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The 2nd amendment says that since an armed, disciplined population is necessary for security in a free country, the right of normal people to KBA cannot be restricted.
This is clearly a flat ban on any govt in the country making any law restricting our ability to purchase, own, and carry a gun. Yet a number of governments (Federal, State, local) have made laws restricting exactly those things.
What should we obey? The 2nd amendment? Or the government officials making the "gun control" laws?
That's an issue the Supreme Court decides.
It is the only governmental authority given the obligation to decide such matters. Their authority was granted by the Constitution, and SCOTUS is the final arbiter on all Constitutional issues.
Back then we didn't have people mudered at a rate anywhere near today nor did they have the firepower we do today. Quite different, the constitution is far from infallible and the fear is not irrational, it's backed up by statistics.
Fear is irrational.
Fear is an emotion.
Emotion does not over rule fact and logic.
Your statistics if broken down piece by piece in comparison to how many gun owners who are law abiding and haven't reported stolen/lost arms, or even death/injury within their home would not work in your favor.
Not one gun law has prevented death.
Gun sales have gone up. Crime rates pertaining to guns have come down.
There has been reference made to town rules prohibiting the carrying of firearms in the American West, i.e. Dodge, Abilene and Tombstone type rules and equating these to laws in modern US cities such as NYC and Chicago. It should be noted that these old town rules were not actually "law" and nor did they extend the towns power into peoples homes or restrict ownership of firearms in any way. The modern laws do, and more.
The town rules in the old West were applied more to transients frequenting the saloons and such. Not to the residents of the town, and they were certainly not intended to be outright bans on ownership of guns. Laws that places like CA, Hawaii, NYC, Chicago etc have enacted are in clear violation of the national right of the 2A. They violate the Constitution of the United States. The caveat that state and municipal laws can be more strict should not be taken as meaning they can take away rights granted in the Constitution.
That was part of the premise behind the Heller decision. CA has gone he furthest of all the states, in enacting an outright ban and calling for guns to be turned in. They have thus refrained from door to door searches, but police can sieve personal firearms covered under the law if they find them. They passed a ban, but have had to stop short of forcible confiscation.
In the end the Constitution should prevail. Otherwise what good does it serve? If states and cities can just discard its provisions, it has no substance.
The courts are nothing but a collective of men. Our rights of Freedom & Liberty come from GOD, not man.
No, it comes from man.
The Founding Fathers were mostly not religious, and our Constitutional framework has little to do with religious thought. If they were around today, our Founding Fathers would be regarded as Godless Commies or something.
There has been reference made to town rules prohibiting the carrying of firearms in the American West, i.e. Dodge, Abilene and Tombstone type rules and equating these to laws in modern US cities such as NYC and Chicago. It should be noted that these old town rules were not actually "law" and nor did they extend the towns power into peoples homes or restrict ownership of firearms in any way. The modern laws do, and more.
The town rules in the old West were applied more to transients frequenting the saloons and such. Not to the residents of the town, and they were certainly not intended to be outright bans on ownership of guns. Laws that places like CA, Hawaii, NYC, Chicago etc have enacted are in clear violation of the national right of the 2A. They violate the Constitution of the United States. The caveat that state and municipal laws can be more strict should not be taken as meaning they can take away rights granted in the Constitution.
That was part of the premise behind the Heller decision. CA has gone he furthest of all the states, in enacting an outright ban and calling for guns to be turned in. They have thus refrained from door to door searches, but police can sieve personal firearms covered under the law if they find them. They passed a ban, but have had to stop short of forcible confiscation.
In the end the Constitution should prevail. Otherwise what good does it serve? If states and cities can just discard its provisions, it has no substance.
Prior to McDonald, the 2nd Amendment did not apply to state and local laws governing firearms and other weapons. States and cities were free to restrict weapons as they saw fit, subject to the State Constitution and the voters.
By its text (like the 1st Amendment), the 2nd Amendment only applies to the federal government. The 1st Amendment was determined to apply to State and local governments in a series of cases in the 1920s - 1940s. McDonald, in 2010, is the first case to determine that the 2nd Amendment applies to State and local governments.
Heller had nothing to do with California laws. It had to do with a federal law applicable in the District of Columbia.
The Supreme Court has not yet spoken clearly about what firearm restrictions are permitted and which are not, except to say that restrictions that prevent keeping a handgun at home without a trigger lock are unconstitutional.
The militia is supposed to be 'well regulated' and the regulations were passed the following year.
Whatever the regulations say, that's what congress intended. You can read them for yourself, it is on the internet in several places.
You have it all wrong because you don't understand what "well regulated" meant. It had nothing to do with governmental regulation. That's a false assumption based on our modern governmentally obsessed mentality. In the framer's day "well regulated" was a commonly used term describing a person who was of sound and sober mind. ... OR a piece of machinery that functioned properly was also "well regulated".
In the context of the 2nd amendment "well regulated militia" meant a body of good sound men of sober judgement who would reliably answer the call to duty and take direction from their locally appointed officers. In other words they wanted a militia free of marginal, sketchy or unreliable types who could not be trusted. A liberal will always grasp at this phrase as the basis for justifying restriction of our right to bear arms only to those serving under the auspices of a military organization. It's utter bunk. A fallacious conclusion arrived at by a linguistic misinterpretation of the Constitution. Furthermore, in their day a militia was not controlled by the govt so there isn't an iota of accuracy in that line of argument.
The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the writing of the 2nd amendment:
1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."
1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."
1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."
1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."
1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."
1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."
That's an issue the Supreme Court decides.
It is the only governmental authority given the obligation to decide such matters. Their authority was granted by the Constitution, and SCOTUS is the final arbiter on all Constitutional issues.
Not quite.
The Constitution said there would be a Supreme Court. But it didn't say anything about what that court would be allowed to decide. The Const also said that Congress can decide what matters the Court could adjudicate.
In the case Marbury v. Madison, the Court awarded itself the authority to strike down laws it felt were unconstitutional. The Constitution didn't give it that authority.
Since the Constitution didn't give the SUpremes the authority to tell the rest of us what the Constitution saud, that means the States and We the People retain that authority. Which means that we don't need to wait for a bunch of unelected appointees wearing robes, to decide that the country has one President, or that slavery is illegal, or that the govt is forbidden to make laws restricting our right to own and carry guns. The Constitution is written to be understood by ordinary people, and we don't need lawyers to explain it to us.
The constitution as written did not restrict the city or state placing restrictions on someone's right to carry a gun. The constitution prevented the federal government from passing laws that interfered with the states' right to form a militia from its population. Dodge City collected guns from the populace as they road into town and returned them when they left.
Yes it did. The tenth amendment states anything not covered in the constitution is left up to the states. The second amendment simply says "shall not be infringed." It does not say "congress shall not infringe on the right to keep and bare arms."
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