Re: The Second Amendment states

Tiggity®

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Oh, like I said, it has been misinterpreted for years.

Sep 5, 2024, 10:20 AM [ in reply to Wow man. You are, flat 100% wrong twice. ]

And yes, it is "justices" who pen the misinterpretations sometimes. Much as they did with Roe as well. There was a time when a Supreme Court Justice penned an "opinion" of the court that a farm family in Kansas had to pay federal taxes on the wheat they grew, even though they never sold it, and used it to bake bread for their family dinner table. Yes, that decision gave Congress virtually unlimited power with the Commerce Clause, for decades. And interestingly, it was a 1995 gun case that overturned the unlimited power of the Commerce Clause set forth in the 1940's.

BACK THEN being armed, with your own gun, was essential for self-preservation, AND national preservation.

Do you honestly think those same people, in THAT time, would have penned that Amendment, that way, today, if there was a federal income tax, $4+ trillion in federal revenue each year, and $800 billion/yr.-funded military and industrial complex churning out arms to arm that military, which is the strongest and most powerful on Earth? With nukes in our back pocket?

Interesting. Like I said, it was essential, THEN. And the way I view history is in the context of the time it happened, not in reflection to that past time juxtaposed with today. Not a 2012 Supreme Court Justice's juxtaposition, even with citations of a 7th century English law that evolved under an entirely different set of circumstances. I blasted a history professor once for giving me a loaded paper topic, in this same light. It's very common, and a mistake IMO. Asked me to write a paper on the treatment of women in Renaissance Italy. I wrote a paper saying exactly the opposite of what the professor told us in his lectures. He had lectured, given us books, and many things showing how horribly women were treated back then, even in Renaissance Italy. My paper shitcanned everything he lectured about, and everything he forced us to read, which were all modern interpretations and not source material. I read up on how women were treated THEN, AND read up on how women were treated in England, Germany, France, etc., THEN. I concluded that women in Renaissance Italy were the best-treated women in the western world, AT THAT TIME. Today we would say they were mistreated, but AT THAT TIME, in that place, they were the most progressive, enlightened, country in Europe, when it comes to the treatment of women. And it set the groundwork for much of what we consider proper "treatment" today. And it does them a huge injustice to call them misogynist and bigots today, when what we enjoy today was largely set in motion by them, back then.

A very good history professor once told me something, and it stuck. He said if you really want to understand history, you can't look back at it. You can't understand history, and know our founding fathers (or Renaissance Italy), by reading only what they wrote. To understand what they wrote, and by extension to understand them, you have to study and learn what THEY studied, and learned. If you want to understand Thomas Jefferson, don't read what he wrote, by itself. Read what Thomas Jefferson read. THEN read what he wrote. Because only then can you properly understand what he wrote, as he understood it, back then.

Heck, even a "militia" is different today. Today they are Proud Boys, militants, dangerous, extreme politically or socially motivated groups of people, who walk around in combat gear with guns, usually set on intimidation for one end or another. Back then a militia was a group of American citizens, who, when called, could serve in the armed forces to protect the nation. They were generally organized on state and local levels, were considered "good", and they were essential for national defense, BACK THEN. They later became the National Guard, again each state has one, and it is what the militias evolved into after they were no longer directly needed when we created and funded a professional Army. Weekend warriors/citizen soldiers. As we developed and created a national army, the industry to arm it, the funding to arm and train it, and the training of professional soldiers to defend the country, militias became unnecessary, yet they still remain largely as what we call the National Guard, and that is where we stand today. And yes, the national guard needs to be armed and they are still used to assist the US Army. Black Panthers, Proud Boys, etc. don't need to be armed, as TODAY that is what WE think of when we hear "militias".

We are no longer the nation our founders envisioned, but it is becoming one they feared.

By the way, that 18th century English citation....it only applied to "Protestant" citizens. Catholic? Hand over your guns. I searched the entire opinion you linked and can't even find the word "Protestant". Not to mention the fact a Justice dragged a 17th century ENGLISH law, passed by Parliament, and set into law by a monarch, favoring the preferred state religion, which we actually fought to escape, would even use that as an interpretation for the foundation of the thinking of our founding fathers....well. I'll just leave that be, along with the Kansas wheat case. I mean black people weren't even citizens, back then, and they didn't have a right to bear arms either. Kind of like Catholics in England I guess, or Protestants before them.

Here's the full text of that 17th century English law, as passed by Parliament. The Act received Royal Assent (was approved by the king/monarch) on 16th December 1689. If you want to cite this law in an American court, you can cite a bunch of other stuff, that may or may not apply. This law was also a reaction to an earlier King who took guns from protestants.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/%E2%80%8B1/2/introduction

As for the fire in a crowded theater.....

Here's the Supreme Court ruling. "Clear and present danger" was the litmus test. It then became "imminent lawless action" in the 1960's. Today it's all irrelevant as we have social media and the internet (and a former President, among others) making "free speech" a dumpster fire.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep249/usrep249047/usrep249047.pdf

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Beltway insiders ignore the daily shootings in our major cities that are committed predominantly with handguns.

When a school shooting occurs, especially with an "assault rifle" this immediately ramps up the "something has to be done" rhetoric.

From the FBI statistics, handguns are involved in roughly 45% of all murders, rifles in roughly 2.5% of murders, with the old reliable-hands, fists and feet coming in at 15%.

Tomorrow, if all "assault rifles" were banned from further sale and storm troopers went into every home to seize the 20 million "assault rifles" owned by Americans, the over all effect on gun violence would be quite small.

If I were an amoral human bent on shooting up a classroom, I would take a short barreled 12 gauge pump shotgun, with an extended magazine, loaded with #4 buckshot along perhaps with a semiauto handgun with several magazines and I could accomplish the same if not "better" results.

Are we to outlaw anything other than bolt action rifles, single barreled or double barreled shotguns and outlaw all pistols as they are easily concealed? Are we going to invade homes and fill the prisons with people possessing anything but very rudimentary firearms?

If not, this is all blather. If ARs and AK 47s were removed from the scene tomorrow, the killings would continue unabated.

The Second Amendment states