The Second Amendment

[Static_Martyr]

I am fundamentally against criminals.

Cool story, bro. The Constitution believes criminals still have human rights.

I am even more fundamentally against people who would give two shits about a convicted murders "rights". Hilarious...in it's stupidity.

Which means you're against the Constitution, which provides limits on how we can treat prisoners.

Cruel and unusual punishment for a violent felon is open for interpretation. If he is still breathing after the end of the day...nothing cruel or unusual happend.

Yes, I know you believe that the Constitution is negotiable if it's in the interest of your ideology. That's my point.

You friggin people are more worried that a child rapist or murder will be treated "fairly" to ensure his rights...a person that broke the most sacred law on the planet..and you want to make sure he is all warm and fuzzy with his rights.

If you *actually* gave half a shit about our Constitutional rights, you would have a problem with prisoner abuse as well. Because once you decide prisoner abuse is acceptable (even though the Constitution says it's not), then that means we've set a precedent that our Constitutional rights are negotiable. Which then completely undermines any future argument that we have an "inalienable constitutional right" to anything --- guns, or fair trials.

That's the thing about the Constitution, is you have to abide by all of it, not just the parts you agree with.

Yet, a person that has done NOTHING wrong, you piss and moan and want to take away their 2nd amendment right?

Actually, I don't believe a person has that right to begin with, so it's moot to discuss "taking it away."

Hey genius, that guy in prison just killed your family and you didn't have a gun to defend yourself. Make sure and send him a christmas card. Wouldn't want him to feel too punished.

Case in point: libertarians are completely incapable of registering nuance.

I never said anything about treating prisoners kindly, or even lightly -- that's just your ideology speaking, filling in the blanks where you're not comfortable thinking for yourself. We're talking about humane treatment. And some food for thought: 10,000 people are wrongfully convicted in the US each year on average, only to later have their convictions overturned. If you allow prisoner abuse, you are also allowing a small percentage of law-abiding citizen abuse because you're allowing the abuse of people who were convicted wrongfully. If you're willing to write those citizens off as "collateral damage," then so be it, but be aware that this means (once again) that you are opposed to the principles set up in the constitution.

It guarantees this right to law abiding citizens. Felons..no. So when you become a felon, you piss away your rights.

No, actually, it guarantees rights to all American citizens, prisoner or no --- of course you would know that if you had read the Constitution in its entirety. If a prison guard were to shoot a prisoner in his cell for no reason (which he couldn't in most cases as most prison guards are not armed for safety reasons --- think about that for a moment), that guard could be tried for murder. Because when you are tried for a crime, it's because you have rights; when you are sentenced to, say, 10 years in prison, it's because you have a right to live after your sentence is through; when you are released, it's because you have served your time.

If you abuse your prisoners, you are toying with the justice system in a way that was not intended, and you are adding to their sentence in a way that is not allowed by the Constitution. You are basically interfering with a court judgment of how that person is to be treated. If you kill someone in prison, you are revoking that person's right to continue living in the event that their sentence is lifted or served out. And if they are sentenced to life, then it's still murder to kill them because the government still acknowledges that they have a right to their life --- it's just to be spent under close supervision to ensure the safety of law-abiding citizens.

[Baldwin]

You friggin people are more worried that a child rapist or murder will be treated "fairly" to ensure his rights...a person that broke the most sacred law on the planet..

Actually, High Treason is "the most sacred law on the planet". Child rape and murder, well, a huge amount of cultures and societies have been quite okay with that. High Treason is that one penultimate crime that no matter where you are, or what time period you're in, or what type of regulating body you commit it against, they're going to make you to suffer as much as they can possibly make you suffer. If the most liberal and "criminal-friendly" government in the world thought they could get away with cutting out a traitor's heart and showing to the mob, they'd do it. No question. If you had to name one law or tenet that's fundamentally inherent and sacred to human beings, it's High Treason.

And about those guys who wrote that little constitution of yours....

[bronc_28]

I wish there was a real solution to break and enter protection laws. In the US, people are shot and killed for entering a house when the owner thought they were there to cause harm but they weren't. In Europe, people aren't allowed to defend themselves physically unless physically attacked (the defense must match the offense). This has led to stories like, a guy broke in to a home multiple times to steal money, successfully stole tens of thousands... when he was caught by the owner, the owner beat him with a baseball bat. Sure, that was stupid, but in the end, the homeowner's crimes were considered worse than the theft, and the homeowner had to pay the thief's medical bills - in addition to keeping all the money he stole. However, the thief didn't deserve to die. Both extremes are shitty, and I wish there was a middle ground.

I was excited to agree with you 'til here

It really does disgust me how willing people are to KILL someone who enters their home. Killing a person has got to fuck you up in a serious way mentally, and some people seem to actually hope they get to use their guns in this manner someday. It's like, well I can't kill anyone normally... but if they break into my home, I can!! Honestly, I don't know that I'd rather have to live with the fact that I'd killed a person than to be killed myself. I really don't. I think it would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Sorry, this is kind of off-topic, but at least related to the second amendment.

I don't know anyone who wants to kill anyone, and historically speaking those who say they can/or want too, aren't able to, at least in war.

However, when it comes to the safety of my family, all bets are off. Breaking into someones home, doesn't elicit signs of benign intent.

[bronc_28]

I've been reading up on the second amendment for awhile now, and it seems to me that this notion of a "personal right to carry any weapon ever manufactured for civilian use" is a recent invention, as late as 2008. Granted it's been touted as such for longer, but the earliest SCOTUS ruling I am able to find comes from 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller, which affirmed the "individual right to carry." But as far back as 1876, United States v. Cruikshank established that the second amendment was only regarding the rights of states to regulate guns, and actually goes out of its way to establish that there is not an "individual right" to gun ownership, stating that the second amendment "has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government:"



The Westlaw Insider Blog has an interesting breakdown of the timeline of these cases and their effects on national gun laws, if you're interested in some casual reading:



That said....I've brought this up in conversations about gun ownership with a few people on facebook, and so far the most common responses include (A) "You don't understand the constitution" (I'm not saying I do, I'm merely citing people whose job it is to interpret the Constitution), (B) "Second Amendment rights, I can own whatever guns I want!" (ignores the entire point), and (C) "Well, the SCOTUS said in 2008 that we DO have an individual right!"

That last one is technically a fair point, though it's interesting because nine times out of ten, I'm having this conversation with a person who said SCOTUS was "corrupt" for ruling Obamacare constitutional.

Anyway, thoughts? Strongly-worded opinions? Violent knee-jerk rhetoric? I'm hoping that maybe here, it will be possible to discuss this in an adult manner, without resorting to ignorant partisan rhetoric.

The SCOTUS, has gotten many rulings wrong, most recently Obamacare. The intent in the constitution seems hard to mistake to me. The revolutionary war was not too distant a memory, maybe that's why it was the SECOND amendment?!

[bronc_28]

They are not douchebags...they want their rights upheld. At any one time Obama and all the other hollywood types are surrounded with guns. Hell, Obama just signed on order for SS for life. SS is basically full on, gun toating protection for himself and wife...for LIFE. Apparently he feels guns are OK as long as they protect his dumb ass. What gun license are you talking about?

Assault rifles are basically guns with pistol grips and high capacity clips. Limit clip size to 20 rounds...fine. That really doesn't bother me. A well armed civilian population is one of the best defenses from someone invading our country. You may not like that idea, but it is a fact. We ever get invaded, anyone w/o guns will be running to someone with guns.

Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, two of the bigger gun control advocates both have concealed carry permits, and in states with some of the tougher gun laws already!

[bronc_28]

And oh, PS - tax dollars do not fund abortions.

and food stamps are actually food that little food fairies make in their easy bake ovens!

[Static_Martyr]

The SCOTUS, has gotten many rulings wrong, most recently Obamacare. The intent in the constitution seems hard to mistake to me. The revolutionary war was not too distant a memory, maybe that's why it was the SECOND amendment?!

I agree, I think they got the 2008 ruling regarding the individual right to carry wrong (though I think they ruled correctly on Obamacare). As there is a preponderance of evidence prior to that ruling that there is no individual right to carry implied by the second amendment --- all the historical and contextual evidence leans against the individual right. Ironically, the prior ruling cited in that judgment in support of the individual right, was immediately succeeded by a paragraph explaining that the constitution does not guarantee an individual right to bear arms.

[Godxilla]

There is a man in Boston that went to jail a couple years ago. Apparently, this man had quite a criminal rep. Then one day, he decided, with a friend, that it would be a good idea to kill a boy. So they found one, and suffocated him with a gas-soaked rag. Then they stripped the body and had sex with it. Then they stuffed the body in a plastic box, filled the box with concrete, and chucked the box in the Charles River. This man doesn't deserve to die?

No, say the liberals. Rather, he is instead serving a prison sentence, and trying to legally change his name to some Wiccan babbling. And that's okay, say the courts.

But it's not okay. If people had the right to shoot killers and criminals, this pathetic joke of a man would be dead. And this is bad?

[Static_Martyr]

There is a man in Boston that went to jail a couple years ago. Apparently, this man had quite a criminal rep. Then one day, he decided, with a friend, that it would be a good idea to kill a boy. So they found one, and suffocated him with a gas-soaked rag. Then they stripped the body and had sex with it. Then they stuffed the body in a plastic box, filled the box with concrete, and chucked the box in the Charles River. This man doesn't deserve to die?

First off, whether or not this man "deserves to die" is irrelevant. You don't have the right to make that judgment and neither do I (that is, if you give any respect to what the Constitution says about fair trials and the justice system). And more importantly, it has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment (it actually has to do with the 6th Amendment, which guarantees a right to a fair and speedy trial). Even if we agreed that you had an unlimited 2nd amendment right to own any weapon ever made for any reason, that still wouldn't give you the right to kill someone in cold blood, because that violates the right of the accused to a fair trial. So if that's the reason you want a gun, so you can kill accused criminals in violation of their 6th amendment rights (as well as their right to life), then I hope you're ready to abandon your 2nd amendment constitutional right as well.

Second, I have a counterexample: one time, there was this woman who bought a bunch of guns. One of them was called the Bushmaster rifle. She bought them legally, and did not have a mental health record or history of violent crime, so she had no problem buying the guns. Her son Adam Lanza stole some of the guns, shot her to death with them, then shot a bunch of kids at a school nearby.

If guns were illegal, that mother would not have purchased those guns and Adam wouldn't have been able to use them to kill those kids. And you say gun control is bad?

Please note, I'm not actually using the above as a genuine argument for gun control. I'm just demonstrating how stupid and asinine it is to have this discussion in terms of anecdotal evidence. Gun advocates dig up some anecdotes of situations where guns supposedly could've saved someone's life, and that's supposed to override the evidence that gun control does drive down crime significantly when it's enacted properly, and that states and countries with "right-to-carry" laws don't actually correlate with decreases in gun violence:

The initial model specification, when extended to new data, does not show evidence that passage of right-to-carry laws reduces crime. The estimated effects are highly sensitive to seemingly minor changes in the model specification and control variables. No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.

---National Research Council, 2004

Research, wherever it is done, indicates that higher rates of gun availability are consistent with higher rates of gun fatality, both accidental and homicidal. And so any real discussion of "the gun problem" in America must necessarily consider these statistics. Anecdotes may sound cute and they may be short and sweet and easily C+Pable and recitable on internet forums, but they don't take the place of actual facts and statistics.

For example, my grandpa was a cop for years; he has several anecdotes about drivers who got into horrible accidents, but survived solely because they didn't put their seat belts on. These would largely be considered freak accidents, fairly uncommon, but using your logic, I could easily cite them as evidence that wearing a seatbelt is actually deadly, and you should never wear one.

No, say the liberals. Rather, he is instead serving a prison sentence, and trying to legally change his name to some Wiccan babbling. And that's okay, say the courts.

If by "the liberals" you mean "The Constitution," then I agree. The Constitution says that you have a right to a fair and speedy trial; the courts judge the degree of punishment for a crime, and we are legally and constitutionally bound to accept that judgment. If you violate that judgment, you are acting as a vigilante and you are violating that criminal's 6th Amendment right to a fair trial.

EDIT: Also, you'd be in violation of Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, which determines that "The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority...The trial of all crimes, except impeachment, shall be by jury..."

But it's not okay. If people had the right to shoot killers and criminals, this pathetic joke of a man would be dead. And this is bad?

I find it interesting that so many gun advocates also express such disdain for the court system; those types who would murder someone because of personal reasons are exactly the kind of people who should be deemed mentally unfit to own a gun, and yet they are the ones primarily lobbying for an individual gun right. How is it that the second amendment is non-negotiable and absolute, but the sixth amendment is negotiable if you don't like the guy? Which is it? Are you for constitutional absolutes, or do you think the Constitution gives people rights they shouldn't have and should thus be ignored? It wouldn't hurt to have some consistency here.

[MOTO13]

Actually, High Treason is "the most sacred law on the planet". Child rape and murder, well, a huge amount of cultures and societies have been quite okay with that. High Treason is that one penultimate crime that no matter where you are, or what time period you're in, or what type of regulating body you commit it against, they're going to make you to suffer as much as they can possibly make you suffer. If the most liberal and "criminal-friendly" government in the world thought they could get away with cutting out a traitor's heart and showing to the mob, they'd do it. No question. If you had to name one law or tenet that's fundamentally inherent and sacred to human beings, it's High Treason.

And about those guys who wrote that little constitution of yours....

I am speaking of a more personal tone directed at a previous comment. Don't muddy the friggin waters. China is another world altogether if that is where you meant. I don't equate being unfaithful/dis-loyal your government in any way to killing a child or murdering an innocent person in cold blood. Maybe you do...you're an idiot.