2A Argument

[janice6]

2 hours ago, Cubdriver said:

Another one I like is that the founders couldn't possibly have foreseen the development of semi and fully automatic weapons, so the second doesn't cover them.  But of course the first covers radio, television and the interwebs, despite the fact that said weapons were developed while electricity was still a laboratory curiosity and we were decades away from electronic communication.  And some of the same people who say the founders couldn't have foreseen things more advanced than muzzle loading muskets will also say that the second was written for the national guard, which, IIRC, came to be some time after WWI.  So they were really prescient on the one hand but totally oblivious on the other.  Quite the mix, those guys who founded our country.

-Pat

https://www.historyandheadlines.com/may-15-1718-first-machine-gun-patented-james-puckle/

[holyjohnson]

the ending of the Second Amendment states it perfectly and should end any arguments.

"shall not be infringed."

 

 

and yes,the antis have been making the same tired argument for 30 years now about what is a militia,the Militia in 1789 was the same farmers that fought at Lexington and concord they had no training and not enough arms to defend themselves or the towns they lived in thats why they had to stockpile stolen and smuggled British arms and powder which is what the Redcoats were coming to destroy,they were no standing trained and equipped Army. 

the the definition of a militia is

mi·li·tia

/məˈliSHə/

Learn to pronounce

noun

a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.

"creating a militia was no answer to the army's manpower problem"

• a military force that engages in rebel or terrorist activities in opposition to a regular army.
• all able-bodied civilians eligible by law for military service.

Edited September 10, 2019 by holyjohnson

[janice6]

When I listen to arguments against the 2nd Amendment, and the conviction placed on it's being a privilege granted by the government, I believe I have never heard such long winded and convoluted reaction to a guaranteed Constitutional freedom, by those so determined to be ruled by tyrants, and so willing to give up their ability to choose for themselves. 

I can't believe that many are so afraid of life that they want others to control and dictate to them.

[tadbart]

SO much reason and well-thought-out arguments in this thread!

 

I imagine, that given a resurrection to DC today, the Founding Fathers would marvel briefly at the technology, then chase today's politicians around much the way Jesus flipped tables and used a bullwhip in the Temple of Jerusalem.

[Ramjet38]

On 9/8/2019 at 8:19 AM, RS_Rider said:

 

 

I've seen this before and it still suprises me Penn views this way.  Good for him.

[holyjohnson]

4 hours ago, janice6 said:

When I listen to arguments against the 2nd Amendment, and the conviction placed on it's being a privilege granted by the government, I believe I have never heard such long winded and convoluted reaction to a guaranteed Constitutional freedom, by those so determined to be ruled by tyrants, and so willing to give up their ability to choose for themselves. 

I can't believe that many are so afraid of life that they want others to control and dictate to them.

worse that most of the ones who want only the .Gov to have the guns are calling the current .Gov hitlerian and Fascist and dictatorial.

they tend to invalidate any argument for abolishing the 2A with any Defense of the other Amendments and the hysteria of the current Administration.

we have now given Political ideas to the lunatic ramblings of people with inferiority complexes and allow them to make agendas.

Edited September 9, 2019 by holyjohnson

[OwlsNest465]

James Madison, Federalist #46:

Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it. The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form, which appears altogether conclusive. Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. On the other supposition, it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people. On summing up the considerations stated in this and the last paper, they seem to amount to the most convincing evidence, that the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union; and that all those alarms which have been sounded, of a meditated and consequential annihilation of the State governments, must, on the most favorable interpretation, be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the authors of them.

[Dric902]

It seems the average intelligence of the elected officials has deteriorated substantially since the founding.

few in DC, right now, would have difficulty understanding that explanation. Let alone compose it.

 

AOC would say.....TL/DR

 

.

[Peng]

The actual words in the 2A can be argued forever (as you have seen).  What is more important than the words are the interpretations of those words that shape legislation.  Point her to the SCOTUS cases on this and their arguments and decisions.  They must be around somewhere, I don't know offhand.

This is very much likes the rules of golf actually.  You learn much more by reading the decisions on the rules than the rules themselves.

[janice6]

“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few politicians.” – George Mason, co-author of the 2nd Amendment.

"By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia,' 'the security of the nation,' and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy... The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important." John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 1959 letter to E.B. Mann quoted: Gun Digest 1974

"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm... is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege."   Arkansas Court Decision Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. - 1878

“The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.”
Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session ( February 1982 )

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”  Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

“Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence”  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark - Mapp vs. Ohio

“Trying to wage war on 23 million Americans who are obviously very committed to certain recreational activities is not going to be any more successful than Prohibition was.”

US District Judge James C. Paine, addressing the Federal Bar Association in Miami, November, 1991

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."   George Washington

"The Constitution shall never be construed … to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." – Samuel Adams

 

"The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life."   -- Justice William O. Douglas

 

That's all I got at hand.  Research will produce more.

[OwlsNest465]

Tench Coxe - Bill of Rights Journal:

Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.