"The People"

[~Trigger~]

Gents, Im sure Id be preaching to the choir here, but I find its always good to remind our uneducated opponents of the 2nd Amendment as to how it is truly defined.

Regardless of what it says about a Militia...The rights of the people shall not be infringed. Throughout the entire constitution, "The People" are defined as the individual citizens of the country. In every other amendment, "The People"are also defined as the individual citizens of the country. Even the term "We The People" is with regards to the individual citizens of the country.

Sorry Liberals, but the definition of "The People" does not change just for the 2nd amendment, and only because you dont like it.

Militia or not, The People, will always and forever be...The People.

 

[~Trigger~]

Point being, the next time you find yourself in a 2nd Amendment debate, please tell the fool you are arguing with, who The People really are.

 

[Mr Oni]

The well regulated militia is a standing army. In order to protect ourselves from abuse the people have the right to keep and bear arms.

 

[WeaponsCollector]

"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."
- James Madison

"Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...? I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers."
- George Mason

"The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age...."
- U.S. Code Title 10, Sec. 311

 

[~Trigger~]

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms" = The right of the individual citizens to private ownership of arms.


Ive never really understood the confusion in all of this.

 

[hvymax]

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms" = The right of the individual citizens to private ownership of arms.


Ive never really understood the confusion in all of this.

Because you are obviously not a lawyer of beaurocrat. Our system has been corrupted by lawyers to the point that you need legal counsel to use the bathroom. Our laws and tax code have been complicated and conflicted to the point that there is almost no way possible to comply with anything without violating something else.
The beaurocrats have come to love the power they wield over our lives and will do all they can to further subjugate the rest of us empowered by the enforcer class that see's the rest of society as criminal filth to be rounded up and imprisoned and or disenfranchised. God Bless America

 

[K-Romulus]

This lady who wrote one of today's NYT LTE didn't get the memo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/opinion/l28breyer.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

In “Justice Breyer’s Sharp Aim” (Op-Ed, Dec. 22), Pauline Maier offers an excellent critique of the assault on our Constitution by five conservative justices of the Supreme Court as they distort the meaning of the Second Amendment. As Ms. Maier notes, the Second Amendment affirms the right of “people” to keep and bear arms in a well-regulated militia — or the National Guard today.

The word “people” is used in the preamble and in the Second Amendment to describe collective rights. Certainly, the preamble does not convey an “individual” right to establish a Constitution. The Fifth Amendment makes clear the distinction between collective and individual rights by referring to the rights of each “person.”

Do these conservative justices not uphold the intent of our Constitution because they lack familiarity with the grammatical rules of the English language? (...)

I guess she never bothered to read the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

[hole punch]

i find it's little use arguing with antis. they consider themselves open-minded and tolerant and therefor can come to ridiculously closed-minded and intolerant conclusions without stopping for a moment to analyze whether anything is wrong with those opinions.

the best luck i've had is in inviting antis to come shoot with me or at least engage in conversation enough to point out that they really are quite ignorant of firearms and stand to learn something. if they still, in the face of facts, cannot accept they are wrong about anything firearms-related, then i'm afraid those types are unreachable.

i once had the opportunity to bust several hollywood myths with a raving lefty and he still stuck to his guns as it were. upon mentioning that Ruger had come out the first polymer framed revolver he commented that "that's great, now people can take those right thru airport security". i assured him that that was a myth with roots in a Die Hard movie, but he remained convinced otherwise. at one point the topic changed to short barreled shotguns and he insists that the purpose of sawed off shotguns is so that the assailant doesn't have to aim. even after pointing out that short barreled rifles are controlled under the same federal legislation, and that the purpose was to try and keep criminals from concealing them, he still insisted that shotguns are more "powerful" when their barrels are shortened. this type cannot be reached and we are better off making fun of them and laughing.

 

[~Trigger~]

This lady who wrote one of today's NYT LTE didn't get the memo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/opinion/l28breyer.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss



I guess she never bothered to read the First Amendment:

Right, Ive encountered this James Madison argument before, and while Im not saying the information is wrong...I challenge the significance of it. It raises too many other questions, and contradicts the rest of history after the 2nd amendment ratification.

Because if this were true, why wasnt govt stance on gun ownership to allow only the militia members the right to bear arms? Furthermore, why wasnt the govt confiscating arms from non miltia members? Why werent there laws regarding illegal gun ownership by non-militia?

If James Madison only intended the militia to have the right to bear arms, then where was gun control in the 18th century? or in the 19th century?

Gun control didnt even exist, in any form, until the 1930's.

Are we to believe that since the day the 2nd Amendment was ratified, the American people interpereted it wrong? Even since then?

I think not. Even the people in the 18th and 19th centuries knew that the 2nd Amendment applied to individual ownership.

 

[~Trigger~]

The anti's always fail to understand, that the old militias were comprised of individual volunteers....And they brought their own firearms. They werent issued guns, they brought the guns they owned.

Those who think the 2nd Amendment was intended only for militia, tend to forget that the militias were spawned from individual gun ownership.

Joining the militia?.....BYOG.

 

[hole punch]

...

Gun control didnt even exist, in any form, until the 1930's.

...

while not particularly related to this discussion, gun control indeed existed just prior to and notably after the Civil War, but it was all directly targeted at freedmen in former slave states, by dickless Democrats who were afraid that the former slaves would do the right thing and bust a cap in masta's ass.

on the one hand you can't really blame them, but then again, they were only Democrats, so they were only thinking of themselves.

so i guess this is kinda on-topic; gun control is at it's very roots racist and classist, and remains so today. so the next time some nutless left-tard admits his laughably freudian fear of inanimate objects, remind him of this fact.

 

[hole punch]

The anti's always fail to understand, that the old militias were comprised of individual volunteers....And they brought their own firearms. They werent issued guns, they brought the guns they owned.

Those who think the 2nd Amendment was intended only for militia, tend to forget that the militias were spawned from individual gun ownership.

Joining the militia?.....BYOG.

yeah, but, these are the same people (the antis) who think that "well regulated" means there was plenty of oversight from the state, not well equipped and trained as it actually meant back then.

remember, the Constitution is a "living document" and teh people get to reinterpret it's meaning any time they want, and thoughtlessly strip it of any original intent.

you'd have better luck debating with a brickwall, i think, sometimes. or maybe it's late, and i'm drunk, and i feel like i could punch one about now (a brick wall, not an anti).

 

[sandbanger]

don't debate with people who've drank the Kool-aide.

 

[Maverick0313]

After we solve this, let's move to our rights under the 4th Amendment......

 

[~Trigger~]

while not particularly related to this discussion, gun control indeed existed just prior to and notably after the Civil War, but it was all directly targeted at freedmen in former slave states, by dickless Democrats who were afraid that the former slaves would do the right thing and bust a cap in masta's ass.

on the one hand you can't really blame them, but then again, they were only Democrats, so they were only thinking of themselves.

so i guess this is kinda on-topic; gun control is at it's very roots racist and classist, and remains so today. so the next time some nutless left-tard admits his laughably freudian fear of inanimate objects, remind him of this fact.

Yeah, I puposely ommitted the cases of racist gun control during those times. I guess because it was motivated by mostly unrelated circumstances. But it certainly does help to illustrate the purpose behind the big bicture of what gun control is all about.

Certainly the slaves back then were faced with a tyrannical authority, and that authority saw fit to ensure their dominance over them, by disarming them.

 

[~Trigger~]

The only other instance of gun control I can find that was prior to 1900, and not necassarily racially motivated, was when Georgia tried to ban handguns in 1837. Even in 1837, this bill was apparently thrown out for being unconstitutional.

So again this brings back my confusion. That even though the people of 1837, knew what the 2nd Amendment was all about, the liberals today seem to think that all of a sudden it means something entirely different.

Honestly, I believe they simply want to change its meaning just because it is an amendment that they dont like. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[WeaponsCollector]

.....Honestly, I believe they simply want to change its meaning just because it is an amendment that they dont like. Nothing more, nothing less.

No doubt about it, and why would they like having the right to own guns?
Guns are scary, dangerous, and evil and only the police and military should have them because we can always trust the government.

 

[~Trigger~]

This lady who wrote one of today's NYT LTE didn't get the memo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/opinion/l28breyer.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss



I guess she never bothered to read the First Amendment:

Even if we were to entertain the notion that the "Well Regulated Militia" is defined today as the National Guard, We find that it still wouldnt fit the definition of the 2nd Amendment.

Because the 2A states: The right of the people to keep and bear arms...

and

The National Guard is: The govt keeping arms for only militia members to bear, only at times when the govt decides.

The two are not the same.

 

[T-Man]

remember, the Constitution is a "living document" and teh people get to reinterpret it's meaning any time they want, and thoughtlessly strip it of any original intent

The definition of the Constitution as a "living document" makes perfect sense in context -- to the average liberal democrat, "living" means making no sense and contradicting yourself at will.

The pre + post civil war gun control issue is an interesting one -- Nat Turner could have whooped some serious Southern gov't ass had he been fighting with more than pitchforks. Seems like a direct application of why the 2nd Amendment assists the fight against tyranny.

 

[~Trigger~]

Seems like a direct application of why the 2nd Amendment assists the fight against tyranny.

Agreed, direct application.