The source of our rights (split from gun injury)

[Wolfhnd]

Is the 2nd admendment limiting in how an individual or militia practices security?

 

You can make an argument that it is outdated but I don't think that the intent is ambiguous.

 

Private ownership is clearly necessary or the government could easily disarm a militia. Where it stumbles in clarity is what a well regulated means. I sure what they intended was that they didn't want militias to become armed mobs every time a local population didn't like some law that had just been passed.

 

I think we have to ask why so much of the Founding Fathers language was vague. For example life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not very easy to translate into law?

 

I think every educated man at that time thought they were a bit of a philosopher. Anyone using the language they used would be laughed at today as grandiose, perhaps even mystical or at least metaphysical. The practical concerns of life were in many ways beneath the dignity of "gentlemen" I think that is why I consider Adams and in many ways a greater statesman than Jefferson. Over time we came to look for statesmen who were down to earth and practical. If you said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." most people would think you rather radical. At the time however people saw tyrants everywhere and the enlightenment meant that the old social orders was not only to be questioned but violently overthrown. The fact that the "patriots" all had a different idea of what liberty meant was an inconvenient truth that had to be ignored for the greater good. We ended up with strong state rights because clearly some people were not worthy of liberty and sectarian issues couldn't be easily swept under the rug by a bit of fancy language.

 

We have always had to struggle with making the idealism of the constitution into practical law. I have always thought that the second amendment had more to do with state rights than liberty but what kind of union would it be if the constitution itself allowed for interstate warfare or armed resistance to the Federal government? At the very least nobody wanted a standing army they had to actually pay for. In the end you get a compromise in the language that comes across as vague and unworkable. The problem is that no matter how vague the language of the constitution is if we are a nation of law then we have to amend it or live by it. 227 years later we can say that it would be nice to know what well regulated means but it certainly doesn't imply self defence as several supreme courts have erroneously and for politically convenience interrupted it.

 

If we are going to abide by the constitution then the legislation should protect fairly unrestricted private ownership of weapons capable of being used by a militia in a military capacity. The best we seem to be able to do on the well regulated part is to restrict weapons being available to the insane, the criminal element, and crazy anarchy groups. The last one nobody has figure out how to define so Black Panthers and the White supremacist get to be equally well armed.

 

I have studied statistic from the U.S. and other nations and have concluded that there is no way that any regulation that conforms with the constitution will have much of an impact on gun violence. Even if you ignore the constitution and enforce strict gun control it would take decades for those regulations to have a noticeable effect. There are too many guns out there and only a small percentage of gun violence is related to things like school shootings. Most of the gun violence is drug related or at least gang related. The one area it would have a significant impact is suicide rates as guns are simply more lethal than a lot of other suicide attempts. Suicides are in fact a sizable percentage of gun deaths so I'm not saying that is important. What I am saying is that regulation is not a magic bullet and most likely not even a bandaid in terms of solving gun violence.

 

If you look at countries where gun violence is low it was low before draconian anti gun laws were passed. The total number of reduced homicides is not all that great. If you only have 100 gun homicides a year and you reduce it to 50 on paper it looks like a remarkable 50 percent reduction and a huge accomplishment but is it?

 

Many people see the gun problem as the product of white guys with penis projection issues. In their mind it is the "gun culture" that is the problem as it is just one more example of a patriarchal society gone mad. The statistics simply don't support that view as most gun enthusiasts are not a homicidal group of people. The enthusiast surely are part of the well regulated problem as their distribution is unregulatable. I would argue however that there is already a huge black market distribution system in place that doesn't require legal private owners for it's maintenance. Like many aspects of the politically correct movement denigrations of gun owners may raise awareness but when it comes to practical solutions that don't have negative consequences I rate those efforts as nearly pointless.

 

I know I have painted a gloomy picture but I hope that people can take a more liberal or if you like libertarian perspective. I truly believe that it is the culture not guns that are the majority of the problem. It just isn't the part of the culture that many so called liberals want to believe it is. While I said that the politically correct movement efforts were pointless I meant only that part that irrational blames gun enthusiast for homicide rates. The number of smokers in the U.S. has been reduced in half without any draconian anti smoking laws almost entirely by social censure. Shaming gun owners into securing their weapons surely would prevent some of the violence like school shootings. Over time it may even effect the way counter cultures like gangs view guns but that is much less likely. Social censure shouldn't just stop with twitter storms and protests or inflammatory speech which are of dubious value. Social censure requires that everyone take an active part in the problem. If you know a crazy person with a gun you need to tell the authorities. If you want gang violence to go down you may need to "rat out" you cousin. Complaining about a problem where there is such a divide of opinion and asking the government to fix it is not only likely to be ineffective it is not in our liberal democratic tradition.

 

One thing that concerns me is how social censure could start to look like the kind of informer culture that so undermined the social fabric of the soviet union. I have reviewed the Blank Lives Matter platform and it sounds more like negotiations with an occupying army than community involvement. If petty criminals arm themselves because they are afraid of the police things look a lot more gloomy. Even worse for many people discriminating between the criminal or insane and the misguided is a difficult task that threatens individual liberty.

 

I would love to hear other peoples ideas on how to make community involvement and social censure work?

[dimreepr]

Perhaps you should also read Griswold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut

 

The ninth amendment is not an enigma to those who appreciate the philosophy of natural rights as our founders did. Also, you must have missed this part.

 

Only limited powers. Since this topic was spawned from a gun control topic. Where does the constitution, minus the bill of rights, empower the government to regulate my right to keep and bear arms? Aren't you trying to exercise an implied power to regulate my liberties?

 

 

Until you can grasp the fact that your “natural inalienable” rights have changed and will change again (despite the ninth amendment) through the natural processes of a democracy, this debate is just gainsay and pointless.

 

 

 

Since you’ve skipped this, gainsay it is, so I’ll leave you with a final thought; your precious doesn’t care about you it just wants to get to Mordor.

 

 

IOW don’t rage against the end of today because tomorrow will happen anyway.

Edited October 30, 2015 by dimreepr

[Ten oz]

 

You can make an argument that it is outdated but I don't think that the intent is ambiguous.

 

Private ownership is clearly necessary or the government could easily disarm a militia. Where it stumbles in clarity is what a well regulated means. I sure what they intended was that they didn't want militias to become armed mobs every time a local population didn't like some law that had just been passed.

 

I think we have to ask why so much of the Founding Fathers language was vague. For example life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not very easy to translate into law?

 

I think every educated man at that time thought they were a bit of a philosopher. Anyone using the language they used would be laughed at today as grandiose, perhaps even mystical or at least metaphysical. The practical concerns of life were in many ways beneath the dignity of "gentlemen" I think that is why I consider Adams and in many ways a greater statesman than Jefferson. Over time we came to look for statesmen who were down to earth and practical. If you said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." most people would think you rather radical. At the time however people saw tyrants everywhere and the enlightenment meant that the old social orders was not only to be questioned but violently overthrown. The fact that the "patriots" all had a different idea of what liberty meant was an inconvenient truth that had to be ignored for the greater good. We ended up with strong state rights because clearly some people were not worthy of liberty and sectarian issues couldn't be easily swept under the rug by a bit of fancy language.

 

We have always had to struggle with making the idealism of the constitution into practical law. I have always thought that the second amendment had more to do with state rights than liberty but what kind of union would it be if the constitution itself allowed for interstate warfare or armed resistance to the Federal government? At the very least nobody wanted a standing army they had to actually pay for. In the end you get a compromise in the language that comes across as vague and unworkable. The problem is that no matter how vague the language of the constitution is if we are a nation of law then we have to amend it or live by it. 227 years later we can say that it would be nice to know what well regulated means but it certainly doesn't imply self defence as several supreme courts have erroneously and for politically convenience interrupted it.

 

1 - If we are going to abide by the constitution then the legislation should protect fairly unrestricted private ownership of weapons capable of being used by a militia in a military capacity. The best we seem to be able to do on the well regulated part is to restrict weapons being available to the insane, the criminal element, and crazy anarchy groups. The last one nobody has figure out how to define so Black Panthers and the White supremacist get to be equally well armed.

 

2 - I have studied statistic from the U.S. and other nations and have concluded that there is no way that any regulation that conforms with the constitution will have much of an impact on gun violence. Even if you ignore the constitution and enforce strict gun control it would take decades for those regulations to have a noticeable effect. There are too many guns out there and only a small percentage of gun violence is related to things like school shootings. Most of the gun violence is drug related or at least gang related. The one area it would have a significant impact is suicide rates as guns are simply more lethal than a lot of other suicide attempts. Suicides are in fact a sizable percentage of gun deaths so I'm not saying that is important. What I am saying is that regulation is not a magic bullet and most likely not even a bandaid in terms of solving gun violence.

 

3 - If you look at countries where gun violence is low it was low before draconian anti gun laws were passed. The total number of reduced homicides is not all that great. If you only have 100 gun homicides a year and you reduce it to 50 on paper it looks like a remarkable 50 percent reduction and a huge accomplishment but is it?

 

Many people see the gun problem as the product of white guys with penis projection issues. In their mind it is the "gun culture" that is the problem as it is just one more example of a patriarchal society gone mad. The statistics simply don't support that view as most gun enthusiasts are not a homicidal group of people. The enthusiast surely are part of the well regulated problem as their distribution is unregulatable. I would argue however that there is already a huge black market distribution system in place that doesn't require legal private owners for it's maintenance. Like many aspects of the politically correct movement denigrations of gun owners may raise awareness but when it comes to practical solutions that don't have negative consequences I rate those efforts as nearly pointless.

 

I know I have painted a gloomy picture but I hope that people can take a more liberal or if you like libertarian perspective. I truly believe that it is the culture not guns that are the majority of the problem. It just isn't the part of the culture that many so called liberals want to believe it is. While I said that the politically correct movement efforts were pointless I meant only that part that irrational blames gun enthusiast for homicide rates. The number of smokers in the 4 - Over time it may even effect the way counter cultures like gangs view guns but that is much less likely. Social censure shouldn't just stop with twitter storms and protests or inflammatory speech which are of dubious value. Social censure requires that everyone take an active part in the problem. If you know a crazy person with a gun you need to tell the authorities. If you want gang violence to go down you may need to "rat out" you cousin. Complaining about a problem where there is such a divide of opinion and asking the government to fix it is not only likely to be ineffective it is not in our liberal democratic tradition.

 

One thing that concerns me is how social censure could start to look like the kind of informer culture that so undermined the social fabric of the soviet union. I have reviewed the Blank Lives Matter platform and it sounds more like negotiations with an occupying army than community involvement. If petty criminals arm themselves because they are afraid of the police things look a lot more gloomy. Even worse for many people discriminating between the criminal or insane and the misguided is a difficult task that threatens individual liberty.

 

I would love to hear other peoples ideas on how to make community involvement and social censure work?

1 - This does not directly answer the question I asked. Is the 2nd Amendment limiting in how a individual or militia practices security?

 

2 - Changes to any number of laws takes decades to have an impact. How is that a reason for doing nothing?

 

3 - Can you list the daconian anti gun laws myself of the other forum members in this thread have advocated for?

 

4 - USA has the highest prison population in the world and in one of the world leaders in execution. We (USA) do not have a kids glove approach to gangs or criminals in general. How much tougher would you like to see us get?

[waitforufo]

I'm admittedly confused by this comment. At first glance, it seems contrary to the stance you've been arguing. Specifcally, you've been saying rights come from nature, yet here you acknowledge that rights are an issue of law (as others have been arguing in response to your posts).

 

Maybe it's a little bit of both? Your mention of "acts of God" being a valid consideration in liability suggests you may be thinking that rights pre-exist laws even though laws often shape or limit those rights in practice. Is that fair, or did I totally miss the mark?

 

I just want to understand where you're coming from. I'm pretty sure we all have a ton of overlap in our thinking on this topic, even though brevity in our posts and peripheral issues sometimes occlude that consensus.

 

When I was in school, we could buy a keg after selling our books back. With how much books cost today (which is both insane and off-topic), one could probably buy a whole condo!

I have been speaking of natural rights. When the declaration speaks of "Laws of Nature", natural rights are spawned from those laws of nature, not the laws of man. That is why rights are inalienable and natural. When the law speaks of "acts of god" the law is simply saying "not caused or brought about by any person or persons." So in liability law, no person or persons are to blame. In the case of rights, since they were not brought about by any person or persons, they can not be changed by any person or persons.

 

When the declaration speaks of "Laws of Nature" it is not speaking of gravity or Maxwell's equations.

 

Edit-------

Perhaps a bit of a correction is needed for that last comment. The founders, being influenced by the philosophy of the enlightenment, considered the rights of man to be as much a part of the laws of nature as gravity and the other physical laws. So asking where do natural rights come from is exactly the same as asking where does gravity come from.

Edited October 30, 2015 by waitforufo

[iNow]

I guess my point is that source is less relevant than application. We have countless examples of rights being limited or prohibited. Isn't the latter the more relevant area to discuss?

The source of gravity is (AFAIK) spacetime curvature, but that doesn't mean we can't reasonably discuss ways to do smart things without it limiting us (such as flight and space missions).

Likewise, even if we concede nature is the source of our rights, we can still reasonably discuss ways to do smart things to limit them or ensure their exercise doesn't adversely affect the ability of another individual to exercise theirs.

[waitforufo]

I guess my point is that source is less relevant than application. We have countless examples of rights being limited or prohibited. Isn't the latter the more relevant area to discuss?

 

 

The source is important because it sets limits on restricting rights. If my rights are part of my being, then I cannot fully be myself with out my ability to enjoy my rights.

The source of gravity is (AFAIK) spacetime curvature, but that doesn't mean we can't reasonably discuss ways to do smart things without it limiting us (such as flight and space missions).

My understanding is that spacetime curvature is the effect of gravity not the cause. Maybe I'm wrong. Saying masses attract does not give an explanation as why they attract, just that they do. Knowing the effects of gravity is what helps us do smart things knowing the source is unimportant.

 

Likewise, even if we concede nature is the source of our rights, we can still reasonably discuss ways to do smart things to limit them or ensure their exercise doesn't adversely affect the ability of another individual to exercise theirs.

Justice requires that we work to maximize the rights of all individuals.

[Wolfhnd]

1 - This does not directly answer the question I asked. Is the 2nd Amendment limiting in how a individual or militia practices security?

 

2 - Changes to any number of laws takes decades to have an impact. How is that a reason for doing nothing?

 

3 - Can you list the daconian anti gun laws myself of the other forum members in this thread have advocated for?

 

4 - USA has the highest prison population in the world and in one of the world leaders in execution. We (USA) do not have a kids glove approach to gangs or criminals in general. How much tougher would you like to see us get?

 

1 The 2nd amendment limits a militia to being well regulated.

 

2 A decade of prohibition has little or no effect on the problem it was designed to solve and created new problems. In many ways the War on Drugs has a similar history. In both cases criminal gangs were or are the major beneficiaries of those laws. Prohibitionist gun laws in our culture seem likely to have the same effect. While I stated that strict gun laws in other countries took a decade or more to have a significant effect I was only discounting gun regulation as an instant fix to the problem. Reasonable people of course would not expect instant results and should not be a barrier to regulation. The area where those regulations are likely to work however remains a small part of the problem. Decades of prohibition and drug enforcement has proven however to not diminish gang activity. It is gang activity where the greatest proportion of gun violence happens. Going back to the experience of other countries the data clearly shows that the level of gang violence and gun violence in particular was never a significant problem in relative terms. Ignoring culture differences we are probably comparing apples and oranges so even the small reduction in overall murder rates is unlikely to be reproduced.

 

3 Draconian gun laws were meant as a hypothetical not in reference to previous post and what is clear from the data is that places like Washington D.C. that have stricter gun laws do not see a corresponding reduction in gun violence. To be effect the evidence suggest that regulation would need to include draconian measures such as unrestricted stop and frisk and other warrantless searches. Perhaps more importantly the existing regulation clearly violate the spirit of the second amendment as a militia would necessarily need military weapons. I'm not advocating the free distribution of military weapons only pointing out that considerable compromise has already taken place.

 

4 I don't recall advocating a tougher enforcement and incarceration regime?

 

You asked I answered but I get the impression that you want a debate. I would be more interested in having you discuss the question I posed but it's alright either way.

[iNow]

The source is important because it sets limits on restricting rights. If my rights are part of my being, then I cannot fully be myself with out my ability to enjoy my rights.

Conceptually, I both understand and agree. However, I find myself feeling unsatisfied, almost as if this is a tautology. The moment we drill-down from the ethereal idea of "my" rights into the more practicable and actionable concept of my "specific" rights, everything changes. I think this is what others in the thread have been attempting to convey with their responses to you.

 

Said another way, we can agree that all humans are granted certain rights from nature, but it is still humans who must collectively agree upon what those actual rights are and where their boundaries exist. To use your example, we can agree on the right to self-defense, but the next step is to find a balance about what that means (carrying knives, metal pipes, handguns, long guns, grenades, RPGs, missiles, explosives, fissile materials, etc.).

 

It's never some open ended blank check without limit. Clearly, a line is always drawn somewhere, regardless of the source of the right. It's the location of said line that matters, and it's absurd to argue no such line exists.

Edited October 31, 2015 by iNow

[waitforufo]

Conceptually, I both understand and agree. However, I find myself feeling unsatisfied, almost as if this is a tautology. The moment we drill-down from the ethereal idea of "my" rights into the more practicable and actionable concept of my "specific" rights, everything changes. I think this is what others in the thread have been attempting to convey with their responses to you.

 

Said another way, we can agree that all humans are granted certain rights from nature, but it is still humans who must collectively agree upon what those actual rights are and where their boundaries exist. To use your example, we can agree on the right to self-defense, but the next step is to find a balance about what that means (carrying knives, metal pipes, handguns, long guns, grenades, RPGs, missiles, explosives, fissile materials, etc.).

 

It's never some open ended blank check without limit. Clearly, a line is always drawn somewhere, regardless of the source of the right. It's the location of said line that matters, and it's absurd to argue no such line exists.

You write as if it is not already a crime to cross that line. Why should my rights be restricted if I never cross that line? I should not be prevented from exercising the rights of my nature because some choose to abuse the rights of others. I am not abusing the rights of others. Why should I be punished because of the criminal acts of others? Am I not innocent until proven guilty?

[iNow]

You misunderstand. This isn't about crossing a line. It's about where the line itself gets placed.

[swansont]

You write as if it is not already a crime to cross that line. Why should my rights be restricted if I never cross that line? I should not be prevented from exercising the rights of my nature because some choose to abuse the rights of others. I am not abusing the rights of others. Why should I be punished because of the criminal acts of others? Am I not innocent until proven guilty?

 

What's a crime, if we have all these rights?

 

Ther's a huge difference between natural rights and physical laws if you want to claim that the all stem from the laws of nature. We can decide to defy rights, or place limits on them (by granting power to the government to make laws), and then break those laws. Not so with physical law.

 

We in the US have our rights because we decided we should have them, and had the power to make that decision. Other people can make different decisions, or not be empowered to choose, and therefore have different rights.

[Ten oz]

 

1 The 2nd amendment limits a militia to being well regulated.

 

2 A decade of prohibition has little or no effect on the problem it was designed to solve and created new problems. In many ways the War on Drugs has a similar history. In both cases criminal gangs were or are the major beneficiaries of those laws. Prohibitionist gun laws in our culture seem likely to have the same effect. While I stated that strict gun laws in other countries took a decade or more to have a significant effect I was only discounting gun regulation as an instant fix to the problem. Reasonable people of course would not expect instant results and should not be a barrier to regulation. The area where those regulations are likely to work however remains a small part of the problem. Decades of prohibition and drug enforcement has proven however to not diminish gang activity. It is gang activity where the greatest proportion of gun violence happens. Going back to the experience of other countries the data clearly shows that the level of gang violence and gun violence in particular was never a significant problem in relative terms. Ignoring culture differences we are probably comparing apples and oranges so even the small reduction in overall murder rates is unlikely to be reproduced.

 

3 Draconian gun laws were meant as a hypothetical not in reference to previous post and what is clear from the data is that places like Washington D.C. that have stricter gun laws do not see a corresponding reduction in gun violence. To be effect the evidence suggest that regulation would need to include draconian measures such as unrestricted stop and frisk and other warrantless searches. Perhaps more importantly the existing regulation clearly violate the spirit of the second amendment as a militia would necessarily need military weapons. I'm not advocating the free distribution of military weapons only pointing out that considerable compromise has already taken place.

 

4 I don't recall advocating a tougher enforcement and incarceration regime?

 

You asked I answered but I get the impression that you want a debate. I would be more interested in having you discuss the question I posed but it's alright either way.

I am not looking for a debate. I just don't make the connection between "well regulated" and arms used people or militia being strictly limited to a specific type. I think we all agree that the objective of the 2nd admendment was to empower local populations with the ability to police and protect themselves. During the war for independences people & militia were not limited to only using guns.

 

Washington D.C. is a city with highways and public transportation that connects it to other cities which do not share its gun laws. It renders their laws pointless. I have not implied DC's is a model which should be used.

 

I mentioned our prison system because you talked about gangs and culture and the need to "rat-out" and "tell the authorities". It follows that by ratting someone out or reporting someone to authorities the police would then be involve and legal action would follow. My point was that what you suggested is already happening in this country. It is hard for me to imagine the police being any more involved than they already are.

[Wolfhnd]

I am not looking for a debate. I just don't make the connection between "well regulated" and arms used people or militia being strictly limited to a specific type. I think we all agree that the objective of the 2nd admendment was to empower local populations with the ability to police and protect themselves. During the war for independences people & militia were not limited to only using guns.

 

Washington D.C. is a city with highways and public transportation that connects it to other cities which do not share its gun laws. It renders their laws pointless. I have not implied DC's is a model which should be used.

 

I mentioned our prison system because you talked about gangs and culture and the need to "rat-out" and "tell the authorities". It follows that by ratting someone out or reporting someone to authorities the police would then be involve and legal action would follow. My point was that what you suggested is already happening in this country. It is hard for me to imagine the police being any more involved than they already are.

 

I don't agree that the "2nd amendment was to empower local populations with the ability to police and protect themselves" taken out of historical perspective you could come to that conclusion but I think it is a shallow explanation. It's complicated but there are several factors that dominate. People did not want to pay for a standing army, people were concerned that a standing army would be used to establish a dictatorship, the already existing division between the north and the south made state rights a central issue, people at the time felt strongly that an unjust government was rightfully subject to armed revolt, there is no mention of people protecting themselves it only mentions the security of the free state, well regulated and militia means it is not a personal right but a collective, individual ownership and control were necessary to prevent the state from disarming the militia, that there is no mention of self protection means it was concerned with military not private matters etc.

 

The argument that "Washington D.C. is a city with highways and public transportation that connects it to other cities which do not share its gun laws. It renders their laws pointless" is equally applicable to the country not being isolated from the rest of the world. In countries where private ownership of weapons is not allowed there has been many instances where the black market was able to supply the demand.

 

This statement "It is hard for me to imagine the police being any more involved than they already are" completely turns the point I was making on it's head as I was talking about community involvement. There are severe impediments to community involvement however when many of the laws that are to be inforced don't have the active support of the citizens. I would point to marijuana as an example but other drugs are also widely used even though they are illegal producing a sizable chunk of the over incarceration you mentioned.

 

If you want more regulation then do it the right way and amend the constitution. Keep in mind however that our security doesn't come from the government but from the cooperation of the majority of citizens. You need only look at the constitution of the Soviet Union to see that Laws are only as good as the faithfulness of those that enforce them and the ability of the population to resist abuses. Russia has always been amenable to top down authority and in many ways the people comfortable moved from the czarist dictatorship to the Stalinist dictatorship. In contrast the culture of the U.S. has always been to some degree hostile to authority which explains to some degree the relative violence in the U.S. compared to places like England. Even the U.S. constitution reflects a strong distrust of central authority. A mistrust of authority is likely to always lead to a degree of lawlessness because law enforcement is largely dependent on the participation of the population.

[Ten oz]

 

I don't agree that the "2nd amendment was to empower local populations with the ability to police and protect themselves" taken out of historical perspective you could come to that conclusion but I think it is a shallow explanation. It's complicated but there are several factors that dominate. People did not want to pay for a standing army, people were concerned that a standing army would be used to establish a dictatorship, the already existing division between the north and the south made state rights a central issue, people at the time felt strongly that an unjust government was rightfully subject to armed revolt, there is no mention of people protecting themselves it only mentions the security of the free state, well regulated and militia means it is not a personal right but a collective, individual ownership and control were necessary to prevent the state from disarming the militia, that there is no mention of self protection means it was concerned with military not private matters etc.

 

The argument that "Washington D.C. is a city with highways and public transportation that connects it to other cities which do not share its gun laws. It renders their laws pointless" is equally applicable to the country not being isolated from the rest of the world. In countries where private ownership of weapons is not allowed there has been many instances where the black market was able to supply the demand.

 

This statement "It is hard for me to imagine the police being any more involved than they already are" completely turns the point I was making on it's head as I was talking about community involvement. There are severe impediments to community involvement however when many of the laws that are to be inforced don't have the active support of the citizens. I would point to marijuana as an example but other drugs are also widely used even though they are illegal producing a sizable chunk of the over incarceration you mentioned.

 

If you want more regulation then do it the right way and amend the constitution. Keep in mind however that our security doesn't come from the government but from the cooperation of the majority of citizens. You need only look at the constitution of the Soviet Union to see that Laws are only as good as the faithfulness of those that enforce them and the ability of the population to resist abuses. Russia has always been amenable to top down authority and in many ways the people comfortable moved from the czarist dictatorship to the Stalinist dictatorship. In contrast the culture of the U.S. has always been to some degree hostile to authority which explains to some degree the relative violence in the U.S. compared to places like England. Even the U.S. constitution reflects a strong distrust of central authority. A mistrust of authority is likely to always lead to a degree of lawlessness because law enforcement is largely dependent on the participation of the population.

You provided some of the reasons why the 2nd Amendment empowers local populations. I do not disagree with any of if. In context to when the 2nd Amendment was written people were distrustful of centerlized power. States and local communities were left with the ability to enforce law and protect their lands. The question I have asked and thus far hasn't been addressed is how the 2nd Amemndment limits the right to arms? When discussing arms the debate is always about guns. However guns are not the only arms used by militia's or groups protecting the security of a state.

 

You mention black markets yet that is not the source of guns in this country. While it would be possible to ship guns in from russia or some place that currently isn't a problem. Aslo, those guns would be far more expensive to purchase than the mass produced ones people currently get. The extra expense itself would limit the number of people who had access. However I have not called for a gun ban. So it is a meaningless dicussion to get drawn into. Washington DC is not a model I have suggested would work nationally.

 

I feel your community remarks reflect a somewhat classist view. There are over a million local law enforcement officers in the united states. Over million military and federal law enforcement members. There are tens of millions of teachers, bus drives, firefighters, pilots, engineers, and etc. They are community members when they go home from work. I assume when you mention severe impediments to community involvement these millions mentioned are not who you have in mind? Yet our governements on the local, state, and federal levels are elected by us. Our laws and how they are enforced are chosen by us. I don't feel "community" can be used to single a sub sections of our population out. Especially when discussing something as wide spread and coast to coast as guns. There is not a town in this country that does not have guns.

 

"If you want more regulation then do it the right way and amend the constitution", what regulations have I advocated?

Edited November 1, 2015 by Ten oz

[overtone]

The question I have asked and thus far hasn't been addressed is how the 2nd Amemndment limits the right to arms?

It's been addressed many times: 1) it pertains to the arms that an ordinary person (one of "the people") can "keep and bear", and that are necessary for a "militia" to be "well regulated"; and it can be restricted on the same grounds any other Constitutional right can be restricted - by the consideration of, in the first and most obvious place, the other Constitutional rights equivalently established, and also the actual and significant infringement on the keeping and bearing (a matter of factual determination rather than theory, as with "separate but equal").

 

A well regulated militia might not have much use for handguns, for example, or truck mounted 50 calibers in private hands (in any effective quantity they would have to be in some kind of central garage). These are matters of fact, to be determined by a Court if challenged.

 

 

You mention black markets yet that is not the source of guns in this country.

And you really don't want them to be. You don't want Mexico in Texas and California.

 

You might not like the people who drink whiskey, shoot guns, or smoke weed, but there are a lot of them in this country.

 

 

 

1 The 2nd amendment limits a militia to being well regulated.

The 2nd Amendment places no limits on what a militia is or could be, considering the word to be a common and well understood term - as it was, at the time.

 

 

 

I sure what they intended was that they didn't want militias to become armed mobs every time a local population didn't like some law that had just been passed.

Not at all. That wasn't the worry - as they discuss, the worry was that the pretext of unruly peasants could be used by a central government to disarm them, as they had seen was the common practice of central governments. Edited November 1, 2015 by overtone