Thoughts and Prayers: A Discussion

[Howard Dean 2502]

9 hours ago, Beerman said:

The US military would easily overpower the people if it came down to it. The point is that it would be significantly harder when the people have ways go protect themselves. 

No team had ever won the NBA finals when they are down 1-3, yet LeBron got his ring. Your argument that it has never happened means nothing. 

 

In a flat out large scale battle sure. Guerrilla tactics like the Iraqi's and Afghani's have been doing the last 10+ years says otherwise. 

[trav 6834]

Again, would tougher gun control have stopped this incident in Las Vegas? Maybe not but it could have done something to the other 1,515 mass shootings that have occurred in the last 1,735 days...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence

[fatb0y 1337]

I'm just gonna say this.... 

 

Water.exe's analysis of the 2nd Amendment made me gag, and then it made me sad for America. 

[water.exe 725]

31 minutes ago, fatb0y said:

I'm just gonna say this.... 

 

Water.exe's analysis of the 2nd Amendment made me gag, and then it made me sad for America. 

The fact you don't believe in what the founding fathers envisioned makes me gag.

[ThatOllieWhoDies 1177]

Just now, water.exe said:

The fact you don't believe in what the founding fathers envisioned makes me gag.

"what the founding fathers envisioned hundreds of years ago in a different era*"

[water.exe 725]

Just now, ThatOllieWhoDies said:

"what the founding fathers envisioned hundreds of years ago in a different era*"

They envisioned a time when the primary weapon of the miltia was the same one people used when hunting AKA muskets so yes I do believe that the founding fathers had a pretty clear vision when they wrote it.

[Ordinarygamer96 785]

Just now, water.exe said:

The fact you don't believe in what the founding fathers envisioned makes me gag.

Pretty sure the point is you don't have a single fucking clue what the founders were talking about. I'd be willing to bet you've never even read a historical letter or document from the time outside of 5th grade social studies

[Dakota 4722]

Regardless, the 2nd amendment is an insurance policy for a tyrannical government.

Just now, Ordinarygamer96 said:

Pretty sure the point is you don't have a single fucking clue what the founders were talking about. I'd be willing to bet you've never even read a historical letter or document from the time outside of 5th grade social studies

You got any more of them primary documents?

[Ordinarygamer96 785]

Just now, Beerman said:

Regardless, the 2nd amendment is an insurance policy for a tyrannical government.

You got any more of them primary documents?

I'm having dinner so I'm gonna link the first thing I found but read what the original US constitution said about guns. It didn't discuss a right to bear arms at all. Simply a need for militia. Like i said above 

http://m.sparknotes.com/history/american/articles/section4.rhtml

 

 

In short. The founders gave  no shit about some random farmer's right to own guns. Thwy cared about the rights of state governments. Why  would they even want a bunch of armed citizens when they originally didn't want the lower classes to even vote( poor people couldn't vote for years after America was founded)

[sushi 19]

I typed up a bit of an argument over the meaning of the 2^nd Amendment of the Constitution, but then I realized how inflammatory this conversation already is.  I mean it started with a bit about social media and now we're here. 

 

I second @Ordinarygamer96 said in response to @Sean, the federal armed forces cannot represent the militia enumerated in the constitution. Both in original intent and purpose (read the Federalist Papers), and the strict and explicit modern legal definition, 'militia' refers to people either: organized with no explicit connection to the federal government in peacetime, or the unorganized population of males eligible for draft (formally just combat). See the Militia Act of 1903 and the National Defense Act of 1916; they spell a lot of that out.

Under these laws, the federal National Guard is part of the US Army and therefore not a militia, while state national guards and state guards - though able to be disbanded/drafted by Congress given sufficient grounds, like wartime - are militias. This is because, barring conspiracy of the State, they function independently of federal control; additionally, should the State attempt to unjustly impose upon them, they have the option to forsake federal orders and remain in their existing command structure. Though such an act would be civil disobedience, without the militia "levying War against the State," it is not treason. This is where the "well regulated" aspect of the militia must come into play: regulated refers not to federal control, but legal regulation and intervention - i.e. laws to distinguish paramilitary militias from discriminating or privately motivated organizations such as personal armies and hate groups.

The critical part here is that - even with the incorrect interpretation of original intent of the Second Amendment that it was intended for only militias to be armed (again, see the Federalist Papers), all able-bodies males (that bit really needs to be amended in our post-civil rights world) have the right to own and bear arms. The fighting population of the people themselves form a militia under the common identity of America, which is quite poetic in my opinion.

The Common Law background of the Constitution supports this, the Bill of Rights of the Commonwealth - passed by the old Parliament of England in the 17^th century - establishes a right to individual self-defense and freedom from oppression, with a practical application of the right to own firearms necessary to those ends (Lords maintained private stores of cannon and weapons of war until the formation of Great Britain in 1707, mirroring the American ownership of weaponry).

Modern United States Supreme Court decisions reaffirm this:

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) affirmed that the Second Amendment protected the right of the individual to own and bear a firearm, rather than solely militia members. The vote was split (5-4), with the traditionally literal jurisprudence (right, independent, libertarian) voting for, and the traditionally broad (left, independent) jurisprudence voting against.

Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), while not involving firearms, unanimously determined that the "arms" referenced in the Second Amendment refer not only to the weaponry of the day, but to anything constituting a bearable arm, regardless of when or how it was created.

 

 

I have been unable to find any articles, editorials, or opinions addressing this specifically, without being so loaded and fallacious they are closer to Soviet Journalism than objectivity. The following, while politically or socially biased to either conservatism or libertarianism, are a nice spectrum of pieces I could find that spent some time addressing this with actual logic and facts.

http://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/report/the-second-amendment-and-the-inalienable-right-self-defense           <very slight libertarian undertone, cohesive and comprehensive argument, LONG>

http://thefederalist.com/2016/08/19/the-second-amendment-how-does-it-work-progressives-have-no-idea/           <some counter-progressive loaded language, clean argument>

https://www.redstate.com/diary/johnliberty/2013/11/27/why-the-national-guard-is-not-a-militia/          <far-right, conspiracy theories>

[Avery 794]

How the fuck did something this trivial end up in a debate on the 2nd amendment?

 

I do agree that "thoughts and prayers" are useless in a sense, but some people feel supported knowing others are thinking of them.

[fatb0y 1337]

Just now, water.exe said:

The fact you don't believe in what the founding fathers envisioned makes me gag.

But I do believe in what the founding fathers envisioned. I gagged at your analysis of their words. 

 

Anyways, in my view, gun control will never succeed in America unless an amendment is made adjusting the 2nd Amendment, in the vein of the 21st Amendment.

I say this because SCOTUS's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment leaves the door open for most gun control policies to get challenged on its constitutionality. 

[sushi 19]

@fatb0y +1

@Avery +100000

 

Federalist Papers are definitely the best resource. Written by Hamilton , Madison (most scholarly dude of the group other than maybe Jefferson), and Jay (really active diplomat, first Chief Justice), representing the collective thought of the body sponsoring the new Constitution, they explain the intent behind pretty much everything contained within.

 

In No. 46, The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared, James Madison assuages state governments concerned over tyrannical central power, reminding them that the militias entrusted to the state and its people will be five times greater than the force any national army could provide. This ratio remained reasonably accurate until 1903, whereupon it dropped slightly as militias reorganized, and then dropped again sharply in 1916, as the Army swelled and the National Guard and reserves were formed. Since then, the ratio has been in a steady decline, with sharp drops at the end of any war as forces demobilize, and a little climb in the late 40s and 60s as WWII and Vietnam ended and vets joined state guards as officers. Also, a drop in the 80s as lots of people enlisted for some reason (thank you Reagan, I guess), and another in 2000 for NO reason. Data ends right before 9/11, after which some states stopped releasing numbers of their relative strengths and it needs to be guesstimated from budgets. Now, the ratio is about double the militia to federal forces, give or take 30% [my estimation]. This includes the number of registered firearm owners, extrapolated militia strengths, and both males and females from ages 20 to 50 living in rural Texas. 

 

Here, I quote segments of Concerning the Militia, a paper by Alexander Hamilton.

(I tried to just trim out the fatty and irrelevant bits while leaving the message intact; I don't want to cherry-pick support)

Quote

FEDERALIST PAPER #29 – Concerning the Militia

Written by Alexander Hamilton
Published Wednesday, January 9, 1788
 
To the People of the State of New York:

 

THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy...

 

It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union “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...”

 

If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions...

 

To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper...

 

nymical: Here, Hamilton quotes provides a refinement of a speech of his. It makes a few key points; I cannot trim it.

“The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

“But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist...”

 

Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests...

 

In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes...

 

If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants...

 

In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition...