Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What restrictions on 2nd amendment to you consider reasonable or unreasonable?

I believe the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is two-fold: (1) to facilitate (and protect) the capacity of the citizenry to revolt against tyrannical government and (2) to facilitate the right of self-defense. I think there is also a right to own and possess firearms if for no other reason than the enjoyment of it. That said, this is my short list of reasonable and unreasonable regs:

Reasonable:

-Prohibit seriously mentally ill and insane from owning/possessing guns.
-Prohibit violent felons or persons with a known lack of self-control and propensity for violence.
-Prohibit illegal aliens from owning or possessing (they're not citizens).
-Prohibit persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders only if there is clear and convincing evidence by specific and articulable facts, of a risk of firearms violence toward the protected party.


Unreasonable:

-Magazine capacity restrictions
-Caliber restrictions (the intent of the Amendment is to protect possession of the very kinds of arms that would be efficacious for conducting infantry warfare).
-Full-auto restrictions
-Convicted felon status (why should I lose my constitutional right because I evaded paying my taxes or stole money. That has nothing to with a risk of violence toward others?)
-DV convictions. (Just 'cause you got convicted of a bitch-slap when you caught her shagging your brother in front of your kids does not mean you should be automatically considered dangerous or violent.)
-Gov't permission to carry open or concealed. Totally unreasonable.

That is my short list.

Jordan

reasonable = 0


that ain't an O its a zero


unreasonable, all of them


shall not be infringed always seemed pretty clear to me

"shall not be infringed". Any questions? No? Good.

The only reasonable restrictions are those my wife and I, after careful thought and deliberation, decide to impose on our children.

Problem is, the Founders of the era imposed restrictions on gun ownership and possession and they're the ones who drafted the danged amendment. Read Libertarian law professor Randy Barnett's treatise on the Constitutional meaning of the word "regulated".

Second Amendment: 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 unreasonably infringed.

Right?


The mentally ill have just as much a right to self-defense as you do. Especially since it's nearly a certainty that the government could find a reason to classify you as mentally ill if it took a mind to.


Wow--talk about vague!


Wups, I guess I misquoted up there. Let me correct it: "...the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be unreasonably infringed."


You're going to send the government to get in the middle of a domestic dispute and decide which side needs a gun for defense and which side doesn't? My guess is that you have little or no experience with real-world domestic violence. Even people who know and love the parties to a chronic domestic violence have a hard time predicting what's going to happen next; an entity as ignorant and incompetent as the government will have no chance.

Barak:

You're an anarchist who has no use for the Constitution, so arguing with you about its correct meaning is pointless.

Jordan

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yup.

I'm in the "shall not be infringed" camp.

Alan

End of discussion.

Ed

If a person has been adjudicated to be a danger to the public with a firearm they shouldn't be out on the street in the first place.

A gallon of gas and a cigarette lighter are only a 7/11 away.


....and the word "infringed" is pretty clear.

He may be an anarchist, and I may not agree with everything he says, but he is spot on about the Constitution here.

Yes, the Constitution DID mention some restrictions as in the term "well regulated", but that referred not to the keeping and bearing, but the justification for keeping and bearing.

There was THE most important filter for these protections that has been given away, and that was that, when these Rights were enumerated, they ONLY applied to citizens, and to be convicted of a felony meant that you lost ALL of your Constitutional Rights, effectively making you a non-citizen.

Ed

This

Barak is raising perfectly valid issues. If you make mental health a requirement, you've set the stage for having a very arbitrary psych evaluation as a precondition for owning a firearm.

The 2A right is not absolute, any more than the free speech right is absolute. Narrowly tailored restrictions are not necessarily infringement.

Unreasonable:

High tax and background check for suppressors.
Prior restraint on ownership in the form of FOID cards.
Prohibition of all but state approved firearms.
The whole Youth Handgun Act.
The Lautenberg Amendment.
Absolutely no defined line between occasional personal sales and commercial sales.
Use of Disorderly Conduct laws to harass legal owners.
Licensing of concealed carry.
Prohibition of commercial firearm sales to 18-21 year olds.
No mechanism for restoring the 2A right, once lost because of a felony.
Harassment of FFLs over innocuous errors.

Reasonable:
Violent felons can't possess firearms or ammunition.
Prohibition of firearm discharge within city limits.

The problem with reasonable/unreasonable is, once that door is opened you can never completely shut it again

I wouldn't say a mental health assessment is necessarily arbitrary. No more so than any adjudication of capacity---such as insanity for example. The issue ultimately is what restrictions, if any, comport with the true and correct intent of the Founders?

You seem to already have a lot of this in Calif.
How is that working out for you there?
Is society safer and improved there now than before all the numerous gun laws, or is the populace just under more governmental control?

our FF's should be rollin in their graves.


we've become a nation of bedwetters and pantywaists


we seem to have lost the balls to put to death violent felons in a reasonable and humane manner, ever the ones we do put to death, we leave them on the row waitin and wonderin and suckin up taxpayer's groceries.


mentally ill. if they're mentally ill as to be dangerous and have committed a crime, then same as above, or locked up until they're no longer a danger.

but it is indeed a slippery slope, I can guarantee you there's no shortage of folks that think I and those like me that believe in "shall not be infringed" suffer from mental illness


however I'm inclined to believe folks that can't balance a checkbook including those in DC are mentally ill

so which group should lose their rights?


here's a hint, the Constitution was set up to limit the powers of gov't, not the people


funny how that's gotten twisted around these last 230 odd years, no not funny at all. Sad describes it better

Rob what part of spending us to a cliff don't you find insane?


the same folks that have bankrupted SS are now endeavoring to secure health care for us.


so far they're right on schedule, they could F up a crowbar, amazing to me how the FF's could see the danger of corrupt and incompetent career politicians that many years ago