Show that they didn't.

Yeah, you don't care, that's why you started 5 threads on the topic.

This piece totally destroys any argument you think you have......

Literary Analysis

Read it.

James Madison was in favor of a standing army.

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

--James Madison; Tuesday, January 29, 1788.

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

That seems out of context to me ... what he said was

"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."

I think this is like taking a quote saying "if a regular army entirely devoted to the feds should be formed, then the State militias could repel the danger" and quoting it as saying "a regular army entirely devoted to the feds should be formed".

Have to agree with Hugh here. There's no way that James Madison was in favor of a standing army. It's possible that Alexander Hamilton was, but Madison, the Jefferson understudy? No way.

Yep, "arms" means any sort of weaponry. If it had just said "guns" or "firearms" then there would be legitimacy for making knives and bats illegal while trying to make any sort of gun control very illegal. The Framers were smart men, and put the words " arms" in there on purpose. You can defend yourself very well with either a knife or a gun.

You should be a White House spokesman with spin moves like that.

Here, let's go over how Madison really felt........

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. It is perhaps questionable, whether the best concerted system of absolute power in Europe cd. maintain itself, in a situation, where no alarms of external danger cd. tame the people to the domestic yoke. The insular situation of G. Britain was the principal cause of her being an exception to the general fate of Europe. It has rendered less defence necessary, and admitted a kind of defence wch. cd. not be used for the purpose of oppression. -These consequences he conceived ought to be apprehended whether the States should run into a total separation from each other, or shd. enter into partial confederacies. Either event wd. be truly deplorable; & those who might be accessary to either, could never be forgiven by their Country, nor by themselves. "

Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 by James Madison: June 29, 1787

"An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics -- that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe..." -- First Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1809.

Let's let the most "valuable expositor of early American republicanism" tell us what the object of the Second Amendment was.

"the [object] of [the] fourth article of amendments to the constitution, since ratified, viz. 'That a militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep, and bear arms, shall not be infringed'", was to "completely remove all room for doubt or uneasiness upon the subject" of whether "each state respectively should have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining it's own militia, whenever congress should neglect to provide for the same."

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

So, who was to be members of the militia?

Every able bodied man in America, that's who.

Just because you don't like firearms doesn't mean you will ever be able to find a single quote by the founding fathers which states that individuals do not have the right to bear arms.

You can't do it.

" Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.... [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and ... degeneracy of manners and of morals.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."--James Madison

The founding fathers gave us many warnings.

It's too bad we didn't listen.

Gee, I wonder why their writings are no longer taught in most schools.

Can't have the sheeple learning the truth now, can we?

I have never read a SINGLE QUOTE FORM THE FOUNDING FATHERS WHICH SAID INDIVIDUALS DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.

NOT ONE.

Yet there are dozens which show that individuals do have the right to bear arms.

Thomas Jefferson: "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

John Adams: "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense." (A defense of the Constitution of the US)

George Mason: "To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them." (3 Elliot, Debates at 380)

Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe." (1787, Pamphlets on the Constitution of the US)

Noah Webster: "The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops" (Noah Webster, 1787)

George Washington: "A free people ought to be armed." (Jan 14 1790, Boston Independent Chronicle.)

Thomas Jefferson: "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (T. Jefferson papers, 334, C.J. Boyd, Ed. 1950)

James Madison: "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms." (Federalist Paper #46)



Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights: "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."

Patrick Henry: "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined...The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."

James Madison: "A WELL REGULATED militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country." (1st Annals of Congress, at 434, June 8th 1789, emphasis added.

One problem with this thread is that Mick Jagger really seems to suck at putting what he means into words. It being difficult to understand what he is saying, people instead argue with things he hasn't said but that others have and that bug them.

The problem (legally) with the Heller decision is not that it is too permissive, but that it is too restrictive in its understanding of what constitutes "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." Or perhaps, restrictive in the wrong ways. The purpose of the Second Amendment was obviously military: to allow for a well-regulated militia in service to the states, obviating the need for a standing army, which was seen as an instrument of tyranny, and permitting defense by the states against a federal government gone bad.

(Yes, yes, we know, the concept of the militia included all able-bodied citizens and thus this protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, blah blah blah. Shut that voice in your head off and pay attention to what I'm actually saying here instead. Argue with that, if you want to argue, not with the voice in your head. Thank you.)

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the purpose of the 2A was military. Well, obviously, in service to a military purpose, namely the formation of a militia, one must be able to bear military weapons. That doesn't necessarily mean nukes, but it most certainly does mean assault rifles, which Scalia implied might be restricted or banned. And it means grenades, machine guns, mortars, body armor, night-vision gear, and so on, because that's the kind of equipment that an infantry trooper in a modern army uses.

The 2A, as interpreted in the Heller decision, is useless for purposes of maintaining a well-regulated militia, because precisely the types of weapons that must be kept and born are the ones that the Court says it's OK to ban. Instead, says Scalia, the weapons we can't ban are the ones normally used for completely different purposes such as home defense, target shooting, or hunting. Maybe the 2A (in its original significance) allows restricting these sorts of weapons, and maybe it doesn't -- I could see either interpretation -- but what it unquestionably doesn't allow is infringing the right to bear military weapons that can be used in a well-regulated militia. Yet the Court says otherwise.

It's interesting to speculate why. I know one plausible reason, which requires assuming that Scalia is pretty damned insightful and clever. But maybe that's the case.

The Second Amendment has not served its original purpose for over a hundred years now. We don't have a militia-based system of national defense any more; we have a very large and powerful professional standing army. The closest thing to the militia that still exists is the National Guard, and that is much more firmly under federal control than the old militia was. The reason we did this, is because of the Civil War. During the Civil War, the seceding states called up their state militias and placed them under control of the Confederate government, and the U.S. federal government called up the militias of the loyal states and federalized them. Serious unpleasantness followed. The country was not anxious to undergo a replay. Yet the Constitution calls implicitly, not only in the 2A but also in Article I, Section 8, and Article II, Section 2, for a defense force based on state militias.

We got around this by establishing the National Guard, and pretending that this was the same as the militia (which it's not). Since the Constitution doesn't explicitly outlaw standing armies, or require a militia-based defense (even though it's obvious that's what the framers had in mind), there was no need to amend the document. And a culture of gun-rights advocates and gun-control opponents arose that didn't give a damn about the militia, but only wanted to protect their own right to private ownership of firearms for non-military purposes, and among members of that subculture the 2A was (mis)interpreted to be about gun ownership for self-defense, hunting, or target shooting.

Faced with a case requiring interpretation of the 2A, the Court ruled as if the gun-rights advocates were right. The mistake in this was not so much striking down the D.C. handgun ban (I could see going either way on that), as the language saying it's OK to ban exactly the kinds of weapons that the 2A is supposed to protect. But if the Court had ruled in the legally correct fashion, the obsolescence of the 2A would have become glaringly obvious. And yes, that would have resulted in a move to amend the Constitution, perhaps creating a different right to keep and bear arms, but certainly striking down the one that exists. If the amendment were sufficiently moderate, it might actually have had a chance to pass.

So yes -- this was definitely judicial activism, legislation (even constitutional amendment) from the bench.

Why is it that people keep misreading the preforatory clause of the 2nd amendment to mean that the objective is a "well regulated militia". Even if we ignore the unambiguous grammatical fact that it is the dependent clause rather than the independent one, the object of identified is not to have a well regulated militia, but to ensure the "security of a free state".

The founders undestood that the militia (which was all able bodied men callable to arms, and not the equivalent of what is now the national guard) was indispensable in preventing despotism. They also knew from their own history that the greatest threat to the effectiveness of the militia in securing the people's freedom against despotism was the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The right referred to in the independent clause of the 2nd Amendment is the one that was already recognized universally at the time, it was not a new right being created. Whatever the specific reasons for the inclusion of that right in the Bill of Rights does not in any way shape or form limit the nature or scope of the right.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms is nothing more, and nothing less (as none of the rights in the Bill of Rights are) than those that were already understood to be the rights of Englishmen.

In fact, during the drafting convention, there was discussion about whether or not there should be inferior federal courts to the Supreme Court, or whether the state courts would be the inferior courts to the SCOTUS on matters of Federal Law. This raised a particular question of law to which Madison (I believe) responded (in minimizing the concern) that the issue raised could not occur because a defendant could not be twice tried for the same offense.

Now, this was before there was any discussion of the Bill of Rights, so what right could Madison have been referring to with regard to trial on federal crimes?

This is a clear indication that the rights enumerated (and even the word enumeration indicates the pre-existence of the rights thus enumerated) were understood to already exist, and were merely codified or "enumerated" in the Bill of Rights and not created by it.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

I read it that way because that is the history of it. In 1775 Virginia had British Troops here, supposedly to protect us, but really to dominate us. Virginia declared that a standing army in times of peace is a danger to liberty, and that the proper defense of a free State is well regulated militia composed of the people of that State. That is what the requests for the Second Amendment regard. And that is what the Second Amendment regards. All of this literary analysis about preforatory clauses and independent clauses is inane.

I don't think the question is over the right but rather over the federal protection of the right. The Second Amendment was not intended to empower the federal government to be the protector of our RKBA, and this whole attempt by people to turn the USBOR into something which increases federal jurisdiction is what the 9th Amendment was intended to prevent.

Well, parse it out completely and it becomes:

1) A well-regulated militia, being necessary to

2) The security of a free state,

3) The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The people's right to keep and bear arms is not to be infringed, because that is necessary to the security of a free state, because it allows a well-regulated militia which is such a necessity.

Marcus, I am not sure who you were addressing with this, but if it was me, I did ask I think that people respond to what I actually said and not to the voices in their heads. Much of what you've said here has no application to my post, nor (if I understand him correctly which is not certain) to the OP.

I realize (and I said) that the National Guard is not the militia. I realize that the militia was understood to be all able-bodied men, and I said that, too. I realize that the 2A guarantees an individual right, and I even said that.

My beef with Heller is that this decision actually takes away the right that was guaranteed by the 2A (unambiguously), and replaces it with one that might or might not be a valid interpretation. On the basis of that right, the Court struck down the D.C. ban. Maybe that was warranted, maybe not. But in the course of the decision, the Court also said that a ban on military arms would not violate the 2A. And that, IMO, is NOT a valid interpretation (though, since the Court is the Court, it is now the law of the land).

This is not an argument that an individual right to keep and bear arms does not exist in the Constitution. Others have made that argument. I have not. You are responding to the voices in your head, not to me. Nor, I think, to MJ.

At least the voices in my head are capable of logical thought, unlike many other voices I hear.

If you have studied the writings of the founding fathers, it is quite clear that the right to bear arms is an individual right, one that is supposed to help preserve liberty.

The D.C. gun ban was a travesty of justice and helped D.C. become the murder capital of the US for a few years.

There are some success stories to gun control, if all a person cares about is homicide rates. Of course, it is important to remember that suicide with a gun is counted as a firearm death. A misleading statistic to say the least.

Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides

Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides - USATODAY.com

So, let's take a look at a country which has truly cut it's firearm related deaths....the UK.

Up to 60,000 young people, mostly male, may be stabbed and injured each year, the equivalent of more than 160 victims a day, according to a worst-case estimate for knife violence in England and Wales.

On the other hand, the figure may be around 22,000 each year for victims aged 10 - 25-year-old.

The different between the two estimates - derived from the questioning of around 600 under-25s about whether they had been "knifed or stabbed", and then extrapolated to the wider population, with all the statistical vagaries that entails - reflects the lack of precise information about the scale of knife crime in England and Wales.

It is also unclear whether knife crime is going down or up. Available official statistics suggest it has fallen since the mid-1990s, but the Government concedes the limited figures are far from reliable.

Scotland Yard said there had been 11,168 "knife-enabled offences" - covering everything from murder to robbery with a knife - in the 10 months to February this year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...tatistics.html

IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO VIOLENCE. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLING EACH OTHER SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN RACE. Rocks and sticks can kill, as can knives and guns. Sure, guns make it a lot easier, but without firearms, a person is totally helpless against any person wielding a firearm. A 12 year old girl can take out several well trained soldiers, if the girls has a gun and the soldiers do not.

There is an old saying, one which I love. It goes............

"God made man: Sam Colt made him equal."

Man I love that saying.

"The great object is that every man be armed ... Everyone who is able may have a gun." Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 386

"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped;…" Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers # 29.

"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature." Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772.

THE FIRST LAW OF NATURE.

WE, AS AMERICANS, HAVE A RIGHT TO PROTECT O UR PROPERTY.

Now, the next time someone tries to steal your car while it is parked in the street, go ahead and shoot that person dead and see what happens.

We no longer have a right to protect our own property. Only our homes from invasion, but not property that is not part of the inside of our homes. They have excessive force bullshit laws which are a travesty of justice.

Sometimes I wish all firearms would get banned, just so we could all see what would happen. People should be careful what they wish for......they just might get it, good and hard.

Well, that's fine, Norrin, but please don't confuse them with what you're hearing from me.

I said nothing to the contrary.

Now, go back and read what I said, and, if you like, respond to that. The voices in your head are best answered -- in your head.