Keep. Though to be honest, for the majority of gun holders it isn’t hugely important as their state constitutions generally guarantee them the right to bear arms. Even if DC allowed me to carry there, I’m close to positive my work wouldn’t let a gun into the office, so not much would change for me if it was fixed or dumped. Whatever fixed means.
Castrated, I guess.
I voted keep, but I’d prefer a fix to remove the militia clause that seems to be causing so much confusion.
The first legislation defining a militia was The Militia Act of 1792 which provided, in part:
Certain parts of which have since been ruled discriminatory and therefore void. White. Male. forty-five. It’s also interesting to note the requirement that everyone falling into the classification is required to arm themselves with a state of the art firearm.
Wow…must’ve been one loud report.
[QUOTE=Projammer]
I voted keep, but I’d prefer a fix to remove the militia clause that seems to be causing so much confusion.
[/QUOTE]
I say go back to the earlier drafts that were a bit more clear as to the intent of the folks actually writing the thing (from Wiki):
So…have it read like this: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.[69]
Possibly substitute ‘well regulated’ for ‘duly authorized’ and ‘militia’ for ‘National Guard’ or some wording for a duly authorized and constituted augmented military force under the authority of the US and the states. Or just take out the second half, since it’s not really necessary anymore, as you say, and just stick with the basic premise…that being that a citizen has the right to keep and bear arms.
-XT
Fix. New text:
Section 1: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Section 2: i. “Arms” is defined as any single-crewed man-portable weapon that does not deliver an explosive payload. ii. Standard gunpowder rifles are considered to be “arms” regardless of their action, caliber, barrel length, magazine size, or other differentiating characteristics.
Section 3: i. “The people” is defined as any citizen of the United States who is of age 18 or older. ii. The individual states or Congress may, at their discretion, restrict the ownership of firearms for cause–cause being limited to previous criminal history or ongoing mental deficiency.
Section 3: i. Registration, licensing, and training requirements are not considered to be “infringement” so long as they are reasonable in cost and availablilty. ii. “Reasonable” can be defined as “similar in convenience and cost to automobile registration and licensing”.
Section 4: If a state requires registration or licensing, it must accept a duly authorized license from any other state under the full faith and credit clause.
Section 5: No government or police agency shall be authorized under any circumstances to seize any owned firearm that has not been used illegally, regardless of any state of emergency or other condition that has been declared. We shouldn’t HAVE to say this, but since some jagoffs apparently can’t read the 4th Amendment, here it is again.
Very ad-hoc. Needs work. Suffice it to say, I don’t mind reasonable training/licensing/registration, but the entire point of the amendment is that citizens should be allowed military-quality firearms for emergency situations. Given the (admittedly limited) statistics available on concealed-carry-permit owners (such that they’re seemingly much less likely to involve themselves in gun crime), I don’t see this as a problem provided that the government can handle not being scared ninnies about law-abiding gun-owning citizens.
Since a lot rides on the definition of “militia”, we should either say that the 2nd protects an individual right to own and use weapons, or that it protects a state government’s authority to possess armed forces. IMHO, the latter interpretation is flatly contradicted by Article One Section Ten Clause Three, which forbids the states to keep “troops”.
I feel differently. There should be a poll option for those who simply don’t care about this issue one way or another. You’re self-selecting those who care about gun control in this poll and I can tell you that although many people do have an opinion, they are probably outnumbered by those who are agnostic on the issue.
Enjoy,
Steven
No, no, no.
We need to go through the other amendments, using the conservative majority’s “half the text is meaningless” rule.
Myself I’m not keen on the First and keen to see how it stands under the new rule.
Keep, as in, we have restrictions that prevent military grade high power weaponry from getting into the hands of crazy people. People who want guns can get guns with a manageable level of fuss and bother.
I would prefer a higher level of control over handguns, but I don’t see that as requiring any changes to the 2nd amendment.
Keep. The (utilitarian) cost-benefit analysis is murky and uncertain, and for better or worse this is part of who we are.
I also think this is clearly not thread-shitting. Abstentions, ambivalence, and indifference have an effect on policy and on general cultural attitudes, and it’s worthwhile to have some sense of how widespread they are. It would only be thread-shitting if **Nametag **had said he didn’t care about the issue and neither should we.