They Want to Take Your Guns The second amendment is always a hot topic yet one of the most misunderstood. I have seen plenty of liberals and conservatives who do not fully understand the legal arguments surrounding the issue. For today I thought I would take a break from current events and give a brief explanation of them. When conservative commentators say that liberals are trying to take away your guns people say they are hysterical but they are accurate. The second amendment reads " A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The conservatives say that since a well regulated militia is necessary people should be allowed to bear arms. Whereas liberals say that you do not have the right to bear arms unless you are part of a well regulated militia. There is no middle ground. You either have the right or it is granted to you by the government and can be taken away at their pleasure. In this particular argument the conservatives are correct. Rights and Privileges Every single item on the Bill of Rights is something granted to you because you are an American citizen. There is an argument as to whether those rights are granted to anyone on American soil but that is a separate issue which I will not touch on today. Suffice it to say that you do not need to do anything to earn these rights. If the second amendment were to be interpreted the way liberals wanted it to be, then you would have to join a well regulated militia to have the right to keep and bear arms. What do you call a right that you have to do something to attain? That is correct. It ceases to be a right and becomes a privilege instead. The ability to bear arms is now contingent on your decision to join a militia. If there is no militia at the time then you cannot bear arms. If you have a child it is similar to giving him an allowance. He does not have a right to it but may earn it by doing chores or by some other method. It is called the Bill of Rights no Bill of Rights and Privileges. Protection and Deregulation As Senator Cruz said in his debate against Senator Sanders in healthcare the bill of rights enumerates your protections from the government. The government cannot infringe on your freedom of speech, they cannot require excessive bail, they cannot quarter soldiers in your house. If interpreted the way liberals insist on then this would be the only amendment that would impose regulations or things the government can do to you. Alternatively if this was read to be protections given to the members of the militia then this would be unique as this would be the only amendment in the bill of rights to give its protections to a very small subset of people as opposed to the entire population. Historical Context We should all keep in mind that the bill of rights were made right after the Revolutionary War. The fact that a majority of Americans at that time were armed helped greatly. The army could draft people that were already armed relieving them of some need to supply them and they could draft people who already had some idea of what to do with firearms. It was similar to the British in the past forcing all the peasants to practice with the longbow for one hour every Sunday. This directly contributed to great victories such as Agincourt. At that point in time America was not yet secure in its independence and another invasion by England was not out of the question. Remedy Liberals are wrong on their interpretation of the second amendment but they are not without remedy. If they truly believe that the amendment is no longer relevant then they can work to repeal it instead of using a shortcut and having the Supreme Court rule it out of existence.
They may want them, but they're never going to get them These types of discussion are lame, Obarry in his time in office put more guns in the hands civilians than any time in fifty years. It's no longer feasible to even entertain the idea And this graph doesn't even cover Obarry's last three years in office
All you need to do it watch California and the liberal eastern states - after every failure of their already draconian gun laws to prevent a crime, they tighten the laws even more. No one on the anti-gun side with tell you how much gun control is "enough" - none of them will tell you at what point they will not seek additional restrictions on the rights of the law abiding. There's a reason for this; the perception of this reason depends on if you are one of Stalin's "useful idiots", or Stalin.
the second amendment is the only one that is violated regularly like this. When the first is violated with libel laws for instance the courts take tremendous care to make sure it only applies to the most extreme circumstances.
If the constitution read "the right to have an abortion shall not be infringed", "infringed" would take on an entirely new meaning. Imagine if a woman had to obtain a $480 permit and pay a $1000 tax to have an abortion. Imagine if a woman had to wait 3 days and undergo sex ed training before she could have an abortion on demand. Imagine if a woman had to undergo mental screening before she could have an abortion. In each of these cases, the face-melting screams from the left would be heard on the moon.
The flaw in these arguments is that there are already recognized legal limits placed on a citizens right to have a gun. A convicted felon can not own a gun he/she has lost that privilege.
Fixed that for you. How does that translate to the constitutional acceptability of restrictions on the rights of the law abiding?
I think it does a little. Here's a link you might find interesting: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psych-unseen/201510/the-psychology-guns
We can't have enough gun control precisely because of the 2nd Amendment. We as a nation can never go far enough with gun control laws to make a positive difference as long as that amendment exists and is interpreted as it has been up to the present. It is what it is.
There is no such thing as an absolute right. Freedom of speech has significant limitations. The Bush Era Patriot Act and subsequent renewals as well as the right-wing's "War on Drugs" has all but ensured that no American is "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Like it or not abortion is a right under the 4th yet the right-wing continually attempts to make its availability difficult and onerous as they continue to defile the 4th. So how would you feel if every time you went to buy a gun, you had to go 3 states away, were shown graphic pictures of children that shot themselves or were shot by others, and were forced to have a prostate exam before purchasing?
If you cannot explain why this article is meaningful to you and thus should be meaningful to others, there's no reason for me to consider it with any seriousness.
You are quite right here. The Patriot Act is an abomination of unconstitutional law that is, in a way, a sign that to an extent the terrorists have already won. The "War on Drugs" is such a monumental waste of time, money, and life, that it has done more damage to America than the drugs themselves would have.
Who's to say? It's not worded to support the modern notion of being armed against the government, but rather to be armed as part of a militia, and this was a time before today's professional, federal military existed.
They Want to Take Your Guns Don't have any guns anymore. Nope, not a one. Sold all of mine for cash to a nice biker dude. Had to be nice as his jacket had something Angels on it.