doG

A ph meter perhaps?

Thanks for showing us once again how poor your understanding is of our system. The people have no direct say, no vote, it is up to their representatives at both the federal and state levels.

Or not....there seems to be a sector of Islamist extremists that like chopping off heads, even when guns are available. Another sector likes bombs like the Boston marathon bombers. Israel has gun control laws similar to the U.S. but they are plagued by suicide bombers. I think your speculative assumption is unsupported. Barbaric killers like the ones you speak of in London are going to be barbaric killers wherever they are regardless of the gun laws in the region. No it can't. It can only be changed by a constitutional amendment that is passed by a two thirds majority in Congress and then ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the states.

Irrelevant strawman... So! How does that imply you should have any right to infringe on someone else's right to own a gun? The law already makes it illegal for them to murder you with it. You have the right to not have your head bashed in with a hammer too. Do you think that empowers you to argue that hammers should be banned too?

Constitutionally protected gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right until the Constitution itself is changed. How can one not understand that. The meaning of any law should never change unless the law itself is changed.

Only through the amendments that have been added, one of which is the very point of discussion here, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a protected constitutional right that shall not be infringed. No, it's not silly, it's making a point that you can't outlaw guns without changing the Constitution. The current efforts of both the Executive and Legislative branches to infringe on any of the constitutionally protected rights of the people through regulation are unconstitutional. If there is a desire and a need to reconsider the 2nd amendment then the Executive and Legislative branches need to focus their efforts on changing the constitution as opposed to circumventing it. No effort by either to circumvent the constitutionally protected rights "of" the people should be tolerated "by" the people. Imposing consequences on someone because of actions of someone else is also ethically problematic. Just because someone buys a piece of rope at the hardware store and hangs themself does not mean it should be any harder for me to buy rope at the hardware store. I've done nothing wrong so I should face no encumbrances on buying rope because someone else did something bad with rope. I have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms and a set of laws that limits what I can legally do with them. That someone else abuses their right or violates the law with them is not a reason that I should face any consequences because of their actions. Forcing consequences on me because of the illegal or unethical actions of someone else is itself unethical.

Most may have been nominated by republicans but they were all vetted and confirmed by a bipartisan legislature. It may not be a perfect system but it is one where the vacancies of the judicial branch are filled by a process that involves both of the other branches and once completed insulates them politically from those that put them there.

That's because the right of free speech is not a right to cause harm to others. As long as the right does not violate the right of another it is a fairly well protected right at the federal level since the 2nd amendment is a bar to federal infringement but not necessarily state or local regulations. The 14th amendment clouds the interpretation at that level though. See this analysis from the Congressional Research Service.

No, those if's really don't exist if someone gets the court to hear a case that presses that very literal point and it's meaning and context in the era it was drafted. Felons in that time did their time and took up arms once they had served their time. Arms that didn't exist then are now part of the problem and they are technically protected. Well regulated clearly refers to the militia and not the general people of the population. Think legally and follow the punctuation of the amendment, the protection of the people to keep and bear arms is explicitly stated and it is that very protection that would allow the people to assemble a well regulated militia if and when it became necessary for the security of a free state. It is hard to form a militia from unarmed citizens. I personally fear the language of the amendment is too broad and too vague in today's world but until it is changed I fully support what it says because the law should always say what it means and mean what it says. It should not be open to interpretation based on the times as the living document crowd advocates. Shall not be infringed means no encroachments of any kind. If that language is now a problem then it needs to be fixed, not circumvented.

See http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6694744/ns/us_news-the_changing_court/t/guide-supreme-court-nomination/#.UY6Jp6I9HoI for an informative article of the nomination and confirmation process of Supreme Court justices.

Thank you, you're right, it could technically be overturned but.... Do notice your 3rd link states explicitly, "No single entity - not the President, Senate, House of Representatives, state Governors, nor anyone else - has the power to overturn a US Supreme Court ruling. Supreme Court decisions cannot be nullified by other parts of government." The only way to reverse SCOTUS decisions is for SCOTUS to reverse itself or for the Constitution to be amended. It is not likely SCOTUS will reverse itself on the plain language in the Constitution, i.e. "...SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED". The only other way your scenario of overturning the Heller decision is that 3/4's of the state legislatures will ratify an amendment that strips them of their own personal rights to keep and bear arms, another path I see as highly unlikely. The personal right to keep and bear arms is protected and quite likely to stay that way. Any claims that is not protected are false.

I'd love to see some citations of that.

It didn't need to, the Constitution says plainly that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Infringements of any kind are unconstitutional. Remember, in the era this was written felons leaving prison after serving their time could bear arms again. Today's infringements against them are technically unconstitutional. That was then and this is now. Another reason the Constitution should be revisited because unconstitutional regulations will not fix the problems with an outdated constitution. That's the reason they are given lifetime appointments. They never have to sway their opinion one way or the other to remain on the bench.

Exactly. The right to keep and bear arms, which are undefined in the constitution, gives people the right to obtain arms that are not in the public interest. It's one example of reason to advocate a constitutional convention to write a new document better suited to current times. Yes, SCOTUS is the top of our judicial branch of government and their opinions on the meaning of law as written, like the Constitution, are final.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller "District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and within federal enclaves..." SCOTUS disagrees with you.

Not really, I am against gun control that is unconstitutional. I am opposed to crazy people and children having access to guns but discussions about unconstitutional regulations are not an acceptable solution in my opinion because I wholly support what the constitution literally says until it is changed. Until then we should use what is legally available to us to control the consequences of the unlawful like giving a gun owner severe public punishment when a child accesses their gun and kills another. Punishment in this country used to be very public and served as a valuable deterrent. Now it is very hidden and has no deterrent affect all. It is the evolution of criminal rights that causes many of these problems we see now. IMO, if we went bad to public hangings for those that willfully and wantedly commit murder then those people we be fewer and fewer.

Voting doesn't work. Everyone is allowed to vote and too many that are promised gifts from the public treasury vote for the very tyrants claiming to offer more gifts from the public treasury. We've ended up with a rather sully collection of people that are now the government. Swords are banned in public places but there is no restriction on buying them. They could be misused in public just as guns are. The law does not keep the unlawful in line, only the law abiding. And yet, whenever an outlaw uses a gun people start screaming that the law abiding are the ones that need to bear the consequences. That makes no sense.

It's not about enjoyment. The founders intentionally added a personal right to keep and bear arms because standing armies of tyrannical governments are a threat to freedom and liberty. Why should my rights and those of the population at large be infringed as a result of the unjust and/or illegal actions of the few? I think the advocates of gun control owe me a guarantee of freedom from tyranny if they want to advocate that my rights of defense from it should be infringed in any way. When will the advocates of gun control advocate further restrictions on government? So a knitting needle over 3 inches is prohibited in public places? Are the any advocates that my right to purchase a sword or a knitting needle should be prohibited just because it is prohibited in public places?

Not at all. Swords are specifically designed to kill people and nothing else. They are not designed to hunt with even, just for killing people but you never hear of any advocacy to ban them. It seems every time a gun is involved in a death, either accidentally or intentionally, the is a sector that wants to blame the gun and advocates further restrictions on my rights as a gun owner. Whenever a car, or a bathtub, or a sword, or a knife, or a ball bat or even a pressure cooker or any other thing is intentionally used to kill someone it is never blamed on the instrument of death but on the person that misused it. Why should I suffer any consequences because of the unjust actions of someone else.

Normal lung volume is a function where a variable representing pressure is at a value that coincides with zero depth. Pressure is a function dependent on depth. Try writing the equation for pressure as a function of depth and then try substituting that equation as the variable for pressure in the function for lung volume.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that analogy. Just because a hammer was could be used to kill someone doesn't mean you could sue the hammer manufacturer for a lack of safety features. There is certainly negligence on someone's part in every child gun death but it is not one of the gun manufacturer. All guns have a safety position and even that is unnecessary with unloaded guns. When someone leaves a loaded gun, or a gun and the required ammunition, accessible to a child then it is their negligence that is responsible, not the manufacturer's. I do not particularly believe any gun manufacturer designs their civilian products to be used to commit murder, manslaughter or accidental death of anyone. They design them primarily for defense and hunting purposes. They design them with safety features to prevent accidents. That ignorant people circumvent and/or ignore those features is not their fault. Here's an analogy for you. Pill bottle manufacturers make containers that can be closed one way to childproof the contents or another that is not. The pharmacist fills a bottle with medicine that is deadly to children and closes the bottle using the childproof configuration for safety. The consumer picks up their medicine at the pharmacy, takes it home and closes it the other way because it's more convenient. A child finds it, consumes the content and dies. Is it the fault of the bottle manufacturer that their child safety feature was intentionally ignored or circumvented by the end user? Like the gun manufacturer, they specifically design their product with features to prevent such accidents. Unfortunately neither has the ability to design products that prevent misuse of their products through negligence, be it intentional or accidental. Not necessarily. These incidents really are intolerable and the responsible adult that enabled it should be held wholly responsible and accountable. These incidents are effectively negligent homicide and/or manslaughter. Severe penalties should be levied and publicized to the point that the general public learns of the monumental responsibility expected of gun owners.....i,e. "keep them safe or else!"

But there's no evidence that there is a god to recognize so even the act of recognition gives preference to the religious belief that there is a god versus the irreligious views that lack belief in deities. Why should theism be recognized by a government that is supposed to be secular? What the 1st amendment actually says is, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Unfortunately there is nowhere that the founders gave the context of the word establishment which can be used as a noun or a verb. It is evident from their flight from England that they did not want there new government to establish any national religion and in Jefferson's "Wall of Separation" letter that he took it to also forbid recognition of religious establishments. This would seem to include both uses of the word establishment as being prohibited so that would include recognition of theism and or deism. FWIW, it does not say the government cannot recognize god(s) but it specifically prohibits Congress from passing laws that do so and it was an act of Congress that permitted the treasury to recognize god on currency and another that added god to the pledge. Both are technically violations that the theist courts refuse to address.

How can the declaration that there is a god at all have no theological impact? To say, "In God We Trust" implies that there is a god to trust in and that very declaration is theistic and therefore religious. In the last case cited the court is playing silly word games that the theists of SCOTUS refuse to review.

No it doesn't. My link says the lower courts refused to hear the case and SCOTUS refused to review it. If you were familiar with the case you would know that they refused to hear the case because they claimed Dr. Newdow didn't have standing to file the case in the first place, not because they ruled, or didn't as the case is, on the constitutionality of his case. Zorach v. Clauson does not address it either. It addresses the right of children to leave public schools during school hours for bible study off of public school property. It has nothing to do with the phrase on U.S. currency. At question basically is any belief or declaration in any god(s) religious by the very nature of making a theist statement? If so then a declaration that God exists is a recognition of the theist establishment and Congress is prohibited from passing any laws that recognize such an establishment in my opinion. I suspect the court would be forced to agree and that's why they avoid hearing the case at all. Can you point that out? The Declaration Of Independence says, "...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...." Nowhere does it call their Creator a supreme being. My creator was my mom. BTW, "under God" was added by an act of Congress in 1956 so if the declaration that any god exists is religious then that is unconstitutional as well.

Your assertion is contrary to one stated by the U.S. Mint where it says the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of the phrase. Can you cite a case where SCOTUS has specifically addressed this phrase on U.S. currency?