Posted on 05/14/2024 9:05:45 AM PDT by DeplorablePaul
Dexter Taylor, of NY, took up gunsmithing as a hobby. He never committed a crime, never hurt anyone. But following a trial in which the presiding judge said the second amendment didn't exist in her courtroom or the state of New York, Dexter was found guilty of multiple gun-related charges.
(Excerpt) Read more at twitchy.com ...
[ExTxMarine #36] The 2nd Amendment says something about "shall not be infringed". But apparently, you are okay with infringement...if it is only a little bit.[coloradan #37] If this is actually your position, then you would have no argument against a state that decided to make all firearms illegal. Please describe what laws you think actually do violate the Second Amendment - or doesn’t it exist for you either?
[5th MEB #39] You obviously never have read or don’t understand the words of the Second Amendment, or you eyes are brown because your full of crap. If you tell me your eyes are blue it just means your a quart low.
One time, for the pitifully slow, or willfully ignorant.
The right to keep and bear arms is not defined in the 2nd Amendment. It was a pre-existing common law right that was and is protected by the 2nd Amendment. It was not a right granted by the 2nd Amendment, but a right that existed in the colonies, was brought forth into the states upon independence, and recognized and protected by the Constitution.
U.S. Supreme Court, Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 86, 108-09 (1925)
The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Conventions of the thirteen States, were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them, but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England
Book the First - Chapter the First: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals (1765)
5. THE fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
It has never meant a right to carry any and all weapons for any purpose. It does not mean that today.
District of Columbia v Heller, S. Ct. 554 US 570 (2008)
Heller at 620:
We described the right protected by the Second Amendment as “ ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose’ ”
Heller at 626:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884).
The right, as it has existed since the states were colonies, is an individual right to self-defense. The right itself contains limitations as explained in the English common law pre-dating American independence. It has never meant a right to carry any and all weapons for any purpose. It does not mean that today.
That is the right the Constitution says shall not be infringed. The right itself has inherent limitations.
There is a right to keep and bear lawful arms, in a lawful manner, for a lawful purpose. That right shall not be infringed, not even a little bit.
You have zero understanding of the 2ndA or the recent SCOTUS precedent about it.
Manufacturing “untraceable” firearms is absolutely a right that has been practiced since before the Constitution was ratified and the 2ndA specifically denies the government any power to infringe (regulate) it.
You clearly don’t belong here, go back to DU.
BTTT!
If not for civilians owning equal or better armaments than their government leaders, many countries, the United States included, would NOT EXIST!
On multiple occasions, the resistance/revolution movements borrowed weapons, cannons, rifles, ammunition, ships, and other armaments FROM PRIVATE OWNERS to fight their governments for the right to have freedom!
Your suggestion that “legal limits” are acceptable means you think the government should tell We the People how we will be allowed to defend ourselves from their tyranny or other attacks. Sure, let’s see how that works for We the People...history has many examples of how that works out.
People were making unserialized weapons WAY before our Constitution was even thought of...your willingness to bow down to your government masters will not make your chains any lighter than mine!
[Farcesensitive #42] You have zero understanding of the 2ndA or the recent SCOTUS precedent about it.[Farcesensitive #42] Manufacturing “untraceable” firearms is absolutely a right that has been practiced since before the Constitution was ratified and the 2ndA specifically denies the government any power to infringe (regulate) it.
[ExTxMarine #44] People were making unserialized weapons WAY before our Constitution was even thought of...your willingness to bow down to your government masters will not make your chains any lighter than mine!
It is clear that neither Dumb nor Dumber has ever read the precedent setting court opinions, or opened a law book. No law or precedent is cited by either of you to support the maniacal claims.
I linked, cited and quoted recent SCOTUS precedent about the right to keep and bear arms. The leading precedents are Heller and McDonald. The recent case of Bruen overturned the Second Circuit case of Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81 (2012), and in so doing cited Heller and McDonald over and over again. These two precedent setting cases were cited two dozen times just in the Syllabus to Bruen.
You two nitwits apparently think that Scalia, Alito and Thomas are flaming liberals from DU. You further seem to have some delusional belief that Bruen overturned either Heller or McDonald.
Dumb and Dumber on the internet do not overrule the Supreme Court.
Below is the Syllabus to Bruen which provides a synopsis of the holdings in the Opinion. Baby steps. The Opinion follows the Syllabus and goes to page 69.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
New York State Rifle and Piston Assn v Bruen, S Ct 20-843 (23 Jun 2022) Opinion of the CourtSyllabus
NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL. v. BRUEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
No. 20–843. Argued November 3, 2021—Decided June 23, 2022
The State of New York makes it a crime to possess a firearm without a license, whether inside or outside the home. An individual who wants to carry a firearm outside his home may obtain an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed “pistol or revolver” if he can prove that “proper cause exists” for doing so. N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §400.00(2)(f). An applicant satisfies the “proper cause” requirement only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257. Petitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash are adult, law-abiding New York residents who both applied for unrestricted licenses to carry a handgun in public based on their generalized interest in self-defense. The State denied both of their applications for unrestricted licenses, allegedly because Koch and Nash failed to satisfy the “proper cause” requirement. Petitioners then sued respondents—state officials who oversee the processing of licensing applications—for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that respondents violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights by denying their unrestricted-license applications for failure to demonstrate a unique need for self-defense. The District Court dismissed petitioners’ complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts relied on the Second Circuit’s prior decision in Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, which had sustained New York’s proper-cause standard, holding that the requirement was “substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest.” Id., at 96.
Held: New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense. Pp. 8–63.
(a) In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, the Court held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Under Heller, when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct, and to justify a firearm regulation the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Pp. 8–22.
(1) Since Heller and McDonald, the Courts of Appeals have developed a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny. Pp. 9–15.
(2) Historical analysis can sometimes be difficult and nuanced, but reliance on history to inform the meaning of constitutional text is more legitimate, and more administrable, than asking judges to “make difficult empirical judgments” about “the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions,” especially given their “lack [of] expertise” in the field. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 790–791 (plurality opinion). Federal courts tasked with making difficult empirical judgments regarding firearm regulations under the banner of “intermediate scrutiny” often defer to the determinations of legislatures. While judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is understandable—and, elsewhere, appropriate—it is not deference that the Constitution demands here. The Second Amendment “is the very product of an interest balancing by the people,” and it “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms” for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 635. Pp. 15–17.
(3) The test that the Court set forth in Heller and applies today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding. Of course, the regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the Reconstruction generation in 1868. But the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated, even though its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 404–405. Indeed, the Court recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment’s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to “arms” does not apply “only [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.” 554 U. S., at 582.
To determine whether a firearm regulation is consistent with the Second Amendment, Hellerand McDonald point toward at least two relevant metrics: first, whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense, and second, whether that regulatory burden is comparably justified. Because “individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right,” these two metrics are “ ‘central’ ” considerations when engaging in an analogical inquiry. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 599).
To be clear, even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster. For example, courts can use analogies to “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” to determine whether modern regulations are constitutionally permissible. Id., at 626. That said, respondents’ attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a “sensitive-place” law lacks merit because there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a “sensitive place” simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department. Pp. 17–22.
(b) Having made the constitutional standard endorsed in Heller more explicit, the Court applies that standard to New York’s proper-cause requirement. Pp. 23–62.
(1) It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash—two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens—are part of “the people” whom the Second Amendment protects. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 580. And no party disputes that handguns are weapons “in common use” today for self-defense. See id., at 627. The Court has little difficulty concluding also that the plain text of the Second Amendment protects Koch’s and Nash's proposed course of conduct—carrying handguns publicly for self-defense. Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, and the definition of “bear” naturally encompasses public carry. Moreover, the Second Amendment guarantees an “individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” id., at 592, and confrontation can surely take place outside the home. Pp. 23–24.
(2) The burden then falls on respondents to show that New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. To do so, respondents appeal to a variety of historical sources from the late 1200s to the early 1900s. But when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is created equal. “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634–635. The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791; the Fourteenth in 1868. Historical evidence that long predates or postdates either time may not illuminate the scope of the right. With these principles in mind, the Court concludes that respondents have failed to meet their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York’s proper-cause requirement. Pp. 24–62.
(i) Respondents’ substantial reliance on English history and custom before the founding makes some sense given Heller’s statement that the Second Amendment “codified a right ‘inherited from our English ancestors.’” 554 U. S., at 599. But the Court finds that history ambiguous at best and sees little reason to think that the Framers would have thought it applicable in the New World. The Court cannot conclude from this historical record that, by the time of the founding,English law would have justified restricting the right to publicly bear arms suited for self-defense only to those who demonstrate some special need for self-protection. Pp. 30–37.
(ii) Respondents next direct the Court to the history of the Colonies and early Republic, but they identify only three restrictions on public carry from that time. While the Court doubts that just three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of public-carry regulation, even looking at these laws on their own terms, the Court is not convinced that they regulated public carry akin to the New York law at issue. The statutes essentially prohibited bearing arms in a way that spread “fear” or “terror” among the people, including by carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.” See 554 U. S., at 627. Whatever the likelihood that handguns were considered “dangerous and unusual” during the colonial period, they are today “the quintessential self-defense weapon.” Id., at 629. Thus, these colonial laws provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of weapons that are unquestionably in common use today. Pp. 37–42.
(iii) Only after the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 did public-carry restrictions proliferate. Respondents rely heavily on these restrictions, which generally fell into three categories: common-law offenses, statutory prohibitions, and “surety” statutes. None of these restrictions imposed a substantial burden on public carry analogous to that imposed by New York’s restrictive licensing regime.
Common-Law Offenses. As during the colonial and founding periods, the common-law offenses of “affray” or going armed “to the terror of the people” continued to impose some limits on firearm carry in the antebellum period. But there is no evidence indicating that these common-law limitations impaired the right of the general population to peaceable public carry.
Statutory Prohibitions. In the early to mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons. But the antebellum state-court decisions upholding them evince a consensus view that States could not altogether prohibit the public carry of arms protected by the Second Amendment or state analogues.
Surety Statutes. In the mid-19th century, many jurisdictions began adopting laws that required certain individuals to post bond before carrying weapons in public. Contrary to respondents’ position, these surety statutes in no way represented direct precursors to New York’s proper-cause requirement. While New York presumes that individuals have no public carry right without a showing of heightened need, the surety statutes presumed that individuals had a right to public carry that could be burdened only if another could make out a specific showing of “reasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16 (1836). Thus, unlike New York’s regime, a showing of special need was required only after an individual was reasonably accused of intending to injure another or breach the peace. And, even then, proving special need simply avoided a fee.
In sum, the historical evidence from antebellum America does demonstrate that the manner of public carry was subject to reasonable regulation, but none of these limitations on the right to bear arms operated to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public for that purpose. Pp. 42–51.
(iv) Evidence from around the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment also does not support respondents’ position. The “discussion of the [right to keep and bear arms] in Congress and in public discourse, as people debated whether and how to secure constitutional rights for newly free slaves,” Heller, 554 U. S., at 614, generally demonstrates that during Reconstruction the right to keep and bear arms had limits that were consistent with a right of the public to peaceably carry handguns for self-defense. The Court acknowledges two Texas cases—English v. State, 35 Tex. 473 and State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455—that approved a statutory “reasonable grounds” standard for public carry analogous to New York’s proper-cause requirement. But these decisions were outliers and therefore provide little insight into how post bellum courts viewed the right to carry protected arms in public. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 632. Pp. 52–58.
(v) Finally, respondents point to the slight uptick in gun regulation during the late-19th century. As the Court suggested in Heller, however, late-19th-century evidence cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence. In addition, the vast majority of the statutes that respondents invoke come from the Western Territories. The bare existence of these localized restrictions cannot overcome the overwhelming evidence of an otherwise enduring American tradition permitting public carry. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 614. Moreover, these territorial laws were rarely subject to judicial scrutiny, and absent any evidence explaining why these unprecedented prohibitions on all public carry were understood to comport with the Second Amendment, they do little to inform “the origins and continuing significance of the Amendment.” Ibid.; see also The Federalist No. 37, p. 229. Finally, these territorial restrictions deserve little weight because they were, consistent with the transitory nature of territorial government, short lived. Some were held unconstitutional shortly after passage, and others did not survive a Territory’s admission to the Union as a State. Pp. 58–62.
(vi) After reviewing the Anglo-American history of public carry, the Court concludes that respondents have not met their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York’s proper-cause requirement. Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier jurisdictions, American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense. Nor have they generally required law-abiding, responsible citizens to “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community” to carry arms in public. Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d, at 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d, at 257. P. 62.
(c) The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion). The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different. New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public. Pp. 62–63.
818 Fed. Appx. 99, reversed and remanded.
THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., joined. BARRETT, J., filed a concurring opinion. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ., joined.
thanks
It seems you can’t read.
Nothing in what you posted supports your position.
And it certainly has nothing to do with manufacturing “untraceable” firearms.
All historical evidence shows that Americans have always had a right to make their own arms and that it was only a much later innovation to require serial numbers etc.
You do remember that that is what this case is about, right?
Go back to DU.
Your position that the government can arbitrarily make any arms it wants “unlawful” and then prohibit them would completely nullify the 2ndA and flies in the face of all SCOTUS precedent.
thanks for that post... the ol saying of there’s more to the story holds true once again. liberal judges are stupid, but not that stupid... ...yet...
It is clear that you think SCOTUS never makes a mistake if they quote a past law or precedent. But apparently, you do not know or understand that SCOTUS makes mistakes that limit and even break the God-given rights of Americans: Dred Scott, Roe V. Wade, Plessy v. Ferguson, Wickard v. Filburn. All of these had laws and precedent, but in every single one of them, I believe that they illegally and unconstitutionally limit and BREAK the rights of American citizens.
I believe that the United States Government, even if your apparent messiahs (Scalia, Alito, and Thomas) agree with the government, does not have the right to limit my choices of self-defense against tyranny.
Again, I pray your acceptable chains rest lightly on your shoulders.
Look, why don’t you sit down, take some time, think slowly and R-T-F-M
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution are clear on this one issue: Americans’ rights come from God, not government. They are inalienable -and are stated as such.
It was meant to allow the people to maintain "the security of a free state" literally against the other states.
In Federalist #8, Alexander Hamilton was afraid that each state would raise its own army to defend against neighboring states:
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it. Their existence, however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the States or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old World. This, at least, would be the natural course of things; and our reasonings will be the more likely to be just, in proportion as they are accommodated to this standard.
In Federalist #29, Alexander Hamilton argues that the militia is a counter-force to standing armies:
If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions...James Madison, Federalist #46:"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist...
Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests?
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole...You cite recent SCOTUS rulings, I cite two actual Framers of the Constitution writing about the intent of a militia of the People and its need to be as comparably armed as a standing army. That does mean "any and all weapons for any purpose" that a standing army ruled by a despotic tyrant might desire.That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism...
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger...
To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties...
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of...
Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
-PJ
One more thing...
The old English common law that you cite is based on a paradigm that the Framers rejected.
The old English way was that arms were kept locked up in a central armory and distributed to the townspeople when the castle was under threat of attack. The arms were the property of the local Baron, not the people.
The Framers purposely changed that. The militia is created by Article I Section 8 and Article II Section 2 of the United States Constitution. The 2nd amendment is what moved us away from the English armory and to the personal ownership and possession of any arms that an army might deploy against the People.
-PJ
Suppose a state bans possession of all semiautomatic firearms, and then all pump action firearms, and then all bolt-action firearms, and then all multiple-barrel firearms, and then all revolvers, and then all bolt-action firearms, and then all firearms capable of firing one or more shots, such that then all firearms are completely prohibited.
At what point in this progression would you say the Second Amendment has been violated?
Or would it never be violated, because only “lawful” firearms are protected by the Second Amendment, which just happens to be an empty set in this hypothetical case?
It is clear that you think SCOTUS never makes a mistake if they quote a past law or precedent.
It is clear that SCOTUS can make a mistake, and that you are not v ery proficient at mind reading or reading comprehension.
When SCOTUS rules that abortion is a constitutional right, that is the law of the land until the Constitution is amended, or SCOTUS overturns that decision.
But apparently, you do not know or understand that SCOTUS makes mistakes that limit and even break the God-given rights of Americans: Dred Scott, Roe V. Wade, Plessy v. Ferguson, Wickard v. Filburn.
There are no rights recognized as God-given by the law. The right to own and traffic in slaves was recognized by the Constitution. The slave had no God-given right to go to the Supreme Court and demand his freedom because God said so.
Dred Scott was correctly decided. The decision in Scott was to find that the Court lack jurisdiction to hear the case, and to remand back to the Circuit court with instructions to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. Scott's claim of jurisdiction was diversity of state citizenship. As Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, his claim of jurisdiction failed. When commenting on what a court decision is, it helps to read it.
Whether Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided or not, prior to Dobbs the law of the land was that abortion was a constitutional right and state law was bound by that finding in Roe. It may shock you that Dobbs was not based on a finding that Roe violated God's law.
All of these had laws and precedent, but in every single one of them, I believe that they illegally and unconstitutionally limit and BREAK the rights of American citizens.
Whether you or I feel that a SCOTUS opinion was wronglyu decided does not change the legal effect of said decision. I thought Roe was wrongly decided, but I did not fantasize that my opinion negated the legal effect of Roe. Citing a SCOTUS opinion as law does not infer the opinion was correctly decided, but just that it is the current law.
Again, I pray your acceptable chains rest lightly on your shoulders.
I pray that you accept what the law is, reject fantasies, and that you gain the wisdom to know the difference.
At what point in this progression would you say the Second Amendment has been violated?
The 2nd Amendment protected the pre-existing Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The pre-existing RKBA was self-stated as an individual right for the purpose of self-defense, for the possession of firearms lawful to possess, under due restrictions.
Suppose a state bans possession of all semiautomatic firearms....
Heller, Syllabus at 2-3:
3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.
The Engish Bill of Rights 1689: "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;"
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England
Book the First - Chapter the First: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals (1765)
5. THE fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
It has never meant a right to carry any and all weapons for any purpose. It does not mean that today.
That is the right the Constitution says shall not be infringed. The given reason was that an armed population, trained in the use of arms, was needed for when the militia might be called. A large standing army was not contemplated.
District of Columbia v Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
Heller at 620:
We described the right protected by the Second Amendment as “ ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose’ ”
Heller at 626:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884).
Heller at 592:
c. Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment.
McDonald, Syllabus at 2:
(b) The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, originally applied only to the Federal Government, not to the States, see, e.g., Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 247, but the constitutional Amendments adopted in the Civil War’s aftermath fundamentally altered the federal system.
Look, why don’t you sit down, take some time, think slowly and R-T-F-M
Why don't you adopt Allen's Axiom. Take your time because you appear to be a bit slow.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution are clear on this one issue: Americans’ rights come from God, not government. They are inalienable -and are stated as such.
The DoI was a political statement, and was never the law of anyplace. It was written by British subjects in British colonies.
The Constitution is not clear or even vague on the non-issue of American rights come from God. The First Amendment is the only clear statement on religion. The American government operates on separation of church and state.
Did slaves have a God-given right to be counted in the census as 3/5ths of their whole number?
How about, "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."
Was that a God-given right of slave traders? What was the slaves' God-given rights in all that?
How about the Fugitive Slave Clause: "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
Was that a God-given right of slave owners? What were the enforceable God-given rights of the slaves?
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say a mumbling word about God-given rights. Read it one time before attempting to tell me what it says.
Nobody adopted the anonymous Federalist Papers as state or federal law. Every state explicitly adopted the English Common Law.
New YorkConstitution of New York — 1777
XXXV. And this convention doth further, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State, ordain, determine, and declare that such parts of the common law of England, and of the statute law of England and Great Britain, and of the acts of the legislature of the colony of New York, as together did form the law of the said colony on the 19th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, shall be and continue the law of this State, subject to such alterations and provisions as the legislature of this State shall, from time to time, make concerning the same. That such of the said acts, as are temporary, shall expire at the times limited for their duration respectively. That all such parts of the said common law, and all such of the said statutes and acts aforesaid, or parts thereof, as may be construed to establish or maintain any particular denomination of Christians or their ministers, or concern the allegiance heretofore yielded to, and the supremacy, sovereignty, government, or prerogatives claimed or exercised by, the King of Great Britain and his predecessors, over the colony of New York and its inhabitants, or are repugnant to this constitution, be, and they hereby are, abrogated and rejected. And this convention doth further ordain, that the resolves or resolutions of the congresses of the colony of New York, and of the convention of the State of New York, now in force, and not repugnant to the government established by this constitution, shall be considered as making part of the laws of this State; subject, nevertheless, to such alterations and provisions as the legislature of this State may, from time to time, make concerning the same.
As for SCOTUS, when they rule, it is the law, like it or not. When they ruled abortion is a constitutional right, I thought them wrong, but the law of the land was that no state could prohibit abortion. When SCOTUS ruled that abortion is a matter of state jurisdiction, I thought them correct, but what I thought did not matter. What they ruled became the law.
The United States adopted the Constitution, not God's law. I suppose you could always try arguing to a court that God's law preempts any provision of the Constitution you happen to disfavor. Whose God would you shove down the throat of all Americans? Perhaps the Roman Catholic God, as that is the one true religion. Perhaps the Jewish G-d, and they are G-d's chosen people. Someone will have to break it to divorcing women that they need to get a get or they will get got. Catholics may do eternity for reading the bible of King James. It can't be the Protestants as they are all heretics. Perhaps Allah of the Muslims.
The First Amendment, that was actually adopted, sought to remove government from religion. Buy the will of the people, there can be no official religion, much less anyone's version of Gods law preempting the Constitution.
You cite recent SCOTUS rulings, I cite two actual Framers of the Constitution writing about the intent of a militia of the People and its need to be as comparably armed as a standing army. That does mean "any and all weapons for any purpose" that a standing army ruled by a despotic tyrant might desire.
Yes, I link, cite and quote actual law from the U.S. Supreme Court. You cite quotes that are irrelevant nonsense to constitutional or statutory interpretation.
"A Matter of Interpretation," Federal Courts and the Law, by Antonin Scalia, 1997. This book contains an essay by Antonin Scalia and responses to that essay by professors Ronald Dworkin, Mary Ann Glendon, Laurence Tribe, and Gordon Wood. There is a final response by Antonin Scalia.
To demonstrate the breadth of legal agreement on this point, I quote from Laurence Tribe and Antonin Scalia.
Laurence Tribe, pp. 65-6
Let me begin with my principal area of agreement with Justice Scalia. Like him, I believe that when we ask what a legal text means — what it requires of us, what it permits us to do, and what it forbids — we ought not to be inquiring (except perhaps very peripherally) into the ideas, intentions, or expectations subjectively held by whatever particular persons were, as a historical matter, involved in drafting, promulgating, or ratifying the text in question. To be sure, those matters, when reliably ascertainable, might shed some light on otherwise ambiguous or perplexing words or phrases — by pointing us, as readers, toward the linguistic frame of reference within which the people to whom those words or phrases were addressed would have "translated" and thus understood them. But such thoughts and beliefs can never substitute for what was in fact enacted as law. Like Justice Scalia, I never cease to be amazed by the arguments of judges, lawyers, or others who proceed as though legal texts were little more than interesting documentary evidence of what some lawgiver had in mind. And, like the justice, I find little to commend the proposition that anyone ought, in any circumstances I can imagine, to feel legally bound to obey another's mere wish or thought, or legally bound to act in accord with another's mere hope or fear.
Antonin Scalia, responding to Dr. Tribe, p. 133
He is correct that we both regard as irrelevant the intentions of the drafters....
At page 30, Scalia quoted from Aldridge v. Williams, 44 U.S. 9, 24 (1845):
In expounding this law, the judgment of the court cannot, in any degree, be influenced by the construction placed upon it by individual members of Congress in the debate which took place on its passage, nor by the motives or reasons assigned by them for supporting or opposing amendments that were offered. The law as it passed is the will of the majority of both houses, and the only mode in which that will is spoken is in the act itself; and we must gather their intention from the language there used, comparing it, when any ambiguity exists, with the laws upon the same subject, and looking, if necessary, to the public history of the times in which it was passed.
Beginning on page 30 Scalia writes:
Extensive use of legislative history in this country dates only from about the 1940s. It was still being criticized by such respected justices as Frankfurter and Jackson as recently as the 1950s. Jackson, for example, wrote in one concurrence:I should concur in this result more readily if the Court could reach it by analysis of the statute instead of by psychoanalysis of Congress. When we decide from legislative history, including statements of witnesses at hearings, what Congress probably had in mind, we must put ourselves in the place of a majority of Congressmen and act according to the impression we think this history should have made on them. Never having been a Congressman, I am handicapped in that weird endeavor. That process seems to me not interpretation of a statute but creation of a statute.
The Jackson quote is taken from U.S. v. Public Utilities Comm'n, 345 U.S. 295 (1953) at 319.
In his essay in Scalia's book, at page 68, Tribe writes,
Like nearly everyone, I agree, for instance, that the Supreme Court's 1954 decision that official school segregation by race violates equal protection correctly interprets what the Fourteenth Amendment says (and always said) — even though it may well defy what the amendment's authors and ratifiers expected the amendment to do - and indeed I agree that the authors and ratifiers themselves may well have intended to enact a provision that might, in light of its broad language and its uncertain reach, end up condemning some of what they then regarded as entirely just and proper.
Robert Bork, 75, 81-2, in "The Tempting of America" wrote:
Brown was a great and correct decision....Let us suppose that Plessy v. Ferguson correctly represented the original understanding of the fourteenth amendment, that those who ratified it intended black equality, which they demonstrated by adopting the equal protection clause. But they also assumed that equality and state-compelled separation of the races were consistent, an assumption which they demonstrated by leaving in place various state laws segregating the races. Let us also suppose, along with the Court in Plessy, as I think we must, that the ratifiers had no objection to the psychological harm segregation inflicted. If those things are true, then it is impossible to square the opinion in Brown with the original understanding. It is, however, entirely possible to square the result in Brown with that understanding....
By 1954, when Brown came up for decision, it had been apparent for some time that segregation rarely if ever produced equality. Quite aside from any question of psychology, the physical facilities provided for blacks were not as good as those provided for whites. That had been demonstrated in a long series of cases....
Since equality and segregation were mutually inconsistent, though the ratifiers did not understand that, both could not be honored. When that is seen, it is obvious the Court must choose equality and prohibit state-imposed segregation. The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the text.
One problem with quoting what some Framers discussed is that the people never ratified Framer discussions. They ratified the black letter text of the Constitution itself. Neither Framers nor the Federal legislature ratified the Constitution or any of its amendments. That was done by States.
The purported intent of the lawgiver is irrelevant if the actual words of the law have a clear meaning. The words prevail even where the lawgiver's words are contrary to his intent. This is even so with legislation where the legislators voted to pass legislation. The words are ratified or passed into law, the intent is not.
United States v Sprague, 282 US 716, 730-732 (1931)
The United States asserts that Article V is clear in statement and in meaning, contains no ambiguity, and calls for no resort to rules of construction. A mere reading demonstrates that this is true.[...]
In spite of the lack of substantial evidence as to the reasons for the changes in statement of Article V from its proposal until it took final form in the finished draft, they seek to import into the language of the Article dealing with amendments, the views of the convention with respect to the proper method of ratification of the instrument as a whole. They say that if the legislatures were considered incompetent to surrender the people's liberties when the ratification of the Constitution itself was involved, a fortiori they are incompetent now to make a further grant. Thus, however clear the phraseology of Article V, they urge we ought to insert into it a limitation on the discretion conferred on the Congress, so that it will read, "as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress, as may be appropriate in view of the purpose of the proposed amendment." This can not be done.
The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear there is no room for construction and no excuse for interpolation or addition. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet. 410; Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 TJ. S. 139; Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U. S. 662; Hodges v. United States, 203 U. S. 1; Edwards v. Cuba R. Co., 268 U. S. 628; The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655; Story on the Constitution (5th ed.) § 451; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations (2nd ed.), pp. 61; 70.
If the framers of the instrument had any thought that amendments differing in purpose should be ratified in different ways, nothing would have been simpler than so to phrase Article V as to exclude implication or speculation. The fact that an instrument drawn with such meticulous care and by men who so well understood how to make language fit their thought does not contain any such limiting phrase affecting the exercise of discretion by the Congress in choosing one or the other alternative mode of ratification is persuasive evidence that no qualification was intended.
This Court has repeatedly and consistently declared that the choice of mode rests solely in the discretion of Congress.
Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 86, 108-09 (1925)
The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Conventions of the thirteen States, were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them, but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.
Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 US 511, 519 (1993), Scalia, J., concurring
The greatest defect of legislative history is its illegitimacy.We are governed by laws, not by the intentions of legislators. As the Court said in 1844: "The law as it passed is the will of the majority of both houses, and the only mode in which that will is spoken is in the act itself...." Aldridge v. Williams, 3 How. 9, 24 (emphasis added). But not the least of the defects of legislative history is its indeterminacy. If one were to search for an interpretive technique that, on the whole, was more likely to confuse than to clarify, one could hardly find a more promising candidate than legislative history. And the present case nicely proves that point.
Judge Harold Leventhal used to describe the use of legislative history as the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one's friends.
Aldridge v. Williams, 44 U.S. 9, 24 (1845)
In expounding this law, the judgment of the Court cannot in any degree be influenced by the construction placed upon it by individual members of Congress in the debate which took place on its passage nor by the motives or reasons assigned by them for supporting or opposing amendments that were offered. The law as it passed is the will of the majority of both houses, and the only mode in which that will is spoken is in the act itself, and we must gather their intention from the language there used, comparing it, when any ambiguity exists, with the laws upon the same subject and looking, if necessary, to the public history of the times in which it was passed.
United States v Union Pacific Railroad Company, 91 U.S. 72 (1875)
In construing an act of Congress, we are not at liberty to recur to the views of individual members in debate nor to consider the motives which influenced them to vote for or against its passage. The act itself speaks the will of Congress, and this is to be ascertained from the language used. But courts, in construing a statute, may with propriety recur to the history of the times when it was passed, and this is frequently necessary in order to ascertain the reason as well as the meaning of particular provisions in it. Aldridge v. Williams, 3 How. 24; Preston v. Browder, 1 Wheat. 115, 120 [argument of counsel -- omitted].
Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244, 254 (1901)
In expounding this law, the judgment of the Court cannot in any degree be influenced by the construction placed upon it by individual members of Congress in the debate which took place on its passage nor by the motives or reasons assigned by them for supporting or opposing amendments that were offered. The law as it passed is the will of the majority of both houses, and the only mode in which that will is spoken is in the act itself, and we must gather their intention from the language there used, comparing it, when any ambiguity exists, with the laws upon the same subject and looking, if necessary, to the public history of the times in which it was passed.
The old English common law that you cite is based on a paradigm that the Framers rejected.
At the Founding of the States, each of the thirteen States adopted the English Common Law. Each did so explicitly, either in their State constitution, or in their State statute law. The States adopted the English Common Law before the Articles of Confederation or Constitution.
One look at the Federal legal system and it is obvious that it is based on the English Common Law system. English Common Law prior to the Declaration of Independence is United States Common Law.
The arms were the property of the local Baron, not the people.
The colonists' arms were not the property of the local Baron. Neither were those of British subjects anywhere. What was carried forth from the colonies to the states was the English Common Law in 1776.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England
Book the First - Chapter the First: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals (1765)
5. THE fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
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