Gun Control - Now Discussing Tucson Shooting

Yeah, that makes sense. The best form of self defence I got out of Judo was that when I represented my state in the national championships ( I lost all of my bouts, quickly)I received a track suit which had 'ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Judo Team' emblazoned on the back. Nobody at my school really knew what Judo was and so I was very much left alone because everyone thought I was kind of martial arts guru. If they only knew

 

HERE
The NRA was right about an Obama Administration.

 

You forgot the constitutional loopholes. Although the right to bear arms cannot be infringed, the right to buy arms can. And so can the right to sell them.

You really only have a constitutional right to those arms that you can build from scratch, or from spare parts lying around in your garage. Everybody knows that.

 

Wow, THAT'S Hannity's new (post-Colmes) show? What a ****.

If the right to bear arms is such an open-ended absolute, why don't I ever hear you protesting the ban on the sale of nuclear warheads?

 

I have no idea about the show.
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Simple, Because nuclear warheads are offensive weapons of attack, not deffensive weapons of a Militia.

 

If the right to bear arms is such an open-ended absolute, why don't I ever hear you protesting the ban on the sale of nuclear warheads?

It's always humorous to see this exact same idea pop up every time this topic is discussed, especially when it's used in such a perceived "gotcha" way. Why you ask? Because just about everyone recognizes what nuclear warheads are, and the absurd nature they represent as an example.

Would you jump into the middle of a discussion on abortion and suggest that if someone was really pro-choice that they should extend the age of abortion to a child that is 5 years old? Abortion is a complicated issue, ranging from when life begins-to the choice of the mother-to overpopulation/quality of life issues. But I'm quite sure that people on both sides would agree that extending abortion to a 5 year old child is so extreme that it doesn't even belong within the nuances of discussion.

All complex issues have their extremes, but typically, the issues fall somewhere between them. How about just once, when a thread on gun control gets upped, we forgo the entire "oh, so you want to keep a rifle in your house, well, why don't you just go out and get a nuclear bomb as well.." line of hyperbole?

 

My view. If I take a gun and point it at someone, I can be arrested, even if I don't fire. It would be assault with adeadly weapon.
To go to the most extreme level, given the range of damage from a nuclear weapon, combined with the fallout it entails over a large region, I would speculate that there is nowhere that one could viably have a nuclear weapon without having people in the region that would be effected by it detinating. So in that sense, its not that having nuclear warheads is wrong, per se, but that I don't think there's a way that one could possess one WITHOUT it putting someone at risk, and that would automatically violate law by being assault with a deadly weapon no matter where you are.

 

OK, how about non-nuclear surface-to-air missiles? Shouldn't any decent modern militia be able to defend itself from enemy aircraft?

 

Why do you need a Militia?

 

I heard they were "necessary to the security of a free State" somewhere...

 

A militia is literally a citizen army. In the US, it legally consists of every able-bodied man between the ages of 17 and 45, and female members of the National Guard. It includes the National Guard (as the "Organized Militia"), but also includes everyone else in that category (the "Unorganized Militia").

A militia is a nation's last line of defense against such things as invasion. Historically speaking, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 were fought primarily by the militias of the various states, without a standing army. While we have standing armies today, there are still times when a militia is useful.

For example, you could ask, "Why have a National Guard?" After all, shouldn't a standing army be sufficient? And yet, a significant portion of our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are National Guard. Similarly, when natural disasters hit, the National Guard is activated to provide emergency assistance.

The "Unorganized Militia" is to the National Guard, what the National Guard is to the standing military forces. In the event of an emergency, they can be activated to help provide emergency relief and civil defense.

Within that context, the right to keep and bear arms gains additional meaning. Because the right for the general populous to be armed exists, a significant portion of the population can (and does) maintain their own firearms. This then reduces the burden on the government if they are called up for duty. That's exactly how the militias worked back in colonial times, where private citizens maintained their own weapons, but would band together for the common defense.

My gun collection currently stands at 5 firearms. Among those, I have two "assault rifles" - an AK-47, and an AR-15 (the civilian, semiautomatic version of the M-4 carbine). One of my chief reasons for having them is that they provide me with compatibility with pretty much every military in the world. If I, as a part of the unorganized militia, were ever to be called up for service, I would be able to function without having to drain as many government resources. (Of course, they are also quite a bit of fun to shoot anyways, which is the primary reason that I have both of them.)

Kimball Kinnison

 

So can I take that as a 'yes' to the question of whether or not private citizens should be allowed to purchase and maintain anti-aircraft cannons?

 

So, given that the US has a standing Army, Navy & Air Force (the best in the world), a National Guard (arguably the best in the world), a Coast Guard (the best in the world), civilan government based and private relief organizations (including religious organizations which provided better relief services than the government during Hurricane Katrina) why do you need a Militia to provide a second/third line of defence in emergency relief and civil defense? Perhaps in colonial times a Militia had its uses, but really does it have any real relevance today? In recent US history (say the last 100 years) has there been any event which has prompted a popular reinforcement of the practical concept of a Militia as a necesasary and warranted safety net?

My impression was that a Militia was perhaps required against possibility of a tyranical government. That actually makes more sense to me.

 

The US military is dominant right now. But it might not be in a hundred years. We simply don't know what the future holds on that front.

Not really. The Iraqi and Somali militias do just fine without that capability. Regardless, large crew-served weapons like cannon would be impractical for small groups.

 

You have to remember your US history. Originally, the militia was called out for all of the reasons that I mentioned above, and the actual conflict was against a tyrannical government.

Because of its historical importance, it is something ingrained into the US's identity. Being from Australia, I'm not sure how well you can understand that identity. The US had to fight a bloody war for 7 years in order to win its independence. As part of that, the militia, the citizen soldier, played a crucial role. Australia didn't have to suffer through any of that, nor did it need to rely on its citizens to fight for its independence. For you, it was a peaceful, legislative action. For us, it was a bloody war ending with a treaty of recognition.

That is a core part of our national identity, but it is also probably the one aspect that is most misunderstood by non-Americans. It is exactly because of that aspect of our identity that German documents indicate that Hitler feared attempts to invade the US during WWII, because of the entire concept of the unorganized militia. Just because you don't believe that it should be necessary is not sufficient reason to abandon that part of our identity or history.

Historically, the militia of the United States has been a very good safety net in many different ways. I see no reason to abandon it.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Would you be referring to the militias that have the US military backing them up or their predecessors, the ones completely overwhelmed by invading US forces?

 

I'm referring to the ones that fought against the US after the invasion, causing significant damage to the US war effort, which resulted in major domestic opposition and a change in strategy. To get the situation under control, the US had to ally with said militias. So, the former are the ones I'm referring to.

Militias are not able to win a conventional campaign in today's world, but they can fight insurgencies with success.

Also, air power cannot defeat them. Air power could not defeat the Iraqi insurgency, and it cannot defeat the Taliban. The Taliban has gained a lot of ground, without having any way to counter US air assets.

 

I must admit that being Australian definitely places me in a cultural void in relation to your second amendment and the historical forces behind it. The only real difficulty I have with the concept of tieing the right to bear arms with the concept of a Militia is that I think it should logically follow that the right to own arms should be limited to the use that a Militia would require them based upon historical antecedents. There should be a right to "own arms" but not to "bear arms". The regulation of firearm 'use' as opposed to 'ownership' should not be open to constitutional challenge in my view.

 

Ha! Eighty-five years here, buddy!
Eighty against the Spanish, five against the Germans.
And those last five years were only last century. My mom was there.

She's not carrying a gun, though.

So I'd say the 'historical importance' of a gun license is haphazard.

 

Yes. Immediately after the Matewan Massacre in Matewan, West Virginia in May 1920, Governor John Cornwell instructed the sheriff of Mingo County to call up the militia to assist the sheriff in maintaining order, until such time as the State Police could be assembled and sent to Matewan.

Right after World War 2, a sheriff in McCann County, Tenn. had all but suspended elections. The militia removed him from office.

The militia was designed to be able to assist legitimate government in times of crisis and remove objectionable government when necessary. An armed citizenry is the only way that can be done, and you can't have an armed citizenry ready to move at a moment's notice when they have to beg the government for the ability to be armed.

As far as the militia carrying nukes, it's not going to happen. But the citizenry should be able to have access to anything that the common infantryman has access to. Rifles, grenades, machine guns, pistols, knifes should all be easily accessible. If any citizen proves he or she can't responsibly own them, then and only then, should they be taken from that one citizen and not from everyone.

 

So in light of the above two examples, would it be inconsistent with the wording of the second amendment to require gun owners to keep their weapons safely locked up, disassembled and unused until such time as they are 'called upon' to assist in fulfilling the historical purposes of a militia? I'm vaguely familiar with the Supreme Court's take on the right to self defence but for once I'd like to just ignore what the law is.

 

I think it would be inconsistant to acknowledge that a citizen has a fundamental right to be armed in order to protect his home and act as a Minuteman, and then require that the gun be render inoperable without taking precious time to unlock it, reassemble it, load it,and then be ready to roll. That doesn't mean that it should just be left laying around for unsupervised small children to play with, but it's easy to gunproof children in my experience.

 

But what I am getting at is that there is a difference between a right to bear arms to maintain a militia for the purposes that you illustrated with your above examples and a right to bear arms for self defence or for the protection of one's home. The latter is not even mentioned in the second amendment, it appears to have evolved judicially ( a case of judicial activism?). If the second amendment included the words "for self defence" or the words "for the protection of property" then I would absolutely have no issues. But it doesn't. If the right to bear arms was limited to the maintenance of a militia which could be called up to assist in maintaining order or overturn a tyranical government then you would have no other use for weapons and they could be required to be locked and disassembled until such time as they were required.

edit: I just realised why all of this was somewhat sounding somewhat familar - it was all covered in the first page of this thread. I swear I am going senile.

 

To add to LostonHoth, there are also these sections of the Constitution regarding the militia:

The argument could be made that although the right to bear arms can't be infringed, rules regarding those arms can be constitutionally instituted by both Congress and the President.

 

Except that imposing rules is different from prohibiting the purchase or possession of firearms. You can't say on one hand that the people have a right to keep and bear arms, and then turn around and make a whole host of rules and regulations that make it virtually impossible for the people to actually keep and bear those arms.

Remember, the 2nd Amendment doesn't say that the right to keep and bear arms is only as it relates to membership in the militia. It says that it is a right of the people.

Also, your quotes there only apply to those members of the militia "as may be employed in the Service of the United States", and "when called into the actual Service of the United States". The authority in both sections is limited to only when the militia is called up for service.

Kimball Kinnison