Elections do not alter the powers of government or the Constitution.
Elections are simply a first order exercise of the people’s right to consent to be governed.
Yes.
But . . .
That “dangerous” moniker is a legal determination that is the result of certain criteria being applied to the weapon under consideration. A weapon isn’t ‘dangerous’ simply because it can be used to inflict harm or kill LEGALLY SPEAKING.
I explained this earlier to Elvis:
[INDENT]
[/INDENT]
Sure it does but that interest can’t be focused on infringing on the the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Yep. And the enforcement mechanisms set up in the constitution (namely, the courts) continue to uphold pretty much everything, including the expanded commerce clause and general welfare clause. Strangely, we haven’t had anything even near a civil war or new constitutional convention in response–almost as though we the people consent to a very broad interpretation of same.
…open to revision. The very thing you said you feared, for some reason.
Who wrote that adage? By what authority does he restrict my fundamental, God-given, inalienable rights?
“No man has any individual rights, which come into conflict with the welfare of the country.” -"Confederate senator Louis Wigfall of Texas, 1862.
This has pretty much become the modern definition of “rights”. 
And that’s why judicial appointment is so important.
Yes, the wonders of incrementalism.
I don’t fear Article V, I fear the actions of constitutionally ignorant people who will tear this nation apart trying to make the changes they want without going through the process of Article V. The chances of having an “anti-gun” revision of the 2nd Amendment ratified using the real Article V process is zero. The chances of doing it from various left-leaning courts, 75/25 within 20 years.
You really are completely baffled by these concepts aren’t you?
I feel sorry for you.
Okay, so Congress can ban handguns. Great!
Er, no. You see, I’m pointing out that your pithy quotes about innumerable rights don’t actually make any sense until you choose some actual statements as axioms, whereupon I point out further that you’re making an axiomatic selection and not pointing up some fundamental fact about the universe of rights.
I’m also pointing out that your apparent argument that anyone who disagrees with you just doesn’t understand and/or is some kind of closet anti-gun crazy is wrong.
I’m also pointing out that you’ve contradicted the hell out of yourself–somehow you’ve managed to go from being terrified about Czarcasm very clearly proposing a pro-individual-gun-rights amendment (under the Article V process) to Amendment 2 to being fine with that but somehow worried about a non-Article-V process to do the same, which you can stop being worried about because no such process exists.
I’m also kinda amused that in the wake of the Heller decision and ongoing changes to the way gun rights are seen in this country, you still fear “left-leaning” courts taking away your rights. Newsflash–they can’t take your rights if they’re inalienable. Second newsflash–they’re not going to, any more than the Republicans are actually going to ban abortion. Both sides benefit too much from the froth.
I’m also very amused that RNATB has argued you right into a legal corner without any apparent effort, and you don’t even seem to notice.
Stop being on my side (that would be the side that ultimately favors individual rights to own just about any man-portable military-grade weapon) – you’re bad at it.
I wish I could be as sure of that as you are. Yes, owning and carrying guns is more popular than it has been in over fifty years and people are voting with their wallets by buying guns and ammunition at an unprecedented rate. Yes, many states have liberalized their carry laws, and recent SC rulings have been favorable to gun rights. But ever since the 1960s, the progressive left has adopted the civil rights movement as it’s model of change- i.e., “shove reform down the troglodytes’ throats and if they don’t like it too bad”. The SC decisions were 5-4 rulings sharply divided by ideology, and we’ve seen plenty of precedent for being able to find some legalistic excuse for any ad hoc position a court majority wants to take- worrysome now that Obama may nominate two or three replacement judges. Three of the largest urban areas in the United States (NYC, Chicago and southern California) remain adamantly anti-gun, and so far at least many of the lower federal courts continue to decide against liberalization of gun possession and carry.
How do you arrive at that from what I wrote?
Handguns are in common use at this time.
Handguns are a type of arm which are usually employed in civilized warfare.
Handguns are a type of arm that constitute the ordinary military equipment.
Handguns are a type of arm that can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.
Any claim of Congress that it possess any authority to have any interest in handguns is repelled.
I come into these discussion with the assumption that my “opponents” have at least heard of these “self-evident” fundamental principles of rights vs. powers that the US Constitution is founded upon. I guess I should know better but in the end, it isn’t my responsibility to give you a civics lesson.
Given your “apparent” qualification in that statement it seems you are just making things up. You apparently don’t understand what my real arguments are so I completely understand why you need to invent arguments for me that you can understand. (Hows that for validating your strawman? LOL)
“Terrified” no, just mortified. Super-Pro-Gun-Rights-Supporter Czarcasm never answered my question of why he thinks it is important to modify words that the right in no manner depends upon to “clarify” the right. I just don’t understand how there can be an upside to such a unnecessary and absurd (and I believe dangerous) endeavor.
The simple proposing of it validates the anti-constitution notion that the right to arms is granted, given or somehow established by the 2nd Amendment and a simple alteration of the words or removal of the words (rescinding it) would permit government to do what was previously forbidden. That delusion should not be encouraged.
I have no fear that those opposed to gun rights would be successful using Article V, getting 39 states to go along with them . . . The reaction of states to simple proposals of federal intrusion into the gun rights of their citizens has been to expand and “clarify” the right under their constitutions. That doesn’t mitigate my “fear” or my desire to never see the attempt made.
Of course the process exists; it is called judicial review. SCOUTS gets to say what the Constitution means.
Do I need to remind you Heller was 5-4? The primary outcome of *Heller *has been for lower courts to narrowly define the 2nd Amendment right to only exist “in the home”. The spirit of Heller has been ignored and the text has been mined to justify / affirm questionalbe laws.
Newsflash–you are operating from an incomplete (at best) or incorrect (at worst) understanding of what “inalienable” means.
Perhaps, but I would rather not find out.
And it takes no effort to make that claim. You are welcome to explain that “legal corner” I’m in because I will honestly admit, I don’t see it. Please, rub my nose in it . . .
In 20 years I have never seen so many posters claim to be gun rights supporters while arguing so actively against the principle of “RIGHTS”.
Your “civics lesson” is not what you think it is. The simple fact of the matter is that your theory of rights (innumerable, inalienable) was not so compelling to the Framers that they decided to follow it–the Bill of Rights exists because a significant portion of them agreed that some enumeration was necessary.
Your framing is the same tired libertarian-utopia bull that doesn’t actually fly in a modern political system. The problem with this is extremely simple–you are not in the majority, and therefore you will lose if you do not adapt your arguments to fit political and governmental realities.
As for the concept of “rights”? The only rights that exist are the ones that you can take or the ones that anyone lets you have. It’s called actual philosophy, learn it. Your “unalienable right” to bear arms is exactly meaningless if twenty guys with body armor and guns, wearing badges, decide to take away your guns. The current system of interpretation of the constitution is what we have, and if you want to retain your rights in the face of the frankly and unlikely-to-change overwhelming force of governmental authority, you’d best think about it in modern terms.
That’s reality.
The reason a lot of us, who are ardent supporters of gun rights, would like to see the 2nd Amendment changed to clarify the individual right is BECAUSE modern jurisprudence doesn’t read it in the same way you do, because modern jurisprudence at best pays lip service to the founding philosophies of “inalienable rights” but doesn’t actually tend to rule that way.
Are you suggesting owning a gun is an “inalienable right”?
Christ on a Pink Pony are you kidding me?
Sure, the Federalists “lost” the battle over adding a bill of rights but two of those provisions stand as concessions to and validations of the Federalist’s arguments. Nobody disagreed with the Federalists about the origin or nature of rights under our Constitution, just how best to protect them.
Just in case you really are as unfamiliar with them as you appear:
AMENDMENT IX
[INDENT]The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
AMENDMENT X
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. [/INDENT]
So, represented in Amendment 9 are the principles that all our rights are incapable of being listed and because some are listed here that is not to be taken as this is the definitive -that’s all folks- list and everything else is cast into the nebulous mist of invented powers of government . . .
In Amendment 10 we have confirmed the fundamental principle of conferred powers and retained rights . . . Does any of this sound familiar???
You are rapidly approaching the “not worth my time” zone.
Well, thankfully we live under a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy so my rights are not subject to the ignorant whims of public opinion and are not subject to any vote.
If that is reality it is the fault of people like you who have not held government to the principles of its establishment. You have accepted the denigrated, filtered, rationed shell of rights that the government sees fit to give you, where we have a right to healthcare but we’re told we don’t have the right to arms.
Just keep lapping up that gruel . . . Shameful really . . .
So, another part of this you don’t understand huh?
I’m waiting for you to point out the corner that I have argued myself into with Not So Bright.
Has the 9th Amendment ever been used in court…ever?
Totally cool it is there but not sure it has any actual effect on jurisprudence.
(Really asking here.)
Possibly, to the extent that SC rulings have recognized rights (privacy, self-defense) not explicitly stated. The 9th forestalls any claim that no unenumerated rights can be recognized.
I thought that stuff fell under the “penumbras and emanations” schtick without reference to the 9th amendment. Basically that they are enumerated rights that, while not explicitly stated, are implied by existing enumerated protections.
Perhaps the most noteworthy recent one is Casey v. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. 833, 848 (1992). The majority opinion written by O’Connor observes Harlan’s famous dissent in Poe as speaking directly to the principles of the 9th Amendment and again, elevates Harlan’s words to the opinion of the Court:
[INDENT]“Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment protects. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 9. As the second Justice Harlan recognized: ‘[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment.’”[/INDENT]
This famous exposition by Harlan is also quoted in Justice Stevens’ dissent in Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 306-07 (1994), the plurality in Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 502 (1977) and Justice Stewart’s concurrence in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 169 (1973). It originally written by Justice Harlan in his dissent in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 543 (1961)
I find it interesting that Stevens can embrace the liberty concepts of Harlan’s dissent but deny those ideals for the specifically enumerated right to arms in his dissent in Heller . . . Hypocrite.
Thanks for that.
It still seems to me, however, that all this falls under the “penumbras and emanations” side of things.
The court is not saying there is a whole new right that the founders just did not get around to listing but rather that existing, enumerated rights, are meaningless without some expansion to implied rights necessary to make the enumerated ones meaningful.
I mean, in regards to the 2nd Amendment, could the government say you have a right to own a gun but outlaw the manufacture and importation of guns? Manufacturing and/or importation are not explicitly listed in the right but would seem necessary if an absolute right to own a gun exists. In essence, being able to manufacture a gun is implied by the 2nd amendment albeit not explicitly listed.
All this conjuring and referring to penumbras and emanations is a forced effect of Slaughterhouse gutting the “privileges or immunities” clause of the 14th Amendment. I highly recommend reading Thomas’ special concurrence in McDonald for a very honest assessment of Slaughterhouse specifically for the right to arms.
Nearly everyone, conservative and liberal agree that Slaughterhouse is bad law but getting the Court to revisit it has been a fools errand. Hopes were raised when SCOTUS decided to hear McDonald instead of the NRA’s case because *MCDonald’*s primary argument was that the 2nd was applicable upon the states by the 14th privileges or immunities clause (which it was assumed to mean that the Court would truly re-examine Slaughterhouse). Progressive groups joined in supporting McDonald as amicus curiae.