Guns bad...case closed

[Tero]

The People are the various state peoples. They act on their own to form the militias. It does not mention man or individual. The militia refers to a group, a locally controlled military outfit.

[Seth]

The People are the various state peoples.

No, "the People" are, as the Supreme Court has said time and again and as every reading of the Constitution confirms, each and every individual person. Rights do not accrue to groups as in "the people" as a conglomerate of individuals, they accrue to each and every member of that group, independently.

They act on their own to form the militias.

Well, yes, they do, but that's not who or what the 2nd Amendment is referring to, as you've been told and cited to repeatedly.

It does not mention man or individual. The militia refers to a group, a locally controlled military outfit.

Well, that's because the militia clause does not control the operative clause, which is the second clause, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The militia clause provides one, but not the sole or exclusive reason why the right of the people, as individuals, shall not be infringed.

The purpose of putting the militia clause in there at all was to make it clear that the right to keep and bear arms is essential to the very existence of the militia and to the ability of Congress to call the militia to duty as it exercises its authorized power to "raise and support armies." The economic burden of supporting a large standing army, along with the dangers to the Republic of doing so, were primary reasons why Congress' authority to raise and support armies was intended to create an "expansible" army drawn from the ranks of the organized (state) militias and the unorganized militias consisting of, by definition, all able-bodied males between 18 and 45. At the conclusion of a conflict, the army would then disperse with the militia members returning to their civilian positions.

In order to permit Congress to raise an effective army built from militia forces it was necessary for those called to duty from the unorganized militia to appear with their own arms and ammunition because the ability of the Congress to create and maintain an enormous cache of arms to be issued to militia members was both financially impossible, bureaucratically prohibitive and physically burdensome. Congress would have had to procure hundreds of thousands of "arms" suitable for the individual soldier and then store them indefinitely while keeping them ready to be issued for combat. This was an unachievable situation in no small part because as the technology of arms changes, the Congress would have to constantly be updating that cache of largely-unused arms to maintain military effectiveness, which would again be an economic burden and a bureaucratic nightmare.

The Framers wisely concluded that the most efficient, effective and economical way to preserve Congress' ability to raise an effective army on short notice from among the qualified citizenry was to make sure that no one, not even Congress, could infringe on the individual right of each person in the society to keep and bear arms, including implicitly those arms that are currently effective as weapons for the individual soldier. They knew that whereas the economy could never support the constant turnover of unused military arms in the custody of the Congress, every individual who chose to keep and bear arms (which at the time was pretty much universal) would always endeavor to keep pace with the advancement of arms technology on their own, out of their own rational self-interest in keeping and bearing arms that are effective not just for the soldier, but that are also effective for the many other roles firearms play in society, most pertinently including those arms particularly suited to personal defense, which includes handguns, which were routinely carried even when they were small-caliber, single-shot, flintlock or percussion-cap black-powder pistols...like the one used to assassinate Lincoln...which was an example of the power of one determined and armed individual to put down tyranny with a single shot.

The amount of money spent today by individual citizens on voluntarily keeping up with new firearms technology is staggering, and would be an economy-busting burden on the taxpayers if those arms were simply stashed away in a warehouse somewhere.

Moreover, it was expected, and indeed mandated by pre-revolutionary war colonial ordinances that "the people" as individuals, were often required to appear before their local authorities on a regular basis to prove that they DID have adequate and legally-mandated militia equipment and they were required to drill and practice with those arms in order to maintain basic military discipline and marksmanship skills even before the United States was founded.

The Founders expanded on this concept by protecting the right of ALL citizens ("the people") to keep and bear suitable arms, even if they themselves were not fit or obligated to militia duty. The purpose of this aspect of the 2nd Amendment was to ensure that even if some community members eschewed the keeping and bearing of arms for whatever reasons, including ethical or religious scruples, there would be a sufficiency of arms available in the possession of others who might not themselves be called to duty, but whose arms could be commandeered and taken for use by enrolled militia members at need, with, of course, the proscription that such a "taking" of private property for public use would be subject to "just compensation."

In this manner, the Founders ensured that there would always be a sufficiency of military-grade arms dispersed among the citizenry in ways that both enhanced the Congress' ability to form an effective army at short notice and as a check on government tyranny that the Founders knew would be effective because no well-armed citizenry has ever been subjugated by a despot or tyrant, as both the United States and Switzerland contemporarily prove, and which history has always proven to be true.

The interesting thing about this fact of the 2nd Amendment is that one of the primary functions of the 2nd Amendment is to make sure that Congress can raise an already-armed and firearms-competent army comprised of self-armed militia members. What this means for your vacuous argument is that of all of the classes and categories of "arms" that the 2nd Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear, those arms that are particularly suitable and effective as the arms of a soldier are the most stringently protected by the "militia clause" of the 2nd Amendment.

You see, when some local burgermeister or state governor decides that "assault weapons" are "too dangerous" for the average law-abiding citizen to possess and acts to ban the possession of such arms, which are by definition those arms in the existing civilian armory the MOST suitable as arms of the individual soldier, that local official or governor, or President of the United States is directly interfering with the power and ability of Congress to call a "well regulated" (meaning well-armed and equipped in the Founder's parlance) unorganized militia to duty as an organized military force armed with their own military weapons.

And that is why such bans will be eventually struck down. Congress' authority to raise and support armies is a plenary power granted to the Congress that may not be interfered with by anyone, from the President on down to the local mayor. Therefore, it is Congress itself that is the injured party when arms particularly suitable for soldiers are regulated or banned, and it is Congress itself that has plenary power to simply declare all such ordinances, rules and laws to be invalid as a trenchment on the plenary authority of Congress over the raising and supporting of armies.

Local bans of this sort, state bans or even federal bans are flatly unconstitutional and NOT by virtue of the 2nd Amendment alone, but by virtue of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the Constitution.

So, as I said, you take your best shot and then I'll take mine.

[Tero]

All these wordings about Congress, armies, people and militia refer to activities we do as a group. The group will have a leader from amongst the group. The key is organization. Nowhere in the constitution is the citizen and his gun singled out.

[Seth]

All these wordings about Congress, armies, people and militia refer to activities we do as a group. The group will have a leader from amongst the group. The key is organization. Nowhere in the constitution is the citizen and his gun singled out.

WTF are you talking about? The entire construction of the Constitution is there to protect INDIVIDUAL rights, not collective rights. In every instance where the Founders used the term "the people" it is perfectly clear that they meant "each person as an individual referred to for reasons of brevity as a group." The Supreme Court and the Congress, and every legislative or rule-making body in the U.S. has affirmed this fact in every single instance since the document was ratified.

The right of "the people" to be secure in their homes and papers against unreasonable search and seizure doesn't mean some collective right enforced collectively, it specifically means each and every individual person has that right and may raise it as an individual defense against government searches and seizures.

Likewise the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a collective one as you ignorantly suggest.

Now you're just engaging in Marxist collectivist doublespeak that has been so thoroughly debunked for two hundred and thirty seven years that it doesn't bear repeating.

[Seth]

Gun Owners Stop Four Life-Threatening Incidents In Five Days During The Christmas Season
David Hookstead
Reporter
1:38 PM 12/27/2015



Phil Burns, a firearms instructor, holds a handgun that he carries as part of his survival supplies at his home in American Fork, Utah, Dec. 14, 2012. (REUTERS/Jim Urquhart) Phil Burns, a firearms instructor, holds a handgun that he carries as part of his survival supplies at his home in American Fork, Utah, Dec. 14, 2012. (REUTERS/Jim Urquhart) ∧

The Christmas season was a bad time to be a criminal near a person with a weapon.

There were a total of four incidents involving a person using a gun to stop a crime or other life-threatening incident between December 22 and December 26, according to a list compiled by the Crime Prevention Research Center.

December 22:

Brandon Johnson was shot and killed after attempting to rob two men looking to buy a vehicle in Gary, Indiana during a Craigslist scam. Johnson’s girlfriend was also shot in the thigh but is expected to survive, according to the Washington Times. The shooter, who is from Illinois, told police that when he arrived to make the Craigslist purchase Johnson instead pulled a gun resulting in the shooter pulling out his own weapon to defend his life. (RELATED: Former Marine Single-Handedly Stopped Four Thugs During Home Invasion)

December 23:

A criminal attempted to hold up Captain Max Seafood in Miramar, Florida. Except the robber didn’t get very far into his plan because an employee pulled out a gun and killed the suspect, according to NBC Miami.

December 24:

Bill Kessler shot and killed a large dog that was attacking his beagle in Detroit, Michigan.

“Before he got to me I got my pepper spray out and sprayed him but that didn’t stop him. After the pepper spray the dog started attacking mine, I tried kicking it, but it was so aggressive I took out my gun and shot it,” Kessler told Freep.

According to police, a warrant will likely be issued for the owner of the dead dog for the charge of “dog at large,” which is a misdemeanor. (RELATED: Armed Citizen Shoots And Kills Waffle House Robber)

December 26:

Antonio Bagley shot and killed Jerrell Walker after Walker attempted to rob him in Warner Robins, Georgia. Bagley told police that the attempted robbery took place late on Christmas night, and resulted in him firing the fatal shot to Walker’s torso.

[Tero]

>>"the people" to keep and bear arms is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a collective one as you ..<<
Except that is the one place the people is lumped together with "militia." Case closed.

[Seth]

>>"the people" to keep and bear arms is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a collective one as you ..<<
Except that is the one place the people is lumped together with "militia." Case closed.

No it's not, you just wish it was, but it's not and never will be.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

...Marxist collectivist doublespeak...

[Tero]

How much of that difference should be chalked up to the presence of guns? Well, gun-rights advocates often argue that there's no point taking away people's guns, because you can kill someone with a knife. This is true, but in practice people are nowhere near as likely to get killed with a knife. In America, of those 14,022 homicides in 2011, 11,101 were committed with firearms. In England and Wales, where guns are far harder to come by, criminals didn't simply go out and equip themselves with other tools and commit just as many murders; there were 32,714 offences involving a knife or other sharp instrument (whether used or just threatened), but they led to only 214 homicides, a rate of 1 homicide per 150 incidents. Meanwhile, in America, there were 478,400 incidents of firearm-related violence (whether used or just threatened) and 11,101 homicides, for a rate of 1 homicide per 43 incidents.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democrac ... um=twitter

[Tero]

Guns and the ghetto

I lost my father and two brothers to gun violence and all were killed with illegal handguns that were used in other crimes. Growing up, it was all too easy to get a gun in our neighborhood in East St. Louis. Placing reasonable restrictions on the most dangerous consumer product on the market isn’t a violation of the Second Amendment. It’s common sense.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... about.html

[Seth]

Guns and the ghetto

I lost my father and two brothers to gun violence and all were killed with illegal handguns that were used in other crimes. Growing up, it was all too easy to get a gun in our neighborhood in East St. Louis. Placing reasonable restrictions on the most dangerous consumer product on the market isn’t a violation of the Second Amendment. It’s common sense.

Er, she lost her father and two brothers to criminals with guns. If her father and brothers (as she herself is now) had been lawfully armed, and if all the other law-abiding citizens in her neighborhood had been likewise lawfully armed and had banded together to protect each other using that force which was necessary to suppress criminal use of guns, her father and two brothers might today be alive and the criminals would be the dead ones.

As for "reasonable restrictions" on "the most dangerous consumer product on the market," such restrictions already exist: You have to have a driver's license and license plates to operate a motor vehicle on a public highway, and that does pretty much fuck-all to reduce automobile deaths because while a driver's license may show that you have at one time met the minimum standards for safely operating a motor vehicle, it does nothing to guarantee that you will ever do so at any time in the future. What controls that is the fact that the vast majority of people who operate motor vehicles do so in a lawful and safe fashion because it is in their rational self-interest to do so.

As for doing the same for guns, it's a bad idea because registering guns and licensing gun owners does absolutely nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining or using guns, nor, except in the rarest of circumstances, does it prevent a previously law-abiding armed citizen from going insane and doing something awful with his gun. Therefore, it's a useless and expensive non-solution to a very real problem. Moreover, such regulations would not, as in the case of driver's licenses, in any way guarantee proper and lawful firearms handling. What controls that is the fact that the vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners use their guns responsibly and safely because it is in their rational self-interest to do so and NOT because some dipshit anti-gun pundit blames other people for her own suicidal tendencies.

We should impose more meaningful barriers to high capacity magazines and rapid-fire weaponry, if it means curtailing a mass shooter’s ability to slaughter and maim.

It doesn't, so we shouldn't because doing so only curtailing the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their nation.

When we talk about gun violence we almost always focus on the criminal aspects, and forget the public health questions. We forget that there are thousands of gunshot victims who die by their own hand.

We don't forget about them, we just don't think that a reasonable solution to suicide by gun is to take away every non-suicidal person's guns.

But we should try everything within the confines of the Constitution, if it will make it harder for criminals to stockpile guns.

Um, we already do all of that because it's completely illegal for a criminal to "stockpile" even one single gun, or so much as one single round of ammunition you fatuous loon. When we find criminals in possession of "stockpiles" of guns, or a single gun, or a single round of ammunition, the federal government has the power to arrest, try and convict them and sentence them to a minimum of five years in federal prison, and that's on top of any state-level charges.

But the feds almost never prosecute criminals-with-guns cases.

Why is that do you suppose?

[Seth]

Aaaaannnd THIS is why we will not permit gun registration...among other reasons:

Baltimore Sun: Obama Should Create Public Registry Of Gun Owners
2531
Baltimore
David Goldman/AP

by AWR Hawkins7 Jan 20161,449
On January 7, The Baltimore Sun gave President Obama kudos for issuing executive orders for gun control, but expressed their desire that he add another measure–a public registry of gun owners.

And the Sun wants the registry to be searchable, so that mothers can look up the parents of their children’s friends to see if they keep guns in their homes.

The article, by the Sun‘s deputy editorial page editor, put it this way:

As President Barack Obama announced plans this week to tighten background checks for gun buyers and increase gun tracking and research, I thought, that’s all well and good, but how about adding something immediately useful: a gun owner registry available to the public online — something like those for sex offenders. I’m not equating gun owners with predatory perverts, but the model is helpful here; I want a searchable database I can consult to find out whether my kid can have a play date at your house.

The Sun then pointed out that “586 people were accidentally killed with guns” in 2014, ten percent of whom were “15 and younger.”

It is worth noting that gun control advocates formerly cited accidental gun-deaths for kids 10 years and younger. But as accidental deaths have fallen, gun-control advocates have incorporated teenagers into their accidental death-numbers. And because teenagers are involved in gang and street violence, their deaths misleadingly inflate the apparent number of deaths among young children.

But even without pointing that out, it should be noted that if “10 percent” of 586 people were “15 and younger,” that means 90 percent of them–or 527.4 people–were 16 and older.

Nevertheless, the Sun concludes:

Gun owners may feel picked on, but they are not a persecuted class. They are individuals who have chosen to keep in their homes an object whose chief purpose is to injure or kill, whether in self defense or otherwise. The rest of us should have a right to know it’s there before we — or our children — enter.

Breitbart News previously reported that former Bill Clinton official Ann Brown also wants Obama to expand his executive orders. She believes he needs to controls for ammunition purchases to the new gun controls outlined Tuesday.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

No, dipshit, you do NOT have a "right to know" anything about what's in my house so long as it's legal, and if you don't like that, then don't come into my house, stay in your own.

[piscator]

Guns and the ghetto

I lost my father and two brothers to gun violence and all were killed with illegal handguns that were used in other crimes. Growing up, it was all too easy to get a gun in our neighborhood in East St. Louis. Placing reasonable restrictions on the most dangerous consumer product on the market isn’t a violation of the Second Amendment. It’s common sense.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... about.html

I thought that was The Onion for a moment... 'Let's amend the BoR 'cause my gangster father and brothers got kill'


The problem in East St Louis isn't guns, it's the culture of poverty. Self-refuting arguments from pathos to the contrary...

[Tero]

In these ghetto situations arming every person just provides more guns for criminals. Lost your gun? No problem, just slit the throat of the next adult going by. New gun!

[Seth]

In these ghetto situations arming every person just provides more guns for criminals. Lost your gun? No problem, just slit the throat of the next adult going by. New gun!

Hard to slit anyone's throat when he or she loads your chest up with high-velocity copper-jacketed lead before you can get close enough do so, and therein lies the point.

By the way, you're a racist.