.
Don’t you have to commit a crime to have standing to challenge the law?
More likely, they didn’t challenge the ban because it expired, and since it expired if it wasn’t re-passed, and they didn’t challenge it, if it went away it would just be gone. However, if they did challenge it and it was upheld, it could be passed permanently.
It can take more than a decade to get in front of SCOTUS anyway, at which time the ban would’ve already been expired. Lack of challenge does not equate to lack of challengeability.
Only standing is necessary, though being charged does help.
Although I’m not exactly sure who would have standing for this law.
I find the whole question of who has “standing” to challenge a law very mysterious. Indeed I have had some attorneys suggest it can be strange even to them. We need a legal eagle, I think, to answer that one definitively.
If you challenge the law and fail it still had its sunset clause and would go away or stay depending on the Congress at the time. You are no worse off for trying either way.
If you challenge and win it becomes significantly harder for someone in the future to ever proscribe that particular thing again.
As such it would still behoove them to try.
Not really, because if they don’t challenge it and it doesn’t get re-passed, it’s a moot point, with wasted legal fees.
If it was re-introduced, I believe they’d challenge it (especially if it was made permanent). Since they didn’t challenge it, obviously they don’t subscribe to your reasoning.
ETA: A challenge in '95 is the same as a challenge in '05, but it’s unnecessary in '05 if it doesn’t get passed.
Or maybe the NRA didn’t do it because someone else did:
“Destructive Device” already has a legal meaning and generally would be included under the umbrella of “arms”, though DD ammunition may be more accurately classified as “ordnance”. A howitzer is “artillery”.
All of these distinctions between “arms” and “ordnance” and “artillery” with the claim that we only have a right to “arms” ownership is revisionism. Regular folks owned cannon and exploding shell around the time the second amendment prohibition on infringement was drafted without raising much concern.
It should be noted that the oft cited example that “you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” does not completely remove your right to shout “fire”.
Make ownership of a howitzer (or strategic nuclear weapons or vacuum equilibrium doomsday devices, as that’s where this conversation inevitably leads) subject to some standard safety-based best-practices required to be followed by all persons or organizations that keep or operate them.
Certainly one would hope that if howitzers were available some training would be required. Even so IIRC from other gun threads here a requirement to have training before purchasing a firearm is roundly condemned as something that tramples on their rights (I may be misremembering though). If that is the case then we are back to where do you draw the line? Somewhere above handguns but before howitzers is a pretty big area.