The 2nd’s point was that no citizen can be denied the right to bear arms in defense of the nation, unlike under British rule, when non-Anglicans were excluded. You’re dead on; it’s not an individual right to accumulate a stockpile of military-grade weapons. We don’t get our own tactical nukes, right?
I was in US Army and later Reserves. All my arms-bearing was well regulated, and my skills were rewarded. I feel no need to bear firearms in my current life. I need shoot nobody.
But I’m hugely pessimistic. USA is armed; an overtly Fascist sweep would be needed to disarm all civilians. I don’t think it’ll happen. And handguns can be churned out on 3D printers, so production control is impossible.
The most likely option IMHO would be a SCOTUS decision mandating militia membership for personal firearm possession. Carrying without being military, militia, or law enforcement, is felonious. Carrying near a school or public place is a capitol offense. Who thinks this can happen?
While we apparently know that this is right-wing terrorism, when I first heard the story another word popped into my head that we don’t seem to use much anymore: massacre. I think it is less neutral than the terms we’ve grown accustomed to use in these situations, and we’re less inured to it.
We don’t need to disarm all civilians to make a substantial impact in gun deaths, we just need to make it harder for most people to obtain guns and ammunition. We didn’t achieve universal seat belt use in cars overnight either—even today there are many cars on the road built before seatbelts were mandatory—but over time most of those ended up in junkyards.
As far as 3D printed weapons negating laws that regulate production and distribution I’m not convinced the problem is as bad as some make it out to be. These technologies exist today in places like Australia and the UK, yet criminals rarely arm themselves with homemade firearms in those countries. So saying we shouldn’t bother stopping gun sales because bad guys will just make their own is kind of like saying we shouldn’t bother outlawing bombs because The Anarchist’s Cookbook is already out there.
Oh, I know that no sweep will take place. Too many guns have found their ways into the hands of too many paranoid, unstable people already. Many very fine people have sworn to commit acts of criminal violence should someone knock on their door asking for their guns. That ship has sailed.
But the court could someday rule in favor of some future law against individual rights to buy or own guns or ammo; or that licensing, training, registration, or even military service would be acceptable as meeting the “well-regulated” clause. While a clawback would only result in the aforementioned violence, making them illegal to publicly carry, transport, load, shoot, wield, or display would drive them underground, which might stop perhaps half of today’s opportunistic shooters.
Because dashed expectations are a cause of this kind of explosive behavior, not absolute income level. Income inequality is good at both creating expectation and then usually failing to provide a life that matches it.
The point of right-wing ideologies is to re-direct any anger caused by the status-quo towards other targets.
Holy revisionist history, Batman. What the hell is the difference between the right of each citizen and “the people” as a collective? If you have a collective right, that is through a COLLECTION of INDIVIDUAL rights.
Where else in the Bill of Rights are the “people’s” rights only a collective right - not an individual right, what ever that means?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation,
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Militia section is just an enumeration for why the right is needed. A militia is NOT a requirement of that right. No where does it make a statement that the right is ONLY for militias or that being a member of a militia is a requirement. The idea of having a right to arms is not a new concept, as it was in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 (though it only applied to protestants.)
When this was written, the militia was every able bodied male of an age (IIRC 18-40) who was well equipped enough to join. If you look at militia laws from the late 1700s it gives a list of equipment one needed to own. This is both on the Federal and State level. As you may well know, the early military of the US was extremely small, with a near non-existent standing army. The point of this was that if everyone was well armed, then they would have a large pool of citizens to pull from should the need arise. (The War of 1812 was the first big test of this. It had… mixed results.)
But your right doesn’t go away the day after you’re too old, or maybe you have a bad leg and wouldn’t actually make a good soldier. There are other reasons for defense besides war.
Now, one could argue that the 2nd Amendment still needs a revision, or even a repeal. Fine. That is one’s prerogative. But I can’t let pass this faulty analysis as fact.
And for a point of clarification, even though I think you were using it correctly, “regulated” as it is used in this context is “well equipped and in working order”. Not “regulated” as in “lots of laws governing how it works”.
The Second Amendment is the only one in the Bill of Rights that the Founders felt compelled to include a justification for. It’s pretty clear that “forming a well regulated militia” was first and foremost on their minds, not just one justification among many.
Every gun should be registered. No one should be able to own an unlimited number of or certain types of guns - and every gun that can be so tested should be fired and their ballistics entered into a national database to determine if it was used in a crime and to track if it is in the future.
Along with mandatory training, background checks and suspension of ownership for those with restraining orders or substance abuse problems. No gun show loophole either. No open carry - other than hunting in an area designated as a hunting area…
These are very minor limitations on ownership that the vast majority would support.
I suppose that is a fair point that it was first and foremost. But it was never meant to be limited to just the militia. If it was ONLY about forming a militia, then they would have used language that is clearly only about the militia, and not make it a “right of the people”.
Like I said, you need an armed populace so then you had something to pull from to create your militia. No armed citizens means no militia.
One could argue this reason is obsolete now that we have a huge standing military, and state National Guards. Ok, fine. Like I said, it is ones’ prerogative to want to alter or abolish the 2nd amendment. I just disagree with tilted framing of the issue.
Any complaints by people regarding “technical” aspects of firearms needs to be balanced with “technical” descriptions and pictures of the wounds the shooting caused to (in this case) a child’s body.
Contact wounds in regions of the body where only a thin layer of skin and subcutaneous tissue overlies bone usually have a stellate or cruciform appearance that is totally unlike the round or oval perforating wounds seen in other areas (Figure 5.3A). The most common area in which stellate wounds occur is the head. The unusual appearance of contact wounds over bone is due to the effects of the gas of discharge. When a weapon is fired, the gases produced by the combustion of the propellant emerge from the barrel in a highly compressed state. In hard contact wounds, they follow the bullet through the skin into the subcutaneous tissue where they immediately begin to expand. Where a thin layer of skin overlies bone, as in the head, these gases expand between the skin and the outer table of the skull, lifting up and ballooning out the skin (Figure 5.4). If the stretching exceeds the elasticity of the skin, it will tear. These tears radiate from the entrance, producing a stellate or cruciform appearing wound of entrance. Re-approximation of the torn edges of the wound will reveal the seared, blackened margins of the original entrance site.
In some contact wounds over bone, instead of the classical stellate or cruciform wound, one finds a very large circular wound with ragged, blackened, and seared margins. This type of wound is more common with the less powerful calibers such as the .32 ACP or .380 ACP (see Figure 5.3B). On occasion, however, it is seen with even the larger more powerful cartridges such as the .38 Special and .45 ACP.
Photos of dead and wounded children were a big part of what swayed public opinion away from the war in Vietnam, but apparently the American populace has been sufficiency desensitized to the specter of slaughtered kids since then.
I see it like this. Imagine the founders had written an Amendment stating “In order to maintain a well-regulated cavalry, the right to own horses shall not be infringed.” Now, obviously there are many other reasons a person might choose to own a horse. But if horse-rights absolutists insisted that the founders put that Amendment in to ensure that any American could be equipped to draw-and-quarter corrupt government officials, most people would find that argument ridiculous.
That’s basically what we have today with people who say the founders wanted citizens to have the ability to defend themselves from the Federal government.
Another fair point! Though I would contend they are a bit different. I would agree modern media has soured mans’ taste for war.
I remember when I was 10 or so I was visiting someones house. I don’t know who. One of those things where it was an adult visit, we should go and play. I found they had some of those Time Life books on the Civil War and it was full of the stark black and white photos of the carnage. Probably my first exposure to an actual dead body. I remember thinking if they could collect like the 100 worst photos from all the wars and put them in a book, no one would want to go to war again.
But I digress…
Those abortion protesters with dead fetuses aren’t making anything better. All those gore photos they used to show new drivers didn’t stop by peers from driving drunk - and kids are probably more distracted than ever driving. Same with mug shots of long term drug use, this is your brain on drugs, etc
When you’re slicing your food, do you think about all the people stabbed and how badly your knife could hurt someone? When you jump online do you think about the millions of comments of hateful and spiteful comments will be spewn on the internet today and how it will probably lead to at least one suicide? No, because why would you?
I fail to see see how reading or looking at gun wounds is helping the conversation at all. Actual gun users who hunt know what gun wounds look like. Gun users who don’t hunt will say this doesn’t involve them, they don’t plan to hurt anyone with their guns. Criminals will still be using them because its a dog eat dog world. Psychopaths who want to hurt people will get off on it. Anti-gun people will continue to think how horribly destructive these devices are and no one should own them.
I get your point, but I don’t think I am making that point. I personally don’t harp needing arms against the Federal government. Though at the time the STATE militia was something that could have stood up to an overbearing federal government.
But back to your analogy, if the people didn’t have a right to own horses or arms, then how would you build your cavalry or militia, using the methods of the time.
