The Second Amendment Arguement??

[Lilred]

Had the day off today..just happened to have the tv tuned to pbs station (so the lilone could watch sesame st)...wont payin it no mind (was house cleanin) and when I finished runnin the vacuum..I plopped on the sofa and that there judge roberts was in them hearins. Well..I watched fer a minute..cause he was gittin beat up by them Senators..it was kinda funny...till I heard em talkin bout what he thought on the arguement of the second amendment rights.

Now..I know and will admit I'm backwoods er whatever...but honest to god I had nary a clue that there will be a battle on how /what the Constitution meant by "the right to keep & bear arms".
Some courts are apparently sayin that the 2nd amendment refers to militia er army's rights...and some courts are sayin that it's individual rights. From what i gathered..this is going to the Supreme court this year er maybe the next? Well..hell flew in me then..not to mention them talkin bout wether it should be the government or the doctors that should decide wether they should pull the plug on ya er not iffin yer braindead & on life support. Well here's an option fer em..how bout neither friggin one????

Then I was so mad I was bout to start goin off like a butane lighter on a woodstove..so I changed the channel. Then I seen that friggin Bush addressin the united nations...and he's talkin bout the werld bein free and democratic and all that other happy horse *bleep*. I'm thinkin to myself...seems lke this country aint as free as he likes to make it.
I dont wanna go off..so I'll behave..partially cause I dont think I got the whole story yet. Have to save that fer another day..cause it's bedtime and I gotta git back to werk tomorrow (the bashturds). I figured some of ya'll were probaly already followin this..thought maybe ya'll could help fill in the blanks.
It aint like me to draw conclusions ya know

[Rocky Raab]

Lilred, when idiots say that "the people" in the second amendment only means "the militia," then remind them that -by their own definition- only "the militia" has a right to...

free speech
freedom of assembly
right to a fair trial
equal rights

or to vote!

And then see what they say.

[Adirondacks]

P*sses me off too.

The second amendment says exactly
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

To me this shows that the framers of
the constitution understood that it
is necessary to have guns in the hands
of regular people to ensure that
the defence of "Freedom"
against those who would take
such freedoms away.

[Adirondacks]

Sorry I had to go a little further with
this cause it really ruffles my feathers.

The thing that really gets me about the
arguements that most people make for
gun control is the tendancy to draw a
distinct line between the government and
the people that absolutely should not
be there. In a nut shell that was exactly
what the framers of the constitution had
fought to ensure. Government by the
people.
When we begin to assert that the
Government should infringe on our right
to bear arms in the absence of a
mitigating cercumstance (a felony) it just
pisses me off. It completeley sets up the
Government as seperate and apart from
the people. That is the beginning of a
very slippery slope that people seem
way too eager to rush down.

[Critch]

What exactly is John Robert's stand on gun control? I can't seem to find anything definitive from him or on him?

The fact is, I don't much trust poiliticians of either party too much, and he is just another pol from what I see.

[Rocky Raab]

Critch, John Roberts is emphatically NOT a politician. He's a judge.

He will rule on the cases that come before him - and no others.

He will rule on how the Constitution of the US -as it is written- applies to those cases. And that's all he'll do.

My guess is that Roberts will be confirmed. The big question then is who will be nominated next to replace Judge O'Connor. IF that person is another so-called "Originalist" who will support the written Constitution, and IF that person gets confirmed, it is almost a certainty that the left and gun control crowd will avoid bringing any cases before the Supreme Court for decades to come. Because they'd almost certainly lose.

Under those circumstances, it is probable that the right, pro-gun crowd will make repeated attempts to get a gun control case before that court. Because they'd probably win.

[Critch]

Rocky, I hope you're right. I just don't feel that the conservatives on the courts or in the Congress have been very vocal in the past few years. Many of our victories seem to have come at the state level.

We sure could use some more real strict constructionists on the Court.

[Rocky Raab]

No, we've done VERY well on the Federal level, too.

Since Bush was elected, we've won the sunset of the Assault Weapons Bill, the nomination of a VERY pro-gun John Bolton to the UN, and most recently the passage of the Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act.

Put pretty much on permanent back burner was the Gunshow bill, too. Those are huge accomplishments.

Whatever else he's done or not done, Bush truly lived up to the NRA's assessment of his gun stance.

[fabsroman]

I agree with that Rocky.

I never thought we would see the Assualt Weapons Bill go away, but I guess stranger things have happened.

[Critch]

I guess I have to concede on Bush, who I do like by the way.

I guess I want too much too fast, I know that these silly laws came down one at a time and I guess that's how we'll have to get rid of them.

[gregarat]

I agree 100% with all of you. I do have a question about the wording. "A well regulated militia", regulated by who?

[Rocky Raab]

In the language of the time, "well regulated" meant well trained, disciplined or drilled. I other words, a body of citizens trained in the defense of the commonwealth. But NOT a standing army, as that is precisley what the Founding Fathers were trying to prevent. Instead, they envisioned the entire populace of men ready and capable of picking up their privately owned weapons when the need arose.

[gregarat]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Rocky. It has been something thats been buging me for years.

[PJgunner]

It goes even farther than that. The Militia Act of 1792 states exactly who is the militia and what they were to be armed with. Later on, there was Title 10 of the U.S.C which went even farter, reaffirming the Militia act of 1792 and bringing it up to date. One of the point was, the militia was to be armed "with the weapon currently in use" by our military. So why are we not allowed out M-16s?
To carry this a bit further, in U.S v Miller, 1939, the Supreme Court stated that the Send Amendent was still valid, and that the Militia act and Title 10 were also the law of the land. The case involve one Miller who was convicted of violation the part of the national Firearms act in that he possessed a saw off shot gun. He stated that the gun was in use by the military and therefore should be a legally owned firearm. However, when his case reached the Supreme court, he lost because he didn't show up to defend himself. It took some searching, but the reason he was a no show is because he died.
I believe that if he had not died, and had been able to present his case, NFA 34 would have been declared unconstitutional and removed from the books.
Bad luck for us and good luck for th antis.
Paul B.

[Critch]

Another interesting thing about the Miller case is that the ruling was that a "sawed-off shtogun" had no military value, however, I have at least 10 Mossberg Cruisers in my Logistics Squadron Armory in my Air Guard unit.

And further, the phrase, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," is a stand alone phrase, it essentially modifies the body of the text, but does not change the meaning of it. Our ancesters were very aware of what it meant, too bad so many Americans have no grasp of the English Language.