Gun control/2nd Amendment

[David Floyd]

Boris,

DF: See my post wherein I point out the FFs are all dead as dodos, so their desires mean diddly/squat to modern society.

Then, if that's the case, why not just tear up the entire Constitution?

Sava,

Yeah, huge problem with that position... unless you believe the founding fathers had a crystal ball and saw the future developments in firearms and weapons.

Obviously they didn't - the 2nd can be changed through an amendment.

But I'm not going to discuss this topic with you any more David. You think it's okay for people to own nuclear weapons, missiles, and machine guns. And I've known you long enough to know better than to waste my time.

Erm, I thought you opened this thread for the initial purpose of carrying on a discussion with me?

In any case, nuclear weapons and missiles are not relevant to the 2nd Amendment, as they fall under the category of ordnance, and not arms. Heavy machine guns probably do as well. So why even bring those up?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Then, if that's the case, why not just tear up the entire Constitution?

Because it serves a purpose to modern society, and we still want it around. We just make it flexible to accomodate a modern point of view. It would be silly and time-wasting to ammend the constitution for everything the society wishes to see but may not be strictly constitutional. Ergo interpretation, while still maintaining the core frame, is the most sensible path.

A document that is inflexible will cease to represent the will of the people and then will become irrelevant. I'd rather the Constitution flow more freely into the modern era.

[Sava]

nuclear weapons are considered arms... or haven't you heard of the "Nuclear Arms Race"... I just wanted you to clarify your thoughts on this issue with me. You've presented your ideas, and there's nothing further to discuss. I don't see how any human being can say that one should be allowed to own any sort of WMD or any sort of gun that is designed to kill people by the second. I'm obviously not going to change your mind, and sooner or later one of us will probably end up insulting the other as the discussion regresses. Let's just leave it at that...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Then, if that's the case, why not just tear up the entire Constitution?

Um... just because you don't care about what the Founding Fathers said doesn't mean you don't care about what the Constitution says.

There is more than one way in statutory interpretation, and while original intent is a common one, I prefer a reasonable constructionalism (reasonable meaning of the words - no right is total).

[David Floyd]

Because it serves a purpose to modern society, and we still want it around.

No, you want PART of it around

We just make it flexible to accomodate a modern point of view.

But that isn't the intent of the Constitution, nor is that allowed anywhere in the document. There is only one mechanism for expanding or contracting the Constitution/Bill of Rights, and that is an amendment.

It would be silly and time-wasting to ammend the constitution for everything the society wishes to see but may not be strictly constitutional.

How would it be a waste of time to adapt our Supreme Law to what society wants? That is, unless there is not enough societal support for that adaptation, and what you really mean is what the liberals want.

Ergo interpretation, while still maintaining the core frame, is the most sensible path.

Interpretation is fine, but some things are so clear that interpretation is not necessary.

A document that is inflexible will cease to represent the will of the people and then will become irrelevant. I'd rather the Constitution flow more freely into the modern era.

The Constitution is in no way inflexible, provided you have enough support to change it. What could be wrong with that?

[Sava]

While I have a loose interpretation of all of the amendments... I find it hypocritical that many people don't have a problem with all this "War on Terror" searching, seizing, detaining business, but yet God forbid someone messes with the 2nd amendment...

[David Floyd]

nuclear weapons are considered arms... or haven't you heard of the "Nuclear Arms Race"...

That is a misnomer, then. Or rather, a simplification. No one would call it the "Nuclear Ordnance Race", that sounds stupid. But ordnance is indeed what nuclear weapons are.

For a 1783 example, a musket is an arm, while a cannon is ordnance.

I just wanted you to clarify your thoughts on this issue with me. You've presented your ideas, and there's nothing further to discuss.

Then why not just PM me? Public threads imply a willingness to discuss an issue.

I don't see how any human being can say that one should be allowed to own any sort of WMD

Again, not relevant to the 2nd Amendment.

or any sort of gun that is designed to kill people by the second.

Emotional appeal argument - not a rational one. You aren't giving me any reasons why I can own a handgun but not an assault rifle, in the context of the 2nd Amendment, which, again, is the topic at hand.

I'm obviously not going to change your mind, and sooner or later one of us will probably end up insulting the other as the discussion regresses.

Who's insulting anyone? I'm not gonna start the insults, if that's what you're worried about.

[David Floyd]

While I have a loose interpretation of all of the amendments... I find it hypocritical that many people don't have a problem with all this "War on Terror" searching, seizing, detaining business, but yet God forbid someone messes with the 2nd amendment...

Fortunately, I strongly oppose both the "War on Terror" and related issues AND encroachments on the 2nd

[Sava]

Originally posted by David Floyd
That is a misnomer, then. Or rather, a simplification. No one would call it the "Nuclear Ordnance Race", that sounds stupid. But ordnance is indeed what nuclear weapons are.

It's a symmantical issue. But the broadest definition of arms includes all sorts of weapons. You are refering to the different classifications of military weaponry (which BTW, is your own interpretation of the constitutional use of the word arms).

For a 1783 example, a musket is an arm, while a cannon is ordnance.

Yes, but its not incorrect to refer to cannons as "arms".

Then why not just PM me? Public threads imply a willingness to discuss an issue.

I still want to discuss the issue with others, not just you.

Again, not relevant to the 2nd Amendment.

The cyclic rate of modern machine guns is by no means an emotional argument. It's a simple fact that machine guns are designed to kill people faster than bolt action rifles.

Emotional appeal argument - not a rational one. You aren't giving me any reasons why I can own a handgun but not an assault rifle, in the context of the 2nd Amendment, which, again, is the topic at hand.

My fault for not being more specific. Assault rifles kill more people faster than a handgun. For home defense, a handgun or a rifle is perfectly capable of stopping an intruder. An assault rifle is only needed in the even of your house getting invaded by North Korea... please don't tell me you think that will happen.

Who's insulting anyone? I'm not gonna start the insults, if that's what you're worried about.

Nah, I'm worried I might start the insults ... and I've been so good lately, Ming

[Sava]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Fortunately, I strongly oppose both the "War on Terror" and related issues AND encroachments on the 2nd

Good. Despite our differences on this issue, I'm glad to hear you are consistent.

[monkspider]

I find it both strange and amusing that some treat the constitution up as some sort of divinely inspired document and the founding fathers a polytheistic group of deities. That to question any part of the constitution is a blasphemy of the highest order and grounds for immediate persecution. I just find that quite odd.

[Imran Siddiqui]

No one would call it the "Nuclear Ordnance Race", that sounds stupid.

BULL! Now you are making things up. If we called it 'Nuclear Ordinance Race' that would be normal and would sound normal and 'Nuclear Arms' would sound stupid. They called it Nuclear Arms for a reason.

[Sava]

Originally posted by monkspider
I find it both strange and amusing that some treat the constitution up as some sort of divinely inspired document and the founding fathers a polytheistic group of deities. That to question any part of the constitution is a blasphemy of the highest order and grounds for immediate persecution. I just find that quite odd.

You have to work within the system or you get "detained"... personally, I think we should start from scratch... but that would require... uhmm... revo... uhhm... yeah that R word

[David Floyd]

OK, fine - let's drop the arms vs. ordnance debate. I'm trying to make it easier for Sava. Personally, I think there is a difference, but I don't really care what you call them, because either way, weapons are protected.

The cyclic rate of modern machine guns is by no means an emotional argument. It's a simple fact that machine guns are designed to kill people faster than bolt action rifles.

Duh. So what?

My fault for not being more specific. Assault rifles kill more people faster than a handgun.

Duh. So what?

For home defense, a handgun or a rifle is perfectly capable of stopping an intruder.

In many cases this is correct. But what does home defense have to do with the 2nd Amendment? I don't see home defense mentioned in the 2nd Amendment - I don't see "...as long as arms are used in home defense" at the end of it.

monkspider,

I find it both strange and amusing that some treat the constitution up as some sort of divinely inspired document and the founding fathers a polytheistic group of deities. That to question any part of the constitution is a blasphemy of the highest order and grounds for immediate persecution. I just find that quite odd.

Seems as if you would support a set of documents that, in many ways, were inspired from Christianity. At least according to the Founders - that was their clear intent.

In any case, treating the Constitution as a "divinly inspired document" is not really the issue. Treating it as the Supreme Law of the United States IS the issue. If you wanna change that, fine, but you would have to repeal the Constitution, through Constitutional means. Good luck finding a Constitutional way to abolish the Constitution

[Felch]

It's called a Constitutional Convention.

[David Floyd]

Fine. Go ahead and organize one. Personally, I think you might have trouble, and I'm not quite sure who would have the authority to do it - the federal government couldn't do it without the consent of the states and, politically, without a popular mandate, and the states on their own wouldn't have enough clout to do it, either.

[Rasbelin]

A quick response to the original message by Sava...

Automatic sub-machine-guns (mp5, uzi, mac10, etc)
Automatic rifles (M16, Colt M4a1, ak47, etc)
Automatic machine guns (M60, M249 Para)
Explosives (grenades, rockets, etc)
Man Portable Nuclear Weapons

Forbidding those is logical and understandable, if it also includes the exception of light use by the police and armed forces.

I think everything except Hunting Rifles/Shotguns and Handguns should be illegal to the general public.

I completely agree with you and I also add that this system is in use in e.g. Finland and it works perfectly well.

Handguns should only be legal in rural areas.

At this point I wouldn't have any limit because someone would have to define what is a rural area for gun control and it would also require some extra control. However you could of course add it to the law, but it would be enforced as a part of any other gun control done by the police and sheriffs, so it wouldn't warrant any extra actions. But it still sounds abit stubborn IMO, so not having any limit would work better.

Carrying a concealed weapon should require a different type of permit which requires the completion of a weapons training/safety course... if at all.

That would sound understandable too.

I think all guns should have fingerprint technology so that only the registered owner(s) should be able to use them.

I think that would be a good and working system. I don't know if it's in use anywhere now, but at least it would be a good way to put effort on limiting the number of illegal guns among minors. Of course there's the black market and criminals, but at least you couldn't walk around as a 12 years-old and carry a pistol (which is insane IMO).

[aaglo]

Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!

...not another gun control thread....


D. Floyd said:

You think it's okay for people to own man-portable nuclear weapons? Man portable anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers? Fully automatic, belt fed machine guns?

Yes.

Okay, this was a complete turn-off... I need to read no further.

Bye...

[TheStinger]

DF do you ever draw the line, Wouldn't you think the possession of man portable maight be a little too dangerous for society as a whole. I can understand people being allowed personnal handguns, after all they are likley only to harm themselves if they malfunction However the bigger the weapon the worse it gets.

I think its fine and dandy that you have absolute beliefs, but do they extend to allowing the killing of an entire community by mistake

[Ned]

Sava, in my view, the 2nd Amendment applies to the Federal Government and is absolute. It forbids the feds from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear military type arms so that the states may have a well regulated Militia.

The Amendment does not apply to the States. The States can ban gun ownership if they want.

I must admit, that the need to keep arms in the home in order to have a well regulated Militia is gone. Perhaps it is time for an amendment to allow federal licensing.

But until such an amendment is passed, Congress cannot constitutionally pass a federal license law.

[Rasbelin]

Mr. Floyd, are you aware of the fact that you make yourself absolutely dumb in the public here, by saying that you accept bazookas, grenades, SMGs, etc. in the public. Well, the society where you would then live would look something like this.

Rasbey: - Help, help! Someone is out for a rampage with a SMG as someone tried to attack him.
Police: - Duh, just let him carry on.

Is this what you want? Loonies "defending themselves" with military weapons? Right, then you'd better get someone medical care soon.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Worth remembering: the 2nd Amendment is the only amendment in the Bill of Rights that the Founders felt the need to provide a rationale for. All the rest are simply declaratory: "Congress shall make no law..." "The rights of the people...shall not be infringed..." etc. Only the 2nd begins with that dependent clause, designed to explain why the amendment exists: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."

Now, what does you make of this exceptional phrasing, this unique language and sentence structure? I think it suggests that, for the founders, the emphasis was on the well-regulated militia, not on gun ownership; otherwise, why not just say "Congress shall make no law infringing on the right to bear arms"? That phrasing would be clearer and more consistant with the language in the other 9 amendments. No, they made this one different, and for a reason: the imagined that guns would be readily available, but that gun ownership would be "well-regulated." In general, this has also been what SCOTUS has held. And I say, bully for them all.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Interstate commerce clause. Licensing is also not an infringement, unless there are arbitrary restrictions on who can obtain a license.

Nor is identification or background checks as a condition of purchase - again, as long as there is no "arbitrary" purpose.

The other thing I want to clarify is your stance on the legality of different types of firearms. Of the following types of weapons, what should be legal and what shouldn't be?

Automatic sub-machine-guns (mp5, uzi, mac10, etc)
Automatic rifles (M16, Colt M4a1, ak47, etc)
Automatic machine guns (M60, M249 Para)
Hunting rifles/Shotguns
Handguns
Explosives (grenades, rockets, etc)
Man Portable Nuclear Weapons

No full auto, but single/3 round burst OK
Same as above
Nope
Yep
Yep
Depends on size/yield
Nope

[aaglo]

3 round burst ok?

What the **** is wrong with you people?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Worth remembering: the 2nd Amendment is the only amendment in the Bill of Rights that the Founders felt the need to provide a rationale for. All the rest are simply declaratory: "Congress shall make no law..." "The rights of the people...shall not be infringed..." etc. Only the 2nd begins with that dependent clause, designed to explain why the amendment exists: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."

Now, what does you make of this exceptional phrasing, this unique language and sentence structure? I think it suggests that, for the founders, the emphasis was on the well-regulated militia, not on gun ownership; otherwise, why not just say "Congress shall make no law infringing on the right to bear arms"? That phrasing would be clearer and more consistant with the language in the other 9 amendments. No, they made this one different, and for a reason: the imagined that guns would be readily available, but that gun ownership would be "well-regulated." In general, this has also been what SCOTUS has held. And I say, bully for them all.

The explanatory clause does not mean what you say it does, ie "well regulated" meant disciplined, rather than heavily laden with regulations. Why would a heavily laden with regulations Militia be necessary for the defense of a free state? The war with Britain was just over, and the Militia seemed to do ok without being heavily regulated by law, though many of their difficulties stemmed from their lack of discipline (ie their not being "well regulated"). The idea IMO was that the Militia should be well trained and reliable, rather than a pack of drunken rabble rousers who rob passers by etc.

As for the founding fathers assuming that we would still be using muzzle loading muskets 200 plus years later, I doubt that they were that stupid. Consider the difference in weaponry between 1589 and 1789. Fire power was much more effective in 1789. Now consider that guns available for civilian purchase in the U.S. are frozen technologically somewhere between about 1860-1900, eg machineguns existed in the middle of the 19th century, while detachable magazines and semi-automatic weapons were available at the end of the 19th century. So in reality, we are allowed to purchase only the types pf guns that were available within about 100 years of the writing of the constitution. I don't think that they would be blown away with the firepower capability of readily available weaponry for citizens, especially in comparison to the many orders of magnitude greater increase in the firepower of military weapons in the last 220 years.

Imran,

The Columbine killers did not have automatic weapons, though the impression that they did was put forward by the media and repeated ad nauseum. They were in fact pretty badly armed. They had a crappy 9mm pistol with an oversized magazine that looked like a SMG, a 9mm carbine (their best weapon, but no one focused on it because it didn't look bad) and two cut down shotguns with birdshot! Had more people simply ran from them they wouldn't have killed nearly so many people. But people froze and allowed them to shoot them at point blank range, where even birdshot is deadly.

The funny thing is that these punks weren't as well armed as a police officer when one considers that the police officer has an automatic shotgun that fires buckshot and slugs, as well as a quality high capacity 9mm that he actually knows how to shoot. I couldn't believe it when I watched the police stand around outside the building. Even us REMFs in the Army knew enough to counterattack quickly in order to save as many of our wounded as possible from bleeding to death. And this was before I knew that there were only 2 guys who were not very well armed, and had killed themselves early on.

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Sikander


The Columbine killers did not have automatic weapons, though the impression that they did was put forward by the media and repeated ad nauseum. They were in fact pretty badly armed. They had a crappy 9mm pistol with an oversized magazine that looked like a SMG, a 9mm carbine (their best weapon, but no one focused on it because it didn't look bad) and two cut down shotguns with birdshot! Had more people simply ran from them they wouldn't have killed nearly so many people. But people froze and allowed them to shoot them at point blank range, where even birdshot is deadly.

Oh I see its the victims fault for not being propepared to be attacked by gun weilding maniacs, after all they live in acountry where guns are allowed so they should know what they let themselves infor when they GO TO SCHOOL

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by aaglo
3 round burst ok?

What the **** is wrong with you people?

I could ask you the same question, toots. Care to explain the extreme difference between single-shot semi-auto fire and three-round burst mode (a la the M4A1 / M16A2)?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by TheStinger
Oh I see its the victims fault for not being propepared to be attacked by gun weilding maniacs, after all they live in acountry where guns are allowed so they should know what they let themselves infor when they GO TO SCHOOL

There is plenty of blame to go around. As with most murders, I place the vast majority of blame on the murderers. When the police fail to do their duty as they did here (at least one person, and probably more died as a result of the gigantic SWAT clusterf*ck outside the school for hours) then I give them a small slice of the blame. As for the victims, their mistakes are already paid for in full and then some, but I do take their example to heart. I mean, there is a school massacre every day in the U.S., so their example will probably be a lifesaver to me in time.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Sikander


The explanatory clause does not mean what you say it does, ie "well regulated" meant disciplined, rather than heavily laden with regulations. Why would a heavily laden with regulations Militia be necessary for the defense of a free state? The war with Britain was just over, and the Militia seemed to do ok without being heavily regulated by law, though many of their difficulties stemmed from their lack of discipline (ie their not being "well regulated"). The idea IMO was that the Militia should be well trained and reliable, rather than a pack of drunken rabble rousers who rob passers by etc.

Discipline makes people behave; regulations govern behavior. I'm not sure there's as strong a distinction here as you're implying. Nevertheless, by this logic, madatory training and licensing of gun owners -- just like car owners -- would have been within the scope of the founder's intent -- regulating by disciplining. That's where this thread started.

As for the Revolution, though, the militias did NOT do okay without heavy regulation. Washington complained endlessly about their indolence, insubordination, and extremely high rate of desertion. The regular army did okay, but the militias needed greater regulation, in BOTH senses of the word, and Washington fairly pleaded for it.

[aaglo]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I could ask you the same question, toots. Care to explain the extreme difference between single-shot semi-auto fire and three-round burst mode (a la the M4A1 / M16A2)?

The extreme difference: 300% increase in bullets...

But it's not the difference itself. I mean, why do you need those extra 2 bullets? If you try to shoot at something, the first will propably hit and the rest will go who-knows-where...

Or is it just that "it is very cool and it makes me feel like a real man" -feeling you get when you shoot 3-round burst...