The right to bear arms

Great Debates
61

Under U.S. federal law:

It’s illegal “to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, transfer directly or indirectly, receive, stockpile, retain, own, possess, or use, or threaten to use, any chemical weapon” (U.S. 18 § 229) with the penalty being a fine, imprisonment “for any term of years”, or both; and the death penalty or imprisonment for life if the violation results in the death of another person (18 U.S.C. § 229A).

Any person who “knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so, or attempts, threatens, or conspires to do the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both”. Additionally, knowingly possessing “any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system of a type or in a quantity that, under the circumstances, is not reasonably justified by a prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both” (18 U.S. Code § 175).

It’s illegal to “knowingly participate in the development of, manufacture, produce, transfer, acquire, receive, possess, import, export, or use, or possess and threaten to use, any atomic weapon” (42 U.S. Code § 2122). The penalties for a violation of that section are a fine of “not more than $2,000,000” and “a term of imprisonment not less than 25 years or to imprisonment for life”; and if the violation includes using, attempting or conspiring to use, or possessing and threatening to use an atomic weapon, the imprisonment is bumped up to “not less than 30 years” or life; and if the death of another person results from the violation of 42 U.S. Code § 2122, the penalty is imprisonment for life (42 U.S. Code § 2272).

(So…if you kill somebody with nerve gas, you can get the death penalty, but if you kill someone with anthrax or a nuclear weapon, then the maximum penalty is life in prison? Now that’s odd. Although I’m sure there are other terrorism-related charges that would apply if you set off a nuke on American soil, and some of those would put the death penalty on the table.)

I think it’s fairly safe to say that even post-Heller and McDonald, SCOTUS won’t likely be striking down any of these laws anytime soon.

62

I would think, if you actually kill someone, you would get the above charges, then the murder charges, then a bunch of civil and criminal charges, some kind of war charges, perhaps some kind of world criminal charges, charges of terrorism if you are not a recognized government and serve all sentences sequentially in a concrete box 400 feet underground at some undisclosed location someplace where you would rot until you die, which wont be long because i doubt anyone will feed or water you.

If they didn’t hang or shoot you first.

But yes, i find it kind of amusing that one has death penalty the other does not
guess it depended on the time period it came into effect and who wrote it?

63

Not even sure what you are on about.

You suggested that a gun ban will only leave criminals with guns and implied the law abiding citizens will be at their mercy which would, in turn, suggest that criminals would run rampant against the unarmed citizens who now have no means to defend themselves.

I have provided evidence that this would not be the case. Your turn to prove I’m wrong.

64

In the united states?
Where some criminal organizations and gangs are armed better than the police and on par with a military infantry unit?

Yes, i can see where that would not fare well, because only the law abiding citizens would turn in the guns, the gangs and criminals surely would not.
And they do not buy these things through the same channels law abiding people do.
And the law already tries like hell to close down those channels to no avail, it’s kind of like trying to stop drugs from appearing.

So, i would have to agree that what you create is a situation that i now know that i could break into anyone’s home with no fears of being shot in the process.
You can not stop me, the police will not stop me because you wont get them there in time if at all, and it is not actually their job to stop me, it would be impossible for them to.

Maybe if i did not already have an established underground base of arms rivaling that of a small country, it might work up to the point the unarmed citizens need to defend themselves against legal agencies gone rogue anyways.

But not in a situation where i have 6 new AK’s 2 cases of frags, and 2 RPG’s fresh off the van from Tijuana and you got nothing.

It is easier for me to buy already banned, already illegal weapons that have entered the country illegally and are being sold illegally, than it is for me to go to walmart and buy a 410 shotgun to shoot skeet.

65

Hysteria.

See post #46.

It is amazing how often this mantra repeats.

If you are puzzled how Trumpians can believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Clinton in the last election look in a mirror. That’s you.

66

How many people have been killed or injured in crimes committed with light mortars, grenade launchers, recoilless rifles and heavy machineguns?

But…you do realize there are still law enforcement agencies, right?

And yet for all their talk of using their guns to “rise up against tyranny”, they have no idea what a tyrant looks like.

67

Ok, I thought it was pretty clear but I’ll try again. You seem to be contesting my statement so I’m trying to explore which part or parts you are contesting. My statement was comprised two elements. The part you quoted with my question was the first element so it was a question to determine if that was among the things you were contesting. This is the first element: **[a national gun ban] *‘would disarm law abiding people’ ***.So, what I am asking is if you agree with the first element. Do you? If there were a national gun ban, do you think that law abiding people would then be disarmed [of guns]?

The second element was: **‘and leave [law abiding people] at the mercy of criminals.’ ** Do you agree with that element?

I stated two elements, and this is how you’ve interpreted it:

In your interpretation, you’ve added a third element which I’ve bolded. Not sure why you constructed the strawman, but it’s not my assertion. I did not say that violent crime would increase or decrease, or make any statement about the rate of these things. I did say that in the event of violent crime, those that are disarmed would not have firearms as a means to defend themselves.

For the sake of argument, no you haven’t. First, your own cite describes the difficulty of applying the results if any that were achieved in Australia to the US since the two countries are very different in ways related to firearms and crime. Second, you haven’t established a causal link between the Australian NFA and the results that you are claiming. So I’m not saying you are proven wrong, but you haven’t established that you are right and the evidence you’ve provided in your attempt to do so has been weak for reasons already mentioned.

And just so I’m clear on your position, you didn’t address this part:

68

You’re right, we still would have law enforcement agencies. And just remember, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away”.

69

But your fanciful theory evaporates when one understands that the 2nd Amendment does not grant / give / create or otherwise establish the right to arms. To argue that words upon which the right in no manner depend, were composed to only sanction limited, approved uses of arms, is absurd and anti-constitutional (irreconcilable with the principle of retained rights).

The fact is, the right has been recognized to exist without reference to the 2nd Amendment (and the Constitution). That SCOTUS has said time and time again (going on 140 years) that the right to arms is not granted by the 2nd thus is not in any manner dependent upon the Constitution, means your “it’s for the militia” fantasy, is bullocks.

Accept what SCOTUS has been boringly consistent on, the right to arms is not – “in any manner dependent upon [the Constitution] for its existence” – means the right can not be said to be conditioned upon or qualified by or dependent upon a structure (the militia) that is itself, entirely dependent upon the Constitution for its existence.

Please, just give it up.

70

Chefguy may have brought up the argument but you seemed to be advancing it a bit at least.

71

So how much did the overall murder rate drop from this plummeting gun death rate?

What’s that you say? It remained about the same?

The robbery rate increased but because there was already a trend of dropping robbery rates, the robbery rate eventually dropped to below its pre-ban level?

72

I think there’s two arguments here.

The point that the text of the 2nd Amendment relies upon the reasoning of the “well regulated militia being necessary” but not contingent upon it seems reasonable to me. It’s “this is why”, but not, “so long as this is so then this”. It’s a statement, not a requirement.

The other argument, of course, is that judging by that statement, it’s also reasonable to say that the why which existed at the time of the writing and which the writers would be thinking of doesn’t exist any more, or, at least, isn’t taken advantage of.

So, to my mind, it’s fair to say “The well regulated militia being necessary makes no difference at all as to whether there is a right to bear arms; but the basis for that right as originally conceived does not seem to exist any more.” Which, of course, doesn’t mean there is no other basis or need.

73

“When seconds count, your assailant already has a gun because they obtained it legally” seems less catchy but as potentially accurate.

74

I see the declaratory clause as a statement of principle that aligns with the statements commonly found in state RKBA provisions. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"is inextricably meshed (philosophically) with, “as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up.” To the framers each represented the same sentiment . . .

The declaratory clause of the 2nd Amendment only re-affirms what once was a universally understood and accepted maxim of a republic, that the armed citizenry dispenses with the need for a standing army (in times of peace) and those armed citizens stand as a barrier to foreign invasion and domestic tyranny (thus ensuring the free state).

Well for me the declaratory clause can only be said to be a statement of why the AMENDMENT exists and as such it can not qualify, condition, modify or constrain the pre-existing right; it only states one reason (a political one) why the never surrendered / fully retained right is being forever shielded from federal government interference.

To me it does exist and it is being kept up. The 2nd Amendment’s prohibition on the government disarming the citizenry forever preserves the numerical superiority of armed citizens to standing army soldiers . . . Which ensures that the people can enforce any rescinding of their consent to be governed.

Back in 1788, Madison said that if the nation could maintain an army that comprised 1% of the population, those troops would be opposed by armed citizens 17 to 1. Today, with active duty and reserve armed forces numbering about 2.8 million, our 75 million armed citizens outnumber the “standing army” by 27 to 1.

But again, the right wasn’t “conceived”, the right to arms doesn’t exist because the 2nd Amendment is there or what i says, the right exists and is possessed by the citizen because no power was ever granted by “We the People” to the federal government to allow it to have any interest whatsoever in the personal arms of he private citizen.
.

75

I’m not sure I’d say that this was a “universally understood and acepted maxim of a republic”, given that my understanding is that historically speaking the US had a large role in defining those republican maxims, along with France. My republican history knowledge isn’t great, however. Do you have some cites for this point?

That seems illogical to me. If there’s a pre-existing reason, then point out the pre-existing reason - or point to the Ninth Amendment. You don’t need a new reason if there already is one. No, it makes more sense to me to say that this was the, or at least the prime, reason for the 2nd Amendment’s existence. Beyond that point we’d have to assume poor writing on the part of the writers, which, besides likely not being too popular, brings the whole question of trying to identify motives from the text into question.

No, it doesn’t; the legality of conscription would seem to put paid to that notion.

…if they were allayed against each other. There’s zero guarantee so far as I can tell that “the people” would not arrange themselves alongside the soldiery so as to abrogate even their own rights, let alone the rights of some minority. History is replete with examples of dictactors and tyrants taking over a nation with the backing of the military… and the willing populace.

The right as defined in the 2nd was conceived. Otherwise there would be no need to have the 2nd Amendment. You can of course talk about individual rights pre-government, but absent the 2nd those rights are significantly more constrainable; a big difference.

And personally I don’t believe in any rights that don’t come from some agreement between parties. As a concept it doesn’t really make sense to me.

76

The constitution of the United States and the Supreme Court disagrees with you.

77

Yes, indeed! You’ll note I put “personally” in there to indicate this was a “personal” opinion. And that I referred to the Ninth Amendment in that same post in a discussion of rights not enumerated by the government still existing.

So; yes. Obviously. My post relies upon that. What was your point? That my opinion doesn’t matter? Sure, I’d be the first to say so. In fact, I was.

78

I should have fleshed that out further. In your previous post #75, you make several statements that imply this understanding isn’t the correct one. I started to mentally construct a response to each, but it grew convoluted because it’s like interjecting into the middle of an ongoing conversation.

For example, you question the universal understood maxim of the republic as it relates to an armed citizenry. But since this is discussed in Federalist 46, and was known in the English Bill of Rights in 1689, and it’s how the Constitution was drafted and its Bill of Rights were constructed, understanding that this is the case would seem to rebut your earlier notion that it wasn’t an understood maxim.

I also clipped the earlier statement:

This section is not prefaced as your personal opinion and this the Constitution and the Supreme Court also disagrees with. The right as defined in the 2nd was and is pre-existing.

79

The original wording, per Abatis, was “universally understood and accepted maxim of a republic”. An example from a country that wasn’t a republic, and an example of the nation and times currently under discussion, don’t seem to back up the statement I was curious about.

Not so far as I can tell; the 2nd forbids the state from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The right to protection from the government from stopping people owning or using arms isn’t pre-established, at least so far as I know; **Abatis **seems to be saying that the right to own or use arms exists because the government has made no law against it, which is quite a different right. Essentially, it’s the difference between “We haven’t said anything, so you can do as you please.” and “We’ve affirmatively said we cannot change this thing to make it so you can’t do as you please.” Liberty because we haven’t said no, vs. liberty because we’re guaranteeing you’re safe from us saying no in the future.

80

Abatis is not saying that this right exists because the government has made no law against it - that’s not the correct way to interpret the 2nd. The 2nd amendment recognizes a pre-existing right. It does say something, one of those things is that the right already existed. That’s what the constitution says. That’s what SCOTUS has said. The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.