Yes we did. 1934, I hear tell.
Except we didn’t, though I suppose I see what Fear Itself was saying now. Restricting access isn’t the same thing as a ban. You can still get an automatic weapon in the US as a private citizen, if you want to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it…and if you have the large wad of cash it would take to buy one. Even if it was a ‘ban’, which it isn’t, it’s a pretty narrow group of guns, not a broad spectrum.
Well, excuse me. If we can just have the same regulations on semi-automatic rifles as we do on automatic rifles, do you really think the gun fetishists would agree that is not a ban?
I wouldn’t be able to say, since I’ve never met a gun fetishist, nor have I heard of any, really. But if your fingers just slipped and you merely accidentally used a sophomoric epithet where you meant so say “gun rights advocates,” then no, we would probably not agree that it was not a ban, in particular because since 1986 the machine gun registry has been closed.
I wasn’t trying to bust your chops, just asking what you were getting at. I missed your earlier post, so I apologize. It’s hard to follow everything on my iPad sometimes.
They might CALL it a ‘ban’, but they would be wrong…it wouldn’t be a ban, any more than the current automatic weapons regulations are a ban. That doesn’t mean I think they would be a good thing (they wouldn’t be), and similar regulations on semi-automatic weapons would be much, MUCH broader, since the comprise the vast majority of guns in the US today.
BTW, ‘gun fetishists’? 
You guys certainly know how to demonize and use incendiary language…then are all surprised when gun owners or pro-gun people (a.k.a. known as ‘gun fetishists’ apparently) are wary about wading into yet another gun debate in this forum.
So that’s why the law states “… the right of the Militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”?
Really? The current court decided Griswold and Roe, where a “right to privacy”, found nowhere in the Constitution, was created out of whole cloth?
Oh, that’s right, it was “right wing reactionary activist” because you disagree with it. It’s interesting that you and George W. Bush (and every other partisan shill) use the same rhetoric to denounce decisions you disagree with.
The counter-term is “hoplophobe”- someone who has a neurotic paranoid phobia about guns. 
The “militia” are NOT state armies. The letter of the Constitution forbids states from having their own armed forces. The militia is (and yes, has been repeatedly affirmed to be) every able-bodied man capable of wielding a gun in the common defense; the posse comitatus, or in the words of authors contemporary with the Second Amendment “the body of the yeomanry”. The National Guard is in theory a selection of the militia- the “organized” militia in the words of the 1903 Militia Act. The presumption that “militia” means a state’s government-controlled armed forces is a misleading argument that the gun control crowd constantly puts forth.
What happened was that in the nineteenth century the state governments gave up on trying to include all able-bodied men in an annual muster of arms, and concentrated on organizing a core of select volunteers who would be the obedient go-to guys when the state needed to put down riots and uprisings- mainly things like shooting striking workers. The states passed laws forbidding anyone but the enrolled Guard from drilling or marching as a military company, and the Guards became state armies in everything but name. And because the Federal government has co-authority over the military training and organization of the militia, the 1903 Militia Act tacitly recognized the Guard as state armies by organizing them as reserves to the regular Army, on the theory that if the men had volunteered to join the Guard, they could be taken to have volunteered for the Reserves.
To say that the National Guard, and only the Guard are the “militia” is a travesty of the original intent of the signers of the Constitution.
And clearly, when the Framers said “well regulated” it meant nothing at all.
I’m willing to tell them that their policy of gun free zones is a poor way of protecting children.
The teachers in my state are taking the necessary gun safety training to deal with all manner of crazy people. This is how the problem should be dealt with up front while we figure out a better balance of incarceration for the mentally ill.
[
So yes, it means nothing inasmuch as it doesn’t mean what you want it to mean and it fails to restrict an individual right to keep and bear arms. As has been said in this thread, and virtually eery other gun thread, the “militia” argument is dead, existing only in the minds of people who fervently wish that it were not so, something they have in common with anti-abortion people. It’s a done deal, and barring a repeal of the 2nd Amendment it cannot (thanks to the doctrine of Incorporation) and will not ever go back.
If you care to, check out the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers for the contemporary debate on standing armies v. armed citizens. In the late eighteenth century the phrase “well-regulated” meant functional, in good working order, capable of doing its task- a clock that kept time accurately would be “well regulated”. The word “disciplined” was used to refer to what we now mean by saying well-regulated.*
A good example is the Federalist #29, in which Hamilton answered opponents of giving the federal government co-authority with the states over the militia. Throughout the 29th the word “militia” is invariably used in a context that makes it clear that Hamilton means, in his own words, “the body of the yeomanry”. By Hamilton’s own words, a well-regulated militia is one that had “a tolerable expertness in military movements”; in other words, the federal government was not to abuse its authority over the militia by confiscating the peoples’ arms so they couldn’t have any experience with weapons (At the time, the militia kept their own privately held weapons). And in one passage he actually uses the phrase “well-regulated militia” while specifically denying that every armed man either could or should be under government control:
*ETA: go through the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers and search for “regulated” and “disciplined”; the difference in how they’re used becomes obvious.
Heck, I had a Possession and Acquisition License for five years. Never used it. Let it lapse. I’ll get another one if I ever feel like getting a rifle (for target practice) or a shotgun (for home defense). Maybe a pistol for home defense also, but I have no expectation of getting a Authorization to Carry, even if I applied for one, so I won’t be walking around while packing.
And if I do get a rifle it’ll be semi-auto, since I’m left handed and getting a lefty bolt-action rifle will probably be expensive and annoying.
I am confident that my level of gun-nuttiness is zero.
if we’re going to talk about original intent, we might as well limit gun ownership to white landowning males as well.
The trouble with that rather specious reply is that the Second Amendment as originally written is still in effect, while the franchise in the U.S. (I assume the general wellspring of “white landowning male” arguments) has been repeatedly modified and extended via various Amendments, including the 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th and 26th.
Just as the Second Amendment is constantly being re-interpreted in the courts. The Federalist papers offer an academic insight at best for us now.
It overs an explanation of the words written in the Constitution. The interpretation has already been done which leaves the court out of the equation.
Disagree, the courts are never out of the equation. As people have already pointed out on this board, the interpretation of the second amendment has shifted over time.
I would call it a ban. The only full autos you can have without being a manufacturer are pre 1986 guns grandfathered in.
So you would like to ban semi-auto rifles the same way. I understand, but what else? How about semi-auto shotguns? How about handguns? What are you thoughts on open and/or concealed carry of handguns?
like this:
In Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S. Ct. 580, 29 L. Ed. 615 (1886), Herman Presser was charged in Illinois state court with parading and drilling an unauthorized militia in the streets of Chicago in December 1879, in violation of certain sections of the Illinois Military Code. One of the sections in question prohibited the organization, drilling, operation, and parading of militias other than U.S. troops or the regular organized volunteer militia of the state. Presser was tried by the judge, convicted, and ordered to pay a fine of $10.
On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Presser argued, in part, that the charges violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Court disagreed and upheld Presser’s conviction. The Court cited Cruikshank for the proposition that the Second Amendment means only that the federal government may not infringe on the right of states to form their own militias. This meant that the Illinois state law forbidding citizen militias was not unconstitutional. However, in its opinion, the Court in Presser delivered a reading of the Second Amendment that seemed to suggest an absolute right of persons to bear arms: “It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States,” and “states cannot … prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms.”
Despite this generous language, the Court refused to incorporate the Second Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868, states may not abridge the Privileges and Immunities of citizens of the United States. The privileges and immunities of citizens are listed in the Bill of Rights, of which the Second Amendment is part. Presser had argued that states may not, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, abridge the right to bear arms. The Court refused to accept the argument that the right to bear arms is a personal right of the people. According to the Court, “The right to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship.”
Several decades later, the Supreme Court ignored the contradictory language in Presser and cemented a limited reading of the Second Amendment. In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S. Ct. 816, 83 L. Ed. 1206 (1939), defendants Jack Miller and Frank Layton were charged in federal court with unlawful transportation of firearms in violation of certain sections of the National Firearms Act of June 26, 1934 (ch. 757, 48 Stat. 1236–1240 [26 U.S.C.A. § 1132 et seq.]). Specifically, Miller and Layton had transported shotguns with barrels less than 18 inches long, without the registration required under the act.
The district court dismissed the indictment, holding that the act violated the Second Amendment. The United States appealed. The Supreme Court reversed the decision and sent the case back to the trial court. The Supreme Court stated that the Second Amendment was fashioned “to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of … militia forces.”
The Miller opinion confirmed the restrictive language of Presser and solidified a narrow reading of the Second Amendment. According to the Court in Miller, the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to own a firearm unless the possession or use of the firearm has “a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.”
same cases cited here, and more Supreme Court decisions limiting gun ownership: Second Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia
At his trial, Presser argued that the State of Illinois had violated his Second Amendment rights. The Supreme Court reaffirmed Cruikshank and held that the Second Amendment prevented neither the States nor Congress from barring private militias that parade with arms; such a right “cannot be claimed as a right independent of law.” This decision upheld the States’ authority to regulate the militia and that citizens had no right to create their own militias or to own weapons for semi-military purposes.[132]
In Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535 (1894), Franklin Miller was convicted and sentenced to be executed for shooting a police officer to death with an unlicensed handgun in violation of Texas law. Miller sought to have his conviction overturned, claiming his Second Amendment rights were violated and that the Bill of Rights should be applied to state law. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment did not apply to state laws such as the Texas law:[134]
In Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897), the Court stated that laws regulating concealed arms did not infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms and thus were not a violation of the Second Amendment:
In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the Supreme Court rejected a Second Amendment challenge to the National Firearms Act prohibiting the interstate transportation of unregistered Title II weapons: