Did Thomas Jefferson believe the 2nd Amendment defined a collective (positive) right?

[Anarchist420]

My professor seems to think so, but I think he's full of shit.

Did Jefferson really believe that individuals shouldn't own firearms?

 

[Craig234]

Whatever the constitution says, we must respect and follow.

But it's also important to note it'd be nice for us to understand what's best for society today, as there have been a few changes since the 18th century flintlock farming country Jefferson formed his views in - views like the ones where he decried the danger to democracy of a standing military when he couldn't have dreamed of the modern military and its influence with things like hundreds of billions of dollars.

Doing nothig on gun control but trying to find any glint of what a man in that society had to say on the issue while paying no attention to the issue in today's society is not how to understand much on the issue. Whether Jefferson said this or that about that society, while the constitution must be followed, will leave you poorly informed in forming gun policy within the constitutional latitude allowed in our society today.

Sometimes people treat the founding fathers like some magical wizards who wrote answers if they can just find the old papers to solve things today, and do not use a rational approach to getting informed and forming policy today. Ironically, the founding fathers did not what people doing that - they understood times change and wanted people to throw out what didn't work anymore and continue to improve the government.

Like we did with slavery and womens' right to vote.

 

[spidey07]

He was an adamant supporter of people to keep and bear arms. He believed without it The People could not remain or be free.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

There's a whole lot more great ones from him regarding this subject.

 

[MovingTarget]

Although I don't necessarily agree with original intent as being the only firm basis for constitutional law, the founders' intent was pretty clear with respect to the second amendment as spidey has demonstrated above. Why does it have to be considered an individual vs. a collective right? They arent' mutually exclusive. It can be exercised in both manners to achieve the same purpose and therefore should be upheld as both. As of the past few decades, the individual portion has been more under scrutiny, but I think that we are headed in the right direction lately (with the striking down of several gun bans in DC, Chicago, etc. )

 

[K1052]

Who cares what Jefferson believed, it's largely immaterial to the issue.

Mason and later Madison was much were far more influential when it came to enumerating the rights guaranteed to citizens. Even the most staunch Federalist of the time (Hamilton) would never have endorsed the idea that a government should have the power to disarm it's citizenry.

 

[K1052]

He was an adamant supporter of people to keep and bear arms. He believed without it The People could not remain or be free.

Quote:
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Quote:
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

There's a whole lot more great ones from him regarding this subject.

The Shays' Rebellion quote is a terrible one when read in the context of the time. Pretty much anyone actually concerned with the governance of the nation (who didn't have the luxury of being posted to France like Jefferson) was deeply concerned by it and further propelled them to the Constitutional Convention.

 

[spidey07]

The Shays' Rebellion quote is a terrible one when read in the context of the time. Pretty much anyone actually concerned with the governance of the nation (who didn't have the luxury of being posted to France like Jefferson) was deeply concerned by it and further propelled them to the Constitutional Convention.

True, but it's still a hell of a quote on the idea of true liberty. The french seemed to agree or at least the seed was planted with them.

 

[K1052]

True, but it's still a hell of a quote on the idea of true liberty. The french seemed to agree or at least the seed was planted with them.

And then the French Revolution...eeek

Jefferson was a very interesting guy but was a little too aloof in those occasions when he didn't have any skin in the game.

 

[Craig234]

Even the most staunch Federalist of the time (Hamilton) would never have endorsed the idea that a government should have the power to disarm it's citizenry.

FYI, here's a quotation I ran across from Hamilton in his Federalist Papers. This consists of a number of quotes I'm not sure were contiguous.

The power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy.

It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects… This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union “to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, RESERVING TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS.

If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the same body ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force.

It is observed that select corps may be formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered subservient to the views of arbitrary power.

To oblige the great body of the yeomanry and of the other classes of the citizens to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.

To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.

In the times then, with the level of military as men with guns of the era, wooden ships, etc., it was the founders' view it seems that citizen militias made a lot of sense over a large 'standing army', which would do little but be a big expense on the nation and tempt its leaders to use it fur unnecessary wars - if not the persecution of the American people.

One note - they were a lot more comfortable with this whole 'it's a militia, meant to serve the govenment and be well trained/regulated' than the 'gun rights' advocates would like.

Also, it's pretty clear that times have changed on a number of issues - which is why the gun rights crowd pretty much never argues against the US government having a modern 'standing army' filled with everything from B-2 bombers to nuclear weapons the founding fathers had no idea of, completely surreering the whole 'no standing army' arguments for pracitcal reasons, even while they demand the 'my handgun protects me from the government using its army for tyranny' bit of the argument they want to keep.

'Times change' they agree with, they support, and 'times change' they don't like, they oppose, in a completely convenient selective use of the issue.

The fact is, no matter your opinion on gun policy, the issues regarding the military have changed greatly. The opinions then are now outdated and need to be revisited.

And the founding fathers would be the first to violently agree with this. They didn't go digging up the details of the authors of the magna carta to write their constitution.

 

[K1052]

Do you happen to remember how Hamilton died?

Yeah....

 

[Craig234]

And then the French Revolution...eeek

Jefferson was a very interesting guy but was a little too aloof in those occasions when he didn't have any skin in the game.

Did you know, the essential role of Thomas Paine in both revolutions - and a third attempt?

Thomas Paine hadn't done a lot - but he found, when he wrote about the American situation, he had a knack for steering people into supporting revolution.

There had been tension for decades, but the American people had not looked to revolution as an option - even the founding fathers had supported 'working things out' with the King.

But when Paine wrote Common Sense, it had a big effect on the country, a huge bestseller, and redirected enough people towards revolution the rest is history.

I'm not trying to split hairs between the various factors, but his was a big part.

What's less known is that Pain went to England, and tried to stir up the people to revolution there - and was grabbed by authorities.

But he also went to France, and incited revolution there - one of the figures who helped it happen.

Funny thing is, IIRC, as the revolution got too extreme for his tastes, he called for moderation - I think he titled the paper 'A return to Sanity', oh wait - and the revoution istelf he'd championed put him in prison - but because they valued his role in instigating it, they did not chop off his head and instead released him.

An interesting character, who shows how important it can be for people to have someone steer them toward organizing to get anything done or changed.

A lesson the far right learned in the 70's, and who then paid vast sums to create what's called 'astroturf' movements - to use the brute force of money to create phony grass-roots movements, with pre-determined pro-rich right-wing agendas, as an effective political tool, while propagandizing with their ideology, which has so greatly increase the support for right-wing views in the country today after decades of the efforts.

 

[Craig234]

Do you happen to remember how Hamilton died?

Yeah....

I'm so gratified to have put the time into that post, when you got such benefit as this

 

[nick1985]

obligatory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GNu7ldL1LM

 

[Amused]

Whatever the constitution says, we must respect and follow.

But it's also important to note it'd be nice for us to understand what's best for society today, as there have been a few changes since the 18th century flintlock farming country Jefferson formed his views in - views like the ones where he decried the danger to democracy of a standing military when he couldn't have dreamed of the modern military and its influence with things like hundreds of billions of dollars.

Doing nothig on gun control but trying to find any glint of what a man in that society had to say on the issue while paying no attention to the issue in today's society is not how to understand much on the issue. Whether Jefferson said this or that about that society, while the constitution must be followed, will leave you poorly informed in forming gun policy within the constitutional latitude allowed in our society today.

Sometimes people treat the founding fathers like some magical wizards who wrote answers if they can just find the old papers to solve things today, and do not use a rational approach to getting informed and forming policy today. Ironically, the founding fathers did not what people doing that - they understood times change and wanted people to throw out what didn't work anymore and continue to improve the government.

Like we did with slavery and womens' right to vote.

We have a Constitutional Amendment process to change things, Craig.

Reinterpreting the meaning and ignoring the original intent as your side of the court attempted to do in the last two 2nd Amendment cases before them (and you seem to ignorantly advocate) means the Constitution, in it's entirety, is meaningless. It can mean whatever the fuck the current court wants it to mean, the people be damned.

So if you want to change the 2nd Amendment, Amend the Constitution. Don't try and pretend words mean what they do not, and the intentions of those who wrote it mean nothing.

 

[Double Trouble]

We have a Constitutional Amendment process to change things, Craig.

Reinterpreting the meaning and ignoring the original intent as your side of the court attempted to do in the last two 2nd Amendment cases before them (and you seem to ignorantly advocate) means the Constitution, in it's entirety, is meaningless. It can mean whatever the fuck the current court wants it to mean, the people be damned.

So if you want to change the 2nd Amendment, Amend the Constitution. Don't try and pretend words mean what they do not, and the intentions of those who wrote it mean nothing.

Exactly. One of the things that makes the constitution great is that it has a framework for making changes. That's how it can evolve with society as society changes. If things have changed such that the 2nd amendment is no longer needed or wanted, there is a process for doing so, provided the people are in agreement.

I hate this re-interpretation of what the constitution says in light of today's society crap, it's simply an avenue for the court to decide whatever the hell it wants to be the law.....

 

[Craig234]

Exactly. One of the things that makes the constitution great is that it has a framework for making changes. That's how it can evolve with society as society changes. If things have changed such that the 2nd amendment is no longer needed or wanted, there is a process for doing so, provided the people are in agreement.

I hate this re-interpretation of what the constitution says in light of today's society crap, it's simply an avenue for the court to decide whatever the hell it wants to be the law.....

Listen carefully. Oh, forget it, you won't, but I'll post it for others.

The constitution cannot and shoult not - whatever nutjob Scalia selectively says when it suits his agenda - 'be applied exactly as was intended when it was written'.

His 'position' - not really a position, but one he argues when he wants - has been exposed with mockery before as ridiculous.

That is NOT saying it means nothing, and you just say 'well, our opinion has changed, so we'll 'interpret' the consitution to mean what we prefer'.

That's a phony straw man - and ironically used by people who defend doing just that when they want, like saying corporations are persons with all kinds of new 'rights'.

Rather, it's saying that some things by their very nature to continue to UPHOLD the intent of the constitution need updating; some things are VAGUE.

When something in the constitution is vague, there is no 'sticking to what the constitution says' - there's only deciding the issue one way or another.

Now, people might SAY their preference is the 'strict' one and attack the other as 'revisionist'. They also may be lying.

The fact is, for example, the constitution addresses a complex issue with a word like "unreasonable". You are protected from "unreasonable" searches.

Now, what does that mean? In an era of high technology surveillance tools and electronic information like e-mail, where the courts have to take every single specific example of 'searches' that is brought to trial and rule what the constitution says about whether it's 'constitutional' or 'unconstitutional', and the *entire constitutional guidance* they have to use to make the ruling is the word "unreasonable", how are they supposed to draw all these exactly lines 'as the constitution says'?

The fact is, the guidance IS NOT THERE. And trying to frame the issue as 'people who follow the constitution and people who ignore it' is itself a lie.

It's a more complicated issue, and while there are cases of legal history of how other rulings were decided, and laws, and expert opinions, there's still one word - "unreasonable".

Deal with it.

Yes, there's a danger that this sort of thing can lead to the contitution meaning 'anything', and thereby being undermined, and we have to guard against that.

But the very people who most take liberties are on the right, and they wrap themselves in the cloak of attacks that they're the ones protecting its 'strict meaning'.

When you take the spirit of the consitution - the rights it delineates, based on society at the time - and you are faced with the question of something like "does the state have the right to prohibit you from getting birth control pills" - the 'conservative' argued they have that right - 'there's no right to birth control pills in the constitution', and 'all other' rights are with the states and the people. End of story, so sorry.

Liberals on the other hand, looked at the constitution's rights, and said that while the founding fathers may not have mentioned birth control pills, the rights they DID specify identified a pattern that was a protection for rights that had a common thread of a 'protection of privacy' - which the Supreme Court Justice called a "penumbra" or privacy rights, that include the new issue of the right for a couple and their doctor to decide whether to use otherwise safe birth control pills.

Read the argument explaining the support for their saying this right is guaranteed within the constitution while not being specified - while not saying 'any right can be invented'.

We do not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions. This law, however, operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician's role in one aspect of that relation.

The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice - whether public or private or parochial - is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights.

By Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, the right to educate one's children as one chooses is made applicable to the States by the force of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. By Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, the same dignity is given the right to study the German language in a private school. In other words, the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge... And so we reaffirm the principle of the Pierce and the Meyer cases.

In NAACP v. Alabama we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid "as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association." Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. The right of "association," like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion; and while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful.

The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender tohis detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described... as protection against all governmental invasions "of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life."

We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of "privacy and repose." These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.

The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a "governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms." . Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.

We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.

Something opponents do is violate the constitution by pretending the 9th amendment does not exist.

They just don't want it to exist, and so they argue like it doesn't. When it says that the enumeration of specific rights DOES NOT mean that other, unspefied rights are not protected - they argue the opposite. If the right isn't SPECIFIED,then it can't possibly be one of those the founding fathers INSISTED be protected - it has to be 'judicial activism' violating the consitution, not following the consitution that DEMANDS unspecified rights are still protected.

There's little convincing these people of anything, because they argue from a factually wrong (ignoring amendments) and ideological position, immune to facts and rational points.

 

[drebo]

The "Living Constitution", regardless what you or anyone else says, Craig, is simply an avenue for politicians to do things they should not be allowed to do.

Intent doesn't matter. Who is doing the deed doesn't matter. The Constitution was written as it was written for a reason. It's not open for interpretation. If you want to change what it says, ammend it. Otherwise, it should be followed to the T.

Oh, what the hell am I thinking? You'll probably just interpret my "living words" to mean that I hate women and children and only care about money and myself.

 

[nick1985]

The "Living Constitution", regardless what you or anyone else says, Craig, is simply an avenue for politicians to do things they should not be allowed to do.

Intent doesn't matter. Who is doing the deed doesn't matter. The Constitution was written as it was written for a reason. It's not open for interpretation. If you want to change what it says, ammend it. Otherwise, it should be followed to the T.

Oh, what the hell am I thinking? You'll probably just interpret my "living words" to mean that I hate women and children and only care about money and myself.

bigot

 

[Corn]

bigot

racist

 

[drebo]

racist

It's cause I'm white, huh?

 

[spidey07]

Craig is exactly why we have the right to keep and bear arms.

 

[Zorkorist]

I'm with Craig, that the Constitution should be interpreted, because literally, it is a damning document to the people it purports to enable.

One must remember that the people that drafted the constitution were God fearing, intellectual, property owners.

They believed in Government (obviously) and they ensured that Government would always have power over the people.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

If you try and limit taxes, you will see that it is unconstitutional.

Government can do what they will, with taxes.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

If you try and limit spending, you will see it is unconstitutional.

Government can do what they want with spending.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

Our founding Fathers pretty much drafted a document where Government is unfettered in anything they attempt.

The Bill of Rights was a response to the unencumbered power that Government was granting itself, and while a start, it has proven to have fallen short.

-John