Trump: The First 100 Days

It’s not conjecture. I was in the hallowed halls of Harvard for three crappy years.

The reason there is little or no recent scholarship is anyone who can read English can figure out dependent vs. independent clauses. As a result, they avoid the issue to avoid: (1) appearing stupid by arguing the amendment does not say what it clearly says and (2) because if they read it fairly, they’d get blacklisted.

There is no older scholarship because it’s boring. The meaning presented by Heller is clear to all by the unwilling. No way to fill 30 pages on it. You need something vague like the commerce clause. Only very recently have people been dumb enough to argue that it does not say what it plainly says.

This is not a great mystery.

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Just curious: For how much longer are you going to feel the need to prove me right about your penchant for resorting to adolescent name-calling once your argument is found lacking?

Right.

People privately owned canons and warships when the damn thing was ratified. If this whole nonsense of “only in a military context” was even remotely close to the accepted understanding at time of ratification, say goodbye to the union.

Much like the necessity to allow slavery. 1) every major civilization in known human history had them, so at the time it wasn’t all that odd and 2) you wouldn’t get the slave states to ratify. Moral relativism? Sure, but the union mattered a lot, and any literal reading of the Bill of Rights clearly outlaws slavery (abortion too, but both institutions require pretending people aren’t people), but anywho…

It’s clear who has the right to keep and bear arms, the people. We’ve updated the laws for that to include everyone irrelevant of age, sex, race, sexual orientation etc.

Says the guy avoiding a simple question.

Run along junior.

The very fact that Heller came before the SCOTUS would seem to thwart this argument. The enormous outburst in the legal-scholar community that followed Heller would also seem to cut against it.

You obviously know the law far better than I do. Perhaps you could point out legal scholarship from, say, the 19th or early 20th century that is consistent witrh the so-called Standard model of the 2A? I ask because I can provide lots of counterexamples of far more recent vintage. For example, Judge Bork–no overwhelmingly pathetic liberal, he–said the following:

“I’m not an expert on the Second Amendment,” Judge Robert Bork said in 1989, “but its intent was to guarantee the right of states to form militia, not for individuals to bear arms.”

Says the guy who thinks a serious discussion among adults is appropriately conducted via snarky memes. Grow up, junior.

OK, I’m out. You get the last comment.

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Well no, because the majority based its opinion in an understanding that the 2A was written to enshrine a personal right to self-defense, which wasnt the purpose of the 2A at all.

The fact the meme blows your entire argument out of the water is just icing on the cake. You can quote all the judges, all the OP-ED’s you want, use all the words in your vocabulary that you can muster, and it can all be completely destroyed by a simple, snarky meme, with bacon in it.

That meme, and the fact I can use it to completely demolish you in a serious discussion is in fact the greatest and most relevant part of the whole exchange. That your entire argument is toasted by a meme, a simple, basic and very straight forward meme.

You run from it, with pathetic excuses because you can’t argue it. No single individual can deny that. Because if you could argue it, you would.

I have grown up. The fact I’ve made my case with a picture that contains words that anyone older than 9 years old can comprehend is in fact that. If you can’t explain something on a 6th grade level, you don’t truly understand it. I’ve used an even lower grade level graphic to explain my position. And you run from it.

Thanks

So you like to ignore basic English too then?

The 2A wasn’t about individual personal defense from local criminals and violence. That was a well-established common law right that the Framers weren’t trying to upend.

Yeah, I read English. I also read ConLaw and history, so I got that going for me.

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Agreed, due to the bolded part.

I’m sorry if I jumped your shit, but I read your post as saying no individual right to arms. Is that your position?

You worded your post as if to say the right to self defense is only applicable in a collective sense, which makes zero god damn sense what-so-ever.

Of course it’s personal self defense, just not in context of street crime. Defense of your self and family from tyrannical government or invaders is obviously individual and personal. That while allowing that, citizens can then protect themselves from street crime is a valid “unintended” consequence.

Yup. That was an argument I offered upthread, when I pointed out that acknowledging the valid meaning of the 2A (ie, that it regards regular militias, not individuals) doesn’t mean that one is forfeiting a legal claim to a personal right to own a firearm. The legal right to own a firearm (subject to reasonable regulation by the state) does not depend upon the 2A.

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Okay then, then you disagree with the holding of Heller, and you therefore disagree with Jewbacca’s claim.

The plain English of the amendment contradicts this.

But it was written as a personal right of self defense. That Heller extends that to mean common street crime is largely just common sense.

Without some tortured butchering of the English language, no reasonable person could conclude the 2nd only applies to the collective. The entire second clause is painfully obvious in it’s granting the protection of the right to self defense via weapons. It also grants it to the people, not to the militia. This wasn’t a mistake. They are one in the same, however it wasn’t an accident they specifically named the people in the second clause.

So… By extension, of course the right carries over into everyday life, particularly given the current circumstances.

For clarification’s sake:

You have the right to self defense, with or without weapons, irrelevant if the government protects that right, but given the constraints of this thread (I’m posting at work) I’m going to use the common language that implies we’re granted this right due to it being written on a piece of paper.

We’re not, the right is inherent. That it’s written on the piece of paper means the petty tyrants in the government can’t deny you protection of that right without proving due cause. (Which MA ignores, but this state is a bunch of commie douchebags so…)

No it wasn’t. The contours of legal personal self-defense was handled at the state level not the federal level. The framers were not intending on nationalizing some personal right to self-defense that would apply in the Streets of Philadelphia and New York against muggers, rapists, and assassins.

Okay first of all I am personally offended that you did not include a “D”.

It’s LGBQIAPKD You can’t leave out Dwarfs man…WOW are you ever insensitive.

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But they did nationalize some personal right to self-defense that would apply to the Street of Philadelphia and New York against the French, English, Natives or Donald Trump’s Brown Shirts. That fighting as a cohesive group following common orders is essential to using a militia as your defense is relevant in execution but:

The basic English of the second clause says individual right of the people. The militia was in fact all the people able to fight. (Who they saw as able is moot, as we’ve gotten rid of the ability to use age, race gender etc for that determination)

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Keeping-and-bearing Arms is something the military does in preparation for military action. (One does not ‘bear arms’ against a rabbit, for example.) Further, in 1770s-speak, ‘to keep and bear’ are not separate activities; rather, this is a phrase relating to the storage of weapons (and other accoutrements) of war. In this regard, the point of the 2A was to keep military equipment out of the hands of the federal government; ie, to prevent the existence of a standing army. Again, from that piece I cited previously:

“In America, the Articles of Confederation required that “every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and equipage” (equipage being the etymological sense of arma). Thus it is as erroneous to suppose that “keep” means, of itself, “keep at home” as to think that “arms” means only guns. As Patrick Henry tells us, the militia’s arms include “regimentals, etc.”—the flags, ensigns, engineering tools, siege apparatus, and other “accoutrements” of war.”

Yes, we all read your OP-ED the first time you posted it.

^^^ All of these words…

That’s why it would be nice if the amendment itself was rewritten for clarity.
disclaimer - pro gun and absolutely pro self sufficient defense

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Which completely contradicts you’re entire argument.

You’re saying they wrote an amendment that only applies to state funded and state armed regulars, which would be a standing army in essence, to stop the feds from having one.

You’re saying they wrote an amendment to create many standing armies rather than one?

right… I’m sure that was the great plan. “Hey guys, we dont’ want a strong federal government, so let’s write this amendment that creates a bunch of state controlled armies with no common orders or tactics, and lets write this part about the people keeping and bearing arms, but really we’ll only mean certain people, and only when the government says so.”

Really?