Second Amendment Repeal / Gun Control

[Draakonite]

Indeed. Self defense in an inherent human right, regardless of what the Second Amendment say. In fact, the right precedes its enumeration.

Self defence is a right, with all the same limitations that other rights have as well. When your right to self defence collides with another person's right to life, which one should give way first? Lethal force should only be an acceptable defence against lethal force. Against anything other than that, it's a violation of another human being's rights.

It's hard to evaluate if your attacker uses lethal force or not, while you are attacked.

[Big Jim P]

Why not? Police are not everywhere and can not arrive in time to intervene in all cases, they may not even make it a priority to intervene in some cases.

The right to self defense can not be taken away, and the best form of protection for an individual is a firearm.

Depends on the area, or State, and whether or not said government is capable of defending you.

Although in general, the right to self defense is not synonymous with the right to bear firearms. Since the most dangerous home-invader most people in the developed world have to be cautious of is girl-scouts selling cookies, firearms as a means of defense is a bit excessive.

Girl scouts selling cookies is not home invasion.

[Big Jim P]

Self defence is a right, with all the same limitations that other rights have as well. When your right to self defence collides with another person's right to life, which one should give way first? Lethal force should only be an acceptable defence against lethal force. Against anything other than that, it's a violation of another human being's rights.

It's hard to evaluate if your attacker uses lethal force or not, while you are attacked.

Then you have a reasonable fear that it does, and this ignores "grievous bodily harm", which also justifies lethal force.

[Sanctissima]

Depends on the area, or State, and whether or not said government is capable of defending you.

Although in general, the right to self defense is not synonymous with the right to bear firearms. Since the most dangerous home-invader most people in the developed world have to be cautious of is girl-scouts selling cookies, firearms as a means of defense is a bit excessive.

Girl scouts selling cookies is not home invasion.

Precisely.

Welcome to reality. It's gun-free, please stay a while.

[Draakonite]

Why not? Police are not everywhere and can not arrive in time to intervene in all cases, they may not even make it a priority to intervene in some cases.

The right to self defense can not be taken away, and the best form of protection for an individual is a firearm.

Depends on the area, or State, and whether or not said government is capable of defending you.

Although in general, the right to self defense is not synonymous with the right to bear firearms. Since the most dangerous home-invader most people in the developed world have to be cautious of is girl-scouts selling cookies, firearms as a means of defense is a bit excessive.

The US counts as developed.
Theres still situations of people breaking into homes and murdering everyone. Some even without a economoical cause. As long as the police doesn't have teleporters, i think that the population should have the means to defend themselves.

[Big Jim P]

Girl scouts selling cookies is not home invasion.

Precisely.

Welcome to reality. It's gun-free, please stay a while.

Reality is hardly gun-free, and never will be. As long as that is the case, then it is ludicrous to restrict the rights of lawful gun owners, as all that does is leave the guns in the wrong hands.

[Infected Mushroom]

That seems to say to me, ''Since a well regulated militia of citizens is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear weapons shall not be infringed.''

The main problem is... they were Wrong. Factually. Many countries continue to survive and be ''free'' without a ''well regulated militia.'' Is the UK not free because it doesn't have a ''well regulated militia''? Is France not? How about Japan?

This is a very ridiculous and somewhat shameful thing to have on a constitution because it is FACTUALLY wrong. Its not even an aesthetic statement; its making a grand claim about what is NECESSARY and that claim has been shown time and time against to be factually wrong. Its presumptively Wrong.

So HALF of the 2nd Amendment, is literally a nonsense.

So my first objection to it... I don't like the way it is written at all. It might as have said ''The Earth... being flat... the right to paint the Earth as flat shall not be infringed upon.'' What would you do with THAT if it were in the Constitution?

Now the legal issue is whether or not the first part is a condition precedent or serves as merely an interpretative guide (with limiting capabilities) or mere puffery. Clearly, a literal interpretation goes out the window because then you have an immediate problem of the law not making sense after having just read half of the sentence (it is factually no longer the case (if it ever was), that a militia is necessary or close to necessary to have a free state).

If its a condition precedent, then it would be taken to mean ''Only so long as it remains the case that militias are necessary or close to being necessary for the preservation of a free state... shall the rights of the citizenry to bear arms be assuredly NOT be infringed upon.''

If its an interpretative guidance, then it would go ''The reason we came up with this is because at the time we were worried about whether or not we needed militias in the future. Now court... go change it, limit it, expand it or whatever keeping this purpose in mind and just do... well whatever is a reasonable departure from this. I dunno.''

If its just puffery.... then it would go ''It sounded cool, let's just add it in. It has as much impact as if we had said Given Its Epicness as the opening instead. It was not meant to have any binding impact whatsoever.''

If I had to guess?

I think the Courts LIKE the second approach because it gives them the most power to change the scope of the Amendment to conform with their own ideals of justice and their own agenda.

However, if I had to guess WHY the writers actually put it in and what went through their heads when they did it, I'd say its the first interpretation (its really conditional). They put it in, thinking ''Well we better have it so long as it makes sense to have it... but we're in such a hurry that we could have drafted it better but meh.''

I am fairly certain the Founders did NOT mean... ''No matter what happens, no one shall ever have the right to touch anyone's guns... EVAH''

Mushy, you've misinterpreted the whole point of my post.

I was saying that if the liberty to bear firearms be recognized, so ought be the liberty to bear melée and blunt weapons.

And no, I don't think that the liberty to bear arms is absolute; as with any other liberty, it is subject to restriction and interpretation by legislation, which the Congress of the USA have, from time to time, enacted as statutory law.

If it were up to me, I'd strike it down for bad drafting.

______________

If someone read it to me...

Reader: ''''A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State-''

Me: STOP... STOP READING! We have to rewrite it. That's a blatant falsehood. It is NOT necessary, we've already hit Nonsense, its struck down. The Amendment won't be given effect at all because half of it states a blatant falsehood as a fact.

________________

Then if the people or some leader really wants to amend the Constitution again to add something that makes cohesive sense by itself, we can go from there (if they can't agree on a new wording, then we don't need it anymore).

Here's one example where it can be logically drafted:

''Subject to interpretation by the courts in consideration of other Amendments to the Constitution, there shall be a limited right by American citizens to enjoy the freedom to possess and use firearms. This right can be modified within constitutional bounds by the legislature so long as it is justifiable by principles that are in concordance with the spirit of American democracy.''

See, its not so hard.

Then they have carte blanche to do whatever they want from there except outright get rid of the right.

Courts will have a field day doing whatever they want to make it work in today's society and we can dispense with this whole nonsensical debate about what the Founding Fathers intended.

It doesn't even matter. If they can't write proper laws and are so bad with words then why should we care what they wanted? If the provision at face value is Nonsense, it should be treated as such.

[Themiclesia]

Precisely.

Welcome to reality. It's gun-free, please stay a while.

Reality is hardly gun-free, and never will be. As long as that is the case, then it is ludicrous to restrict the rights of lawful gun owners, as all that does is leave the guns in the wrong hands.

We've been through this. Legislation can't be enacted with the assumption that it is going to be broken; that would be an insincere legislation.

[Jamzmania]

Mushy, you've misinterpreted the whole point of my post.

I was saying that if the liberty to bear firearms be recognized, so ought be the liberty to bear melée and blunt weapons.

And no, I don't think that the liberty to bear arms is absolute; as with any other liberty, it is subject to restriction and interpretation by legislation, which the Congress of the USA have, from time to time, enacted as statutory law.

If it were up to me, I'd strike it down for bad drafting.

______________

If someone read it to me...

Reader: ''''A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State-''

Me: STOP... STOP READING! We have to rewrite it. That's a blatant falsehood. It is NOT necessary, we've already hit Nonsense, its struck down. The Amendment won't be given effect at all because half of it states a blatant falsehood as a fact.

________________

Then if the people or some leader really wants to amend the Constitution again to add something that makes cohesive sense by itself, we can go from there (if they can't agree on a new wording, then we don't need it anymore).

Here's one example where it can be logically drafted:

''Subject to interpretation by the courts in consideration of other Amendments to the Constitution, there shall be a limited right by American citizens to enjoy the freedom to possess and use firearms. This right can be modified within constitutional bounds by the legislature so long as it is justifiable by principles that are in concordance with the spirit of American democracy.''

See, its not so hard.

Then they have carte blanche to do whatever they want from there except outright get rid of the right.

Courts will have a field day doing whatever they want to make it work in today's society and we can dispense with this whole nonsensical debate about what the Founding Fathers intended.

It doesn't even matter. If they can't write proper laws and are so bad with words then why should we care what they wanted? If the provision at face value is Nonsense, it should be treated as such.

You realize not all militias are random dudes running around with guns, right? The armed forces of a state could be defined as a militia. The National Guard, I believe, is defined as a militia. I'd say those are pretty necessary to the security of a free state.

[Themiclesia]

I thought historically the peasant levies counted as militias?

[O Verona]

Culturally, I say no, for obvious reasons.

Morally, I say yes. No individual has the right to take life; it is why doing so is fitted with a criminal charge. Therefore a gun, made for the sole purpose of taking life, should not be some common tool.

[Jamzmania]

Culturally, I say no, for obvious reasons.

Morally, I say yes. No individual has the right to take life; it is why doing so is fitted with a criminal charge. Therefore a gun, made for the sole purpose of taking life, should not be some common tool.

Once again, many guns are not made to take lives.

[O Verona]

Culturally, I say no, for obvious reasons.

Morally, I say yes. No individual has the right to take life; it is why doing so is fitted with a criminal charge. Therefore a gun, made for the sole purpose of taking life, should not be some common tool.

Once again, many guns are not made to take lives.

BB guns, airsoft guns, nerf guns, 'cap' guns, of course. Hopefully you don't think I'm including toys.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

I used to be firmly anti-gun (because guns enabled school shootings) but now I am no longer sure.

After having watched movies like Django and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly... I have a feeling that guns may be too cool to get done away with. America simply wouldn't be America aesthetically and existentially without guns. Its a part of the culture.

Also, it would be cool if I were allowed to walk around with a six shooter myself (for my own self-defence). How many times have we watched a horror movie where the villain was a masked killer with a knife and thought... ''Well if only the main character had a gun.''

I think there may be some merit to the self-defence arguments.

How many opinions do you have that aren't based on movies?

[Jamzmania]

Once again, many guns are not made to take lives.

BB guns, airsoft guns, nerf guns, 'cap' guns, of course. Hopefully you don't think I'm including toys.

I'll point to the common example of target shooters -- of which there are many.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Once again, many guns are not made to take lives.

BB guns, airsoft guns, nerf guns, 'cap' guns, of course. Hopefully you don't think I'm including toys.

Were you aware that of the estimated (and this is assumed to be low) 300,000,000 firearms in the US, less than .001% are used to take peoples lives (see spoiler below)?

It's rather stupid to think that something was solely made for something when it doesn't do that thing in anything resembling even a significant minority of cases.

2013:
Homocides by firearm: 8,454
Suicides by firearm: 21,175
Total: 29629
Number of firearms: Est. 300,000,000

Assuming every single one of those 29629 deaths is caused by a separate firearm (an assumption that is NOT correct), .0000987 % of firearms are used to kill someone.
So I should have said 'less than .0001% are used to take peoples lives'.

[West Hudson]

The Second Amendment is fine. The problem is maniacs getting weapons, not the weapons themselves.

So true.

[Spirit of Hope]

Why not? Police are not everywhere and can not arrive in time to intervene in all cases, they may not even make it a priority to intervene in some cases.

The right to self defense can not be taken away, and the best form of protection for an individual is a firearm.

Depends on the area, or State, and whether or not said government is capable of defending you.

Although in general, the right to self defense is not synonymous with the right to bear firearms. Since the most dangerous home-invader most people in the developed world have to be cautious of is girl-scouts selling cookies, firearms as a means of defense is a bit excessive.

1) True , firearms does not = self defense, they are just the most effective means of self defense.

2) Girl Scouts aren't home invaders. Home invasion is an actual danger, as are muggings and other criminal activities.

3) How? Firearms allow you to defend yourself from a distance without getting close. This means you dramatically reduce your own danger.

Indeed. Self defense in an inherent human right, regardless of what the Second Amendment say. In fact, the right precedes its enumeration.

Self defence is a right, with all the same limitations that other rights have as well. When your right to self defence collides with another person's right to life, which one should give way first? Lethal force should only be an acceptable defence against lethal force. Against anything other than that, it's a violation of another human being's rights.

Where did I ever say self defense allowed you to kill someone without a reason? Use of lethal force is only applicable if you have a reasonable fear of life and limb.

Girl scouts selling cookies is not home invasion.

Precisely.

Welcome to reality. It's gun-free, please stay a while.

There are 300 million guns in the United States. Hardly gun free.

Culturally, I say no, for obvious reasons.

Morally, I say yes. No individual has the right to take life; it is why doing so is fitted with a criminal charge. Therefore a gun, made for the sole purpose of taking life, should not be some common tool.

As noted guns do not have the sole purpose of taking a life.

Secondly there are situations where an individual may be required to take another persons life to protect themselves.

[Infected Mushroom]

I used to be firmly anti-gun (because guns enabled school shootings) but now I am no longer sure.

After having watched movies like Django and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly... I have a feeling that guns may be too cool to get done away with. America simply wouldn't be America aesthetically and existentially without guns. Its a part of the culture.

Also, it would be cool if I were allowed to walk around with a six shooter myself (for my own self-defence). How many times have we watched a horror movie where the villain was a masked killer with a knife and thought... ''Well if only the main character had a gun.''

I think there may be some merit to the self-defence arguments.

How many opinions do you have that aren't based on movies?

how do you quantify opinions (I find that within each ''single'' opinion is wrapped a number of others)?

[The Empire of Pretantia]

How many opinions do you have that aren't based on movies?

how do you quantify opinions?

With science!

But seriously, don't base your opinion on what you see in movies.

[Infected Mushroom]

how do you quantify opinions?

With science!

But seriously, don't base your opinion on what you see in movies.

on the whole I find them very educational

I try to maximise each viewing experience...

[The Empire of Pretantia]

With science!

But seriously, don't base your opinion on what you see in movies.

on the whole I find them very educational

I try to maximise each viewing experience...

/Definitely sarcasm

Moving on.

[Big Jim P]

Reality is hardly gun-free, and never will be. As long as that is the case, then it is ludicrous to restrict the rights of lawful gun owners, as all that does is leave the guns in the wrong hands.

We've been through this. Legislation can't be enacted with the assumption that it is going to be broken; that would be an insincere legislation.

Which has nothing to do with what I posted.

[Big Jim P]

If it were up to me, I'd strike it down for bad drafting.

______________

If someone read it to me...

Reader: ''''A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State-''

Me: STOP... STOP READING! We have to rewrite it. That's a blatant falsehood. It is NOT necessary, we've already hit Nonsense, its struck down. The Amendment won't be given effect at all because half of it states a blatant falsehood as a fact.

________________

Then if the people or some leader really wants to amend the Constitution again to add something that makes cohesive sense by itself, we can go from there (if they can't agree on a new wording, then we don't need it anymore).

Here's one example where it can be logically drafted:

''Subject to interpretation by the courts in consideration of other Amendments to the Constitution, there shall be a limited right by American citizens to enjoy the freedom to possess and use firearms. This right can be modified within constitutional bounds by the legislature so long as it is justifiable by principles that are in concordance with the spirit of American democracy.''

See, its not so hard.

Then they have carte blanche to do whatever they want from there except outright get rid of the right.

Courts will have a field day doing whatever they want to make it work in today's society and we can dispense with this whole nonsensical debate about what the Founding Fathers intended.

It doesn't even matter. If they can't write proper laws and are so bad with words then why should we care what they wanted? If the provision at face value is Nonsense, it should be treated as such.

You realize not all militias are random dudes running around with guns, right? The armed forces of a state could be defined as a militia. The National Guard, I believe, is defined as a militia. I'd say those are pretty necessary to the security of a free state.

Constitutionally, the militia is every able-bodied adult (technically, only males).

[Big Jim P]

Culturally, I say no, for obvious reasons.

Morally, I say yes. No individual has the right to take life; it is why doing so is fitted with a criminal charge. Therefore a gun, made for the sole purpose of taking life, should not be some common tool.

In some circumstance (self defense for instance) they do have that right, and guns have other purposes besides killing.

Edit: and not all killing is wrong, nor is it the purpose in using a gun in self defense. It is a likely outcome, but not the purpose.