Ah, without the 2nd Amendment, the NRA ceases to exist.
But how am I to retrieve my runaway slaves if I canât rally my well-regulated militia to fetch them? What? Slaveryâs been abolished? The reason for the second amendment to exist has been obviated? Why oh why did I loan Lindsey the fainting couch and clutching pearls this week?
While I agree with Stevensâ conclusion that the 2nd should be repealed, Iâm less certain about his reading of history.
Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendmentâŚ
I would argue that it had much more to do with giving the new nation a way to deal with internal rebellion (Shayâs, Whiskey), and to repel foreign invaders (1812, e.g.). There was no national standing army, and little thought of creating one, so itâs difficult to imagine that fear of that then-mythical beast is what created the call for the 2nd.
The Framers were the national government. Did they want to make sure they could be gunned down by an angry State militia?
Wow. âRepealâ of the 2nd AmendmentâŚconservative heads will explodeâŚ3âŚ2âŚ1.
The Second Amendment is a root cause of the sickness that has spread to every corner of this nation. It is an outdated, archaic construct that outlived its usefulness the moment the nation instituted a strong federalist system.
Please tell me you still have your folding lace fan! For the love of God, do you still have your folding lace fan?
While I think repealing the 2nd amendment would be great, I am not sure that repeal is necessary to regulate guns. I donât agree with the premise. The fact that the 2nd calls for a âwell regulatedâ militia is enough for me. We just need politicians with some courage to pass laws and enough SCOTUS justices to allow those laws to stand. Actually, on second thought repeal may be the easier route.
Fine. Go for it. But it will likely take a long time to pass any constitutional amendment like this.
Meantime, even a lot of counter-protesters at the recent rallys are saying, hey, letâs require background checks to keep the crazies from being able to act on impulse and buy a gun. And they are not uniformly against banning weapons of war, like assault rifles. After all, there is a limit: we canât buy bazookas or real flamethrowers (which puts the lie to the idea that we truly have the right to bear arms, and reveals the NRA to be what it really is, a lobbying organization for gun manufacturers). Letâs start with what we can do now, while, yes, trying for an amendment.
Now, now, we all know full well, from what the late (thank dog) Justice Scalia told us, that those words are just filler, mere rhetorical flourish. The Framers, it seems, were being paid by the word.
I agree. The NRAâs âsecond amendment rightsâ are mostly imaginary. We need sane people in sane states to pass sane gun control laws, then let the NRA take those laws to court and lose.
That said, the (unfounded) fear of even the most moderate gun control measures leading immediately to the complete abolition of private gun ownership makes the ammosexuals dig their heels in right quick.
As usual, we are deliberately misinterpreting the Second Amendment. It does NOT guarantee an individual the right to own a gun. Please read it and look at the court decisions handed down about this. It is the NRA that should be trying to amend the constitution to guarantee an individual the right to own a gun. The Constitution does not do that. Liberals automatically cede ground on this, which is part of the problem.
One word: Heller.
Stevens is right. The principal issue was the power of a national government vs the power of the individual states. This issue was fought out in several different venues, the most important being slavery and the monopoly on the use of force. The compromise on the use of force was to allow the states to keep their individual militias through the second amendment, but to make the president the commander in chief of the army and the navy, and explicitly also of the state militias whenever he called them up.
The 2008 Supreme Court ruling may have been perverse and wrong (I think it was), but it did grant an individual right to possess firearms for personal protection.
But, but⌠If the national government were oppressing the States, would the States have been justified in disregarding the CIC when he called up the militias? Whatâs the use of being CIC if your commands are considered âsuggestions?â
In short, if that really was the agreed-upon compromise, it made damn little practical sense.
His reading of history is fine.
In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
~ James Madison, Speech before Constitutional Convention (6/29/1787).
A distrust of standing armies was common, not only among the anti-federalists, but with Madison himself. Standing armies were seen as the plaything of tyrants. Basically, whatâs the point of having a standing army if youâre not going to use it? While the Constitution ultimately gave Congress the authority to raise a standing army, there was still distrust of such a thing. That is why no appropriation for a standing army can cover more than two years. Every Congress has to reauthorize the standing army. To balance the national governmentâs power to raise a standing army, the Second Amendment was adopted to prohibit the national government from disarming the state militias.
Letâs go back to when the NRA advocated for sportsman and supported sensible firearms laws. Now the NRA is one blade short of a grassy knoll, makes scary dystopian videos and plays footsie with authoritarians in Russia.
The militiaâs officers were to be appointed by the Federal Gov. and the weapons were to be kept in an armory.