chairboy...ACLU

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Toad
Obviously, there is disagreement but I don't think "good conscience" enters into it.

I disagree. I think your of good conscience Toad.

So..... Regardless of the fact that Miller keyed on the word "militia" and that the last word from the SC does NOT uphold the individual right to bear arms.

Why in the hell did our founding fathers put that stupid sentence about a well regulated militia into the amendment. What were they thinking!!???

[Charon]

Why in the hell did our founding fathers put that stupid sentence about a well regulated militia into the amendment. What were they thinking!!???

Have you bothered to read any of the material on collective vs. individual rights in any of the links posted? Pretty easy to understand, actually, if you actually bother to look.

This one, for example. It's not the 6 or 7 paragraphs provided by the ACLU, in that it probably takes a good 45 minutes or so of careful reading to work through it. 300+ footnotes. Right to the point though, and not overly difficult even though it was published in a law journal..

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE OR THE POWER OF THE STATE: BEARING ARMS, ARMING MILITIAS, AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

Copyright © 1991 Stephen P. Halbrook; Valparaiso U. Law Review. Originally published as 26 Val. U. L. Rev. 131-207 (1991)

http://www.guncite.com/journals/val-hal.html

This one is good too. About like the first.

UNDER FIRE: THE NEW CONSENSUS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Copyright © 1996 Emory Law Journal. Originally published as 45 Emory L.J. 1139-1259 (1996).

http://www.guncite.com/journals/bk-ufire.html

Charon

[Charon]

BTW. "What they were thinking!!??" is that fire arms ownership was such a natural accepted part of general freedom (and the basic facilitator of freedom personal, or GENERAL milita as opposed to SELECT militia) that such a debate today would be beyond comprehension when the Constitution was being written.

Here's a small selection

Ten days after the Bill of Rights was proposed in the House, Tench Coxe published his "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," under the pen name "A Pennsylvanian," in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette.[204] Probably the most complete exposition of the Bill of Rights to be published during its ratification period, the "Remarks" included the following: "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." In short, what is now the Second Amendment was designed to guarantee the right of the people to have "their private arms" to prevent tyranny and to overpower an abusive standing army or select [edit: organized, national guard style] militia.

Coxe sent a copy of his article to Madison along with a letter of the same (p.175)date. "It has appeared to me that a few well tempered observations on these propositions might have a good effect .... It may perhaps be of use in the present turn of the public opinions in New York state that they should be republished there."[205] Madison wrote back, acknowledging "your favor of the 18th instant. The printed remarks inclosed in it are already I find in the Gazettes here [New York]." Madison endorsed Coxe's analysis--including that the amendment protected the possession and use of "private arms"--with the comment that ratification of the amendments "will however be greatly favored by explanatory strictures of a healing tendency, and is therefore already indebted to the co-operation of your pen."[206]

Coxe's defense of the amendments was widely reprinted.[207] A search of the literature of the time reveals that no writer disputed or contradicted Coxe's analysis that what became the Second Amendment protected the right of the people to keep and bear "their private arms." The only dispute was over whether a bill of rights was even necessary to protect such fundamental rights. "One of the People" replied to Coxe's article with a response called "On a Bill of Rights," which held "the very idea of a bill of rights" to be "a dishonorable one to freemen." "What should we think of a gentleman, who upon hiring a waiting-man, should say to him "my friend, please take notice, before we come together, that I shall always claim the liberty of eating when and what I please, of fishing and hunting upon my own ground, of keeping as many horses and hounds as I can maintain, and of speaking and writing any sentiments upon all subjects." As a mere servant, the government had no power to interfere with individual liberties in any manner without a specific delegation. "[A] master reserves to himself ... everything else which he has not committed to the care of those servants."[208](p.176)

"Centinel" was, of course, Samuel Bryan, author of the Pennsylvania Dissent of the Minority, which demanded recognition of the right to bear arms for defense of self, state, and country, and for hunting. By not objecting to lack of such a list of purposes in the Second Amendment, the Antifederalists must have assumed that exercise of the right to keep and bear arms would extend to all lawful purposes. By the same token, Samuel Adams and the drafters of the New Hampshire proposal did not object to the lack of an explicit exclusion of criminals from the right to keep and bear arms, because this too was understood.

Centinel's observations indicate the understanding that the Second Amendment's Militia Clause was merely declaratory and did not protect state powers to maintain militias to any appreciable degree. That Antifederalists never attacked the Right-to-Bear-Arms Clause demonstrates that was reorganized to be recognized a full and complete guarantee of individual rights to have and use private arms. Surely a storm of protest would have ensued had anyone hinted that the right only Protected a government-armed select militia.

Charon

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by midnight Target
I disagree. I think your of good conscience Toad.

So..... Regardless of the fact that Miller keyed on the word "militia" and that the last word from the SC does NOT uphold the individual right to bear arms.

Why in the hell did our founding fathers put that stupid sentence about a well regulated militia into the amendment. What were they thinking!!???

MT, explain to me how individuals are supposed to provide guns for themselves to be used in the militia (comprised of individuals) if individuals cannot constituinally own guns.

[Flit]

Originally posted by midnight Target
I disagree. I think your of good conscience Toad.

So..... Regardless of the fact that Miller keyed on the word "militia" and that the last word from the SC does NOT uphold the individual right to bear arms.

Why in the hell did our founding fathers put that stupid sentence about a well regulated militia into the amendment. What were they thinking!!???

That it was possible one day for the goverment to become oppressive,and that the people's right to protect themselves from that was extremely important.

[midnight Target]

Reading does help....

What is a militia?

"A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline."  

Virginia Act of October 1785 provides for a Militia of "all free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years,"

This would mean that I can have a gun, but Toad and lazs are much too old

[Chairboy]

BTW, just want to mention how honored I am to have a thread named after me.  Truly, a highlight of my BBS career.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Chairboy
BTW, just want to mention how honored I am to have a thread named after me.  Truly, a highlight of my BBS career.

It's all downhill from here.

[Toad]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Reading does help....

What is a militia?

"A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline."  

Virginia Act of October 1785 provides for a Militia of "all free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years,"

This would mean that I can have a gun, but Toad and lazs are much too old

 

Yes, reading does help:

Miller vs US:

These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.

Lemmee see.... I'm male, I can walk all day carrying a gun over rough terrain, I can hit what I shoot at a very high percentage of the time, I'm former military so I know how to "act in concert for the common defense"...

Looks like I can have a gun... not so sure about you MT... can you hit anything if we give you one?

[lazs2]

so... mt... is your wife convinced yet?

lazs

[Toad]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Why in the hell did our founding fathers put that stupid sentence about a well regulated militia into the amendment. What were they thinking!!???

As has been shown here, a bit of simple research into the writings of the Founders shows exactly what they were thinking.

Only those who are dishonest can possibly pretend otherwise. Given the usage of the words in the 2nd at the time, it's clear that what was meant.

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
         ---Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.

George Mason wrote the Bill of Rights; his view was shown at the Virginia Convention:

In the Virginia convention, George Mason, drafter of the Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British of having plotted "to disarm the people — that was the best and most effective way to enslave them"

George Mason:

Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...? I ask, who are the militia?  They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers.

Samuel Adams:

The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

Pretty easy to see what the Founding Fathers thought about the right to bear arms. Only the intellectually dishonest are confused.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by lazs2
so... mt... is your wife convinced yet?

lazs

You kidding? She can hit a sparrow in the left eye from 1000 yds.

In United States v. Miller,4 the Court sustained a statute requiring registration under the National Firearms Act of sawed-off shotguns. After reciting the original provisions of the Constitution dealing with the militia, the Court observed that ''[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted with that end in view.''

So according to the SC the 2nd must be read as a right to arm a militia. So this leaves only the definition of a militia.

The 1st Circuit Court agreed in 1942

Cases v. United States, 131 F. 2d 916, 922 (1st Cir. 1942), cert. denied, 319 U.S. 770 (1943), the court, upholding a similar provision of the Federal Firearms Act, said: ''Apparently, then, under the Second Amendment, the federal government can limit the keeping and bearing of arms by a single individual as well as by a group of individuals, but it cannot prohibit the possession or use of any weapon which has any reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.''

or here..

Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 65 n.8 (1980) (dictum: Miller holds that the ''Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a firearm that does not have 'some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia''').

or this one.. this is really good!

Hickman v. Block, 81 F.3d 98 (9th Cir.) (plaintiff lacked standing to challenge denial of permit to carry concealed weapon, because Second Amendment is a right held by states, not by private citizens), cert. denied 117 S. Ct. 276 (1996

[lazs2]

did you just quote a ruling by the ninth circuit?  That is beyond funny... they are so out of touch with the rest of the country as to be a joke.  

your first "Cases v. United States, 131 F. 2d 916, 922 (1st Cir. 1942), cert. denied, 319 U.S. 770 (1943), the court, upholding a similar provision of the Federal Firearms Act, said: ''Apparently, then, under the Second Amendment, the federal government can limit the keeping and bearing of arms by a single individual as well as by a group of individuals, but it cannot prohibit the possession or use of any weapon which has any reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.''

you are affirming what we said.... if a machine gun can be proven to have a reasonable use by a militia.... We are the militia but... even if you feel the militia should be a body of people somehow tied to each other.... the 2nd states that you need the PEOPLE to be armed in order to form one and... because of that... the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.... no matter how you cut it...  you need armed (uninrfringed) PEOPLE to form a milita.... they can't go from being regulated down to slinshots to being able to form a "well regulate" (well equiped) milita without the arms to do so.

lewis says the same.... at worst.... your cases point out that zip guns or slam bang pipe shotguns might be banned as they have no military use.

your cases all prove what we are saying except for the ninth circuit of Kalifornia..

I would suggest anyone not familiar with the 9th circuit do some research on them... to put it mildly... they are radical lefties.. and irrelevant... their judgements allmost allways contradict every other court in the land as can be seen by the contrast in MT's wifes own examples above...

lazs

[Charon]

Reading does help....

If you do enough of it, it does. You can also spend 15 minutes on google. Have you read through either of the links I posted, in detail, from start to finish? What are your counters to the poistions outlined in THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE OR THE POWER OF THE STATE: BEARING ARMS, ARMING MILITIAS, AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT.? Here's the conclusion:

Every term in the Second Amendment's substantive guarantee--which is not negated by its philosophical declaration about a well regulated militia--demands an individual rights interpretation. The terms "right," "the people," "keep and bear," and "infringed" apply only to persons, not states. Moreover, the Framers, supporters, and opponents of the original Constitution all agreed on the political ideal of an armed populace, and the unanimous interpretation of the Bill of Rights in Congress and by the public was that the Second Amendment guaranteed the individual right to keep and bear arms. Indeed, the very amendment which would have made explicit the state power to maintain a militia (p.207)failed completely. The language and historical intent of the Second Amendment mandates recognition of the individual right to keep and bear firearms and other personal weapons. Like those who oppose flag burning as symbolic protest, opponents of this right have the option of pressing for an amendment to a Bill of Rights no longer seen as worthwhile.

As for your Virginia Military act:

"A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline."

Virginia Act of October 1785 provides for a Militia of "all free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years,"

Apparently somewhat misued in Miller since it is basically Virginia's model for developing a select militia for state use beyond basic second amendment rights. I think it also said something about having Virginia citizens "properly armed..." Apple and orange.

Do you know the differecen between a select militia and a general militia and the debate that went on about a "militia" (of either type) vs. a standing army? How about the Federalist papers? If you spend the time actually looking into the creation of the 2nd Amendment (and, I'm sorry to say, it does take time), it should be abundantly clear that the issue behind a general milita was basically an armed population that could be mustered to defend the nation, or that could stand up to any select militia or standing army, and that could enjoy the basic human right of self defense. This is discussed in great detail.

While different states before, during and after the constitution had a variety of opinions on the structure of a "militia" along federalists and anti-federalist lines (with some overlap within states), the basic concept of firearm ownership was pretty much a given, in the same manner that horse ownership wasn't really an issue when talking about potential militia cavalry.

Charon

[Charon]

It's all downhill from here.

I don't know Sandy. The debat has been civil enough. Has it gone down hill because,  it's hard not to see a bias in the ACLU where this right is concerned? As much as I hate saying the word (since it is almost a cartoon icon these days) a liberal as bias?

I don't think you're a big fan of firearm ownership. Of course, you don't have to be. Similarly, a lot of people aren't fans of flag burining. But, either the rights that enable those are valid or they have become outdated and you come up with a legislative solution to nullify or modify those rights.

Charon