Gun Control

[HenryT2]

Re: Gun Control

I think somewhere in this thread, it was mentioned that the people have the right to have the same weapons as the military. Can someone reference data that shows citizens owning cannons throughout the 1800's.

Well, I cannot vouch for people during the 1800,s ; but, I do know some people that own ( and use ) cannons today. You may know some people as well .....

They are the Civil War buffs; and they have mock battles at different historical locations all around the country.
Some of these canons are authentic, but most are reproductions, and they all CAN fire projectiles. During these BATTLES, they are loaded with black-powder and a WAD of cloth. ( It's all just smoke and noise ) . But they are fun to watch....

[MR Bill]

Re: Gun Control

I don't agree with a lot of what Pres Obama has to say but I would not call him a idiot.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Gun Control

Thread is getting boring so I found some stuff to throw in.


The Second Amendment states:

• "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Pro-gun advocates claim that this amendment guarantees their individual right to own a gun, and that gun control laws are therefore a violation of their constitutional rights. In fact, the term "violation of our Second Amendment rights" has become a battle cry in gun lobbyist literature, repeated everywhere in their editorials and essays.

However, this raises a fascinating observation. If gun control laws are so obviously a violation of the Second Amendment, then why doesn't the National Rifle Association challenge them on constitutional grounds before the Supreme Court? The answer is that they know they face certain defeat, for reasons we shall explore below. Consequently, the NRA has abandoned all hope in the courts.

Instead, the NRA has chosen to lobby Congress to prevent gun control legislation, and has become in fact one of the most powerful lobbies on Capital Hill. This is a supreme and exquisite irony, given the conservative and libertarian's love of constitutions and hatred of democracy. But, at any rate, the NRA is fighting for its perceived constitutional rights on Capital Hill, by bribing our legislators with millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

The reason is because the Supreme Court -- this nation's final arbiter on the interpretation of the Constitution -- has always ruled that the Second Amendment does not extend the right to keep and bear arms toindividuals, but to the well-regulated militias mentioned in the first part of the amendment. Specifically, these are militias that are regulated by the federal and state governments. Article I, Section 8 authorizes Congress:

• "To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

The Founders were passionately opposed to standing peacetime armies -- in fact, Thomas Jefferson listed it as one of their grievances against the British Crown in the Declaration of Independence. Intent on eliminating this evil, they created a system whereby citizens kept their arms at home and could be called by their state militias at a moment's notice. These militias eventually became the states' National Guard, and the courts have always interpreted them that way.

In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled in Presser vs. Illinois that the Second Amendment only prevents the federal government from interfering with a state's ability to maintain a militia, and does nothing to limit the states' ability to regulate firearms. Which means that states can regulate, control and even ban firearms if they so desire!

Even so, this left a question about how much the federal government can limit a citizen's right to own a gun. In 1939, the Supreme Court addressed this issue in United States vs. Miller. Here, the Court refused to strike down a law prohibiting the interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun on the basis of the Second Amendment. Rejecting the argument that the shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia," the Court held that the Second Amendment "must be interpreted and applied" only in the context of safeguarding the continuation and effectiveness of the state militias.

In United States v. Warin, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1976 upheld the conviction of an illegal gun-owner who argued that his Second Amendment rights had been violated. In pointed language, the court wrote: "It would unduly extend this opinion to attempt to deal with every argument made by defendant...all of which are based on the erroneous supposition that the Second Amendment is concerned with the rights of individuals rather than those of the states."

In 1972 Justice William O. Douglas wrote: "A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment....There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police."

Gun advocates have bitterly decried the "activist courts" that have supposedly changed the plain meaning of the constitution. But over 100 years of courts have interpreted a states'-rights meaning, and so has a broad body of constitutional scholars. Gun advocates simply have a different "plain meaning" of the constitution than everyone else, one that coincidentally legalizes their desired goal of owning weapons.

But even accepting the gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment does not spare the gun owner from gun control. The amendment simply states that the people have a right "to keep and bear" arms. It says absolutely nothing about regulating them for safety, design or caliber. The gun lobby argues that the lack of of such language means that individuals are free to own any arms they please, and government cannot use constitutional silence to infer permission to regulate them. But this isn't true; look at the First Amendment. It simply says that "congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" -- yet the government regulates countless forms of speech -- slander, malicious falsehoods, fraud, insider trading, etc. -- and these regulations are upheld by the Supreme Court. The same principle applies to the regulation of guns.

This point becomes especially important when considering the regulation of arms by category. For example: do the people have a right to own nuclear weapons? (Pro-gun advocates contemptuously call this the "nuclear straw-man argument," yet they have not even come close to providing a satisfactory answer to it.) How about chemical and biological weapons? Tanks? Battleships? Bombers? In a society where people get drunk, angry, jealous, self-destructive and mentally ill, you certainly wouldn't want the unregulated sale of nuclear weapons on the market. Prohibition of such arms seems like the best thing to do, but, strictly speaking, that too would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

Some pro-gun advocates admit that a literalist interpretation allows the right to keep and bear all arms, including nuclear weapons, and that this is surely archaic. Certainly the Founders could not have foreseen or intended this situation. However, pro-gun advocates claim the correct reaction of modern America should be to amend the constitution to exclude ownership of nuclear weapons; creatively interpreting the constitution is the wrong way.


I did not write it, I just thought it would add to the discussion.

[Darren King]

Re: Gun Control

Thread is getting boring so I found some stuff to throw in.


The Second Amendment states:

• "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Pro-gun advocates claim that this amendment guarantees their individual right to own a gun, and that gun control laws are therefore a violation of their constitutional rights. In fact, the term "violation of our Second Amendment rights" has become a battle cry in gun lobbyist literature, repeated everywhere in their editorials and essays.

However, this raises a fascinating observation. If gun control laws are so obviously a violation of the Second Amendment, then why doesn't the National Rifle Association challenge them on constitutional grounds before the Supreme Court? The answer is that they know they face certain defeat, for reasons we shall explore below. Consequently, the NRA has abandoned all hope in the courts.

Instead, the NRA has chosen to lobby Congress to prevent gun control legislation, and has become in fact one of the most powerful lobbies on Capital Hill. This is a supreme and exquisite irony, given the conservative and libertarian's love of constitutions and hatred of democracy. But, at any rate, the NRA is fighting for its perceived constitutional rights on Capital Hill, by bribing our legislators with millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

The reason is because the Supreme Court -- this nation's final arbiter on the interpretation of the Constitution -- has always ruled that the Second Amendment does not extend the right to keep and bear arms toindividuals, but to the well-regulated militias mentioned in the first part of the amendment. Specifically, these are militias that are regulated by the federal and state governments. Article I, Section 8 authorizes Congress:

• "To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

The Founders were passionately opposed to standing peacetime armies -- in fact, Thomas Jefferson listed it as one of their grievances against the British Crown in the Declaration of Independence. Intent on eliminating this evil, they created a system whereby citizens kept their arms at home and could be called by their state militias at a moment's notice. These militias eventually became the states' National Guard, and the courts have always interpreted them that way.

In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled in Presser vs. Illinois that the Second Amendment only prevents the federal government from interfering with a state's ability to maintain a militia, and does nothing to limit the states' ability to regulate firearms. Which means that states can regulate, control and even ban firearms if they so desire!

Even so, this left a question about how much the federal government can limit a citizen's right to own a gun. In 1939, the Supreme Court addressed this issue in United States vs. Miller. Here, the Court refused to strike down a law prohibiting the interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun on the basis of the Second Amendment. Rejecting the argument that the shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia," the Court held that the Second Amendment "must be interpreted and applied" only in the context of safeguarding the continuation and effectiveness of the state militias.

In United States v. Warin, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1976 upheld the conviction of an illegal gun-owner who argued that his Second Amendment rights had been violated. In pointed language, the court wrote: "It would unduly extend this opinion to attempt to deal with every argument made by defendant...all of which are based on the erroneous supposition that the Second Amendment is concerned with the rights of individuals rather than those of the states."

In 1972 Justice William O. Douglas wrote: "A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment....There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police."

Gun advocates have bitterly decried the "activist courts" that have supposedly changed the plain meaning of the constitution. But over 100 years of courts have interpreted a states'-rights meaning, and so has a broad body of constitutional scholars. Gun advocates simply have a different "plain meaning" of the constitution than everyone else, one that coincidentally legalizes their desired goal of owning weapons.

But even accepting the gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment does not spare the gun owner from gun control. The amendment simply states that the people have a right "to keep and bear" arms. It says absolutely nothing about regulating them for safety, design or caliber. The gun lobby argues that the lack of of such language means that individuals are free to own any arms they please, and government cannot use constitutional silence to infer permission to regulate them. But this isn't true; look at the First Amendment. It simply says that "congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" -- yet the government regulates countless forms of speech -- slander, malicious falsehoods, fraud, insider trading, etc. -- and these regulations are upheld by the Supreme Court. The same principle applies to the regulation of guns.

This point becomes especially important when considering the regulation of arms by category. For example: do the people have a right to own nuclear weapons? (Pro-gun advocates contemptuously call this the "nuclear straw-man argument," yet they have not even come close to providing a satisfactory answer to it.) How about chemical and biological weapons? Tanks? Battleships? Bombers? In a society where people get drunk, angry, jealous, self-destructive and mentally ill, you certainly wouldn't want the unregulated sale of nuclear weapons on the market. Prohibition of such arms seems like the best thing to do, but, strictly speaking, that too would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

Some pro-gun advocates admit that a literalist interpretation allows the right to keep and bear all arms, including nuclear weapons, and that this is surely archaic. Certainly the Founders could not have foreseen or intended this situation. However, pro-gun advocates claim the correct reaction of modern America should be to amend the constitution to exclude ownership of nuclear weapons; creatively interpreting the constitution is the wrong way.


I did not write it, I just thought it would add to the discussion.

Why can't your supreme court come up with an interpretation of the 2nd amendment and put an end to the ambiguity?
When I read it, it seems to say that it is ok to own a gun, if you are in a state militia. But it can be interpreted other ways I'm sure.

[Shadow1]

Re: Gun Control

[HenryT2]

Re: Gun Control

Just saw this on the news .......

Biden encourages Americans to use shotguns to scare off intruders | Fox News

[Acme]

Re: Gun Control

So THATS why shelves are empty.
Why is the Department of Homeland Security buying so many bullets? | Fox News

[Shadow1]

Re: Gun Control

Conventional wisdom is that they're prepping for a 2nd civil war. Many other conspiracy theories, but the only official response I'm aware of (and I freely admit I haven't researched this) is that they're acquiring ammo for routine training and target practice.

[Acme]

Re: Gun Control

Thats ALOT of ammo for target practice....

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Gun Control

Biometrics! I know it sounds like it sounds like Star Wars. But could this be the soon to be future solution to gun ownership be the answer to the gun violence in the USA.

It would greatly help to eliminate stolen guns, illegally sold guns, straw dog gun sales and private gun sales in the USA. The original owner of the firearm and the persons associated with that gun would have to have register that gun with state/federal associated.

Yes, I have read the argruements against biometrics and they mostly deal with hypothetical situations involving about hands with gloves,water, blood and distress distorting the potential stats but they are mostly hypothetical worst cause scenarios.

I know there are many agruments against this technological form of perceived gun control t but gain bangers can always get guns from somewhere (300 million estimated guns in the USA today, you have to start somewhere).

I know it will increase the cost of new guns purchasers.

I know the technology is not there yet but for the cost of one F22 fighter jet, a solution is within grasp of a current phenonmem that kills 10k USA citizens per year (192 per week),albeit mostly with ilgeal handguns.

[Shadow1]

Re: Gun Control

<Snip>
I know the technology is not there yet... <Snip>

...and the first and only time that technology fails may result in the homicide of my son or daughter. Not worth it - 2nd Amendment - Zero excuses. I will not be held accountable for the actions of a criminal. I will not have my right to protect my family removed because someone else can't get their mental status sorted. Protecting my family is priority one - Period... and that includes from my own government, and the aforementioned people who have a screw loose.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Gun Control

I have recently read that if the US Federal Gov't were to make biometrics mandatory for hand guns there is a strong case that such a law would not violate any 2A rights.

The tragic case of Oscar Pistorius shooting his girl friend to death with a 9 mm handgun is further proof that such weapons can be as dangerous to those who reside in a home as it is to intruders.

[MR Bill]

Re: Gun Control

And if he didn't have a hand gun she would have died from a blow to the head with a freaking hammer. Damn.

And if she had a gun to PROTECT herself from this guy she would be alive today.?

We can just go round and round on this one can't we??

[BLADE]

Re: Gun Control

bathroom shootout

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Gun Control

Mr Bill, you can speculate, I am talking the facts. A handgun, one that was apparently stored loaded on the floor, under a bed, killed Oscar Pistorius's girl friend. Maybe if the gun was properly secured, Oscar would have had time to awaken from his unfounded panic to realize there were no intruders in his home and not shot his girl friend seven times dead.

Also, are you seriously suggesting that a couple should arm themselves against each other?