To be fair Jesus preferred a whip.
The gun control debate
- Thread starter TheMoralLaw
- Start date
To be fair Jesus preferred a whip.
What debate? There's no debate. The 2nd Amendment isn't a sport hunting license.
Of course there's a debate. The debate is over whether the amendment can be reasonably interpreted to allow every man, woman and child to own their own tactical nuke if they so choose. The debate is also over whether it should be repealed. Reread my original post.
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Kingfisher
This is unfortunate and will not go in the direction that anyone who supports firearms ownership wants it to.
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Kingfisher
I did read your initial post. It was as full of nonsense as the absurdly fake argument, "allow every man, woman and child to own their own tactical nuke..".
Take your trolling somewhere else.
I've talked to non-retarded leftists and they generally believe the constituion is fluid and open to change, unlike the bible. Women could't vote, now they can. It follows that gun rights can become privileges and if that's not possible they will muscle their way to make it expensive/costly to own or maintain firearms via endless regulations. They are already talking about fingerprint biometrics, limiting magazine size and making manufacturers liable for damages the gun owner causes. There's no end. Balkanization is the only solution.
It's literally insane to think there's any other interpretation of the second amendment that makes sense given the historical context of the amendment. It is, to put it bluntly, the Mutually Assured Destruction policy of the 18th century. It's not a hunting license to hunt deer during a specifically regulated deer-hunting season, as so many boomercons interpret it to be. It is a law saying that the government cannot prohibit the people from possessing the materiel means to overthrow the government. How can you read about the Revolutionary War and not come to the conclusion that the Founding Fathers wanted it to be easy for the people to overthrow a tyrannical government and set up a new government in its place, having done it themselves earlier?
As for the wisdom of allowing the common man access to nukes, I echo Benjamin Franklin when he says that the Constitution is fit only for a moral and just people, and that it is wholly inadequate for any other.
You're welcome to interpret that however you want.
P.S., the Founding Fathers were also very queasy about the idea of their government having a standing military force. The prevailing thought was that Congress, understood not as a singular entity but as a central network of the states, would basically cobble together an army out of the states' militias if the need arose.
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Dude ... I dont know what to tell you. This is not a libertarian forum. Why would "cant have gun control: it violates NAP" be any less ridiculous than any other libertarian argument? To say that reasobable people cannot difer on gun control and that there's "no debate" (your words) is absurd.
I'm not a libertarian, but that is the correct reading of the Second Amendment. It is not a deer hunting license, and the argument that it is should be laughed out of any reasonable court of public opinion.
It is like arguing that the First Amendment allows the government to punish a baker for refusing to bake a gay wedding cake. In both cases, the argument presumes that the Amendments reserve to the government more authority than they really do.
There is no debate over gun control. The only debate is over whether people are foolish enough to accept the idea that there is a meaningful debate over "gun control". The answer is always unequivocally: no, no gun control. End of line. End of statement. End of file. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
The Constitution is open to change, there is a specific procedure that outlines two ways it can be amended (this is how women got the vote). The judicial system is also in place to interpret the text of the Constitution where its language is ambiguous. What it is not open to is simply ignoring it in places where its language is explicit and unambiguous, such as the First and Second Amendments.
Like @Elipe pointed out, there isn't a debate, not a legitimate one anyway. However, even if the Constitution didn't exist some number of men will always consider self-defense for and self-preservation of their families as their most fundamental duty and responsibility. This is the case no matter how pozzed the world gets. Guns are the genie in the bottle and you can no more regulate them than you can the printing press.
It's not like Molon Labe is an English phrase, you know.
No. The process of Judicial Review was not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution for a reason.
The process only became commonplace after the Marbury vs Madison decision (1803), where the court granted itself political power as the sole arbiters of Constitutional intent.
SCOTUS would spend the better part of the next century neutering state level referendums, deeming them "unconstitutional", and consolidating the federal governments power.
- Fletcher v. Peck (1810) - Set the precedent for deeming State laws "unconstitutional". Consolidated more power to the Court.
- McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) - Extension of "implied powers" to Federal Government. This legal precedent played a central role in the creation of the Federal Reserve in the century that followed.
- Martin vs Hunter's Lessee (1816) & Cohens vs Virginia (1821) - Raped state courts of any and all power. Federal courts have standing to critique lower level decisions as well as hear all cases no matter if they are filed at the Federal or State levels
- Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823) - Private citizens banned from buying land from natives. Much of this land is still held "in-trust" by the Government and results in lawsuits/settlements in the Billions to this day.
- Gibbons vs Ogden (1824) - Ruled that States have no commercial sovereignty, and granted the Government the legal precedent to regulate navigation
- Munn vs Illinois (1877) - Business that serve the "public interest" are subject to regulation by the Federal Government
100%
I'd have to agree with @Elipe regarding the 2nd amendment. People have the right to own whatever type of firearm they want. I'm fine with them having tanks and flamethrowers too.
However, I'd like to address something I see people argue about regarding the right to bear arms. They like to throw things like nuclear weapons and the like into their arguments, either for or against it regarding the 2nd amendment. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is to facilitate the citizenry in deterring their government from going tyrannical, and to overthrow it if needed. It was not created so that anyone with the cash to buy their own ICBMs could destroy the world if they wanted to. Nuke usage has worldwide consequences, so it is proper that their employment be restricted to the government.
However, I'd like to address something I see people argue about regarding the right to bear arms. They like to throw things like nuclear weapons and the like into their arguments, either for or against it regarding the 2nd amendment. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is to facilitate the citizenry in deterring their government from going tyrannical, and to overthrow it if needed. It was not created so that anyone with the cash to buy their own ICBMs could destroy the world if they wanted to. Nuke usage has worldwide consequences, so it is proper that their employment be restricted to the government.
What about if state governments owned nuclear arms?