275 replies to this topic

[Yamato]

aztek, on 30 January 2013 - 06:16 PM, said:

why do ppl keep arguing about militia detail in 2nd??
it has been defined by ussc that 2nd protects individual right, regardless of service in militia.
do you guys like arguing about outdated stuff???

It was interpreted by the USSC.  The 2nd Amendment was already defined.

[Frank Merton]

I've been doing some reading about the Second Amendment and would like to introduce something a little bit different.

As I understand it, all Obama wants to do is regulate guns, not prohibit them.

Now the First Amendment guarantees various things (it's interesting that these basic liberties of the First Amendment don't include guns there, but instead it has to wait for the second).  Among the things the First Amendment guarantees is freedom of speech and of the press.

Does that mean that you can publish absolutely anything you want without consequences?  What about slandering someone, or calling them a criminal when they are an honest citizen?  What about using freedom of speech to deliver a harangue on a bullhorn in a residential neighborhood in the middle of the night?

Aren't these denials of freedom of speech and the press?

So if they are subject to regulation for public safety, why are guns different?

[CrimsonKing]

Frank Merton, on 30 January 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

I've been doing some reading about the Second Amendment and would like to introduce something a little bit different.

As I understand it, all Obama wants to do is regulate guns, not prohibit them.

Now the First Amendment guarantees various things (it's interesting that these basic liberties of the First Amendment don't include guns there, but instead it has to wait for the second).  Among the things the First Amendment guarantees is freedom of speech and of the press.

Does that mean that you can publish absolutely anything you want without consequences?  What about slandering someone, or calling them a criminal when they are an honest citizen?  What about using freedom of speech to deliver a harangue on a bullhorn in a residential neighborhood in the middle of the night?

Aren't these denials of freedom of speech and the press?

So if they are subject to regulation for public safety, why are guns different?

Did you ever see any american news while bush was in office frank?I did not to much care for him as a president,but wow talk about slander and being called a criminal!Obama has done much the same bush did yet they gush and praise every step he takes.

[AsteroidX]

Quote

Aren't these denials of freedom of speech and the press?

No, There is specific laws that detail the limits of free speech. An example would be yelling fire in a crowded theatre. As for slander ..you can find yourself on the wrong side of a lawsuit so do so at your own risk.

The 2nd Amendment was written after the 1st because it is intended to be that which protects the first. This can be gleamed from quotes following the writing of the Constitution such as..

Quote

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …"
Samuel Adams
quoted in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789, "Propositions submitted to the Convention of this State"

But then again the Constitution bashers like to say these people are irrelevant today.

This is  a question Frank...as I dont know the answer. Is Ho Chi Min considered irrelevent today even though your form of government has shifted some from his original vision ?

[Yamato]

Frank Merton, on 30 January 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

I've been doing some reading about the Second Amendment and would like to introduce something a little bit different.

As I understand it, all Obama wants to do is regulate guns, not prohibit them.

Now the First Amendment guarantees various things (it's interesting that these basic liberties of the First Amendment don't include guns there, but instead it has to wait for the second).  Among the things the First Amendment guarantees is freedom of speech and of the press.

Does that mean that you can publish absolutely anything you want without consequences?  What about slandering someone, or calling them a criminal when they are an honest citizen?  What about using freedom of speech to deliver a harangue on a bullhorn in a residential neighborhood in the middle of the night?

Aren't these denials of freedom of speech and the press?

So if they are subject to regulation for public safety, why are guns different?

Those "denials" of what we do with words in the 1st are analogous to what we do with guns in the 2nd.   Does the 2nd Amendment mean that we can ambush anyone we want with gunfire without consequences?  Go stand on a bridge and start opening fire on traffic?    No!  The 2nd Amendment doesn't protect our right to pull guns out and murder people.  It protects our right to bear them.   So that might beg the question, what good is bearing arms if they aren't used?   Other than the obvious deterrence that being armed confers, we would be using our guns to stop a tyrannical government.   How do we define a tyrannical government?   A government that no longer abides by the Constitution.  We can't respect our rule of law if we're breaking it.   Stopping criminals with force if necessary is upholding the highest law in the US.  It's citizens' justice, and what our Constitution empowers us with, love it or hate it.

Obama isn't denying certain words.  God help us all if he was.   It depends entirely on what we do with them.  Likewise, guns.

[Frank Merton]

AsteroidX, on 30 January 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

This is  a question Frank...as I dont know the answer. Is Ho Chi Min considered irrelevent today even though your form of government has shifted some from his original vision ?

Ho Chi Minh was the unifier of the country, and as such he is a national symbol.  His picture is on the currency and passports and so on, the largest city in the country carries his name, and he is to much of my generation a figure of considerable emotion.

The fact that Vietnam is no longer (after a disastrous attempt at it) a fully socialist country is seen as just an adjustment to his policies.  Plenty of quotes have been found in his writings to justify the change, and for all I know he may have set the changes in motion himself before he died.  As you might expect, the present doctrine is known as "HoChiMin-ism."

[AsteroidX]

Quote

Obama isn't denying certain words

Thats debatable.

[aztek]

Yamato, on 30 January 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

It was interpreted by the USSC.  The 2nd Amendment was already defined.

you right, but it doesn't matter much, ussc clearly (for me at least), states that militia detail is no longer relavant. that is why argument that only militia is allowed to bear arms holds no water. imo

[questionmark]

aztek, on 30 January 2013 - 06:43 PM, said:

you right, but it doesn't matter much, ussc clearly (for me at least), states that militia detail is no longer relavant. that is why argument that only militia is allowed to bear arms holds no water. imo

Where, strangely, we agree.

What is also questionable is that, had the founding fathers known that there would be a standing army since day 1 of the revolution to our days, the second amendment would have come into existence at all. The vision always was that America would have no standing army.

[AsteroidX]

Quote

What is also questionable is that, had the founding fathers known that there would be a standing army since day 1 of the revolution to our days, the second amendment would have come into existence at all. The vision always was that America would have no standing army.

No, because they discuss the right for self defense as a right under the 2nd Amendment as well.

[questionmark]

AsteroidX, on 30 January 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

No, because they discuss the right for self defense as a right under the 2nd Amendment as well.

There might have been the one or other wanting tom include it, but evidently there was no majority majority for that and that never got passed... unless of course somebody forgot to write that down...

To remind you, this is all it says:

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.

[aztek]

questionmark, on 30 January 2013 - 06:51 PM, said:

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.

you are kind of slow, aren't you?????

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, .....

[AsteroidX]

Quote

the right of the people to keep and bear Arm

It says it right there Q. Thats the self defense clause. You need to read your history a little deeper to understand that it was an "understood" concept for the writers.

[CrimsonKing]

One thing i think we can all agree to is this is still a better country than most,that we can still sit here and argue freely over the constitutions meanings is cool.If in russia we would have done been detained for hooliganism hahaha

[questionmark]

AsteroidX, on 30 January 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

It says it right there Q. Thats the self defense clause. You need to read your history a little deeper to understand that it was an "understood" concept for the writers.

That is not a self defense clause, that is the right that you may arm yourself, and if in the context of the whole sentence, to be part of the militia. That you can defend yourself is derived from your right to life, not the second amendment. And that takes precedence over the bill of right as it is enshrined in the original constitutional text.