why attack a pro gun poster. His argument was in response to a gun banner who seems to claim that since a militia is "not necessary", the right that the gun banner opposes, no longer is needed either
Calm down! It's a figure of speech. I thought it would be obvious but I keep forgetting that the right's ability to perceive sarcasm is limited. And that we have to spell it out in simple terms. What it means is that, if the militia is no longer necessary to the security of a free state, the 2nd A is obsolete. And that the grammar used can be interpreted as the framers considering that possibility.
Which means that if it's not necessary to the security of a free state, then it CAN be infringed. So says the constitution. See why I DON'T want the 2nd A repealed or changed? It makes my case! Anyway... fun as it is to play around with your strawman, it's still a waste of time... We agree on the meaning, and that's all I needed.
Because the Second Amendment has always been interpreted to protect individual rights, and has on multiple occasions been found to be precisely that by the USSC, whether or not the existence (or hypothetical existence if the 'Break Glass Only In Case Of Emergency' glass gets broken) is obsolete is not at all relevant. That individual right exists either way! Still, @Chickpea is correct, as am I, insofar that the Constitution would have to be Amended to nullify that right IF that condition were true, a contention I disagree with. Call me when mankind has gone a full century without conflict or wars anywhere on the planet, and maybe then we can see if it's an obsolete concept, until then, it's there as our emergency fall back position if our backs are against the wall and our very existence is threatened by external violence coming from one or more nation-states. However, if you ever manage to get such an Amendment passed, and even you have conceded it won't happen in your lifetime, about the only thing you've ever said that I agree with, I would argue that the RKBA is protected by the 10th Amendment in addition to the 2nd, as our founders believed and many to most of us still agree that it is a right one has just on the basis of having been born once. Unlike say cradle to grave healthcare, which so many on the left are insisting is a human right that government is obligated to provide for that same reason, a contention that is ridiculous, protecting the rights of people to arm themselves has been part of the American story and agenda since before we were even a country, and nothing has changed about that. I would caution you to be careful what you wish for, however, because this is one of those very sensitive issues that, by itself, if push ever came to shove that evolved into a fight to the death, taking away people's birthright to arm themselves may result in an internal war, literally speaking, that nobody wants. More people would die over the course of a few months if that ever happened than will over the next 1,000 years from allowing the people to have the freedoms we are entitled to. Make no mistake, you can play all the semantic games as regards the 2A that you want, it will never, ever change the fact that owning weapons is something that human beings are entitled to, though many governments currently violate that right every single day. Here, we do not, never have, and probably never will. I think it's more likely the USA will literally fail as a going concern before it ends the RKBA. And I think the chances of either one to be remote in the extreme. You're not important enough for me to waste my time. For that matter, given the more recent USSC rulings on the matter, regardless of what you might think about them, I'm not sure why I waste my time arguing with you as it is! Those decisions are in fact the law of the land, they are precedential, and for the next 4-6 decades at a minimum the RKBA will only grow and expand, especially as the INTENDED consequences of the Bruen and Heller decisions combined really start to take effect. I expect in the next year or two the supremes will take up this or that gun rights case (or cases) currently winding their way through the system, some of which have frankly already been incorrectly decided by District Courts, and I expect at least one Appeals Court to do the same, but when they really put their foot down, which IS coming, expect virtually ALL existing gun laws and regulations to go bye-bye. The GCA... Gone. FOPA... Gone. Brady Bill... GONE!!! No registrations, no licenses necessary to carry in public, no background checks, no nothing that didn't exist AS A LAW way back in 1791. And we have people who think like you to thank for it, because y'all pushed too hard, and crossed a line you're gonna end up regretting because if you hadn't done so, most of the current regs would probably have been allowed to stay, but now their very existence is in jeopardy, and it's glorious!!!
What difference does that make to the point I am making in this thread? Collectively or individually, the point is that the grammatical structure of the 2nd A as written, indicates that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed if a militia is necessary to the security of a free state. Doesn't say anything either way if it isn't. Only reason I read your whole post is because you claimed I wanted to infringe the right to keep and bear arms. Since you admit you can't produce a quote... that's all we need. Any other point you want to make, if it's something related to the meaning of the idiom "to keep and bear arms", that is explained here http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/english-102-to-keep-and-bear-arms.586083/ And if it's about what the PURPOSE of the 2nd A, the historical environment is described in the following two threads. http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/history-101-why-the-2nd-amendment.586263/ http://www.politicalforum.com/index...form-part-of-a-well-regulated-militia.589757/ And what I propose doing in regards to gun control is here http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/how-to-ban-guns-without-firing-a-single-shot.600040/ Anything else you wish to discuss... open a thread!
No, it doesn't work that way. What the USSC has done has essentially relegated the sentence about the well-regulated militia to legal meaningless, which is proper, for the multitude of reasons I and others have told you more times than a single human can even count. As such, it may as well not even exist, and the 2A functionally and legally only says, "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, shall not be infringed" as a stand-alone sentence. Which explains why they and their predecessors have ruled the way they have ruled over the 250 years since it was originally written. YOUR ONLY CHOICE TO ACCOMPLISH YOU GOAL IS TO HAVE THE 2A AMENDED INTO NON-EXISTENCE! And even then, you'll have to beat the 10th Amendment arguments that are very real, and would come into play if that ever happened... But... It's never going to happen. Gun rights are here to stay, in the next few years they're going to expand beyond your worst nightmares, and it's going to stay that way for decades at a minimum, and very likely permanently. You are tilting at windmills, and have been with every single post you make and thread you start. You're like that 90-year-old Japanese man who's been living on an uninhabited island since the 1940s and still thinks Japan might win WWII, when if fact, it's been lost for so long nobody even thinks about it outside of history discussions and lessons.
It doesn't work that way when you have an activist Supreme Court that was just looking for an excuse to legislate. In normal instances, the Supreme Court would look at the wording, consider the intentions, and decide accordingly. These thread explain what that is. And the only thing we see to counter this are a dozen gun advocates yelling "no it's not!" again and again. Not only without counter-arguments, but by trying to change the topic every chance they get. Exactly! They just chose to IGNORE it. Therefore they have legislated. Albeit temporarily until a less activist Supreme Court is established). If the framers intended for ANYTHING to be ignored, they just wouldn't have included it. I advocate for it being interpreted AS WAS INTENDED. Instead the Supreme Court chose to, as you say, ignore parts that were inconvenient to the activist agenda they had already committed to (not unlikely in exchange for lavish yacht trips and a luxury residence) way before the case even came to the court. But that's not what THESE threads are about. They are intended to discuss what the framers intended ONLY. The rest is just a side note as we have no actual way to know WHY the Supreme Court decided to legislate.
You mean as you believe (or more likely, wish) it was intended, because most intellectually honest individuals, upon a simple reading of the language of the Amendment, and the historical record surrounding it, will conclude that our wise founders intended it to be exactly what it is... An individual right that people who have not lost some or all of their rights due to their own behaviors has simply because they exist. I, and many others, maintain that owning the tools of self-defense is a human right that ALL humans are entitled to, but sadly we have many governments out there who do not honor that, just as many do not even honor the idea of free speech. Of course, with the way free speech rights have been going recently in this country, it may well end up being the next civil rights battle, and at the helm opposing it is the left, who at one time held themselves out as it's biggest defender! Regardless, your opinion isn't even worth what we all paid to read it. And it will not become the law of this country during your or my lifetimes, at least not these ones. "Shall not be infringed" should be tattooed somewhere on your body that you see on a regular basis, as to constantly remind you precisely what battle you're trying to fight, and the rights we have as free persons you wish to take away by force. You are playing a dangerous game. That's not a threat, but a prediction, because if you were ever to get your way, there are so many people who are literally willing to die to prevent your will from being done, it could, in fact I'd go so far as to say probably would cause a literal civil war. The American people simply won't put up with it.
if the supreme court in the WICKARD v FILBURN era had done the right thing rather than performed a collective Lewinsky on FDR's unconstitutional new deal, there never would have been a Heller decision.
No. As historians and linguists have PROVEN it was intended. And looks like nobody dares address their arguments directly. So I gues that means they were right. Thank you for calling me intellectually honest. I assume that's what you're saying because that's exactly what the OPs of these four threads DO: analyze the language and historical record. And since you haven't addressed the arguments... much less rebutted them (or even attempted to rebut them)... I guess that means they stand.
AGAIN changing the subject... This is about what the 2nd A, as written and approved by Congress and the States in the 18th Century. says.
I don't need to. The USSC already has on multiple occasions, and those decisions are publicly available with a simple google search. Go forth and edumacate yourself!
It's one thing to be wrong. But to be wrong AND boring, is not something most people manage to do this masterfully. Tip: if you're going to insist on being wrong, at least try to make it unique. Repeating the same phrase over and over just makes it that much harder for us to even bother opening your posts any day other than the slowest days.
Yeah... but legislation passed by the Supreme Court is only in effect until a NON-activist Supreme Court weighs in on the matter. So you're STILL going to need real arguments. And you don't have any.
You're wrong about that. Regardless, being in my early 50s, I doubt I'll live to see a day their legal decisions (Courts do not legislate) on this matter reversed, and even if that happens, there are still a lot of roadblocks to your utopia, starting with the 9th and 10th Amendments. I'm not worried.
Republican courts do. When I was in my early 50s I never DREAMED I would see a Supreme Court passing legislation that forces women to carry a fetus even in cases when medical professionals know it won't survive. Doesn't take long to get a lot of surprises. And as the extreme swing to the right subsides, you're liable to receive many. Maybe even before you're 60.
USSC Justice positions are for life, as long as they are in times of "good behavior", which has yet to be really defined. In any event, it's going to take some serious situations to unseat a Justice, as you should know, it's never happened, and it's not going to anytime soon. You're stuck with Trump's USSC picks, by FAR the best part of his Presidency, and I say that as a guy who's not all that much of a fan for many reasons, for many decades. If you were in your 50s before Roe, you will be long dead by the time it's even hypothetically possible for the composition of the Court to change in your favor, and that assumes they'll just blow off the dozens of decisions that will happen between now and then, and destroy stare decisis in the process. I understand they can and have reversed themselves, but it is very, very much not the general rule, no matter their personal feelings, which is how things are supposed to be. Justices (and all Judges as well) are supposed to rule on how the Constitution and laws are, and how they apply, not how they WISH they applied, which is the single thing I feared the most from an HRC admin, and fortunately, we dodged that disaster.
