Do you believe in the 2nd amendment?

Do you believe that in America, people should have the right to bear arms against any enemy, both foreign and domestic?

Direct quote - "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."

This means as a citizen of the Untied States you have the right to own a gun and use that gun to protect yourself, and your family against the government if need be.

There are currently, multiple laws and regulations that have already been passed that limit who can purchase a firearm within the United States, and many more on the verge of being passed. A direct infringement upon the bill of rights in common law terms.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

(Edit) - In my opinion, we could actually sue the government and win right now for breach of contract.

 

Yes.

I believe certain people shouldn't be allowed to have a gun though... However, I don't agree with the current felony rule, that felons cannot own guns.

Did something violent enough to get put in prison, no gun. But non-violent felons, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to own a gun.

And crazies... Same with that though... Had to spend time in the "hospital" for violent crimes - no gun. Non-violent - Gun.

We SHOULD be able to... But we can't. We'd lose that lawsuit every single time because it's the government...

 

Really not sure what you mean when you say you can sue the government for breach of contract. There is no contract.

I don't know much about the American Constitution, but I always thought that provision had differing legal interpretations, one if which being the passage 'well regulated militia' operated to confine those who had the 'right to bear arms' as those being part of that 'regulated militia' ie, the Army.

To me though, the phrase doesn't categorically support the notion that all Americans have the rights to own firearms. The phrases 'well regulated militia', and 'necessary to the security of a free State' clearly operate to constrain the right to bear arms, otherwise you would simply omit the first two.

 

Well, the second amendment exists.

No, I don't find it applies to citizens in any manner and prior to the Heller case ruling it was never applied to citizens. If the court adds a liberal justice (which it will when in all likelihood Trump loses the general election), it is quite possible this ruling will be reversed.

My stances on guns follows the logic of while I think they're fine, I do not think I need to own a variety of assault rifles; furthermore, a lack of actual gun safety measures (ex: 100% required background checks) leads to a proliferation of fire arms.

Guns are fine, but maybe, just maybe regulate them a little bit more. It is significantly harder to get a license to drive a car than it is to buy a gun. God forbid some classes are required that aren't utter bullshit (coming from someone who used to assist in teaching VA concealed carry classes).

 

One could argue that the bill of rights is a contract that involves two parties, one being the people of the United States, the other being those who signed the bill of rights and those who hold a position within the government and other positions of power that are able to pass laws.

According to the 9th amendment "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" So if "we the people" decide that our government is doing something that infringes upon our ability to remain a "free state" then we have the ability to form a militia and do something about it. I don't know if you know much about American history but, the bill of rights was written just after we won our independence as a country from a government that was already established. By "a well established militia" they don't mean the military who is controlled by the government (even though they take an oath to protect the constitution against ANY enemy both foreign and domestic) they mean the people of the United States have the right to band together and do what they need to do.

While I agree that people with mental disabilities and others with a violent past shouldn't be allowed to own a firearm, I could also argue the case of where say for example a girlfriend and her boyfriend get into an argument and the girlfriend calls the police and files domestic violence charges against the boyfriend. Now the boyfriend, while he might not be a violent person by nature or the type of person who would use a firearm to harm someone who wasn't trying to harm him in the same way is unable to purchase a firearm. Another similar example would be if say a father and son get into an argument and things get physical, the father could call the police and file a domestic violence charge against the son, or vise versa. While similar to the case given above, I believe all parties involved in situations like this should be allowed to purchase a firearm.

 

That boils down to basically, a offender is more likely to re offend bullshit so I agree on that note,I also agree people should be allowed to have guns that they can use to protect themselves from these wild animals on the streets, I have been watching world-star for a while the the growing amount of people who are taking bath salts and loosing their mind and attacking people in a zombie like fashion is amazing and scary at the same time.

 

The idea is nice, but this isn't a contract the courts would enforce under contract law. Your argument would be that the 'Government' made an offer to its 'people' through an agent (which is also part of those 'people'), to protect these rights, for the consideration of? You would also assume that those that agreed to this 'contract' represented the people in their totality (otherwise you would bind those that did not wish to be bound by this 'contract'). You would then have an issue as to the certainty of... just about everything, what the articles actually mean... who 'the people', etc etc. Don't confuse the 'social contract' with a contract at law.

I did a little bit of reading, and based on this: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment it seems that in US v Miller (1939), that Supreme Court that the second amendment related to the military. Then in DoC v Heller (2008) in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court said that individual Americans essentially have the right to bear arms (with constraints), and on your point about the mentally disabled, they also said in dicta (meaning suggested), that disallowing criminals/mentally disabled might be constitutionally valid. Then McDonald v CoC, etc. From that, it seems that the right for individuals to bear arms under the 2nd amendment is not well-entrenched - there's no unanimous Supreme Court ruling, and there's quite a lot of uncertainty - not sure where the 9th amendment fits in? Not sure of the actual make up of the Supreme Court, but as far as I know, Scalia was in favour of the 2nd amendment giving rise to individual rights, and so with his passing, given the split in judicial opinion by the Supreme Court, whomever gets appointed, and their views might substantially shape how the 2nd amendment gets interpreted and applied.

Realistically though, if it is found to exist, I think you'll find a lot of exceptions - and those exceptions would be constitutionally valid.

 

Yes, I truly believe in the 2nd Amendment, it's a way of protection from harm of others of course but also against the government. If you look at any major totalitarian government, one of the very few first things they did was remove people's right to arms. I think it's a mandatory right for all people of this country to possess.

 

1. Correlation, not causation
2. There is one totalitarian government in modern-day (North Korea), that's not exactly a big focus group
3. The likes of Japan has had swords & guns outlawed since the late 1500's and a variety of other non-totalitarian governments (aka all other countries) have gun laws on the books.


It amazes me the attention paid to the likes of the second amendment with arguments centered around the ability to "fight back." Your in-formal training and your access to a shotgun, or even an assault rifle is not going to do much against the strongest military in the world; furthermore, in actual practically, don't expect a revolution to occur anytime soon. The U.S. Is steeped in tradition and if this wasn't so strong, there would have been an outcry in the 2000 Bush v. Gore.

Also, maybe individuals should focus just a little bit more on the likes of the 5th amendment which is being consistently violated opposed to the second amendment that in practically will not be removed.

 

I'm speaking of past totalitarian governments, and most intellectuals argue that it is a necessity for that reason. I don't care about my Gun Rights, nor have I ever had a gun in my prior possession, but I think that's a legitimate reason.

 

Care to list them? Nazi Germany is just about the only other totalitarian regime.

Most intellectuals? Want to source this? What is most? What is considered intellectuals? Academia? Sorry to break it to you, but you're misinformed and that is not a consensus.

Cool. I'm glad you think it's a legitimate reason, but I don't care for opinions as much as empirical evidence.

 

Obviously, you lack knowledge on historical content in this field, I'll bring a few into your worldview.

- Nazi Germany (1938)
- Russian (Stalin - 1929)
- China (1935)
- Idi Amin Uganda (1971)
- Pol Pot... lets not even get into it... Lol.. I'm sure you know what he did with Cambodia.. or do you..?

When I speak of intellectuals, I mean academically enlightened and credited professors from the most prestigious universities in the world who are experts in such fields.

If you want me to go through educational resources to find these sources, I could. I've studied gun control/rights and nations who have imbued either into their societies and the outcomes. For this, I'd require payment as I'd be tutoring you in this field.

^_^

 

If you're going to be condescending, I suggest you learn the difference between totalitarian and authoritarian governments.

 

They're basically the same thing, one's more centralized as opposed to the other.

You're the one being condescending with your replies. You come off as a "know-it-all", get off your high horse.

But nice job completely disregarding what I said and trying to dilute the fact that I completely turned this whole argument on you pal. Kudos to you for knowing how to argue, real A class material, "since I can't attack his point because he's pretty fucking right, let me just try to change the focus."

 

Firstly, plenty of gun owners have formal training in handling firearms. In addition many gun owners are vets who will have formal military training.

Secondly, assault rifles are de facto banned in the United States and very few people have access to them or own them.

Thirdly, no one is able to beat a modern nuclear military if that military fights a total war without holding back. However, with nuclear weapons not holding back means ending humanity which will hopefully never happen. We can look at Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq for examples at how well an armed populous does against the best military in the world when they are forced to not just glass the entire country.

I agree that the fifth (and fourth) amendments do need to be defended more but the second amendment is constantly under attack as well. It isn't happening on the federal level because our divided government but gun bills are passing in state houses all the time.

 

"Many" in no way completely encompasses the over 300 million guns in the U.S. Looking specifically at police, from 1998-2006 the accuracy for police involved in a shoot-out was a mere 18%. accuracy when the other individual(s) were not shooting? 30% (referring to a RAND corporation study that looked at NY police officers). A also recently published study in the Police Science & Management journal concluded that "trained police" had a slight advantage over novice shooters.

I was using an assault rifle as an example. They're no where near as common as handguns and are used in a fraction of the crimes; however, semi-automatic (looking at you AR-15 and replicas) are weapons made for killing and the civilian versions very effectively kill people (look at the percent of U.S. mass shootings involving them).

You don't need an all out nuclear war to decimate an enemy and the U.S. (alongside other powers) have worked towards modernizing their arsenal. It is no longer about having very big nuclear weapons that can destroy miles-and-miles of infrastructure, rather, pinpoint nuclear strikes. Even so, I wouldn't even factor nuclear weapons into the equation and I don't think you can easily compare the likes of Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq to an insurgent U.S. population. Outside of cultural factors, the sheer amount of population differences and the fact that this would be the home game for the U.S. military. Unlike being in a foreign country, they know the area, the know the people, they know the culture, and they have the numbers without having to worry about shipping them abroad (all big factors in a foreign conflict); furthermore, a foreign conflict like the likes of the aforementioned conflicts never presented an existential threat to the U.S. An insurgent base in the U.S. could present itself as such a threat (would be a civil war unless we're talking about a very minute amount of people). Basically, I don't find that comparison all that comparable. In the likes of Iraq we created the insurgency. Like, who would of thought (outside literally everyone disagreeing with the likes of Rumsfeld and Bremmer) making hundreds of thousands of young armed men unemployed was a bad idea?

I'm not looking up information for the second amendment being under attack, but I highly doubt "gun bills are passing in state houses all the time." State legislatures are overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans whom seldom support gun control. The attack on the second amendment seems much more community and media focused, not actual legislation.

 

It does not say how many are tightening vs relaxing gun control but it does fall along party lines. If we take California as an example they've passed 6 gun control bills this year and 11 in 2013 as well as proposing many more.

So the attacks on the second amendment are absolutely legislation based.

 

I personally think that the 2nd amendment is fine and that concealed carry should be legal as long as multiple requirements are met, no FBI checks or anything like that. With concealed carry if some terrorist takes out an AR in a public place, with a common concealed carry practice, someone in the public would be able to take down the active shooter before too many people can get hurt. Just how I see things.

 

The U.S. Constitution was written when single-shot muskets were the weaponry of the time. I don't think the Second Amendment transfers over to an AR-15. That wouldn't make sense. I don't think the U.S. Constitution should be used as law. It should be used as a history marker and as a tool to create better to-date laws.

 

The internet did not exist when the first amendment was written therefore it does not cover speech on the internet.