kierthos | Be afraid, be very afraid

Be afraid, be very afraid

Historic case may decide U.S. gun rights

Now, see, I'm not a gun nut. I don't own any. I don't plan to own any.

But even I realize that taking away gun rights is a bad idea.

You see, it's always easier to bestow rights then to take them away. And when the rights being taken away (maybe, depends on how the Supreme Court jumps on this one) involve firearms, you can bet that there's going to be a lot of people paying attention to this.

Hell, if SCOTUS decides to really limit gun rights, you can bet the state of Texas (and most of the rural South, for that matter) will shit themselves into a frenzy, not to mention how the NRA will go apeshit. (Note: A quote from Charlton Heston on those "damn dirty apes" may be quite appropriate.) And this is the wrong time to limit gun rights. I'm not talking because of a fear of "terrorism". I'm talking about the current low opinion of the federal government. The Prez has, what, a 20-something percent approval rating. Congress is not held in much higher esteem. And with the Feds fucking over people's rights left and right under the guise of protection, now would be the worst time (from a paranoid conspiracy theorist's point of view), to start seizing guns from all over the country.

Honestly, I can't see the Supreme Court being quite so stupid as to limit gun rights. But if they decide that the Second Amendment only applies to militias, you're going to see a lot of people forming new ones in an attempt to keep their guns. I'm honestly not sure how well that would work, though....

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By the text it does only apply to militias and I don't think that workaround would actually get around that, since the NG currently fulfils the original role of the militias. When better to do this than with a fall guy president and administration anyway?

The problem is that for 200+ years it's been generously interpreted as applying to citizens (who then have the option of forming a well-regulated militia)... and when you try and take away people's guns around here, it gets a little dramatic.

You don't seem to have that problem in Old Blighty, though.... hardly anyone has guns to begin with.

I'm aware of that, but there's really little in the way of rational argument to keep them.

You are trying to insert rationality into politics and judicial decisions? Still?

How quaint. :P

Yeah, I know, still...

By this you mean, obviously, "By HALF of the text...".

The REST of the text doesn't mention Militias. In fact, it specifically ennumerates the actual right by saying, not that Militias had the right, but that the PEOPLE had the right.

Then there is the base definition of militia in the first place. From the definitions I've seen, it's a private, non-governmental organization.

Not that I have any hope that the Supreme Court will not put it's collective penis into this right. When it comes down to it, much like with prohibition, people will do what they will, and these laws only effect will be to throw a bunch of people into jail for possessing something that the government sees as a danger to itself.

Oh dear, another selective reader. What part of general gun ownership sounds 'well regulated' to you? Historical context, basic grammar and the example of much of the rest of the world is against this silly notion.

From TFA:

Lawyers for Heller disagree. They characterize the amendment's first clause as a preamble to the rights-securing language in the second clause. "The preamble cannot contradict or render meaningless the operative text," writes Heller's lawyer, Alan Gura, in his brief to the court.

In the Constitution, when the framers refer to "the people," they are discussing individual rights, Mr. Gura says. By conferring a right to "keep" arms, the people thereby enjoy a right to have arms in their homes and use them for personal protection, he says.

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The actual text of the Second Amendment:

"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."

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OK, so lets look at this: The text does not say "the right of a well regulated Militia to keep..." it says "the right of the people to keep..."

The first sentence is justification for the second, not a limitation upon. You also have to do some study of American history (which being from New England they shove down our throat from Elementary School on). The Founding Fathers were paranoid of the government they were creating becoming as bad, or worse, than the one they just broke ties with. This is why George Washington was adamantly opposed to Political Parties and it was why they all agreed upon the Second Amendment. It's there so if the government ever slides too far off center and becomes the minor trappings of a true dictator then the people will still have the ability to rise up and overthrow it - by violence if necessary.

It is in essence the final check and balance written into the Constitution - the ultimate power of the People to throw off intolerable government. If you honestly try to take away that right then you'll find out real quick that it's not just the rednecks in the South that take the Second Amendment as the right of the people, not any organization very very seriously. There's a reason the NH state motto is 'Live Free or Die'.

The People refers to the entity of the state as a whole, as it does in other examples of the terminology such as 'people's republic' or even 'we the people'. The first part obviously provides context for the rest, the context of the time is an America without a standing army, hence the need for citizen soldiers and hence basing this idea on the old English way of levying troops as used in the English Civil War.

Frankly the whole 'we'd resist tyranny' thing doesn't hold water under hte Bush administration. Clearly the only rights gun nuts care about are gun rights.

Why does the right to bear arms trump the right to life?

Wow, I've seen ill researched opinion before but Grim this one is a little far fetched.

'We the People' refers to exactly that - the people of the American Continent. They were at the time acting without any 'state' at all. The Declaration of Independence is a cry of the American people to be freed from the tyranny of the English Crown of the late 1700's.

'the context of the time is an America without a standing army'

The United States Army was formed June 14, 1784.

The Bill of Rights was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1791.

So The United States had a standing Army for five years before the Second Amendment was even proposed. Your theory that it was there to aid in the raising of troops for a country without a standing army belies your lack of historical knowledge of the United States.

'Frankly the whole 'we'd resist tyranny' thing doesn't hold water under hte Bush administration. '

As much as Bush has done more to slide us towards fascism he hasn't really don't that much to slide us towards tyrrany. Remember that the English citizens didn't have too much problem with King George even though the American colonists saw him as a tyrant. I'm sure that the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan may see the Unites States differently than it's citizens do - but we're also not taxing them even if we are an occupying force.

Also it's a long way from spying on your own citizens to 'Taxation without Representation'.

'Clearly the only rights gun nuts care about are gun rights.'

Bullshit. I'm no gun nut - I don't even own a gun nor am I a member of the NRA - but I care about gun rights. I care quite a bit about them.

'Why does the right to bear arms trump the right to life?'

It doesn't. Your freedom to own a gun (assuming you were in the US and not in the UK where all firearms are illegal) is just that - a right to own it not a right to shoot me with it. Now the right to shoot someone is a very different right and falls under the Fourth Amendment, not the Second.

(as a note it also falls under US Code Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 110A Â§ 2266.1)

All my fire, gone. ;)

But, before I bow to superior opinion, I do have one last thing to say:

I feel that much resistance to private firearm ownership relies on a reliance on the Federal government to accurately and honorably perform jobs it has no understanding of. Anyone who has dealt with our (or any) federal government in performance of the things it is SUPPOSED to be doing can empathise with my disgust at it's mindless performance. Social services, driver and highway services, road & bridge repair, everything our government tries, it fails at, miserably, all over page one in the paper.

Then, to top it off, we are provided with a police force, that simply can not prevent crime occurances in any way, and busies itself in the prosecution after the crime. They provide no deterrent from crime, no more than the electric chair does. They are their to mop up afterwards. This is no indictment, this is simply a statement of reality (or my observance, thereof). They do not protect, they prosecute.

Thus, it is my opinion that people who derive their sence of safety from a governmental organization is a bit naive. In more times that I care to mention in history and modern times, people need more protection FROM their government.

It seems most people don't trust the average man. I simply don't trust committees. I can name a multitude of acts, committed by individuals, which one might find honorable, enlightened, visionary...

...haven't seen the first "inspired" act from a governmental agency. Not that they do not proclaim it it be "inspiring", it's just after all the back-thumping is done, somebody, somewhere out there is getting screwed. But no one hears about that. Or by the time they do, it's too late, and the UN labels it a "Genocide".

I shall, until I am unable, provide my own self-preservation. It doesn't HAVE to be a gun. When they come out with something more effective than guns, I'll use that.

Heh heh heh, 'tyranny'. There's an ill researched assumption but at least the schools can be blamed here.

The colonies recieved more in tax from British citiziens than they paid out, the taxes had been repealed and representation was being discussed at the highest levels of government when the rebellion was insisted upon. It was more about British radicals hoodwinking people in a time of poor communication and their desire to push west against the Indians than anything so 'high faluting'.

By owning a gun you greatly increase the chance of accident or suicide involving you or your family, far greater than the chance you'll ever be called upon to use it in self defence or in 'defence of liberty' (in which instance it'll make zero overall difference anyway).

'History is written by the victor'

We won the American Revolution (as well as the War of 1812), so I'll stick with the American version of what happened thanks. You can keep your 'only the military get to use guns' laws in the UK where they belong.

And you can keep your high incidence of suicide and homicide in the US, where they belong. Evolution in action perhaps.

I love how "magic" powers are atrributed to otherwise inanimate objects.

But I am not fooled into thinking the people that broach these magic powers that firearms possess care in any way about accidental loss of human life. Because if they were, guns would be ignored completely, and automobiles, which kill and maim more people every day than all other sources combined, would be MUCH more heavily regulated. We would have a much stricter "German" style competancy testing, along with huge fees to acquire ones driving permit. Cars would have restrictive engineering, like in Japan, that would limit, not only the size of the vehicle, but it's power and mass. But no one is interested in any of these limitations.

I also love how "suicide" is invariably included. Like one could be coming home from work, and proclaim, "Oh damn! I've had a suicide! And all because that damn pistol was in the house! And here I was looking forwards to Pot Roast for dinner!". Besides, I thought the right to end one's life in one's own choosing was something the europeans advocated? Or aren't all the continentals as enlightened as the Scandinavians? Hmmm? A gun must the "Euthanasia Special".

How many fallacies can you cram into one posting? Was there a competition going on I was unaware of?

Cars have other purposes, they are not designed to be death machines, what's more they actually accomplish their required purpose with decent regularity, unlike the supposed 'self defence' idea of firearms, which they fail miserably at statistically.

The point in both cases is that the device makes both much easier and whim/spree deaths that much more common, not a weighed decision.

So, as if to prove my point, the actual NUMBER of people who lose their lives is irrelevant? Makes it hard to believe you care for any lives lost, and draws into suspicion the objectivity of your arguments. Indeed, you may indeed dislike firearms, many people do, but opinion is best left to oneself, and has little place in arguments of logic and merit. Especially when one is discussing the rights of others to their property.

You don't see a need, so there is no possible need? I'd like to see you telling an american black family they have no need, maybe in downtown Detroit. Or in Cabbegetown in Atlanta, Georgia. You see, black urban families here know they cannot trust their police force, they have a long history of abuse at police hands. So, I ask you, what other recourse might they have? At shooting ranges and firearms training I see more and more older black women attending than any other single group. Little old retired ladies, bank tellers, restaurant waitresses and day labourers.

But you know better than them their needs? You know there can be no POSSIBLE reason for the legality of firearm ownership? You know the solution to their hardships?

Honestly, I feel american blacks, homosexuals, ethnic minorities, liberals, animal rights activists, and all other systematically repressed groups should arm themselves. You simply cannot leave it to the right wing and uneducated rural whites to be armed alone. There is a time and place for peaceful demonstration, but it does not exclude the rare necessity for bearing arms in refusal to be subdued.

Lastly, I would admonish you to cease your childish insults. If you cannot bear the fact that other people have differing opinions than you, and that both sides should be free to express themselves in a calm, dignified manner, then it is better to grumble privately than demean those whom may share your arguments by behaving petulantly.

Proportions are relevant and those families are better off without, yes, having a gun increases their chances of accident or suicide and increases the chances of them coming away dead from a confrontation. Better that the overall chances of encountering gun violence are decreased.

Yes, I know the solution to their hardships, but decent welfare, healthcare and a social system that doesn't shit on the poor from a great height seems to be anathema to the US.

I can bear the fact people have differing opinions, is it too much to ask that they derive from logic, reason and evidence?

See, I just don't get why anyone needs a *handgun* to protect their home any more than they need an *assault rifle* for "hunting." Hunting what, exactly? Ugh. I detest the NRA and I detest "Second Amendment advocates" who are really little more than anarchists in nice suits.

That being said, I think that we are going to see a decision that supports an individual right to own firearms, subject to reasonable governmental control, such as prohibiting them in certain areas, requirement of background checks, and so on. I think that it would be improper to interpret the Second Amendment to grant a right to bear arms solely in the service of the state, which would be the equivalent of saying "become a cop or join the National Guard if you want to own a gun" is going so far in the other direction as to be absurd, but the opposite extreme, where people think that arming college kids would have prevented the VA Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings, is retarded beyond all comprehension.

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Be afraid, be very afraid

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