Zakharra wrote:Tenshinai, the US Supreme Court has agreed with the definition I and others are using in deciding what the 2nd Amendment means.
So what? They´re clearly wrong. Whether the USSC agree because they don´t understand or because they just happen to "surprisingly" be partisan towards the gunnuts or both, is another question. Not like it would be the first time USA has laws made or interpreted for a special interest group.
Me personally, i couldn´t care less how you set your laws in this regard, but i do care that your society is so corrupt that it will rather come up with a fancy and utterly fake interpretation for the law you claim to adhere to than to replace it with something that actually says what you want it to say.
But of course, you can´t risk that because the risk is too great that you then might end up with a law that actually agrees with what the 2nd amendment says which would then require the extremely problematic writing of an additional law that regulates private ownership of weapons. Which in turn of course would carry a fair risk of being more restrictive.
So it´s easier to just pretend.
Zakharra wrote:The well regulated militia isn't a government monopoly or something the government has a say in whether or not it can exist.
Really? That´s a very "interesting" view.
So tell me then, just how do you have something that is well regulated then?
Like i said before, while you can argue that it means well organised, that is a VERY questionable claim to make.
As i said, it doesn´t matter that much whether it´s national/regional/local level government that does the regulating, but without that, you can only have a militia.
Zakharra wrote:The 2nd is there, mainly, to give the people a way to effectively protect themselves and keep an eye on the government.
That´s complete rubbish and you should be able to tell just by reading it. 2nd is there to make sure USA has something to defend it against invasion.
It´s there because the British tried to essentially disarm the American colonies.
Zakharra wrote:One way to do that is by ensuring that the people are armed.
Please quit repeating that craptacularly ridiculous delusion.
Unless you lack even the slightest knowledge of history or military matters, you KNOW it is delusional.
As has already been mentioned, people being armed almost never prevents dictators taking power or governments abusing power.
But people being armed has in fact more often HELPED dictatorial governments into power. Like Hitler and Stalin.
I guess you can´t see it, because you fail to understand WHO among the people are interested in having guns.
I´ll give you a hint and tell you that it´s not the moderates among the population.
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PeterZ wrote:The Federalism argument had both sides use the same definition of militia. An armed populace WAS the militia. George Mason, Federalist and co-author of the Second Amendment, and Richard Henry Lee, Anti-Federalist, both defined militia as the entire populace. They were afraid of standing armies and believed that an armed populace allowed for self defense without risking having a large standing army.
There´s just one little snag with that idea.
The fact that by the 18th century, it was well known that an armed population was a pisspoor defense against an
army. Even a halfassed army of barely trained conscripts.
I have read it. The quotes supports what Zakharra posted. If you believe the Constitution means something other than what its writers intended it to mean, you do not support the rule of law. Instead those that believe as you do would use the Constitution to justify whatever they want.
Thank God you are downunder. That's one less "living document" sort to deal with here.
Read it without preconceived notions about what it says.
