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

There is no implied reasonableness standard attached to the Second Amendment that allows for limits established by government on the right to keep and bear arms. That is not to say, however, that bearing arms is in all cases and contexts within one's right.

For example, if I were to bear my handgun intentionally in such as way as to place you in reasonable fear for your life (See, it's in this kind of context that the meaning of reasonable comes into play, and its properly for juries to decide, not legislatures or judges), that action is not protected by the Second Amendment because regardless of the tool I am using, my behavior in that context amounts to menacing.

I also, for example, have the absolute right to breathe, but if I use my breath intentionally to stir up burning embers into a flame so as to burn down someone's house, I have not reached a "reasonable limit" on my right to breathe. I've merely violated the laws against arson. The fact that my breath was the tool I used to carry out the crime is irrelevant.

People often wrongly point to the right of free speech and suggest that since it is subject to a series of so called "reasonable restrictions" or "regulations" by legislatures and courts, that it's ok for them to place similarly reasonable restrictions on other rights too, and that all rights are therefore subject to the reasonable control of government, but this is a false argument. The right of free speech is in no way restricted by the fact that it's illegal, for example, to shout fire in a crowded theatre and the like. It's not in fact illegal to do so.

What's illegal is to falsely shout fire in a crowded theatre because that's presumptively an action calculated to cause panic and injury. Has nothing to do with expressing those words. It has everything to do with the intent to do harm, matched with an action in a context calculated to bring about that harm.

You even have a perfect right to falsely shout fire in a crowded theatre, if done in a way calculated not to cause mass panic and injury, such as the case of the performer on stage shouting fire as simulated frames made of red fabric are blown up by a fan with a bright light behind a set. It's not the speech, you see, but the crime of intentionally causing injury that's restrained by the law.

In other words, you have a perfect right to harmless speech, a perfect right to peaceably bear arms, and a perfect right to harmlessly breathe the air. These things, done harmlessly, are rightly subject to no legal restriction, whether or not thought "reasonable" by our representatives in government.

"Prohibition of firearm discharge within city limits."

So, you're sayin' an honest citizen can't use a gun to defend him (or her)self inside city limits?? FWIW, most communities do have that ordinance.. It stops nothin'.. And my father and I regularly disobeyed that very ordinance via rabbit control with a .410 around the greenhouses..

Screw those ordinances, IYAM.. Besides, gang-bangers violate it DAILY...


I'm with the others who say, reasonable=0, unreasonable=0

"shall not be infringed..

"...shall not be infringed..."

-Prohibit seriously mentally ill and insane from owning/possessing guns.
Who decides? how does it happen
How disorders get added and removed?

Whenever that question gets asked around here, the response is a deep silence.

Paul

I think that they have to have their rights restored and that the restoration of those rights is not automatic upon their release. The reduction of their rights is part of their punishment and continues forever unless a judge reinstates those rights.

That's done modernly, but it's a departure from our longstanding legal tradition.

In hearing the opinions of law enforcement officials about permits and such, and that includes my face-to-face conversations with them, what I have found particularly appalling is their cavalier attitude toward due process.

Regardless of whatever other rights may exist, a cornerstone of the law is that they cannot be denied or taken away without due process.

Paul

I think a quick check for insanity is voting for the current resident of the white house.

Friends don't let liberals have guns.....

"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."

Now which part is it that you have trouble understanding?

Were you dropped on your head at an early age?

Anything that falls within the strictest definition of shall not infringe.

Since infringe means to erode, or carve away at, the outer extremity, that contemplates just about any law that interferes in any way with the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms.

?????

IMHO, it means this:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infringe

Philosophically I'm in the "no restrictions" camp. A person who has paid their debt to society should be treated the same as any other.

The problem with that is we are not making people pay their debt. They get time off for good behavior. They get jail for crimes that would have lead to corporal if not capital punishment. .. and don't get me started on the whole BS about not guilty by reason of insanity. The crime committed by the insane does not harm the victim any less.

There's no right without responsibility. We've taken away the responsibility and with it thrown away the right.

Yes... 16 months

by

My mother actualy

And

It was really bad

Thank you very much

Snake

Just different words to express the same idea, no?

Regardless of abuses in these verdicts that may occur, the idea is sound. Punishment should be based on level of fault.

Two extreme opposite examples of this are: 1) Max "Mean Man" Jenkins walked over to the man who bought his gal a drink in a bar and said, "This is to teach you never to disrespect me again," and then proceeded to pluck out his eye with his thumb. 2) John "Saintly" Smith unexpectedly went into a epileptic seizure, and while someone approached him intending to help, John's arms flailed uncontrollably, causing his thumb to drive into the face of the helper, blinding him in one eye.

Insanity, when it's for real, would be a lot closer to 2 than to 1, agreed? The point is, it subtracts to some degree from guilt. We don't punish people for the degree of harm that they caused, but rather for the degree to which they are guilty of intentionally, recklessly, or negligently, causing it.

The first example is a crime, the second an accident, and therefore is not a valid example. What's insanity have to do with either example?

I look at insanity like this, if you're truly insane, and commit a horrific murder, all the more reason, not less, to be locked away to protect the public from future harm.
It makes no sense to release anyone from prison early for a crime (due to insanity or maliciousness and/or lack of remorse) when they lack the self-control necessary to refrain from crime later.

Some people choose crime out of maliciousness, others can't help themselves due to the various "defenses" a lawyer might come up with and try to make stick, but either way, they're a danger to society and shouldn't be free to roam.

Than why let them out in the first place if a judge is the only one who can restore their rights? Any felon or misdemeanor should automatically have their rights restored upon complying with all State obligations. This is the right thing to do in a free society.

Of course, I realize the Fire members East of the Mississippi, for the most part, have never had any freedom so they can't miss what they never had in the first place.

This presupposed the insanity is a permanent condition. How do you factor temporary or treatable ailments into your thinking?