Poll on Intent/Meaning of Second Amendment (Orange, Canyon: purchase, theatre)

[doctorjef]

TexasReb, you paint with too broad a brush. Many of us who believe handguns and assault weapons should be vigorously restricted are fine with the possession of hunting rifles and shotguns by outdoorsmen and farmers/ranchers. That, of course, doesn't mean that we are ok with possession of a private arsenal of such firearms, but anything in single digits ought to be alright.

[doctorjef]

Originally Posted by BobTex

I know a little about Catholics and even less about Episcopalians. Never read either's rule book(s). I'm a better informed in the ways of Charismatics, Pentecostals, Baptists, and Methodists.

I assume you can understand an analogy, however.

The point is: we don't really know that the omission of a comma in the CSA Constitution's version of the Second Amendment meant or was intended to mean anything at all, unless there is some extant commentary contemporary with the adoption of that particular article of the CSA Constitution which addresses the reason for the editing of punctuation. It may simply reflect a change in the style of employing punctuation in formal writing in the late 18th versus mid-19th centuries, or the personal taste of the authors, or have been essentially an accident of history.

Aside from the analogical issues, the little side-story of whether Southern bishops of what had been the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA in their local dioceses would choose to more radically (but cosmetically) rename their national church in order to differentiate it from the Northern province makes an interesting example of mentality in the South following secession. There seems to have been a minor struggle between maintaining the national symbols and identities built up between 1776 and 1861 on the one hand, and creating new forms and symbols on the other. The former largely prevailed, and in the case of the Episcopal Church in the South, the name ultimately became the Protestant Episcopal Church in the CSA. As it happens, however, this was due in the immediate moment to the vigorous objections of the Bishop of Virginia over changing the name to "Reformed Catholic Church". Finally, I'll allow myself one additional footnote to this bit of history: at the end of the Civil War, unlike other denominations, the Episcopalians did not remain divided -- the Southern bishops returned to their seats in the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Church was reunited.

Here endeth the tangent.

[rwr]

Originally Posted by ocean2026

The construction of laws are not to be decided by polls or Texas and the South would still be segregated. Remember all the signs "Impeach Earl Warren" because Southerners did not like his interpretation of the Constitution that minorities should have the same public school opportunities as white students.
Courts may make the wrong decisions sometimes but the law is not majority rule.

Southern democrats were the ones who wanted to keep segregation.

[doctorjef]

Originally Posted by rwr

Southern democrats were the ones who wanted to keep segregation.

Well, the Republican Party hardly existed in the South at the time, and certainly not as any viable political force. As you must know, what happened after LBJ signed the various civil rights acts was that a large number of Southerners left the Democratic Party and reorganised themselves within the Republican Party. This left the Democratic Party a solidly liberal to moderate party nationally, in contrast to its former regional ideological divisions on social issues, and ultimately made the Republican Party at a national level a far more conservative party than it had previously been. The two parties have evolved into identities almost diametrically opposed to what they had been at the time of the Civil War, or in the South in 1964 in respect to its former solidly Democratic Party identity. We are really talking about two entirely different iterations of the Democratic Party, and the rise of a Republican Party that previously didn't even exist for all practical purposes in the South.

[CptnRn]

1 point off for misspelling self-defense.

[doctorjef]

British spelling: defence.

[TexasReb]

=doctorjef;33537295]TexasReb, you paint with too broad a brush.

Perhaps I do. And yes, I should have mentioned earlier that I don't believe all those who generally take a liberal position, are necessarily opposed to Second Amendment rights and/or gun owners themselves. So I stand corrected in that regard. I should have qualified it. I do know some on the liberal end who own guns and are even members of the NRA.

BUT? With that said? I dare, and confidently say, that the "broad brush" you say I paint with pales quite a bit when it comes to stacking up against the one used by those on the left (a large faction), who seek to portray most gun-owners as generally consisting of backwood rednecks

Many of us who believe handguns and assault weapons should be vigorously restricted are fine with the possession of hunting rifles and shotguns by outdoorsmen and farmers/ranchers.

But this goes back to the original question. That is, just exactly what was the original intent behind the 2nd? I mean, gosh, it just seems to stand to reason that it wasn't about hunting rights...as that was simply a given. And certainly self-defense was...

Good lord, in those days, anyone who didn't hunt -- or buy off someone who did! -- would starve to death! It could only mean one thing. That is, that it was intended to be the ultimate check on a potentially tyrannical government. Any other considerations are of modern day creation and intended -- for the most part -- as either a deflection and/or -- by the anti-gun activists -- to create something out of Alice in Wonderland.

I just hope some will look at this one, it is classic...

Suzanna Gratia Hupp explains meaning of 2nd Amendment! - YouTube

That, of course, doesn't mean that we are ok with possession of a private arsenal of such firearms, but anything in single digits ought to be alright.

What, in your opinion, constitutes a "private arsenal"? Please be a bit more specific on that one, DocJ...

And why do you so fear and/or have an aversion to those who collect/shoot/own/etc, the same (but first I wish you would define "arsenal.")...?

[doctorjef]

Asking about Original Intent reminds me of something Boris Yeltsin said a few years before the implosion of the USSR, during the time he was mayor of Moscow. In an interview by a Western reporter he was asked his views on the future of communism in the Soviet Union, to which he responded (as translated), "Well, communism is something we should keep our eye on, but not take too seriously -- it's a kind of pie-in-the-sky".

In other words, while I think so-called original intent is something worth the judiciary considering when making rulings touching on constitutional principles, I think it's very far from the whole story. We've had this discussion before, I do believe, TexasReb. I understand you consider original intent both fundamental and capable of a full and sure determination or elucidation. I don't buy this approach to constitutional law.

I'm going to resort to another religious analogy here. Whilst some denominations are based on a principle of so-called biblical inerrancy and a more or less literal understanding of scriptural texts without looking at both the historical social context and applicability in the modern context, other Churches take the 3-legged stool approach: our theology and praxis are based on Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in light of lived experience. I would posit that biblical inerrancy and constitutional original intent represent an approach that seems cut from the same cloth. I reject those approaches, in favour of the 3-legged stool in the ecclesiastical domain, and in the realm of constitutional law, a "living Constitution" adaptable to changing conditions.

In the realm of consitutional law, judicial interpretation and federal legislative implementation depend not just on the naked text of the Constitution, but also on the elaboration of that document over time in acutal practice and judicial precedent, informed by contempory circumstances (analogous both to the gradual and organic development of the Tradition, and the application of Reason in light of Lived Experience, in the ecclesiastical realm).

Portions of the Bill of Rights reflect concerns of a particular historical era, i.e. experiences during the Revolutionary War, especially in terms of British behaviour toward the inhabitants of the rebellious colonies. The prohibition on forced quartering of soldiers in private homes without the owner's consent or due process of law is the most obvious case in point (Amendment III). The Second Amendment is another. Americans had just fought a war on their own soil. The Third Amendment has never really had any practical application, as in the Civil War the states in rebellion against the federal government had withdrawn themselves from the protections of its Constitution and were representing themselves to be the member states of an entirely different country, no longer part of the USA.

However, it is noteworthy that the first president of the new federal republic wasn't particularly hesitant about putting down local tax rebellions by force of arms, and considered the possibility of invading the Republic of Vermont in what would have been far more a domestic action than a foreign war (this course of action was obviated by Vermont settling its territorial dispute with New York and joining the Union in 1791). The supremacy of the federal authority has been asserted from the beginning, notwithstanding attempts of states to employ unconstitutional theories such as a putative right of nullification of federal law.

Organised citizen militia (which existed under the auspices of state and local governments) were replaced long ago now by an enormous standing army whose mission is primarily to pursue the asserted strategic aims of America abroad, and by state national guards that can be commanded at the behest of state governors but which are fully subject to federalisation and are hence effectively branches of the national military defence structure. Meanwhile, state, county, and municipal police forces have capabilities that couldn't have been dreamt of in the late 18th Century. Ad hoc militia were never the reality with which the Second Amendment concerned itself, as militia were sponsored by governmental authority. Subsequent developments, however, have either transformed such militia into professionalised military guard units that are potentially under both state and federal command, or been made redundant by the evolution of a whole range of law enforcement agencies. Well-organised militia never existed as organs of potential resistance against the powers of government, and such well-organised militia that once existed have been superceded by other means of law enforcement and assertion of military force in cases of necessity.

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

And just who were these "hooligans"?

Now then, if I misunderstood your intent? Then ok, I truly apologize. I mean that sincerely. If NOT? Then I stand by that what you say just has no basis in historical reality at all...

My intent was, that the "Southern men" recognized that the wording in the US Constitution led to ambiguity, so they tried to make it more clear.

"Hooligans" are the people that you hope do not own guns, despite your defense of their right to.

[TexasReb]

=jtur88;33563419]My intent was, that the "Southern men" recognized that the wording in the US Constitution led to ambiguity, so they tried to make it more clear.

AND? Is there anything wrong with that? And I would actually agree here. For any kind of real clarity, one would have to go back to the federalist papers and the writings on the subject. The "well-regulated militia" wording is the one that is at the root of the most argument...

"Hooligans" are the people that you hope do not own guns, despite your defense of their right to.

Huh? Where do you come by that nonsense? Where did you glean that from anything I ever wrote? But to make your point, you are going to have to define "hooligans" in more clarified way as per something legally restricted. If you are saying that criminals convicted of felony violent and/or sexual crimes should be subject to severe limitations/prohibitions -- on owning/possessing a firearm? I would agree totally, and I think most people would.

But when you use a term like "hooligans" and vaguely explain it the way you do, then it can mean anything at all...