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

The Second Amendment and the States

By Randy E. Barnett

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on March 2, 2010.




In oral argument yesterday, the Justices seemed afraid of the plain language of the Constitution.

Imagine you are a visitor from another planet reading the U.S. Constitution. You come to the 14th Amendment, where it says: �No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.� Might you not think this must be a pretty important provision?

Now suppose you are told that, for over 135 years, the Supreme Court has, with one exception, entirely ignored that language. Might you question whether Supreme Court justices were bound by the written Constitution? Had you been seated in the Supreme Court yesterday to hear oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago, your suspicions might well have been confirmed.

McDonald is a constitutional challenge to a ban on handguns in the City of Chicago that resembles the gun ban in the District of Columbia that the Supreme Court struck down two years ago. In D.C. v. Heller, the Court held that banning all handguns violated an individual right to right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. Because the Second Amendment only applies directly to the federal government, however, Heller was just the first shoe to drop. The next question was whether the individual right to arms also applies to the states.

Since the 1890s, the Supreme Court has been �selectively incorporating� the Bill of Rights piecemeal into the 14th Amendment via that amendment�s Due Process Clause. So that would be the most obvious way to apply the right to keep and bear arms to the states. But that poses a challenge.

The Due Process Clause reads: �nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.� Using this language to protect substantive rights has long been controversial.

First of all, �due process� sounds procedural not substantive. The Court has also used �substantive due process� to protect unenumerated rights it deems to be fundamental, such as the right to privacy. Just where in the text of the Due Process Clause is this right? For this reason, �due process� has long been criticized by conservatives as a route to unfettered judicial discretion.

But what about the clause protecting the �privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States�? The language was made part of the 14th Amendment (adopted in 1868) to deal with the problem of Southern states egregiously violating the rights of freed black slaves and white unionists � including disarming returning soldiers and any other blacks who sought to protect themselves from the terrorist violence being unleashed against them. Actually, the right to keep and bear arms was among the most frequently mentioned privilege of citizens when the amendment was being considered in Congress.

The evidence is clear that the privileges or immunities of citizens included those rights in the Bill of Rights. As Michigan�s Sen. Jacob Howard explained to the Senate, these privileges or immunities included, among others, �the personal rights guarantied and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as � the right to keep and to bear arms.�

In contrast, no one thought the language of the Due Process Clause included a right to arms. On this point there is consensus among constitutional scholars whether left, right or libertarian. Nevertheless, in the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases, the Reconstruction-era Supreme Court essentially eliminated the Privileges or Immunities Clause from the Constitution by holding it only protected purely national rights, like the right to be protected while on the high seas. Since then, other than a case involving a right to interstate travel, the Court has never used the Privileges or Immunities Clause.

Judging by yesterday�s oral argument, the Supreme Court is afraid to revisit that 1873 decision for fear of opening a can of worms. Chief Justice John Roberts began the questioning by invoking the heavy burden on anyone seeking to reverse Slaughter-House. Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the Privileges or Immunities Clause as the �darling of the professoriate,� a reference not intended as a compliment.

Noticeably absent was any question � not one � by any justice challenging the historical evidence that the right to keep and bear arms was among those included in the Privileges or Immunities Clause. For that matter, no justice seemed at all interested in the original meaning of any aspect of the 14th Amendment. (As is his practice, Justice Clarence Thomas, the one justice who has expressed sympathy for reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause, asked no questions.)

So what did the justices discuss? In a revealing early question, Justice Scalia asked whether it isn�t �easier� just to use the Due Process Clause.

What followed was nearly an hour-long discussion between the Court and lawyers about whether or not a right to arms was �implicit in the concept of ordered liberty� and whether something else should be the test of whether a right is �fundamental.� Should rights spelled out in the Constitution�s text be treated differently from unenumerated ones? How much of the right to keep and bear arms is applicable to the states? The entire colloquy was unmoored from the text and history of the 14th Amendment.

In other words, the justices became lost amid their own formulations, demonstrating by their wandering discussion that using substantive due process as a way of deciding what rights in the Bill of Rights get protection against the states (�incorporated�) is really, really hard. Not only do they have to decide, all on their own, what is in or out, they also have to adopt the criteria by which to make this decision.

In response, Justice Scalia insisted that the right to keep and bear arms is right there in the text, which of course is true. But so too is the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which, unlike the Court�s due process jurisprudence, has a historical meaning that helps define and limit the rights it was meant to protect.

For example, apart from personal liberties in the Bill of Rights, we know that the Civil War-era congressional Republicans were trying to constitutionally protect the rights enumerated in their Civil Rights Bill of 1866. This legislation listed the rights �to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.� Yet these are now considered �economic� liberties, which the Court has been loath to protect since the New Deal. This may also explain why yesterday it wanted to ignore text and history.

At the McDonald argument, it seemed obvious that five or more justices will vote to apply the Second Amendment to the states. This would be a great victory for gun rights � one that until a few years ago would have been unimaginable. But it was also obvious that most were deeply afraid of following a text whose original meaning might lead them where they do not want to go. When it came to following the written Constitution, a visitor from another planet would not, I suspect, have been very impressed.




Randy E. Barnett is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown, and the author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (Princeton 2005).

What do you mean "you"? I'm a member of the resistance. Public safety in Kalifornia is, a joke, of course. Restrictive gun laws have made it worse. In Kalifornia, gun control laws don't even pretend to be about safety anymore. They are intended solely to marginalize an unpopular majority. Bigotry against gun owners is extremely popular in this state. You can run naked down any San Franciso street and sodomize to your heart's content, but heaven forbid you should own or possess a firearm. That makes you a truly evil SOB in this state.

Ahhh Yes! I forgot resistance

I've never thought for a millisecond that our over-spending was anything other than insane. My belief is its a deliberate effort by Obama and the Dems to foment a crisis justifying further government intrusion into what's left of the private economy. And O-care is a deliberate pre-cursor to a single-payer health care system, which is simply socialized medicine pure and simple. That is exactly where they are heading---with all deliberateness and premeditation.

thank you Rob, I concur with your take on that particular matter



but I'm still left wondering how "shall not be infringed" is so hard for those pointy heads to interpret.

course they're of the same ilk that gave us a Prez who's most famous line is "depends upon what your definition of is, is"

course they elected him after he said he smoked pot but didn't inhale, couldn't have been too hard for him to figure they'd swallow the next line of BS too! (grin)


politicians are the scourge of this country, they don't protect us, they do far more damage than they do good, time for we the people to send them packing

Where do you draw the line.Maybe they shouldnt have matches.Might burn the town down.Cant let them have rope.Might hang someone ect.

Short list...

Your reeevolver holster "shall not have fringe"

That's about it...

So, if I live in-town I can keep and bear arms, I just can't actually fire them?

That's unreasaonable. I have no less a need to ensure a safe discharge in the country than in the city, and a far greater need to defend myself in town.

There may be some on here who have fired a gun in city limits, shooting a squirrel or such. Most places count paint ball, BB's and even potato guns as firearms. The caveat is the projectile leaving your property, in the country there is a longer range. As for infringing, there should be the ability to own anything, and MAYBE be organized (regulated) in having common caliber equipment. A requirement to be a member of any group becomes just another form of government.

There should be a mechanism for "felons" to regain use of firearms. A lot of them were never violent, and many people don't grow a brain until mid 20's so have an incident from youth following them. There are also a lot more things called felonies, even carrying a knife with a long blade into certain areas.

Wait and see the angles at which the Obamantions administration use the new Health Care to come at firearms owners. This is already been talked about on national television. They may might not be able to do away with the Second Amendment as we now know it, but they may deem you mentally ill and unfit to own firearms. Personally, I believe in time this will be implemented. Once it's completely Guv't ran health care, in which, where we are going ultimately. They will dictate what questions Dr's ask and they (Guv't) will come up with their own conclusions to your answers. Obamacare must be defeated.

I'm absolutely in the camp of no infringements and don't take this the wrong way but ...

I like the fact that we live in civilized society and that anybody with enough $$$ can't go to a street vendor, hand over the $$$, and buy a full auto AK 47 and a couple of RPGs.

As put by the OP, this is a tough one�.

Without analyzing it too much I'd say no restrictions. The bad and crazy eggs will get weeded out by an accelerated process of natural selection.

I am not at all sure that our civilized society keeps someone who knows the ropes from acquiring MG's, RPG's, and grenades. Just look at how gang bangers keep getting armed, or Mexican drug cartels getting anthing they want despite the strong laws there. On the other hand we more normal people don't know where to go for illicit things, being it guns drugs, or sex.
I am sure any of our "enemies" could ship anything they want into the country the same as it is into Mexico and other places.

Even assuming a law could be written to provide halfway objective criteria, who gets to decide whether an individual should be allowed to have a gun?

A medical doctor who may have his or her own biases, and may have served a psych. rotation in med school and had a seminar or two in diagnosing and treating mental illness? Just use the DSM as a mental illness checklist, with its 200-some categories, most of which have nothing to do with violent behavior? Once visited your employer's EAP? No gun for you.

Or local law enforcement? In the Iowa city and county where I used to live, the police chief and sheriff were against concealed carry, and until it became a shall issue state, the sheriff seldom issued a permit, and didn't have to give a reason for denying it. When the law was changed a few years ago it was over much wailing and gnashing of teeth by law enforcement officials, and opposition by the chiefs and sheriffs associations.

And you can bet the attorneys will get to weigh in, and most who advise govt. officials are risk aversive, so will advise against doing something if there is any chance it will go south. Birth control? Don't have sex. Next question.

Principles aside, the details matter - a lot.

Paul

Discharge within city limits ordinances are very common. They normally have carve-outs for self defense, shooting ranges, etc.

NO restrictions. If you give an inch they take a miles. Issue a six gun and 1000 rounds of ammo to each person. In six months most problems will be gone.

This is false. Restrictions on conduct have been intentionally misconscrued as firearms restrictions.

Zero, don't [bleep] with the Second Amendment , Period

This is what's gone wrong in America. We give everyone an ear, whether they're credible or not. I think if we ACTUALLY did what ingwe says, our problems would be solved.
We have lost the process of natural selection and now we are "forced" to embrace everything. Bullshit, not everything is worth tolerating and in fact is harmful to society. We're seeing the fruit of tolerance in our society right now.
When you raise a kid, do you let him do whatever he wants? Do you embrace every wildass idea that runs thru his head? Or do you help him weed out the junk ideas and stick to what works?
Same thing for America, we need to stop tolerating nonsense like GAYS. Pretty biologically clear there's a wire crossed in the brain on that one.
When we tell, in no uncertain terms, the miscreants and misfits that until they get their own house in order they have no business dictating to the rest of the country how to live, we will get our society back.

What we need is some good old intolerance.

Embrace diversity.

Taste the rainbow.

Homophobia is gay.






That's what the Poobah said.

Rob, it helps is you start with the correct legal standard.

The other huge problem is that the Second Amendment originally acted as a prohibition only against the Federal government, not the States. Under an originalist interpretation, States were free to completely ban firearm ownership, if they wanted to. Only after the incorporation of the Bill of Rights did the Bill of Rights become operable against the States.

Its a tangled issue for sure.

Not really

Not at all.

The OP way of thinking is as a large part of 2nd Amendment rights loss as the brady bunch. All the while thinking he is part of resistance and doing the right thing.
Sad, where this country has gone, and is continuing to go, with thought processes such as these.

I am about interpreting the Constitution as it was originally intended. Its a simple fact that under the 2nd, prior to the 14th the States could completely ban firearms ownership and the Feds could regulate it (Read Scalia in the Heller opinion). The most libertarian legal scholars all agree that a correct originalist interpretation means some restrictions are Constitutionally valid (see Randy Barnett and Richard Epstein for two examples).

The thought processes which are problematic are the ones who are so incredibly ignorant as to deny actual historical truth. A supposed conservative who denies the actual truth to permit himself to pour his subjective meaning into the Constitution to reach his desired ends is no different than a liberal who does the same thing. So who is really damaging the Constitution?

The second amendments rights loss has derived primarily from the refusal of the courts to interpret the amendment as protecting an individual right. That changed with Heller, but even Heller is tepid: it does not recognize the 2nd as protecting a right of revolution per se. The individual rights interpretation is correct because it is consonant with the historical truth. You cannot accept historical, constitutional truths when it suits you and then deny them when it doesn't.

The reasonable regulations of firearms ownership which are Constitutionally permitted are actually quite tepid, if we understand them correctly. We would be far, far better off arguing for the historical truth, then denying it and losing all credibility.

You sir are part of the problem.

Really. If the FED authority to restrict the possession of firearms was so clear, then why was the as of '34 set up as a tax?

Exactly!

Shall not be infringed - sounds pretty definitive to me.

What's "unreasonable" is the consistent failure to read the English language. What's to be "well regulated" is the "militia",
meaning an army of citizens, which is what the US military is.
The need for the militia to be regulated-controlled and directed
by a standard or principle or rule- is what the amendment addresses.
The peoples' right to have & carry arms is to control/direct the
military-type actions, both by providing personnel to the militia, and resisting, if necessary.
Regulating the right isn't the issue at all. Regulating the government's actions, or potential mis-actions, is the issue.

Randy nailed it.

In that case, so is Stephen Halbrook, Randy Barnett, Richard Epstein, Antonin Scalia, Clarance Thomas, Eugene Volokh and virtually every single libertarian and conservative Constitutional scholar out there, because, examining the historical record, all of them agree that the Framers intended some regulation of firearms ownership to be permissible. Gawd, the level of constitutional and historical ignorance in this thread is appalling. Hell, the Framers intended for the States to have the right to ban firearms ownership outright because they intended the Bill of Rights to be applicable to the Federal government only. Do you all realize that?

The only reason the Court (any federal court) has even been able to address state infringement on firearms rights is because of the incorporation and the Bill of Rights. Thank heaven for that, but those are events which occurred nearly a 100 years after ratification of the original Constitution.

You still haven't answered my question.

Why was the Act of '34 set up as a tax?

Don't know anything about the act of 34. Edumicate me.

I think that was the Tommy Gun thingy.

You claim to teach us about the legal history of gun laws in this country and you are not familiar with the National Firearms Act of 1934, and why it was set up as a tax? (hint, the only way 0care was declared constitutional is because it was declared a tax.)

While you are at it, you should also study the history of the Sullivan Act, who got it passed, and who it was intended to protect, and the history of race based gun laws passed in the South following the Civil War.

In addition, if you are going to quote from the Heller decision, I suggest you quote from Scalia's majority opinion, and not Breyer's dissenting opinion.

You also need to study Wickard v. Filburn, how it expanded the scope of the Commerce Clause and enabled the GCA of '68.

In a sense this is correct, but in light of the actual history it's a little off the mark. That's because all the states already recognized it as a fundamental right of free men, codified in the various state constitutions. Their concern was that the new Federal Government would some day seek to interfere with that fundamental right, thus the states all demanded a Second Amendment be placed in the Bill of Rights to prevent that from happening.

The Federalists tried to explain to those concerned about this issue that the new Federal Government was not being delegated any power over such matters to start with, and never would be in the future, so didn't need an explicit protection of this right. But while those concerned about this question agreed with that premise, they felt they could never be completely sure how the US Constitution might be disingenuously "interpreted" in the future, so they demanded this extra measure just to be sure.

We have LET the gov't "infringe" for so long now, that have become a nation that is conditioned to liberalism propaganda.

I wonder if you start "infringing" on the rest of the amendments as has been done on the 2nd, how long it would take to see that viewed as unconstitutional?

The Constitution is clear enough already.

Most of the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights have been regularly infringed upon for a very long time now. If the Fourth Amendment, for example, were applied as written and intended, most of what cops routinely do today would be illegal.

what a stupid question. There are NO restrictions to the Second Amendment that are 'reasonable'. Period.
That we have restrictions just shows how many traitors have been elected through the years.

It sounds great to say "shall not be infringed" is an absolute. By that, clearly we should be able to buy nuclear weapons on eBay, convicted murderers should be able to carry unlimited guns and ammo, including in prison; guns and bombs should be allowed on commercial flights, and we should allow toddlers to play with loaded guns.


Robjordan, I think you're being reasonable.

That's almost verbatim what Diane Feinstein likes to say.

Nuclear weapons are Weapons of Mass Destruction, and not "arms".

I'll bet Diane Feinstein doesn't have blood from a big buck under her fingernails right now.

touch�

Even Scalia says reasonable restrictions were envisioned by the Framers, as do Alito and Thomas. I know of no libertarian or conservative Constitutional scholar who thinks otherwise. Clearly, there are some crackpots out there who masquerade as scholars who think otherwise. If nothing else, this thread has established that fact beyond any shadow of a doubt. Hope some of you guys will put your money where your mouths are and pony up to defend the next Islamic citizen who insist the Second gives him the right to possess nukes. You go boys!!

I've never quoted Breyer's dissent.

No one with any understanding of this issue thinks the Second Amendment gave anyone any right to anything. All it did was prohibit the Federal Government from infringing on a right already belonging to each adult human being on the planet, which stems from the right to life, and therefore the right to defend one's own life and the life of innocent others, which means we also have the right to possess the means of doing this. Nukes aren't useful in this role, except in the context of nation states defending themselves from other nation states.

Now, the reason the Framers considered it good policy to prohibit the infringement of this right was that they understood the crucial role an armed citizenry played in providing a bulwark against tyranny. That's a different issue from the right. That's a question of good public policy, i.e., with regard to this particular human right, it's good public policy to prevent a central authority from violating it because history demonstrated that when central authorities were not prohibited from doing so, tyranny was the result, and the Founders were all about avoiding tyranny.

Who's talking about possessing nukes? This is a big Straw Man, and you know it.

We are discussing "arms" not WMD.
To "Bear Arms" they must be carried, so this conversation may encompass RPG's and Stingers, but would not encompass Trident D5's and Peacekeepers.

It wasn't my purpose to lay out the legal standard for review, but to list my opinion of reasonable restrictions.

I agree completely with what just wrote.

The lowest level of legal review is "Rational Basis" review where it is considered acceptable to infringe rights for any "reasonable" government interest. If you are truly a defender of the second amendment, the fight is not about what's "reasonable", it's about those restrictions that pass the highest level of scrutiny. If we succumb to using the language of the anti's the fight slips further from our fingers.

A right for a citizen is a right. Only if you have been adjudicated properly as unworthy of exercising that fundamental right may it be infringed.
Felons? Infringed until rights formally restored.
Nuts? Infringed if adjudicated nuts. Restored if adjudicated sane.
Weird politics? Not infringed.
Terror watch list? Not infringed unless adjudicated or convicted of some crime, or found nuts.
Rights can only be taken away after irresponsible or criminal conduct. We don't subject newspapers to background checks or say they can only print so many copies. We don't guarantee jury trials on condition or social status.
As for what the line is on civilian arms --- I guess I draw the line at nukes or WMDs or gas -- weapons which are absolutely not defensive in nature.

This whole situation, in my opinion, stems from we are not playing the game they play.

If my baker can be sued for not serving a gay couple, who arguably are exercising their right to free association, or my black friends, because equal protection under the law is the law, then "no guns allowed" is the functional equal of "no gays or no blacks."

We keep arguing about the object, when this is in reality a civil liberties issue.

And the courts have already thrown out "I'm afraid of blacks" or "I don't like gays" as available outs for a company doing business with the public. We should use these cases for the basis of suits regarding the 2A.

A muslim has the right to have a gun. He does not have the right to unjustly use it. The rest of us have the right to defend ourselves from him if he misuses it. He does not have the right to commit murder. Look at the mil cemetaries. You find a few crescents, stars, along with the crosses and maybe other things.

It shoud be another posting about political religious leaders and rabble rousers who think their god is impotent, so they have to take things into their own hands and coerce others to do so.

I am of the "shall not be infringed" camp. We should be able to own anything we want but should be held accountable if we misuse a weapon. I have never considered it to be proper to punish people before they do something evil.

Unless I am mistaken, convicted felons have forfeited some of their rights by their actions. I think it is proper to include the ownership of certain weapons in those rights they have forfeited.

Traditionally, felons had only been deprived of the exercise of certain of their rights during their period of incarceration, i.e., during the time they ceased being free men. Once it had been deemed that they had paid their debt to society, and had been restored to their status as free men, the freedom to exercise all the rights of free men was restored to them. That seems right to me. Otherwise you create a system with two classes of men apparently free in society. I could see that becoming a slippery slope very easily.

I am pleased to read that so many think as I do. Absolutely no restrictions on keeping and bearing arms is the best practice for a free society........ and I believe the way God intended it.

Are you talking about the Constitution, or are you talking about "reasonable" gun control?

They're two different things, you know, and not related in any way.

The notional free speech right in the Bill of Rights is (unfortunately) absolute. The Constitution has no authority to make it absolute--it's actually part of the right of private property, and governed by the same body of natural law--but it does anyway.

The oft-cited fire-in-a-crowded-theater objection is an objection to fraud, not to free speech.

The right to bear arms--Constitution or no--is equally absolute. Look at it this way: does the government have the right to keep and bear nuclear weapons? Yes? Then where did it get that right? Must have been delegated from the people, mustn't it? So the people must have that right to delegate.


I disagree. I know too many violent felons personally to believe that this kind of zero-tolerance prohibition isn't just as dumb an idea as any other kind.


That doesn't even address the right to keep and bear arms, does it?

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?

Those were illustrations of the principle that we don't punish based on the egregiousness of the outcome but rather the level of fault. The level of fault belonging to a truly insane person (e.g., someone with a high fever who believes, due to delirium, that he's killing a grizzly bear with a butcher's knife that's attacking his toddler, but in reality is attacking his mother-in-law with said butcher's knife who was merely changing his toddler's diapers) is closer to example 2 than 1, i.e., the punishment in a criminal case should fit the level of fault, not the level of damage caused. This is what the insanity defense is meant to address.

Exactly.

Sorry, just can't lay low on this goddam nonsense,.....you had it right, in the FIRST response to this POS, RIDICULOUSLY titled post,.......

Look at the endless "Angels dancing on the head of a pin", horsechit, verbose, and bloviate text that have ensued.

As more than a few others have already asked this OP,.....WTF can't you understand what it means, in it's original context, STFU, and leave it alone ?

These [bleep] "Compromisers" have gotten this Country backed in the corner it finds itself into now.

Enough !

GTC

Jeeesh! What a grouch!

So what is the rationale reason to even consider "restrictions" on any Constitutional right . . . let alone the 2nd Amendment? The OP "begs the question."