[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Since we all agree that the 2nd was written with the ability for citizens to fight an enemy military powerful enough to threaten the very security of the state…Surely that can’t be limited to a revolver, as if we’re cannon fodder? So, what must it include in order to reasonably fight against the soldiers of another power? It’d have to include semi-automatic rifles, at the least. [/quote]
http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/89vand.pdf
[/quote]
Well, I am trying to take baby steps. Since the predominant reason for the people to keep and bear arms wasn’t to stop a single, or maybe even a duo, of violent burglars…
But in fact, was written with a battlefield in mind, we can agree that semi-automatics and ‘high capacity magazines’ are certainly safe from infringement, no? How could they not be? What reasonable interpretation expects the citizen to show up to the battlefield with anything less?[/quote]
Well?
If the citizen is to be on the battlefield (intent) reason demands that he at least have the very same rifles and magazines being debated today. The same in nature as the enemy opposite him on the battlefield would be carrying. In what possible way, without blatantly wiping ones rear with the constitutional process for the sake of achieving a desired policy goal, could one deny that the federal government and judiciary must keep their mitts off such weapons? Again, what with the second framing the right around doing exactly as I’ve described–Opposing enemy SOLDIERS on the battlefield.
Whatever one feels about the reading of the 2nd regarding nukes/bio chem, etc, how can there be any doubt that the weapons and magazines which are currently making the news are untouchable? How?[/quote]
Conditions have changed. I agree, the language of the Second Amendment has not, but the assumptions the Second Amendment were predicated on have certainly changed.
Fear of a standing army? Outside of a small, stupid set of wingnut paranoiacs, no one genuinely has this fear. Far from it, the standing army - our current professional armed forces - is the one institution we moderns have the most pride in.
Scale of war? Industrialization changed all that (with everything else). Weapons of war were created to kill people on massive scales with greater efficiency. Now policy makers have to decide how to get their hands on the best, most lethal weapons available in order to properly deal with external threats. But the idea of these same weapons being loose in civil society is absurd. The policy makers who decide such things in the name of national security don’t need to be compromised by a concern that if we go a certain route, the Second Amendment guarantees a private citizen a right to the same weapon. That foolishly and unncessarily burdens the national security process. And after all, as has remarked by others, the Constitution isn’t (and shouldn’t be) a suicide pact.
Need for militia? Again, we have a professional military. The idea that we are going to call up Push and a bunch of couch commandos with their own secondary market AR-15s if the Chinese (or Canadians) invade is ludicrous. The militia still serves an important function, but if we need to start calling up these individuals, they are going to get professional military training and state-of-the-art weapons.
Bottom line is the world has changed. Doesn’t mean I don’t agree that the proper way to address these changes is amendment of Second Amendment, not interpreting it to get political outcomes via an end-around. (Assuming an individual right exists under original intent, and not a collective one.) I agree with you on that. But many of the assumptions that underpin the Second Amendment don’t exist anymore, and we shouldn’t argue in the modern era as if they do.
And, as I keep mentioning, the one thing we know for sure is hat there was no original intent to restrict the states from prohibiting the keeping and bearing of arms as they saw fit, balancing the need with militia preparation with that of public safety. Thus, reasonable regulations of arms are born, and no, there isn’t some universal right to ownership of arms as a matter of original intent. So, if we’re being loyal to original intent, the federal government may not be able to infringe on your right to own a weapon appropriate for a battlefield, but Connecticut sure as Hell can, and it is perfectly consistent with original intent for Connecticut to say “nope, battlefield weapons are not appropriate in the streets of Connecticut.” (And perfectly constitutional, that is, until the cadre of “originalists” on the Supreme Court abandoned original intent and grabbed a judge-made doctrine to reach a result they wanted, despite its obvious conflict with originalism. They are as much in the camp of the Living Constitutionalists as the liberal justices they whine about.)
This truth is perfectly inconvenient, but truth it is.
I’m on the record as being against any kind of assault weapons ban. It’s bad policy, based on emotion, and won’t do anything about mass shootings anyway. But can a state tell a citizen they can’t own one? Of course they can. Or should be. As a matter of original intent.
In any event, I agree that the best thing to do is to amend the Second Amendment via the correct constitutional process and make a new one built on modern assumptions. This wouldn’t be a purely “liberal” experiment to try and restrict ownership of, say, military grade weapons - right-wingers could amend (or argue that we should amend) the Second Amendment to actually create a national right to own an arm that a state cannot infringe (because the Constitution doesn’t provide one, as written, for those that read it).
That’s the solution, I think.
