Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment You will lose your RTKABA!!

Hi guys. I believe that once a felon has done his time that all his rights should be restored, depending on the type of crime. If it was a violent crime then his rights should be limited. If non-violent then all rights should be restored. Several states are beginning to restore these rights to a certain extent. New Mexico is probably the most open minded with our wonderful state running a close 2nd. There are people who screwed up and got caught and others that didn't get caught. If Mr. Clinton had been caught "Not Inhaling" in our fair state during the 60's he would have been a convicted felon. There are some pretty decent convicted felons out there. They just screwed up. I know several who have spent the better parts of their lives as good decent law abiding citizens while trying to forget their past. It is a shame that the Federal Government won't let them.

Have a great day.

Jim

Didn't say that he should be able to exercise them, only that he has them. You're still confusing rights and privileges. Rights are something you're born with. Privileges are something someone gives you. If you didn't give it, how can you take it away?

I don't think I'm confusing anything, but help me out anyway. Which one of the first ten amendments are privledges?

Wish he would have been, then he would never have been Prez!

Klintoon ain't one of them!

NOT ONE!

T LEE



I couldn't agree more. Wouldn't that have been a blessing. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />



Jim

As T LEE posted, "Not one!". "In the beginning", if you will, the U.S. federal government recognised pre-existing rights and enumerated some of them for special protection from itself. Somewhere since then we've let it get off track. These days it seems to believe that it can bestow rights when all that it actully can do is bestow privileges. Rights are innate, privileges are given. Ergo, priviliges can be revoked, denied, resinded etc. by an act or acts of man, rights cannot be. Only the exercise of rights can be denied, and then only with the consent or acquiescence of those being denied the exercise of their rights. The rights themselves are not subject to any act of man.

Skidrow,

I never referred to any of the rights as privledges. But even Thomas Jefferson doesn't agree with you as evidenced by some of his quotes. The last quote I posted addresses this directly.

Either the person has the right or they don't. If you were correct about someone maintaining their 2nd Amendment right after the conviction of armed robbery, then they are willingly giving up that right at conviction? You said that they have to consent or acquiesce to this. They are not consenting to this. It is being taken away as it should be. If this right was protected to this felon by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, this never could happen. Even the Supreme Court doesn't have your view.

BUT, if they aquire another fireame they are not giving up there right, men say they are breaking the law.

TLee,

Under Skidrow's scenario, the felon has not consented to giving up his RKBA. If he hasn't consented, then the Constitution should protect his RKBA. Shouldn't it?

Men (very wise men) wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It wasn't something that came down off the mountain with the 10 Commandments. It is up to men (and women) to interpret these laws.

I have done what I could to post quotes from some that had written these documents to help remove doubts. The rest of what I see are opinions and everyone is certainly well within their rights to post their opinions. I may not agree with them, but I have enjoyed the discourse.

Don't misconstrue, I feel that when they chose to violate the law of the land they are in a sense giving up their rights by default. The semantics can get pretty dicey however. I do not believe we have a "living Constitution", I believe they meant just what they put to paper. Any screwing or scewing of the original is flat wrong, no interpretation needed.

The United States Constitution has never prevented a felon from exercising his 2nd Amendment rights after he has served his time and "paid his debt to society". It wasn't until well into the 20th century that laws (most of which have never been challenged on Constitutional grounds) were made that prevented a felon who had completed his sentence from exercising his right under the 2nd Amendment. The United States Government, as represented by the Supreme Court has protected a felon's right to excercise his 2nd Amendment rights by ruling that convicted felons are exempt from any firearms licensing or registration scheme that may ever become law because it violates their 5th Amendment rights. In other words, if they have a gun they are not required to tell any government official that they have a gun and are therefore in violation of the law. By extension, that means that as long as they don't get caught violating any laws which would prevent them from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights they are recognised as acting within their 2nd Amendment rights. Pretty hard to take, isn't it?

Making something against the law doesn't revoke a right, although it does somewhat hamper one's ability to exercise that right.

You know, you're making this a lot harder than it really is. It's really pretty simple. Rights are innate, not granted. Privileges are granted, given, bestowed etc., not innate. The exercise of rights can be prevented but the rights themselves still are there. If my rights include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness then the only way that you can deprive me of my right to life is to kill me. Even then you haven't really deprived me of my right but merely prevented me from exercising it via the most drastic means. I don't really care if you agree with me or not but from what you've posted so far it seems that you don't even understand the argument. The basic problem here is that words have meanings and the English language is rich enough to enable anyone to say exactly what they mean. Perhaps your problem is that you don't have a firm enough grasp of the meaning of the words. Having said that, another thing that you should perhaps ponder is that you don't necessarily have to like something for it to be correct. It seems to me that a) you don't really understand the meaning of the words, and b) that you don't like what you're reading. That's fine. You have the right to disagree and so far no one has acted to prevent you from exercising that right. Even if someone had; just because someone prevented you from stating that you disagree with me does that mean that you agree with me? Hell no it wouldn't! You just wouldn't be able to express that disagreement. You still would disagree and you would have every right to. If fact, if you disagreed vehemently enough you would probably still try to express your disagreement even though the attempted act of expression might subject you to further restrictions on exercising your rights.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see."

None of the above was meant to insult you, but merely to try to get you to think outside the box you seem to have placed yourself in.

Longbob, I have to disagree with you. What you lose when you become a murderer is not so much your right to life as the privilege of having society defend that right. In other words, you're entirely on your own, baby, like in the state of nature, when you choose to become a murderer or other capital offender. But even men in a state of nature have the right to life. They just don't have a society willing and able to help defend it. That's the condition that murderers put themselves in. Not that they do not have a right to life, but that they have lost the privilege of a society willing to defend it.



Similarly, all legitimate prisoners lose, at least temporarily, the privilege of enjoying society's protection of the right to keep and bear arms, and to general liberty. They are on their own in defending their own rights. By becoming a victimizer, they have in many respects opted out of society, and the protections that society offers.