When 2nd Amendment Saves Lives

[2aguy]

Well, my understanding of the Second Amendment is very deep, based on decades of research and looking at everything.

Most other people's understanding is based on what they want to be true. I've had plenty of discussions with people who, once they'd seen all the facts, said "no, I prefer my uninformed view of the amendment, thanks"

Most murder is committed in certain places. Places that have been developed by the politicians to allow them to be "tough on crime".

No...most places where murder is happening belong to the democrat party...who are as soft on crime as you can get...releasing known, violent criminals, over and over again...or not even bothering to charge them even when they are caught on video shooting at each other on a public street.

As the below charts show, Democratic areas (measured by the party that controls the congressional district) are far more likely to experience almost all forms of malicious gun violence than Republican areas. These charts exclude suicides, for which data are not available on a congressional district basis, so it only breaks down the fraction of gun violence that is accidental or confrontational.
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A distinct pattern emerged: In Democratic regions of the country, which tend to be cities, people are more likely to be murdered with a gun than they are to shoot themselves to death.

In regions of the country won by Republicans, which tend to be rural areas and small towns, the opposite is true — people are more likely to shoot themselves to death than they are to be murdered with a gun.
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In the most Democratic regions, gun violence is more often committed against another, crimes that probably generate more news coverage and fear. In the most Republican areas, it is more often committed against oneself, suicides that may not attract as much attention.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...prising-way-gun-violence-is-dividing-america/

 

[Abatis]

The definition of what can and what cannot be banned, in terms of arms, is not written in the Second Amendment. Limitations there are, all rights have them. So where is the line?

As it sits now, it is the "line" first established in Miller. and then clarified (watered down) by Heller.

Miller's criteria is only based on the military usefulness of the type of arm.

If the type of arm meets any of Miller's criteria then the right to keep and bear that weapon must be preserved and any authority claimed by government to restrict its possession and use, must be repelled or invalidated if already in force.

To be protected by the 2nd Amendment the arm must be shown to be:

A type of arm usually employed in civilized warfare / that constitutes the ordinary military equipment and/or a type of arm that can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.

If the arm fails ALL those tests, the government would be permitted to argue that type of arm is "dangerous and unusual" (shortened form of "dangerous to the peace of the citizenry and not usual in civilized warfare" -- Aymette v State). If the arm is deemed "dangerous and unusual, the government could plead that it should be afforded a power to restrict the ability of private citizens, to possess and use of that type of arm.

Heller noted that such a strict reading and application of Miller might mean the NFA-34 is facially unconstitutional; that's been an argument of gun rights supporters for 75+ years.

To avoid this, Scalia elevated Miller's dicta about, "in common use at the time" to full status among the protection criteria in the majority's opinion of the Court. What that effectively did was neuter any immediate challenges to the NFA-34 that would have followed Heller.

This new criteria essentially validated an argument that since machine-guns have been out of "common use" for so long, they no longer had 2nd Amendment protection. Notably, it also could be argued to preemptively remove from 2nd Amendment protection, any future, new, non-firearm types of arms yet to be developed / come to market . . . Sonofabitch! I really wanted a 'phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range' . . .

The line has been drawn at "assault weapons" right now, and that's where the fight is mostly.

Adhering to Miller and Heller and Ceatano, the type of arms commonly called "assault weapons" enjoy the strongest level of 2nd Amendment protection. They fit all prongs of the protection criteria and do it better than any other type of arm available to the private citizen. Recall, Heller only used "in common use" to invalidate DC's handgun statutes; the others remain at the ready to employ / deploy in a future case for other types of arms.

The founding principle that all power lies with the people, but really this hasn't been the case for a long, long time. . . .

So I guess I disagree that the people have actively surrendered certain rights, or parts of rights. For me it's that the people are puppets on strings.

Well you will get no argument from me that the once "self-evident truths" have been scrubbed from the consciousness of modern, 'enlightened' Americans.

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[Abatis]

The Militia Act of 1792 was UNDER the Second Amendment. It was a law passed by Congress.

The 2nd Amendment was not the source of authority for the Militia Act, the militia clauses of Article I, §8, were, and only those clauses.

The issue here is that the right to be in the militia was there for "just in case".

There is no "'right' to be in the militia".

If the Feds wanted to get rid of the militia. They never did, because they new they couldn't.

Congress did "get rid" of state militias of some southern states during Reconstruction.

The state militias were the enforcers of the Black Codes and they did it with horrible brutality, especially the laws barring Blacks from owning guns. Problem was, the men who were "militiamen" one day, continued to do the same work after the militias were disbanded, just without the color of state authority.

That unintended outcome expanded the reach and power of the KKK, Night Riders, White League and other racist groups. Problem was, that they were just "private citizens" worked to evade the 14th Amendment's intent, see Cruikshank.

Until the Dick Act when they got smart. But by then the situation had changed and people still had the right to keep arms.

So, the reality is the RKBA did its job. It made it impossible to be rid of the militia.

Well, we have exactly what the framers feared and warned us about. The feds eliminated the state militias with the National Defense Acts (1903 & 1917? IIRC) and extinguished state militia powers, and inserted a national standing army in every state in the place of their militias.

Of course that isn't an argument against the armed citizenry, (general militia); to respect and honor founding principles that condition demands the citizens and their arms remain unmolested.

You're saying that because it was never needed (because it did its job) therefore it wasn't a thing.

????

The problem for you is that the Founding Fathers literally said that the right to bear arms was "militia duty".

Where's that at?

The issue with ignoring and neglecting their militias is totally a different issue. This is article 1, section 8, not the Second Amendment.

Correct. That the governments (state and federal) were derelict in their duties to maintain the structure of militia organization and training demanded by the Constitution, and subsequent federal enactments consistent with the Constitution (i.e., Militia Act of 179, has zero impact on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The right to arms of the people is possessed and enjoyed by the people for a myriad of legal purposes and that right exists because of the complete silence in the body of the Constitution granting the federal government to have any interest whatsoever in the personal arms of the private citizen.

When Congress eliminated the clause 15 & 16 militia and removed all militia obligation for any citizen, they also extinguished the narrow interest Congress had in an enrolled militia member's one firearm they were required to obtain and muster with.

Currently, without a militia law on the books, there is zero express constitutional authorization or legitimacy for Congress to even contemplate a thought about the citizen and the arms he keeps.

Federal gun control was always a Wizard of Oz deception . . . It was never written under the §8 militia clauses; it was enacted under the power to tax (NFA-34) and the commerce clause.

Of course gun laws were defended by claiming §8 power to regulate the militia, but that was a ruse, and an even more absurd lie was the claim that that gun control was authorized by the 2nd Amendment.

.

 

[Abatis]

It's not about people not in the militia not having militia duties. Of course they don't.

And Presser says there is no right to act like militia, assembling as a military organization and drilling under arms. All those non-enrolled citizens possess is a right to keep and bear arms, which provides an ancillary benefit to the the federal and state governments, a ready pool of properly equipped citizens should the need arise to call them up in aid of the civil authorities.

You have the right to be in the militia. If you choose to be in the militia.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong . . .

There is no right to be in the militia. Only by a specific allowance in law, both federal and state, can militias be formed and only the particular citizens specified in the law, meeting certain criteria, are obligated to serve and can enroll. There was no universal, open enrollment that allowed anyone to join.

The thinking there is that when the militia is really necessary, people will join up.

If a general call-up was made by the civil authority --anyone who is able, please come help!-- that would be the hope.

There have always been a number of civic-minded citizens who eagerly come to the mutual aid even without a call from authorities . . . That doesn't make them militia, even if they call themselves militia.

Why? Because they don't want random militias. Those random militias would be a threat to everyone. A threat to the very Constitution. You want to join up, you join up to the one that has state appointed officers and does things properly.

If there is a law creating the organized milita, and you meet the criteria and are among those obligated to enroll, you are duty bound to join.

For all other citizens, using the 1792 Militia Act as the guide (which was in force until 1903), there is no right to enroll; the citizens who were obligated (allowed) to enroll were a selective subset of the citizenry.

Why are you talking about "militia rights"? I didn't say the militia had any rights.

Well, you keep saying, "You have the right to be in the militia" . . . No such right exists; there are no "militia rights" for anyone or any entity or even any state, pointing to any clause of the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment.

The cases where disputes were settled between states and the feds, SCOTUS has held that the federal government enjoys near field preemption. States (and certainly the people) retained no "militia rights". See Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) (1820), Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) (1827), Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1917) and Perpich v. Dep't of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990).

You have the right to be in the militia, even if you never join up the militia in your whole life.

Your examples really don't work because the structure of the organized militia needs government actions and effort and allowances in law for the organized militia to come into existence and operation.

If I were to concede for a moment that a "right to be in the militia" exists, I would draw an analogy to the right to vote.

You have a right to vote but only,
if you are citizen recognized in law as a qualified voter,
if you are registered at your address and district / precinct,
if you cast a valid ballot and most of all,
if there is an election structure to open polling locations, provide machines to cast ballots, tabulators to count them and then a government willing to abide by that process and the citizen's choices.

Without all that government action and effort regoniton in law and citizen qualification, your "right to vote" is the right to shove a piece of paper in a knot-hole in the big oak tree in the town square . . . Same for a "right to be in the militia" . . .

 

[frigidweirdo]

As it sits now, it is the "line" first established in Miller. and then clarified (watered down) by Heller.

Miller's criteria is only based on the military usefulness of the type of arm.

If the type of arm meets any of Miller's criteria then the right to keep and bear that weapon must be preserved and any authority claimed by government to restrict its possession and use, must be repelled or invalidated if already in force.

To be protected by the 2nd Amendment the arm must be shown to be:

A type of arm usually employed in civilized warfare / that constitutes the ordinary military equipment and/or a type of arm that can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.

If the arm fails ALL those tests, the government would be permitted to argue that type of arm is "dangerous and unusual" (shortened form of "dangerous to the peace of the citizenry and not usual in civilized warfare" -- Aymette v State). If the arm is deemed "dangerous and unusual, the government could plead that it should be afforded a power to restrict the ability of private citizens, to possess and use of that type of arm.

Heller noted that such a strict reading and application of Miller might mean the NFA-34 is facially unconstitutional; that's been an argument of gun rights supporters for 75+ years.

To avoid this, Scalia elevated Miller's dicta about, "in common use at the time" to full status among the protection criteria in the majority's opinion of the Court. What that effectively did was neuter any immediate challenges to the NFA-34 that would have followed Heller.

This new criteria essentially validated an argument that since machine-guns have been out of "common use" for so long, they no longer had 2nd Amendment protection. Notably, it also could be argued to preemptively remove from 2nd Amendment protection, any future, new, non-firearm types of arms yet to be developed / come to market . . . Sonofabitch! I really wanted a 'phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range' . . .



Adhering to Miller and Heller and Ceatano, the type of arms commonly called "assault weapons" enjoy the strongest level of 2nd Amendment protection. They fit all prongs of the protection criteria and do it better than any other type of arm available to the private citizen. Recall, Heller only used "in common use" to invalidate DC's handgun statutes; the others remain at the ready to employ / deploy in a future case for other types of arms.



Well you will get no argument from me that the once "self-evident truths" have been scrubbed from the consciousness of modern, 'enlightened' Americans.

.

Well, however someone defines it, it will always be a political interpretation. The US government could declare that no guns in the hands of individuals is the best for the militia, seeing how it was proven to be pointless in wars 100 something years ago and the National Guard is now, effectively, the Militia.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The 2nd Amendment was not the source of authority for the Militia Act, the militia clauses of Article I, §8, were, and only those clauses.


There is no "'right' to be in the militia".


Congress did "get rid" of state militias of some southern states during Reconstruction.

The state militias were the enforcers of the Black Codes and they did it with horrible brutality, especially the laws barring Blacks from owning guns. Problem was, the men who were "militiamen" one day, continued to do the same work after the militias were disbanded, just without the color of state authority.

That unintended outcome expanded the reach and power of the KKK, Night Riders, White League and other racist groups. Problem was, that they were just "private citizens" worked to evade the 14th Amendment's intent, see Cruikshank.


Well, we have exactly what the framers feared and warned us about. The feds eliminated the state militias with the National Defense Acts (1903 & 1917? IIRC) and extinguished state militia powers, and inserted a national standing army in every state in the place of their militias.

Of course that isn't an argument against the armed citizenry, (general militia); to respect and honor founding principles that condition demands the citizens and their arms remain unmolested.



????



Where's that at?



Correct. That the governments (state and federal) were derelict in their duties to maintain the structure of militia organization and training demanded by the Constitution, and subsequent federal enactments consistent with the Constitution (i.e., Militia Act of 179, has zero impact on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The right to arms of the people is possessed and enjoyed by the people for a myriad of legal purposes and that right exists because of the complete silence in the body of the Constitution granting the federal government to have any interest whatsoever in the personal arms of the private citizen.

When Congress eliminated the clause 15 & 16 militia and removed all militia obligation for any citizen, they also extinguished the narrow interest Congress had in an enrolled militia member's one firearm they were required to obtain and muster with.

Currently, without a militia law on the books, there is zero express constitutional authorization or legitimacy for Congress to even contemplate a thought about the citizen and the arms he keeps.

Federal gun control was always a Wizard of Oz deception . . . It was never written under the §8 militia clauses; it was enacted under the power to tax (NFA-34) and the commerce clause.

Of course gun laws were defended by claiming §8 power to regulate the militia, but that was a ruse, and an even more absurd lie was the claim that that gun control was authorized by the 2nd Amendment.

.

Yes, I know Article 1 Section 8 is the reason for the Militia Act. I was merely replying to what you wrote.

So if there's no "right to be in the militia" then why did Mr Gerry say "Now, if we give a discretionary power to exclude those from militia duty who have religious scruples, we may as well make no provision on this head."

Why did he use "militia duty" and "bear arms" synonymously? Why didn't he talk about carrying arms around because he felt like it?

But the feds didn't eliminate the militia. They merely created a more professional militia. The National Guard is the militia. The unorganized militia is the militia.

The government doesn't have to keep up the militia. There's nothing that says they have to. The States were responsible for the upkeep of the militia UNTIL the militia was called into federal service.

 

[frigidweirdo]

And Presser says there is no right to act like militia, assembling as a military organization and drilling under arms. All those non-enrolled citizens possess is a right to keep and bear arms, which provides an ancillary benefit to the the federal and state governments, a ready pool of properly equipped citizens should the need arise to call them up in aid of the civil authorities.



Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong . . .

There is no right to be in the militia. Only by a specific allowance in law, both federal and state, can militias be formed and only the particular citizens specified in the law, meeting certain criteria, are obligated to serve and can enroll. There was no universal, open enrollment that allowed anyone to join.



If a general call-up was made by the civil authority --anyone who is able, please come help!-- that would be the hope.

There have always been a number of civic-minded citizens who eagerly come to the mutual aid even without a call from authorities . . . That doesn't make them militia, even if they call themselves militia.



If there is a law creating the organized milita, and you meet the criteria and are among those obligated to enroll, you are duty bound to join.

For all other citizens, using the 1792 Militia Act as the guide (which was in force until 1903), there is no right to enroll; the citizens who were obligated (allowed) to enroll were a selective subset of the citizenry.



Well, you keep saying, "You have the right to be in the militia" . . . No such right exists; there are no "militia rights" for anyone or any entity or even any state, pointing to any clause of the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment.

The cases where disputes were settled between states and the feds, SCOTUS has held that the federal government enjoys near field preemption. States (and certainly the people) retained no "militia rights". See Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) (1820), Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) (1827), Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1917) and Perpich v. Dep't of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990).



Your examples really don't work because the structure of the organized militia needs government actions and effort and allowances in law for the organized militia to come into existence and operation.

If I were to concede for a moment that a "right to be in the militia" exists, I would draw an analogy to the right to vote.

You have a right to vote but only,
if you are citizen recognized in law as a qualified voter,
if you are registered at your address and district / precinct,
if you cast a valid ballot and most of all,
if there is an election structure to open polling locations, provide machines to cast ballots, tabulators to count them and then a government willing to abide by that process and the citizen's choices.

Without all that government action and effort regoniton in law and citizen qualification, your "right to vote" is the right to shove a piece of paper in a knot-hole in the big oak tree in the town square . . . Same for a "right to be in the militia" . . .

Look, if you have a gun, you are not the militia. You cannot claim to be the militia.

However a militia can appear out of nowhere. The State could say "We're now creating a militia". It's subject to the Constitution, it could be called up into federal service. Maybe it won't be.

There was a balance here. A balance between mobs doing what they wanted, and Federal power. This is a balance in the middle, state balance with people power. That's what the militia is. All males aged 18-45 are in the militia. Automatically. That doesn't mean they can go parading at will. They need to be instructed to do so by people in authority.

HOWEVER, if the shit hits the fan, they could rise up against a tyrannical government and make their own militia. That's part of the issue here.

You seem to think an individual having a right to be in the militia is the same as the militia having rights. I don't get it.

The subject is completely different in these sentences. The INDIVIDUAL has a right to join up the militia if he (or she) so chooses. The militia does not have a right to join the militia. How would a militia join up a militia? Makes no sense.

How do you stop the federal government destroying the militia by stopping individuals from being in the militia?

Why did the Founding Fathers get rid of the religiously scrupulous clause in the Second Amendment?

As Mr Gerry put it: "Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms."

So, how would they destroy the constitution by preventing people from walking around with guns?

They wanted to stop the feds destroying the militia as they saw the militia as the ultimate check and balance on the federal government.

Now, we KNOW they used "Militia duty" and "render military service" synonymously with "bear arms" in these debates.

So, "and prevent them from militia duty" and "prevent them from rendering military service" are equal to what Mr Gerry said.

 

[Kilroy2]

Get it through your thick skull, it isn't my term, it isn't my definition or my characterization of the action and effect of the 2nd Amendment. It is the word used by the framers of the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court explaining and enforcing the Constitution.

Go and find retrieve those statements and explanations, bring them here, you quote them and then you parse them and use your vast scholarship of the Constitution and its fundamental principles to explain the incorrectness of the framer's and Court's use of the word "restrictive"and "restriction".



JHFC-FJB No it doesn't. Not unless you feel the framers all worked in the Department of Redundancy Department.

The powers of the federal government are set-out and contained in the body of the Constitution.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't "do" anything; it doesn't create anything or allow or let anything be done or mandate anything be established or maintained.

Not once, not ever, was the 2nd Amendment ever inspected to inform or held to direct or permit any aspect of establishing or maintaining or the operations of, the militia or the military.

If you were correct, the Supreme Court's "militia cases" would be our "2nd Amendment cases" because the Court would have examined and used the 2ndA to decide questions and disputes centered on the militia . . . But no, those militia cases, those militia disputes were decided by examining the powers granted in Article I (Congress) and Article II (President) and NOTHING else. In those militia cases the 2nd Amendment was mentioned once, in 1820, in a dissent, but only to say the 2nd Amendment offered no illumination on militia powers.

Just stop with the idiocy, please.



Yeah, who cares about those stupid framers and their affinity for Lockean political theory and individual, inherent rights and then their use of old Latin stuff like ablative absolutes or even how dependent and independent clauses work in English, when all that crap interferes with my politics, influenced by leftists who gained prominence in the early 20th Century.

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IF only you provide some back up by quoting something other than the court said this and that. The court is a majority rule. If half the members disagree with the other half then their arguments are half ass. The only rules that determine anything is the 5/4 rule and the majority opinion is the opinion of the court. Yet we know that previous supreme court opinions are overturn by the supreme court years later.


The constitution gives the government the right to raise armies. The amendments are part of the constitution and are there to fill the holes of the original document. It is nice to have the right to raise and army but if a new government does not have guns then they must depend on the citizens that choose to fight to have a way to fight. In the early days citizens had guns and the new government did not. Thus they use the amendment to supplement raising an army. Raising an army with no weapons is not realistic. So that why they added the 2nd amendment.

I am sure you feel frustrated but my argument are sound because it considers what was happen over 200 years ago not what is happening today. if you care to punch holes feel free but try to be specific.

defeat the argument instead of talking about other things.