Guns, Guns Guns

Annachie wrote:

Zakharra wrote:The US Supreme Court disagrees with your definition. It has come down repeatedly on the side that the 2nd Amendment is for the individual's right to have firearms.

Not true. The supreme court has only recently come down that way.

Every case involves Scalia and Kennedy, and actually flys in the face of previous decisions and opinions.

Indeed, the idea that the 2nd establishes an effectively unqualified individual right to bear arms... a conclusion reached by effectively stating that half the amendment was placed in the document as meaningless decoration, simply ignoring all historical context regarding that amendment and how the formation of the militias was integral to it... is a purely modern invention of some justices who decided to totally rewrite US case law and toss all precedent on the matter.

For the first couple hundred years of the existence of the country it was clearly understood that the 2nd was a collective, not an individual, right to arms. The people had the right to bear arms in order that there be effective militias formed by said people. Hence in 1939 for example when the Supreme Court stated flat out that a ban on sawed off shot guns was constitutional because those weapons did not have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia". It was clearly understood that the 2nd had a specific purpose, and that purpose was made clear by the wording of the amendment itself.



As opposed to the opinions of a majority of the current Court, who apparently think the 2nd provides a right to bear arms because "Yay! Guns!" and that the first half of the amendment is just there for a but of artistic embellishment to make the sentence flow off the tongue or something... because the framers were totally into putting pointless meaningless bits of fluff that didn't have any bearing on the meaning of the document in the Constitution.

gcomeau wrote:Indeed, the idea that the 2nd establishes an effectively unqualified individual right to bear arms... a conclusion reached by effectively stating that half the amendment was placed in the document as meaningless decoration, simply ignoring all historical context regarding that amendment and how the formation of the militias was integral to it... is a purely modern invention of some justices who decided to totally rewrite US case law and toss all precedent on the matter.

For the first couple hundred years of the existence of the country it was clearly understood that the 2nd was a collective, not an individual, right to arms. The people had the right to bear arms in order that there be effective militias formed by said people. Hence in 1939 for example when the Supreme Court stated flat out that a ban on sawed off shot guns was constitutional because those weapons did not have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia". It was clearly understood that the 2nd had a specific purpose, and that purpose was made clear by the wording of the amendment itself.



As opposed to the opinions of a majority of the current Court, who apparently think the 2nd provides a right to bear arms because "Yay! Guns!" and that the first half of the amendment is just there for a but of artistic embellishment to make the sentence flow off the tongue or something... because the framers were totally into putting pointless meaningless bits of fluff that didn't have any bearing on the meaning of the document in the Constitution.

Just responding to the bold part.

Was the 1939 court smoking opium(close to time context)? What the heck? A sawed off shotgun was also know as a trench sweeper (in the Great War). If that was the basis of their decision it makes no sense, at least to me. Army was using it but the militia has no use for it.

Talk about going in circles.

Not that I really agree with the rest of post either but the Court's justification (if you are presenting it accurately is silly.

Have fun,
T2M

Thinks, the particular decision was a bit wishy washy. But yeah. Somebody got busted for transporting a sawn off over state lines (a crime at that particular time and place) and tried to arguevthat the law contravined the 2nd.
The use of the so called trench gun attracted claims of it not being a weapon of war under international law. In fact one Australian major was ordered to stop using a sawn off dbl barrel at Galipoli.

If the international law definition is, or more probably was, correct then the court verdict is correct.

That 1939 decision is why AK's and similar are allowed in general hands btw because they are regular army type weapons.

Former Sydney Deputy Mayor: Lift Gun Ban so Australians Can Defend Themselves

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... hemselves/

pushmar wrote:Former Sydney Deputy Mayor: Lift Gun Ban so Australians Can Defend Themselves

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... hemselves/

You're welcome to keep him. Actually, since he spends his time living in America "traveling the world as a political missionary, planting seeds of American appreciation, combating anti-Americanism and promoting understanding of the roots of American exceptionalism."

Was also named an honorary Texan by Governor Rick Perry.

A right wing American wannabe.

Trust me, there is no discussion of changing our gun laws. There is talk about this guy and one extreme libertarian senator calling for it, but that's it.

The godfather of conservative politics down here in Australia, former PM John Howard, has slammed the idea.

John Howard wrote:"The gun laws that were brought in in the wake of Port Arthur have made Australia a safe country and there's very strong, properly based research evidence to the effect that gun-related homicides have fallen in this country," Mr Howard told ABC radio on Thursday.

Mr Howard said Australians did not support more relaxed gun laws because they "understood that the fewer guns there are in the community, the fewer gun related deaths there will be".

"The truth is that in countries that have laxer gun laws, the likelihood of people who obtain a gun legally then using it for murderous, even terrorist purposes is much greater."

Although given how much media Murdoch owns down here, and that he owns the Prime Minister, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to force that discussion anyway.

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-orde ... c05618ee6f


Kind of says it all really.

A while back I heard a quote from an attorney defending a mans right to carry for self defense. The argument was that if national right to carry was recognized that 5% of the population would then be carrying. His response, and I paraphrase a bit here:
If 5% of all the animals hunted by man carried guns and used them in self defense then I think you would find quite a few, if not alot, of hunters no longer hunting.


His point being apply this to the criminals preying on civilians.
This is a legitiment concept, even if the %'s are off:
If there is an increased likely hood that a criminal will be shot by his intened victim, or any of the people near he intended victim, I feel he would be less likely to attpemt to hurt anybody, for fear of being shot himself.

Commodore Oakius wrote:This is a legitiment concept, even if the %'s are off:
If there is an increased likely hood that a criminal will be shot by his intened victim, or any of the people near he intended victim, I feel he would be less likely to attpemt to hurt anybody, for fear of being shot himself.

Or more inclined to use overwhelming force in the first place.

aairfccha wrote:

Commodore Oakius wrote:This is a legitiment concept, even if the %'s are off:
If there is an increased likely hood that a criminal will be shot by his intened victim, or any of the people near he intended victim, I feel he would be less likely to attpemt to hurt anybody, for fear of being shot himself.

Or more inclined to use overwhelming force in the first place.

Which is of course the reality we observe. The US has a very high percentage of gun ownership, it has a correspondingly very high rate of it's citizens getting shot and it does *not* have a lower crime rate than countries that have low gun ownership rates.

Widespread gun ownership does not deter crime, it just makes people more trigger happy and jumpy.

And that is up to and including trained professionals in law enforcement. There is a reason for this graph:



The police in the US are fully aware of how much higher their odds of encountering an armed suspect are than those other police forces. So it is much harder or them to maintain the mindset that they are to protect and serve the community and much easier for them to slip into the mindset that they are under siege by / at war with said community. Or at least significant portions of it.

It's all a big interconnected web of negative effects. And the irony is people will point at the result as justification for needing more of what caused it. "Look at all these shootings! It's dangerous out there! You know what that means... we need more guns! For everyone! That will make it better!"