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What kills me, is the fact that some people are so focused on the bad people who do bad things with guns, that they completely discount all the good things that people are doing with guns every day. We can take guns away from the "bad guys" but why would you want to take them away from good people?
The constitution doesn't actually give people the right to keep and bear arms. It never actually did. Most of the complications in understanding how the 2nd amendment applies to everyday situations, most of those complications come from the misunderstanding, thinking the constitution gives people the right to keep and bear arms.
When a cop arrests someone and takes away his gun, he's not violating the constitution, because it doesn't actually give that person the right to keep and bear arms.
Reread the 2nd amendment, and think about what it's really saying. Where does it say the guy being arrested has a right to keep and bear arms?
When the cop arrests the person, and takes his gun, is he infringing a right? What right is he infringing, and where did that right come from? What the constitution actually means is this: If the person has the right to keep and bear the arms he's bearing, then that right shall not be infringed. But since he doesn't have the right in that situation, the cop can't infringe it. You have to have a right before it can be infringed.
The first 10 amendments to the constitution do not grant rights. They only protect rights that already exist. The criminal committing a crime doesn't have any such right, so there is no right vulnerable to being infringed, and the first 10 amendments can't protect a right that doesn't exist.
The "right of the people" means the right they already had, not a right newly granted. Criminals never had a right to keep and bear arms. The constitution is doing its job. People argue about it because they misunderstand it.
Again, for my educationally challenged interlocutors here: the governments our Founding Fathers knew and feared were absolutist, conservative monarchies of the time, where royal subjects were not governed but ruled by their monarchs and had little or no say over any laws or policies enacted by their kings. This is what our Founding Fathers meant when they voiced their concerns about governmental tyranny. That's what they knew first hand having lived all their lives under British Crow and it's tyranny.
Except that the founders rebelled because of taxation without representation, in the UK people were taxed and had representation, since Parliament was elected by a form of democratic vote (which permitted landowners to vote which in all fairness were the taxable class). However in the US there was no representation in the British Parliament, and American landowners who met the very criteria that should they to be in England, Scotland, or Wales would have had representation and voting rights were denied (and we must remember that at that time Britain saw itself as both the island of Great Britain, and it's colonies interchangeably).
Voting rights in the original intent of the Constitution were to be left to the states to decide. Initially this mostly amounted to all Caucasian males who had 50 acres or more of land (except New Jersey who permitted all landowners with more than 50 acres of land regardless of gender, and a few other states where men of any race who met the land ownership criteria), or who had taxable income. It wasn't until the 14th, 15th, 19th and 23rd Amendments that we have voting as its seen today.
Therefore the initial form of Constitutional Republic that the US created had precisely the same democratic process that Great Britain of the time did, the exception being that the executive branch was elected, and not hereditary.
If there was British Tyranny it was caused by the democratic process, since British landowners wanted more control of government than their colonial counterparts. As the British Landowners were in the majority, it was no great difficulty for them to vote against permitting colonial representation and voting rights in British Elections. Indeed the "Intolerable Acts" was an act of Parliament and promulgated by Frederick North (Lord North) the British Prime Minister and head of the house of commons.
This is precisely the reason that the US Constitution is a safeguard against the Tyranny of the Majority, since the Founders (who almost exclusively would have been wealthy landowners in Britain, with all rights and privileges thereof) were victimized by this very process.
The constitution is doing its job. People argue about it because they misunderstand it.
how so?
The founders all understood that the amendment was to protect the individual rights of citizens. Many don't bother to even understand that the bill of rights is directed towards citizens, and not to protect any government. Governments do NOT have rights, they have POWERS. The "right" to have a militia is and was never a question. States didn't need the government's permission or any protection as the militia is ALL the armed citizens of a state.
Than following your logic let's legalize ricin and nerve-gas: following your logic they can't kill as well.
Can one take lessons to become hysterical?
Lol
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
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Originally Posted by Rapaport
Why? Even in XVIII century "speech" was understood as much more than written word, most significantly the act of "speaking".
The issue is political speech.
Kings do not send soldiers to arrest you and have you drawn and quartered in public for writing a play about Venetian merchants or a book about the best and worst of times.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
Second amendment was meant to allow for forming militias consisting of people possessing arms that were common at the battlefields of XVIII century and not hand grenades, blocks or ar-15s.
There are three groups....the government, the States and the People.
Like the 10th Amendment, the 2nd Amendment applies only to the States and the People.
States form militias; people form militias.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
Even the most aggressive gun-nuts don't argue a need to RPGs or ballistic nuclear weapons by the general public.
Is there a potion one can drink to become as hysterical as you?
People can have nuclear weapons if they want them.....they'll never use them.
If you have to ask why they would never use them, then your knowledge of nuclear weapons is exactly ZERO, and it would behoove you to stop being so hysterical and tossing out nukes every time someone says something about the 2nd Amendment.
Lol
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Originally Posted by Rapaport
Lol. At the time he wrote that there were not any other governments but monarchies. We were the first contemporary democracy, remember? Lol
No, there were anarchical democracies in the Conger and Niger River Basin, and that time, before that time, and all the way to the 1880-90s.
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Originally Posted by Rapaport
Democratically elected governments do exactly what the citizens want them to do, hence abuse is not possible.
Then you have no complaints about "corporate welfare."
You also apparently wanted the Honduran government to be illegally overthrown, since Obama did that in July 2009.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
Is it my fault that your comments are so naive and ignorant that they are simply amusing? Lol
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Originally Posted by Rapaport
Obviously, this has little bearing on democratically elected governments which the citizens can always change through democratic elections or an impeachment process that is available.
Uh-huh....tell us again about the NAZI era in Germany.
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Originally Posted by Rapaport
There is no need for revolts or resistance as there is a democratic process to address any grievances.
And that worked so well for Black Americans, didn't it?
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And US Citizens stripped of their property, assets, wealth and dignity, then placed in concentration camps during WWII.
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And the Atomic Veterans...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
There is no ruthless and tyrannical king,....
Hitler was a king?
What was Pinochet?
Juan Peron?
Saddam Huessein?
Fernando Marcos?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
...there is only a democratically elected president, democratically elected congressmen and appointed Supreme Court judges.
Um, dictators are elected.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
I never heard anybody referring to any democratic government as mob rule.
True....but then you have never studied political science, and don't know anything about it.
Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power".
But even democracy ruins itself by excess–of democracy. Its basic principle is the equal right of all to hold office and determine public policy. This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses. "As to the people they have no understanding, and only repeat what their rulers are pleased to tell them" (Protagoras, 317); to get a doctrine accepted or rejected it is only necessary to have it praised or ridiculed in a popular play. Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so "hungry for honey," that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the "protector of the people" rises to supreme power
Plato wrote that 2,000+ years ago.
Lol
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
How can a democracy be tyrannical if you get to vote your government in?
Ask the Jews.
Ask the Soviets.
Ask the Soviet Jews.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
So why don't you argue your right to possess Poseidon or Tomahawk missiles with nuclear warheads?
Why don't you grow up?
It would take you the rest of your life just fumble through reading the maintenance manual...and that would be for the launcher....
I won't even get into the fact that you don't how to talk to the bomb.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapaport
Only for people like you who don't want to obey the rules set by society. From ancient times every society has been setting rules and laws governing social interactions and if you were found breaking these rules you were simply banished.
Remember, you live in a society and have to obey its rules or find your own place with your own rules elsewhere.
And what about the federal government as a property owner?
The federal government has no real authority to own property. That does not preclude the government from leasing property.
Like the 10th Amendment, the federal government is odd-man-out in the 2nd Amendment and plays no role.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
And for that matter, state and local governments as property owners?
That is a different issue. The several States and the People have that authority under the 2nd Amendment and also the 10th Amendment, but the federal government has neither standing nor authority.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
Can the feds restrict firearm possession on federal lands because of their property rights?
No.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
Does that apply to highways? Toll roads? Public parks?
Yes.
The federal government ceded control of the Interstate and US Route Systems to the States years ago.
Federal parks, no, State and local parks, yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
The people have ballot box recourse--that is the power to destroy despotism.
Elections were held in the Soviet Union, and all East Bloc States (with the possible exception of Albania).
Elections were held in Germany during the NAZI era.
Elections were held while US Citizens were interred in concentration camps in the US during the WW II era.
Elections were held during the years property, assets and possessions of US Citizens were confiscated, without compensation and not returned. Those US Citizens were eventually given a paltry restitution decades later.
Explain to us the magic of the ballot box.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
You mischaracterize the holding of Curtiss-Wright and the jurisprudence on Executive Power. The Constitution vests "the Executive Power" in the President.
What's the problem? Can't afford Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw? There's no shame in that, the shame is running to pukipedia.
What is this vague ambiguous nebulous "Executive Power" of which you speak?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
Curtiss-Wright held that the President has broad foreign affairs powers--that the President is the sole organ of the nation's foreign affairs--especially when Congress has delegated power to the President.
You are absolutely correct.
Now, tell us why (hint: the answer is not in pukipedia). ...The investment of the federal government with the powers of external sovereignty did not depend upon the affirmative grants of the Constitution. The powers to declare and wage war, to conclude peace, to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations with other sovereigns, if they had never been mentioned in the Constitution, would have vested in the federal government as necessary concomitants of nationality.
The views of Justice Sutherland are predicated on these known facts:
Authority in the latter area is limited to that granted by the Constitution, expressly or by implication, but the foreign affairs power is extra-constitutional, because the powers of "external sovereignty" passed directly from the British Crown to "the colonies in their collective and corporate capacity as the United States of America." The States (or colonies) severally never enjoyed power over foreign affairs.
[emphasis mine]
Why?
Why are those facts true?
Because the several States ceded certain powers to form the federal republic under the Constitution. Prior to that, they had ceded certain powers to the national government under the Articles of Confederation. And, prior to that, the Colonies as predcessors of the several States ceded power to the Continental Congress.
And then prior to that, some -- but not all -- of the Colonies ceded certain powers to the Stamp Act Congress.
There is no evidence the Stamp Act Congress ever formally dissolved, so that you have a continuous spectrum from the Stamp Act Congress to the Continental Congress to the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
Even if you could prove that the Stamp Act Congress in some way ceased, you are still left with the fact that you have a continuous succession from the Continental Congress to the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
Note that the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
And the question of secession was quite clearly answered when the South surrendered unconditionally.
There was never a "question."
There was simply a large bully trying to control. Odd that ideas of both the North and South rested on controlling others.
Also, factually speaking, the South is a separate and distinct entity.
When the topic of secession arises, the Stupid® and the Ignorant® always knee-jerk "the South."
It is a baseless assumption that secession can only happen if the "CSA" secedes. In fact, you have an auto-fail, since New England states have discussed secession much seriously and for longer than any other States of late. Vermont and New Hampshire aren't the Deep South.
By the way....are you aware that the Civil War took place in the 19th Century?
Did you know this is the 21st Century?
What, you thought there'll be another Gettysburg and Bull Run Battles?
In the 20th Century -- because I like to run my mouth -- my bosses sent me out to the National Training Center. I made a lot of believers out of people (and impressed my bosses). I wrote that up for Airland Battle 2000.
If you don't understand the nature of warfare, then you should probably go hide and take lots of food, water and toilet paper with you, plus start hanging out on the Survival sub-forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
People often demonstrate that they won't comply with laws when they disobey posted speed limits. Our felons are restricted even after they have served their sentences.
You're comparing people who have committed Capital Offenses against those who have moving traffic violations?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
We do not take away rights because people cannot "follow instructions" or because they "should not have" those rights.
We do when Life & Death is at stake. Real soldiers don't want loose cannons on the battlefield (or in the barracks for that matter).
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
And note that ownership and possession of firearm do not mean that the "Laws of War" apply to the streets of America.
If you are in the military, then you are obligated to abide by the Laws of War (including International Humanitarian Law), as they govern our legal obligations in conflict (as they are laid out in treaties, customary international law, statutes, Executive orders, etc.). If you talking about civilian life, then the Laws of War are inapplicable.
Oh, yes, they are. The Geneva Conventions apply.
Armed conflict is distinguishable from armed violence. Where ever armed conflict exists, the Geneva Conventions apply.
There are two recognized types of conflict, international and internal. During an internal conflict, everyone falls under Common Article 3 (so-called because it is Article III in all 5 Geneva Conventions).
Quote:
Originally Posted by natalie469
There would never have been a 2nd amendment if they knew the consequences in the future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by natalie469
I think our founding fathers are rolling in their graves because of our abuse of the 2nd amendment. It was written for 1791, not for 2014. How do you think it would be written now.
Okay, well, then show us the personal letters and committee meeting notes and the original drafts from the convention to prove your hysterical emotional based claim.
Chop chop....get busy...you have a lot of reading to do...and learning, too.
Not only long, boring but also full of "inaccuracies"
Another Buffon. Yawn.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea
What was Pinochet?
Juan Peron?
Saddam Huessein?
Fernando Marcos?
Lol
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
Um, dictators are elected.
Lol
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
True....but then you have never studied political science, and don't know anything about it.
Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power".
But even democracy ruins itself by excess–of democracy. Its basic principle is the equal right of all to hold office and determine public policy. This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses. "As to the people they have no understanding, and only repeat what their rulers are pleased to tell them" (Protagoras, 317); to get a doctrine accepted or rejected it is only necessary to have it praised or ridiculed in a popular play. Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so "hungry for honey," that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the "protector of the people" rises to supreme power
Plato wrote that 2,000+ years ago.
Lol
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
Ask the Jews.
Ask the Soviets.
Ask the Soviet Jews.
Lol
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
Why don't you grow up?
It would take you the rest of your life just fumble through reading the maintenance manual...and that would be for the launcher....
I won't even get into the fact that you don't how to talk to the bomb.
Lol
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
Or start a revolution....
Lol
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Laughing at the superior intellect....
Mircea
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