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And yet the Framers carefully refrained from putting ANY exceptions into the 2nd... exceptions they were just as careful to include in other amendments.The men who wrote the 2nd amendment never applied it as you insist they meant the 2nd amendment to be applied. You are offering us an extreme, absolutist interpretation that the founders never followed. The purpose of an armed public was so they could be ready to serve in the militia. Not so they could reload over the corpses of their victims so they could fire on the local constabulary.
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Ah, but now you're saying it's not an absolute right that may not have limitations. And that's correct. LOLIt does say "the people". It says nothing about an individual "person". The 2nd amendment isn't a suicide pact. The FFs would have considered it unreasonable for an insane person to be allowed to have a weapon, IMO.
If an insane person is adjudicated, they lose their 2nd amendment rights.
The "people" cannot be defined any other way than saying the individual retains the right to keep and bear arms, unless the person disqualifies themselves from their rights, i.e. convicted of a crime.
Someone advised you to look up the definition of infringe.And yet the Framers carefully refrained from putting ANY exceptions into the 2nd... exceptions they were just as careful to include in other amendments.The men who wrote the 2nd amendment never applied it as you insist they meant the 2nd amendment to be applied. You are offering us an extreme, absolutist interpretation that the founders never followed. The purpose of an armed public was so they could be ready to serve in the militia. Not so they could reload over the corpses of their victims so they could fire on the local constabulary.
Why?
(Hint: I've already answered this point in the OP
That was nice of you to try and help him out. There's also the now obsolete meaning of "to frustrate or defeat."Someone advised you to look up the definition of infringe.And yet the Framers carefully refrained from putting ANY exceptions into the 2nd... exceptions they were just as careful to include in other amendments.The men who wrote the 2nd amendment never applied it as you insist they meant the 2nd amendment to be applied. You are offering us an extreme, absolutist interpretation that the founders never followed. The purpose of an armed public was so they could be ready to serve in the militia. Not so they could reload over the corpses of their victims so they could fire on the local constabulary.
Why?
(Hint: I've already answered this point in the OP
Since you can't seem to do it, here you go:
: to do something that does not obey or follow (a rule, law, etc.) ( chiefly US )
: to wrongly limit or restrict (something, such as another person's rights)
If you take away a felons guns, you are not taking them away wrongly. Quite simple, really.
If the founders had wanted to make gun rights absolute they could have written it as such
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed PERIOD
They did not
Yet, restrictions on ownership have been upheld repeatedly. Scalia even said assault rifles can be banned. Curious that.If the founders had wanted to make gun rights absolute they could have written it as such
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed PERIOD
They did not
That seems absolute enough to me, especially when you ponder the meaning ofthe word “infringed”, and the choice of that word for this use in the Second Amendment. It's related to the word “fringe”, referring to the barest edges of something. To “infringe” a thing is to touch that barest edge of it. By prohibiting government from infringing the right that it asserts, the Second Amendment is saying that government is not to even touch the barest edges of this right. It is the clearest, strongest, and most absolute language found anywhere in the Constitution. This right is stated as belonging to the people, and not to government, not even to the states (as one might otherwise try to suppose from the Tenth Amendment), and government is forbidden from even touching the barest edges of this right.
In your example, the Police would respond and disarm the suspect by whatever means needed. If he lived he'd have a trial and the weapon would be introduced as evidence.
That's called Due Process. That's not Government Weapons Confiscation.
By the way I'm not surprised by the uninformed responses by the resident Liberal/Communists here. Just more proof of how deluded they are.
And yet the Framers carefully refrained from putting ANY exceptions into the 2nd... exceptions they were just as careful to include in other amendments.The men who wrote the 2nd amendment never applied it as you insist they meant the 2nd amendment to be applied. You are offering us an extreme, absolutist interpretation that the founders never followed. The purpose of an armed public was so they could be ready to serve in the militia. Not so they could reload over the corpses of their victims so they could fire on the local constabulary.
Why?
(Hint: I've already answered this point in the OP
I've noticed that when people can't make an argument about what the Amendment says, they change the subject and try to talk about what the Courts say instead. Even when the Court statement flatly contradicts what the Amendment says.Yet, restrictions on ownership have been upheld repeatedly. Scalia even said assault rifles can be banned. Curious that.
Yet, restrictions on ownership have been upheld repeatedly. Scalia even said assault rifles can be banned. Curious that.
If the phrase is not a condition, how would our rights be affected without it being there?A "condition" debunked many times on this forum. Apparently little rightwinger thinks enough time has gone by that he can try to fool people into thinking it's true again.It does say....A well regulated militia being necessary for a free state
How do you view our gun policy and second amendment? | Page 4 | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
To make up an extreme example, suppose some guy goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun and blows away half a dozen people. The cops show up and surround him, and one cop says, "Give me your gun right now." The guy says, "Sorry, the 2nd amendment says my right to KBA cannot be taken away or restricted, PERIOD, so you have no authority to make me give you my gun." And this with gunsmoke in the air and bodies bleeding on the floor next to him.
Many of the people who wrote the 2nd were lawyers, and knew well the effect that certain words have when included, or omitted, from legislation. And yet they chose to omit ANY exceptions to the ban on government taking people's guns away. Strictly speaking, that would even include the extreme example I just gave: Cops can't take away the gun of a murderer at the scene of his crime.
The courts never usurped. There were restrictions on the use and carry of firearms in colonial times. You are spouting revisionist nonsense. Even the very pro gun right people accept regulation in terms of storage and carry existed.Yet, restrictions on ownership have been upheld repeatedly. Scalia even said assault rifles can be banned. Curious that.
Jefferson warned against the great folly of allowing courts to usurp the authority to interpret the Constitution; and I think we can now clearly see, if we are not blind, how Jefferson's warning has proven true, in the form of courts putting their opinions on what they wish the Constitution meant above what is clearly written therein.
In any event, there is something that strikes me very odd about the whole legal controversy over “assault weapons”; putting aside the absurdity of banning or restricting weapons based on characteristics that are almost exclusively cosmetic, having little or no bearing on the suitability of those weapons for any legitimate or criminal purpose.
One of the first major Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment was U.S. vs. Miller, back in 1939. Jack Miller was convicted, among other things, of transporting across state lines, a shotguns, the barrel of which was shorter than the 18" required by the National Firearms Act of 1934. On appeal, this conviction was overturned, as a clear violation of the Second Amendment.
Jack Miller, being a criminal, as soon as he was free, went into hiding, and did not participate in any way when the government appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court only heard the government's side of the argument, nobody being there to argue for Mr.Miller's side. That considered, I think that as flawed as this ruling was, that it is remarkable that it came out as favorable to the Second Amendment as it did.
The Court ruled that the Second Amendment only applied to weapons that had a military application, which were suitable for use in connection with one's participation in a militia. The Court further found that since it had not been called to its attention that a short-barrelled shotgun had any military application, that the Second Amendment did not apply to such a weapon.
Had someone been there to competently argue for Miller's side, I think there's a very good chance that the Court would have been persuaded against the idea that only militia-suitable weapons were protected. Certainly, it would have been called to the Court's attention that a short-barrelled shotgun was, in fact, a standard arm currently in use by our Army at that time; known as a “trench sweeper”; and on that basis, they would have had to uphold the lower court ruling which threw out Miller's conviction for possessing it.
By the standard set by the Miller ruling, what we should be most allowed today to possess would be a weapon that is suitable for modern military use, which would be weapons comparable to those that we issue to our soldiers, an M-16, M-4, or other true assault rifle.
“Assault weapons” are defined and banned because they bear a cosmetic resemblance and some mechanical similarity to these true military-grade assault rifles. If the Miller ruling was correctly applied to this controversy, it might still uphold bans and restrictions on “assault weapons”, not because of their resemblance to genuine military-grade assault rifles, but because they are not true assault rifles, and therefore not suitable for military use. Instead, we would be recognized as having a right to possess and bear genuine military-grade assault rifles, suitable for use in a militia. As it is, our corrupt government illegally denies us any right to possess these weapons at all.
The 1st Amendment protects freedom of speech WITHOUT an exception for yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
The 1st Amendment protects freedom of the press WITHOUT an exception for the publication of child pornography.
The 1st Amendment protects freedom of religion WITHOUT an exception for the religious practice of polygamy.
So, Mr. Know it all,
tell us why those 3 actions do not get 1st Amendment protection even though there are no exceptions related to them in the 1st Amendment.
I've noticed that when people can't make an argument about what the Amendment says, they change the subject and try to talk about what the Courts say instead. Even when the Court statement flatly contradicts what the Amendment says.
When the Courts say one thing and the Constitution says another, which one should prevail?
And yet the Framers carefully refrained from putting ANY exceptions into the 2nd... exceptions they were just as careful to include in other amendments.The men who wrote the 2nd amendment never applied it as you insist they meant the 2nd amendment to be applied. You are offering us an extreme, absolutist interpretation that the founders never followed. The purpose of an armed public was so they could be ready to serve in the militia. Not so they could reload over the corpses of their victims so they could fire on the local constabulary.
Why?
(Hint: I've already answered this point in the OP
I've noticed that when people can't make an argument about what the Amendment says, they change the subject and try to talk about what the Courts say instead. Even when the Court statement flatly contradicts what the Amendment says.
When the Courts say one thing and the Constitution says another, which one should prevail?
You seem to consider the federal judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, a very dangerous doctrine, indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have with others the same passions for the party, for power and the privilege of the corps. Their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.—Thomas Jefferson, 1820
The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.
Federalist Paper 78
