Well, you can start by doing some reading on the topic. Watchmen were hired to secure public offices and resources, and to keep public order, not protect the rights, property, or persons of individuals. The duty of sheriffs in the colonial era was similar, often more of an enforcement for tax and tariff collection. Neither was mandated with the kind of responsibilities expected of modern law enforcement, and indeed, it is hardly the case that one could dial up the local constabulary and have them send a car around to take care of an intruder. In the era in which the Constitution was drafted, the use of firearms in self-defense against crime was implicit.
The first professional (i.e. uniformed, paid from the public purse, and obeying a standard of conduct and enforcement) police forces in history were in post-Revolutionary France (Préfecture de Police, 1800), Scotland (City of Glasgow Police, 1800), Ireland (Royal Irish Constabulary, 1822), and England (Metropolitan Police, 1829). The Boston City Police weren’t established until 1838, New York City Police Department in 1845, and the Massachusetts State Police in 1865.
You can argue semantics all you like; the fact remains that at the time of the drafting of the Constitution a police enforcement force as we know it today–that is, a uniformed, professional, enforcement agency dedicated to the maintenance of the general peace and protection of the citizenry at large–was a rare and irregular thing. The notion that the possession and use of firearms in the defense of one’s person against purely criminal acts–not to mention use in hunting and protection of livestock–would be restricted or prohibited would have been so alien to the authors that they would not deemed it worthy of specific mention.
Curiously, you skipped over a bit of your own cite: *The southern colonies, where slavery was a key part of the region’s economy, created slave patrols by the 1740s to police the black slave populations. They protected white citizens from slaves, fought slave uprisings, and captured runaway slaves. All capable men between eighteen and fifty years of age were expected to serve for a certain time. Historians consider the slave patrols the first modern police force in the United States.*Setting aside the deplorable issue of human slavery, it seems that the “early policing” you espouse included the raising of what would be otherwise termed a militia of the citizenry. Continuing on:*Few changes occurred in colonial policing until later in the eighteenth century. Following the French and Indian War (1756–63), in which the British defeated the French on the American frontier to seal their control of North America, an economic depression hit the colonies. A major rise in crime followed, primarily involving property and street crimes. Each colony and settlement responded individually to needs for improved policing with little or no coordination of efforts.
Even the new U.S. Constitution adopted in 1787 following victory over British forces did not specifically mention policing. The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution adopted in 1791, known as the Bill of Rights, did set important limitations on governmental police powers.*
Paging down a bit: *Immediately following adoption of the new U.S. Constitution, the first U.S. Congress passed the first laws of the new nation. One act created federal marshals, the first federal police officers. The marshal was responsible for seeing that federal court orders were carried out and to enforce the first few criminal laws created in 1790. Communities still relied on volunteer constables and night watchmen.
On the western frontier, few federal or local police could be found. Order was maintained by groups of citizens, called vigilantes, beginning in the 1790s. As the frontier moved westward toward the Pacific Ocean over the next sixty years, vigilantism moved with it*The United States Marshalls did act as a law enforcement arm on the Federal level but were not then or now typically involved in the active prevention of local crime, and had many duties that are not assigned to law enforcement agencies today.
But this is all a side issue; making the argument that “The Founding Fathers didn’t intend this,” or “Nobody in the 18th Century could have predicted Saturday Night Specials/pistol gripped assault weapons/John Woo films where the hero leaps across the screen shooting double fisted,” avoids the simple fact that the 2nd Amendment clearly and specifically recognizes the right if individuals–not states, militias, or professional peace officers–to possess firearms without infringement. One can argue the interpretation of infringement, but it seems pretty clear that the authors of the Amendment intented ownership to be available to responsible citizens for practical uses, including but not exclusive to the participation in an organized militia.
One can also argue that circumstances and technology have overcome the original intent, and that such uses are no longer needed or beneficial (although my personal philosophy and first hand experience in the matter persuade me otherwise), in which case there is an entirely legitimate means to alter the Constitution via the proscribed amendment process. Trying to wordsmith it away by pretending that it doesn’t mean what the text states, isn’t relevent to modern society and weapons technology, or should otherwise be swept in the bin with yesterday’s beer bottles is intellectually disingeneous. And the type of misrepresentation and ad hominem espoused by the o.p. does not further any arguements to that end.
I think the logic here - that silence on an issue means that something is too obviously true to bother mentioning - is a little too tenuous. Should we assume, for example, that a lack of reference to same-sex marriage in the Constitution implies that it was too obviously allowable to require being mentioned?
I prefer to think that the second amendment reads in its obvious sense. That the authors of the Constitution recognized that personal ownership of firearms is not an obvious right and therefore chose to make it an explicitly guaranteed one. Personally, I feel that this was a mistake and that the writers didn’t anticipate the development of modern firearms technology. But it is a Constitutional right and changing it would require amending the Constitution.
But aren’t there currently limitations on what types of guns you can possess for just that purpose?
You can’t saw a shotgun beneath a certain length, because it becomes a far more dangerous weapon than a full-length shotgun is, for instance. I think there are a variety of other restrictions as well, but I’m sure there are others here more qualified to give us reliable cites on that than me.
I don’t believe that all firearms should be banned from all civilians; certainly limiting the types of weapons would make sense.
We’ve seen very recent multiple accounts of AK-47s doing damage on a mass scale, and we all know modern military grade weaponry is obscenely lethal. I would think that kind of weaponry should not be in the hands of the common man.
But a complete ban? Only if civilization and the world were to become ideal first, but not the way reality is.
No, that’s not the logic being applied at all. The reasoning is that because it was so obvious, the drafters would not bother to mention it. The truth of the converse cannot be inferred from this statement. The supposition that the founders would consider it obvious stems rather from an understanding of their words and the times in which they lived.
And I think the specific technology has nothing to do with it. Besides, the same argument can be applied to our rights to free speech and privacy; I somehow doubt you would argue that they are obsolete because revolutions in communications and encryption technology make it easier to cause harm and conceal wrongdoing. Which is more revolutionary: world-wide, instantaneous and uncensored communications, or a gun that can fire more than once before reloading?
Changing it would require amending the Constitution in more ways than one. In addition to the second amendment, you would have to destroy the ninth and tenth amendments, and create an additional amendment granting the federal government the authority to regulate private possession.
Can you give some examples? I believe there was a shopping mall shooter a while back who used a semiautomatic clone of an AK-47 to kill eight people, but that’s the only one I can bring to mind at the moment. The vast majority of firearms homicides are committed with low-powered handguns.
But in any case, the SCOTUS in United States v. Miller would disagree; they determined that it was precisely arms suitable for contemporary military use that were protected by the second amendment. This was in fact the logic they applied to uphold federal regulations on short-barreled shotguns, on the grounds that such weapons were not used in modern warfare. They were wrong, of course, but Miller himself was dead at the time and had no representation in the case, so that very plain fact in favor of the defense never came up.
Also, there was another one recently with some form of automatic weapon that killed a bunch of people, and a few years ago was that group of people in a robbery using (machine guns of some sort, maybe AK-47s?) that killed many people, including cops - and the cops couldn’t hurt them because the robbers were using bullet-proof vests.
The robbers had better weapons than the cops, and could fire through engine blocks and bullet proof vests, and SWAT had to be called out with snipers.
I don’t think a story from another country is particularly applicable to the gun rights debate in the U.S., especially since the perpetrator in that case was a soldier who would be expected to have access to military firearms anyway.
In the United States? Automatic weapons are pretty heavily regulated here, and extremely expensive if you want to acquire them legally. I don’t think there are any cases in recent decades in this country where a legally owned and registered automatic weapon was used in a crime, except for one a while back involving a police officer.
That would be the north Hollywood bank robbery, back in 1997; I recall watching it on live television. In addition to body armor, the two robbers had several semiautomatic rifles which they had illegally modified to fire full-auto. At the time, I don’t think the police had any rifles, even in their squad cars, and they had to commandeer the contents of a local gun store to obtain weapons that would penetrate the perps’ armor.
However, in the aftermath of that shootout, the only fatalities were the two robbers. There were 16 people injured, including police officers (and IIRC, a couple of bystanders who had been mistakenly shot by police), but none died.
Yes, but the Supreme Court’s opinion is a little weightier than yours or mine when it comes to the law.
Really - they could shoot through engine blocks? Can we see some cites on that if we can, regarding the weapons in the instance you’re calling out, to keep this discussion somewhat factual? (hint: don’t bother posting if it’s an AK-47, it most certainly will not shoot through an “engine block” unless said engine is a model airplane engine.)
Second point - pretty much any decent hunting rifle can shoot through a police “bullet proof vest.” (police do not typically wear NIJ class 3 or 4 vests due to their weight).
This is complete nonsense. A short-barrelled shotgun is not innately “far more dangerous” a weapon than one of legal length; merely easy to conceal. Any shotgun–including one intended for purely sporting use–is about the most lethal small arm available against an unarmored target regardless of barrel length.
More obtuseness. The 7.62x39 M43 round for which the AK-47 is chambered is an intermediate round, far less powerful than the .30-06 Springfield, 7mm-08 Remmington, and .270 Winchester which are today considered strictly sporting and hunting rounds. The accuracy of the AK-47 in fully automatic firre is poor, hence why the Soviet Union switched to the 5.45x39mm 5N7 round in the AK-74 and derivatives in the 'Seventies. I don’t know what you mean by “doing damage on a mass scale,” but this smacks of hyperbole; the few incidents I can find docuementing the criminal use of fully automatic weapons in the last few decades (none legally owned) tend to show few actual deaths considering the volume of rounds consumed, which is consistant with the battlefield experience of hundreds of rounds fired per actual casualty.
I defy you to produce a round capable of being fired in a man-portable gun which will penetrate through an engine block. A .50 BMG armor piercing round–essentially prohibited for civilian use–might fracture through a block. These tales of .357 Mag KTW bullets cutting through cast iron blocks like butter are pure nonsense. As for body armor, most police excepting Special Tactics units wear up to Type II or Type IIIA (NIJ spec) armor, which virtually any centerfire rifle round can penetrate.
Oh, I meant if you wanted to pay attention to such niceties as following the law. I suppose if you want to continue expanding federal omnipotence at the expense of our freedom, little details such as the Constitution wouldn’t be a big deal.
Here in the UK we’re not allowed guns for defence, only a few people (mainly farmers shooting vermin) are allowed shotguns and the regular police are not armed.
Since we are not under attack by criminals, tyrants or individuals, your statement is wrong.
I don’t like guns. I don’t like most gun nuts, and wish they’d admit that their guns are props for their juvenile power fantasies. (My power fantasies tend to involve hand-to-hand weapons; that’s why I’ve got swords at home.)
But I put things in perspective. A lot more people are killed by cars than guns in the U.S.; just because people are fucking idiots and won’t follow a few simple traffic rules. Given that, it’s amazing we don’t have more people killed because of idiot gun-lovers.
I really wish the Second Amendment were clear and unambiguous (which it isn’t, or else we wouldn’t have dozens of threads like this). But, I love the Bill of Rights the way I might love a woman – ardently, tenderly, not wanting it to change in any way, and jealously protective against anybody fucking with it.
So I think we can live with the idiots (except for those of us actually killed by them). I just with the NRA would devote more energy to safety training instead of lobbying (unless it’s lobbying for a bill to require one to earn a gun safety certificate before getting a CC permit).
Yes, but I was replying to the claim that an ammendment to the 2nd ammendment wold require changes to OTHER parts of the Constitution to give the Govt the right to restrict private possessesion of certain items.
And that is what makes it more dangerous, the fact that it can be concealed. As stated in a SD Staff Report, laws on this vary from state to state, but sawing off the shotgun makes it less legal than before you saw it off. My point is that there is a different law regarding a shotgun that has been shortened (because it’s more dangerous, because it’s concealable) than regarding a shotgun that has not been shortened.
Yes, their weapons were illegally modified, an AR-15, an AK-47, HK91, plus shotguns, handguns, and rifles.
Thanks to the armor piercing ammunition (I believe there’s also separate control laws on that type of ammo?) they were able to fire through walls and cars. The robber’s body armor protected them from the weapons contained in the dozen or so police cars that met the pair when they left the bank.
My point here being that certain types of weapons (including ones illegally modified to be fully automatic) are far more dangerous than other weapons. Rather than looking at a situation like this one and saying, “All firearms should be banned from civilians,” perhaps one might consider putting limitations and controls, rather than removing them completely.
