Actually yes I am OK with that.

If you believe the Constitution needs to be amended to allow government control of certain types of weapons, then by all means, pursue that solution.

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

yea, reading sobs blurb, I have changed my mind as well...

can, meet foot....

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

I realized this morning that I screwed up. "Federalist Papers" vs. "Articles of Confederation."

My apologies.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

The problem here is the specific and deliberate use of "the people".

There is no instance in the Bill of Rights where the phrase "the people" secures anything but an individual right. It secures an individual right in the First Amendment, and an individual right in the Fourth Amendment.

It seems highly illogical to conclude that "the people" means one thing in the First, something else in the Second Amendment, and then reverts to the original meaning in the Fourth Amendment, IMHO.

Personally, I expect the court to either rule on procedural / technical grounds, or to craft something so narrowly applied to the DC ban as to be meaningless in the more general sense of the Second Amendment nationwide.

Matt

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

Hehe, you're preaching to the choir here Matt. I think it confers an individual right so people can organise militias. I have always agreed on that interpretation. It even makes historical sense.

At the time, local militias were voluntary things where they were merely assemblies of civilians with shotguns, pistols and such who would assemble and perform duties as requested by colonial provincial and then state governments. Members could often come or go as they pleased in many cases and often did, such as if a farmer said he has to return home from the militia unit because his farm needed him. This lasted well into the 1800s, even the Civil War. For example, here in PA, the state government called out for local militias to organise and defend Harrisburg, Carlisle, Camp Hill, the Susquehanna River Bridge at Columbia on the road through York and Lancaster, etc, from Confederate raiding parties during the Gettysburg Campaign to slow them down and aid the Union Army in advancing north in order to give it time to assemble and organise against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Militiamen, especially at earlier times such as colonial Indian fights and local riots, the War of Jenkins' Ear, the French and Indian War, the Revolution, etc, were things where they brought their own guns to do the job given they couldn't rely on the government to provide them, especially if they were needed in an emergency and/or last resort situation for wars, riots, disease quarantines, weather calamities, etc. In war, bounties could be paid and legitimate war booty from the enemy could often be taken as prizes. Hollywood movies are usually poor historical citations due to artistic licence for entertainment purposes, but the movie, The Patriot, did an honest job showing how a militia operated during the Revolution. Authorised privateers with letters of marque and reprisal--also mentioned in the Constitution as to who will be authorised to grant the letters--were pretty much the naval equivalent to the militias.

But, obviously many people and courts have viewed the 2A differently in its meaning and hence the ongoing debate. It owes a final answer to settle the debate. And the SCOTUS has been avoiding it since 1787, which is absolutely disgraceful given it has books of decisions on the other provisions and thus can only be viewed, IMO, as wilfully avoiding its obligation to properly define the 2A along with the rest of the Constitution. It's selection of the D.C. case whilst avoiding all those involving states isn't missed by me and if past practice means anything, it very well could be another selection meant to dodge a final answer. D.C. is federal property and not a state and therefore there is no 'state militia' that its federal residents could organise. Moreover, the 2A was intended as a guarantee from the federal government to the states. It wasn't a guarantee against itself, and D.C. is 'itself.' The SCOTUS could surprise me by having chosen this case to decide the 2A comprehensively, which would be excellent, but longstanding court practice is to only decide issues so much to answer the exact dilemma and not answer anything beyond it. Thus, I suspect this case is a dog and pony show moreso than a final answer if past practice and procedure is followed.

For the individual right argument, though, I also point out two obstacles--1) the SCOTUS' prior agreement with a New Jersey case that the 2A is a federal guarantee to the states and does not prevent state gun restrictions and that the court lack jurisdiction to hear such state ban claims, and 2) if states now only authorise their state National Guard to be their militia, that may make individual ownership claims insofar as against state regulations moot given no other militias are authorised by that state. These are good counterarguments made by the gun ban proponents that explain why there are good and tough questions to be resolved for either direction and that's why the SCOTUS needs to address the 2A comprehensively--whatever century they feel like getting around to it, that is.

It's not going to happen.

There are many many people like me that say "They can have my guns after they murder me FOR them."

They know this.

Not going to happen.

Absolutely correct.

They argued about what it was suppose to mean then. They may not have been idiots but they could not have had any idea what things would be like in 100 years ie electricity and the combustion engine. That is not their fault. Whose fault it is is the luddites who cynically cower behind an outdated irrelevant law when they find themselves bereft of logical argument.

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An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

Of course they had no specific knowledge of what rights and liberties would be like years in the future, but they realized this shortcoming. They created a well defined procedure to modify the Constitution to address this very problem. In this case, the second amendment was written with the understanding that every able bodied citizen would be counted on to arm themselves for the nation’s defense. If this has become an outmoded concept, the amendment should be modified or repealed, not simply dismissed out of hand.

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Election 2008 – Addicted to Placebos

This isn't a law but a provision of the Constitution. Statutory laws can't even be made in violation of any provision of it because someone feels any particular provision is 'outdated' or 'irrelevant' in their personal opinion. Provisions are absolutely relevant. They are the primal relevance actually. Constitutional provisions deprive the jurisdiction to make any laws in contravention thereto. The only legal and proper way to achieve removing an 'outdated' provision is to amend the Constitution if enough people agree to the proposal and amend it.

And as a matter of practicality, if Constitutional provisions were allowed to be ignored on such claims, then it merely becomes a toothless tiger and society placed at the mercy of whims, even bad ones.

What would an anti-torture advocate say, for example, if pro-torture politicians decided that the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment was "outdated?" What would people who support keeping religion out of government say to Religious Right lobbyists and politicians who think the government and religion should work together putting religious opinions into law and feel the First Amendment is "outdated" and harmful to the "moral health of the nation?" The answer is obvious--they can't breach those amendments and must respect them unless amended to allow them to do so, which naturally they would oppose.

Usurpation of power is what ignoring a Constitutional provision entails. It breaches the fundamental law of the land, and denies those in opposition to the usurper's ideas their due rights under the law of the land to oppose amendments, with the usurpers simply choosing to seize the power over the Constitution and the people.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out. I think the ruling will be likely be focused on DC. Forgive my ignorance, but is there no provisions for someone to have a handgun in DC outside of law enforcement?
I dont see any signifigant changes coming down the pipe concerning gun control measures in my state.

The D.C. ban was drawn to prohibit the possession of a functioning firearm by a private resident.

I am aware of that much, was there no provisions for someone to legally own a handgun at all? Pistol club etc?

Gun laws in the United States (by state) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


More specifically;

http://www.nraila.org/statelawpdfs/DCCL.pdf

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Election 2008 – Addicted to Placebos

considering the move toward tyrannical usurping of the power of the US government with no real representation of the people by either the president or the congress , and the violation of their very oaths of office.

anyone who believes the 2nd amendment wasnt well thought out or that it is not relevent today has no idea of what they are talking about ,and/or have an agenda of their own which itself is contrary to the constitutional government of the USA.

frankly , it isnt about hunting , it is about self defense , but only partly , it is mainly about being able to force our government back into the path that the constitution states is proper if it is taken over from outside or if it gets too big for it's britches on it's own.

this was the main reason for the amendment as stated in the federalist papers .

one only has to look at th founding fathers intentions and writings to see exactly what was meant and considering the headlines in our papers everyday , it is certainly very relevent and not outdated by any means.

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I just neutered the cat , now he is a Liberal

Thanks

Perfectly stated