Everyone is Going to Hate Me, but...

[Victor1Echo]

What part don't you understand? It is obvious to me, and all the laws are pretty unconstitutional. Itis a post de facto kinda of thing. You are confused because all thses laws have made the 2nd amendment irrelevent. Instead you must wase through state and federal laws to find out what the right to bear arms means The lawmakers will find out this next november what it means.

 

[MisterMike]

The OP has taken a fair amount of heat for asking a reasonable question--should the Second Amendment be rewritten? It's reasonable because the Second has been subjected to various--we believe wrong--interpretations over the years, to the point where most Americans, including many gun owners, have come to accept the status quo as reflecting the true extent of the right to keep and bear arms. Not only have laypersons fallen into this way of thinking; legal scholars, courts and legislatures, over time, reduced the importance of the right to keep and bear arms to the point of triviality.

Now, the Heller court seems to have gotten it right, though some wish that the Court had explicity recognized a more unfettered right. Hopefully the months to come will see the logical application of this right to the states.

So, my answer is no, don't screw around with the Second Amendment. As I've read more and more about the drafting of the Constitution and the intent of the founders, and have delved into the logic of Heller, I find myself convinced to a moral certainty that the Constitution clearly contemplated a fundamental human right to keep and bear arms as a necessary condition to self-determination. If I could go back in time, I might suggest omitting a comma here or adding an extra word or two there, but we would be courting disaster to now acquiesce to the redrafting of the Second Amendment.

 

[divemedic]

I have gotten to the point where I support a constitutional convention. I know that many fear a Concon, because they think that RKBA (among other rights) will be written out of the Constitution. To those people, I ask this question:

The ENTIRE constitution has been ignored into irrelevancy, and the COTUS means only what the FedGov says it means. How would a rewriting change anything? This government is about to fall, of that there is no doubt. It will fall because of loose fiscal policy. The government we get from that point on will either be decided by the people through a ConCon, or those currently in power will reshape it how they see fit. Either way, change is coming. Shouldn't we the people get to decide what that change will be?

 

[Art Eatman]

divemedic, the political structure is such that "we the people" would have little say as to who are the delegates to such a convention. IMO, a majority of the delegates would be Statists--which would be to our detriment. We'd wind up with Bill of Nine Privileges instead of a Bill of Ten Rights.

The European Union has a Constitution, and it speaks to people's rights. However, all those rights are subject to government limitations and controls to such a degree that they are less rights than sometime-privileges.

Our Constitution was written at a unique time in history, not known before nor since. A time of individual sovereignty, of distrust of the beneficience of government or rule by an elite. (Granted, there was an "Animal Farm" element, considering the status of land owners as well as the issue of slavery. However, the fundamental concept remained.)

We need no rewrite of the Constitution. We need a societal return to self-discipline and to
a sense of responsibility for the consequences of our decisions and actions.

 

[divemedic]

and what we have now is... what?

Can I use racial slurs in my business without government intervention?
Can I own whatever guns I want?
Can the government place virtual troops in my home with warrantless wiretaps, GPS locators, and by remote activation of my cell phone?
Civil forfeiture laws have destroyed the 4A. I can be stopped by a police officer and have my property confiscated on suspicion of being a drug dealer, and never even see the inside of a courtroom.
There are Americans being held in prison as suspected terrorists without trial. Our President has authorized the CIA to assassinate Americans suspected of terrorism. Even if you ARE tried, if the government doesn't get the verdict they want, they simply refile the case with different charges.

Does that pretty much handle the bill of rights? Whether we like it or not, the COTUS is being rewritten by the statists every day.

 

[TexasRifleman]

and what we have now is... what?

The problem with trying to rewrite all of this is the temptation to try to cover every conceivable possibility up front. As the OP has said, a rewrite would try to address the holes and confusion. The only way to do that is to address each topic individually.

This would mean that the First Amendment would be between 400 and 500 pages long.

The Second Amendment would probably be twice that, and so on.

The BoR would be a 9000 page document and would require yearly updating as technology and society changed. THAT is what the "living document" people want.

And, the real problem is not the document but how it's treated. "Shall not be infringed" is so incredibly clear, yet we have thousands of pages of firearms laws. That is not the fault of the Second Amendment, that is the fault of citizens for allowing it to get to this point.

 

[paul]

and what we have now is... what?

An overly-powerful federal government that would take great advantage of a Con-con, to the detriment of the people.

Let's see how our step-by-step plan plays out.

But, still... keep your powder dry.
p

 

[StarDust1]

I did not insult you, I said your posts make you look less intelligent with every one because you appear to be willing to engage in intellectual dishonesty as long as it advances your position.

Citing Wikipedia as a source just proves my point. You have been referenced several times to linguistics experts cited in Heller. You have not attempted to rebut any of their arguments because, I assume, you have not read them or they disagree with your position (they do by the way, to save you from having to read them).

Yet you quote Wiki as a definitive source. That is not someone who wants to engage in an honest debate.

The OP has, from the beginning of the thread, been dealing specifically in sophistry...This topic has run it's "always predictable" course, in my estimation it illustrates rather well the mindset of the committed anti-gunner, the only real concern he's illuminated is a desire to modify the document as an aid to the fed in defrocking someone else of their RKBA......Make no mistake, after decades of obfuscating by politically connected, and determined anti-gun statists, there are very many gun owning Americans who have come to mimic his world view...

 

[StarDust1]

I have gotten to the point where I support a constitutional convention. I know that many fear a Concon, because they think that RKBA (among other rights) will be written out of the Constitution. To those people, I ask this question:

The ENTIRE constitution has been ignored into irrelevancy, and the COTUS means only what the FedGov says it means. How would a rewriting change anything? This government is about to fall, of that there is no doubt. It will fall because of loose fiscal policy. The government we get from that point on will either be decided by the people through a ConCon, or those currently in power will reshape it how they see fit. Either way, change is coming. Shouldn't we the people get to decide what that change will be?

The forming of a constitutional convention would be an absolutely "EPIC VICTORY" for the statists, I doubt whether you'd be allowed to own private property, let alone a firearm, within a single decade following such a convocation...

 

[paul]

...and in response to the OP:

Do I wish that the 2ndA was written: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"? YES!

Do I wish it said: "You idiots in positions of power within the government of these United States had better be aware that we, the Founding Fathers, do hereby state that any weapons that you have, that may be used to control the people, be placed at the control of the people." Sure.

Does it?

Yep.

p

 

[divemedic]

And that is what we have NOW. We are at the final stages where there is anything that can be done to stop what is happening, if we haven't passed the point of no return already.

All governments fail eventually. Ours is getting close. What do you think the government will do to retain control once the people realize that the Social Security and Welfare checks are not coming in the mail this week and begin to riot? We are already in debt to the tune of over $12 trillion, with another $35 trillion in unfunded liabilities. The only thing maintaining the status quo is the large amount of free money being given away.

The Convention can only PROPOSE amendments. They still must be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. See Article V of the Constitution.

http://foavc.org/

 

[Walkalong]

The constitution is a brilliant document. It does not need changing.

The ones pushing for a CC only want to be able to change the constitution so they can circumvent it. That is why it was made so difficult to get a CC, why it should be that difficult, and why we should not have one when it is the politicians who want it.

The people are the ones who will lose here.

The only ones who want a CC are the politicians who would rule you, and the folks who don't have sense enough to understand what those politicians are really after.

 

[Walkalong]

All governments fail eventually

That is not a failure of the constitution. If the new goverment follows the constitution as they should, we'll be good for at least another couple hundred years.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Nothing in the First Amendment about CD, DVD or WWW, and that 18th Century British-American English is sometimes hard to follow, but the possibility of a Constitution Convention 2010 doing substantially better and the prospect it could do worse, cautions me against supporting a re-write.

 

[devildog32713]

I hadn't thought of the 10th amendment here, weapon restrictions should be a part of the state legislature, not federal. How warped.

 

[divemedic]

So all of you who are against an Article V convention are against it not because you think the Government is doing just fine, but because you are afraid that things can become worse.

Kind of like voting for candidate 'X' because he is not candidate 'Y'. So things get worse, just at a slower rate than if you had voted the other way.

The only way that we will ever again see freedom is to wait for the inevitable collapse, and hope that someday our children throw off the chains that will be placed upon them.

That is not a failure of the constitution. If the new goverment follows the constitution as they should, we'll be good for at least another couple hundred years.

I give us less than fifty. In the next year, our national debt will exceed our gross national product. Less than five years later, that will have doubled. Sooner or later, the house of cards will fall.

The only ones who want a CC are the politicians who would rule you, and the folks who don't have sense enough to understand what those politicians are really after.

and those who understand that the status quo is unsustainable. All the government does today is rewrite the COTUS through judicial fiat. Name an amendment that has not been violated and decided out of existence by the courts.

90% of the USC and CFR are unconstitutional.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Words & Dictionaries

During my volunteer years in Europe, I had occasion to tutor and assist people with their studies of subjects ranging from their native tongue to highly technical topics and, indeed, the subject of study and learning itself.

Nearly all the people I worked with were adults. For most of them, English was a second or third language. Many, however, came from Commonwealth countries, and several from the USA.

One of the most common complaints in the study of any subject was that "it's too complicated," or "it's not clear enough," and variations on that theme.

I've sat with a guy from Italy, studying an administrative manual -- in his native language (which I speak not at all), who found the text "too complicated" to grasp. Some two hours later, having chased down the definitions of dozens of words, including words used in the definitions themselves (remember, I don't speak Italian), we arrived at the "light bulb" moment, when he re-read the text, broke into a grin, and declared that it was as simple and obvious as the nose on your face. I was then able to verify his understanding through one of the Italian-literate tutors.

All we did was clear up the words, and some basic points of grammar. In Italian. Which I don't speak. Or read.

Two hours earlier the document was too complicated. Unclear. Beyond his grasp.

And, yes, there's a point to this.

This story was a commonplace occurrence. It can be something of a struggle to arrive at the point where an adult is willing to admit (or at least consider) that there might be something he doesn't understand in his native language.

It gets more interesting when the text is authored in an older version of the language, using "obsolete" meanings or structures, because now it still looks like the same language, but you find yourself wishing you had a less cluttered dictionary from the authoring period.

I've run into this same phenomenon in half a dozen languages, including English -- both American and Commonwealth -- only to have the student find his answers, and ultimately his complete understanding, in the definitions of words and parts of speech.



If you would understand the Constitution and BoR, it is not enough to be literate in the language of today. You really have to know the meanings and usages contemporary with its writing.

The English language of the 1700s has changed substantially, both from common usage and from intentional molestation by people with an axe to grind.

The COTUS doesn't need re-writing.

It needs to be studied in proper context, using proper meanings of the day.


It probably should "go without saying" that folks who find the Constitution an impediment or insufficiently restrictive of "the people" have a personal or cultural axe to grind, and you cannot reasonably expect them to have that axe on display when they offer to "clarify" or otherwise embellish the original document.

An honest quest for understanding, however, is best met with an earnest suggestion the one should consult a good and complete dictionary and grammar reference -- mindful to emphasize meaning and usage contemporary with the text's authors.


The "perfect" Constitution is not one that has every possible contingency documented.

Remember:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

 

[StarDust1]

^^^A great place to begin is with the various commentary of the very men who helped to author the document, they leave no room for obfuscation, and precious little doubt as to their intentions...

 

[mack]

Don't see it as an either or thing in regard to a cc - the problem isn't so much the system of government as it is the people.

I believe it was Adams that said something along the lines of - "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

As the old saying goes, people generally get the government they deserve. While it does matter what you put down on paper, unless the people abide by the principles that are set down, it becomes pointless. The government that we have today is the one we made by creating corporations as individuals, by creating political parties that are by nature more interested in winning elections than abiding by principle, by not wanting to be morally responsible to each other - thus if there is a "problem" let the government handle it, by not holding those we elect accountable, and by rationalizing and justifying why we don't need to be responsible to the standards we want others to abide by.

A cc will not fix that. It can't fix a problem of spiritual and moral sickness. The only thing that will fix it is a rededication as individuals to first principles and the national revival of such. But most of us are too busy watching tv, surfing the internet, shopping, being good little consumers, and pursuing pleasure rather than seeking to fulfill duty.

And that is the dirty little secret - most people really don't want the burden of true freedom - because freedom has a concomitant responsibility.

 

[shockwave]

The English language of the 1700s has changed substantially, both from common usage and from intentional molestation by people with an axe to grind.

Sharp comment. One thing to also keep in mind is that the framers of the Constitution were in rough agreement on the big issues, and resolved their other often-passionate disputes through compromise and persuasion. The current political environment is so toxic it defies characterization. This is not a time to be drafting a Constitution, not when people are getting whipped up into hysteria.

The only way that we will ever again see freedom

Look, rhetoric like that is unhelpful. Last I checked, I'm free to do pretty much anything I want. Except, of course, I need money to buy things. So I have to work, which means I have to get up, eat breakfast, go to work... On the weekends there's the house and greens to tend, shopping to do, and when you total it all up, there's only a few hours a day most of us have to devote entirely to leisure.

 

[oldpuppymax]

The 2nd amendment was written two hundred and 20+ years ago. It made perfect sense at the time and makes perfect sense today, keeping those times in mind and understanding that the purpose of the Founders was to enable American citizens to keep and bear arms in order to defend their nation and property and defend their rights and liberty from a corrupt and criminal state (government). Only the left find the 2nd amendment "confusing" or "unclear" and that is DELIBERATE!!

 

[divemedic]

Last I checked, I'm free to do pretty much anything I want. Except, of course, I need money to buy things.

Feel free to go out to your garage and convert your AR to full auto.

Feel free to drive your car without a DL. Or government mandated insurance.

Feel free to not pay income tax.

There are quite a few restrictions placed upon you, and many of them are things with which you have grown accustomed.

 

[eye5600]

I have a few more or less random comments.

1) The framers were concentrating strongly on the balance of power between the Federal Gov't and the states since the Articles of Confederation were failing because of squabbles between the states. There were so unconcerned about the rights of citizens that that the Bill of Rights had to get tacked on afterward.

2) A lot of language in the Bill of Right was not taken to mean what it apparently says. For example, it says no establishment of religion, but Connecticut (and probably the other New England states) had mandatory taxes for the support of the Congregational Church for another century. I suppose the argument was that the Establishment clause was not incorporated against the states.

3) It's common for compromises necessary for the adoption of a law to be ignored after the law is passed.

4) I think we can take for granted that in any political discussion, a lot of people will interpret texts in line with their own personal preferences.

 

[Warlokke]

The meaning of the 2A is perfectly clear, as are the meanings of the other amendments and remainder of our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, unless you are just trying to find ambiguity, HOWEVER you must also understand that our Declaration of Independence and Constitution must be read thru the lens of the founding fathers....and we have plenty of documents from them that allow us to do so.

In my experience, the only folks I have found that want to argue what the first 10 amendments mean are those folks that don't want to understand what the founding fathers meant because they flat out don't agree that individual liberty trumps collective security if you want true freedom.

Just my .02

 

[shockwave]

It made perfect sense at the time and makes perfect sense today

A little light reading for you. In the linked passages, you can see the language taking shape and what was meant by some of the terms, and you can also see wider issues they were envisioning. Like, during a war, if you didn't have a gun or didn't want to fight, you could pay somebody do that for you, through a sort of tax. But if you kept a gun and were wiling to use it, you got a tax exemption. The 2nd Amendment Foundation is an institution that probably wouldn't exist if the Founders were in agreement about militias and what the rights and responsibilities of the citizens should be.

For example, look at that section about "no citizen shall be compelled" to own arms if their religious sensibilities forbid it. They were contemplating mandatory firearm ownership. The language of the 2nd takes shape as these various writings and arguments were considered, and certain disagreements couldn't be bridged, so they were left implied but necessarily vague.