SCOTUS on incorporation of 2nd Amendment

[MikeWaters]

NRA's take:
http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/News....aspx?ID=13956

NYTimes take:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/op...29tue1.html?hp

I hate the NY Times editorial board. They are despots.

That article will demonstrate to you all that is evil about soft-headed liberals, who seek to strip our liberties, who seek to make us vassals. To them.

NYTimes, here is what I have to say to you: COME AND TAKE IT!

[SeattleUte]

The thing that is disingenuous about the NYT position is that the 2d amendment was written before the advent of a federal army (hence, when you visit battlefields from even the civil war you see that the war was fought at least early on by state militias, represented by memorials from their resepctive states). The 2d amendment says that militias have the right to bear arms, indeed. But in those days militias were made up of people like you and me--men and boys from the community providing the only available defense against a world of tyranny and warlike aborigines. The 2d amendment really was put in the Constitution out of fear for of a federal police state. So now, there is no national army cobbled together by militias, but a monolithic federal army, the very thing the founders feared in adopting the 2d amendment. So what is closer to the original intent? Rocognizing a private right to bear arms only among militias (something that really doesn't exist any longer)? Or recognizing the right among private citizens?

[MikeWaters]

1. Non-governmental militias do exist. Haven't you heard of the "militia movement"?

2. There was a Federal Army at the time of the Civil War. What do you think Fort Sumpter was?

3. Fears of tyranny and a federal police state are not over, and never will be, as long as despotism exists in the heart of men. Thus the 2nd amendment, as a guard against this despotism. The ability of the citizens to rise up against tyranny. The government cannot take away the right to bear arms from its law-abiding citizenry. PERIOD.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

1. Non-governmental militias do exist. Haven't you heard of the "militia movement"?

2. There was a Federal Army at the time of the Civil War. What do you think Fort Sumpter was?

3. Fears of tyranny and a federal police state are not over, and never will be, as long as depotism exists in the heart of men. Thus the 2nd amendment, as a guard against this depotism. The ability of the citizens to rise up against tyrrany. The government cannot take away the right to bear arms from its law-abiding citizenry. PERIOD.

The militial movement, yikes.

Of course there was a federal army, but not like now.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

The militial movement, yikes.

Of course there was a federal army, but not like now.

The militia groupies can be a bit on the whacko side, but what concerns me is more libertarian.

Obviously, our country has a tradition of self-defense, of feeding ourselves via the hunt and the fish and the right to sporting. We retained the rights not ceded to the federal government. The mentality of most socialists and anti-gun nuts is that the federal government is the reservoir of all of our rights and those intellectual elite will determine who needs what rights. That mentality, if left unchecked, can trend toward a more totalitarian state. I really don't want a state so safe because nobody has rights, or traditions established.


I do not want gun regulation but I am in favor of gun safety. It is incumbent upon all gun owners to know how to operate, clean and to assemble and dissemble your weapons. My most recent safety and operations course was a four day, forty-eight hour event. I now fully appreciate the operation of a pistol.

The balance lies not within the desire of the government to reclaim another of our residual and expressed rights and the possessors of the right, but rather the possessors of the right, the armed citizens and the internal obligation to be safe with the operation of our weapons. Even the right of privacy is not a Constitutionally expressed right, it really should be a right reserved not conveyed. Except for the issue of consent, either by lack of force, age or ability to consent, government should have no law abridging it. And like unto it, the right of self defense with a weapon should be coterminous. The right to possess is similar to the right to exist. It's one of those bundle of rights.

A sure operator of a weapon understands the tremendous power and obligation inherent within such device. And the proper exercise of such right makes one an adult citizen functioning properly within society. Government should not be able to abridge that right, absent some abrogation of all other rights, i.e., imprisonment and convictions of felonies related to physical danger.

The Second Amendment should be viewed as an articulation of libertarian rights, and the right to be free from government strangulation of our liberties.