A look at the 2 Amendment in Context.

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MT GUNNY

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I looked up every controversial word in the 2Amend, and replaced the word with the definition. Tell me what you all think! My thinking is we shouldnt have to do this, cuz it is clear in its Original text. However the anti's add words like Government, Military, and Collective. Why is it so Obvious to us, of what it is, and what they think it sould be?



A well / Controlled, adjusted, to put in good order/ Body of Citizens, Able bodied men and women / Being / Essential, Happening or Existing by Necessity,/ to the /Freedom from Danger, Make safe,Precautions taken to Guard against Crime, Assurance or Guarantee/ of a / Liberty, Exempt from External Authority, Ability to do at will / Territory, Commonwealth/ The / Moral Principle. Legal Guarantee, Ethical, Natural Ability/of the / Men Women, and child, Individuals forming a group, Citizens/ to / Own, Retain, secure/ and /Hold or Carry, Possess, Exercise/ Weapons, Firearms/ Shall Not be / Violated, Breached, Transgressed, Controlled.
 
There's a few things I think we have to be careful with here.

The most common argument I hear from anti's - isn't about the language of the 2nd. It's about the continued existance of the 2nd in the first place. Go tit for tat on the language, do all the comprehensive analysis you want. Doesn't do a damn bit of good if it gets repealed.

The argument that is made, is that the constitution is a living, breathing document - that can and should be modified as we progress as a society. This is historically accurate - as it has been modified over the years as society has evolved (or devolved as the case may be).

The Heller decision kind of raises a few eyebrows on this issue. My understanding (and it is somewhat limited) is that the decision clarified for the first time that personal self defense is covered under the 2nd. This is arguably NOT the founding father's goal when the 2nd was written. So again - this opens the door to - well, as we evolve as a society - our laws and the constitution needs to evolve as well. It opens the door to the whole debate about whether or not that should even be there.

So - my advice is, don't focus on the wording. The more you get tied up in the semantics of the language, the less you're focusing on the bigger debate. The bigger debate is the practical application in today's world.
 
SINIXSTAR - " The Heller decision kind of raises a few eyebrows on this issue. My understanding (and it is somewhat limited) is that the decision clarified for the first time that personal self defense is covered under the 2nd. This is arguably NOT the founding father's goal when the 2nd was written. "
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I would argue conversely.

At the time of the writing of the Second Amendment, there was a multitude of murderous, thieving brigands, brutal outlaws, cutthroats, and bandits, throughout the 13 colonies and in the areas not yet incorporated as States or territories.

Also, there were continuing problems with American Indian tribes, who were not hesitant to attack, murder, pillage, rape and burn the cabins and homes of people who were settlers in those somewhat remote or outlying areas.

Firearms were paramount for self and family protection.

Also, -- I'm guessing numbers here -- perhaps upward of a couple million men and women at that time, depended on their firearms to put meat on their tables to feed themselves and families, by hunting.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights had to be ratified by the States' legislatures to become "law of the land." If the Second Amendment had been perceived as establishing precedent that a State or Federal Govt., could raise a militia, but could at will OUTLAW the private ownership of firearms by the People except for specific militia emergencies, etc., I doubt seriously that the various legislatures would ever have ratified that document.

To do so would have implicity implied that a State could vote to disarm the People thereby leaving them open to being destroyed by outlaws, etc., and Indians. Plus, without being able to hunt, men would not have been able to put meat on the table for their families.

In my opinion, the Right to keep and bear arms for SELF DEFENSE and HUNTING, was so inherent in the minds of the Founders, and virtually all other people at that time, it was part and parcel of " ... the Right of the People To Keep and Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed."

Very, very few U.S. citizens today have to hunt game in order to feed their families. On the other hand, there are proportionately more criminals, brigands, bandits and cutthroats out there today, than there were in the day of the writing of our Constitution.

(I am very well aware that today, there are millions of "liberal progressives" out there who do NOT believe that we have a Right to defend ourselves and families, therefore we should never be allowed by Big Brother and Big Nanny to own guns.)

Just my take on it.

L.W.
 
Lean - but the self-protection and hunting purposes are not discussed at any length.
What IS discussed - is the militia, the purpose and form of the militia, etc.

Perhaps they thought it was just "common sense" that guns would be needed for self-protection and putting food on the table, and therefor never really gone into at any length - but when you look at the writings - it's ALL about the militia.

Also - i've said this a million times before. It's not just "liberal progressives" There's plenty of us "liberal progressives" that shoot, and plenty of republican-conservatives that want to see guns go away. Don't make it such a black and white issue on party lines - it's not.
 
Also - if you start getting into the argument of "what did the founding fathers really mean?" you're already down the road of debating whether or not the second amendment applies to today's society. You've already lost.
 
Also - if you start getting into the argument of "what did the founding fathers really mean?" you're already down the road of debating whether or not the second amendment applies to today's society. You've already lost
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See, my dad, taught me to shoot, then he gave me a gun of my own. I don't shoot it too much, but I still have that first gun.

Molon labe
 
See, my dad, taught me to shoot, then he gave me a gun of my own. I don't shoot it too much, but I still have that first gun.

Molon labe
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I hear people say stuff like this - and all I can do is shake my head.
The chest beating mentality of "take it from my cold dead hands" is - childish at best.
Work to prevent it from getting to that point.
If it gets to that point - I can almost assure you, it will come from your cold dead hands.
 
I hear people say stuff like this - and all I can do is shake my head.
The chest beating mentality of "take it from my cold dead hands" is - childish at best.
Work to prevent it from getting to that point.
If it gets to that point - I can almost assure you, it will come from your cold dead hands.
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Come and get it and see if it is childish...seriously...childish???? What are you doing here? Waiting to see responses to your posts?
 
Come and get it and see if it is childish...seriously...childish???? What are you doing here? Waiting to see responses to your posts?
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You said it twice yourself, so clearly your read correctly. Yes, Childish.

We're trying to have a halfway reasonable discussion about how to approach a certain subject. What exactly did you contribute to that? "Come and get it".

Fine - but again - at that point, we've lost. The point isn't to figure out what to do after we lose - that's defeatist. The point is to try to figure out how to keep that from happening in the first place. Care to say something on that?
 
The reason the Second Amendment guarantees individual people the right to keep and bear arms, not the militia companies, is that there was a fear that the federal government would use its power to equip and call the militia to duty as a means to disarm the general population. It was therefore necessary that individuals, in their individual capacity, not their military capacity, have the right to have guns.

So-called "assault weapons" are selected for prohibition because gun-control exponents claim that the rifles are "weapons of war." This claim, if true, amounts to an admission that the rifles lie at the core of the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment is at its core really all about creating and sustaining warfighting capability.

This warfighting capability was provided to the people in the form of continuing availability of operational weapons systems (the tools of war).

Even many folks who like to think of themselves as staunch Second Amendment supporters cannot bear the thought of a constitutional right to own machine guns.
 
Let's see?

Member of NRA

Wrote at least seven snail mail letters last year to Vic Snyder, my representative in Congress. Same letters (pretty much the same letters) to Mark Pryor my elected Senator. Not to mention all the e-mails which only receive auto-respond responses.

Took co-workers to shoot, some pro-gun, some ambivalent, one anti and still anti.

I try and will continue to try, but I guarandamntee you, come get them, and, you'll get them ammunition first.
 
The reason the Second Amendment guarantees individual people the right to keep and bear arms, not the militia companies, is that there was a fear that the federal government would use its power to equip and call the militia to duty as a means to disarm the general population. It was therefore necessary that individuals, in their individual capacity, not their military capacity, have the right to have guns.
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Yes and no - Hamilton talked about this in I believe it was Federalist 29 - about the federal government not having the authority to use the Militia against the states anyways. Because of posse comitatus, should the militia be called up and federalized, they are now federalized - and PC would prevent their use here anyways. You would have to suspend PC, at which point - why bother federalizing the militia to begin with?

The fear was never that the federal government would call up the militia - the fear was that the federal government would raise a standing army, and use that domestically. At which point individuals would stand zero chance, and local militias that knew the area, had existing lines of communication, and an existing command structure would be the best defense.

It also had to do with the fact that the federal government, because it had no real military power internally - could not put down insurrections and rebellions internally. That was the job of the militia. Hamilton's example that I liked - was "what would Vermont do if NY decided it wanted to exercise it's former jurisdiction over the area?" The federal government would have very little physical power in a situation like that, and it would be up to the Vermont militia to defend it's self from the NY Militia (which at that point would be the NY army).
 
Let's see?

Member of NRA

Wrote at least seven snail mail letters last year to Vic Snyder, my representative in Congress. Same letters (pretty much the same letters) to Mark Pryor my elected Senator. Not to mention all the e-mails which only receive auto-respond responses.

Took co-workers to shoot, some pro-gun, some ambivalent, one anti and still anti.

I try and will continue to try, but I guarandamntee you, come get them, and, you'll get them ammunition first.
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Chest hurt yet?

Have you noticed the difference between what you're talking about, and what the rest of us are talking about?
 
Yes and no - Hamilton talked about this in I believe it was Federalist 29 - about the federal government not having the authority to use the Militia against the states anyways. Because of posse comitatus, should the militia be called up and federalized, they are now federalized - and PC would prevent their use here anyways. You would have to suspend PC, at which point - why bother federalizing the militia to begin with?

The fear was never that the federal government would call up the militia - the fear was that the federal government would raise a standing army, and use that domestically. At which point individuals would stand zero chance, and local militias that knew the area, had existing lines of communication, and an existing command structure would be the best defense.

It also had to do with the fact that the federal government, because it had no real military power internally - could not put down insurrections and rebellions internally. That was the job of the militia. Hamilton's example that I liked - was "what would Vermont do if NY decided it wanted to exercise it's former jurisdiction over the area?" The federal government would have very little physical power in a situation like that, and it would be up to the Vermont militia to defend it's self from the NY Militia (which at that point would be the NY army).
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It is clear that Congress has full control over the militia of the Constitution. Under Section 10 [sic (actually, Art. 1, Sect. 8)] of the Constitution, Congress could abolish the National Guard or reduce it to any size it wished.

Section 9 [sic (actually, Art. 1, Sect. 8)] of the Constitution gives the federal government the power:

"To provide for the organizing, arming, and disciplining, of the militia, and for government such part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and authority of training of the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

The Constitution gives the Federal Government control over all the military forces of the United States including the militia.
 
No pain here. I am talking about what would happen on the ground and you are talking about "pie in the sky rhetoric."

Look, if it got bad enough, there would be several tens of thousands "hold-outs" or pockets of resistance, or whatever you want to call it; but, there would be many, many firearm owners who would uphold their rights to the end and beyond.
 
It is clear that Congress has full control over the militia of the Constitution. Under Section 10 [sic (actually, Art. 1, Sect. 8)] of the Constitution, Congress could abolish the National Guard or reduce it to any size it wished.

Section 9 [sic (actually, Art. 1, Sect. 8)] of the Constitution gives the federal government the power:

"To provide for the organizing, arming, and disciplining, of the militia, and for government such part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and authority of training of the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

The Constitution gives the Federal Government control over all the military forces of the United States including the militia.
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whoa whoa - wait a minute.
Are you trying to say the national guard is the militia? Cause - if that's the case - game over. None of us have guns unless we're part of the national guard.

Each state also has it's own "militia" which in most states is defined as able bodied men. (a little more involved then that, but not by much).
 
No pain here. I am talking about what would happen on the ground and you are talking about "pie in the sky rhetoric."

Look, if it got bad enough, there would be several tens of thousands "hold-outs" or pockets of resistance, or whatever you want to call it; but, there would be many, many firearm owners who would uphold their rights to the end and beyond.
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Pie in the sky rhetoric.

Did you notice that this thread was a contextual breakdown of the language of the 2nd amendment? Did you notice that the whole thing was "pie in the sky rhetoric" before you posted?
 
The Militia Act of 1903 resulted in the creation of the modern National Guard Bureau which is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. This was changed by the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, which elevated the National Guard to a joint function of the Department of Defense.

In the 2008 decision of the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, the de jure definition of "militia" as used in United States jurisprudence broadened once again. The court's opinion made explicit in its dicta, that the term "militia", as used in colonial times, and still today in this originalist decision, included both the Federally-organized militia and the citizen-organized militias of the several States. "... the 'militia' in colonial America consisted of a subset of 'the people'—those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range" ...Although the militia consists of all ablebodied men, the federally organized militia may consist of a subset of them"
 
SINIXSTAR - "Also - if you start getting into the argument of "what did the founding fathers really mean?" you're already down the road of debating whether or not the second amendment applies to today's society. You've already lost."
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I disagree with that proposition. If one were to accept that premise, then one could also debate the First Amendment's "... make no laws abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; ..." by saying that the methods of "free speech and press" at that time, were Constitutionally sacrosanct (street corner shouters with megaphones, and hand printing pressed newspapers, books and pamphlets) but the Govt. could legally control whatever was said on television, radio, movies, Internet, and in any newspaper or magazine that was not printed on a hand manipulated printing press. Afterall, those methods of communication were not mentioned in the First. Amd., nor had any of the Founding Fathers ever even conceived of such"dangerous" methods of mass communication.

That would be as absurd to me as the anti-Second Amendment arguers stating that the Second had nothing to do with the natural Right of Self Defense and the necessary tools for same, or, as so many of them also argue, the Second only protected flintlock firearms, not any other firearms of modern development and manufacture.

I would also submit that in the realm of "self defense," the Ninth Amendment would cover the Right of self defense, as every State that I know of has written in its Constitution that the People of that State have an inalienable Right of self defense.

ARTICLE IX - " The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

If the Right of Self Defense is NOT inalienable, or natural, then there is no such thing as the Ninth's "... certain rights."

As for my use of "progressive liberals," I firmly include RINOs in that group, also. I use the word "liberal" as it has to do with the modern ideology of those who, for all practical purposes, believe in and crusade for a gigantic, smothering, overwhelming government that controls every moment of our lives... at the point of Big Brother's and Big Nanny's guns.

(Today, it is very "now" for left wing liberals to call themselves "progressives." When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to shoot at the Beverly Hills Gun Club with a gun loving guy who called himself a "progressive" and said his political ideology was to the left of Fidel Castro's. I know quite a lot of people like that.)

Modern day liberals are the antithesis of the classical liberals of Jefferson's, Madison's, Washington's, and Adam's time.

Of course, there isn't anything new here as this -- and other Rights issues -- have been being argued for years.

I suppose we would be at loggerheads, given you call yourself a "progressive liberal," while I call myself a "Constituional conservative." Probably could have some interesting conversations on other subjects. :)

FWIW.

L.W.
 
I disagree with that proposition. If one were to accept that premise, then one could also debate the First Amendment's "... make no laws abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; ..." by saying that the methods of "free speech and press" at that time, were Constitutionally sacrosanct (street corner shouters with megaphones, and hand printing pressed newspapers, books and pamphlets) but the Govt. could legally control whatever was said on television, radio, movies, Internet, and in any newspaper or magazine that was not printed on a hand manipulated printing press. Afterall, those methods of communication were not mentioned in the First. Amd., nor had any of the Founding Fathers ever even conceived of such"dangerous" methods of mass communication.
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The difference there, is that no one has been trying to repeal the 1st amendment, or modify it to say that only people shouting on street corners are covered. There have been questions about what does or does not constitute free speech (most notably when it comes to pornography) - but nobody's ever tried to argue that the spirit of the 1st amendment is beyond it's usefulness, and it should be repealed.

In the context of repealing the 2nd, I say getting into that debate is the start of a long downward spiral - because it's opening the door to the idea that it is in fact antiquated. No one has been able to make any realistic argument that holds any water in claiming that it is, so if we open the door for them by getting into that debate - it's all but agreeing with them that *perhaps* it might be in fact antiquated.

As far as "Progressive Liberal" - maybe not as far apart as you might think. I was raised extraordinarily conservative, i simply found a few flaws in the ideology that were never quite overcome. The Progressive part of the term - as I, and many of us understand it to be, simply means that we're not going to stick ourselves in one ideological pigeon hole. What worked 10 years ago, might not work today. We need to be open to new ideas and "progressive" in our ideology - in that we adapt to changing situations. The best thinking of the Kennedy era might not be worth a damn in today's world, and we need to recognize that.
 
Doesn't do a damn bit of good if it gets repealed.
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Do you have any idea how difficult and exhaustive a process it is to repeal an amendment? I do. And I don't see that happening anytime soon.

On another note;

Sinixstar, seriously, you should chill out on the attacks of forum members on what you perceive as childish.
 
I guarandamntee you, come get them, and, you'll get them ammunition first.
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Thats fine, lets say for a minute you actually take a last stand and go down in flames.

All that will accomplish is:
-you will be dead
-your family will likely be dead
-your house will be burned to the ground
-your dog will be raped mulitple times by the ATF
-the "government" will still have your guns
-and you will be portrayed in the media as a child molesting psychopath
 
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