HYPOCRISY, Thy Name Is 'DEMOCRAT': Democrats Leave Capitol To March For Gun Control With Students

[2aguy]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

The statistical probability that any of those more than 300 MILLION firearms being used in a crime is less than percent per year. That's pretty damn safe.

Furthermore, IF the gun lobby would get off their ass and support ideas to slash mass shootings before they happen employing without gun control, you wouldn't have much of an issue there.

And, yet, our crime rate far exceeds almost every industrialized nation on earth, all of which have a lower percent of firearms held by civilians than we do. This, of course, destroys the myth that more guns mean less crime. In fact, it proves the opposite.

Wrong....actual experience shows you are wrong...

We went from 200 million guns in private hands in the 1990s and 4.7 million people carrying guns for self defense in 1997...to close to 400-600 million guns in private hands and over 17 million people carrying guns for self defense in 2017...guess what happened...

-- gun murder down 49%

--gun crime down 75%

--violent crime down 72%

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

 

[2aguy]

Any vote for a democrat is a vote to end the 2nd Amendment and to leave you defenseless in the face of criminals and an out of control government.

 

[Flopper]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

It is a fact...we have actual 21 years of history of increasing gun ownership and increasing gun carrying by law abiding gun owners.....and the gun crime rates went down..........it is the truth, the fact and the reality....you guys can keep lying but facts are facts.....

We went from 200 million guns in private hands in the 1990s and 4.7 million people carrying guns for self defense in 1997...to close to 400-600 million guns in private hands and over 17 million people carrying guns for self defense in 2017...guess what happened...
-- gun murder down 49%

--gun crime down 75%

--violent crime down 72%

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

Correlation is not cause and effect. Here is much better reason for the drop in gun violence than more guns result is less gun violence.

From 90-92 to 2014-16, the largest drop in gun violence occurred in 3 states.
New York -80%
California --61%
Texas -60%.
All other states an average of 25%

These drop should not come as a surprise because New York has enacted the toughest gun control in the country and California the fifth toughest.

Texas as in many other states have enacted a number of gun violence prevention programs in it's major cities.

Also, young people of all races, who as a generation have had sharply lower levels of gun ownership and numbers of gun killings despite continued high rates of poverty. White, Black, Latino, and Asian youths each shown much faster declines in gun homicide rates in the three largest states than do their national counterparts.

The claim that gun ownership stops crime is common in the U.S., and that belief drives laws that make it easy to own and keep firearms but 30 studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help.

More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows

Gun violence has dropped dramatically in three US states with very different gun laws

 

[Humorme]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

The statistical probability that any of those more than 300 MILLION firearms being used in a crime is less than percent per year. That's pretty damn safe.

Furthermore, IF the gun lobby would get off their ass and support ideas to slash mass shootings before they happen employing without gun control, you wouldn't have much of an issue there.

And, yet, our crime rate far exceeds almost every industrialized nation on earth, all of which have a lower percent of firearms held by civilians than we do. This, of course, destroys the myth that more guns mean less crime. In fact, it proves the opposite.

That is pure baloney. Our "crime rate" is most assuredly not the highest - unless you want raw numbers. What you're really talking about is gun violence. But anti-gunners are comfortable with death, destruction, and crime provided it's not by a firearm.

 

[Vandalshandle]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

The statistical probability that any of those more than 300 MILLION firearms being used in a crime is less than percent per year. That's pretty damn safe.

Furthermore, IF the gun lobby would get off their ass and support ideas to slash mass shootings before they happen employing without gun control, you wouldn't have much of an issue there.

And, yet, our crime rate far exceeds almost every industrialized nation on earth, all of which have a lower percent of firearms held by civilians than we do. This, of course, destroys the myth that more guns mean less crime. In fact, it proves the opposite.

That is pure baloney. Our "crime rate" is most assuredly not the highest - unless you want raw numbers. What you're really talking about is gun violence. But anti-gunners are comfortable with death, destruction, and crime provided it's not by a firearm.

In my community during the march for sensible gun laws:

Couple arrested after Sahuarita gun-violence rally

You own them. Not us.

 

[Claudette]

DNC MOTTOS:

1. 'Never let a tragedy go to waste.'

2. 'Never let a PHOTO OP go to waste.'


Democrats leave Capitol to join student gun protest

"Democratic leaders in the House and Senate exited the Capitol on Wednesday to march with and speak to students protesting gun violence on the one-month anniversary of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting.

Senior members of Democratic leadership joined other lawmakers from the House and Senate on Capitol Hill as thousands of students marched while others around the country walked out of classes or staged other protests."


Forget for a minute that Barry's pushed liberal agenda made it possible for the shooter to buy a gun...

Forget for a minute that these are the same Democrats who refused to pass Kate's law...

Forget for a minute that Schumer and these Democrats are the same ones who chose to stand with MS13 gang members and violent illegals - who have victimized / murdered Americans and who are now being protected in law-violating Sanctuary Cities - instead of Americans in order to shut the US government down not long ago...

Forget for a minute that these are the same Democrats just berated by illegals who recognized how Democrats were using them for political gain, much like they are now using the Parkland Florida shooting victims and students and this photo op for political gain...

If you can forget all of that then you could possible fall for this DNC politically-motivated theatrical performance designed to play on the emotions of all the suckers out there. designed to create emotion-based support for their gun-grabbing agenda....



Democrats leave Capitol to join student gun protest

LMAO Leave it to those idiots to look even more like idiots than they already do.

 

[Claudette]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

The statistical probability that any of those more than 300 MILLION firearms being used in a crime is less than percent per year. That's pretty damn safe.

Furthermore, IF the gun lobby would get off their ass and support ideas to slash mass shootings before they happen employing without gun control, you wouldn't have much of an issue there.

And, yet, our crime rate far exceeds almost every industrialized nation on earth, all of which have a lower percent of firearms held by civilians than we do. This, of course, destroys the myth that more guns mean less crime. In fact, it proves the opposite.

That is pure baloney. Our "crime rate" is most assuredly not the highest - unless you want raw numbers. What you're really talking about is gun violence. But anti-gunners are comfortable with death, destruction, and crime provided it's not by a firearm.

Yup. The gun is the tool and the person using it is the weapon.

Knock Chicago and some of the other big cities off and we are 4th from the bottom for murders.

 

[Humorme]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

The statistical probability that any of those more than 300 MILLION firearms being used in a crime is less than percent per year. That's pretty damn safe.

Furthermore, IF the gun lobby would get off their ass and support ideas to slash mass shootings before they happen employing without gun control, you wouldn't have much of an issue there.

And, yet, our crime rate far exceeds almost every industrialized nation on earth, all of which have a lower percent of firearms held by civilians than we do. This, of course, destroys the myth that more guns mean less crime. In fact, it proves the opposite.

That is pure baloney. Our "crime rate" is most assuredly not the highest - unless you want raw numbers. What you're really talking about is gun violence. But anti-gunners are comfortable with death, destruction, and crime provided it's not by a firearm.

In my community during the march for sensible gun laws:

Couple arrested after Sahuarita gun-violence rally

You own them. Not us.

I don't figure how I own them. I don't tolerate stupidity from either side of the debate.

 

[Humorme]

The gun lobby claims that more guns reduces crime. If that were true, America would be virtually crime free, because we have more guns in civilians hands than any country on earth.

The statistical probability that any of those more than 300 MILLION firearms being used in a crime is less than percent per year. That's pretty damn safe.

Furthermore, IF the gun lobby would get off their ass and support ideas to slash mass shootings before they happen employing without gun control, you wouldn't have much of an issue there.

And, yet, our crime rate far exceeds almost every industrialized nation on earth, all of which have a lower percent of firearms held by civilians than we do. This, of course, destroys the myth that more guns mean less crime. In fact, it proves the opposite.

That is pure baloney. Our "crime rate" is most assuredly not the highest - unless you want raw numbers. What you're really talking about is gun violence. But anti-gunners are comfortable with death, destruction, and crime provided it's not by a firearm.

Yup. The gun is the tool and the person using it is the weapon.

Knock Chicago and some of the other big cities off and we are 4th from the bottom for murders.

In the county next to where I live, the violent crime rate is 60.1 and the national average is 31:

DeKalb County, Georgia Crime

The county I live in the crime rate is 43 and again, the national average is 31

Gwinnett County, Georgia Crime

Moving north of there is Barrow County. The crime rate there is 43 and the national average is 31

Barrow County, Georgia Crime

Now, all of these places share something closely in common (though not as high) as Chicago.

Let me do one more place in that region. It is Cartersville, Georgia. The crime rate there is 23 with the national average being 31.1

Cartersville, Georgia Crime

What do you think makes a difference between Cartersville and the nearby counties?

 

[Humorme]

Knowing who owns a firearm is irrelevant. Crimes are solved without the LEO community having all that information. Serial numbers and registrations do not make firearms any less lethal.

Your money would be better spent on rehabilitating criminals while they are incarcerated. It would be better spent on identity children with emotional and behavioral issues while they're in school and treating them so that they don't commit violent acts as they grow up.

What is really wrong with registering guns? We register our cars, dogs, bicycles, burglar alarms, births, deaths, marriages and our kids into schools every day. Even with no military draft, we have draft registration.

The slogan or talking point “registration always leads to confiscation” has been taken up and repeated so many times that it seems impossible to trace its origin. Of course, law enforcement agencies, whether tyrannical or benign, have seized illegal items as part of their duties throughout history, long before anyone was talking about registering them.

There are many countries that require registration and there is no wholesale seizure of legal firearms. In Switzerland and Germany, and dozens of other countries gun registration is required and rarely does the police seize legally registered guns.

Requiring gun owners to register their firearms ensures gun owner accountability and helps law enforcement solve crimes and disarm criminals. It will enable law enforcement to identify, disarm, and prosecute violent criminals and people illegally in possession of firearms. Registration systems also create accountability for firearm owners and discourage illegal sales.

Information generated by firearm registration systems can also help protect law enforcement officers responding to an incident by providing them with information about whether firearms may be present at the scene and, if so, how many and what types. This will can not only save lives of law enforcement officers but other members of the community. All too often we read of innocent people running out of a house to a police car and being shot.

Wow...you actually cited Germany in that post.....Germany, where they registered guns in the 1920s and in the 1930s they used those same lists to confiscate guns, and then shipped the owners to death camps, gas chambers and mass graves...

Britain, Australia, Canada. New York, Chicago, California......all required registration, all confiscated guns...even Switzerland has their anti gun movement trying to take guns....

Again......registration does not help the police solve crimes.....you have been shown actual statements from law enforcment that show this...that is a lie and you keep pushing it.....a stolen gun is not registered to the criminal who commits the crime....

And every call a police officer goes to is assumed to have at least one gun ,the cops, involved........

This is just a scam to get registration...so you can confiscate all guns.....you guys told us this at the CNN Town Hall and at the rally, and your Supreme Court justice stated the goal in his op ed yesterday.......

Registration = Confiscation.....

Any vote for a democrat is a vote to end the 2nd Amendment.....

Law enforcement has been seizing weapons for years before any gun registration and will continue to do so. Many countries require the registration of firearms and they have had no wholesale gun seizures of legally registered firearms. If gun registration in the US was required, the only guns confiscated would be unregistered guns and those connected to criminal activity.

Fear of gun registration and confiscation has been an NRA mantra forever. It's based on nothing but the fact that they just keep saying it over and over again.

The ATF National Tracing Center from 1991 to 1998 maintained a registry of machine gun, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other weaponry favored by gangsters. If what the NRA says is true, why haven't these weapons been seized?

The Nazi compensation of registered firearms is another famous NRA fantasy. There was such a registry in 1928 and there was compensation of guns. That part is true. What the NRA neglects in the story is that guns were compensated only from communist, Jews and labor unions that opposed Hitler. Most guns compensated were found in raids, not by following locations in the registry because most guns at the time were never registered. Also the NRA left out of the story that after Hitler came to power he liberalized guns laws to encourage gun ownership and no registry was maintained.

If in the future, the government decides to seize firearms, why would they need a registry to find gun owners? With guns in nearly every other household, the government would have no trouble finding them with about 300 million of them floating around.
Florida lawmaker mangles Nazi gun control history

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

 

[Flopper]

What is really wrong with registering guns? We register our cars, dogs, bicycles, burglar alarms, births, deaths, marriages and our kids into schools every day. Even with no military draft, we have draft registration.

The slogan or talking point “registration always leads to confiscation” has been taken up and repeated so many times that it seems impossible to trace its origin. Of course, law enforcement agencies, whether tyrannical or benign, have seized illegal items as part of their duties throughout history, long before anyone was talking about registering them.

There are many countries that require registration and there is no wholesale seizure of legal firearms. In Switzerland and Germany, and dozens of other countries gun registration is required and rarely does the police seize legally registered guns.

Requiring gun owners to register their firearms ensures gun owner accountability and helps law enforcement solve crimes and disarm criminals. It will enable law enforcement to identify, disarm, and prosecute violent criminals and people illegally in possession of firearms. Registration systems also create accountability for firearm owners and discourage illegal sales.

Information generated by firearm registration systems can also help protect law enforcement officers responding to an incident by providing them with information about whether firearms may be present at the scene and, if so, how many and what types. This will can not only save lives of law enforcement officers but other members of the community. All too often we read of innocent people running out of a house to a police car and being shot.

Wow...you actually cited Germany in that post.....Germany, where they registered guns in the 1920s and in the 1930s they used those same lists to confiscate guns, and then shipped the owners to death camps, gas chambers and mass graves...

Britain, Australia, Canada. New York, Chicago, California......all required registration, all confiscated guns...even Switzerland has their anti gun movement trying to take guns....

Again......registration does not help the police solve crimes.....you have been shown actual statements from law enforcment that show this...that is a lie and you keep pushing it.....a stolen gun is not registered to the criminal who commits the crime....

And every call a police officer goes to is assumed to have at least one gun ,the cops, involved........

This is just a scam to get registration...so you can confiscate all guns.....you guys told us this at the CNN Town Hall and at the rally, and your Supreme Court justice stated the goal in his op ed yesterday.......

Registration = Confiscation.....

Any vote for a democrat is a vote to end the 2nd Amendment.....

Law enforcement has been seizing weapons for years before any gun registration and will continue to do so. Many countries require the registration of firearms and they have had no wholesale gun seizures of legally registered firearms. If gun registration in the US was required, the only guns confiscated would be unregistered guns and those connected to criminal activity.

Fear of gun registration and confiscation has been an NRA mantra forever. It's based on nothing but the fact that they just keep saying it over and over again.

The ATF National Tracing Center from 1991 to 1998 maintained a registry of machine gun, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other weaponry favored by gangsters. If what the NRA says is true, why haven't these weapons been seized?

The Nazi compensation of registered firearms is another famous NRA fantasy. There was such a registry in 1928 and there was compensation of guns. That part is true. What the NRA neglects in the story is that guns were compensated only from communist, Jews and labor unions that opposed Hitler. Most guns compensated were found in raids, not by following locations in the registry because most guns at the time were never registered. Also the NRA left out of the story that after Hitler came to power he liberalized guns laws to encourage gun ownership and no registry was maintained.

If in the future, the government decides to seize firearms, why would they need a registry to find gun owners? With guns in nearly every other household, the government would have no trouble finding them with about 300 million of them floating around.
Florida lawmaker mangles Nazi gun control history

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

 

[Humorme]

Wow...you actually cited Germany in that post.....Germany, where they registered guns in the 1920s and in the 1930s they used those same lists to confiscate guns, and then shipped the owners to death camps, gas chambers and mass graves...

Britain, Australia, Canada. New York, Chicago, California......all required registration, all confiscated guns...even Switzerland has their anti gun movement trying to take guns....

Again......registration does not help the police solve crimes.....you have been shown actual statements from law enforcment that show this...that is a lie and you keep pushing it.....a stolen gun is not registered to the criminal who commits the crime....

And every call a police officer goes to is assumed to have at least one gun ,the cops, involved........

This is just a scam to get registration...so you can confiscate all guns.....you guys told us this at the CNN Town Hall and at the rally, and your Supreme Court justice stated the goal in his op ed yesterday.......

Registration = Confiscation.....

Any vote for a democrat is a vote to end the 2nd Amendment.....

Law enforcement has been seizing weapons for years before any gun registration and will continue to do so. Many countries require the registration of firearms and they have had no wholesale gun seizures of legally registered firearms. If gun registration in the US was required, the only guns confiscated would be unregistered guns and those connected to criminal activity.

Fear of gun registration and confiscation has been an NRA mantra forever. It's based on nothing but the fact that they just keep saying it over and over again.

The ATF National Tracing Center from 1991 to 1998 maintained a registry of machine gun, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other weaponry favored by gangsters. If what the NRA says is true, why haven't these weapons been seized?

The Nazi compensation of registered firearms is another famous NRA fantasy. There was such a registry in 1928 and there was compensation of guns. That part is true. What the NRA neglects in the story is that guns were compensated only from communist, Jews and labor unions that opposed Hitler. Most guns compensated were found in raids, not by following locations in the registry because most guns at the time were never registered. Also the NRA left out of the story that after Hitler came to power he liberalized guns laws to encourage gun ownership and no registry was maintained.

If in the future, the government decides to seize firearms, why would they need a registry to find gun owners? With guns in nearly every other household, the government would have no trouble finding them with about 300 million of them floating around.
Florida lawmaker mangles Nazi gun control history

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

There has never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the whole body of the people.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.

Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called "illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.

But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.

Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying. BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection AND to use in defense of your nation.

The excuse that the law is old has been tried many times in history, but the principle doesn't prove to be true. It only leads to the downfall of empires.

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace"

Luke 11 : 21

 

[2aguy]

Wow...you actually cited Germany in that post.....Germany, where they registered guns in the 1920s and in the 1930s they used those same lists to confiscate guns, and then shipped the owners to death camps, gas chambers and mass graves...

Britain, Australia, Canada. New York, Chicago, California......all required registration, all confiscated guns...even Switzerland has their anti gun movement trying to take guns....

Again......registration does not help the police solve crimes.....you have been shown actual statements from law enforcment that show this...that is a lie and you keep pushing it.....a stolen gun is not registered to the criminal who commits the crime....

And every call a police officer goes to is assumed to have at least one gun ,the cops, involved........

This is just a scam to get registration...so you can confiscate all guns.....you guys told us this at the CNN Town Hall and at the rally, and your Supreme Court justice stated the goal in his op ed yesterday.......

Registration = Confiscation.....

Any vote for a democrat is a vote to end the 2nd Amendment.....

Law enforcement has been seizing weapons for years before any gun registration and will continue to do so. Many countries require the registration of firearms and they have had no wholesale gun seizures of legally registered firearms. If gun registration in the US was required, the only guns confiscated would be unregistered guns and those connected to criminal activity.

Fear of gun registration and confiscation has been an NRA mantra forever. It's based on nothing but the fact that they just keep saying it over and over again.

The ATF National Tracing Center from 1991 to 1998 maintained a registry of machine gun, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other weaponry favored by gangsters. If what the NRA says is true, why haven't these weapons been seized?

The Nazi compensation of registered firearms is another famous NRA fantasy. There was such a registry in 1928 and there was compensation of guns. That part is true. What the NRA neglects in the story is that guns were compensated only from communist, Jews and labor unions that opposed Hitler. Most guns compensated were found in raids, not by following locations in the registry because most guns at the time were never registered. Also the NRA left out of the story that after Hitler came to power he liberalized guns laws to encourage gun ownership and no registry was maintained.

If in the future, the government decides to seize firearms, why would they need a registry to find gun owners? With guns in nearly every other household, the government would have no trouble finding them with about 300 million of them floating around.
Florida lawmaker mangles Nazi gun control history

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't arm a militia, it is an individual right to bear arms...since you have been shown this over and over and refuse to acknowledge it, you are a troll.....

Again...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

Thus, the right secured in 1689 as a result of the Stuarts’ abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.

--------------

Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people.”

We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.

We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

--------

In Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125 (1998), in the course of analyzing the meaning of “carries a firearm” in a federal criminal statute, JUSTICE GINSBURG wrote that “urely a most familiar meaning is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment . . . indicate: ‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.’” I

 

[Liquid Reigns]

There has never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the whole body of the people.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

1787 was prior to the ratification of the USC, Websters commentary was nothing more than an argument. SHRUG

Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.

Hyperbole, nothing more.

Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called "illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.

Has nothing to do with illegal immigrants. The military is already used and is allowed by the USC to quell domestic issues.

But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

And as all courts have stated, as long as the arms are used in a legal manner, then there is no issue.

There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.

Extremest nutbaggery from watching Red Dawn one time too many.
Cops are tried for their shooting, they are given Due Process, and 9 out of 10 times are found to be cleared, so no they don't shoot unarmed people like dogs. SMFH

We allowed the 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America? How so, since none of us were alive during the time they were ratified? Living in a community places you into the position of accepting the ordinances of that community, allowing your residential grass to get over 8 inches tall is just pure laziness on your part.

Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying. BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection AND to use in defense of your nation.

Yes we as individuals have a civil right to keep and bear arms, granted by the 1689 English Bill of Rights, yet that right can and is regulated by the individual states.

 

[Flopper]

Law enforcement has been seizing weapons for years before any gun registration and will continue to do so. Many countries require the registration of firearms and they have had no wholesale gun seizures of legally registered firearms. If gun registration in the US was required, the only guns confiscated would be unregistered guns and those connected to criminal activity.

Fear of gun registration and confiscation has been an NRA mantra forever. It's based on nothing but the fact that they just keep saying it over and over again.

The ATF National Tracing Center from 1991 to 1998 maintained a registry of machine gun, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other weaponry favored by gangsters. If what the NRA says is true, why haven't these weapons been seized?

The Nazi compensation of registered firearms is another famous NRA fantasy. There was such a registry in 1928 and there was compensation of guns. That part is true. What the NRA neglects in the story is that guns were compensated only from communist, Jews and labor unions that opposed Hitler. Most guns compensated were found in raids, not by following locations in the registry because most guns at the time were never registered. Also the NRA left out of the story that after Hitler came to power he liberalized guns laws to encourage gun ownership and no registry was maintained.

If in the future, the government decides to seize firearms, why would they need a registry to find gun owners? With guns in nearly every other household, the government would have no trouble finding them with about 300 million of them floating around.
Florida lawmaker mangles Nazi gun control history

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

There has never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the whole body of the people.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.

Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called "illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.

But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.

Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying. BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection AND to use in defense of your nation.

The excuse that the law is old has been tried many times in history, but the principle doesn't prove to be true. It only leads to the downfall of empires.

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace"

Luke 11 : 21

Clearly, the colonists hated the idea of a standing army to defend the nation which is why the founders saw the militias as the backbone of any military campaign. North Carolina and two other states passed laws forbidding any army to enter their boarders without the approval of the legislature. The success of the militias depended on having armed citizens and to that end the 2nd amendment was created.

In hindsight, supporters of the second amendment have pieced together the fanciful idea that the founders wanted an armed citizenry so they could overthrow the government if it got out of line. Most of the founders would find that idea abhorrent. The nation was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Putting language in the constitution to support an armed uprising of the people would be unthinkable.

Today, if our leaders created an amendment to guarantee the right to bear arms it would not be based on the need for militias to defend the nation.

 

[Flopper]

Law enforcement has been seizing weapons for years before any gun registration and will continue to do so. Many countries require the registration of firearms and they have had no wholesale gun seizures of legally registered firearms. If gun registration in the US was required, the only guns confiscated would be unregistered guns and those connected to criminal activity.

Fear of gun registration and confiscation has been an NRA mantra forever. It's based on nothing but the fact that they just keep saying it over and over again.

The ATF National Tracing Center from 1991 to 1998 maintained a registry of machine gun, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other weaponry favored by gangsters. If what the NRA says is true, why haven't these weapons been seized?

The Nazi compensation of registered firearms is another famous NRA fantasy. There was such a registry in 1928 and there was compensation of guns. That part is true. What the NRA neglects in the story is that guns were compensated only from communist, Jews and labor unions that opposed Hitler. Most guns compensated were found in raids, not by following locations in the registry because most guns at the time were never registered. Also the NRA left out of the story that after Hitler came to power he liberalized guns laws to encourage gun ownership and no registry was maintained.

If in the future, the government decides to seize firearms, why would they need a registry to find gun owners? With guns in nearly every other household, the government would have no trouble finding them with about 300 million of them floating around.
Florida lawmaker mangles Nazi gun control history

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't arm a militia, it is an individual right to bear arms...since you have been shown this over and over and refuse to acknowledge it, you are a troll.....

Again...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

Thus, the right secured in 1689 as a result of the Stuarts’ abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.

--------------

Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people.”

We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.

We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

--------

In Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125 (1998), in the course of analyzing the meaning of “carries a firearm” in a federal criminal statute, JUSTICE GINSBURG wrote that “urely a most familiar meaning is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment . . . indicate: ‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.’” I

I agree, the second amendment does not arm a militia. I have never claimed that. What the amendment does is guarantee citizens the right to bear arms so they can serve in a well organized militia which required members to have their own firearms.

The "militia" was not, as the gun lobby will often claim, simply another word for the people at large. Membership in an 18th century militia were generally limited to able-bodied armed white males who were between the ages of 18 and 45, hardly encompassing the entire population of the nation. Even Webster's 1828 dictionary definition of a militia certain does not include all people, "The body of soldiers in a state enrolled for discipline, but not engaged in actual service except in emergencies; as distinguished from regular troops, whose sole occupation is war or military service.

The purpose of the amendment is of course to support the militias. With the memory of King George III's troops fresh in their minds, many of the "anti-Federalists" feared a standing army as an instrument of oppression. State militias were viewed as a counterbalance to the federal army and the Second Amendment was written to prevent the federal government from disarming the state militias.

The second amendment met little opposition at the time. Unlike today it was not that controversial. Firearms really meant muskets that lacked sights and thus were not very accurate Loading time was so slow, they were certainly not good for individual defense. However, they were very effective when firing in volleys from fortified positions in militias.

 

[Humorme]

If I understand the terminology correctly, unless one of the posters here is a spokesman for the NRA, you just wasted a lot of bandwidth making a straw man argument.

Until recent years, America was the leader of the free world. You keep wanting to compare America to other countries. That is bass ackwards. Other countries follow our lead; we don't follow theirs.

And here is something a founding father said regarding this part of the discussion:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

I don't give a rip what they do in other countries. Thomas Jefferson said of the Declaration of Independence:

“The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.”

You have no case against the Right to keep and bear Arms. It was debated by smarter men than you and I. They were unequivocally clear about the issue.

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

There has never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the whole body of the people.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.

Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called "illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.

But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.

Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying. BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection AND to use in defense of your nation.

The excuse that the law is old has been tried many times in history, but the principle doesn't prove to be true. It only leads to the downfall of empires.

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace"

Luke 11 : 21

Clearly, the colonists hated the idea of a standing army to defend the nation which is why the founders saw the militias as the backbone of any military campaign. North Carolina and two other states passed laws forbidding any army to enter their boarders without the approval of the legislature. The success of the militias depended on having armed citizens and to that end the 2nd amendment was created.

In hindsight, supporters of the second amendment have pieced together the fanciful idea that the founders wanted an armed citizenry so they could overthrow the government if it got out of line. Most of the founders would find that idea abhorrent. The nation was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Putting language in the constitution to support an armed uprising of the people would be unthinkable.

Today, if our leaders created an amendment to guarantee the right to bear arms it would not be based on the need for militias to defend the nation.

Do you ever bother to read what the founders wrote and were quoted as having said? I just quoted what the founders thought relative to this very issue and you ignored it. Hell, let me repeat it:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

You claim that the Right of the people doesn't extend to protecting an individual Right in order to prevent a tyrannical government (though you're too bashful to call it what it is.) Yet, for the life of you, you cannot explain the hundreds perhaps thousands of things that were said specifically about this very issue. Let's hear what Patrick Henry had to say:

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?"

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788).

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), pp. 168-169

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

Where, in that sentiment, do you see the Second Amendment referring to a government militia? In the course of this thread I've quoted both the author of the Second Amendment, James Madison, as well as a co-author of the Second Amendment, George Mason. I've quoted a United States Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, nominated by the father of the Constitution on this point. Who are you trying to convince of your really weak argument, us or yourself?

I read this in a related article:

"Speaking of constitutional scholars, two of them, Thomas B. McAffee and Michael J. Quinlan, remind us that James Madison “did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment; the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions.”

Defending innocent life is a God-given right – Orange County Register

So, let's run with that:

In Virginia's first state constitution (that's where the author of the Second Amendment was born) the constitution starts out with language that would embarrass all liberals, including you when it came down to the Right. It says:

"Seventeenth, That the people have a Right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms..." Constitution of Virginia ratified 27 June 1788

The people have a Right to keep and bear Arms.

America was born out of rebellion against tyranny. The founders, being mostly Christian, wrestled against the very notion of a people standing against the government. Many a heated debate was known to happen. You see, Christians in colonial days had to come to grips with this issue too. And, in Romans chapter 13 it commanded Christians to "obey the higher powers." Yet they had that very debate and if you keep this conversation going, I will come back and tell you about how we ended up fighting those authorities and the justification from the Bible.

At the end of the day, you benefited off that, yet you now want us to believe that our forefathers would take away from us both the tools as well as the justification for NOT becoming vulnerable to tyrannical governments. What, then, would establishing Liberty been for?

 

[Vandalshandle]

I plan on shooting government drones out of the sky with my 9 MM pistol....

 

[Flopper]

If you read further in Webster's work as a Federalist editor, you will see his support for the 2nd amendment was support for armed citizen (militias) in lieu of a standing army. Webster like most Americans in the late 18th century had seen the injustice of armies in the colonies and were well aware of the horrors they brought to Europe. The feeling was so strong that North Carolina and several other colonies passed laws that outlawed any standing army within it's boarders.

The underpinnings of the second amendment, armed citizens in lieu of a standing army simple does not exist today. How could any one in their right mind believe we need armed citizens in lieu of our armed forces. The inevitable conclusion is the 2nd amendment is a just relic of the 18th century which has prevented government from acting on real gun legislation. The result has has been the deaths of 1.2 million people in the US between 1968 and 2011, exceeding that of all foreign wars fought by the US. However, I have come to the sad conclusion that America is not ready to repeal the second amendment. Someday it will happen but not now.

Unless you're a hermit living totally independent of others, you should care what happens in other countries because influence over Americans’ lives is no longer centralized in America. Nearly half of our national debt is held by foreigners. Farmland equal to size of Tennessee is owned abroad. Hundreds of our largest American business are owned by foreign corporations such as Budweiser, General Electric, Lucky Strike, Ben & Jerrys, Burger King, American Apparel, 7-Eleven, and Holiday Inn.

With more than 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's purchasing power outside of the United States, future American economic growth and job creation depend on open markets abroad. However, it not just our economic future that depends on our ability to be successful in international commerce, but our current economic well being. Today, over 41 million jobs depend on our international trade.

You may not care a rip about what they do in other countries but what they do certainly has a major effect on our lives in America.

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

There has never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the whole body of the people.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.

Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called "illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.

But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.

Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying. BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection AND to use in defense of your nation.

The excuse that the law is old has been tried many times in history, but the principle doesn't prove to be true. It only leads to the downfall of empires.

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace"

Luke 11 : 21

Clearly, the colonists hated the idea of a standing army to defend the nation which is why the founders saw the militias as the backbone of any military campaign. North Carolina and two other states passed laws forbidding any army to enter their boarders without the approval of the legislature. The success of the militias depended on having armed citizens and to that end the 2nd amendment was created.

In hindsight, supporters of the second amendment have pieced together the fanciful idea that the founders wanted an armed citizenry so they could overthrow the government if it got out of line. Most of the founders would find that idea abhorrent. The nation was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Putting language in the constitution to support an armed uprising of the people would be unthinkable.

Today, if our leaders created an amendment to guarantee the right to bear arms it would not be based on the need for militias to defend the nation.

Do you ever bother to read what the founders wrote and were quoted as having said? I just quoted what the founders thought relative to this very issue and you ignored it. Hell, let me repeat it:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

You claim that the Right of the people doesn't extend to protecting an individual Right in order to prevent a tyrannical government (though you're too bashful to call it what it is.) Yet, for the life of you, you cannot explain the hundreds perhaps thousands of things that were said specifically about this very issue. Let's hear what Patrick Henry had to say:

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?"

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788).

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), pp. 168-169

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

Where, in that sentiment, do you see the Second Amendment referring to a government militia? In the course of this thread I've quoted both the author of the Second Amendment, James Madison, as well as a co-author of the Second Amendment, George Mason. I've quoted a United States Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, nominated by the father of the Constitution on this point. Who are you trying to convince of your really weak argument, us or yourself?

I read this in a related article:

"Speaking of constitutional scholars, two of them, Thomas B. McAffee and Michael J. Quinlan, remind us that James Madison “did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment; the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions.”

Defending innocent life is a God-given right – Orange County Register

So, let's run with that:

In Virginia's first state constitution (that's where the author of the Second Amendment was born) the constitution starts out with language that would embarrass all liberals, including you when it came down to the Right. It says:

"Seventeenth, That the people have a Right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms..." Constitution of Virginia ratified 27 June 1788

The people have a Right to keep and bear Arms.

America was born out of rebellion against tyranny. The founders, being mostly Christian, wrestled against the very notion of a people standing against the government. Many a heated debate was known to happen. You see, Christians in colonial days had to come to grips with this issue too. And, in Romans chapter 13 it commanded Christians to "obey the higher powers." Yet they had that very debate and if you keep this conversation going, I will come back and tell you about how we ended up fighting those authorities and the justification from the Bible.

At the end of the day, you benefited off that, yet you now want us to believe that our forefathers would take away from us both the tools as well as the justification for NOT becoming vulnerable to tyrannical governments. What, then, would establishing Liberty been for?

Joseph Story was certainly not a founder, he was 2 years old when the constitution was written. He was a Supreme Court judge in the 19th century.

Are you calming the people have the right to overthrow a government if they consider it tyrannical? Well, I don't think you'll find that right enshrined in US constitution or any constitution. Just about every revolution that every occurred made that claim. Claiming the people have the right to overthrow by force a government they believe is tyrannical exits only in the politician philosophies of anarchists. Jefferson of course embraced the idea of the right to revolution years after the constitution was adopted in his dialog with Adams, but this was in in a purely philosophical argument, certainly not a suggestion of legalizing it in the constitution.

 

[Humorme]

I'm going to pick this apart for you, Flopper and then you can rest a bit easier:

1) You pretend that support for militias means that you had to be in some kind of organization that was separate and apart from being a citizen. Let us get this straight, once and for all:

"The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature, by a private act, affecting particular persons ONLY, can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)

Can you understand that? Here, the United States Supreme Court is ruling that you have an unalienable Right to protect your private property. That decision came down only six years after the ratification of the Constitution. You cannot get any closer to the original intent.

Now let me quote from yet another article so that you understand how far this Right goes:

"The presupposition was that, by nature, the fundamental defense of a state should work from the inside-out. While every state Bill of Rights asserted this in some form, four of them explicitly stated that the militia (a citizen-army) was the natural defense of the state.81 Virginia’s Constitution said that, “A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State.”82 The state militias included every male between the ages of 17 and 45;83 that is, everyone except for a few public officials.84 Every citizen was required to be armed and prepared to fight.85

The three constitutions which did not mention the militia by name stated that every individual had the right to own firearms either for his own defense or for the common defense.86 Pennsylvania’s Constitution, for example, stated both: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.”87 Weapons were considered to be a necessary means for self-defense. If individuals were denied this means, then the very backbone of self-defense would have been crippled."

2nd Amendment: Self-Defense Constitutional Provisions - LONANG Institute

2) "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

3) In biblical times, the people were admonished:

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace:" Luke 11: 21

And how was that put into practice?

In that same book of the Bible, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword. He told them if they had to hock their robes in order to get swords, they would have to do so. (See the 22nd chapter of Luke)

4) The evidence has been repeated to you many times. The Second Amendment protects an individual Right to keep and bear Arms AND that the whole body of the people constitute the militia.

And while you think you're shaming the gun owners by telling them they can't prevail against the world's greatest military, you're forgetting that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring the Rights of men and separating from the world's largest military.

So, basically, you're telling us that Jesus can start out with 12 apostles and change the world; our forefathers started out with 56 signatories to a piece of paper and then we look at the evil people like Adolph Hitler who sits around a table in a pub and ends up using a country about the size of Texas and damn near taking over the world. Yet we're supposed to fear this government and it has god like powers?

Your backward "logic" does not fit into the context of reality. Americans own some 400 MILLION firearms with at least 100 MILLION armed citizens. Compare this with under 2 million people in the U.S. military.

And, in a SHTF scenario, many of those in the military would rebel if a regime came to power, ordering troops to fire on American civilians. Could that happen?

The answer is yes. Our military has trained in mock house to house search and seizures; fighting "enemies" that live in American suburbs and even being asked in questionnaires if they would fire on American civilians if ordered to do so.

All I can tell you is that you cannot remain ignorant and free.

"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".

Clearly, "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is the stated reason the right to bear arms. If not, the founders would not have included it. Unless you're living in 18th century America, militias are not needed to secure the nation. Today we use our armed forces, not militias to defend the nation. This being the case there is no applicable basis stated in the constitution today for the right to bear arms. The second amendment is a relic of 18th century.

There has never been a time in history when the militia was more necessary than right now. But, that is beside the point. The militia is the whole body of the people.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” -Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

Today, mostly because of people on the right, we are about to enter a period where you will thank God (even if you don't believe in him) that there is an armed populace.

Today, the right (just like you) demands a standing army. They want a standing army to protect us from so - called "illegal aliens." So, they have no reservations about using the military to enforce domestic laws on U.S. soil. And what they don't understand is that once you open that door, then the military can be used for anything - I mean calling so - called "illegal aliens" criminals (absent Due Process) is going to open the doors for the military to be called in when political protests are disrupting the lives of bureaucrats and / or when unpopular religious groups anger the powers that be. It's hard to look into a crystal ball and determine what event will provide the pretext of expanding the military to enforce domestic laws, but rest assured, it is coming.

But, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

There will come a day, probably in your lifetime as well as mine when the government will go too far and offend all of our sensibilities. Today, you have a government that sanctions abortion; we have cops that shoot unarmed people down like dogs in the street (NEVER to be help accountable); we've allowed the illegally ratified 14th and 16th Amendments to be used to destroy America. Local governments (like where I live) tell me that I'm in violation of the law if my grass is over eight inches long, I can be fined $1000. They wouldn't even allow me to keep a car under my carport while I fixed it up (it was an antique Bronco.) There is a culture war to commit genocide against the posterity of the founders. On and on it goes.

Your arguments don't hold water. In Jesus time, Jesus ordered his apostles to carry a sword - the equivalent of what Caesar's SWAT Team was carrying. BEFORE this country went to war against King George, the citizenry was equipped with personal arms (at least those who could afford them.) And it has been established that you have an individual Right to keep and bear Arms for personal protection AND to use in defense of your nation.

The excuse that the law is old has been tried many times in history, but the principle doesn't prove to be true. It only leads to the downfall of empires.

"When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace"

Luke 11 : 21

Clearly, the colonists hated the idea of a standing army to defend the nation which is why the founders saw the militias as the backbone of any military campaign. North Carolina and two other states passed laws forbidding any army to enter their boarders without the approval of the legislature. The success of the militias depended on having armed citizens and to that end the 2nd amendment was created.

In hindsight, supporters of the second amendment have pieced together the fanciful idea that the founders wanted an armed citizenry so they could overthrow the government if it got out of line. Most of the founders would find that idea abhorrent. The nation was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Putting language in the constitution to support an armed uprising of the people would be unthinkable.

Today, if our leaders created an amendment to guarantee the right to bear arms it would not be based on the need for militias to defend the nation.

Do you ever bother to read what the founders wrote and were quoted as having said? I just quoted what the founders thought relative to this very issue and you ignored it. Hell, let me repeat it:

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (Story was nominated by James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights)

You claim that the Right of the people doesn't extend to protecting an individual Right in order to prevent a tyrannical government (though you're too bashful to call it what it is.) Yet, for the life of you, you cannot explain the hundreds perhaps thousands of things that were said specifically about this very issue. Let's hear what Patrick Henry had to say:

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?"

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788).

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), pp. 168-169

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

Where, in that sentiment, do you see the Second Amendment referring to a government militia? In the course of this thread I've quoted both the author of the Second Amendment, James Madison, as well as a co-author of the Second Amendment, George Mason. I've quoted a United States Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, nominated by the father of the Constitution on this point. Who are you trying to convince of your really weak argument, us or yourself?

I read this in a related article:

"Speaking of constitutional scholars, two of them, Thomas B. McAffee and Michael J. Quinlan, remind us that James Madison “did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment; the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions.”

Defending innocent life is a God-given right – Orange County Register

So, let's run with that:

In Virginia's first state constitution (that's where the author of the Second Amendment was born) the constitution starts out with language that would embarrass all liberals, including you when it came down to the Right. It says:

"Seventeenth, That the people have a Right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms..." Constitution of Virginia ratified 27 June 1788

The people have a Right to keep and bear Arms.

America was born out of rebellion against tyranny. The founders, being mostly Christian, wrestled against the very notion of a people standing against the government. Many a heated debate was known to happen. You see, Christians in colonial days had to come to grips with this issue too. And, in Romans chapter 13 it commanded Christians to "obey the higher powers." Yet they had that very debate and if you keep this conversation going, I will come back and tell you about how we ended up fighting those authorities and the justification from the Bible.

At the end of the day, you benefited off that, yet you now want us to believe that our forefathers would take away from us both the tools as well as the justification for NOT becoming vulnerable to tyrannical governments. What, then, would establishing Liberty been for?

Joseph Story was certainly not a founder, he was 2 years old when the constitution was written. He was a Supreme Court judge in the 19th century.

Are you calming the people have the right to overthrow a government if they consider it tyrannical? Well, I don't think you'll find that right enshrined in US constitution or any constitution. Just about every revolution that every occurred made that claim. Claiming the people have the right to overthrow by force a government they believe is tyrannical exits only in the politician philosophies of anarchists. Jefferson of course embraced the idea of the right to revolution years after the constitution was adopted in his dialog with Adams, but this was in in a purely philosophical argument, certainly not a suggestion of legalizing it in the constitution.

Do you just post to take up bandwidth? I did not say that Joseph Story was a founder of this country. WTH, dude? I said that Story was nominated to his position in the United States Supreme Court by the father of the Constitution.

You really are trying to B.S. yourself through this thread, aren't you?

You love to play semantics to the point of posting utter nonsense.

You would benefit off a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Here, allow me to help you out:

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when along train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." (an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence)

I make no claims. I'm stating facts. No group of people wakes up one morning and says that because they disagree with the government they declare war against it. You want to make that accusation against gun owners, but it is a desperate attempt at relevancy when you have none due to your misrepresentations.

In between the ballot box and the bullet box, there is process you follow. Again the Declaration of Independence gives us the basics of that process:

"Nor have We been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice
and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."

And so, here we are, living under a Constitution that guarantees us certain Rights. The government did not create those Rights; they have NO authority to grant them; and some Rights are unalienable. I bold that word unalienable because it has a meaning.

We are compelled both legally and morally to exhaust all of our nonviolent legal and political avenues of redress before entertaining any notions of extraordinary actions.

Beyond that we have a Right, a Duty and an Obligation to defend and protect those Rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. What you're jockeying for is to be able to rewrite history and deprive the American people of their unalienable Rights on the premise that all you need is a popularity vote to decide the meaning of the Constitution. It don't work that way.