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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (663633)	7/24/2012 1:50:10 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1576229

In Parker v. District of Columbia (March 2007), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban on grounds that it violates the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which may soon address the meaning of the Second Amendment. Almost any standard would be an improvement over Miller. I know you're not a reader so you may have missed it. But Heller has already been decided. You may want to get up to speed. As to whether there is a need for citizens to be armed to the teeth, I've never been a fan of the concept but after nearly four years of Obama, I have to say that I feel more now than ever that it is of critical importance. A time may come when this out of control government concludes it has power far beyond that to which it is entitled. In the end the ability to defend one's property and oneself may be the only thing that holds it together. God help NYC and Seattle, where the only guns are in the hands of criminals.

To: tejek who wrote (663633)	7/24/2012 2:23:37 AM
From: THE WATSONYOUTH	8 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576229

Its never been clear what the FF meant when they created the second amendment..... You fucking IDIOT. What is unclear about: "I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

To: tejek who wrote (663633)

7/24/2012 6:51:09 AM

From: puborectalis

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 1576229

Look, Can We Please At Least Agree On One Thing About The 'Right To Bear Arms'?

Henry Blodget | Jul. 23, 2012, 11:09 AM | 9,982 | 217

Wikipedia

A state-of-the-art assault weapon in 1791

Yes, we have this debate every time some sick bastard buys some guns and shoots innocent people, and I have no doubt that this episode of the the debate will end the same way it always does:

With each side endlessly repeating their usual bullet points and then getting bored and moving on.

And then in another week or month or year, some other sick bastard will buy himself a cache of weapons and slaughter more innocent people, and then we'll have the debate again.

And so on...

And that's understandable, if frustrating--especially for those whose family members and friends are the ones who are killed.

For better and worse, we do have a constitutional "right to bear arms" in this country, and it should take a broad consensus to amend the Constitution. And, yes, it probably does make sense for us to have at least some right to bear some arms, even if having the right to buy quasi-machine guns like the one used in the Colorado massacre seems ludicrous. And there's a vast difference between bearing some arms in, say, Wyoming, and bearing them in New York City, where the population density is a tad higher, and so forth. So, of course, this is going to be a contentious and impassioned debate.

But can we at least agree on one thing?

Can we at least agree that, since 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, the country's circumstances have changed?

In 1791, for example:

There were only 3.9 million AmericansThe "arms" we gave ourselves the right to bear were vastly less powerful--namely they were single-shot muskets that had to be manually loaded with powder and ball for each shot, versus today's semi-automatic assault weapons that spray 50-60 high-caliber bullets per minuteIt was legal to own slaves in some parts of the country (Constitutionally permissible behavior that, fortunately, changed)"America" didn't extend west of the Mississippi River (and, really, it was only the 13 colonies)Indians still attacked occasionallyWe hunted a lot of our food"States" really were separate countries in those days--it took months to travel from one end of the country to the otherThe "frontier" (and many other parts of the country) was essentially lawless: Citizens had to protect themselves, because no one else was around to do it (Now, most states have well-armed police forces, etc.)And so on...Basically, can we at least agree that giving ourselves the unfettered right to buy, sell, and own whatever kinds of weapons we want might have made more sense in 1791 than it does today--and, therefore, that it's a bit unfair to couch this debate in terms of "defending the Constitution" and/or trying to figure out what the Framers meant by "a well-regulated militia"?

Getty

The Framers meant THESE arms when they wrote the Second Amendment? Really??

I mean, do folks really think that if the "Framers" had seen what happened in that Colorado movie theater last week, they still would have written the Second Amendment the way they did--with no qualifications?

Yes, this point is academic, because the Second Amendment is what it is.

But can we all at least agree that it's a bit, if nothing else, outdated?

Or are we all totally cool with any old sick bastard being able to buy as many quasi-machine guns as he or she wants?

Read more: businessinsider.com