Allow me to say that the germane question is not whether the government can ban weapons, magazines and ammo. They can. The germane question is what will be next on the list after they ban these things? The reality is our government lies to get in the door and then over reaches and abuses power time and again. It's only a matter of time before you, any of you/us, are put on the ever growing list of things the chosen few don't like. The really germane question is, how is it you're willing to trust those that have already proven themselves to be untrustworthy?
second amendment is a fundamental right?
- Thread starter jimmiebarton
- Start date
Maybe what we need is a Bill of Rights watchlist. It would include the names of those who seek to take away rights that are guaranteed by the constitution. And maybe those on the list should be prohibited from certain activities. I'm sure we could find things that aren't suitable for people on such a watchlist to be involved in.
That's absolutely correct according to nearly everyone's reading of history, including the Court. But as you know, we already ban from private ownership those arms, not to mention weapons, that would be most useful, say, for opposing tyranny from within. Hence any argument based on our acknowledged correct reading of history runs headlong into stare decisis. And if stare decisis does not win the day, then the public's safety will. We depend on our courts to decide these knotty issues. I am confident the Court will eventually decide this one.
ahh, the "slippery slope argument" that can be applied to anything!
i wonder who first coined that argument? its a good one that can be thrown at anything we don't like
"we're on a slippery slope!" "eek no not that! lol
Not a matter of trust but DISTRUST & VERIFY.
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Your general argument that Heller leaves some wiggle room is not unreasonable. However, I believe you are off base in claiming that AR-type rifles are not in common use. They are by far the most popular rifle sold in the US ( the manufacturers use the term "modern sporting rifle"). More importantly, they are the home defense weapon of choice.
Scalia's dismissal of the vague prefatory phrase in the Second Amendment seems correct to me on two grounds. One, such explanatory language does not limit subsequent clauses under standard rules of statutory or contract interpretation. If the Drafters had intended the Amendment to expire if those conditions no longer applied, they would certainly have included specific language to that effect. Two, the grant of the right to keep and bear arms is not made to militias but to "the people", a term of art in the Constitution that refers to the entire populace.
The Heller decision announced a broad right possessed by "the people". As with any Constitutional right, limitations on it are to be judged on a case by case basis. However, the burden of upholding limitations falls on those imposing them and the bar is high. This differs from the standard of normal scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, where government need only assert a rational basis. To bar an entire class of commonly used firearms would require an extraordinary showing of compelling need and a lack of less restrictive alternatives.
When you say government, I'm sure you mean those in government that make the decisions to do the things we like and don't like, our legislatures, courts and executives, in other words. I don't Trust those who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy any more than the next person. I recognize that there will always be some things our legislatures do that will that strike me as asinine. I live in Mississippi, so I experience this more often than any one in a civilized country ought to. But one thing I won't worry about is whether the government is going to seize all our 300+ guns. I have much more probable things to concern me.
Gun control is a red herring. It completely ignores the inconvenient political truths that the mentally unstable should be cared for or in severe circumstances institutionalized, and the citizens and immigrants who demand that all other humans must comply with some radical fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law or die as infidels are simply incompatible with Western Civilizations.
Your reading of Heller is exactly as mine. you are ready to go forth into the gun control debate armed with the facts of the current law.
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It's important to arm yourself ( ha! I did that just for you ! ) with facts when wading into technical arguements. Since your manifold posts on AR and assault rifles show a complete lack of firearms knowledge other than what you've picked up on Salon or Mother Jones or Nation, let me help you with irrefutable facts:
There are at least 300 million firearms already in circulation in the US and so it stands to reason hundreds of millions of magazines with at least 10 round capacity. A buyback or confiscation program would be of very limited effectiveness. We know this to be factual because talk of gun control and bans has actually manifested the consequence of increasing US gun purchases by esoteric orders of magnitude. Since the Sandy Hook tragedy, it is said that Smith & Wesson increased production rates of its M&P line of ARs by 10 times to meet consumer demand.
1. It takes maybe 2 seconds to change magazines. You can tape two low round count mags together, flip them over, and keep firing. Low round count magazines are not much of a deterrent. It's a convenience factor more than anything.
2. AR is just a design flavor. It's a model of an item. Like a Chevy Camaro. Like an iPhone 6S. There are plenty of semi-automatic magazine fed rifles and pistols out there that are not ARs - they've been making them since the very early 1900s before WW 1.
3. AR-15 is near low man on the totem pole in terms of bullet lethality in rifles. In some states it is illegal to hunt anything larger than a varmint ( groundhogs, coyotes) with the 223/556 cartridge. Police have shot armed suspects several times with AR-15 in 223/556 and they have survived - not a rare occurrence. Try that with a 300 Win Mag or a 338 Lapua.
I concur with your post bone. However it's only fair that you know that I do know something about guns, my first gun was a single shot White Powder Wonder but eventually I graduated to my Dad's Remington Model 33 and a beautiful Winchester 22 long with octagonal barrel and a peep sight. What a gorgeous rifle that is! I have owned guns and hunted with them and I come from a family of serious water fowl and upland game hunters. My personal opinion is that all guns are potentially dangerous if mishandled and semi-automatics especially so, and that a 30 round magazine, in private hands, is not usual. Ergo, in private hands certain semi-automatic firearms are both dangerous and unusual. This is not to say that there are not a lot of these in private hands. They may be very, very popular among gun enthusiasts. But until the words "the people" in our constitution are changed to "gun enthusiasts" some of these firearms will remain unusual in the eyes of many of our courts.
In a previous post, I quoted Justice Breyer's dissent with regard to Scalia's citing the phrase "in common use" in Miller. When the specific issue of which types of firearms may be banned arrives at the Court, and it seems now more likely then ever that it will, the "in common use phrase" will be found lacking as a useful criterion for the reason Breyer has pointed out.
Our colleague Lucrum, convinced me long ago of the impracticality of rounding up all the guns in this country, and you and I both would vehemently oppose such a thing. Remedies will have to be found elsewhere.