Right to Arms in the 21st Century

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

No, you didn’t call anyone out in anything. The Second Amendment does entitle people to ownership of arms, generic meaning of the word “entitle”. Meaning, if it was repealed, you’d have no constitutional right to such arms should the government outlaw them.

[/quote]

The word entitle implies that it can be taken away. Rights can not be taken away. You are born with rights and rights exist with or without permission. You have the right to defend yourself and the 2nd simply acknowledges that arms are part of that right. If the 2nd was repealed, that right would not disappear, rather the government would openly infringe upon it.
[/quote]

So, every gun law enacted since the birth of the nation (state and federal combined) are all in violation of your rights?

You should try that explanation in a court of law. No really, try it and report back.

Miami,

Moreover, your view would swallow even restrictions on criminals owning guns. After all, why would someone guilty of felony tax evasion forfeit their God-given right to self-defense or defense against a tyrannical government? Why even would someone guilty of murder? A murderer who has done his time and paid his debt to society is still entitled to defend himself against violence from both fellow citizens and a tyrannical government, right?

Surely?

[quote]Darnell Becker wrote:
That’s a ridiculous argument, there are places and times where everyone is/was packing heat ant there are/were still mass shootings.[/quote]
-Those are sometimes colloquially referred to as “wars.”

[quote]Yes, they are Also places where no one is carrying and there are no mass shootings.
[/quote]
Yes, there are huge numbers of places in which no one is carrying a gun and no one is shot. I’m sure that supporters of freedom don’t realize that.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Now it’s up to you to concede that gun rights cannot be restricted by invoking “Papers, please comrade.”[/quote]

That’s nonsensical sophistry. The fact is that the state legislatures, in exercising their sovereignty, have tried to create such restrictions through the prescribed legislative process. And their attempts to assert such sovereignty have been thwarted by a special interest group trying to force their narrow, interested view of the 2nd Amendment down everyone’s throat.

Common sense tells us that when people who, in retrospect, had no business purchasing guns but were able to do so legally, it may be time to examine the ways in which people get their hands on these things.

Your attitude, prior to your concession in this thread, can simply be boiled down to a very simply statement: “I don’t give a fuck how many guns and what type of guns criminally-minded people have access to as long as I have access to them as well.” Wonderful.

[/quote]

You can do better than this, Bert. Time to up your game.[/quote]

Look, I’m not one of these people who wants to ban handguns or some shit like that. I’ve got two of them, and I like having them.

But I have ZERO problem making prospective gun owners jump through all sorts of hoops in order to get their hands on them. You’ve already conceded that the right to self-defense is not without limits. Why is a far more intensive acquisition process off-limits then?

You’ve ridiculously tried to equate speech rights to gun ownership rights, as if the misuse of the two are anything close to comparable. Your argument over the years has also ridiculously followed the tried and failed “if all guns are taken away, then only criminals will have them” argument. The fact is that your approach over the years would and HAS guaranteed that criminally-minded people who are not YET criminals have very few problems in getting guns. Your theoretical bullshit is trumped by the reality that occurred in San Berdoo. How many mass shootings/public acts of terror in the U.S. have been stopped by a citizen legally carrying a concealed weapon or an assault rifle? Compare that number to the amount of people who have committed such shootings with legally purchased guns.

You’re on the wrong side of the ledger, Pilgrim.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

…The 2nd amendment doesn’t “allow” anything…

[/quote]

It displays a fundamental misunderstanding on his part. Even TB made the same mistake when he said the 2nd “entitles.” I called him out on that and he never responded.

There’s no way anyone’s ever gonna get it right when they don’t even comprehend the fundamentals. If you don’t understand it takes 4 downs to get a first down how are you going to understand what a punt is?[/quote]

No, you didn’t call anyone out in anything. The Second Amendment does entitle people to ownership of arms, generic meaning of the word “entitle”. Meaning, if it was repealed, you’d have no constitutional right to such arms should the government outlaw them.

[/quote]

Sorry, my friend, but like I said, a punt is incomprehensible if you don’t understand what four downs means.

You are dead wrong. Entitle means, “To give a right to.” The Constitution doesn’t give the right to keep and bear; it protects it. It protects a right given by God, a right that had been recognized to the colonies for a couple of centuries or so through English natural law.[/quote]

God gives you the right to bear arms? No. God gives you the right to self-defense, what Thomas Hobbes might call the right of all action against all men. Or what John Locke would refer to as “original liberty”.

The right to bear arms is simply an extension of that, along with the same concept applied to the states themselves. Just like individuals have the right to self-defense, the sovereign States formed by sovereign individuals have the right to protect themselves from external/foreign threats.

Also, there’s no such thing as English Natural Law. It’s English COMMON LAW, and that’s not a semantical quibble either.

Distinctions. They’re important, Tonto.

The Constitution simply entitles you to the protection of traditionally recognized rights, as you yourself have rightly said in the Obergefell thread. Since when is the absolute, unabridged right to unlimited arms (which has essentially been your stance in these threads) a TRADITIONALLY recognized right? Furthermore, since when does it supersede the right to self-defense?

Because you cannot seriously sit here and EVER make the argument that making it harder for criminally-minded people to get their hands on guns, like the motherfuckers down in San Berdoo who LEGALLY purchased assault weapons, is not also a form of self-defense. Making it harder for psychos to get handguns, assault rifles, or a fucking Derringer to strap to their garter belt, is a legitimate way to defend ourselves from such criminals.

By making a series of “hoops”, as you call it, that prospective gun owners must jump through, it can definitely be made MORE difficult for said psychos to get guns while still allowing responsible gun users like you and I to get them.

THAT is self-defense, not your bastardized fantasy world in which you’re single-handedly fighting back ISIS all by your lonesome while sitting atop your trusty steed.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Social Security is an entitlement; the 2nd Amendment is not.

Don’t conflate.

Learn to properly understand the terms integral to the debate.[/quote]

Entitlement is something that is given to you legitimately, meaning it wasn’t first stolen or something along those lines.

From where said entitlement comes does not matter as long as it is “legitimatel” gained. All rights are entitlements, the source of those rights being what distinguishes political rights from Natural Rights.

The 2nd Amendment certainly IS an entitlement since it is a form of protection and you have a RIGHT to that protection by virtue of being a citizen under the form of gov’t that provides the protection.

The right that it protects is also an entitlement, if we assume that the Amendment ultimately protects the right to self-defense of some form. The right itself is an entitlement from God, the protection of said right is an entitlement from and by the people.

I suggest it is YOU who properly understand the terms here, Pilgrim. Distinctions. They’re important.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Miami,

Moreover, your view would swallow even restrictions on criminals owning guns. After all, why would someone guilty of felony tax evasion forfeit their God-given right to self-defense or defense against a tyrannical government? Why even would someone guilty of murder? A murderer who has done his time and paid his debt to society is still entitled to defend himself against violence from both fellow citizens and a tyrannical government, right?

Surely?[/quote]

You kind of answered your own question. We attempt to restrict a persons rights after due process. A felon doesn’t forfeit their rights, they forfeit the government not infringing on them.

It is a big difference even if it seems minuscule. Without that difference we end up with government infringement FOR exercising rights.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

…The 2nd amendment doesn’t “allow” anything…

[/quote]

It displays a fundamental misunderstanding on his part. Even TB made the same mistake when he said the 2nd “entitles.” I called him out on that and he never responded.

There’s no way anyone’s ever gonna get it right when they don’t even comprehend the fundamentals. If you don’t understand it takes 4 downs to get a first down how are you going to understand what a punt is?[/quote]

No, you didn’t call anyone out in anything. The Second Amendment does entitle people to ownership of arms, generic meaning of the word “entitle”. Meaning, if it was repealed, you’d have no constitutional right to such arms should the government outlaw them.

[/quote]

Sorry, my friend, but like I said, a punt is incomprehensible if you don’t understand what four downs means.

You are dead wrong. Entitle means, “To give a right to.” The Constitution doesn’t give the right to keep and bear; it protects it. It protects a right given by God, a right that had been recognized to the colonies for a couple of centuries or so through English natural law.[/quote]

The Second Amendment can be repealed (just like every other amendment). If it is, and the government passes a law that says you can’t have a machine gun, and you get a machine gun and get caught violating the law, and your defense is “what about muh God-given right to muh machine gun??”, you’ll be laughed at, and you’ll need to start packing your bags to do hard time.

No, you don’t have an enforceable constitutional right to keep and bear arms if we repeal the Second Amendment. Thus, in such a scenario you wouldn’t be entitled to have one. As an example.

[/quote]

Nope, you’re still getting it wrong but it helps me understand your perspective on this matter. A wrong perspective – wrong fundamentals – will surely cause faulty reasoning down the line.

If the Second Amendment were repealed the fundamental right to self defense, and to overthrow tyranny, would not be lost. It would still remain an inalienable right and that is crystal, fucking clear by reading what any of the founders and framers had to say about the matter not to mention others who preceded them. If it were repealed the right would then fall under the Ninth Amendment; it wouldn’t just evaporate.

But no matter how you slice and dice your rotten melon, TB, “entitlement” is not part of the picture.

The Federalists, including Madison, did not even initially plan to include the Bill or Rights in the Constitution; they though it unnecessary because it was taken for granted that rights like “keeping and bearing” were inalienable and not to be granted or entitled by government. As you well know, the anti-Federalists clamored for a list of rights that were to explicitly and expressly be protected and thus the BoR was born and baptized.

[quote]

(Re: “fundamentals”: hilarious. I’ll be sure and start upping my Wilkipedia page and historical fiction written at the third grade level consumption to get my “fundamentals” up to to your “expert” level.)[/quote]

If you will hone your skimpy recollective capacity just a tad you may correctly recall that I questioned that YOU used Wiki to form your post. You. Not me.[/quote]

In no way did Madison take it for granted that the inalienable nature of these rights made it impossible for the gov’t to grant them. Madison initially opposed the Bill of Rights because he felt them to be superfluous. The Constitution was written with the clear intent to define and limit the scope of the federal gov’t. Since the power to violate the Rights listed in the Amendments was not expressly granted to the gov’t, and the sole extent of the federal govt’s powers are defined within the Constitution, there is no ability on the part of the federal gov’t to violate any of them. There is no need to codify all of the restrictions of the gov’t when the absence from its powers of an ability to violate them is sufficient.

Madison was initially more concerned that people would eventually take the first 8 Amendments to be the SOLE extent of the rights that the gov’t cannot violate, or perhaps the SOLE extent of the rights of the people. Hence, the 9th and 10th Amendments.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Also, there’s no such thing as English Natural Law. It’s English COMMON LAW, and that’s not a semantical quibble either.

[/quote]

Ha!

I wrote that on my phone today while eating dinner at a restaurant and as soon as I submitted it, I went, “Damn, I got that wrong and I need to get back on and correct that before someone like Bert comes along and rightfully spanks me.”

So touche.

I will respond to the rest of your post later.
[/quote]

Fair enough. Quite frankly, you surprised me with this one. Clearly, you and I disagree on some FUNDAMENTALS in this thread. But I know you and I are in clear enough agreement on the concept of Natural Rights and all that to have been a little surprised by your faux pas.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Entitlement is something that is given to you legitimately, meaning it wasn’t first stolen or something along those lines.

[/quote]

Will start with this ^.

Not necessarily. Social Security is an entitlement and it does NOT mean “it wasn’t stolen or something along those lines.”

Self defense/keeping and bearing is an entitlement, yes, but it’s an entitlement given by God, not by the Constitution like TB claimed. It’s an entitlement given by God and recognized and guaranteed by the Constitution.[/quote]

Well, you’ll find no argument from me on the legitimacy of SS. But were it to be a legitimate entitlement under our definition, it would certainly be a right.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

By making a series of “hoops”, as you call it, that prospective gun owners must jump through, it can definitely be made MORE difficult for said psychos to get guns while still allowing responsible gun users like you and I to get them.

[/quote]

Based on much of what you’ve written about yourself over the years, Bert, you and I might have a hard time making a case that you are responsible enough to own and use a gun as per your parameters.

As far as “hoops” are concerned one would have to make the “distinction” between them and “infringement,” if any, before one can legitimately claim their legitimacy.[/quote]

Your assessment of me may be correct, but the fact is that I still have two fucking handguns within 10 feet of me as I type this with increasingly unsteady hands. And I’m all legal and entitled.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Entitlement is something that is given to you legitimately, meaning it wasn’t first stolen or something along those lines.

[/quote]

Will start with this ^.

Not necessarily. Social Security is an entitlement and it does NOT mean “it wasn’t stolen or something along those lines.”

Self defense/keeping and bearing is an entitlement, yes, but it’s an entitlement given by God, not by the Constitution like TB claimed. It’s an entitlement given by God and recognized and guaranteed by the Constitution.[/quote]

I think TB is arguing that the 2nd Amendment is not what provides the right but only the protection of it. You may have a Natural Right to the gun, but without the legal protection of said right it is essentially moot.

The gov’t doesn’t provide Natural Rights, only (theoretically) protects them. But the right to such protection is an entitlement, and I believe it is the entitlement to such protection that TB is referring to.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Look, I’m not one of these people who wants to ban handguns or some shit like that. I’ve got two of them, and I like having them.

[/quote]

Great but it’s irrelevant to the fundamentals.

I think you answered your own question.

I did NOT concede that the right to self-defense is not without limits. I conceded that one’s behavior with the firearms can be limited.

Distinctions. They’re always important.

[/quote]

You’ve ridiculously tried to equate speech rights to gun ownership rights, as if the misuse of the two are anything close to comparable.

Not only are you still wrong, you’re suffering from the early onset of dementia.

You were just wrong like three posts ago.