I don’t think that’s true. I think people always thought there was an individual right otherwise why the fuck would the Miller case even have taken place. He was just a common criminal, not part of any organized militia. What right would he have had under your formulation?
Heller found a right self defense in the constitution and that means guns, in much the same way that Roe found a right to privacy in the constitution and that meant abortions. I think both are correct in result if not in analysis.
I have no problem with a right to self defense. Honestly I am not sure it even needs to be in the constitution. It truly is fundamental and I cannot think of a time in history where any society would begrudge a person defending themselves. If they want to make it a constitutional right fine…great. Who would argue with that?
What I disagree with is that translates into the right to have a gun. There is some notion if you have a right to defend yourself then you have a right to the most effective means to do that.
Who says? Why? Is a gun even the most effective means?
There is nothing about a right to self defense that means people should have guns because guns are not the only means to defend oneself.
Also, while I think a right to self defense is more fundamental and truly a right than abortions are I think finding the right to privacy in the constitution has more basis in the text than a right to defend oneself.
The right to privacy thing has the whole “penumbra” bit. It is compelling but making that mean abortion is a stretch. Where is the text to suggest a right to self defense in the constitution?
Before you start I 100% agree in a right to self defense and as I said in my last post I do not think we needed the constitution to say it for us. When has self defense ever not counted as a legal defense in court in the US (or anywhere really)?
But you are implying the amendment was about guns. It was not. It was about militias. Therefore, there was no national policy on guns then or now. Gun traffic between states is controlled by feds, the guns and their use is controlled by states.
Lots of this is wrong, or imprecise enough to be misleading.
The amendment was about militias, but not exclusively. There may have not been a national policy on guns at the amendment’s adoption, but there certainly is one now. Gun traffic between states is controlled by the feds, and in some cases gun traffic within states is also controlled by the feds. The guns and their use is controlled both by the states and by the feds.
Who says? The court has said. Why? Because the alternative is the government being able to dictate an ineffective means to self defense, ranging from harsh language to submission. A gun is generally the most effective means of personal self defense - if there were another more effective method people would use that instead.
This thread is about the court un-saying what it previously said and making a case for that they should do just that. It is not out of the realm of possibility.
And it is difficult to make a case for guns being the thing to keep you safest when they provably do the exact opposite and make your life less safe.
So, from a public policy perspective it is hard to see why the government would buy the argument that people need to keep guns for safety when provably the opposite is true.
Actually, it wasn’t about guns OR militias. It was about the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and how this would aid in the overall defense of the nation. A well regulated (i.e. well formed and in good order) militia being necessary to the security of a free State (since the FF’s didn’t like the idea of large national armies and preferred the idea that every citizen would be part of the militia if necessary), the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Note, it doesn’t say anything about shall not be infringed by the Federal Government but the States can infringe on it all they like.
If you look at the original draft of this Amendment it makes more sense what they were going for:
‘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.’
It was only in committee that the order and wording were changed, and the last part about religious objectors dropped in who would be allowed to be excluded from the ‘militia’. In none of the drafts do they talk about the supposed ability of the various states to infringe on Constitutional rights while it’s only the Fed who can’t, and that pretty much runs contrary to both the intent and how the system has actually worked. If you think about it you’ll see why it would be bad if the states could decide if and how they would or wouldn’t infringe on Constitutional rights. A state could ban assembly or speech or freedom from religion or any number of other things if they could just decide themselves. What use would there be in the union at that point??
Ignoring for the moment the validity of this statement, it’s not at all related to what you asked. You did not ask if people need to keep guns for safety. You asked if a gun is the most effective means of self defense while acknowledging that people have a fundamental right to self defense. Are you trying to say that guns are not an effective means of self defense, or there are more effective means, or something else?
A study in Philadelphia found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. The odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.
So, having a gun makes it more likely you will get hurt or killed if someone assaults you. How is that “more effective” as a means of self defense?
Are we going to turn this into another same-o same-o gun debate?
The CDC was only banned from :"None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
*Government-funded research was openly biased in the 1990s. CDC officials unabashedly supported gun bans and poured millions of dollars into “research” that was, in fact, advocacy. One of the lead researchers employed in the CDC’s effort was quoted, stating “We’re going to systematically build the case that owning firearms causes deaths.” Another researcher said he envisioned a long-term campaign “to convince Americans that guns are, first and foremost, a public health menace.”
One of the effort’s lead researchers was a prominent attendee at a conference called the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network, which was “intended to form a public health model to work toward changing society’s attitudes towards guns so that it becomes socially unacceptable for private citizens to have guns.”
The problem with these conclusions is that they came before the data, which was manipulated to support their agenda.
*
I think you are mixing up different ideas here or I’m not understanding what you are saying. Let me try again.
Are you trying to say that guns are not an effective means of self defense?
Are you saying there are more effective means of self defense?
Some combination of the two, or none of the two?