I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. I can say nothing to shake your beliefs and you can say nothing to shake mine.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.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."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.
The Declaration of Independence explain why the colonies rebelled. Militas have never been all the people. The were limited to armed able bodied males between 18 and 45
“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
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?
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.
