Gun Bans Unconstitutional

[nathanm]

Do you really believe the writers of the constitution believed that the word "arms" meant unlimited firepower and and an unlimited number of guns? Their only experience was muskets and cannons at that point and I doubt anyone they knew owned more than a few of them.

I find it hard to believe that they anticipated any American would need the right to own a thousand Uzis.

It's pretty clear that the distinction made between personal arms and arms that would be stored in an armory is a reasonable one.

I'm pretty happy with the decision, personally. While I think that in general the more local the government the better an idea of what laws its locality needs, I also think that outright bans were going too far.

[custosnox]

Do you really believe the writers of the constitution believed that the word "arms" meant unlimited firepower and and an unlimited number of guns? Their only experience was muskets and cannons at that point and I doubt anyone they knew owned more than a few of them.

I find it hard to believe that they anticipated any American would need the right to own a thousand Uzis.

It is often said that the 2nd amendment exists in case the government forgets the rest.  It has also been said (by one of our founding fathers, I just can't remember which) that a government should fear it's people, not the other way around.  With this in mind, would it not make sense that the founding fathers meant to make sure that the people should keep a level playing field with the government?  But then again, if you read the federalist papers, the Federal government was supposed to be smaller then a state government, so we kind of pissed all over the founding fathers ideas as it is.

[nathanm]

But then again, if you read the federalist papers, the Federal government was supposed to be smaller then a state government, so we kind of pissed all over the founding fathers ideas as it is.

There have been what, 18 amendments to the Constitution since then? I'd hope we aren't doing things exactly as Washington, Jefferson, et al. desired.

Not that they seemed to have a problem putting down armed rebellions in the first place..

[Gaspar]

A Musket. . .LOL. . .I actually do own a musket. . .but you can't imagine what else I own.

No. . .The framers put no limit on arms in the second amendment.  Not because they didn't anticipate advances in weaponry, but because that would undermine its very purpose.  The right to bear arms has more to do with personal protection and our duty to cast off an oppressive and controlling government, than it has to do with hunting or sport.

This country was founded as a result of the exercise of "right of revolution."  Our government is designed to fear the people.  The constitution was written not just to protect us from each other, but to protect us from government. 

Sure we continue to lose our way and offer up more of our freedoms to government, and some day we will have slouched into tyranny, but not yet!  The last act of a free nation, just before it falls from public control is the loss of gun rights.  History has taught us that again and again.

You have to understand that The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others. . .That was the intent of the framers.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. – Thomas Jefferson

Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out ... People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically "right." Guns ended that, and a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work. – L. Neil Smith

[nathanm]

No. . .The framers put no limit on arms in the second amendment.  Not because they didn't anticipate advances in weaponry, but because that would undermine its very purpose.  The right to bear arms has more to do with personal protection and our duty to cast off an oppressive and controlling government, than it has to do with hunting or sport.

No, going by the language of the 2nd Amendment, it has more to do with having a citizenry proficient in the use of firearms for the defense of our nation against foreign aggressors (or whatever other use the militia may have).

As one of the most clearly worded statements in the entire Constitution it amazes me that people still manage to read what they want to read in it. It's not that hard to figure out what "well regulated militia" and "arms" meant in 1787.

Oh, and Gaspar, way to trot out a canard. If you haven't noticed, there are lots of guns in the middle east, yet all of the governments in that region are quite oppressive when it comes to individual rights. So no, gun rights are not nearly as related to freedom as you claim.

[RecycleMichael]

I am not opposed to individual ownership of guns. My father has carried a gun on him more days than not in his life. My brother is a licensed gun dealer and one of my best friends owns more guns than I have facebook friends.

I am just discussing what the words "right to bear arms" was meant in the eyes of the framers of the constitution. I think they believed everybody had a right to own guns to protect themselves. They probably even thought that every household should own a few weapons. But their experience when they wrote that was "arms" meant long rifles and shotguns that could only fire once every minute or so. They would have never conceived of guns that could fire hundreds of rounds per minute.

But I also have a problem with the interpretation that says there should never be any limits of any type on gun ownership. I think even the founding fathers would feel reasonable limits would be prudent.

I also think that if you feel that you need 1,000 Uzis to protect yourself, you are living in the wrong neighborhood.

[bugo]

I also think that if you feel that you need 1,000 Uzis to protect yourself, you are living in the wrong neighborhood.

But who owns 1000 Uzis?  Sounds like a strawman to me.

[swake]

A Musket. . .LOL. . .I actually do own a musket. . .but you can't imagine what else I own.

No. . .The framers put no limit on arms in the second amendment.  Not because they didn't anticipate advances in weaponry, but because that would undermine its very purpose.  The right to bear arms has more to do with personal protection and our duty to cast off an oppressive and controlling government, than it has to do with hunting or sport.

This country was founded as a result of the exercise of "right of revolution."  Our government is designed to fear the people.  The constitution was written not just to protect us from each other, but to protect us from government. 

Sure we continue to lose our way and offer up more of our freedoms to government, and some day we will have slouched into tyranny, but not yet!  The last act of a free nation, just before it falls from public control is the loss of gun rights.  History has taught us that again and again.

You have to understand that The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others. . .That was the intent of the framers.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. – Thomas Jefferson

Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out ... People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically "right." Guns ended that, and a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work. – L. Neil Smith

You are quoting Jefferson alongside the, ahem, "author" of this??

[Gaspar]

You are quoting Jefferson alongside the, ahem, "author" of this??

You should see it on Broadway.

[we vs us]

Even if you've got a dude in north Tulsa somewhere with 1000 uzis stashed under his waterbed, he'd gonna be able to do love-all against a remote drone attack, or professional squad combat, or a coordinated armor offensive, to say nothing of an Apache attack helicopter or a fighter jet strike. 

Point being, while the idea that the right to bear arms exists to ensure our ability to overthrow our own government, we ceased to practically be able to manage that decades ago.  In order to have that kind of balance of power, we'd have to have access to much more than just sidearms.  We'd have to be able to buy multi-million dollar Abrams tanks, etc.  Not to mention the training to effectively use it. Killing technology has gotten not only more complicated, it's gotten team-intensive and very very expensive. 

In a hypothetical Second American Revolution, the only way to win against the existing government is to wage a guerrilla war with popular support, and I have to be honest, IMO the "myth" of America is so strongly ingrained in the populace that it would take an amazing amount of abuse to turn people against the gov.  Like, concentration-camp, mass-extermination-level abuse.  Mere high taxes or garden variety corruption (pork) won't do it. 

[Townsend]

  Like, concentration-camp, mass-extermination-level abuse. 

Even then it'd depend on who's on the receiving end of that.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Wevus,
You mean like the government treatment of Indians, blacks, Irish, Chinese, and Mexicans??


When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

And the framers also had no concept of steam locomotives, automobiles, rocket ships, recombinant DNA or stem cell research.  But the Constitution DOES have the adaptability to deal with all those items because of the system it defines.  Except we have allowed it to become so perverted that it is rapidly becoming a hollow shell of itself.  Who in anything approaching their right mind would actually declare - and mean it! - that a business entity is actually entitled to the privileges and rights of being one of "The People"?

It's as if a John Deere tractor had suddenly grown a mind and soul and become a person!

But that is the type of grotesque perversion we are dealing with today because of the graft and corruption we the voters have put in place to govern.

[Gaspar]

Wevus,
You mean like the government treatment of Indians, blacks, Irish, Chinese, and Mexicans??


When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

And the framers also had no concept of steam locomotives, automobiles, rocket ships, recombinant DNA or stem cell research.  But the Constitution DOES have the adaptability to deal with all those items because of the system it defines.  Except we have allowed it to become so perverted that it is rapidly becoming a hollow shell of itself.  Who in anything approaching their right mind would actually declare - and mean it! - that a business entity is actually entitled to the privileges and rights of being one of "The People"?

It's as if a John Deere tractor had suddenly grown a mind and soul and become a person!

But that is the type of grotesque perversion we are dealing with today because of the graft and corruption we the voters have put in place to govern.

I guess it's Bazzaro day or something, because you are starting to make sense.

What did QT put in my coffee?

[we vs us]

Townsend put the finer point on it . . . it definitely matters WHO'S on the receiving end of the mass slaughter/concentration camps/etc.  It doesn't take a deep reading of our history to understand that we're as eager as most other cultures to find marginal groups and keep them marginalized, by force if necessary.

I suspect Jefferson's quote was one of the more radical of the founders' in relation to its subject.  He was always a bit of a pastoralist.  

In the end, though, I wonder if having armed revolution built into the founding documents wasn't too much of a contradiction for the government to bear.  Meaning that either the government had to be weak enough to accept that coups could happen regularly -- and face the possibility of permanent instability and even losing our form of government altogether -- or it had to envelope that particular right and nullify it enough so that the government could guarantee its own survival, and that other parts of our democracy could function.

I mean, imagine if that ability to revolt had kept primacy over our other rights.  We'd look a lot like the tin-pot dictatorships down in South America by now, and I guarantee you we might still have a constitution or a bill of rights but it would have just about as much force as the Venezuelan constitution or bill of rights does at this point.

I'd say also that the Civil War was as much a referendum on our right to have a Second Revolution as anything, and after hundreds of thousands dead, I'd say the issue is settled.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I always make sense.  It's the coffee.


Jefferson had a lot of very good things to say.  Then turned around and owned slaves.

I particularly like Benjamin Franklin.  One of my favorite of his writings is his book, "Fart Proudly".  Very good book.
As is his autobiography, etc, etc.