The Second amendment

[Hermit]

For speakers of the English language it can mean either.

You have been quite unhelpful.

You haven't paid quite enough for a thorough explanation.

[Brian Peacock]

This was only part 3.

Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxvxbZGjlv4
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNtxtuQxUz8

[Tero]

In Washington State 1889 the state understood the US 2nd Amendment to be a rule to deal with the feds and states. These militias and other business was to be run by states. The 2nd Amendment is therefore just a warning to the federal gov't that people in states WOULD have guns, and militias, but it was none of the business of the Federal Gov't to limit it. States could.

Article 1, Section 24 of Washington’s Constitution states: “The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.”

This language contrasts with the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which recites the necessity of “a well regulated militia” and then confirms “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Both versions trace their lineage back to the 1215 Magna Carta and to 17th century English demands to preserve local public militias to counterbalance the king’s use of a professional army against individual liberties. Until very recently, legal scholars and American courts viewed the Second Amendment as only protecting states’ rights to retain their national guards. But state constitutional language like ours expressly mentions an individual’s right to bear arms in defense of himself as well as the community. Why does our state have different wording?

Most 19th century Washingtonians lived on farms and needed shotguns to safeguard their crops from crows and deer as well as rifles to defend against more dangerous mammals. For a very short time in Washington Territory’s history, tensions with Native Americans led some settlers to feel they needed to have weapons available.

Concealed weapons were banned for everyone except police and railroad detectives, and pistols had to be carried on the hip in plain view. The popular view was that only card sharks and other low-lifers would hide their handguns. Statutes prohibited any form of guns in bars and taverns, or brandishing firearms in public.

In 1886, three years before statehood, Puget Sound cities were wracked by organized anti-Chinese riots in which citizen militias tried to round up Chinese workers and ship them to San Francisco. In Seattle, the mayor and governor had to call in student cadets from the University of Washington to supplement local police and put down an armed anti-Chinese insurrection. In the ensuing melee, the uniformed UW students lost their cool and opened fire, killing four rioters.

Consequently, the people who drafted Washington’s Constitution wanted to make it crystal clear that a strong right to bear arms would be tied to equally strong language affirming the Legislature’s right to regulate weapons and, more importantly, to control or prohibit armed groups including private “militias.”

The bottom line is that notwithstanding our strong individual rights to own firearms, the use of those weapons is subject to regulation.

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/ou ... -language/

[Tero]

Missouri's new law imposes a $50,000 fine on any state or local official who enforces a federal gun law that's not also a Missouri law. The rule also says that federal laws that infringe on the Second Amendment are invalid in the state. A version of the act was first introduced by state lawmakers in 2013.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/10103201 ... nforcement

[L'Emmerdeur]

All it would take is the US Supreme Court to invoke the 14th Amendment to invalidate any state laws that violate the 2nd Amendment according to its interpretation. The present court could very well do that.

[Svartalf]

Missouri's new law imposes a $50,000 fine on any state or local official who enforces a federal gun law that's not also a Missouri law. The rule also says that federal laws that infringe on the Second Amendment are invalid in the state. A version of the act was first introduced by state lawmakers in 2013.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/10103201 ... nforcement

that one should be broken by the Nine as soon as it's brought up in front of them

[Tero]

Justice Scalia — the foremost proponent of originalism, who throughout his tenure stressed the limited role of courts in difficult policy debates — could not have been clearer in the closing passage of Heller that “the problem of handgun violence in this country” is serious and that the Constitution leaves the government with “a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” Heller merely established the constitutional baseline that the government may not disarm citizens in their homes. The opinion expressly recognized “presumptively lawful” regulations such as “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” as well as bans on carrying weapons in “sensitive places,” like schools, and it noted with approval the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’”
Heller also recognized the immense public interest in “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.”

Nothing in Heller casts doubt on the permissibility of background check laws or requires the so-called Charleston loophole, which allows individuals to purchase firearms even without completed background checks. Nor does Heller prohibit giving law enforcement officers more effective tools and greater resources to disarm people who have proved themselves to be violent or mentally ill, as long as due process is observed. Heller also gives the government at least some leeway to restrict the kinds of firearms that can be purchased — few would claim a constitutional right to own a grenade launcher, for example — although where that line could be constitutionally drawn is a matter of disagreement, including between us. Indeed, President Donald Trump banned bump stocks in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Most of the obstacles to gun regulations are political and policy based, not legal; it’s laws that never get enacted, rather than ones that are struck down, because of an unduly expansive reading of Heller. We are aware of no evidence that any mass shooter was able to obtain a firearm because of a law struck down under Heller. But Heller looms over most debates about gun regulation, and it often serves as a useful foil for those who would like to deflect responsibility — either for their policy choice to oppose a particular gun regulation proposal or for their failure to convince their fellow legislators and citizens that the proposal should be enacted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opin ... NTukTmlKJc

[Joe]

IIRC, Scalia said we have Ruth Bader Ginsburg to thank for convincing him to make that explicit in his opinion.

I remember quoting that section to Seth. I still chuckle at his contortions to spin it.