crickets...

[spence]

Originally Posted by ReelinRod

The AR platform meets the 2nd Amendment protection criteria established by SCOTUS better than any other type of firearm.

That criteria is, to boil it down, how well the gun performs in battle, IOW, killing people. To have the possession and use of the gun protected, the gun must be of a type:

In common use at the time by the general citizenry and that constitute the ordinary military equipment and/or that can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.

This protection criteria is a direct outcome of the "right to arms" being linked to militia service.

It has been the intransigence of the collectivist left that has kept the right connected to militia usefulness while the gun rights side has been trying to separate the two for 3/4 of a century now.

Are you saying now, that you want to reinterpret the 2nd Amendment so the right to arms can be formally divorced from any militia usefulness standard for arms protection, while you promise that we would be allowed to keep some sporting arms and others that don't offend you?

Why would we (gun rights people) accept such a disingenuous premise? Do you really think you speak from a position of trust, tolerance and respect on the subject of preservation of rights? You obviously hold my rights in disdain and contempt so pardon me while I tell you to KMA.

Thanks for your concern about my manhood and my outlook for the future but I'll just retain my rights, all of them in their current condition, with hopes for expansion.

Such spin. The early cases your referring to were decisions in context of militias. Later individual rights cases made no such argument.

This is a complex issue with many opinions and legal contradictions. It's a work in process.

To claim its black and white is just disengenuous.
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Such spin. The early cases your referring to were decisions in context of militias. Later individual rights cases made no such argument.

This is a complex issue with many opinions and legal contradictions. It's a work in process.

To claim its black and white is just disengenuous.
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You're spin is disingenuous.

[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by spence

Such spin. The early cases your referring to were decisions in context of militias. Later individual rights cases made no such argument.

The Supreme Court has never endorsed a militia dependent right. The right has always been recognized by SCOTUS to be possessed by individual citizens independent of any militia enrollment status or attchment.

Your chronology is backwards. The "militia right" and "state's right" interpretations first appeared in the federal courts in 1942 in two lower (Circuit) court cases. Those two opinions spun US v Miller (1939) on its head and ignored /dismissed the determinations of SCOTUS to arrive at these new "collective right" interpretations.

Those theories held sway in the lower federal courts and state courts until DC v Heller in 2008, where SCOTUS re-affirmed the individual right, relied on US v Cruikshank (1876) and Miller's precedent -- one prong of Miller's protection criteria (in common use) -- to invalidate DC's statutes and 66 years of lower federal court perversions.

Originally Posted by spence

This is a complex issue with many opinions and legal contradictions. It's a work in process.

I agree. It will take decades to unwind the dozens of mid-20th Century lower federal court and state court decisions that sustained hundreds of unconstitutional gun control laws.

Originally Posted by spence

To claim its black and white is just disengenuous.

Says the guy that says a true examination of the issue is TLDR.

[Got Stripers]

Originally Posted by ReelinRod

The Supreme Court has never endorsed a militia dependent right. The right has always been recognized by SCOTUS to be possessed by individual citizens independent of any militia enrollment status or attchment.

Your chronology is backwards. The "militia right" and "state's right" interpretations first appeared in the federal courts in 1942 in two lower (Circuit) court cases. Those two opinions spun US v Miller (1939) on its head and ignored /dismissed the determinations of SCOTUS to arrive at these new "collective right" interpretations.

Those theories held sway in the lower federal courts and state courts until DC v Heller in 2008, where SCOTUS re-affirmed the individual right, relied on US v Cruikshank (1876) and Miller's precedent -- one prong of Miller's protection criteria (in common use) -- to invalidate DC's statutes and 66 years of lower federal court perversions.



I agree. It will take decades to unwind the dozens of mid-20th Century lower federal court and state court decisions that sustained hundreds of unconstitutional gun control laws.



Says the guy that says a true examination of the issue is TLDR.

And what year is it now?

[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

And what year is it now?

Who exactly is empowered to decide that certain clauses of the Constitution have reached an expiration date and get thrown in the dumpster?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by ReelinRod

Who exactly is empowered to decide that certain clauses of the Constitution have reached an expiration date and get thrown in the dumpster?

Once again, the freedoms guaranteed in the bill of rights have never been considered absolute and limitless...this is historical fact. Putting limits on those freedoms in the name of public safety, isn't the least bit contradictory to what the founding fathers clearly believed. The same guys who wrote the constitution, passed a rule that no one could possess firearms on the campus of UVA. Your conclusion that any restrictions amount to a trampling of the rights, doesn't pass the common sense test. Should wealthy people be able to buy a nuke?
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[scottw]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Once again, the freedoms guaranteed in the bill of rights have never been considered absolute and limitless...this is historical fact.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

please shut up

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by scottw

please shut up

If you can show me that what I said is wrong, I will admit you are right and I was wrong, and then I will shut up.

It's embarrassing to me when people on my side act like these rights are either perfectly absolute, or they don't exist at all. Let the liberals wallow in that kind of extremism, we are supposed to be the home of common sense.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Once again, the freedoms guaranteed in the bill of rights have never been considered absolute and limitless...this is historical fact. Putting limits on those freedoms in the name of public safety, isn't the least bit contradictory to what the founding fathers clearly believed. The same guys who wrote the constitution, passed a rule that no one could possess firearms on the campus of UVA. Your conclusion that any restrictions amount to a trampling of the rights, doesn't pass the common sense test. Should wealthy people be able to buy a nuke?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The founders, including Madison and Jefferson who were reputed to be at the meeting which banned guns from their campus, considered the Bill of Rights an absolute limit on the federal government's ability to abridge those rights. Common sense had nothing to do with it.

As far as nukes would have gone, the Founders would not have given wealthy people, or any other class of people or individuals, the right to destroy the property of others in times of peace. In times of war, all bets were probably off.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by detbuch

The founders, including Madison and Jefferson who were reputed to be at the meeting which banned guns from their campus, considered the Bill of Rights an absolute limit on the federal government's ability to abridge those rights. Common sense had nothing to do with it.

As far as nukes would have gone, the Founders would not have given wealthy people, or any other class of people or individuals, the right to destroy the property of others in times of peace. In times of war, all bets were probably off.

"considered the Bill of Rights an absolute limit on the federal government's ability to abridge those rights"

Fine, let the states do it, I agree with you there 100%. My point was, if states impose limits, that's not necessarily trampling upon anyone's constitutional rights.

"Common sense had nothing to do with it."

Common sense is why they thought the campus ban was a good idea.

We also need to make sure any proposed laws, don't make it impossible for people like the hero who lived across the street from the church, to legally obtain firearms. What we don't want, is a scenario where bad guys have guns and good guys don't. That citizen possibly saved a lot of lives.

In my humble opinion, we'd be better off if bump stocks and high capacity magazines, had never been made available to the public. Now that they are out there, I don't know how you ever get that horse back into the barn. But I wish we could do it.

[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Once again, the freedoms guaranteed in the bill of rights have never been considered absolute and limitless...this is historical fact. Putting limits on those freedoms in the name of public safety, isn't the least bit contradictory to what the founding fathers clearly believed.

The founders / framers believed to their very core that the federal government only possessed the very limited and specifically delegated powers that the people granted to it via the Constitution. Our rights were considered the "great residuum" of everything NOT conferred to government.

There is no fluid, undefined power to restrain rights, even for the lofty goal of "public safety". Our rights are, "exceptions of powers not granted", interests that were held out from the view / influence / control of government, they are not within the grasp of government.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

The same guys who wrote the constitution, passed a rule that no one could possess firearms on the campus of UVA. Your conclusion that any restrictions amount to a trampling of the rights, doesn't pass the common sense test.

The standard of "constitutionality" is not that the restriction is deemed to violate some interpretation of what a right is . . . What makes a law unconstitutional is that it was enacted by the legislature operating outside the powers granted to it.

[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Should wealthy people be able to buy a nuke?

Again, the Constitution is a charter of conferred powers. Those interests that "We the People" have surrendered control over we can not claim as a right. The power to acquire, maintain and deploy the weapons of indiscriminate warfare was conferred to the federal government through the warmaking clauses. Neither the people or the states can claim any power / right to those weapons.

There is no claimable right to own NBC WMDs or fighter jets or missiles -- for at least as long as the people consent to be governed.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

If you can show me that what I said is wrong, I will admit you are right and I was wrong, and then I will shut up.

You have had the constitutional principle and the law explained to you multiple times and you persist making this profoundly erroneous point. I have no doubt you will continue on this path.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Fine, let the states do it, I agree with you there 100%. My point was, if states impose limits, that's not necessarily trampling upon anyone's constitutional rights.

Of course it is.

We already experimented with the idea of states having unfettered powers to write gun control laws and in 1868 an Amendment was added to the Constitution, it said:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

14th Amendment

Until 2010, the 2nd Amendment was not held to be incorporated under the 14th Amendment. In 2010 the right to arms was held to be a fundamental right and enforceable upon the states.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

We also need to make sure any proposed laws, don't make it impossible for people like the hero who lived across the street from the church, to legally obtain firearms.

Well, the fact is he responded and shot the murderer with a modern AR platform rifle with an extended magazine, so I'm not sure how you reconcile the above statement with your past statements with the facts of this incident . . . I'll just say my opinion is that they are irreconcilable.