Tenth Amendment Center by Joe Wolverton, II
President Donald Trump promises that he is just a few weeks from issuing regulations that would outlaw bump fire stocks.
Were knocking out bump stocks, Trump said at a White House news conference on October 1. Were in the final two or three weeks, and Ill be able to write out bump stocks.
This Republican presidents promise to write out bump fire stocks sounds suspiciously like his Democratic predecessors claim to possess the power to use his phone and pen to make law.
Ive got a pen and Ive got a phone, Barack Obama proclaimed in 2014. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions, he added.
This two-party, one policy situation is decades old. Regarding the presidential penchant for disarming the American people, I am reminded of a story I wrote in January 2014:
In an executive Fact Sheet issued January 3 by the White House, the president purports to establish new guidelines for keep[ing] Guns out of Potentially Dangerous Hands.
NOTE: Originally published at The New American Magazine and reposted here with permission from the author.
The next paragraph of that story can now be applied to both President Obama and President Trump:
What President Obama a former part-time law professor seems not to understand is that every time he issues some executive order, presidential finding, or fact sheet, he is exceeding the constitutional limits on his power and thereby violating his oath of office.
All you need to do is change the last name of the president and change the words fact sheet to memorandum and the story is no different.
President Trump is exercising that same unconstitutional authority to infringe significantly on the rights protected by the Second Amendment, specifically, the right to keep and bear arms.
Trumps attack on the Second Amendment in the form of banning bump fire stocks should come as no surprise.
In fact, back in February the president issued an official memorandum ordering the Department of Justice to dedicate all available resources to complete the review of the comments received, and, as expeditiously as possible, to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machineguns. Lest there be any misunderstanding, the memo identifies the device in question as bump fire stocks and similar devices.
For those of you counting on the National Rifle Association (NRA) to come to the defense of the Second Amendment, you probably dont want to read any further.
The NRA released the following statement regarding federal regulation of bump fire stocks:
The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.
So, no help from the NRA for Americans who believed the group to be defenders of the Second Amendment.
Of course, such a statement isnt surprising considering that the very same press release reveals that the NRA doesnt understand the purpose of the Second Amendment.
In an increasingly dangerous world, the NRA remains focused on our mission: strengthening Americans Second Amendment freedom to defend themselves, their families and their communities, the statement reads.
Wrong.
Our Founding Fathers were not concerned about protecting a mans right to keep his home and family safe from danger. Our Founding Fathers protected the individuals right to keep and bear arms because they knew that such was the only way to avoid being enslaved by tyrants.
They knew from their study of history that a tyrants first move was always to disarm the people, and generally to claim it was for their safety, and to establish a standing army so as to convince the people that they didnt need arms to protect themselves, for the tyrant and his professional soldiers would do it for them. Sound familiar?
Consider this gem from William Blackstone, a man of immense and undeniable influence on the Founders and their understanding of rights, civil and natural.
In Volume I of his Commentaries on the Laws of England, Blackstone declares the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
Would anyone in America or the world, for that matter argue that the sanctions of society and laws are sufficient to restrain violence or oppression?
Thus, the people must be armed.
Commenting on Blackstones Commentaries, eminent Founding Era jurist and constitutional scholar St. George Tucker put a finer point on the purpose of protecting the natural right of all people to keep and bear arms. He wrote:
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty . The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
Enough said.
As for President Trump, he has done many things consistent with his solemn oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. His issuing of a regulation to shrink the scope of the Second Amendment is not one of them, however.
Its this easy: Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution grants federal lawmaking power exclusively to the Congress.
Regardless of the word he uses to describe it, any time the president orders the executive branch to create law by executive decree, he is usurping the authority of the legislature.
Finally, in his memo, President Trump writes that he was motivated to begin the process of banning bump fire stocks after the deadly mass murder in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1, 2017.
No matter how many people are clamoring for protection, no matter how many madmen go on murderous sprees, the president is not constitutionally authorized to take executive actions that encroach upon rights protected by the Constitution in this case, the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Apart from his work as a journalist, Joe Wolverton, II is a professor of American Government at Chattanooga State and was a practicing attorney until 2009. He lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Since 2000, Joe has been a featured contributor to The New American magazine. Most recently, he has written a cover story article on the Tea Party movement, as well as a five-part series on the unconstitutionality of Obamacare.
#28: nolu chan To: hondo68 (#26)
She is not a student or faculty at Kent State. She can lawfully open carry on campus per Ohio law. She is a visitor and does not fall under the Board of Trustees' policy statement: "The policy provides a declaration by the Board that deadly weapons are prohibited on all university grounds, unless otherwise permitted by Ohio law."
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-21 01:07:29 Reply Private Reply
#29: VxH To: Deckard, hondo68 (#22)
Beautiful plumage the poodle's tailors wove him ehh?
VxH posted on 2018-10-21 01:56:47 Reply Private Reply
#30: misterwhite To: Stoner (#2)
misterwhite posted on 2018-10-21 10:10:38 Reply Private Reply
#31: Stoner To: sneakypete (#7)
I am with you on that. I use to laugh at people that used ear plugs shooting 22's. No more. I do the same now. Abused myself too much when I was younger !!
Now I wear them even when using 22's. Hearing is bad now, just do not want it to deteriorate further.
Wife says if I get any worse, she will have to get one of those battery bull horns. I said " Huh " LOL !!!
Stoner posted on 2018-10-21 11:58:30 Reply Private Reply
#32: nolu chan To: VxH (#29)
- - - - - - - - - -
The Great, the Magnificient President Donald J. Trump
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-21 13:08:19 Reply Private Reply
#33: Hondo68 To: nolu chan, Dan Rather team, Hogg Bros (#32)
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-21 13:45:14 Reply Private Reply
#34: nolu chan To: hondo68 (#33)
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-21 15:04:28 Reply Private Reply
#35: sneakypete To: hondo68 (#26)
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-21 19:35:02 Reply Private Reply
#36: Vicomte13 To: Deckard (#0)
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-21 20:26:12 Reply Private Reply
#37: Hondo68 To: Vicomte13, Full Auto is legal (#36)
That's incorrect, there are many firing full auto at Knob Creek and elsewhere.
NFA '34 levied a $200 tax stamp on them. There are many machine guns in private hands, "legally".
Canadian Senator goes full auto, legally....
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-21 20:43:05 Reply Private Reply
#38: Vicomte13 To: hondo68 (#37)
As a society, we have drawn the line at automatic weapons. You can have semi-automatic weapons, but full automatics are difficult to come by legally, and buying one requires a lot of extra steps.
This seems like a reasonable place to draw the line. In a similar vein, I don't mind if airplane aficionados buy and fly World War II bombers. I do mind if they are able to arm them with bombs.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-21 20:47:55 Reply Private Reply
#39: Hondo68 To: Vicomte13, hates us because we are free, wanabe tyrant (#38)
You hate us because we're free. Trump will sell anything to the Saudi's, but US citizens have infringements.
Well ya, Joe Sixpack doesn't have $110 Billion to spend on arms. Not Saudi Prince's, so we're screwed.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-21 21:12:21 Reply Private Reply
#40: A K A Stone To: hondo68 (#39)
A K A Stone posted on 2018-10-21 21:16:55 Reply Private Reply
#41: Vicomte13 To: hondo68 (#39)
I think that the gun laws should be set to keep machine guns out of private hands. Machine guns and missile launchers, bombs, nukes, anti-aircraft weapons, etc.
Private people having THOSE weapons in their hands doesn't make ANY of us free - it holds us all hostage to nutjobs who cook off all the time. We SEE nutjobs cook off right HERE on THIS small website all the time.
Drawing the line THERE, at machine guns, makes sense to me. I don't believe that it's a matter of cutting off your freedom to say you can't have machine guns, land mines, Hawk missile batteries, Stinger missiles, Claymore mines and a nuke in your basement. Jesus Christ, man, you people sound like lunatics when you suggest that ANY sort of rational restriction on gun ownership renders you unfree. It's nuts.
Semiautomatic weapons? Sure - I think we should be able to have those. Also handguns - I think we should be able to carry those in most places. I don't think we should have to register every gun or license everybody. Broad guns rights are great.
But unlimited open-ended possession of any sort of weapons? Nukes in your basement? No. Machine guns? No. No, our society will not be FREE, in any meaningful sense, when nutjobs can cook off and hose down 100, 200, 100,000 people at a shot before they can be stopped.
Common sense has got to prevail. You put yourself out of the pale of even getting to sit at the table when you bleed out the eyes at ANY sort of restriction on weapons. That hasn't ever really been our law. It's not our law now. It's not going to BE our law.
Now, if you and your ilk are rational and admit that, yeah, weapons of mass destruction are not protected by the 2nd Amendment, then people will accept you at the table. But if you take an absolutist hard line, then your guns rights ends up being lost because you're not even in the room, the only people left standing up for gun rights are people like me. And I understand why machine guns are where the line has to be drawn.
Engage rationally on the question, don't go crying that you're being enslaved because you aren't allowed to have your own person nuke. COME ON, man.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-21 22:47:56 Reply Private Reply
#42: nolu chan To: hondo68, Vicomte13 (#37)
There are 186,619 transferable machine guns in the USA. Only machine guns lawfully possessed before May 19, 1986 qualify.
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-21 23:34:24 Reply Private Reply
#43: Vicomte13 To: nolu chan (#42)
And theyre all registered, so the BATF knows where they are, yes?
And if one man, say, who runs a mosque or has a compound out in Idaho, accumulates 15, 20, 30, 1000 of them, the government will know that, because those weapons are tracked, true?
If a mosque or a militia starts accumulating legal machine guns, there will be government spies sent to see what is going on, yes? We dont pretend that the accumulation of machine guns is like collecting flowers, because were not obligated by the 2nd Amendment to be blind idiots. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Right?
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-22 07:48:08 Reply Private Reply
#44: nolu chan To: Vicomte13 (#43)
All full auto machine guns. Only those machine guns lawfully in civilian possession before May 19, 1986 may be lawfully in civilian possession today. If a machine gun was not registered on a Form 4S prior to May 19, 1986, it may not be lawfully transferred to a civilian today.
No new machine guns may be manufactured for civilian possession. No weapon of new manufacture can be registered on Form 4S prior to May 19, 1986.
The restricting issue, and the cost inflating issue, is not the $200 tax stamp. All such weapons must have been owned and registered before May 19, 1986. Demand exceeds supply, and unless the law changes, supply will never exceed the 186,619 of such registered weapons that existed in 1986.
BATF may not know where they are all at, but they know who they are registered to and in whose custody they are supposed to be.
Their lawful transfer generates a required paper trail. They must authorize the transfer, or the unauthorized transfer of the weapon results in unlawful possession and a weapon that may be seized as contraband.
I believe all you said is correct.
Of possible interest:
Saul Cornell and Nathan DeDino, A Well Regulated Right: The Early American Origins of Gun Control, 73 Fordham L. Rev. 487 (2004).
Available at: http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol73/iss2/3
Saul Cornell, St. George Tucker and the Second Amendment: Original Understandings and Modern Misunderstandings, 47 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1123 (2006).
Available at: http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol47/iss4/3
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-22 12:58:38 Reply Private Reply
#45: sneakypete To: Vicomte13 (#36)
No,they haven't. It would be un-Constitutional to ban them,so the goobermint came up with a permit system called a "Class 3 Licence" to buy,own,or possess full-auto weapons and "weapons of mass destruction".
You have to fill out feral papers and have them approved by your local Chief of Police or Sheriff,and he has to send them off to the feral government. I forget now how much the "tax stamp" costs for each weapon these days,but IIRC,it was 300 bucks back in the 30's when this un-Constitutional insanity started,and that was a massive amount of money at that time.
The fee remained at that level until Bubba and a DIM Congress managed to achieve a run-around the Constitution by the simple method of destroying every surplus Class 3 weapon in their inventory. This in effect is a ban because there are no longer any more surplus full-auto weapons to be released,and this means the price for something simple like a M3 Greasegun that used to be available for 400-500 bucks is now several thousand bucks,and getting more expensive every day.
Bubba even had surplus weapons we gave to other nations confiscated and destroyed or put out of reach by dumping them in the deep ocean. I personally knew people who told me that what looked like brand new BAR's,Thompsons,M-2 Carbines,M3s,and M-14's were taken out to sea and dumped with BATF agents supervising and writing down the serial numbers.
No problem for Bubba and his bodyguards because the government provides full auto weapons to guard him and his family,and no real problem for his golf partners,because it is chump change to them.
There is no longer any practical way for a blue-collar worker to legally own one because he just can't afford it.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 19:36:21 Reply Private Reply
#46: sneakypete To: Vicomte13 (#38)
That's because you don't know WTF you are talking about. These are THE very weapons the Second Amendment was written to protect.
In a similar vein, I don't mind if airplane aficionados buy and fly World War II bombers. I do mind if they are able to arm them with bombs.
This proves you don't know WTF you are talking about.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 19:38:42 Reply Private Reply
#47: sneakypete To: hondo68 (#39)
You really are turning into a fucking idiot.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 19:39:25 Reply Private Reply
#48: sneakypete To: Vicomte13 (#41)
Really? Damn shame you weren't around to hear my local sheriff tell his secretary to sign off on anything I wanted,including machine guns,without having to ask him when I applied for my CCW permit.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 19:41:13 Reply Private Reply
#49: Vicomte13 To: sneakypete (#46)
Yep, 100 years before they were invented, that's what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Mmmmhmmm. Seems legit.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-23 20:50:19 Reply Private Reply
#50: Vicomte13 To: sneakypete (#48)
How about nukes? Does the 2nd Amendment guarantee your right to have a personal nuke in your basement?
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-23 20:55:57 Reply Private Reply
#51: Hondo68 To: Vicomte13, wanabe tyrants, *Bill of Rights-Constitution* (#49)
The founding fathers knew that wanabe tyrants will always exist, so arms parity with the military.
Come and take them, Piers13!
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-23 21:02:36 Reply Private Reply
#52: Vicomte13 To: hondo68 (#51)
So, the Second Amendment guarantees your right to possess your own personal nuke?
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-23 21:13:42 Reply Private Reply
#53: Hondo68 To: Vicomte13, amateurs (#52)
I've have a zero 'Unexpected Event' record.
Texas Nuclear Weapons Facility Pantex Activates Emergency Response Team Because of 'Unexpected Event'
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-23 21:44:33 Reply Private Reply
#54: Vicomte13 To: hondo68 (#53)
That's swell. But do you claim that the Second Amendment guarantees your right to your own personal nuke?
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-23 22:02:00 Reply Private Reply
#55: nolu chan To: sneakypete, Vicomte13 (#45)
The Second Amendment protects those weapons typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Your position that a ban of machineguns would be unconstitutional is explicitly overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 624-25 (2008).
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-23 22:25:36 Reply Private Reply
#56: Hondo68 To: Vicomte13 (#54)
No, it's a God given natural right.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-23 22:54:05 Reply Private Reply
#57: nolu chan To: hondo68, Vicomte13 (#56)
The U.S. Constitution does not protect those rights. Enjoy your bombs in the afterlife.
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-23 22:56:10 Reply Private Reply
#58: Hondo68 To: nolu chan (#57)
Yeah, sure Mohammed.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-23 23:13:57 Reply Private Reply
#59: sneakypete To: Vicomte13 (#49)
Yes,in FACT,it IS legitimate.
The 2nd Amendment was written so that US citizens would have ready access to military-grade weapons in case any future governments seized power. They realized that the people could not fight a professional military without military grade weapons.
They even wrote in discussion that individual Americans would be guaranteed unrestricted access to "weapons such as carried by typical soldiers". In Colonial times this mean smooth-bore muskets as a MINIMUM/
Crew-served weapons were maintained by villages and cities,for issue to the militia if they were called up.
The exception to this were ships,which were allowed to carry cannons.
The 2nd Amendment has NOTHING to do with hunting,gun collecting,or target shooting. They are just side benefits. The 2nd Amendment exists so American citizens would have the ability to defeat a standing army if it ever became necessary.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 23:45:39 Reply Private Reply
#60: sneakypete To: Vicomte13 (#50)
Are nukes individual weapons,numbnuts?
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 23:46:18 Reply Private Reply
#61: sneakypete To: Vicomte13 (#54)
While it seems clear your understanding of firearms is immense,could you help out those of us who aren't as knowledgeable as you by splaining to usens how a automatic rifle is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb or missile?
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 23:48:59 Reply Private Reply
#62: sneakypete To: nolu chan (#55)
Heller is not only wrong,it is un-Constitutional. It was a anti-gun brain fart ran though a cherry-picked anti-gun district court in Washington,DC.
That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Acts restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939.
Machine guns were first issued to US troops in the 1800's,and this just goes to show you how freaking ignorant of reality the DC court was and is.
. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.
Legalize mumbo-jumbo bullshit with NO historical fact behind it. There were NO legal restrictions on weapons before the 1930's,and in FACT you could order a machine gun from a Sears catalog if you wanted. That communist bastard Roosevelt and his commie wife-cousin were behind this.
This is a PERFECT example of our courts using their power to break the laws themselves. The only reason these laws still stand is because no court that has the authority to overrule them is ever allowed to take the case.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 23:57:19 Reply Private Reply
#63: sneakypete To: nolu chan (#57)
Yes,it does. The fact that corrupt judges use their political biases to break the laws themselves is irrelevant.
The 2nd Amendment says what it says,not what anti-gun asshats in black robes want it to say.
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-23 23:59:13 Reply Private Reply
#64: sneakypete To: hondo68 (#56)
WRONG!
Nuclear bombs are CLEARLY crew-served weapons,and the 2nd Amendment only refers and applies to weapons "typical of those carried by the common soldier."
sneakypete posted on 2018-10-24 00:02:14 Reply Private Reply
#65: nolu chan To: sneakypete, Vicomte13 (#63)
The interpretation of the Second Amendment given by the U.S. Supreme Court is the recognized law of the land.
Nobody gives a crap what some cranky old asshat blogger has to say.
This is the irrationality of libertarians. They think their hairbrained opinions are the law. Reality says it just ain't so.
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-24 00:57:11 Reply Private Reply
#66: nolu chan To: sneakypete, Vicomte13 (#64)
That's bass ackwards.
Heller, 554 U.S. 570, Syllabus
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-24 01:06:07 Reply Private Reply
#67: nolu chan To: sneakypete (#62)
Reading the laws would show you just how ignorant of the law you are. When machineguns were first issued to U.S. troops is irrelevant. "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-24 01:09:28 Reply Private Reply
#68: nolu chan To: sneakypete, Vicomte13 (#62)
You have no clue what you are talking about. It is just typical libertarian nonsense.
Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 627-28 (2008)
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-24 01:16:20 Reply Private Reply
#69: Vicomte13 To: hondo68 (#56)
George Soros, Goldman Sachs, Monsanto and the Teachers' Unions, and you, have the God- given right, in your mind, to posses nuclear weapons. The only reason they can have one and you can't, according to you, is that they can afford to get one, or ten, and you can't.
You have indeed taken your belief system to its logical conclusion. This puts you on a desert island with few other people - certainly not enough to actually defend that interpretation against the rest of the public, who recognise that we cannot permit the private possession of nuclear weapons for reasons of our security, freedom and continued lives.
So, since YOU won't draw the line, any line, you have effectively neutralised your own voice.
If you really care about gun rights, you should come away from the extremist position, and figure out a way, philosophically, to draw a line. If the Constitution says that George Soros and Goldman Sachs and the Archdiocese of New York, being rich, get to have their own nukes, then we're changing the Constitution pronto.
It doesn't say that, though. The Second Amendment contains a line-drawing clause: well- regulated. If you stay on the reservation of sanity, you get to have a hand in drawing that line.
If you cannot draw any line, and you argue that Soros gets a nuke, and Dahmer could have his very own mustard gas arsenal, then you've grievously weakened your own ability to protect the Second Amendment, because 97% of the people can see that's insane.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-24 06:54:16 Reply Private Reply
#70: Vicomte13 To: sneakypete (#60)
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-24 06:56:48 Reply Private Reply
#71: Vicomte13 To: sneakypete (#61)
Can you not simply answer the question? Does the Second Amendment protect the right of individuals to possess nukes, biological weapons, chemical weapons, land mines, etc.
You're engaging in a line-drawing exercise, which is good, because it at least makes it clear that you are on the reservation of the sane.
You're doing yourself and your cause (protecting individual ownership of firearms) no favors by attacking and insulting me. I'm a natural ally. But if you cannot draw a line, a clear one, if you cannot say "No, there is no personal right to those weapons", and you have to act as though your interlocutor, me, a military veteran myself, is an idiot, a numbnuts, every other sort of thing, then you should understand that you are undercutting yourself politically.
Your argument is that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to firearms. Ok. They say that positively and affirmatively. "Individual weapons" in an age of miniaturisation, doesn't get you there. There are individually deployed chemical and biological weapons.
You have to be be able to say that NBC weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment. You should be able to say that easily, as easily as the insults roll off your tongue.
But you don't, at least not yet. And because you don't, you weaken your side.
Of course, if the government has the NBC and individuals don't that means the government is stronger. If the British government had had nukes in 1776 we would not be independent.
But if individuals could buy and own chemical, biological and nuclear weapons easily and freely, we wouldn't be alive either.
The nature of modern weaponry is such that the government is always going to have the upper hand nowadays. That does not mean that we should take guns away from individuals.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-24 07:05:54 Reply Private Reply
#72: A K A Stone To: Vicomte13 (#71)
If you take the words of the Constitution literally then yes.
The constitution's words should be taken literally.
The constitution isn't like the Bible which is error free.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-10-24 09:14:26 Reply Private Reply
#73: Hondo68 To: Vicomte13, Neighborhood Nuclear Superiorty NOW, Joe Sixpacks Knights Templar (#69)
You must realize that laws don't prevent things from happening. In spite of the WOD millions misuse and even OD from "illegal" drugs. In spite of tough NYC/Chicago etc gun laws, police and other scum still do bad stuff with guns.
Outlaws like Israel have nukes. You can pretend that laws will stop Joe Sixpack & The Knights Templar from having neighborhood nukes to protect themselves from the ghey Argentinian Pope & The Archdiocese of New York, but they'll do what they believe is best for liberty & security, regardless.
People are going to do whatever it takes to ensure "the security of a free state".
It's human nature for people are going to protect themselves and their families, from authoritarian goons whether government or private.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-10-24 13:32:37 Reply Private Reply
#74: Vicomte13 To: hondo68 (#73)
No, but they make it legal to stop things from happening.
The government can, and does, stop people from acquiring NBC weapons, bombs, grenades, Stinger missiles, bomb components and unlicensed machine guns.
The government does not stop people from going to church, joining a political party, complaining about corruption.
See the difference? Where things are legal, the government doesn't try to interdict. Where things are illegal, the government intervenes quite aggressively to enforce the law.
To me, the only open question on that list is machine guns. Everything else on that list is too dangerous for crackpot individuals to have, and of course the government can intervene to prevent people from getting them. The Second Amendment is not a suicide pact.
For me, machine guns are the question, the thing on the frontier. Long ago the government decided to regulate them to a small, traceable and traced number. That makes sense to me.
I don't want to see the prohibition of semi-automatic weapons, I like concealed carry and open carry, and I want easy licensing to do so (concealed carry). I want uniform, lax national standards, so that people don't face arrest crossing state borders: the 2nd Amendment is a national right, it should be consistent across all states.
In my opinion, machine guns are on the cusp of WMD, and should be severely restricted and regulated (as they are). Regulating them as we have for the last century seems sufficient to me: we have not had anybody cut loose with an M-16 in a shopping mall, so I don't see a need to make the law of machine guns any stricter. Don't see a need to make them any laxer either, though.
I about the best sort of ally that the gun nuts are ever going to get. A pretty liberal guy on matters of poverty relief, who is tolerant of things that conservatives consider immoral, who doesn't like excessive taxation, who likes the military but who is much more suspicious of the paramilitary. Who will vote for Republicans, and who agrees that the Second Amendment protects a private right to own GUNS, right up through semi-automatic weapons (even if they look SCARY, like "assault rifles" that are, in fact, just semi-automatic rifled gussied up by Mattel to LOOK LIKE bad-ass commando machine guns (and sold to men who are compensating for something). Compensate away, I'll defend your guns rights...
IF you will meet me on the plane of sanity and agree that we're talking about GUNS. Just GUNS. Not anti-air missiles, not WMD, not germs, chemicals, bombs, nukes, land mines.
We can debate machine guns - that's the line where the debate should be.
Nobody in his right mind can seriously think we can let people have Sarin gas and anthrax grenades, or dirty-bomb grade uranium. The Second Amendment must not be interpreted to mean that.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-24 14:00:52 Reply Private Reply
#75: Vicomte13 To: A K A Stone (#72)
Let me be sure I understand you. You think that the Constitution should be interpreted to mean that people have the right to possess their own personal nukes.
Do you really think that?
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-10-24 14:03:09 Reply Private Reply
#76: nolu chan To: A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#72)
No, the Constitution does not say that, even if read literally. Saying the right may not be infringed does not define the right protected from infringement.
For all their prior lives before independence from England, the colonists enjoyed the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) which existed under the English common law.
The Founders and Framers knew the meaning of "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" all of their lives. The Constitution was crafted with the language of the English common law.
The prevailing interpretation of the Constitution is what the words meant to the common people at the time. It is not the drafters but the ratifiers who turned the words on a page into the law of the land. The appearance of the common law legal term, "Right to Keep and Bear Arms," could only convey the same meaning as that term conveyed under English common law, unless stated otherwise. The Framers saw no need to distinguish "Right to Keep and Bear Arms," in the Constitution, from "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" in the common law. They simply used a term everybody knew and understood.
The common law right did not protect the unrestricted possession of all weapons of war. The right itself may not be infringed, but the right itself never conveyed some right to possess anything other than weapons that were lawful to possess, under due restrictions.
Machineguns and atom bombs are not generally lawful to possess, and are not protected by the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. As such weapons are not encompassed by the 2nd Amendment right, infringing upon one's ability to possess such weapons does not violate the 2nd Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-24 14:39:16 Reply Private Reply
#77: nolu chan To: hondo68 (#73)
Israel is a nation filled with people of above average intelligence. That differs greatly from a group of slobbering libertarians muttering about muh nukes.
The great, the magnificent President Donald J. Trump is tearing down the house that Obama built. He is making America safe again.
November 6 is coming. More U.S. Supreme Court Justices like the eminent jurist, Justice Brett Kavanaugh will get appointed by the great, the magnificent President Donald J. Trump.
nolu chan posted on 2018-10-24 15:00:01 Reply Private Reply