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AAAAANNNNND…. still no takers on showing me where in the Constitution it specifies where gun owners must be allowed to bear arms. Everywhere? Anywhere they want? Where does it say????
You're right. No right is absolute. In a civil society there are always reasonable limitations.
Of course.
The question is, who should decide what those restrictions are?
The Framers knew, and warned repeatedly, of the great dangers of letting government have ANY say in who could own and carry a gun, and where. Particularly since they had just fought a major war against a government that had used such powers to try to disarm them again and again. The first shots of the war, fired at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts, were fired when British troops tried to confiscate the Americans' guns and powder.
So they wrote a flat ban against government having ANY voice in the decision of who can carry and gun and who can't. And they left a loophole, where a group COULD make that decision and enforce it... but it wasn't a government group.
I gave the example of a guy who goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun, and blows away half a dozen people. The cops arrive, and one of them says to him, "Give me your gun right now." The murderer says, "The 2nd amendment says no government person can take away anyone's gun, so you can't make me give you mine."
Whereupon the cop cracks him over the head with his billy club and takes his gun away anyway.
Later the murderer sues the cop on grounds that the cop violated his 2nd amendment rights, and the case goes before a jury of the cop's peers. And despite the clear command of the 2nd, no jury in the world would find the cop "guilty" in this case, and the cop walks, for obvious reasons. It's called "jury nullification", the decision that the law should not apply in this case, and it is theirs to make. And it is irrevocable - NO ONE can overrule the jury who decides that.
What's the difference between the jury ruling that, and the government making a law saying murderers can't have guns?
The jury is not part of the government, owes it nothing, and has reason to not be loyal to it. And as long as a jury is the ONLY body that has the power to overrule the 2nd amendment's flat prohibition, then it can make "reasonable restrictions" (like that one) on a case-by-case basis.... and government remains 100% prohibited from having ANY say in who can carry a gun and who can't. Even in obvious cases like that one.
And it was vitally important to the Framers, that government be 100% prohibited from having any say in who could carry a gun and who couldn't... while a non-govt body still COULD make "reasonable restrictions", via jury nullification.
People here have said that it's not a bad idea to have "reasonable restrictions" on who can own and carry a gun. And I agree.
But when they give government the power to make those restrictions, no matter how "reasonable", that's where they flatly violate the Constitution. And no, the Framers did NOT intend for them to do that. They wrote the 2nd with a 100% ban, to make sure that government couldn't... and gave that power instead to juries of your peers. But it has to be done on a case-by-case basis... because to do it any other way, creates far more harm than good.
The question is, who should decide what those restrictions are?
The Framers knew, and warned repeatedly, of the great dangers of letting government have ANY say in who could own and carry a gun, and where. Particularly since they had just fought a major war against a government that had used such powers to try to disarm them again and again. The first shots of the war, fired at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts, were fired when British troops tried to confiscate the Americans' guns and powder.
So they wrote a flat ban against government having ANY voice in the decision of who can carry and gun and who can't. And they left a loophole, where a group COULD make that decision and enforce it... but it wasn't a government group.
I gave the example of a guy who goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun, and blows away half a dozen people. The cops arrive, and one of them says to him, "Give me your gun right now." The murderer says, "The 2nd amendment says no government person can take away anyone's gun, so you can't make me give you mine."
Whereupon the cop cracks him over the head with his billy club and takes his gun away anyway.
Later the murderer sues the cop on grounds that the cop violated his 2nd amendment rights, and the case goes before a jury of the cop's peers. And despite the clear command of the 2nd, no jury in the world would find the cop "guilty" in this case, and the cop walks, for obvious reasons. It's called "jury nullification", the decision that the law should not apply in this case, and it is theirs to make. And it is irrevocable - NO ONE can overrule the jury who decides that.
What's the difference between the jury ruling that, and the government making a law saying murderers can't have guns?
The jury is not part of the government, owes it nothing, and has reason to not be loyal to it. And as long as a jury is the ONLY body that has the power to overrule the 2nd amendment's flat prohibition, then it can make "reasonable restrictions" (like that one) on a case-by-case basis.... and government remains 100% prohibited from having ANY say in who can carry a gun and who can't. Even in obvious cases like that one.
And it was vitally important to the Framers, that government be 100% prohibited from having any say in who could carry a gun and who couldn't... while a non-govt body still COULD make "reasonable restrictions", via jury nullification.
People here have said that it's not a bad idea to have "reasonable restrictions" on who can own and carry a gun. And I agree.
But when they give government the power to make those restrictions, no matter how "reasonable", that's where they flatly violate the Constitution. And no, the Framers did NOT intend for them to do that. They wrote the 2nd with a 100% ban, to make sure that government couldn't... and gave that power instead to juries of your peers. But it has to be done on a case-by-case basis... because to do it any other way, creates far more harm than good.
One of the problems with leaving things up to a jury is that by definition they only act after the fact.
Suppose Dylan Klebold, James Eagan Holmes, Maj. Hasan, Seung-Hui Cho, Aaron Alexis, John Allen Muhammad and Charles Whitman all showed up and said they wanted to buy AR-15's and 1000 rounds of ammo.
Would you say, "Okay, the government has no right to restrict us from selling to you. So here you go. Just remember that if you do something bad with these guns you will have to face a jury."
As Justice Scalia wisely said, let us never ".... cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."
As Justice Scalia wisely said, let us never ".... cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."
He didn't say that, of course.
He only said that this court decision wasn't addressing those issues.
He left wide open, the possibility that they might overturn them in the next decision, or the next.
The Court wasn't asked to address such things this time, so they couldn't.
AAAAANNNNND…. still no takers on showing me where in the Constitution it specifies where gun owners must be allowed to bear arms. Everywhere? Anywhere they want? Where does it say????
The question is, who should decide what those restrictions are?
The Framers knew, and warned repeatedly, of the great dangers of letting government have ANY say in who could own and carry a gun, and where. Particularly since they had just fought a major war against a government that had used such powers to try to disarm them again and again. The first shots of the war, fired at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts, were fired when British troops tried to confiscate the Americans' guns and powder.
So they wrote a flat ban against government having ANY voice in the decision of who can carry and gun and who can't. And they left a loophole, where a group COULD make that decision and enforce it... but it wasn't a government group.
I gave the example of a guy who goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun, and blows away half a dozen people. The cops arrive, and one of them says to him, "Give me your gun right now." The murderer says, "The 2nd amendment says no government person can take away anyone's gun, so you can't make me give you mine."
Whereupon the cop cracks him over the head with his billy club and takes his gun away anyway.
Later the murderer sues the cop on grounds that the cop violated his 2nd amendment rights, and the case goes before a jury of the cop's peers. And despite the clear command of the 2nd, no jury in the world would find the cop "guilty" in this case, and the cop walks, for obvious reasons. It's called "jury nullification", the decision that the law should not apply in this case, and it is theirs to make. And it is irrevocable - NO ONE can overrule the jury who decides that.
What's the difference between the jury ruling that, and the government making a law saying murderers can't have guns?
The jury is not part of the government, owes it nothing, and has reason to not be loyal to it. And as long as a jury is the ONLY body that has the power to overrule the 2nd amendment's flat prohibition, then it can make "reasonable restrictions" (like that one) on a case-by-case basis.... and government remains 100% prohibited from having ANY say in who can carry a gun and who can't. Even in obvious cases like that one.
And it was vitally important to the Framers, that government be 100% prohibited from having any say in who could carry a gun and who couldn't... while a non-govt body still COULD make "reasonable restrictions", via jury nullification.
People here have said that it's not a bad idea to have "reasonable restrictions" on who can own and carry a gun. And I agree.
But when they give government the power to make those restrictions, no matter how "reasonable", that's where they flatly violate the Constitution. And no, the Framers did NOT intend for them to do that. They wrote the 2nd with a 100% ban, to make sure that government couldn't... and gave that power instead to juries of your peers. But it has to be done on a case-by-case basis... because to do it any other way, creates far more harm than good.
One of the problems with leaving things up to a jury is that by definition they only act after the fact.
True.
But one of the advantages of having a jury as sole repository of the power to decide who can carry a gun and who can't, is that it completely locks out the government from having any voice in the decision.
The advantage FAR outweighs the disadvantage.
Which probably contributes to the reason the Framers made that method, the Supreme Law of the Land.
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