Slashdot Mirror
Second Amendment Questioned
dheera writes "Attorneys in Washington, DC question the scope of the Second Amendment in the first case in nearly 70 years, citing that the right to bear arms only applies to 'a well regulated militia.' 'We interpret the Second Amendment in military terms,' said Todd Kim, the District's solicitor general."
Right, because your grand-daddy's rifle is really going to help against tanks and automatic weaponry. And most people can buy a gas mask, but not many do, which means that anyone wanting to subdue you non-violently just has to use some simple tear gas. The times when a group of civilians could contend with an equally numerous group of soldiers are long gone.
You haven't seen the news in the last couple of years, have you? (Iraq, Afghanistan)
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
The 2nd Amendment states a right (keep and bear arms) that cannot be infringed. That's it -- no infringement, period. The introductory phrase states a reason for stating this right, but "shall not be infringed" is an absolute. Note it doesn't grant the right; it considers that right, along with "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and others to be inherent, above government powers, and says the government will not infringe on them.
Jerry Pournelle mentioned in a panel debate at Baycon 2006 that the colonial government provided guns and ammo to the citizens (whether they wanted it or not) in case self-defense against a common enemy was needed and that was the original definition of "a well regulated militia". If so, maybe the government today should require every 18-year-old to serve two years in the military and let them keep their gun after their service. You kill three birds with one bullet: everyone in time will have the proper training for using their gun (which should reduce accidents), be armed for self-defense (which should reduce crime) and the whole stupid 2nd Amendment will be gone. Just an idea.
Pretty sure the Department of Justice is condoning torture and crimes against humanity now. Not exactly the most credible source of opinion on such things.
The Farewell Tour II
The times when a group of civilians could contend with an equally numerous group of soldiers are long gone.
Absolutely. But combat-capable civilians outnumber soldiers and police in our country by at least fifty to one. That tends to even the odds a bit.
To quote (from memory) a German commander on the Easter front during WWII: "Each of our tanks could beat five of theirs. We kept meeting six."
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
How many tanks do you and your neighbors own?
The US Army does not have enough tanks to cover the contry. If it actually came down to it, you would not have a tank in your neighborhood, but your friendly local cop at your door. And him I can defend against.
There's nothing magical or extraordinarily high tech about automatic weapons and rockets. If it really came down to a full on Civil War in the USA, I'm sure a few facilities could ramp up to produce the things under the radar. There are drug labs all over the place now, and look how efficient we've been at taking care of those.
Of course, all that may be unnecessarily complicated. There are plenty of international weapons manufacturers that would love to sell to the American public, and getting those products across the largely unprotected/unwatched US borders would probably be trivial.
In short, if it gets that bad, the weapons will show.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Throughout the Constitution, the wording is very specific. When referring to individual rights, the term "The People" is used. When referring to state rights, the term "The States" is used. Unless you believe the 2nd Amendment is the ONLY EXCEPTION to this rule, it is most definitely an individual right as it says "... the right of The People ..."
If the meaning of "The People" is changed to indicate a state right, ALL our rights will be lost. Suddenly, speech, religion, assembly, redress, etc, will be State rights and everything that makes this country worthwhile will go into the shitter.
If the government can abuse a law, eventually the government will abuse a law. Maybe not right away, but a few years down the road it will happen. A good example of this is the seizing of property without due process. At first they were seizing property of convicted drug dealers. Then they started seizing the property of unconvicted drug dealers. After getting away with this obvious violation of the Constitution, they started seizing property of people with the thinnest thread of a connection to drugs, e.g. a guy had his car seized because his passenger had a joint in his possession.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Infantry can take out tanks with a rifle. Not an ordinary rifle, mind, but a rifle small enough to reasonably include in thousands of personal armories. (esp. in a population in which there are almost as many guns as there are people.) Further, owing to their reduced mobility, tanks are vulnerable to even less sophisticated weapons wielded in sufficient supply.
A foot is a good weapon to take on ants, but you must be careful not to anger too many of them or your foot will be useless.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The thing is, the US Military is made up of, get this, Americans. Hopefully, a large portion of them would either refuse or even defend the civilian population. I remember something about Katrina and the national guard refusing to help enforce the gun confiscation ordered by the local police.
"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."
I've noticed there has been a trend to re-structure the sentence of the 2nd Ammendment and interpret it on the basis of a "well regulated militia" and then equate this to the National Guard and thus declare the 2nd Ammendment fullfilled.
This is incorrect, and is not what is said above. There are two aspects to the above statement.
1) that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free stae
2) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed
What we have is a stacking of concepts. A militia is necessary to the security of a free state. Militias draw from the people, both arms and manpower. Therefore, it is necessary for the people to retain the right to bear arms or there is no means to call up a militia.
If you remove the right to bear arms from U.S. citizens then you have no means to call up and organize a militia. You will have a bunch of unarmed men unable to defend their country. This is well understood within the context of the Constitution being written. A simple test can be done to express such.
Apply both interpretations, which one would fit and fulfill the needs of the time. If we apply the traditional interpretation everything fits. However, if we apply the re-interpretation you find yourself in a place in which the American Revolution would never have existed. Let' remove all guns from ownership by the colonials. The only guns are now owned and in the hands of the British Army and the regulated militias under the British. The colonials now are completely unarmed facing both the regulars of the British Army and the militias under the British.
Clearly there is no way that this was the intention of the authors of the Constitution. And if the courts ever decided to re-interpret such ammendments it is the right of every arms bearing American and the duty of every U.S. soldier (if you've ever served you swore an oath to protect this country from powers both foreign and domestic) to kill those judges and remove that segment of government from power.
The 2nd ammendment is our assurety against tyranny. It is the last and final line in our "checks and balances" within the government.
- Saj
Quite a bit since the guy in the tank needs to get out from time to time. Even the stuff that is up and coming like the tank you control from another country remote can have it visual sensors shot out and then that tank is a useless husk. Until they make humans that can't be shot, that rifle has plenty of life left in it.
2. Shootings are only one part of the spectrum in domestic violence. Like point one, why should guns be any more regulated than say, hammers, in this regard?
3. Accidentally killing a person whom you suspected of breaking into your home is a tragedy. But really, how often does this happen? And on the other side of that coin: civilians shoot more bad guys with guns every year than cops. Plus, they're five times more likely to be correct about the good/bad status of the shot person.
I think you've presented the classic case of the Paternal Government, the one that defaults to being everyone's best protection against themselves. You are giving up your rights for the belief that you are more secure.
damaged by dogma
It's not the cops I'm worried about. It's the sheep that have proven themselves to not give a fuck and instead tell you that you're paranoid.
It should be no shock that D.C. is still one of the most violent cities in the U.S. (#2 or #3, the last I checked). The murder rate drops by a factor of 10 when you cross the Potomac River into Virginia (still in metropolitan Washington; it gets even lower further away) where there is no gun ban.
What are you trying to say?
It seems like you are trying to say that the crime rate would be lower if nobody had guns. If that is what you are trying to say, either you are intentionally putting forth a bad argument, or you're stupid.
We have two sets of data: Data when it was legal to own handguns on both sides of the river, and data when it was legal to own a gun on only the low-crime side of the river.
The high-crime side of the river had high crime in both circumstances. At best, with the data you're using in your argument, you can argue that taking away legal handguns didn't make a difference.
That's the big problem with the gun debate. There are very few people involved capable of a rational argument. They know what side they are on, and emotionally, irrationally argue in support of their position, summarily dismissing any information that does not help their cause, while seizing on any bit that seems to support it, no matter how flawed.
paintball
Yeah, and the other half is people like you who want to take away everyone else's *rights* because you're scared of what they might do with that right. As is usually the case, that fear is irrational. You have absolutely nothing to fear from 99.9999% of *legal* gun owners. Yet you're so afraid of what people who own guns *illegally* might do to you, you'd rather just ban guns altogether (as if that is a solution to the problem of people being able to obtain guns illegally), and you don't care if you destroy a Constitutional right in order to do it.
It's funny how the anti-gun crowd pretends that they're just trying to interpret the Constitution, and only wish to apply it the way it was meant to be applied. In reality, if you *really* want to know how the 2nd Amendment was intended, you don't have to look very far. Read some of the writings of the people who actually *wrote* the damn thing, and it's obvious. They state explicitly that *individuals* need to be able to own guns. But of course you don't really care how it was intended. That's just a show you put on so that people will think your argument is based on the Constitution, rather than trying to destroy the Constitution.
In reality, you don't give a rat's ass about the Constitution as a whole. You just want to cherry-pick the parts *you* think are important and discard the rest. And you're sick of hearing everyone heap praise and reverence on the "Founding Fathers" because you think you're smarter than they are, and besides times have changed, etc, etc. It's people like YOU that this country needs to guard against, because in your supreme arrogance, you're willing to destroy the very foundation of our freedom. (not that thousands of people just like you haven't already done so to a large degree. sigh.)
The original post is dead-on, not you. As you and that little paragraph (from the *DOJ's website*) say: the Attorney General's opinions are just that: opinions. They are not statements of the law and they have no binding affect on anything.
Just so you don't confuse anyone: The fact that such advisory opinions can be "admitted in a court of law as evidence of reliance that a person believed they were acting within the law" is only relevant for the (very few) crimes that explicitly require knowledge of the law as part of their mental state.
What really angers me about the 'need firearms to protect us from the government' people is that they don't understand what they are really saying. "We need guns so the government doesn't take away our rights" they say.
That's saying that you don't have to comply with the will over the democratically elected government. It's saying that if you don't like the law, yu're going to become a terrorist. That you would rather just become a terrorist than elect people who are going to protect your rights in the first place.
The people who scream bloody murder about the government taking away the guns they need to protect their rights from the government tend to the VERY SAME PEOPLE who ELECT OFFICIALS WHO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS!
How many times have you heard someone say "We need guns to protect our rights!" and then say "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear!"
How about instead of letting people say "Elect me, and I won't take away your guns!", you elect people who say "Elect me, and I'll repeal the Patriot Act!"
People who argue that they need guns to protect their rights from the government are just gun nuts. The 'protect us from the government' argument is a red herring. If their RIGHTS were really what is important to them, they'd vote for people who wanted to protect their rights instead of people who wanted to protect their guns.
But that's not what happens. Search you without a warrant? Listen in to your phone calls? Arrest and detain you, even if you're a US citizen, without access to courts or a lawyer? Torture people? Sure, we'll reelect that guy, as long as he promises we can keep our guns!
Using the right to bear arms to protect your rights is useless if you're willing to trade away all your other rights just to keep your gun. Then what are you protecting?
paintball
I guess if you live where everybody is crazy and armed you would need a gun. I give thanks I do not live in such a place.
... That's where South America starts
PenGun
The Peace Arch
The President takes an Oath to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution.
You say that it is not the executive branch's job to interpret the Constitution.
But would you rather have someone protecting the Constitution who THINKS about what they are doing, or someone being an automaton?
Because if THEY don't interpret it, how are they to protect it? Follow someone else's interpretation?
Now - please show me in the Constitution itself (the supreme law of the US) where exactly it says the Supreme court has sole authority to interpret the Constitution?
Guess what. You won't find it. They assumed that authority for themselves in Marbury.
PS: Anyone reading the above as a defense of the current POTUS or his administration quite plainly isn't reading the same things I wrote
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
Just like, if torture worked (which it doesn't), I would not support torture.
Some folks think safety is more important than liberty. I disagree with them. I think that liberty is more important than safety, although I don't even agree that it has to be one or the other.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Thank you for making this point.
We could all roll around in bubbles with cameras recording our every move, and I'm sure that would make this a safer society, but that would be...horrible.
How many tanks do you and your neighbors own?
Doesn't matter, for multiple reasons:
Tanks are good for three things: (1) fighting other tanks, (2) smashing through enemy lines to create breaches that can be exploited by infantry and (3) looking scary to unorganized mobs.
Similarly, much of the rest of the US military's advanced technology, particularly aircraft, isn't useful in scenarios where the enemy is mixed in with non-combatants or is just plain hard to find. Consider the fighting in Iraq, and the trouble the US military has with those insurgents, in spite of the fact that the opposition forces there are truly tiny.
Finally, I'll just note that whenever this topic comes up, and a bunch of slashdotters declaim the worthlessness of early 20th-century small arms against modern military forces, I have never, ever found anyone among them that claims any military or even police experience. Find me an Air Force pilot, or an Army tanker, or a Marine attack helicopter pilot who argues that hunting rifles, handguns and IEDs couldn't be used to mount an effective insurgency because their hi-tech weapons are just too powerful. Seriously, ask some people who know something about war what they think, and you'll get a very different point of view.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Don't forget that if that passes, we will be able to deduct all expenses incurred while potentially making those earnings including monthly fees, ISP costs, electricity costs, cost of the game, hardware, "office" space, training costs in terms of cable bill for receiving G4, plasma TV cost, etc. By treating gaming as an independent "business" they're gonna be promoting a whole lot of deductions that wouldn't otherwise be deductible. Heck ... I hope they go ahead and do it ... I'm looking to claiming my gaming "losses".
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Nerds see themselves as being part of an enlightened and well established subculture. To ignore every discussion which transcends the traditionally geeky however, would be paramount to calling that subculture stupid, out of touch with the world that influences their lives, in a word, unenlightened.
It is obvious from the popularity of /. articles concerning rights, freedom, politics, and how we've been Bushywhacked for the last six years, implies that nerds care deeply about these issues. It is easy for the enlightened to see that we live in a dangerous world: from terrorism to oppression, from bi0 weapons to outsourcing IT to India, from global warming to bad presidents, surveillance to CowboyNeal's evil twin.
The point is this: Nerds are smart, and when thy looked up from their code and saw the desperation of the world's people, they saw a world that needed their comments on Slashdot.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
In my mind, this safety means:
1. Safety from fellow citizens, and
2. Safety from the government.
Neither of those are, at their heart, rights, nor are either of those the basis for a right. Both of those are still empirical questions, and nothing more. Does freedom of speech increase or decrease the incidence of spontaneous combustion? It doesn't matter, freedom of speech is a right.
The basis for the right to bear arms is the right to defend yourself. If you depend on the government for all of your safety, then the rest of your rights are meaningless. Consider this: if the government doesn't like you, and you depend on the government for your safety, all they have to do is stop making you safe from people that can harm you. They may release people from prison, or not put someone in prison that they should. Or they just might make it a well-known fact that they will not protect you, and wait for non-governmental citizens to have their way with you.
Think if you're a black person in the deep south a few decades ago. Perhaps everyone knows that the government won't arrest someone for hurting or stealing from black people. It's a form of passive punishment, and it's very real. It's happened in a million forms throughout history, and the founders knew that. It's a way of passing the buck saying "we didn't kill him" when they just didn't provide the protections necessary such that he wouldn't be killed.
You can't stop all forms of passive punishment by governments, but allowing citizens to defend themselves closes an important loophole.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
If you want to compare licensing guns to licensing cars, then here is a good point.
The government only licenses cars and drivers for use on public roads. I can go out and buy any vehicle I want, and as long as I only use it on private property, the government doesn't care. I don't need brake lights, airbags or anything else the government requires, as long as I only use the vehicle on private property. It is once I take it onto public roads that the government cares.
This should be true for guns as well. What I do on my private property on my business, as long as I don't endanger people around me. So in a residential neighborhood I should be able to keep any firearm I like, but not discharge them (as it poses a danger to those around me). However, if I am out in the middle of nowhere (again on private property) I should be able to discharge any firearm I like. However, if I want to carry a loaded weapon with me in public, the state government should be able.
In my state this is true. If I wanted to carry a concealed handgun, I would have to pass a background check, go through a safety course and pass a test. In addition, once I was issued a license I would be subject to a stricter set of rules when carrying the weapon.
I call BS. In this year's rankings, DC is #19, behind cities like Memphis, Trenton, and Kansas City. DC has improved greatly since the handgun ban was passed.
Yeah, and before women got the vote we didn't have the threat of nuclear war.
Logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc
Just because one thing happens after another thing does not mean the second thing was caused by the first.
The hand written version does, the version ratified by the states does not. If the comma is to be taken as intended, then the militias have the right to bear arms, but common people don't. If the law is to be taken as written when ratified, then the common people do have the right to bear arms.
There is solid precident and writing to support either cause but I think it worth considering two pertinant facts.
- The democratic rule rose out of a fight against tyranny and the rights were to protect the people from the same problems the drafters of the bill of rights had experienced. The writers were probably very concerned to make sure that the common people always would have a way to fight the government should it exhibit symptoms of tyranny.
- The right to bear arms is grouped with other civil liberties and as such, if taken in context, can only be associated with the rights of the common man.
Funny, AC parent considers the topic to be intended as written and thus not correctly placed. The topic at hand is a debate on whether the amendment should be taken as written or not.B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
You would have discovered the following:
There are two types of militia, civil milita (unorganized civilians bearing own arms) and state milita (national guard, state troopers, standing forces, whatever is organized for and paid (and bearing arms owned) by the state).
Well regulated meant only one, and possibly two things. You are reading "regulated" as in today's "regulations".
Regulated, in the 1787 terminology, refers to only one thing. "Disciplined and officered." No joke, a militia with a set structure, even if self organized, is a "well regulated militia". The irony is that the term can also be read to mean "well equiped, trained and supplied."
The ratification misdeeds do not even enter into it.
What I find ironic, is that you are all begging for scraps from the tables of lords and masters with loyalties to anyone but you. Washington DC is a crime capital under a declared "state of crime emergency" since July or August of 2006 (don't remember the exact date). And it isn't just guns, some british guy got knifed and killed in his own driveway, which makes the "protect yourself by staying home" or "don't go into the dangerous parts of DC after dark" completely idiotic.
Since most of you are socialist "democrats" or so called "liberals" (my how that term stopped meaning what it used to mean in Jefferson's day), perhaps this example comes closest to your hearts. Some time ago, in their home in Germantown (rich part of Wash, DC) Theresa Heinz Kerry got ROBBED while outside of their home. Yep, John Kerry's wife... the ketchup girl. Humorously, the news barely touched on it, presumably for fear that the properties there would stop soaring in price, and also that the DC 30year gun ban would go bust if even the big antigunners are being robbed at screwdriver point (making the gunban worthless, what next, piece of rock and treebranch ban?)
(Frankly, I didn't know there were any "safe" zones in that DC, I've watched drug deals and "hot merchandise" deals, going on within plain sight of police squad cars (and the cops within them), and it wasn't a sting, nobody got busted AND there were no headlines or sirens/lights the whole day I was there. I left severely perturbed by that sight. I called the cops about it, and got the run around, they took my statement and basically blew me off. Guess if shots weren't fired, or blood spilled, it wasn't worth their time, though how would "shots be fired" in a gun ban city?)
However, you are correct, the "founders" were two separate camps which are mistaught in history class, one was the rich fascistic overlords known as the "federalists" (a hijacking of the term that has stuck) and the other, the unprepared, populist/agrarian/Jeffersonian group, lead by the very vocal Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, were the ANTI Federalists (of whom you may hear little or nothing in high school history and if you are fortunate, a tad smidgen from a libertarian professor in college, IF you are lucky). James Madison watered down the actual text, but the states all ratified the text THEY felt was necessary. Do some research while the National Archives are still available to the public. It might open everyone's eyes, especially since we're geeks, we're supposed to be libertarians at heart, seeking knowledge and truth, instead of being gimme gimme beggars and weaklings.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
The US constitution was a best-effort. It was not written by god on a tablet. It's authors said it was deeply flawed and they hoped it would last 20 years. It needs an over-haul.
Because smart people can't agree on even the most basic intentions of the constitution's authors. Do people have a right to arms or not? What kinds of arms? It there a right to privacy or not? Even from the government? It is NOT CLEAR. And it won't EVER get any clearer.
Some people say that is the beauty of the document, it's flexibility and ability to be reinterpreted.
I say bullshit. I don't want to hear about *implied* rights. Spell it out clearly, in contemporary english, with no spin. We don't live in the dark ages, we can examine the ideas of the past and use what is useful.
I think we need to update the language of the constitution. Maybe we need a constitutional convention every 10 or 20 years as Jefferson suggested, to carefully clarify the language. Baby steps.
And do we want to add new rights? Should there be a right to euthanasia, a basic job, basic health care, an abortion, basic shelter, a basic education, porn? How about freedom FROM religion? We seem to *effectively* have some of these rights, but not literally. Why not?
Would someone please get Richard Stallman on this? And Linus Tovalds?
People kill. Guns hold NO responsibility. Neither does a kitchen knife hold guilt if some criminal breaks into your home and kills you with it. The criminal is too often absolved of guilt, with it being transfered to the item/weapon.
Look at London. Now they got themselves a "knife amnesty", because criminals began using knives (naturally silenced, without need for sound suppressors). What is next? Tree branches and rocks are "causing" crushing blows to back of skulls? Steel pipe amnesty?
If you want to see, go to a gun show. Perfect example of well behaved people, go to self regulated gun ranges, I've been to them all to experience it. Strange that nobody dies, and the few accidents are some idiot who didn't bother to study on the proper usage of the gear he/she is handling.
While I am not a member of the "gungho" culture, I must say I admire the ones that practice what they preach within that culture (they carry, they're safe, they're responsible, and very few have had "accidents" or committed a crime with them... and worth learning from... unlike the geeks of today, who let those in power tell them what to use, and how to use it, including their bodies.)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler