Thank God a volunteer good guy with a gun was there to mitigate the damage. A great example of why armed guards should be protecting our schools.
She was an Armed Citizen as she had no Official standing, she was not a Police Officer or a member of the Military or the disorganized Militia.
So in reality then the comment the other poster made stating that "NRA does not represent or lobby for Firearms Manufacturers." is wrong.
The problem was that people jumped in with assumptions without reading the totality of exchanges .. anyway glad it is sorted out now. Whether the language of Miller was applied or not it still remains a SCOTUS decision and as such remains as the de facto finding until such time it is over ruled by a later finding . .which is what Heller did. Again not something I am disputing .. I suppose the simple question is does a SCOTUS ruling remain in place (rightly or wrongly) until that ruling is superseded, in this case Miller was effectively rendered moot by Heller or Brown v. Board of Education effectively overruled the decision made 58 years before in Plessy v. Ferguson. In the context of what this all started about, knowing the history isn't relevant. My assertion was that the person in question cites Supreme Court decisions when it supports their argument and refuses to even entertain Supreme Court decisions when it does not, and that both the individual right to bear arms and the right to abortion were decisions made by the Supreme Court based on interpretation of the relevant Amendments .. after all are not all SCOTUS decisions based upon interpretation?
So, you like to nitpick. I have more. In 1997 Luke Woodham fatally stabbed his mother at home before opening fire at his high school, killing two students and injuring seven others. The attack was stopped when Assistant Principal Joel Myrick retrieved his .45 caliber handgun from his truck and confronted Woodham, detaining him until authorities could arrive. In December of 2012 two people were killed and a third was seriously wounded at Clackamas Town Center near Portland, Oregon when a rifle-toting gunman opened fire in in the busy food court. Nick Meli, a shopper in the mall, drew a personally owned firearm on the gunman, who immediately retreated to a service corridor and killed himself. Meli did not fire his weapon for fear of striking bystanders yet authorities say his actions caused the gunman to cease his attack and end his own life. You didn't like the example of Assam because she was a guard. Her weapon was not a part of her job. She had to to go to her car and retrieve it. I have more examples. How many do you want before you admit you're wrong?
"The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions." [State vs. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, at 224 (1921)] When it comes to the the Right to keep and bear Arms, many times the courts have done exactly what they should NOT have done. I'm not checking all the cites given with respect to gun control, but in the past I have cited the earliest decisions and shown how the United States Supreme Court ruled, consistent with lower court precedents. Here is the problem: Once the United States Supreme Court interprets a law (in this case, the Second Amendment), they are not allowed (constitutionally) from returning and over-ruling their own precedents. Yet, this is exactly what they have done and continue to do. That is why the issue of nominating Supreme Court Justices is so important in the upcoming presidential elections. We have allowed the Supreme Court to become a legislative body. If you want to know what the Second Amendment means, read the words of our forefathers; check the earliest court decisions. When the later SCOTUS rulings began changing the meaning of the Second Amendment, realize that they may be the law; however, the Supreme Court over-stepped its authority and we do reserve the Right to exercise our authority.
I am well researched on the history of the right to bear arms and that is not the point of the debate, neither is whether SCOTUS are right or wrong in their rulings . .the fact remains that a ruling by SCOTUS remains the highest authority until such time that SCOTUS overrules that decision, and yes you the people can challenge rulings ... but only through the correct procedures, until those procedures are followed and SCOTUS rules in your favour then the decision they make stands. So while many (myself included - even as a 'foreigner') will challenge the interpretations on the constitution by SCOTUS until such time that they hear a case related to it and overrule a previous decision EVERY decision they make stands, hence why throughout the numerous cases related to the 2nd Amendment there have been numerous interpretations and numerous changes to the law to reflect those interpretations .. Miller placed restrictions on the type of firearm the individual could legally own and carry, that remained the 'law of the land' until Heller removed those restrictions. Prior to that we had Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) recognised that the 2nd Amendment only restricted the Federal government from imposing firearm restrictions, it did not stop the states from doing so, which was over ruled by McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) where the Court ruled that the Second Amendment was incorporated against state and local governments, through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and thus reversing Presser v. Illinois. The overall point of all this was to point out to another poster that by them using the Supreme Court Decision relating to the right to bear arms as an argument against another person and yet dismissing the Supreme Court Decision relating to the right to abortion when used in an argument against them .. is hypocrisy.
So, as a foreigner, you may not understand the law in this country. Sometimes the powers that be misinform people. For example, this is what the Supreme Court once opined: " The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows: The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted. Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it..... A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby. No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it." 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256: It is no secret. The United States Supreme Court set themselves up as the final arbiters of what the law is. They did NOT get it from the Constitution AND our founding fathers warned against the current usurpation of power. As citizens, we have the Right and the Duty to hold the Supreme Court accountable and one way of doing so is to refuse to allow them to legislate from the bench. If someone is ignoring unconstitutional acts (such as legislating from the bench) you can thank God that our laws support the citizen.
and who is it that decides whether a law is unconstitutional or not? As far as I am aware the Supreme Court do not make law, they only decide whether existing law is constitutional or not, and as far as I can see they have never made a law.
Ultimately, the people decide whether or not a law is unconstitutional. You will note in our history that the "law" (even the United States Supreme Court) decided that segregation was allowable under the 14th Amendment in a court case called Plessy v Ferguson back in 1896. History records that the people rebelled and began a process that ultimately reversed that decision a full 180 degrees via the courts by way of citizen action. And what was that action? People rebelled. They refused to acknowledge such laws. They kept up the pressure on the legislatures; they practiced passive resistance and civil disobedience. It was through their rejection of such laws that the Supreme Court reversed itself. The left makes these pretentious arguments that the people don't get to decide what the law is, but when faced with the fact that the left did exactly as I'm advocating with regard to segregation, they will change their line of logic in order to be consistent. Now, with respect to the Supreme Court, THEY themselves discuss avenues to make new law. If a statute is passed, litigated all the way to the Supreme Court and the court says that law means one thing, by what authority do you think the court can then reverse that decision and NOT call it making new law??? The written law did not change. No legislature thought the law was bad enough to warrant amending it. The precedents from the lower courts to the Supreme Court were decided. Nothing changed except that the Supreme Court changed the interpretation of the law. That is called legislating from the bench. The Supreme Court did it in Plessy v Ferguson when they took the same laws, same precedents and same Supreme Court rulings to reinterpret the 14th Amendment and reverse separate but equal. Equally so, the Supreme Court did it with the Right to keep and bear Arms. Would you like for me to start with the earliest precedents and show you how today's rulings are almost opposite of what the founding fathers intended and the earliest courts ruled?
Exactly the point I am making, the people can change the law .. but .. only by getting SCOTUS to look again at previous rulings, the people cannot legally change the law themselves without the Supreme Court ruling on it .. not even Congress can over rule a supreme court decision. Name a single law that the Supreme Court have made please. The Supreme Court are the ultimate deciders as to what laws are Constitutional or not, they do not make laws. That is the job of the Supreme Court ... interpretation of the Constitution as it relates to laws, and was in fact part of what many of the founding fathers wanted, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, for example, had underlined the importance of judicial review in the Federalist Papers, which urged adoption of the Constitution. Hamilton had written that through the practice of judicial review the Court ensured that the will of the whole people, as expressed in their Constitution, would be supreme over the will of a legislature, whose statutes might express only the temporary will of part of the people. And Madison had written that constitutional interpretation must be left to the reasoned judgement of independent judges, rather than to the tumult and conflict of the political process. it is evident that constitutional interpretation and application were made necessary by the very nature of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers had wisely worded that document in rather general terms leaving it open to future elaboration to meet changing conditions. No need, I have seen and researched most of them, and none of the earliest cases actually give an unrestricted right to bear arms to the individual. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) - Ruled that the Federal government could not file charges against citizens in federal court regarding violations of other citizens' constitutional rights. It was up to the states to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens when their rights were abridged by other citizens. That the 1st and 2nd Amendments were "not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens" ie while the Federal government could not limit rights of its citizens, the states could. Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) - Ruled that the Second Amendment right was a right of individuals, not militias, and was not a right to form or belong to a militia, but related to an individual right to bear arms for the good of the United States .. however, they also ruled that the Second Amendment only restrained the federal government from regulating gun ownership, not the individual states - "The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government ... " Many of the founding fathers supported the idea of Judicial review, as can be seen in the Federalist Papers (specifically No #78 )
I'm sorry, but I could not read most of your response since I had just answered it. What do you want? You want me to repeat myself? Okay Congress passes a law The courts rule on the law People keep appealing to the Supreme Court The Supreme Court says that the law means A A few years later that same Court rules the same law, same precedents means Z That, sir, is making new law. Then you claim you have all this knowledge about gun laws and Rights. Yet you couldn't cite them. Let me show it to you. The FIRST time a gun control law was over-ruled on Second Amendment grounds, the court ruled: "The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree" Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846) A provision of the Kentucky Constitution, "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned," provided the occasion for perhaps the first state judicial opinion on the nature and source of the right to bear arms. Bliss v. Commonwealth, 2 Litt. (Ky.) 90, 13 Am. Dec. 251 (1822). Defendant appealed his conviction for having worn a sword cane by asserting the unconstitutionality of an act prohibiting concealed weapons. The court held, "Whatever restrains the full and complete exercise of that right, though not an entire destruction of it, is forbidden by the explicit language of the constitution." Observing that wearing concealed weapons was considered a legitimate practice when the constitutional provision was adopted, the court reasoned: "The right existed at the adoption of the constitution; it had then no limits short of the moral power of the citizens to exercise it, and in fact consisted in nothing else but in the liberty of the citizens to bear arms. Diminish that liberty, therefore, and you necessarily restrain the right, and such is the diminution and restraint, which the act in question most indisputably imports, by prohibiting the citizens wearing weapons in a manner which was lawful to wear when the constitution was adopted." And yet again another state court ruled on this and expanded the precedent: "The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and "is excepted out of the general powers of government." A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power." Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394 (1859) This precedent would be upheld in the United States Supreme Court. In that case the Court ruled: "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." United States v Cruikshank 92 U.S. 542 (1875) The "Right" exists. It isn't dependent on the Constitution as the Right existed before the Constitution was ever written. Now, by the time we got to the Heller decision in 2008, they are reversing years of standing precedent. That court rules: "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited." WTH??? That court rules: "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever.." What??? The FIRST time a court ruled on that: "The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree." It's amazing what most people don't see. The word unalienable has a meaning. And, the Cruikshank Court admitted that the Right to keep and bear Arms is not a right granted by the Constitution. Yet they do not deny the Right exists. The Right to keep and bear Arms predates the Constitution. The Supreme Court acknowledged that much of the argument. Most legal scholars would, at this point, use the rulings of the courts to make the point: "The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions." [State vs. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, at 224 (1921)] These technical constructions by which you and the other guys are arguing are THE reason the Second Amendment means 180 degrees opposite of what the original intent was. And, we the people, have a Right to appeal to Congress; to exercise our nonviolent legal and political avenues of redress. We have the Right to employ passive resistance and civil disobedience. In the end, if we have to enforce our unalienable Rights, we have options after exhausting our nonviolent political and legal avenues of redress.
No that’s incorrect. Heller DID NOT “overrule” Miller. I would suggest that whatever secondary source you are getting your information from is misleading you, and I suggest that you actually read the case before you make this assertion. No that is also incorrect. Heller DID NOT render Miller “moot.” Again, I find it helpful to read the case before commenting. To this I say perhaps—when you consider only the narrow frame of your complaint that another is posting hypocritically. But I again suggest the history is absolutely relevant to understanding what the Court does and why it does what it does. If you read the Heller opinion, you will see that the first, oh, 45 pages or so of the opinion are devoted to the history that you deem irrelevant. And, I believe that if you will bother to read the actual opinion, you will see the Heller court’s treatment of Miller was not to overrule it or render it moot, but to explain how Miller—when properly understood—fits within this historical framework. In short, the history of the RKBA is the foundation of the entire Heller decision, and that history was used by Heller to explain how Miller should be viewed. So in the end I don’t disagree with much of what you have said to this point, but I do disagree with your argument that Heller either “overruled” Miller or rendered it “moot.” Reading the actual case--as I have done--shows this simply did not happen.
TBH I'm going to call time on this because it has moved far away from the original intent of my comment, I don't disagree with you .. I just don't come to the same conclusions you do concerning how SCOTUS judgement came to be and what they meant .. in the end we both do agree that the 2nd Amendment gives the individual the right to bear arms.
OK perhaps overruled was the wrong word to use, and I have read the case. From what I understand Miller was interpreted to support both sides of the issue, and that Heller finally(?) settled the dispute. I have read the Heller opinion, including the dissenting opinions., and I do understand how the history was used . .however, that doesn't change the reality that the Miller decision became the de facto standard until Heller. Fair enough. I'm going to call time of this debate as TBH it has gone far beyond the intent of my original comment. Thank you for taking the time to engage on this.
Thank you for a lively discussion that went civilly and respectfully. In the end, when they come for your guns, you will have to decide whether to submit to a yoke of tyranny or to resist. I think you have enough information to examine and make that determination. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Galatians 5 : 1
Explain how an armed guard does not qualify as being a private citizen, but is instead somehow elevated to a higher level of standing than any run of the mill individual.
many gun haters ignore the fact that the vast majority of police officers are civilians as well. They might not be private citizens but they are civilians vs the military. which is why any discussion of Heller and "common use" must honestly include what civilian police departments use
Actually, strictly according to Constitutional law, the Civilian Police, State and Municipal Agencies are indeed private Citizens and Civilians, as opposed to Federal Police Agencies. The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act was passed and signed into law allowing "Qualified" LEOs and Retired LEOs to carry in all U.S. States and Territories. This could also indeed benefit the regular public as it can be argued that Regular non LE Citizens should be able to qualify for the same situation, given the same working parameters. ************************ The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) is a United States federal law, enacted in 2004, that allows two classes of persons—the "qualified law enforcement officer" and the "qualified retired law enforcement officer"—to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the United States, regardless of state or local laws, with certain exceptions. LEOSA is often incorrectly referred to as "H.R. 218". The act was introduced during the 108th Congress as H.R. 218 and enacted as Public Law 108-277.[1] The law was later amended by the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act Improvements Act of 2010 (S. 1132, Public Law 111-272),[2] and Section 1099C of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (H.R. 4310, Public Law 112-239).[3] It is codified within the provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 as 18 USC § 926B[4] and USC § 926C.[5]
You guys are off the wagon. Next, you're going to tell us that an intervention in mass shooting by the military and police is an example of citizens carrying guns prevent mass shootings. Laughable !
I will always wonder why Yoda sent Luke to the Dagosa system, it always seemed a questionable Destination.
Indeed it is.Here's a video for you: [video=youtube;YR5ApYxkU-U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U[/video] Bob saw what was going on. This is why UK people are indoctrinated liberals. (Not liberals,Communists) Liberals are sane and more middle ground.Groupthink Communists are not. Don't be assimilated by The Borg.
You challenged another poster to name one time a civilian used a weapon to stop someone from shooting innocent civilians. I gave you several examples and you never apologized to the poster you challenged nor did you acknowledge the two examples that had nothing to do with police, military, nor the security guard that had to retrieve her firearm from her car to stop a mass shooter. You have no credibility on this thread.
