chess online
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 The founders just didn’t know WASHINGTON, July 28, 2012 — There has been hotly renewed debate recently about gun control, and whether a gun ban would have saved lives in the Aurora tragedy. Considering the theater where the shooting occurred actually banned guns, another gun ban probably would have failed completely. But there’s another angle to the gun control debate that hasn’t received nearly as much attention as it should have. Is there a constitutional right to own assault rifles? Do we have the right, under the constitution, to own fearsome AK-47s and AR-15s? To answer the question, we need to just look at the text of the Amendment itself: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The answer is crystal clear: Yes, there is a constitutional right to own all types of rifle, including ones that scare liberals and those who only trust the government with guns. The original intent of the Second Amendment There are few topics as open and shut as the meaning of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment. At the time the Constitution was written, the states sent formal requests that the Second Amendment be added, and explained in detail what they wanted it to mean. The original intent of the Second Amendment is clear, even if some have tried for a century to ignore and “rewrite” it. We even have records written by the founding fathers in which they explicitly state what the Second Amendment means. The wording of the Second Amendment itself is brutally clear about what it protects. There is no ambiguity. Before the Second Amendment was ever drafted, New Hampshire’s assembly wanted the Constitution to protect the right of the people to own firearms. They declared, “Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.” They were explicit: The government wouldn’t be able to disarm anyone not actively fighting the US government. Notice the emphasis on “any citizen.” This emphasizes that gun ownership is an individual right, not some sort of “collective” right as anti-gun critics sometimes claim. The Bill of Rights was written to include this protection, and explicitly says, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It isn't a right of state militias, but of the people. The purpose is also clear: The right exists for the sake of a militia, so that it is able to protect the “security of a free state.” This seems to beg the question, are “the people” and the “militia” different concepts? Some liberals claim they are, but this is historically absurd. The two are one and the same, as the founders repeatedly said during the debates on the Second Amendment. George Mason, one of the most influential founders, said the following: “I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.” Any historical look at the views of the other states, the other founders, and the meaning of “militia” makes it abundantly clear. The militia are the people, and the people have the right to keep and bear arms for the sake of liberty. In other words, the goal is to make sure that the people can be a fighting military force that can keep the government and foreigners in check. Hunting is nice, but the Second Amendment is about more than that. It’s about a military force – the people being a well-armed militia. What if we only ban “assault rifles”? Many people try to mix what they know the Constitution says and what they want to be true. Some people want to ban some guns and not others. President Obama recently said that AK-47s should be left in the hands of soldiers, and not on the streets. Of course, he seems to be missing the fact that in America, all men comprise the militia, constitutionally speaking. But we’ll let that slide for now. Does it violate the constitution to ban AK-47s or other scary guns? Most of the time people talk about AK-47s and other military-style rifles as if they're more dangerous than other guns, you can usually bet money that they’ve never seen one in person, have never fired one, and simply don’t understand guns in general. There are exceptions, but this is generally the case. If we only see guns on TV, we’re likely to misunderstand them. Either way, the argument still goes along these lines: You have the right to keep and bear arms, but just guns for self-defense and nothing too dangerous. This misses the point completely. The Second Amendment was specifically about making the people dangerous to tyrants. This is constitutionally unavoidable. Ownership of military-style weapons is precisely what is protected by the Second Amendment, because that’s the entire point in the first place. Even if we ignore the Amendment's obvious purpose, a ban on "assault" weapons is still blatantly unconstitutional. It’s like saying that the freedom of religion means you can have most religions, but not Islam. Would a ban on Islam be constitutional? Of course not. The same goes for banning “some” guns. Any gun ban is a violation of the Second Amendment. This is unavoidable. Does the Second Amendment only protect muskets? One of the more common and yet absurd arguments on this topic is that the founders didn’t realize that the AK-47 would be invented, and that people would be able to shoot more than one bullet a minute. The general idea is that because guns look dangerous on TV, we should then ban them. The Second Amendment is irrelevant because the founders just didn’t know what kind of guns would be invented. By this logic, if Bush had banned the Internet, that would have been constitutional, because the founders certainly didn’t know the Internet was going to be invented when they wrote the First Amendment. The "they didn't know" argument instantly collapses. You have the right to own modern military rifles for the same reason you have the constitutional right to use the Internet to disagree with me – because the constitution protects that right. Is there a constitutional right to own nuclear warheads? Whatever the morality of possessing nukes, there is simply no constitutional right. The Second Amendment’s was designed to create a fighting force of people who can “keep and bear arms.” The historical definition and context of "arms" meant essentially weapons that individuals could carry on their person. This means firearms, swords, spears, bows and arrows, etc. This includes quite a bit, but it doesn't include nuclear warheads. There is a right to own all firearms. The Second Amendment wasn’t written just so we could hunt animals. It was written so that the militia – which is comprised of the people – would have the right to individually keep and bear military rifles. That was whole point of the amendment. That means that a ban on scary-looking guns would be a complete violation of the Constitution. A supposed tyrannical government would have the latest and greatest arms, and so should the people's militia. The Second Amendment still covers modern guns for the same reason the First Amendment covers the Internet and blogs. The Second Amendment protects all guns from being banned for the same reason the First Amendment protects all religions from being banned. This is why it matters that we don’t ban “assault” rifles. They’re not magical. They’re just like other guns, meaning they’re dangerous and deadly. And that’s why Americans should own them – because the American people should be a dangerous and deadly force that our own government and foreign governments should be a little concerned about. It’s just what’s necessary for the security of a free state. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Second Amendment protects only the ownership of military-type weapons appropriate for use in an organized militia. US-v-Miller en.wikipedia.org |
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Thumper |
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Stinky |
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My neighbor |
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stinky And, regulations to have guns in locked safes in the house, or workplace, defeat the purpose of having them readily accessible in the event of home invasion. It always comes down to personal responsibility to use, or abuse, and let the person responsible suffer the consequences if he makes a bad choice. |
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My perspective is pretty straight forward; The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime, neither can there be sanctions or penalties placed upon it, nor do I need another's 'permission' to avail myself of my rights. |
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... I agree with Softy regarding personal responsibilities ... trouble is, what an irresponsible person can do is becoming more destructive than in times past. The population has collective rights too ... rights to be protected against such irresponsible persons. I understand Softy may disagree with me on this. ... I think Thumper may be technically accurate in his definitions, of course; but, I believe the kinds of weapons available today are not what was envisioned in the 2nd Amendment when it was written (does the language need updating? I ask rhetorically). I'm not opposed to fundamental weapons (and know how to handle them); but, as time goes on, even more sophisticated weapons will be developed ... ones I sure do want our military to have/use; not ones I'd want available easily to the general public. I understand Thumper will disagree with me ... ... these are just my opinions. |
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dmaestro 20-Oct-12, 10:46 |
I agree with conservatives the intent of the founders was that the general populace have access to state of the art weapons for self defense, and to have the weaponry to be able to overthrow a tyrannical government or defeat professional armies if necessary. It is clear what they meant. Citizen militias were how the populace dealt with threats. That was the world they lived in. A world where citizens and governments had roughly equal personal weaponry. And nobody was going to give the village idiot access to the armory. However, that is not the case anymore, and the analysis Thumper presents on the limits of what can be considered firearms is incorrect. There is nothing technologically infeasible about shoulder fired tactical nuclear weapons or armed drones. In fact, state of the art warfare is moving toward unmanned and miniature weapons of immense power, as well as energetic weapons that can incapacitate or kill. So where does the definition of "firearm" end? Is is just projective weapons driven by conventional explosives? We need to go back to the intent and interpret its application today logically. Logic dictates that we have a volunteer, citizen army that is sworn to defend the constitution. We do not face attacks by native american tribes. Wars have evolved beyond what the founders could have visualized. Therefore, we need to be able to apply the 2nd Amendment in ways that fit our modern society. Keeping dangerous, mass killing weapons out of the hands of those who should not have them is not something the founders faced. Nobody showed up outside Convention Hall with a modern assault weapon. The threat of being killed by criminal use of firearms seems far greater than the probability that citizens owning assault rifles will prevent a tyrannical government takeover. The UK is a good example of why mass gun ownership does not prevent crime or safeguard democracy. I am not saying we need to emulate them but we need to realize there are pros and cons to the way we look at firearms. I have no problem with responsible gun collectors who are not acting as fronts for arms distribution and who are trained and safeguard their weapons. I do have a problem when the restrictions on owning assault weapons and military hardware are as lax as they are. To have more rigorous requirements for training and qualifications, and to report and register ownership of firearms on a reasonable periodic basis, and to establish limits on where they can be carried, and apply the same restrictions to private and public transfers, is a reasonable price to pay for the right to bear arms in today's society. That is NOT the same as banning guns. |
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Thumper If you look at a lot of opinions from the NRA they feel pretty much the same way. The problem is when someone goes off using an automatic weapon the gun rights activist want to ban all guns. |
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dm, stinky, even chaz... DM got me to thinking... we agree that the Founders and states wanted to equip the citizenry (the militia) with state-of-the-art weapons (equivalent to what the "professional" armies had) in order to prevent an abusive takeover by a large massive, central government. That is the intent of the Constitution. If you do not want to limit the weaponry of the citizenry and local militias, then we should limit the weaponry of the massive central government. We should be putting the strongest checks and balances on them and their professional army. For example, WHY are we allowing them to fly drones overhead these days? WHY are we allowing massive monitoring of our cell phone conversations, tracking our locations, and massive use of facial recognition cameras? WHY are we allowing them to strip search us and x-ray us at airports? WHY are we allowing them to have NO FLY lists? There are hundreds of areas where we have let the massive central government take away our personal liberties and freedoms. These are also weapons of the massive, central government equally out of alignment as are physical guns. |
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If you want to cut through |
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Stinky BUT, state militias can and should. The states can afford to equip their militias with comparable gear, to a great extent. What we need is less ability for the large, massive central government to control the states and states militias. |
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dmaestro 20-Oct-12, 12:18 |
I did have NRA training when I was young, although I never use guns. Gun ownership is a both a right and a responsibility, if you are not or cannot show you can be currently responsible you lose your right to own or use guns, IMO. There should not be an effective underground market for supplying guns, either. It is impossible to keep up with the arms race among the great powers. The weapons currently being worked on simply preclude that citizens or states could keep up. |
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DM |
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