pnwmom you conflate magazines with proposals to prevent another Sandy Hook Tragedy. Too many posts

have repeated as nauseam the simple fact that hundreds of millions of high capacity magazines are already available.

A ban on possessing them is not an effective option although it might make anti-gun types feel good.

The Sandy Hook LEO report has not been completed but it does appear Adam Lanza had some type of mental-health problem.

That seems to be a common thread with many who commit mass murder.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, cochairmen of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, along with 750 other Mayors want Obama to create a central data base that will include mental-health data on people.

We already have the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, and now the new health care record system that can easily share data.

All that's needed is to identify the Diagnosis Related Group codes that place a person at risk of becoming a mass murderer and add their name and appropriate data and create the central data base Bloomberg and his mayors want.

Even better, identify the prescription drugs that might trigger a mass murder episode and whenever a patient fills a prescription add that incident to the central data base. That would give our Attorney General all the data needed to monitor in real time people who science and health care professionals have profiled as mass murder risks.

What laws do you support that protect an individual's inalienable right to self-defense against

criminals that also enforce society's alienable right to defend groups against mass-murderers?

IMO the problem is "self-defense" and "group-defense" and a solution must satisfy both.

SCOTUS says govt is not obligated to protect citizens unless they are in custody.

See Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) and read an excellent DU post by X_Digger at http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2036160

I ask in another DU post “Is govt obligated to protect citizens in groups like Sandy Hook’s School?” http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022038386

No one has answered that question yet.

Many people live in places where LEO response to a 911 call is more than 10 minutes away or perhaps hours or longer.

Even LEO recommend citizens in those areas arm themselves against criminals who wish to rob, rape, or commit other violent crimes.

On the other hand, when people group together as in a theater or school, they present an inviting target for anyone; mentally unstable, terrorist, et al; who wish to murder lots of people.

That's something IMO society has a right to defend.

That's the problem as I would define it, not one but two problems.

A solution would enact laws that balance the "right of an individual to defend self" with the "right of society to defend itself".

IMO the first is the older since it predates society and preexists our Constitution. The latter is an outgrowth of society.

Perhaps an imperfect hypothetical would be laws that acknowledge the individual right to self defense of a rancher in remote Wyoming with the social right to defend groups in the District of Colombia.

I purposefully chose two extremes as something like a worst case scenario.

Don't know the answer, really don't, but IMO a solution must satisfy both needs.

[font color = ff0000 size = 3]I considered posting this in GD under Skinner’s temporary amnesty but thought it would attract invective and ad hominem posts and not mature, dispassionate debate.[/font]

Social Security began as "social insurance" during the Great Depression and has morphed into

something some people depend upon as complete retirement support.

When "complete retirement support" is defined as the "poverty threshold" or more it makes debate challenging.

I was born before WWII at the end of the Great Depression.

I've watched Social Security grow from "social insurance" into "poverty threshold retirement".

I'm not sure the programs for funding Social Security have kept pace with that change.

Is govt obligated to protect citizens in groups like Sandy Hook’s School? We know govt is not

obligated to protect individuals unless they are in custody as SCOTUS said in Castle Rock v. Gonzales.

That means that for individuals, self-defense is a personal responsibility.

Government requires students to attend school in government buildings in the custody of government employees.

Will parents of the murdered students bring a class law suit against the local school district et al?

If so will they win?

If they win, what are the implications?

Understand but if words on paper do not create a right, how can words on paper destroy that

right?

It's accepted that the BOR does not create rights, it simply recognizes rights that preexist our Constitution.

PA and VT stated in their constitutions:
"That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable/unalienable rights, amongst which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

Inalienable/unalienable rights could not have been given away when PA and VT citizens ratified our Constitution and later the Bill of Rights.

For PA and VT citizens, our Constitution obligates government to protect rights that preexist our Constitution and those rights are natural, inherent, and inalienable/unalienenable at least in those states.

Sorry I'm right, see CASTLE ROCK V. GONZALES (04-278) 545 U.S. 748 (2005)

Many people live in places where LEO response to a 911 call are more than 10 minutes away or perhaps

hours.

Even LEO recommend citizens in those areas arm themselves against criminals who wish to rob, rape, or commit other violent crimes.

On the other hand, when people group together as in a theater or school, they present an inviting target for anyone; mentally unstable, terrorist, et al; who wish to murder lots of people.

That's something IMO society has a right to defend.

That's the problem as I would define it.

A solution would enact laws that balance the "right of an individual to defend self" with the "right of society to defend itself", i.e. social groups.

IMO the first is the older since it predates society and the latter is an outgrowth of society.

Perhaps an imperfect hypothetical would be laws that acknowledge the individual right to self defense of a rancher in remote Wyoming with the social right to defend groups in the District of Colombia.

I purposefully chose two extremes as something like a worst case scenario.

Don't know the answer, really don't, but IMO a solution must satisfy both needs.

Easier to include them in a state's unorganized militia because state and federal law already exists

for that. See State Guard Association of the United States (SGAUS) which is the more organized part of the unorganized militia.

That would also help Congress finally fulfill its obligation under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16.

"{The Congress shall have Power} To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
{The Congress shall have Power} To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"

The Militia is already defined by law as

2A is about an individual's RKBA for self defense. Congress has all the authority it needs for the

militia in Article I, Section 8, clauses 15 & 16.

SCOTUS acknowledged in Heller both opinion and dissent that individuals have a natural, inherent, inalienable/unalienable right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

The main difference was the opinion said that right was in the Second Amendment and the dissent disagreed but recognized the right in the extract below.

The dissent by recognizing the right but asserting it was not an enumerated right protected by the Second Amendment meant the right was an unenumerated right protected by the Ninth Amendment.