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6.5 Grendel does. Getting reliable 25 round magazines requires trial and error though.

the patent:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=BZsDAAAAEBAJ&dq=6032137

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

There may be practical benefits to throw these guys in prison, but do you believe that putting them in prison is just. Do you believe what they wanted to do- to liberate the oppressed people of a communist country- was morally wrong? If you were on the jury, could you convict them with a clear conscience?

These guys would never be convicted by a jury I was on. This case is ripe for jury nullification.

Ron Paul advocates letters of marque- maybe cuz it’s in the constitution.

Don’t conflate concealed carry laws with trespassing laws. They are very different and carry very different penalties. Noone in Texas is proposing a repeal of any trespass laws. I think everyone agrees with you that business owners have the right have rules about what’s allowed on their property and to kick people out for not following those rules. Noone wants to change that. The proposed change relates only to carry laws, not trespass laws. If this change goes into effect businesses can still make any rule they want (including rules about carrying guns) and kick out and refuse service to people who don’t follow those rules. The question here is whether the government should imprison people for years for carrying a gun.

I see your point about property rights, but isn't my car MY property? I park in my employer's parking lot at my employer's pleasure, but it's nobody's business what I keep inside MY car for self defense.

I also understand that an employer can fire anyone for any reason (unless the employment contract says otherwise), but any employer who fires someone for having a gun in his car is an idiot.

Do you have any evidence to back up your "blood bath" speculation? It sounds exactly like the "streets running with blood" predictions the Brady Bunch made about each of the 38 state concealed laws that were passed. The "blood baths" never materialized; instead every category of violent crime decreased.

You've put forward a rational case for why less gun control could, in theory, result in more crime. However, this view is purely hypothetical, and the real world does not support it. There is still not a single instance where more permissive carry laws were followed by an increase in crime. There were several large metropolitan areas with neighborhoods that were controlled by gangsters that now allow concealed carry- e.g. Miami, Houston. After concealed carry was allowed predicted spikes in violent crime never materialized. I don't think we should give speculation about "streets running with blood" any credence until there is evidence to support it. Such speculation is certainly not justification for infringing our rights- especially not when all empirical evidence indicates that concealed carry will result in less violence against innocent citizens.

I wish we had more courts, including a Supreme Court, that limited congress to it's article 1, section 8 enumerated powers.

I absolutely agree that the dicta from this decision is great for future incorporation. It's so great to see gun control stuck down and I'm excited at the prospect of seeing more in the future.

Do you believe that Rudy's gun control positions "conform to the second amendment"? Does a strict assault weapon ban "conform to the second amendment"? Sane, law abiding citizens denied the right to own handguns "conforms to the second amendment"? This type of gun control has plenty to do with a person's normal rights to own a weapon and use it.

Please, explain how disarming sane, law-abiding citizens is a rational method for "dealing with a city rampant with killings".

I like Rudy, and he's better than most blue state politicians on most issues- way better than Hillary or Barack, but let's be honest about his gun control positions. They are very much the Democrat positions. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't sign any gun control legislation that crosses his desk. He's a free market guy, but he's not a bill of rights guy. Not that there are many bill of rights guys to choose from among the front runners.

You nailed it. For the first time ever, a federal court has stricken down a gun control law!!!!!!! I'm all atingle...

Note that they did so without incorporating the second amendment though. Since D.C. is a federal district, there was no need to incorporate because the bill of rights applies directly-- as opposed to via the 14th amendment for state laws.

"Section 7-2507.02, like the bar on carrying a pistol within the home, amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional."

Is this the first time a federal court has struck down a gun control law as unconstitutional under the second amendment?!

HISTORIC!!!!

These are compelling arguments, but I wonder if the author is focusing too much on language rather than freedom. It is easy to conflate the two since English speaking people are generally the most free, but I think a closer correlation to prosperity can be found by studying the correlation with economic freedom. As far as military alliances go, it's true that the alliances tend to be among English speaking countries, but again, these countries also happen to be free. When is the last time two free countries were on opposite sides in a shooting war?

No kidding, NBC is nasty. But, my post was academic; I don't think we really have to worry about the SCOTUS tossing out NBC regulations on 2nd amendment grounds any time soon. Even if they did rule that we needed a constitutional amendment to regulate WMD, I bet we would witness the fastest ratification of a constitutional amendment in history. It might even be ratified before SCOTUS can even grant cert. Besides, no matter what the courts do, Jack Bauer will lay a 24 hour smack-down on any would be terrorist.

Read the constitution. It provides for calling up the militia to defend against invading armies and navies. It provides for letters of marque and reprisal so that civilians can capture enemy warships. Then read the second amendment. Read the Federalist papers where it's pointed out that no standing army could hope to win against a militia that is similarly armed. Read statements of the founders from the time period when the constitution and the bill of rights were ratified. Their concern was whether the people would always be armed heavily enough to defeat any army on earth (including our own), not that the people might get too many scary weapons. Square that with disarming the people or even placing limits on what weapons they should have. An honest originalist reading of the constitution may lead to the conclusion that we may need an amendment to ban civilian nukes.

First, what I've received is a list of cases that mention the second amendment's preamble- not support for your baseless assertion that "every court except the 5th Circuit" follows the Soviet-style collective right model. The preamble gives context and rationale for the right enumerated. It does not irrationally and unexplainably transform the meaning of "the people" into something different than what "the people" means everywhere else in the constitution. It certainly does not change the meaning of "the people" to "state government".

Second, let me explain the difference between collective rights and individual rights. In a country that respects your individual right to free speech, the government will not punish you for posting your political views on Free Republic. In a country that recognizes a collective right to free speech, the government will toss you into a concentration camp for speaking out of turn and exercise "the people's" (government's) collective right to broadcast the government's views.

All of the rights enumerated in the bill of rights, including the second amendment, are individual rights. This is obvious when you consider that collective rights did not exist at the time the bill of rights was ratified. The concept of collective rights is a Marxist construct, and the bill of rights predates Marxism. The individual rights enumerated in the bill of rights are restrictions on government action. The second amendment's preamble describes the purpose of the right that it enumerates. That's why the Supreme Court concerned itself with the military suitability of the sawed off shotgun rather than whether Miller had a permission slip from the governor.

The point of including the Reconstruction era cases was to show examples of Supreme Court cases where the right to keep and bear arms is regarded as an individual right. The fact that the right was not incorporated does not make it a collective right. The rest of the enumerated rights from the bill of rights were not incorporated at that time either, yet they are always individual rights, both before and after incorporation.

"The people" from Verdugo-Urquidez is the same "the people" from the second amendment. That's the reason the court referred to the second amendment in that case, as an example of usage of the words "the people". It is referred to in the context individual rights, not collective rights.

The collective rights model is not jurisprudence. It is revisionist history and wishful thinking by a handful of Marxist federal judges who twist history and logic until "the people" = "the government" in order to suit their elitist agenda of disarming "the people".

Even supposing that the founding fathers had a time machine and learned what a collective right was, if they intended to draft a collective right to keep and bear arms since their language in the constitution was always precise and consistent they would word it differently. Perhaps something like this:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the power of the state governments to arm their militias shall not be infringed. "
Of course, that's not what the second amendment says, is it?

I'll grant you that the ninth circuit held that the right to keep and bear arms was "collective", and that the fourth and sixth circuit courts of appeal have given opinions consistent with the collective right model(though the sixth circuit's Warin decision was self-contradictory, indicating that only individuals' possession of certain firearms was unprotected from federal legislation by the second amendment and relying on the first circuit's Cases decision that described the right as belonging to individuals), but can you provide citations to back up your statement that "every single federal court except the 5th Circuit" follows the Soviet-style collective right model.

Here are SCOTUS cases that refer to the right to keep and bear arms in terms consistent with an individual (not collective, right:

# Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) [6] - The court ruled Scott did not enjoy the protection of the Bill of Rights because of his racial background. However, in its ruling, it implies all free men do have the right to bear arms by indicating what would happen if he was indeed afforded full protection:

"It would give to persons of the negro race, ... the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, ... the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."


United States v. Cruikshank

U.S. v. Cruikshank involved members of the Ku Klux Klan depriving black victims of their basic rights such as freedom of assembly and to bear arms. The court decided that neither the First nor Second Amendments applied to the states, but were limitations on Congress. Thus the federal government had no power to correct these violations. The high court said:
“ The right [claimed in this case] is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the 'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police,' 'not surrendered or restrained' by the Constitution of the United States. ”

The court made similar findings with respect to the first amendment, though since that time the Supreme Court has said that the 14th Amendment applies the bill of rights to the states.

This high court statement is the first of two cases (the other being Presser) in which the Supreme Court ruled that because "[t]he Second Amendment...has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government...", the states and municipalities may regulate arms. This is because courts didn't recognise the doctrine of incorporation at this point in the nineteenth century.

# Duncan v. Louisiana (1968) [9] - A Supreme Court case which incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial at the state level as required by the Fourteenth Amendment. In the court's written opinion, the court used a statement by Senator Howard, who introduced the Fourteenth Amendment, to help validate their ruling that the Bill of Rights as a result of the Fourteenth Amendment forces states, and not just the federal government, to protect the same individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights:

"Such is the character of the privileges and immunities spoken of in the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution ...the personal rights guarantied and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining [391 U.S. 145, 167] to each and all the people; the right to keep and to bear arms..."


U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990) In discussing the meaning of "the people" in the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court commented: " '[T]he people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by 'the people of the United States.' The Second Amendment protects 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,' and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to 'the people.' See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ('Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble') (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 ('The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States') (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that 'the people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community. "
Unless you contend that other rights protected by the bill of rights are also collective rather than individual, this passage can only be read as referring to an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Yes, I've read Silveira. That's why I'll give you the 9th circuit in the "collective" column. I've also read Kozinski's brilliant dissent that destroyed the majority opinion in detail. This dissent also gave us the funniest judicial metaphor of all time- the majority's attempt to smother the second amendment by sheer weight had the grace of the sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it. Kozinski's understanding what our revolutionary founding fathers meant when they penned the second amendment is perhaps so clear because of the perspective he has having lived under an authoritarian regime that he has seen toppled.