Posted on 09/26/2003 1:31:39 PM PDT by 45Auto
How? How's it going to get through the House? He can't do a thing on his own, and you know it.
Remember the arguments in Parliament when Britain banned all handguns and all semi-automatic rifles? Some tried to claim a sporting use, but that argument was rejected. The MPs said that the safety of children was a "compelling interest" that overruled what small amount of good that sport shooting provided to the public at large.
As recently as 1934 there were few restrictions on owning such items. I recall a case in the 60s (I wish I could remember more details) in which a person owned a large amount of field guns and similar weapons. He stored them in the Kalifornia desert. I remember there was liberal anguish over the fact that it was perfectly legal to own such items.
The problem we face today is that 70 years have passed with infringements which have allowed undisciplined people to remain in our communities. Prior to 1934 such people would have been weeded out.
Few people begin their life of crime by committing mass murder. Many such people begin by torturing animals. Such people would have faced severe consequences for such abnormal behavior. Now we just give them counseling.
There will be an adjustment period required after the return of our right to keep and bear arms. And a lot of bullies are going to get their butts kicked. People who commit armed robberies need to be hanged. Nobody ever walked into a liquor store holding a gun twice by accident.
Lives of crime will become much shorter. But government regulation needs to be rolled back as well. There will still be the occasional person, like the sausage maker in the San Francisco Bay Area, who finds that the government is infringing his rights and who kills several government inspectors out of murderous frustration. The government may need to get out of the sausage making business.
P.S. Sender: you need to get yourself a copy of a dictionary definition of "infringe" from as close to 1791 as possible. This is the requirement to determine what the word meant at the time the 2nd Amendment was ratified.
BREAK
CRUSH
VIOLATE
DEFEAT
INVALIDATE
Obviously if we say the right of the People to bear arms shall not be crushed, broken, defeated and invalidated, this pretty much prevents outright bans and confiscation. "Infringe" is a much less severe word than "crush" or "defeat", so maybe the anti-gunners feel secure in thinking "hey, we didn't completely crush or defeat your rights".
No, the antis aren't thinking about our rights at all, actually. They see no problem with making anything illegal that scares them. From diet pills to campaign contributions, just make it illegal with the stroke of a pen. What's the problem? Something wrong with a liberal, socialist, union, multicultural, appeasing country where guns are illegal? Anyone have a problem with that?
Actuall not, by it's own terms the second amendment *protects* a prexisting indivdual right. It does not say "the people shall have the right" it says "the right of the people... shall not be infringed". It could be argued that amendments 3,5,6,7, and 8 (and parts of the first, "confer" or create rights, but not 2 or 4 (and parts of 1)
OTOH, it may be a good time to stock up on "neccessities" that would be needed should such a situtation come to pass. If the Supreme Court decides against the plain words of the second amendment, and declares it to protect a "collective right" of the states or somesuch twaddle, it will open up the floodgates to the worst sorts of gun control and banning imaginable, right up to involuntary "turn ins", 0300 raids on "gun criminals" and so forth.
So have most US Attorney's General since at least 1934. The current one excepted...at least on the surface.
[in-'frinj]
infringed
infringing
Medieval Latin infringere, from Latin, to break, crush, from in- in + frangere to break
: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another
Example: the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed -- U.S. Constitution amend. II
esp : to violate a holder's rights under (a copyright, patent, trademark, or trade name): "encroach"
Sounds fairly absolute to me. But to really get the proper meaning one would need to look in dictionary, preferably a legal dictionary, from a time near when the second amendment was written.
But they did have cannons, and ships to mount them on. Congress was given the power to grant Letters of Marque. This power would make no sense at all unless private individuals, or even groups of individuals, were not allowed to own those cannon and mount them on ships. They did both. So even a crew served heavy weapon is not beyond what the founders had knowlege of. A smart bomb is actually a much more "defensible" weapon than a cannon of that earlier era, you're much more likely to hit what you are aiming at, rather than unfortunates who happen to live near the intended target.
In this day and age, knowing full well that there are thousands of enemies living here on US soil, there are SOME items that I can understand restricting...like man-portable SAM rockets that could bring down an airliner, for example. It is arguable that the authors of the 2nd would want good people to have just such items, if they were available, for the honorable purpose of equalizing "the People" against the use of aircraft by tyranny. But seriously, now is not the time to pass them out. Same, obviously with any chem/bio or nuclear materials...there are SOME things that just can't be unregulated.
I know, now I'm sounding like the anti-gunners, but I'm not. Unless we can find a way to come to a reasonable definition of where "gun" ends and "WMD" begins, how can we ever claim victory? BTW, I absolutely think that "assault weapons", including full auto and other military small arms, are exactly the type of arms that the 2nd intends for us to own. I will never use hunting or sporting purposes as a litmus test for our rights.
The second amemendment does not mention "guns", "firearms" or even "weapons", it says "arms". Do we not negotiate "arms control treaties" with other countries, with the subject being ICBMs, ABMs, Battleships, etc? A cannon in 1791 was alot closer to an "absolute weapon", than an RPG or even MANPAD SAM is today.
Just think how many people in a seaside village or city could have been killed by a rogue privateer deciding to load up with "grape" and have at it.. except for one little thing, the town militia would likely have it's own cannon, and shoot back. Would be mass murders hate it when that happens. :)
I agree, we should restrict our enemies from living here on US soil.
Todays equivalent of a privateer might be your own B-52, or a 747 modified to carry JDAMS. (Now THAT would really be a "bomb truck")
Modern day cannon include heavy anti-aircraft artillery, would could bring down an airliner just as surely (actualy more surely, MANPAD SAMs have dinky little warheads, which would likely only disable a single engine, and most airliners have more than one, and can usually land with the rest turning and burning) Even a surplus ZSU-23 or 20 mm Vulcan cannon would be a nasty thing to run into when on final approach over some city, or even some rural highway, and you could easily hide the business end of one in an 18 wheeler. So would a double or quad .50 BMG, and you could hide one of those in an "Urban Assault Vehicle" (AKA large size SUV) or a reasonable size van, disguised as something that would require stablising jacks would be best, like a Cable repair vehicle or even a Satellite Dish truck.
If you aren't comfortable with the terms of the second amendment, then get it ammended, otherwise it's the supreme law of the land. You can't let the Congress Critters, the bureacRats in the executive branch, or 6 folks in black robes, define what its terms mean. If they can define "arms" to exclude SAMS, they can define it to include only muzzle loading muskets (while at the same time baning blackpowder and its substitutes as "explosives) and hunting knives, if they aren't "too sharp", of course.
But now, back to political reality: how ya gonna get any judge or politician to agree that we can own artillery, AA guns etc? You won't get many, that's for sure. Politically it's a dead end and can potentially do harm to the real world RKBA.
I assure you that if it comes to outright bans and confiscation, or restricting us to black powder muskets, I'll be right there in the foxhole with you when they come.
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