Slashdot Mirror
Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Sentenced To Life In Prison
An anonymous reader sends an update on the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the man behind the Silk Road online black market. Sentencing is now complete, and Ulbricht has been given life in prison. He had been facing a 20-year minimum because of the charge of being a "drug kingpin," and prosecutors were asking for a sentence substantially higher than the minimum. Prior to the sentence being handed down today, Ulbricht spoke before the court for 20 minutes, asking for leniency and for the judge to leave him a "light at the end of the tunnel." The judge was unswayed, giving Ulbricht the most severe sentence possible. She said, "The stated purpose [of the silk road] was to be beyond the law. ... Silk Road's birth and presence asserted that its creator was better than the laws of this country. This is deeply troubling, terribly misguided, and very dangerous." Ulbricht's family plans to appeal.
Selling drugs and weapons are serious crimes and should be justly punished. Propz to GNAA
He's the first. They're making an example of him to scare the rest of the plebs. It will not work. Nothing to see here. Move along.
All he did was facilitate transactions among consenting adults.
Something is wrong with our country.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
... and the authorities will question you.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I think Ulbricht has a pretty good case for an appeal here. Take the part in the article where the federal prosecutor mentioned that people had died from overdoses of drugs they had purchased on Silk Road. The way the prosecutor says this, they make it sound like Ulbricht had something to do with their deaths by overdose, when in all likelihood they would have purchased drugs and overdosed from somewhere other than Silk Road had the site not existed. The same thing goes for the failed attempt at hiring a hitman - they didn't charge him in that case, and yet it was still being brought up as "character evidence".
I really fail to see what makes Ross Ulbricht any different from a regular drug dealer on the street (few of whom get life sentences) other than the massive amount of media attention that Silk Road got and that he was dealing drugs over the internet.
Lack of respect for legal and political authority is evidently a far worse crime than actual murder.
The prosecution hinted that he was responsible for six murders, but didn't charge any, naturally ("he's a murderer, just take our word for it"). They pointed out that at least one person died from a drug overdose, implying that this was his fault. Really? Not the fault of the person who overdosed, or the person who sold the drugs but the person who created the means of sale? So the next time someone is caught selling drugs out of their car, we'll just seize the vehicle then dig up the corpse of Henry Ford and put it on trial?
It sounds a lot more like the government trying to make an example out of someone. I really hope that this doesn't hold up on appeal.
Selling drugs and weapons are serious crimes and should be justly punished. Propz to GNAA
Let's devil's advocate a bit...
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons. (infringe ~ "even meddle with the fringes of") That includes gun trafficing, because stopping gun sales makes it harder to exercise the right.
The Tenth Amendment explicitly, and the Ninth Amendment implicitly, ban the Federal Government from use of any power not explicitly specified in the Constitution as amended. I don't see anything in there that explicitly gives the Federal Government to ban any drugs or traffic in them, or in any way regulate such traffic (beyond forbidding false advertising claims, setting standards for labeling, and the like). (Do YOU find any such power in there? If so, please point it out to us.)
So it could be argued that, by the Federal Government's own basic laws, these were NOT crimes and the "Dread Pirate" was a freedom fighter.
(I won't even get into the issue of the Anarchist claims that ANY government is necessarily illegitimate, coercively imposing its will on people who did not pre-approve this and are not attempting, themselves, to coerce others. The people who promulgated the Constitution were doing their best to get governments off people's backs.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Keep licking them boots and some day they might let you wear one for a few minutes
You seem to be confused. It is the government agencies that are the ones that seem to think they can "do whatever the fuck you please." Or are you perfectly happy with them being directly responsible for the exact behavior you pretend to hate so much?
The Tenth Amendment explicitly, and the Ninth Amendment implicitly, ban the Federal Government from use of any power not explicitly specified in the Constitution as amended. I don't see anything in there that explicitly gives the Federal Government to ban any drugs or traffic in them, or in any way regulate such traffic (beyond forbidding false advertising claims, setting standards for labeling, and the like). (Do YOU find any such power in there? If so, please point it out to us.)
The Commerce Clause? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
However, E-Bay goes to some effort to detect and report illegal activity and I'm sure they are willingly and routinely working with law enforcement. The whole point of Silk Road was to AVOID law enforcement.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I have to admit, whether he actually wrote it or not, the letter to the judge was pretty powerful. I realize it's just a bunch of bullshit, designed to get him the lightest sentence possible, but it was still good bullshit.
That being said, when you can physically murder someone and still not get a life sentence, I think the penalty may have been a little harsh. I don't understand how a life sentance "as to make a harsh example out of Ulbricht" helps anything.
This is another example of how far our government has it's head up it's a**.
A man dealing in information and taking a fee is sentenced to life.
Most of his crimes are in the imagination of the prosecutors.
The Mafia still exists, but they pay bribery (and lawyers)
An organized criminal in our banking & financial industry get off with a fine.
It's just another day on Wall street (too big to fail?)
Destroy a million peoples retirement & mortgage, who may never recover and criminals profit.
Destroy the countries health and bribe the congress to allow it !
Monsanto, RJ Reynolds, & ?
Pay attention Eric Snowden, don't come back to the US.
They are planning something truly awful for you.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
I'm not at all supportive of what he did (you won't find a more anti-drugs person than me) but this seems particularly harsh.
If this sentence is to "set an example" then it must be overturned. The keystone of justice is fairness and setting an example with a harsh punishment is by definition unfair.
The Commerce Clause?
Nope. (The powers it DOES confer were already alluded to in my posting.)
"Regulating" = making regular, setting standards, etc. It does NOT include banning whole classes of trade entirely.
If they want to PROMOTE drug and gun sales, that's fine. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
According to the news reports I've read, and assume are accurate...
He was 14, not 18, the issue was reported (albeit not to the right authority) and the young man was sent to "treatment" for his issues by his parents and as far as we know it didn't happen again. I haven't heard any of the victims complaining that something else needs to be done, or that his behavior didn't stop. It was also 13+ years ago and the statute of limitations happened to be 3 years. It's old news and there is nothing of value we can accomplish by discussing it now, unless of course you WANT him to loose his job and be publicly disgraced for what he freely admits where vile and evil actions that he highly regrets having done.
But feel free to invent any new facts you want, because as you point out, there are no records... But there never where any in the version of events I've been reading.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
IMO he is an idiot. He knew that what he was doing was illegal. He was taking big profit from it. Yet he decided to run his *internet* business from US. Which is stupid. Since it is an internet business you could run it from anywhere and given the income he had he would have settled him OK in any country. Yet he decided to reside in US where his sentence would be draconian for sure. Clearly an idiot.
No, but it makes it difficult to accept judgments made by said government on citizens. No one likes a preachy, bulling hypocrite.
The whole point of Silk Road was to AVOID law enforcement.
I thought the point was to provide anonymity. Can't we in the same extent say that people who are running TOR nodes are also trying to avoid law enforcement?
In the real world as opposed to your imagination the interpretation on the Constitution and the powers of the the Federal government rests with the courts (and 300 years of history) rather that what you deduce by parsing the text.
I posted in this thread already but then went and read more about the case, and thought I'd share some anecdotal evidence.
As part of my job I sometimes have to sit in court rooms for specific cases, and I end up hearing a lot of other cases while I'm there. Two have stuck in my mind.
The first was the case of a lady who had been stopped by the police for using her mobile phone while driving. Her defence was that she'd been at home and a relative had called to tell her that her dad had been rushed to hospital. She jumped in the car, set off, and phoned her sister. That was when the police saw her. The prosecution didn't challenge her version of events. To me it seemed like an obvious time for a judge to use his discretion, but no, because her defence involved an admission that she did use the phone while driving, so she was found guilty and fined about £750 if I remember correctly.
Another case was a police officer accused of causing injury by dangerous driving. He'd driven through a red light while responding to an emergency call and collided with another car. I'm going to paraphrase as best I can how the judge handed down his verdict: "It is part of a police driver's job that they will sometimes have to exceed the speed limit or go through a red light when responding to an emergency call, and it is vital that due care and attention is paid to ensure that it is safe to do so. You did not exercise due care or attention when going through the red light and that lack of care caused the collision. However, you were responding to an emergency call, and therefore the court hands down an absolute discharge." Read that again if it's not immediately obvious what was wrong with the judge's logic :-)
Here's my point. When I read about the Ross Ulbricbht court, what comes across to me is that the judge is saying "blah blah yadda yadda legal stuff and now here is MY OPINION" which will vary from judge to judge. But surely justice must be consistent? You shouldn't have one judge convicting a person for making an urgent phone call, but a different judge effectively exonerating a policeman for not driving with the care required by his job. And you shouldn't have a judge handing down an entire life sentence when another judge would most likely have given a sentence of 10-20 years.
Opinions shouldn't come in to justice. If they do, it's not justice, it's one person's opinion of what justice should be.
I don't know too many drug dealers who pocket $142 million. I feel that might have something to do with the decision.
This makes me wonder. Does anyone know how much the State of California collected in sales tax on pharmacy sales last year?
I think you just got into it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
An adult (yes, he _was_ over 18) who molested his pre-pubscent sisters
paid a "judge" to expunge the on-going criminal records citing those facts...
Oh, wait, those aren't the facts? Well we'll just look at the records and sort
these thigns out - oh, wait - the records are gone!
Too bad he didn't live in Europe; sending a "Right to be forgotten" email to Google is a heck of a lot cheaper.
It's Friday Night and 8chan is bringing the biblical child-rape apologetics.
The whole point of Silk Road was to AVOID law enforcement.
I thought the point was to provide anonymity. Can't we in the same extent say that people who are running TOR nodes are also trying to avoid law enforcement?
Actually DPR's purpose was to MAKE MONEY by avoiding law enforcement entanglements.... He knew what was being sold and where the money he was making came from.
Running TOR nodes falls eerily close to this, and I would imagine that doing this would put you at risk of criminal charges. Personally, I'd not risk it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yes it can. [Gonzales v. Raich]
The issue was not in dispute in that case:
In my opinion, by the way, Wickard v. Filburn, the New Deal era decision that says making something for yourself (i.e. growing wheat to feed your own chickens, or growing marijuana to use yourself) affects interstate commerce (because you otherwise might have bought it instead, affecting the price) and can thus be regulated, is a travesty that is long overdue for the Supremes to revisit and reverse, as they sometimes do when a previous court broke something substantial.
But even if you agree that feeding your own wheat to your own chickens is a suitable subject for federal regulation under the commerce clause, don't you think it's a stretch to say that affecting the price of a banned substance by NOT buying it on the illegal market is a legitimate reason for the Federal Government to ban your growing and consuming your own plants? Either way you don't buy in interstate commerce, so how can the difference in your behavior affect it? (Or was it Congress' intent for you to buy illegal drugs?)
Sometimes more than half the Supreme Court justices follow some argument to a point beyond sanity.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The CIA and american government has been doing these things for ages, with absolutely no repercussions, but when one guy does it, its a life sentence?
He should have joined the government first.
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons. (infringe ~ "even meddle with the fringes of")
Your interpretation is quaint, and incorrect, at least it didn't mean that until 2008, Columbia v. Heller
Nor in the Constitution!
The public's understanding of the 2nd Amendment started to be distorted by the NRA early in the last century. The NRA has been filling the minds of gun owners with an interpretation that was never intended by the Founders for some time, so no one can blame you for your incorrect interpretation when a propaganda machine like the NRA has been bombarding you with selective truths and out-right lies.
That includes gun trafficing, because stopping gun sales makes it harder to exercise the right.
Wow... THAT is OUT THERE. Of course, you are completely mistaken, and this bold statement of yours is wildly, dangerously inaccurate. Gun regulation is legal, and necessary.
The Admin and the Engineer
Let's devil's advocate a bit...
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons. (infringe ~ "even meddle with the fringes of") That includes gun trafficing, because stopping gun sales makes it harder to exercise the right.
That's an absurd approach to the interpretation of legal wording. For example, it would mean that the government couldn't enforce tax laws, financial fraud laws, immigration laws or worker safety laws on newspapers because such enforcement would be "interfering, in any way" with the newspapers' enjoyment of their first amendment rights. The Second Amendment prevents other issues being used as a pretext to harass gun owners (a special 100% income tax only for gun owners would not be allowed, for example), but it does not say that no regulation at all is allowed. In fact, if anything, the unstructured possession of miscellaneous firearms by private individuals with no mutual organization is already stretching the 18th century definition of 'militia' very far (albeit it is an interpretation that now has a solid history of US Supreme Court precedents).
From the WSJ:
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons.
Since you're apparently an expert in the colloquial interpretation of 18th century American English, could you please explain what this part of the 2nd amendment means?
"A well regulated Militia"
As a serious student of 18th century American History (not focusing particularly on the genesis of the Bill of Rights) it would read comparably to other documents of the 1780's and 90's (this example being 1791) as: "A well regulated militia, by which we mean an armed militia and not a standing army, shall always be allowed."
Your translation doesn't seem to mention a militia at all...
Loading...
Oh boy! Now we get to pay for him to sit on his ass and eat for the rest of his natural life!
WOO!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Don't become famous for your multi-year, ongoing, criminal conspiracy. You're not getting a warning if that happens and they've got enough evidence to bury you. Yes, lots of guys sold more drugs & guns than him over decades and aren't getting life in prison. You know what they have in common? Not bragging about it on the Internet and counting on l33t skillz to keep them out of prison.
Since you're apparently an expert in the colloquial interpretation of 18th century American English, could you please explain what this part of the 2nd amendment means?
You're looking at the language and purpose of the amendment incorrectly. To translate its essence into more modern parlance, if would go something like: "Because it's always going to be necessary to have a trained and equipped military organization ready to defend the country, the government - in the interests of not allowing the government to have a monopoly on the tools of defense - shall not prevent citizens who are not in the military from having arms."
The people who wrote that amendment still had a very bad taste in their mouths from living under a monarchy that DID reserve the power to capriciously allow only the military to keep and bear arms. Knowing that a military/militia is necessary, they used the second amendment to be VERY clear that they considered the fundamental right to keep and bear arms to be NOT exclusive to the military. Just like the considered the freedom to speak to be not under the control of the government.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Damn you! I read It's Friday Night. It made me think of Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night... So off to YouTube, half hour gone, and here I am back but I do not notice the missing time easily... "Another Saturday night and I aint got nobody, I got some money 'cause I just got paid. How I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way." i bet I have the earworm for a couple of days.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
i get it, but 5 to 15 years with probation - not multiple life sentences. Appeal!
Here's my point. When I read about the Ross Ulbricbht court, what comes across to me is that the judge is saying "blah blah yadda yadda legal stuff and now here is MY OPINION" which will vary from judge to judge. But surely justice must be consistent? You shouldn't have one judge convicting a person for making an urgent phone call, but a different judge effectively exonerating a policeman for not driving with the care required by his job. And you shouldn't have a judge handing down an entire life sentence when another judge would most likely have given a sentence of 10-20 years.
I am undoing moderation to post this, because I have seen similar comments everywhere covering the story, all moderated up, and it simply isn't true.
Yes sentencing should be consistent which is why we have sentencing guidelines, and this judge followed them. He was convicted of running a continuing criminal enterprise which has a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years. And it gets worse when you add up the offense levels in the guidelines for his crimes: It was demonstrated that people who took drugs purchased on Silk Road have died from that drug use, which give him a base offense level of 38. The continuing criminal enterprise offense adds 4 points, and since he played an Aggravated Role as the ring leader that adds another 4 points, bringing him to 46 points. The sentencing table for someone with no prior convictions and an offense level of 43 or more is a life sentence, period, and that is before talking about the other five charges he was convicted of! As a judge you would have to present a very strong argument as to why someone with that high of an offense level should get less than life.
The reason he got such a harsh sentence is because our drug laws are so harsh, not because the judge was harsh. Prosecutors have huge flexibility in what they charge people with, and in this case they threw the book at him.
Your interpretation is quaint, and incorrect, at least it didn't mean that until 2008, Columbia v. Heller [thedailybeast.com]
Isn't this self-contradicting? 'quaint' ~ 'old fashioned'. A decision as recent as 2008 is very much not old fashioned.
The public's understanding of the 2nd Amendment started to be distorted by the NRA [politico.com] early in the last century.
The NRA wasn't a lobbying organization until late in the last century, so this statement is incorrect. The NRA ended up becoming a lobbying organization due to the spread of gun control laws resulting in it's membership having it create a lobbying branch.
The NRA has been filling the minds of gun owners with an interpretation that was never intended by the Founders for some time,
Given what I've read in sources like the federalist papers, I think that the NRA version is closer to reality than yours.
That being said, your rights can be restricted through 'due process of law', IE conviction by a court and jury of your peers. So I'm okay with things like the NICS check, prohibition by felons. I think that the post-facto punishment of misdemeanor DV charges is a violation, because there's a very good chance that people like police officers who were convicted of such things, usually by pleading guilty, long before this rule was in effect, would have fought it in court and won at least a percentage of the time if the rule had been in place, or they knew it was coming, before they pled guilty.
I don't read AC A human right
Your translation doesn't seem to mention a militia at all...
And yours doesn't mention 'the people'. That mention is rather a big deal, I think.
The 'well regulated milita' is known as a prefactory clause. It explains part, not necessarily all, of the reasoning for the following rule. Which is that the right of the people to keep and bear arms 'shall not be infringed'.
Personally, to me that means that the government can't prevent you from purchasing, keeping, or carrying firearms short of conviction(or commitment) in a court of law.
Consider it like the right to have an abortion - but the right to keep arms is actually in the bill of rights. It's #2 even.
Consider what the pro-life types are trying to do with abortion - same darn things as the anti-gun types are. Waiting periods - make it a pain in the butt, discourage it. Not allowed past a certain point. Gun Permits - equivalent to the briefings/propaganda that they're trying to push on women seeking an abortion. Extra fees compared with forbidding insurance from paying in order to increase the cost. Banning specific versions. Etc...
The 'shall not be infringed' part should be a high standard against all of the above. Road blocks and detours when it comes to 'arms' should NOT be allowed. Despite this, there's a lot of unconstitutional law out there, and some of it has been in place for quite some time. It's a constant battle to protect our rights - freedom of speech, to bear arms, to privacy, religion, etc...
(I'm pro-choice and pro-gun btw).
I don't read AC A human right
Next time if you want to rip off people, swindle them out of their money, flaunt your condescendence towards the law and be a scourge of society, run a bank. Not only is it far more efficient than some petty drug dealing, it's also safer. The worst that can happen if things go wrong is that you get bailed out.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
your [html] skills are not very impressive.
And so, all these "well armed" people. Deluded. Meeting up with other well armed people to talk about being well armed, shooting holes at bogeys in their minds and Ignorantly re-parsing 18th century English texts as their children run around at their feet, loving it, emulating, fingering safety locks and shooting their kid sisters in the head. It's worth bearing in mind that a well-armed militia would be called an insurgency these days and would be met with a well-armed government. It's hard for me imagine any kind of scenario where the "well armed" would actually "win' any kind of serious test of their well-armedness. In short, they'd get their arse kicked.
I think it's because of the freedoms that still exist.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Considering the joke that the legal system of the US has evolved into, I have a hard time making an informed decision whether this is the right or the wrong thing to do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Remember it was his INTENT to allow people to engage in illegal activities,"
You mean like Uber lets people run taxis without the Taxi license/test/insurance/vehicle?
Nice double spaces, what is it with opinionated posters and whitespace?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some idea balls to remove from a manatee tank.
Before the sentence was handed down, the court heard from two parents of young men who died from drugs purchased on the Silk Road.
''You don't fit a typical criminal profile,'' she began. ''It's not TV or the movies in here. You're educated. You've got two degrees, an intact family, and 98 people willing to write letters on your behalf. And yet, we have you. And you are a criminal.''
Ulbricht had been betrayed by his own words, and over the next several minutes, Forrest proceeded to read the most damning passages from his own logs and journals.
'It's still not clear to me why you kept a journal,'' she noted, an aside that apparently produced laughter in the overflow room.
''You were captain of the ship. It wasn't a world of 'freedom'---it was a place with a lot of rules. It was a world of your laws.''
''It was a carefully planned life's work,'' she said, pointing to a 2010 journal entry saying he'd already been thinking about the site for a year. ''It was your opus. You wanted it to be your legacy---and it is.''
Ulbricht's ideological messages on Silk Road boards ''reveal a kind of arrogance,'' she said. ''Silk Road's creation shows that you thought you were better than the laws.''
As for the ''harm reduction'' arguments, the judge could not have been more cutting. She read every academic study suggested by the defense, and then some, and was not impressed.
''No drug dealer from Harlem or the Bronx would have made these arguments,'' said Forrest. ''It's an argument of privilege.''
Ulbricht was focused on harm that could come the user. But most drug violence didn't come from buys on the street, but from ''upstream'' violence that grows as demand grows, she asserted. Believing that the user is the only person affected by drug violence is ''f'antasy, it's magical thinking,'' she said.
As for Fernando Caudevilla, or ''Doctor X,'' the Spanish doctor hired by Ulbricht to give advice to users, the judge read his messages, and found them ''breathtakingly irresponsible.''
Caudevilla told a diabetic that using MDMA would be OK, as long as he remembered to check his glucose levels by setting an alarm. In another message, he advised an 18-year-old first time drug user to ''be careful and I think you'll be fine,'' and to ''stick to psychedelics.''
I agree. The meaning of "regulate" reminds me of the marks drawn on Gothic cathedrals in Europe - where markets still take place to this day - which indicated the minimum length of loaves of bread that could be sold. In this sense, regulation is really for the purpose of facilitating commerce which often requires standards.
On this note, I was recently shocked to find out that in Japan it is illegal to home brew sake.
And yours doesn't mention 'the people'
It is because the previous poster already did, I merely asked him what he thought the "well regulated militia" meant since he clearly left that inconvenient part out.
..is known as a prefactory clause...
I think you're referring to a prefatory clause - and the only people who consider it prefatory are those who want the primary focus of the sentence to be what is, in point of fact, the clause that makes clear that the militia is not to be confused with a standing army.
...short of conviction(or commitment),,,
I'm not sure how you can argue that "shall not infringe" mean the government has no say (as you do in your last paragraph) in the regulation of arms, yet you make a spurious case for keeping them out of the hands of convicts and the insane - that's a bit hypocritical - don't you think?
I own a handgun, and being as objective as possible - the amendment rather clearly states that the federal government cannot deprive the individual states from bearing arms in some form of a militia.
The fact that people are constantly trying to twist those words to mean what it is they want is the problem with the second amendment; however, as I'd previously stated elsewhere - I believe the writers of the amendment intended for it to be less than specific just so it would stand the test of time and be argued in order to fit the times in which it was being applied.
Really rather ingenious of them actually.
I'm ex-military, own one gun - (target shooting), and I have always been pro-choice but am having a harder time with it than ever these past few years.
Loading...
Sellers, sure. Buyers, however, are very much hidden from public view. But yes, eBay does have data to hand over to a court that would help identify a specific person.
The sentence referring to Supreme Court rulings between 1876 and 1939 is a lie. In U.S. vs. Miller, for example, the court never questioned that the Second Amendment was an individual right, only whether or not a short-barrelled shotgun was an appropriate military weapon.
Given that you clearly do not know what the term "well regulated" meant in 1791
I know exactly what it means. And the authors are clear that having a well regulated militia is necessary. Are you foggy about that, somehow?
... that they're not (UNLIKE their previous British overlords) going to let the necessary existence of that entity be an excuse to deprive the rest of the people from keeping and bearing arms.
They're also very clear, having stipulated that, just like with their British overlords had one, they're going to have a continually armed and well regulated military
telling people what the people who wrote the document *intended* is borderline delusional
What? They authors themselves, in a huge parade of letters, recorded debates, and supporting documents, explain exactly what they were thinking when it comes to the constitution and every one of its amendments. Those amendments didn't just cryptically appear and get signed, they were talked to death in congress and documented personal discussions, mused about in journals and letters, and openly debated. It was very clear they considered the personal right to own firearms to be paramount, and distinctly separate from the collective need to keep a well-regulated militia ready to go. Despite their allergy to a standing army of some flavor (having seen what they'd seen), they knew it was necessary to have that capacity always in place.
The existence of it being necessary, they knew that the temptation was going to be there for someone in military or civilian executive/legislative power to skew towards making that militia/military the only holders of armed power. Remember that the constitution is all about minimizing government power, and the amendments are there to remind everyone that even though they should know well enough from the structure of that charter that personal liberties are a hands-off affair, there are some areas (like political expression, assembly, arms, the sanctity of one's home, etc) that it was worth explicitly laying out as beyond the reach of government control. The linguistic construction of the second amendment may fall oddly on modern earns, but it really is simpler than most people seem to think: "The existence of an armed organization is necessary, but don't assume that the government's power to form and run such an organization gives the government the power to deny the people the right to themselves be armed."
Yes, "militia" had a very specific meaning at the time. Their urge to use that word was a reflection of how distasteful they found the notion of a large standing federal military (that being too close to their experience with British power). And it's precisely BECAUSE the assumed that the states and even more granular local powers would be taking on the responsibility to have armed groups under their control that they made the individual's right to be personally armed a fundamental, nationally protected right - to prevent a local government from becoming locally tyrannical (and likewise federally).
I don't think the early American government believed it could be specific and have these amendments stand the test of time (and they've been proven right over and over.)
Do you foresee a situation where the right to free expression or the right to assemble perhaps should be considered just a little too dangerous, and we should consider taking that away?
If so, you can start the process of putting a new amendment in place, one that kills of the First. While you're at it, you can try the same with the protections proclaimed by the Second (or the Fourth, if you think that's also a "living" amendment that's worth scrapping), but you're not going to get the supermajority and ratification needed to make any of that happen.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The Constitution Day makes me recall
The portrait of my granny, now deceased:
The portrait is still hanging on the wall,
While Grandma is long gone and badly missed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The judge spent and hour describing the material on all sides of the case she studied and the reasoning process she used to make her final decision. To tell the truth, Ulbricht's lawyer didn't speak very well and continued to push the apologia of "diminished harm" through internet sales of drugs. Finally, when Ulbricht got to speak for himself, that's all he did. "My character is this..." "My motivation is that..." "please let me celebrate Thanksgiving with my family in old age..." This just after the testimony of two parents who likely lost their children due to a direct connection to Silk Road drug trading. How many holidays will a dead 16 year old get to spend with his family?
We should arrest the creators of texts, emails, facebook, google, and definitely that Mr Bell and his infernal telephone contraption. They all facilitated drug deals. Now that I think of it TCP/IP probably only exists because the dealers were frustrated with lost UDP packets.
Plus where this guy seems to have made drug dealing even safer we should maybe reexamine the laws that throw this guy into a hole, yet leave the bankers cosy in their mansions. As while I have heard that this guy was a douchnozzle there are many bankers who ruined the lives of literally millions.
You're actually completely wrong. If you really want a comprehensive examination of the language of the second amendment (rather that just blather on cluelessly about it) then you should read the entirety of District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008): http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
The Commerce Clause? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Well, why did they need a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol? The Federal government has gotten into the habit of interpreting the Commerce Clause to give themselves the power to do anything. It's gotten ridiculous, and really needs to be reined in.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Not taught in most schools:
Do you know WHY the British were matching to Concord?
The Tea Party had nothing to do with the Revolution.
(They were going to disarm the residents of Concord.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I realized, long ago, that I can not be pro-choice. I am choice-accepting. I no more support a forced abortion than I do a willing abortion - I do accept the latter, I absolutely detest the idea of the former. I am also pro-gun. That is one of the major reasons the Revolution started. Schools do not talk about WHY the British were marching to Concord, they only state that they were. (They were going to take the canon and disarm the vocal minority.) I, though, own a rather large number of firearms. I even carry - usually open. I have never shot anyone when not in service of the government nor have I even drawn my weapon in anger or for the purpose of using it on a human.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Homebrewing is still illegal in Alabama, too.
Keep licking them boots and some day they might let you wear one for a few minutes
I really hope you have a better argument than that to counter '"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw, the CIA!" isn't an excuse to do whatever the fuck you please.'
I realized, long ago, that I can not be pro-choice. I am choice-accepting.
Pretty much where I am. Almost as if I divorce myself from the legal issue simply because I'm not female. But as to the moral issue - it's reprehensible unless it's a question of the mother's life versus the baby's.
That is one of the major reasons the Revolution started...
I would rephrase that as the march on Concord being the British crossing the rubicon. The British marched to capture an arms cache that belonged to the colonial militia.
Loading...
I know exactly what it means. And the authors are clear that having a well regulated militia is necessary. Are you foggy about that, somehow?
Where have I suggested you can't have a well regulated militia?
They're also very clear, having stipulated that, just like with their British overlords had one, they're going to have a continually armed and well regulated military ... that they're not (UNLIKE their previous British overlords) going to let the necessary existence of that entity be an excuse to deprive the rest of the people from keeping and bearing arms.
You are making it quite clear that you do not know what the phrase "well regulated" means in 18th/19th century English. It doesn't mean subjected to rules or laws - it means "normal" or "as one would expect."
You also clearly have some other, bizarre, interpretation where you separate the "well regulated militia" from "the people" - as if the writers were just lazy and couldn't be bothered to write two sentences rather than one.
The "people" referenced in the amendment ARE the constituents of the well regulated militia. It is saying "let's make this clear that when we say militia we mean a normal militia made up of civilians - NOT the troops of a standing army."
Again, pointing out that each of these amendments was written in such a way as to restrict the federal government from overreaching STATE governments.
This concept of modern America being a giant nation that happens to have geographic distinctions called 'states' is a relatively new thing. In 1791, states were basically little countries unto themselves that happened to share strong cultural similarities.
Their urge to use that word was a reflection of how distasteful they found the notion of a large standing federal military
They who? The word militia is used because the states need to be assured that if there ever was a federal army the federal government would be bound by law to allow states (and smaller representative local governments) to maintain militias - in other words "if you ever have a standing army, we are still entitled to have our own militias - not that we don't trust you, it's just that we don't trust you that much.)
Do you foresee a situation where the right to free expression or the right to assemble perhaps should be considered just a little too dangerous, and we should consider taking that away?
What on earth are you talking about now? Is this your odd segue to turn an academic discussion of the grammar of the second amendment into a political discussion of your personal views?
...if you think that's also a "living" amendment that's worth scrapping...
What? Who wants to scrap any amendments? I think you've made some assumptions about what was being discussed that was neither stated nor intended.
This has been a discussion about second amendment LANGUAGE usage. Not personal political views.
Loading...
You're actually completely wrong. If you really want a comprehensive examination of the language of the second amendment (rather that just blather on cluelessly about it)
Oh, you mean I should read Scalia's *opinion* (which is what you linked to) about what it is supposed to mean despite 4 of the supreme court justices claiming that he's intentionally reading it wrong, and the other 4 are notoriously silent on the topic?
I was actually glad that the decision went this way, but it had nothing to do with how the second amendment is actually written, and everything to do with a conservative court having a 5-4 majority.
Rather than relying on a supreme court justice with a clear political agenda, why don't you study some American history...?
Loading...
That is probably a better way to phrase it. It lends to the idea that the founding fathers actually DID want to ensure we were able to arm ourselves as a way to help prevent government tyranny. What I dislike is the virtual banning of certain firearms. I can buy (and own) a fully automatic AK-47. The tax stamp puts it out of the reach of nearly everyone. I do not intend to harm anyone with it and the about the only time it comes out of the safe is when I take it to the disabled vets "machine gun shoot." I had the chance to buy a Thompson for $7500 but I did not realize what it was worth or I would have bought it to hold as an investment.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
My Dad told that they had them firing Thompson's in UDT school in 1962 and that the damn thing almost lifted him right over when firing full auto.
What I dislike is the virtual banning of certain firearms. I can buy (and own) a fully automatic AK-47. The tax stamp puts it out of the reach of nearly everyone.
It's not the tax stamp that gets you (iirc it's around $200) it's that there's a limited supply of pre-1996 full auto weapons in the U.S. (would have been a great time to have these in stock!) I hear that MP-40's go for $20k.
Anyhow, the mish-mash of legislation is because no one can sit down and have a rational discussion about guns sadly.
I do not intend to harm anyone with it and the about the only time it comes out of the safe is when I take it to the disabled vets "machine gun shoot."
The problem isn't you though ;) - it's the rest of the irresponsible majority.
Personally, a mossberg is more than enough self defense for me. I use the Mark 23 because I have big hands and it's a great target shooting weapon.
Loading...
I highly recommend the Mossberg 550. The price is right and the reliability is exceptional. Be sure to remove the wooden dowel so that you can fit the full number of rounds into the tube.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It's a 930 - I use it to hunt too. It certainly puts holes in things though.
Loading...
Was "I fight authority" playing - http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/j... ?
I hope for your sake that you are just a troll.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
your [html] skills are not very impressive.
And so, all these "well armed" people. Deluded. Meeting up with other well armed people to talk about being well armed, shooting holes at bogeys in their minds and Ignorantly re-parsing 18th century English texts as their children run around at their feet, loving it, emulating, fingering safety locks and shooting their kid sisters in the head. It's worth bearing in mind that a well-armed militia would be called an insurgency these days and would be met with a well-armed government. It's hard for me imagine any kind of scenario where the "well armed" would actually "win' any kind of serious test of their well-armedness. In short, they'd get their arse kicked.
The "well-armed militia" people basically have to assume that there is a simultaneous mass uprising and/or wholesale mutiny by the armed forces in order for them to succeed.
In either of these situations, it is irrelevant whether you start off with a few guns in private hands or not.
A true mass uprising can only be defeated by killing half the population, and that is just not the way things go. And if you don't have a mutiny, the armed forces will always outgun the few patriots with hunting rifles and handguns.
It is incredibly easy to talk about revolution, opposing the government and so on, but to actually achieve something requires political organisation, not stockpiling a few assault rifles.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
OK then, let's stick with the language. You're prepared to dispense with all of the founders' other personal-arms-ownership-related writings and commentary at the time because you're can't get your head around their punctuation choice as you seek to conflate and flip upside down the words they've chosen to use. But think about it, and translate some of their other ideas into more typical modern language, noting how it's actually possible to put two clauses into one sentence to improve conveying how important they are, related to one another. Like, the so-obvious-it-goes-without-saying implication baked into the 4th, as they use that amendment to also limit government power as used against the people...
... but anticipating exactly the sort of clamp-down on personal liberty they experienced with the Crown, they made it part of the charter of the country to point out that at no level of government could the obvious need for military units be considered grounds to prevent "the people" from keeping and bearing arms.
"Because it's sometimes going to be necessary for the government to search someone's house, papers, and personal effects in the course of a criminal investigation, the government shall not infringe on the privacy of one's personal home, affairs and property without showing probable cause and specific objectives." See how that flows? Breaking that up into two sentences would make it less clear the point of the amendment is to preserve individual liberty despite the need for state or federal power that might - uncontrolled by the constitution - encroach too readily on personal freedom.
As for some of your other points:
If this was about local militias being a counter-balance for a standing FEDERAL army, they would have said as much, if not in the amendment itself, but in the large body of other surrounding writings and debate. But almost all of the founders' writings at the time, and their commentary specifically surrounding that topic explains their urge, having raised and used such an army to settle things with the British, to not have such a thing on a permanent basis. Most figured that the best bet was to let locals (at the state level) maintain militias as they saw fit
And before you try to explain that "the people" doesn't refer to individuals, ask yourself why they chose exactly that same phrase ("the people") when describing who should be personally free from government over-reach when they wrote the 4th Amendment and referred to personal home, papers, etc. Read it, and the use of that phrase, in the same context.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Sorry you are so jaded.. Personally, Where I do feel there are times when the legal system in this country has issues (Like when judges legislate from the bench or invent "rights" which don't exist) the legal system in this country is among the best in the world and history. I find that the problem usually is that people don't understand the legal system, how it works and why.
But my real complaint is not about the courts or judges, but the law. Our elected legislators are way to fast to draft some law and be seen as supporters of some political cause and few take the time to understand existing laws or how their new one changes things. This leads to inconsistent and unintended side effects which the courts are forced to uphold. The law is too big, to complex and addresses too many things and the courts are left to sort out the mess into some kind of sensible way. It's no wonder they fail sometimes.
So place your blame on the right party, the nutcases who write the law, and not the courts.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Why? Because I'm a gun owner who can be honest about the constitution as well as the political realities of one 'Honorable' Justice Scalia?
There are conservative Justices worthy of respect, Scalia is not one of them.
Loading...
OK then, let's stick with the language. You're prepared to dispense with all of the founders' other personal-arms-ownership-related writings and commentary at the time because you're can't get your head around their punctuation choice as you seek to conflate and flip upside down the words they've chosen to use.
Not at all. Suggest a writer and particular writing and we can discuss. You're being quite vague - pick something that one of the writers of the 2nd amendment wrote which you claim contradicts my statements. Your choice.
Loading...
No, because it is not simply the opinion of Scalia, it is the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States on the most comprehensive examination of the second amendment in history and therefore the law of the land when it comes to the *individual* right to bear arms.
Yet you can't be bothered to even read it.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
No, it isn't. The majority vote was in favor, and it was ENTIRELY written by Scalia - and yes I read it. He clearly misuses the language (not accidentally, not subtly - 100% for political purpose.)
Don't be confused about me either, I agree with the decision, but Scalia's opinion is ridiculous.
Loading...