Poll:Should the 2nd Amendment Truly Not Be Infringed In Any Way?

Should The 2nd Amendment Not Be Infringed In Any Way?


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Now we play the source game?

I'll get around to it later.

Perhaps when you source these claims:

LaEscopeta said:
Making up things that aren’t true is not the same as making a point. Here is a partial list of things stated in this thread that in fact are not true:

1. It is not a felony to bounce a check. A jury has to find the intent to commit fraud (cash a check on an account that doesn’t exist, use a false name, know you can’t get the funds to cover the check, etc) for it to be a felony.

2. A dishonorable discharge from the military does not prevent owning firearms.

3. You do not have to prove you are not a felon to buy a firearm. You have to prove who you are and where you live (show 2 forms of ID) just like when you exercise your Right to vote. You have to check a box on a form saying you are not a felony, but the burden of proof that you are a felon lies with the Government workers running the NICS.

4. There is not a trend to make traffic offense felonries. In fact the trend is the opposite, to lower the level running red lights and speeding from moving violations to be like parking tickets, so when they send you the photo ticket in the mail you don’t have the same right to a trial.

5. No one loses the Right to keep and bear arms by seeing a therapist, having depression, taking anti-anxiety medication, staying in a mental hospital or having occasional seizures. You have to be found by a court (in many states a jury) to be mentally defective AND a danger to yourself or others.

6. Having a ponytail does not make you mentally defective, neither in the USA nor in England.

7. Spitting on the sidewalk is not currently a crime, felony nor misdemeanor, in any State of the Union, and has not been for several decades. Likewise it is not illegal, nor has it ever been, to urinate in a state or national park, where there are no nearby facilities.
 
LaEscopeta, how do you feel about gun ownership being verboten for people convicted of crimes having a possible sentence of more than a year?

If a felon has served his time, should he still be barred from having a viable means of protecting himself, his family, and his property? Is that OK with you? You going to keep him free from harm? Are the police? After all, when seconds count, they are only minutes away.

Hypothetical: If said ex-con and family are the victim of an armed home invasion and he cannot put up an adequate defense because the state forbids it, and his children and wife are brutalized, how would you feel about that? Is your answer 'tough shyte, he shouldn't have done what he did years ago'? If so, that's awfully forgiving of you. Is your answer, 'he can petition for restoration of RKBA rights'? I have to ask, how often does THAT happen? How up to date os the funding for that particular program? Why should someone have to jump through hoops?

Do you really think all of these infringements have done any damn good? The streets weren't exactly awash with blood prior to 1968.

Gun control is ultimately about control.
 
We had unrestricted RKBA until, what, the 1930's? You could own machine guns until then. Ships were usually armed with cannon until the late 1800's. Early settlers had cannon arming the walls of their forts. Until well into the 20th century civilians had more effective small arms than the military. We had repeaters way before the army.

John
 
^^ Not to mention felons and such could keep and bear arms all the way till 1968. We were doing fine before then.
 
^^ Not to mention felons and such could keep and bear arms all the way till 1968. We were doing fine before then.

So correct Dr.
Lee Harvey Oswald,James Earl Ray,and Sirhan Sirhan gave the Socialists the excuse they were looking for to mess it all up.
Ted's car ,still since July 19,1969, has killed more people than all my guns.:rolleyes:
 
actually there were restirctions on where you could carry and use fireamrs since before this country was founded...it was just making it so people could not own them that it was in the 30s.
 
Criminals

@m700m
pardon me ArfinGreebly, but i never assumed you, or anyone else was/is a criminal. i am only stating that a felon has forfeited his constitutional rights for the time being, until he should receive a full pardon. do you not agree?

Let us begin with the simplest consequence of your statement.

You want to law to read "a criminal may not buy/own a gun" or words to that effect.

Now, I'm not a criminal. Never have been.

Explain to me how you propose -- without any assumption of guilt for me -- to screen people to determine which ones are felons and may therefore not buy a gun?

In other words, I want to be able to walk into a gun store -- nay, a hardware store or an auto parts store -- and without any more fanfare than a) am I an adult, b) do I have the money, buy the gun or guns of my choice.

I don't want anyone to ask me if I'm a felon. I don't want anyone to assume I might be one. I don't want anyone scanning a central registry against my ID to see if I'm a bad guy.

Why?

It changes the base assumption to "guilty until proven innocent."

We will not, at this time, pursue the absurdity of allowing people you know are dangerous to run around loose in society.

For now, let's just deal with fixing this assumption that I am likely to be a bad guy because I want to buy a gun.
 
Adulthood

@zminer -

ArfinGreebly said:
@zminer -

Y'all are engaging in a logical fallacy. With a little research, you can figure out which one.
...
Nonsense posts that provoke argument are called "trolling."

Don't do that.

My post was not meant as trolling, and I hope it wasn't taken that way. It seems obvious to me that age restrictions on firearms purchasing are, by definition, restrictions. The 2nd Amendment doesn't say anything about age, therefore adding an age restriction is beyond the scope of what the Amendment says. Therefore, it falls under option #2 of the poll, which most people seem not to realize.

My point was, if age is going to be a restriction, then we can argue over what that restriction should be. Why is 18 the legal age for owning a gun? Could it be 17? Or 16? Or 14? Sure, it could be any of those ... but whatever it is, it's a restriction. I didn't mean it to be trolling - I meant it to point out that people are getting upset that someone could assume that some restrictions are advisable, when they themselves are implicitly assuming restrictions (in this case, age).

The business of restricting participation in adult activities until one reaches the age of majority is not a Second Amendment issue.

It's one of adulthood.

Now, there was a time when a sixteen-year-old could buy a .22 rifle and raise no eyebrows.

But, in the interests of consistency, let's say that we simply make the personal purchase of firearms fit in there with other adult participations.

Seems to me that eighteen is when a person can, without permission of an adult, join the armed services.

Drivers license most places at sixteen.

One of those numbers seems about right.

Let's not get hung up in "age is part of the 2nd Amendment."
 
No Infringement Allowed EVER

The Second PROTECTS the other Nine! Americans are/or should be FIGHTING tooth-and-nail to prevent DICTATOR-controlled SLAVERY. The Second Amendment of our Constitution is NOT purely a GUN issue; IT'S a FREEDOM issue. As a Government to Control the people, we may as well all move to Nicaragua to save some time regarding our fate. I'll guarantee the Government will have guns, pistols, and rifles (maybe even shotguns). Have we learned nothing from history? Look at the recent influx of Mexicans to the U.S. They are counting on US to protect them from evil governmental control. America is only a land of plenty, if we work hard to keep it so. Hate soapboxing, but damn it! cliffy
 
In a free socity you must accept some risk. or else you aren't free. Felons and nut cases owned firearms in America for well over a 100 years and wasn't a problem.Untill 1930's But then again drugs were legal in America also. Both only became a problem after laws passed against them.
 
As for keeping them all in prison, are you willing to pay the 100-200% (or more) taxes for constructing and maintaining prisons?

No, I am not willing to pay any additional taxes to house criminals and/or maintain the prisons. I'm not in favor of paying the current taxes for housing and maintaining criminals.

Instead, I favor making the prisoners earn their keep. I've argued this point before, one person responded that making a criminal work on an assembly line was "cruel and unusual"! As if thousands of "free" people didn't do that on a daily basis to support themselves and their families.

Look at the recent influx of Mexicans to the U.S. They are counting on US to protect them from evil governmental control.

But that could never happen here!
 
2A should rule completely. As for felons, if you are "safe" enough to turn loose you should have access to your rights.

I always find this ironic. Prison isn't about nullification of the danger posed by felons where they are rendered harmless before release. It is a PENAL system. It is the penalty for getting caught doing a crime.

Sort of like in hockey, the penalty box does no more to stop and aggressive player from being aggressive once he is released back out on the ice than the penal system does with felons.
 
I cannot say that there aren't people that should not ever be allowed access to firearms.

Most of these people happen to be felons. But that's not to say that I agree that all felons should be denied firearms.

The way I see it, a felon that has been released from prison has served their sentence, as handed to him by a judge in a court of law. This sentence is supposed to be this felon's debt to society, and if it is paid, I don't see why any rights should continue to be denied to them.

But I do think that future firearms ownership should be a consideration DURING sentencing. If someone is found guilty of certain violent crimes, then a future ban on firearms ownership should be something that a Judge could add to the sentence.
 
ArfinGreebly said:
Let's not get hung up in "age is part of the 2nd Amendment."

Fair enough - I agree there are plenty of other issues at stake here. But, let's also not suggest that we're advocating for completely unregulated firearms transactions, which is how I took the question. Other Amendments have issues with age (for example, should free speech be allowed in a junior high school newspaper?) so it's best not to ignore it completely. Moving on.

RX-178 said:
I cannot say that there aren't people that should not ever be allowed access to firearms.

I guess this comes down to a similar point for me too. Can you imagine any group of persons who appear to be unable to safely and legally own and operate firearms? Yes, I can. Serial bank robbers. Serial rapists. Etc. These people have broken the social contract and have proven they cannot be trusted with certain rights. Now, given the spotted history of denying firearms to people, there should be strong limitations on that power, but I'll repeat from my earlier post: it doesn't seem obvious that restrictions are necessarily a slippery slope to the complete banning of firearms.
 
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i agree ArfinGreebly, it is up to the individual to know if he should, or should not posses a firearm, not the retailer. that is why i do not support background checks at the time of purchase. as for the law, that is not what i would like the law to read, that is "what" the law reads. you should not in my opinion, have to answer the ? of am i a felon, because an individual already knows if he should not be in possession of a firearm. do you think that a criminal would say, "yes i am a felon"? those with firearms disability's, purchase firearms illegally every day, and commit yet another felony. so the burden of posses, or not, still lies with the individual. ( "likely to be a bad guy, because you want to buy a gun") i can not understand how you interpreted that from my two post.
 
Queltor said:
Some limits must apply.

Mental defectives.

Anything can, and frequently has been throughout history, be construed as mental illness. You do NOT want to go down that road. Keep things objective.

Feanaro said:
Restrictions are easy to pass, hard to repeal.

Very true.
 
if you are convicted of felony you should lose your 2nd amendment rights to own a gun legally...

Some people change. I have 2 very close friends that made some serious mistakes when they were younger, and now have felony records. They have both completely changed their lives around. I would even go so far as to fully trust them with my life & all my belongings. I'd love to be able to take them to the range, hunting, etc., but I can't share my sport with them.

I believe that in some places they may be able to appeal to a judge to get their gun restriction lifted - maybe by talking the judges ear off about how important conservation and hunting are, and the changes and accomplishments in their life after coming clean....but I highly doubt that'll work here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
 
…how do you feel about gun ownership being verboten for people convicted of crimes having a possible sentence of more than a year?

If a felon has served his time, should he still be barred from having a viable means of protecting himself, his family, and his property? Is that OK with you?

I don’t think self defense begins and ends with a firearm. The felon who has served his time needs to do the things we all do to minimize they chances of getting in a life or death situation. Like not associating with other felons.


Hypothetical: If said ex-con and family are the victim of an armed home invasion and he cannot put up an adequate defense because the state forbids it, and his children and wife are brutalized, how would you feel about that?

Hypothetically there is of course a range of possibilities. And that range is pretty much that same as if the home invasion happens when the felon was locked up for the > one year sentence. Maybe the wife and children escape, maybe they successfully defend themselves, or maybe they are brutalized or killed. Not sure the possibilities of any of these change once the felon gets out and is in the home without a firearm. Assuming the wife is not a felon or insane, no reason why she can’ have a firearm to defend her self, the felon husband and their kids.

Can we not send any criminals to prison because it is possible their families may be attached while the criminals are not in the home? How about going off to war? What if a soldier’s home is invaded when he is off at war and his family victimized? Is that more or less acceptable than a home of an unarmed felon being invaded?
 
I support reasonable regulations: I have no problem with convicted felons keeping and bearing arms, but do with illegal aliens and enemies of the nation doing so.
 
When the founders created this country, or atleast conceived of its creation the first three rights that they enumerated were the right to life, liberty, and property/happiness. They claimed that these three rights were granted not by government but by God/Creator. However, each one of these rights that "God" gave us have exceptions and were always intended to have exceptions. First, if you murder someone you lose your right to life. If you commit other crimes you lose your right to liberty. And if you cannot act responsibly with your property you lose your right to it. Just as the right to free speech is limited in certain situations so should the right to keep and bear arms. THR is a forum dedicated to responsible gun ownership/carrying. It would be tragic to think that any of us believe that irresponsible people should have an uninfringed right to bear arms. Our system has ways of determining which people are irresponsible and which ones are not. Sadly, there seems to be a group of people that want to take responsibility out of the hands of the people and give it to the government. That is what the founders were fighting against. It is not the duty of the government to protect the people but rather to try to guarantee their three God-given rights: Life, Liberty, and property. When a certain individual or group threatens the ability of others to enjoy those rights then it is our (the people's) job to limit their ability to affect our rights. If this means taking away the rights of felons, sex offenders, and the adjudicated mentally ill then go for it. The same is true for representatives that wish to take our right to bear arms from us. They need to be stripped of their rights to make those decisions for us. So go vote. That is all that you or I can do to guarantee that we get what rights God truly intends for us.
 
Can we not send any criminals to prison because it is possible their families may be attached while the criminals are not in the home? How about going off to war? What if a soldier’s home is invaded when he is off at war and his family victimized? Is that more or less acceptable than a home of an unarmed felon being invaded?

Totally irrelevant strawmen. Particularly the soldier going off to war.

I am talking about a specific scenario, and I'm pretty sure I made it clear. Of course we can and should send criminals to prison. But when they have served their sentence, they are done with their debt to society. The only time they can't possess firearms is while they are in the pokey. Instead of answering the hypothetical with a range of hypotheticals, how about trying to answer the specific question posed?

If he is a felon, I'm pretty sure there can be no guns accessible in the residence in which he lives. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I even think there just can't be any firearms present in the same home. That being the case, the following is not legally permissible:

Assuming the wife is not a felon or insane, no reason why she can’ have a firearm to defend her self, the felon husband and their kids.
 
If you commit other crimes you lose your right to liberty.

Agreed. They call that prison.

If this means taking away the rights of felons, sex offenders, and the adjudicated mentally ill then go for it.

As much as sex offenders turn my fat stomach, I cannot get on board with the whole registration thing. Reeks of papieren bitte. If the perv is so dangerous that he needs to be kept track of, then why the hell is he released? THOSE are the people that need to stay locked up. More BS feel-good laws from supposedly well meaning politicians that wanted to do *something*. I wish the anointed would stop trying to do *something* so much. Doing *something* got us the 94 AWB. Brilliant. Doing something gets us Congressional inquiries into anabolic steroids in sports. Awful big waste of the hard earned money that you and I have confiscated from every paycheck.
 
Seems to be a lot of great discussion about 2A but also a lot of myths about who is or is not prohibited from owning firearms. I encourage everyone to read 18 U.S.C. 922(g) and actually learn who is barred by federal law from owing guns.
 
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