Discussion: Clinton Defends Past Comment That SCOTUS 'Wrong' On 2nd Amendment

Wallace then turned to Donald Trump, asking him if he believes Clinton supports the Second Amendment. In response, Trump tried to paint Clinton as “angry” and "

I don’t understand this question from Wallace to Trump. It’s for the voters to decide, not Trump, whether or not they believe Hillary’s answer. Wallace should have just asked Trump for his position on the 2nd amendment for the benefit of voters.

I know Wallace doesn’t fact check, but he’s seriously going to outsource that to Trump?

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I don’t get it. All she had to do was talk about what the SCOTUS should consider “reasonable” regulation. It is such a wishy washy standard in terms ofthe superficial language. As a fellow lawyer she should have known how to address this issue within the context of the question and the law but she yammered political crap. It was one of the more frustrating moments for me. All she had to do is say she disagreed with the SCOTUS’'s idea of what is reasonable and argue that we should all rethink what we consider reasonable regulation but she didnt. It’s too important of an issue to pussyfoot. Instead she circumlocuted. This was a disappointing moment for me.

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As a non-lawyer, her answer didn’t strike me as superficial as you found it to be. I think she was giving an example where she thinks the court should be taking into consideration the real impact decisions have on people’s lives. To the extent that that turns it into “political crap,” she’s running for political office. It was certainly a different type of argument than the one she would make in a courtroom, but I think it’s grounded in the same legal beliefs.

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Anyone still affiliated with the all or nothing NRA argument did not listen to a single word she said. Single issue voters are long since in the GOP bag. SCOTUS has limited law writing powers compared to Congress and State Legislatures. People who have had it with unregulated gun ownership had to hear some hope of fewer needless deaths and massacres. Trump took the low hanging NRA fruit and offered not a shred of relief to the great majority of responsible gun owners and people who deserve freedom from the fear of guns. There will be a great deal of professional spinning in favor of the NRA on this issue. It took strength for Secretary Clinton to stand up to them and appeal to the very real needs of Americans who would prefer to freely go about their lawful business without worrying when some nut case with a military assault rifle might decide the time is right for a Second Amendment solution.

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Hey, I’m all for the Second Amendment, but I wish someone (NRA?) would remember that there are 2 clauses . So what exactly is a “well-regulated militia”?

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It’s called “The National Guard”.

SCOTUS has NO law-writing powers. They can only interpret what laws CONGRESS has written and the President has signed as either constitutional or not.
Now, while they have wide discretionary powers of interpretation, they cannot create LAWS out of thin air.
They may apply an existing law or constitutional article in new ways, but they don’t actually write laws. That is reserved for the Congress. In fact, only the HOUSE can propose a new law. Not the President, not the Senate, not even SCOTUS. ALL new LAWS must originate in the House of Representatives.
That is why it pisses me off so much when idiots scream; “Why doesn’t the President pass a Law to xxxxxxxx”. Well, he/she CAN’T. They can only “suggest” a law to Congress. Even the SCOTUS just says; “Well, it’s up to Congress to FIX THIS LAW when they declare it unconstitutional.”
We desperately need to resume teaching Civics in grade and high schools.
Branches of Government:
Legislative: Writes laws and controls the purse strings
Executive: Executes the laws and controls when the appropriated money is spent.
Judicial: Interprets the laws as written by Congress

“Let me just tell you before we go any further, in Chicago, which has the toughest gun laws in the United States, probably you could say by far they have more gun violence than any other city. So we have the toughest laws and you have tremendous gun violence,” he said.

Mr. Trump clearly does not understand the concept of correlation versus causation. Look at the timeline of gun violence and it is evident that gun control laws in Chicago could not have caused the rise in gun violence that preceded them, and might have caused the decrease in growth of violence that followed.

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Her defense was carefully crafted and lawyer tested, but I re-examined Heller after the debate. The toddler line was pretty weak tea. While I would imagine a more liberal court will refine the balancing test (reasonable regulations), I don’t anticipate any future court repealing Heller outright. In fact if Scalia had adopted a different test it would have been a 6-3 or 7-2 decision. Once you acknowledge that people have a right of self defense and that historically guns have been the tool of choice for self defense it becomes almost impossible to deny anyone the right to keep an easily accessible gun in his home via some unenforceable regulation.

I disagree.
She gave a cogent, detailed answer. If what you want is “Bumper-Sticker” answers, she is not your candidate and never has been.
I for one LIKE detail. Detail is important. Detail is what goes into creating and enforcing LAWS.

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No one is saying they don’t have a “right” to have a gun in the house. The argument is on HOW they keep the gun in the house.
It is no different than saying you have a “right” to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happyness, but you DON’T have the right to rape, murder, and kill to achieve that.
That is what LAWS are about. The reasonable restrictions agreed upon by your elected representatives upon your constitutional rights.
The 1st amendment does not protect your “right” to yell FIRE! in a crowed theater. The 2nd amendment does not protect your “right” to unregulated ownership of guns. Right there in the 2nd clause it says; “in a well-regulated militia”. That is the crux of all these arguments.
If you interpret the “right of self defense” means owning ANY weapon in ANY form, you are wrong. You don’t have that right. You never have in over 240 years. Scalia was WRONG. He had a long history of applying his partisan political views as unsubstantiated “precedent”. This was one of those cases.

Trump’s is the weakest argument gun control advocates make. America is a mobile society. Guns are easily hidden. It isn’t hard to bring guns into a high crime zone from outside. The Supreme Court allows for reasonable regulations

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I am more than aware of the issues in Heller. The court in Heller found that requiring the gun to be disassembled or locked up with ammo in a separate location while in the house rendered it useless as a self-defense weapon. In addition to everything else such a regulation was unenforceable and your home is a constitutionally protected place.

By the way there are less restrictive technological fixes for the toddler concern.

Your first sentence gets to the heart of the issue in Heller, but the rest of your comment is mindless drivel. You can do better.

You ate right about the Constitution. I know that SCOTUS has no official power to write laws. They just select the ones they like when specially prepared cases come before them. Congress never passed a law that said anyone in the world could secretly fund our electoral process. But suddenly money became free speech, and there is the end of Democracy thanks to the Citizens United decision. Members of Congress decry the corruptive influence of payola, but say their hands are tied until a Constitutional Amendment gets passed; uh huh, right after hell freezes over.

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Wallace then turned to Donald Trump, asking him if he believes Clinton supports the Second Amendment.

This is where Wallace showed that he is not a moderator at all.

I could care less whether Trump “believes” Hillary or Hillary “believes” Trump. This should not be a debate over whether one believes the other. I want to hear what Trump thinks about Heller.

Not a debate at all.

Funny - very few of the people I see openly carrying, buying gun show stuff, and wandering around intersections with loaded semi-automatic rifles would even fit into a National Guard uniform.

Too True.