Where in the 2nd amendment does it say "for sporting or hunting purposes"?

[classy]

If you have a problem with it change it. We can abolish the whole Constitution if we want going through the correct paperwork. Amendment process. Not with unconstitutional legislation.

You need to take that bass out of your post. I said nothing about abolishing anything. The second amendment is cloudy and always will be cloudy. We will never know how far reaching the amendment was supposed to go. We didn't have a well trained army then to protect the entire country. We didn't have the mass arsenal of weapons and types of weapons then like we do now. We don't know they wrote the amendment with the idea that its very own people take arms against its own government. The second amendment is one where it truly is affected by the nature of our time is radically different. Search and seizure is still the same. Freedom of speech as well. Just a thought...............

 

[BoberFett]

Really? what happens when they gas Indy and say you're next if even one of our soldiers gets shot patrolling the streets? Are you willing to risk your family? Not me I'd roll you and I'm sure most of your neighbors would too. This is not complicated it's been done before. Japan owned China with like 50,000 troops. If you're willing to get medieval resistance is futile.

OK, so I won't shoot that patrol. But won't that patrol be surprised to get a box containing his wife's head with a note congratulating him on supporting an oppressive regime.

You're right, if you're willing to get medieval resisting against revolutionaries is futile.

 

[nick1985]

You need to take that bass out of your post. I said nothing about abolishing anything. The second amendment is cloudy and always will be cloudy. We will never know how far reaching the amendment was supposed to go. We didn't have a well trained army then to protect the entire country. We didn't have the mass arsenal of weapons and types of weapons then like we do now. We don't know they wrote the amendment with idea that its very own people take arms against its own government. The second amendment is one where it truly is affected by the nature of our time is radically different. Search and seizure is still the same. Freedom of speech as well. Just a thought...............

Read the quotes from the people who wrote it. Their intentions are quite obvious...unless you think they were just trying to pull our legs.

 

[BoberFett]

The assault rifle was an imaginary weapon when the 2nd amendment was drafted. I think i pose a reasonable question. If you don't want to answer it, say so. The point is clear, at some point handguns may (likely will) be able to cause much more damage than they do now. What would it take for you to not classify a handgun capable of such damage as "arms"?

The internet was imaginary when the 1st Amendment was drafted, so I guess there's no freedom of speech online, eh sparky?

 

[classy]

Read the quotes from the people who wrote it. Their intentions are quite obvious...unless you think they were just trying to pull our legs.

Yes but they clearly also intended us as a nation to remain free. We didn't fight against our own government, but a foreign one. Up until that point we did not oppression from our own. So to think that they wrote the constitution without thought of the British is quite nieve.

 

[Fern]

New York lawmakers called for an outright ban Wednesday on extended gun magazines that hold as many as 30 bullets.

Bans on larger type clips/magazines strike me as useless. No 30 round clip? Just bring 2 guns, or spend the whole 2 seconds of time to put a fresh clip in.

Fern

 

[Fern]

Come on Z, you're smarter than that. You don't have to shoot down down a jet with your sidearm. In fact any revolution that intends to win a stand up fight doesn't deserve to be called a revolution. You attack the supply lines. Destroy fuel trucks. Kill suppliers. Employees sabotage production lines. Go after soft targets that are nonetheless crucial to the functioning of a massive military apparatus. There's strength in numbers, and 100M armed people will win no matter what kind of toys the military has.

The US military, large and well armed as it is, has very little chance in occupying and subduing our population. Yeah, they can kill a bunch of people, but the most quoted ratio for soldiers-to-population in an occupation is 20 per 1,000 (earlier phases are said to require even more). With a population of about 300M, I think that works out to about 6 million soldiers needed. We don't have that many people in our military, not close.

"Supply Lines"? I'm not even sure the "lines" part would be the military's biggest problem. The military gets it's supplies from citizens in the first place. How's that gonna work if we're fighting each other?

As hard as it is to occupy place like Afganistan or Iraq, compare their populations to ours: we are far more knowlegeable with far more resources. We have all kinds of engineers, electricians, scientists and tradesmen. We have thousands of machine shops all across this country. We have millions of tons of fertilizer and diesel fuel etc. Jeeez, I can buy high quality gun powder in 20lbs kegs at the local gun store about 10 minutes from my office.

And BoberFett, I was thinking about this in that postal service thread yesterday about how robust (or not) our technology is (your floating chair anology) - I saw an article in Popular Mechanics a few years about creating a large EMP. They published the basic plan for creating a device for about $3k IIRC, and it required at least a prop plane to deploy, that would supposedly creating an EMP large enough to knock out most circuitry in the USA. Deploy a couple of those and fighter jets might be turned into big paper weights. (In yesterday's thread I was thinking how'd we lose call phones, PC's, receivers for satelitte TV etc - drastically limited communication capability and commerce etc).

Fern

 

[nick1985]

Yes but they clearly also intended us as a nation to remain free. We didn't fight against our own government, but a foreign one. Up until that point we did not oppression from our own. So to think that they wrote the constitution without thought of the British is quite nieve.

You do not understand their overall message of armed citizenry.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Read the quotes from the people who wrote it. Their intentions are quite obvious...unless you think they were just trying to pull our legs.

Yep. I don't understand the argument that "the wording isn't clear." There are essays written on the intent of the constitution. The founding fathers made every effort to clarify their intentions for this specific purpose, but some idiots claim that "it's not in the constitution, so it isn't relevant."

If you're trying to follow the constitution, then everything written by the people who wrote it is relevant.

 

[xj0hnx]

No, the word means the same thing no matter what context. My point is that people are trying to argue that 'arms' as listed in the 2nd amendment refers to only rifles, etc, and not nuclear weapons because that's what 'arms' means. It does not, and even at the time the constitution was drafted the word did not mean simply a musket.

The institutions that prevent the overthrow of the democratic order are working just fine.

No, that's not what I am trying to argue, that's just a dumb game antigunners play.

 

[HumblePie]

No tom, you are confusing to HOLD with To KEEP.

An example would be...

"I am giving you this book to keep"

versus

"I'm and giving you this book to hold"

One implies ownership and the other does not. Can you not figure it out? The second implies I want it back after a set parameter has been reached. Maintaining possession is not owning, that I agree with, but to KEEP something is to own that item which you are keeping. It is your TO KEEP. Learn the effing connotation of the word and it's word usage in regards to ownership and you'll learn exactly where you are wrong in this.

There are plenty of definitions of the word keep though and not all them deal with ownership such as, to keep your head down, and to keep to yourself, where do you keep your sugar at?

The last one applies a bit to ownership, but also location of said owned item. The second one there is still maintaining ownership in a sense that you are keeping what you own, yourself, away from others. The first one has nothing to do with ownership when using the word keep at all though.

Again, possessing an item means that you may own or not own it. The word keep in reference to possession means you own the item in said possession. It is a very well defined term and you are missing that.

 

[Tom]

Yep. I don't understand the argument that "the wording isn't clear." There are essays written on the intent of the constitution. The founding fathers made every effort to clarify their intentions for this specific purpose, but some idiots claim that "it's not in the constitution, so it isn't relevant."

If you're trying to follow the constitution, then everything written by the people who wrote it is relevant.

Constitution was ratified by the States. We don't know if all of those states ratified it with the same understandings as the "essays" that aren't part of the document.

They are interesting, but hold no weight greater than any other interpretation, past or present.

 

[Tom]

No tom, you are confusing to HOLD with To KEEP.

An example would be...

"I am giving you this book to keep"

versus

"I'm and giving you this book to hold"

One implies ownership and the other does not. Can you not figure it out? The second implies I want it back after a set parameter has been reached. Maintaining possession is not owning, that I agree with, but to KEEP something is to own that item which you are keeping. It is your TO KEEP. Learn the effing connotation of the word and it's word usage in regards to ownership and you'll learn exactly where you are wrong in this.

There are plenty of definitions of the word keep though and not all them deal with ownership such as, to keep your head down, and to keep to yourself, where do you keep your sugar at?

The last one applies a bit to ownership, but also location of said owned item. The second one there is still maintaining ownership in a sense that you are keeping what you own, yourself, away from others. The first one has nothing to do with ownership when using the word keep at all though.

Again, possessing an item means that you may own or not own it. The word keep in reference to possession means you own the item in said possession. It is a very well defined term and you are missing that.

own means own. has nothing to do with possession or keeping.
possess means it's in your control or domain, doesn't require ownership or maintenance
keep means maintain and often possess, It doesn't exclude ownership, but it doesn't require it.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Constitution was ratified by the States. We don't know if all of those states ratified it with the same understandings as the "essays" that aren't part of the document.

They are interesting, but hold no weight greater than any other interpretation, past or present.

Are you telling me that we can assume that the legislators representing the states who ratified the supreme law of this country might not have read essays on the subject by the men responsible?

Any interpretation of a document supplied by the writers should be treated as part of the document, as that is the actual meaning of it.

 

[Fern]

Constitution was ratified by the States. We don't know if all of those states ratified it with the same understandings as the "essays" that aren't part of the document.

They are interesting, but hold no weight greater than any other interpretation, past or present.

I believe the writings of drafters of/signatories to the Constitution do carry weight.

Certainly the SCOTUS refers to them in their rulings.

It is also common in interpreting laws in general that we look to this kind of writing by the authors (in this case Congresspersons). E.g., in interpreting tax law we look to the committee reports. In the committee reports they will explain their purpose in writing the law. It is very helpful because when drafting the actual text of a law they tend to be as brief as possible; the committee reports usually spell out their intent in detail.

I don't think the intent of the states is relevent in understanding the law, or Constitution in this case. We have an awful lot of dumb@sses in Congress, in interpreting law we don't care 'what' they think they were voting for. We don't care what they think it means. We do care what the drafters meant, and their intent as they expressed it is often cited in court cases.

Fern

 

[classy]

You do not understand their overall message of armed citizenry.

You may be right on some level. I may not fully understand the overall message of armed citizenry. But I do understand the time and the events that surround the writing of the constitution. To read to constitution totally ignoring the time frame of its birth is to read a document, state something that is true, but never once taking in account all to understand the full truth.

While one fact may be true, its not the sum total of the truth.

 

[bfdd]

Or a nuclear missile because I just bought a missile silo on ebay for pennies on the dollar.

missiles are ordnance

 

[jonks]

missiles are ordnance

to paraphrase the OP, where does it say in the constitution that a citizen can't own ordnance? and around we go...

 

[nick1985]

snip

Tom you have dodged me 3 times now.

This is your 4th chance to address the questions.

Again, the founding fathers and the Supreme Court disagree with you.

Please address this.

Lets have a debate. Tom Vs. the founding Fathers.





Tom, please retort to these founderss:



Please respond to Mr. Madison:

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." ---James Madison



Please respond to Mr. Adams:

"The Constitution shall never be construed....to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms" ---Samual Adams


Please respond to Patrick Henry:

"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone who is able may have a gun." ---Patrick Henry


Please respond to Mr. Johnson

"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." --Zachariah Johnson


Please respond to Mr. Jefferson

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


Please respond to Mr. Washington

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good" --George Washington

Please stop dodging it Tom, its obvious to everyone you are just refusing to face the music. You claim to know what the founders meant, yet they sing an entirely different tune.

 

[nick1985]

You may be right on some level. I may not fully understand the overall message of armed citizenry. But I do understand the time and the events that surround the writing of the constitution. To read to constitution totally ignoring the time frame of its birth is to read a document, state something that is true, but never once taking in account all to understand the full truth.

While one fact may be true, its not the sum total of the truth.

Again, I'll quote George Washington in retort to your post:

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good" --George Washington

I contend that's just as true today as it was back then, and it will always be true.

 

[bfdd]

The US military, large and well armed as it is, has very little chance in occupying and subduing our population. Yeah, they can kill a bunch of people, but the most quoted ratio for soldiers-to-population in an occupation is 20 per 1,000 (earlier phases are said to require even more). With a population of about 300M, I think that works out to about 6 million soldiers needed. We don't have that many people in our military, not close.

"Supply Lines"? I'm not even sure the "lines" part would be the military's biggest problem. The military gets it's supplies from citizens in the first place. How's that gonna work if we're fighting each other?

As hard as it is to occupy place like Afganistan or Iraq, compare their populations to ours: we are far more knowlegeable with far more resources. We have all kinds of engineers, electricians, scientists and tradesmen. We have thousands of machine shops all across this country. We have millions of tons of fertilizer and diesel fuel etc. Jeeez, I can buy high quality gun powder in 20lbs kegs at the local gun store about 10 minutes from my office.

And BoberFett, I was thinking about this in that postal service thread yesterday about how robust (or not) our technology is (your floating chair anology) - I saw an article in Popular Mechanics a few years about creating a large EMP. They published the basic plan for creating a device for about $3k IIRC, and it required at least a prop plane to deploy, that would supposedly creating an EMP large enough to knock out most circuitry in the USA. Deploy a couple of those and fighter jets might be turned into big paper weights. (In yesterday's thread I was thinking how'd we lose call phones, PC's, receivers for satelitte TV etc - drastically limited communication capability and commerce etc).

Fern

This is also assuming our military decides it's against the people, which in all honesty I don't see happening on a wide scale. We'd have a lot of military men and women picking their sides as well.

 

[alkemyst]

Ordinance or not, there has never been more a disparagy between civilian arms and what the military has.

 

[alkemyst]

This is also assuming our military decides it's against the people, which in all honesty I don't see happening on a wide scale. We'd have a lot of military men and women picking their sides as well.

except basic training and the rest of that solves that revolt. First guy that steps out of line gets shot and that solves the rest for the most part.

There will always be 'traitors' in a civil war...they usually get the worst delivered to them as all the normal laws are reset.

 

[bfdd]

except basic training and the rest of that solves that revolt. First guy that steps out of line gets shot and that solves the rest for the most part.

There will always be 'traitors' in a civil war...they usually get the worst delivered to them as all the normal laws are reset.

I understand what you're saying, but I still see the military being very divided during a civil war or a revolution here in the States. I guess it's a difference of opinion on our service men and women we have. Hopefully we never have to find out .

 

[alkemyst]

I understand what you're saying, but I still see the military being very divided during a civil war or a revolution here in the States. I guess it's a difference of opinion on our service men and women we have. Hopefully we never have to find out .

I'd suggest really reading history books.

This is a common theme and the main reason the US was founded on the right to 'bear arms'.

Only recently has this 'right' been hashed out to level the playing field to those using airsoft vs full auto assault rifle's, full body armor and bio/chem weaps..