Another point of contention. Fully automatic bread, aka pre-sliced, wasn't invented until well over a century(1912) after the 2nd amendment was ratified. So ownership of that kind of bread is obviously not protected by the amendment.
The 2nd Amendment
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
So with the HIPAA the Republicans would be able the decide Roe V Wade is no longer relevant? Interesting.
Could you break this down for us? How does Health Insurace rules even impact abortion which it doesn't usually cover?
I think he means the clerk checked his ass out before slipping him his piece. That's my kind of gun control.
I renewed my permit to purchase in June of 2014. I can walk in to any gun store in Nebraska and buy any gun, no further checks needed until June of 2017.
It's a because statement.
To a modern reader it would be more of "Because a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed."
Historically the militia was considered the entire citizenry.
In fact this is somewhat codified in Indiana's state constitution
Article 12, Section 1 "A militia shall be provided and shall consist of all persons over the age of seventeen (17) years, except those persons who may be exempted by the laws of the United States or of this state. The militia may be divided into active and inactive classes and consist of such military organizations as may be provided by law."
If you go in and read the laws pertaining to the militia then you have the national guard, the state guard (Indiana has one) as your active militia and everyone else is considered part of the inactive militia. But we are still by law a part of the militia. The law gives no method of calling up or activating the inactive militia, nor does it give any way that it is structured other then the governor is the C&C and the Adjutant General being just under that. But as far as I can tell if a bunch of people in the state arm themselves to fight so long as they respond to the orders of the governor and the Adjutant general they are legally Indiana State Militia.
So while I don't follow the liberals conditional statements I at the same time believe there is clearly plenty of room within the 2nd amendment for the government to regulate what arms are available and to whom within a certain reason. However the founders felt the militia was always necessary for security and I don't think that can be simply overwritten.
I will also note that the wording of the amendment says "arms" . . . that has been consistently and falsely interpreted to mean guns. If one is to argue that the government does not have the authority to regulate arms then that would mean that the government does not have the authority to regulate who may own and operate a fully armed tank. . . that it does not have the authority to prevent Bill Gates from purchasing his own fully armed F-22, missles, cannon and all.
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So . . . if you become "radicalized" next week, you could buy guns for jihadists on the no-fly list (and others) for 3 years from when you get your permit?
Is there any limit on how many guns you can buy?
Seems like a serious loophole.
They could have said "Because..." - clarifying that it is a statement (or a finding, as I like to call it).
OR they could have said "As long as..." - clarifying that it is a conditional.
They did neither.
We should put it up for a vote (i.e., go through the amendment process) to fix that.
There are some other elements that could be clarified, as well. Like what is meant by "arms" and "carry."
Just because they worded the amendment differently from what you or others now 226 years later would have choose to word it does not mean that the interpretation of their intent in that regard is incorrect.
Language changes and the wrote it in a way that made sense to them at the time. If I write something that makes sense to everyone now, there is a pretty good chance that 226 years from now it may be a little unclear.
Given our understanding of history on the topic, the understanding that the militia segment is a because statement. And seeming how we still maintain militia's just a little bit more formalized militia's it would be hard to argue the amendment null, if nullifying an amendment because of time change is even possible or legal. (Honestly I don't think it is.)
The founders just did not do a good job of preparing for the future. In 1792 an amendment requiring 1 house rep for every 50,000 people was 1 state shy of being ratified.
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I agree but we can't know for certain what was intended and clearly America isn't going to suddenly agree to one or the other viewpoint. SCOTUS decision notwithstanding.
Personally, I'm on the finding (statement) side of the argument. I'm on that side for 2 main reasons.
One is that I think those guys actually did believe a militia was necessary - for them it was a fact, a given, not something that would change. That's the kind of world they knew.
The other is that reading the militia clause as a finding seems to torture the language less - viz., grammatically it makes more sense as a finding.
Punctuation fanatics might say that the use of a comma instead of a semicolon favors the conditional argument. But I'm not a punctuation fanatic.
Don't see why we would need to vote on it. As far as I'm concerned the amendment even under that understanding still allows you to regulate guns fairly significantly so long as it doesn't impose an undue burden on a law abiding person from obtaining useful firearms.
Besides your ideas of trying to have a national referendum on the meaning of amendments begs the question of why now this generation for all time should be able to interpret the constitution. Plus such a referendum isn't really all that constitutional, the courts for the most part interpret the constitution and if the vast majority of us (super majority) don't like an interpretation then we can take something out, put something in, or re-word something.
The only thing I would give is that I think it would be ok to change to national referendum to directly change the constitution as opposed to ratification by the states so long as the super majority requirement is still in effect and it takes place at the same time as a normal election for federal offices.
That is fine, but that doesn't make it conditional on something outside the clause itself.
The clause says the condition is true, therefore the condition is always true until it is changed.
They WANTED amendments to be easy, that is why they did the first 10 right away, to demonstrate how it works. Just because we are now too scared to attempt an amendment doesn't mean we should just change definitional conditions when we see fit. And by "we" I mean people in power, not the people who are needed to vote.
Mostly this as edited above. They didn't make it a condition that can be determined, they made it a condition that is already defined. "As long as" would have changed that. I don't think "because" would have, because explains the reasoning, it does not condition it.
I think they did, by laying out the amendment process and showing how it was to be done. We have just largely refused to do it since.
And why on this issue? Because we don't agree on it, if we did this wouldn't be a debate.
You know you might be surprised but the last time we amended the constitution wasn't that long ago.
Last amendment to the constitution was ratified in 1992.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
It took 200 years for that amendment to be ratified.
The point stands, we really don't amend, we lie about it, we confuse each other about it, we simply violate it and hope the SCOTUS changes/clarifies it, but we rarely amend it.
Here is what we have done the last century:
No pay increases in term for legislators
Voting age of 18 from 21
POTUS succession
No poll tax
Electors for DC
POTUS term limit
Repeal the 18th
Moved POTUS term dates
Voting by females
Prohibition
Election of Senators
Fed. Income Tax
Other than Prohibition and income tax, everything is about voting, or those who get voted for. Nothing about "us", the people. The only stand-alone important one, imo, was the 19th.
We could do so much more with amendments.
I'm not sure this makes the point you intended: "The amendment became part of the United States Constitution on May 7, 1992, following a record-setting ratification period of 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days."
That's true. It was there so the state would have a militia in order to put down domestic insurrections.
I'm not sure this makes the point you intended: "The amendment became part of the United States Constitution on May 7, 1992, following a record-setting ratification period of 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days."
I'm aware of that, I'm just pointing out we have made changes recently. . . within most of our lifetimes.
So you are looking at amendments to give people more rights? Can you lay out what you have mind?
Actually, while I AM very much in favor of adding referendum (and recall) to the constitution, that wasn't what I was suggesting above. Just the current amendment process. Sorry if that was unclear.
No and No.
I can't buy guns for anyone other than myself because that would be an illegal straw purchase.
As I said, once we have undergone a background check our permit is valid for 3 years. We can walk into any gun store in Nebraska and purchase a gun on the spot. We do have to fill out the federal form once again but no further check is made. As a law abiding citizen we are allowed to buy as many guns as we like, so no there is no limit. A Nebraska concealed carry permit also acts as a permit to purchase because you need to pass a background check as well as training both in the classroom and on the range to receive a CCW permit.
While there are some like you that pee themselves at the thought of law abiding citizens buying as many guns as we like, this permit gives us a tool that most individuals don't have. If we were to sell a gun, we have the ability to insist that the buyer present a purchase permit and valid picture ID. There is no requirement that we do but I don't know anyone that would.
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