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[cthulu2016]

This message was self-deleted by its author (cthulu2016) on Fri Dec 28, 2012, 04:31 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[Animal Chin]

1. Could go even more local

Was thinking that maybe this issue could be addressed on an even more local level, ala New York City. I.e., the residents of a city or town vote to ban guns in their jurisdiction.

[cthulu2016]

2. Depends on how the State sets things up

If a State constitution, or State law, has gun rights in it then a locality couldn't go against that, but if State law allows it, then my interpretation would be that a town could ban guns, free from any federal order that the people of the town have a right to own guns.

[jmg257]

3. SO it would be OK if all the states disarmed their citizens?? Who the hell would make up

the Militias then??

You know - the Militias the federal government would use to secure our freedoms...the ones Congress had to make provisions "...to call forth to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions"?

The Militias the President would be C in C of when in service of the United States?

The Militias the Congress mandated by law a year later that most males of certain ages MUST arm themselves for and MUST enroll & serve in?

The Militias the 2nd amendment itself says are NECESSARY?


You might want to re-think this....please.

[TPaine7]

4. The Early Supreme Court and the Guys who Wrote the Fourteenth Amendment Disagreed with You

While it is true that the emphasis on individual self-defense was later, the right itself was ALWAYS an individual right. The very first time the Supreme Court mentioned the Second Amendment it called it a right "of person." The idea that this is a personal right is not some modern invention, it was well understood from the beginning:

For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.

Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding.

These powers, and others, in relation to rights of person, which it is not necessary here to enumerate, are, in express and positive terms, denied to the General Government;...

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=60&invol=393

The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrined in the Constitution their clear, uncompromising understanding that the right was individual:

“{The Fourteenth Amendment's} first clause, . . . relates to the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States . . . . To these privileges and immunities, whatever they may be—for they are not and cannot be fully defined in their entire extent and precise nature—to these should be added the personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all of the people; the right to keep and bear arms. . . .

…The great object of the first section of this amendment is, therefore, to restrain the power of the States and compel them at all times to respect these great fundamental guarantees.”—Senator Jacob Howard introducing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Senate, quoted by Yale Professor Amar. Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights, Creation and Reconstruction (Harrisonburg, VA: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1998), 185-6 (emphases supplied).

The Fourteenth Amendment is part of the Constitution, a more important part, I would argue, than the Second. It cannot be ignored. And the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, read in historical context, clearly shows that the Second Amendment is a personal, individual right that is enforceable against the states.