Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: ElMonoDelMar
Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: ElMonoDelMar
Originally posted by: Craig234
Are you saying that rocket launchers and nuclear weapons aren't military-grade weaponry?
If one purpose of the 2nd amendment is for the public to be able to battle a corrupt government, then shoudln't they need far more advanced weaponry like those rocket launchers? They can hardly fight our modern military with handguns, and so the second amendment is not working.
Scalia wrote that the purpose of the 2nd is for self-defense from criminals and from the oppressive government. He also wrote that SBS's, nukes and bazookas aren't common among the people for self-defense (as handguns, rifles and shotguns are).
So? You just said one of the purposes is protection from the oppresive government. To serve that purpose, the people need weapons powerful enough to defend against our modern military. Whether or not the public has handguns has no effect on whether they can defend themselves against the military, if they can't have the more powerful weapons like rocket launchers. What does what's common have to do with it?
So, is the amendment there for the public to have that defense or isn't it?
The amendment was written so that a militia could be formed to overthrow an opressive government using commonly available weapons that citizens would already have in possession.
As I said earlier:
Upon further reading, the court was saying that militias were formed by common citizens bringing with them common arms that they would have used for hunting or self-defense.
If the purpose was for the public to have the right to form such a militia, then the priority is that right, and not the 'common weapons', which only happened tobe adequate for the task at the time. As the weaponry advanced, the people would need the right to have the more advanced weaponry to keep the same right regarding a militia. I won't even get into the circular reasoning of what's common, when the law has prevented some weapons from becoming common.
You want to avoid the fallacy of confusing the way things were done in popular culture in the late 18th century, with the principle involved in the constitution.
Just as home computers are protected from unreasonable searches even though they didn't exist then, it's not the technology but the principle.
I see three main choices for the 2nd amendment:
1. No or little individual right, the right is for the individual for the purpoe of the militia.
2. Individual right, for the purpose of defending your home (the amendment says nothing about this).
3. Individual right, for the purpose of the public at large being a militia when they want to. This would at least include resisting foreign invaders, possibly our own government.
Popular opinion seems to be (2); the amendment seems to read as (1); and gun advocates often argue (3).
I think (1) is what it says; to paraphrase how I interpret it:
Because the security of our nation relies upon invaders being resisted by militias made of armed citizens, the right of citizens to keep and bear those arms is guaranteed.
The founding fathers did not see the nation having a standing army; Jefferson railed against it as one of the top threats to democracy. And that was about a bunch of guys with muskets, not the modern 'Military Industrial Complex' army Eisenhower warned us threated to undermine democracy. It seems to me you have to consider what the founding fathers were trying to do, and apply the constitution to fit the changing situation. In this case, the whole assumption about militias being our national defense is now obsolete.
Tell you what though. I'll agree to full gun rights for the public as a militia, if you agree to dismantling our standing military.
Of course, that's not a good idea, is it? Times change, and now that we have a real need for some standing military, the second amendment is less relevant.
It seems to me that finding handguns in big cities fulfill some more important home defense or militia purpose than the need for cities to try to deal with the criminals who find their concealibility very useful, is not reading the constitution, it's just making up what you would like it to say. This isn't a post about the (in-)effectiveness of local handgun restrictions, but about what the constitution says.