Mass Shooting Las Vegas...

[Sparko]

That is total nonsense. Incorporation applies the Second to the states - but both state and fed regulation existed pre-incorporation and was left largely in place post incorporation. The Court found no such thing.

Look up McDonald v. City of Chicago. Basically it was decided that the 2nd was incorporated because of the due process clause of the 14th. They didn't incorporate it after the fact. They decided that it was already incorporated because of the 14th. Which means that the state laws were already in violation because the 2nd took precedence over the state laws and just were never challenged before.

As you yourself said previously, the federal is higher than the state. When the federal recognizes rights of a citizen, the state cannot take that right away. That's just common sense. If they could then the federal constitution means nothing.

[Sparko]

I suspect increased liability would do a lot but so what? Gun control is still a good thing over all - even if it does need correcting.

*The assault weapons ban particulars have as much to do with gun proponents getting snitty and refusing to participate as the ban itself. I don't see 'lookie, this isn't really what you meant' as much of a counter argument. Fix the legislation if necessary - but I see little effort toward 'fix' and a lot toward 'reverse'.

As I said earlier, we need to control the people who use guns, not the guns. Make the penalty for misusing them so high that anyone would be reluctant to use them incorrectly. If you kill someone with a gun and it is unjustified (not in self defense) then give very stiff penalties. If it was done in the commission of a felony (burglary or robbery for instance) they should get the death penalty. If they are even carrying a gun during the commission of a felony, they should get 20 years or so.

But the way I read the 2nd, it is too broad. It protects the ownership and use of firearms and it sets no limits. Gun control laws are actually unconstitutional despite what the courts say. They actually have no say in the matter according to the very wording in the 2nd. We only allow the restrictions by pretending the 2nd doesn't say what it says. Which is a dangerous slope.

[Sparko]

I think you don't legally have to have a license to drive on private property. It's a license to operate a motor vehicle on government property.


I believe you don't have to have a license to possess a car or to operate it on private property. So the analogy with guns would be that you'd have to have a government license only if you want a license to discharge your firearm on government property. If you want to own a gun and operate it on private property, no license required.


Sparko may differ from me, but I'd define a natural right as a right that exists prior to human-created governments or conventions. It's not an artificial invention, but exists by reason of the nature of being human.

As for arguing particular rights, I personally say that the most fundamental basis for gun rights is the right to property. One has the right to manufacture (and thus own) a gun because one has the right to transform one's property into another form. And then likewise property rights is the most fundamental basis for the right to transfer that original ownership through trade or gift.

I might ask you a question in return: How would it be possible for a person (or group of persons) to claim that they have the right to own a ground-to-air missile, and that other people do not have that same right? How would that state of affairs (of unequal rights among human beings) come to be?

I think we have a natural right to own guns because we have the natural right to be safe in our person and defend our property and lives using whatever means necessary. So it would include using guns, knives, tanks, flame throwers, and so on. I don't think it would include such things as nuclear bombs or bombs in general because it would be hard to use them to protect yourself and your property if you ended up blowing yourself up with it. Maybe hand grenades and mines. Missiles would also be iffy because they are mostly offensive in nature. Bazookas can be defensive.

But it is all tied to protecting yourself and your property.

[Sparko]

Yes, it seems to me that the courts have carved out lots of exceptions to what the Constitutions says, that are really un-Constitutional. And not just with the 2nd Amendment. In the 20th century, SCOTUS carved out exceptions for when its okay for the government to do what the Constitution seems clearly to prohibit, e.g. if the government has a "rational basis" for, or a "compelling interest" in, having the law. When the 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law", what kind of interpreting is it to say that that means "Congress shall make no law unless Congress shall be sufficiently interested in making such law"? Or how do they maintain with a straight face that compulsory military service is not involuntary servitude (13th Amendment)? Or when SCOTUS holds that regulation of most things that are not even commerce is regulation of interstate commerce. Or that the 4th Amendment can be ignored if we just label the search an "administrative search". They have lost much credibility of being a good interpreter of the Constitution. The vast majority of what the U.S. federal government does is unconstitutional, which implies that SCOTUS has been either complicit in permitting it or incompetent to prevent it.

Yeah it's almost enough to turn me libertarian if I didn't think that the anarchy that would result would be worse than what we have now. - but when the government starts ignoring the constitution and "interpreting" it in a way that actually goes against what it says, especially on rights, then they are becoming the very thing that the constitution is trying to protect us from.

[Sparko]

Many nations license gun-owners. People must study how to keep the firearms safe, they must train using the firearm and then pass a test. This helps keeps firearms under control.

The NRA that everyone complains about? They hold regular classes for gun training and encourage gun owners to take them. https://firearmtraining.nra.org/student-courses/

[Sparko]

When Antonin Scalia, perhaps the most strongest pro-gun-rights justice that the country has ever had, says that there are still limitations to the Second Amendment, I consider that to be a very strong argument that there are in fact limitations to the Second Amendment.

The Canadian courts made that decision based on the Canadian constitution, which is different than the United States constitution.

way to miss the point completely.

[Mountain Man]

As I said earlier, we need to control the people who use guns, not the guns.

As long as those cases are explicitly defined. People who are guilty of a felony is pretty easy to establish. Much trickier is the mental health test. What are the standards? Which conditions, specifically, should preclude someone from owning a weapon, and is this in perpetuity, or can they exercise their right after a period of no symptoms or after suitable treatment? If this isn't locked down then I could see liberals casting a broad net that would exclude pretty much anyone for any arbitrary reason from owning a weapon.

"Oh, this person doesn't get the recommended 8-hours of sleep every night, and so his mental faculties are compromised. No gun for you!"

[Sparko]

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

Well we know that all police and government agencies are completely trustworthy.

People think that the police and military are "professionals" so they know how to use guns better than the public. That's not true. Many civilian gun owners are just as proficient in gun use. In fact, my brother is a cop and was in the Air Force before that, and my uncle was in Vietnam. I can routinely outshoot both of them at the target range. And I don't know about my uncle, but I know my brother never had to draw his gun against a person so he has no more experience in that area than I do. Probably more training in such encounters though.

But the purpose of the 2nd amendment is actually to protect civilians from over-reaching governments. So just letting the government have guns kinda defeats the purpose of the whole amendment.

[One Bad Pig]

The country didn't have a military when the constitution was framed, so guns rights were defended in the context of the need for a militia to fight against foreign governments. That militia has been maintained through the state National Guards, and we now have a gorilla of a federal military, and the courts have ruled it well within the founders intentions to regulate firearms going forward.

Incorrect. The Bill of Rights (including the 2nd Amendment) was intended to limit the power of the federal government, not provide for national defense. Read the Federalist Papers (and the Anti-Federalist Papers) sometime.

The idea that machine guns, stinger missiles, bazookas, rocket launchers, and explosives shouldn't be regulated/prohibited is just flat out retarded.

Feel free to point to where I said they shouldn't be.

[JimL]

The founders had no way to know what was coming in any area. They set limits to the government to protect freedom and allow "the people" rather than government to decide what was best for them.

You seem to forget that we the people are the government.

[One Bad Pig]

You seem to forget that we the people are the government.

That would be a democracy, which is not our form of government. Ideally, our elected officials are representative of us. The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, recognizes that the ideal situation is rarely the case, and does its best to mitigate the effects of less than ideal situations. In an ideal world, we would not need the 2nd Amendment.

[Mountain Man]

You seem to forget that we the people are the government.

Idealistic claptrap.

[Zymologist]

As I understand her, that's not quite what she's saying. First of all, she's saying that there's no such thing as a safe gun, therefore, responsible gun ownership should not be considered a given. Every gun should be considered loaded and dangerous. Even an unloaded gun. We were taught in the military, and in my time in Security Forces (basically a base cop, though I mostly worked in the nuke field) that you treat every gun as though it were loaded and has a hair-trigger. We carried these weapons (in my case, an M9 Beretta, an M16A2, and an M60 Machine Gun) on us for 15 hour shifts, or longer. There were lots of times where we literally slept with our rifles an arms length away. They were highly dangerous weapons, and even in the severely controlled environment of the military, there were so so so many times I saw accidental firings. "Responsible gun ownership" does exist in as much as one can maintain that responsibility, and some people are much more responsible than others, but, though I think she's exaggerating when she claims that she's never seen it in the wild, I think her greater point is that it, again, can't be assumed. Even responsible gun owners have known to have accidents, or to have had irresponsible/ignorant people (including children) get unexpected access to them.

Secondly, when she refers to idiots, and otherwise sane people, she's not talking about all gun owners, she's talking about those people in her own personal experience who've stood out as being just that. There's absolutely no reason to knee-jerk to that description and assume she's referring to all gun owners everywhere, or to assume that she's making a Starlight-level argument. Let's give her a bit more credit than that. I realize that this is a very sensitive topic for people on both sides of the divide, but I can speak for myself, and I think Teal, when I say that we don't think gun owners are generally evil, or stupid people. To repeat what I said earlier in this thread, in my own personal experience, most gun owners are incredible individuals, who do treat their guns with the care that they merit.

In hindsight I think my post was more aggressive than Teal deserved. Sorry, Teal.

[JimL]

Incorrect. The Bill of Rights (including the 2nd Amendment) was intended to limit the power of the federal government, not provide for national defense. Read the Federalist Papers (and the Anti-Federalist Papers) sometime.

Feel free to point to where I said they shouldn't be.

Well then what is your point.? If you agree that according to the 2nd amendment, that ones right to bear arms isn't unlimited, and that the government can set those limits, then what exactly is your argument?

[Zymologist]

If this thread gets a little too heavy, feel free to head on over to my sumo thread and weigh in there. Fat chance of that, no doubt (all you cultureless Americans), but I'll extend the invitation.