What does the 2A really mean?

[beardman2]

I agree guns and extremist religion are a bad mix.

However I feel its fairly well known that the writers of the constitution were not "giving" us any rights but recognizing rights that every living person is given by their creator.

Most god fearing folks feel they are "god given rights". Which for them is true. If you follow something else then maybe those rights were given to you by "mother earth". Either way the bigger picture is these are basic rights every human is afforded.

At least that is my understanding.

P.S. Please leave the personal stuff out. We need to debate this issue. If someone has a different opinion we all need to be able to hear it and discuss it.

[bd]

If you feel that a government or entity can grant you "rights" then you have to believe this government or entity can place restraints on the rights they have granted you.

If you believe they have given it to you then you must also believe they can also take it away.

I don't think the right to defend one's self or family is the same as the right to "keep and bear arms".

It seems to me, as it is written the government "permits" us to have firearms.

If it is decided that ...

A well regulated militia,

is no longer

necessary to the security of a free state

then will the government be able to deny the "rights" that they granted?
bd

[Blackwater]

Originally Posted by cucamelsmd15

While this statement is true, you have to consider, how many people would be willing to step up and do something about the situation. Once you take this into account, youll see what Im getting at there.

Or in the case of the mil/police, how many would step down?
Think of something horrendous trying to be perpetrated by the government, like it asking the miliitary to start a program to gather up civilians for some purpose?
Since the military purpose is not a means to oppress how many would actually do it? We saw this in Louisiana during Katrina. Many didn't want to confiscate arms, but think of it on a larger scale.

To D,
I won't get into it anymore than this. Dismissing my debate and the Constitution, because it was written "by some long dead guys" is not supposed to be personal? You say you wanted to debate and then that is the best argument you can put forth to the contrary.

When I said showed a lack of respect, I was talking about your cavalier attitude to the Constitution and it's framers. If you wanted to debate, debate with facts and keep out the personal attacks.
So I can only assume you think you know better than the people who lived through tyranny and persecution perpetrated by the British.
Tell us all about your worldy experiences with tyranny.

[Delija]

Originally Posted by Blackwater

When I said showed a lack of respect, I was talking about your cavalier attitude to the Constitution and it's framers. If you wanted to debate, debate with facts and keep out the personal attacks.
So I can only assume you think you know better than the people who lived through tyranny and persecution perpetrated by the British.
Tell us all about your worldy experiences with tyranny.

A: I was not being "cavalier" in my attitude about the Constitution. I found your quotes irrelevant since they were not from the Constitution, but just from historical figures....some of whom had input into the content of the Constitution and some that did not.

B:I have no personal "worldly experiences with tyranny" worth talking about. I was however sent by a man I did consider a tyrant (Nixon) to risk my life in a war I did not believe in....nor did most Americans at that time. Ironically, G.W.Bush supported that war, but on the day he signed his papers to enter the National Guard (without waiting like everyone else...nice to jump a line by two years), he stated he would NOT fight overseas.

My family, however, did face real tyranny at the hands of Hitler. And Stalin. And the Russian Czars. And countless others over thousands of years.

I had aunts, uncles, cousins all murdered in the three or four years before I was born.

NEVER AGAIN! If anyone has a "God given right" to keep and bear arms, it is me and every Jew in the world.

It is no coincidence that the Israeli army (IDF) is the most powerful armed force (by size) in the history of the world. What is it they say about "necessity being the mother if invention"?

Shalom,
D.

[OrangeSkies]

bd - you left out a very important part of the SA.

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

[sjp2452]

Originally Posted by griz

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised inthe United States."

Noah Webster 1787
"An Examinatin into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution"

The 2A (2nd Amendment) is the one RIGHT that guarantees ALL the others laid forth by our forefathers in our Constitution. What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is up for interpretation? The mere definition of SHALL and SHALL NOT does not allow for exceptions, period. Without the 2A, there will be no final check to encroaching tyranny.

There is NO room for interpretation. It is what it is.

I'm disappointed that this post has not been more a topic of discussion. Griz has raised a critically important method of determining the exact meaning of any kind of written historical directive where the language seems less than crystal clear (idiom changes over time). Context! By examining other documents written in the same period by (or with contribution of) the same folks that wrote the language in question, you can much more easily and accurately determine true authorial intent.

As to whether small arms can stand up to the US military, on a one-to-one basis, clearly not. But as Delija himself said, look at Iraq. Unless the military was willing to carpet bomb neighborhoods and nuke the heartland, there would most certainly be a good fight. As the Japanese general said when an invasion of the US homeland was proposed, "There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." (So they attacked Pearl Harbor instead.)

Would the Jews have suffered so many losses in the holocaust had they not first been disarmed? Indeed, it may never have come to be known as a holocaust because the bloodshed may never have even come close to what it was. Hitler may have been killed by a sniper's bullet before he could have wreaked such havoc. You just never know...but we do know what evil happened after they were disarmed.

When talking about the original intent of the 2A we're not just talking about overthrowing a tyrannical government--we're firstly, and simply, talking about the ability to RESIST a tyrannical government in its tyrannical actions. Overthrow could take decades of civil war. But if we're first disarmed, overthrow will NEVER happen.

Gotta read the 2A with the context of the times it was written--a principle the USSC should have embraced. Instead they read the 2A through a presuppositional lens that colored their interpretations. Anybody that can read can examine the context given by Griz's quote and other easily available texts from those times. I don't need a law degree to tell me that the SC got this one dead wrong.

+1 for Griz, good post.

[KP Ling]

Just to add some food for thought; TITLE 10, Subtitle A, PART I, CHAPTER 13, § 311 defines the militia and the various classes as this: (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

This actually seems wrong to me since the Natl. Guard did not exist until over 100 years after the signing of the Constitution. Also, I read "regulated" as the founders might have used it when writing. It is a synonym for today's usage of equipped (substitute the word "regulated" with "equipped" in the 2A and it makes much more sense). The founders just did not have the foresight to see that we would change word's meanings over time and so lose or contort their original meaning. When the Constituion was written the militia was simply every able-bodied male who owned a firearm (often people were required to own them). Remember that the US did not even have a police force until the 1880s (and then only in NY for some time) and so the militia filled many roles besides what we think of them as doing today. Ever seen a search for a prison escapee or the search for missing persons? People show up, are deputized for the event and then go out looking for whomever they are after. The militia did this often since there was no police force and the Sheriff of a given area was simply a person to call up and lead the militia when it was needed as well as pay them for their time and material. So, the word militia in the 2A does not mean National Guard but the courts, part of the government and wanting to protect themselves from a belligerent society that is also armed, has hacked away at this fact and replaced it with the fantasy that the National Guard is what is meant in the 2A.

Also, I do not believe in firearms licensing. That is, if you want to sell guns then the only requirements you should meet are that you be legally able to own them and get a business license in your locality. I am not sure, but my guess is that Firearms Dealers would be against this since it would allow mail-order and internet sales which would mean that they would no longer have a monopoly on their area's market and prices, and thus their mark-up for profit, would go down because of competition. I also believe the National Firearms Act is unconstitutional because it strips the right of owning weapons, except those approved by the government, from citizens. Weapon ownership is an absolute right and you should be able to own whatever you can afford without having to pay huge fees for special licenses. People are not more moral or virtuous than you or I simply because they wear a uniform or a badge. Making people go through special licensing for automatic weapons simply means you believe that somehow these weapons are "magic" and somehow turn people into psychopathic killers when they get their hands on them. No, this scheme is simply the government ensuring it is more well-armed than you or I, rather than trying to protect us.

I also believe that CCW permits are nothing more than a poll tax. I have a right to carry weapons so why should I pay the government in order to exercise that right; do you also pay to vote? I know some will say, but you pay for a driver's license? Read the Constitution, it guarantees both the rights to vote and to possess and bear arms; it does not grant a right to drive, own a car or even use the roads.

[beardman2]

its posts like the ones from sjp2452 and KP that make me feel there is still hope for this country.

[Mike G]

[quote=beardman2]I agree guns and extremist religion are a bad mix.

However I feel its fairly well known that the writers of the constitution were not "giving" us any rights but recognizing rights that every living person is given by their creator.

Most god fearing folks feel they are "god given rights". Which for them is true. If you follow something else then maybe those rights were given to you by "mother earth". Either way the bigger picture is these are basic rights every human is afforded.[quote]

This is the idea I was getting at. I wasn't necessarily trying to introduce religion into the discussion, but more trying to introduce the idea that we have rights that cannot be extended to us by men(life and liberty) and the right to keep and bear arms is a natural right that allows us to protect all other rights. I just wanted to discuss this point of view.
I am not looking to debate this with anyone. I think the 2A is a good subject to discuss among like minded people because it helps us form and make our argument against gun control when confronted by those that don't feel as we do. That, in my opinion, is our biggest threat today as gun owners, not a tyrannical government.

[bd]

Originally Posted by OrangeSkies

bd - you left out a very important part of the SA.

If they can give it to you- they can take it away.

bd