heathen
If you're not going to bother replying why bother PM'ing me? Seems you want to blame me for your inability to express yourself without sounding like a bigot.
5go
Thanks for a well-researched reply.
But... describing "St. George Tucker" as a "Revolutionary War militia officer" does kind of spoil the first 'Ooo, look, lots of data' reaction. I was unaware that one-year-old infants commanded militia in the Revolutionary War.
So what he wrote isn't nearly as important or pertinent as you'd (or who ever this comes from originally) have us believe. Such are the problems with cut and paste, eh?
Justice Story more or less proves the intent behind the ammendment;
How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.
This is talking about "the People's" right to bear arms in an organised fashion NOT willy-nilly at citizen level regardless of the impact this has on society. Rawle refers to again to 'the People', not to individual citizens, and I suggest the differentiation between the two is worthy of research.
Hamilton again shows the differentiation between 'the people' and an organised militia and indivdual disorganised ownership;
Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
So, where do gun owners go and assemble them once or twice in the course of a year? Hmmm? Seems they hold guns outside the provisions of the 2nd Ammendment if they do not.
Madison's entire quote revolves around 'the people' and 'the militia'. Not any mention of citizens having an unalienable right to play with guns no matter what the societal damage is.
But the whole point about AMMENDMENTS is that they are AMMENDMENTS and thus show that AMMENDMENT is possible. ALthough it is reasonably clear (the 2nd ammendment is widely regarded as being the most obscurely orded of a badly worded bunch of Consititutiuonal documents), if women fight to get to vote, they can get an ammedndment. If black people fight for the right to vote, they can get an ammendment. Only with the 2nd Ammendment do people suggest it is unammendable even if enough people fight it.
And the guff about freedom is lovely; your 'freedom' to bear arms is paid for by gun companies and gun hobbiests. The only reason you still have it is that this lobby group pays better than the anti-gun group. Wow, freedom is dollar's whore. Again.
Of course, now we get to the interesting point in the discussion (as we all know the gun laws will not change, and that the situation is beyond recovery without truely heroic measures), and start talking about how in the land of the free civil inequality is what drives the violence in American society, everyone goes quiet.
Seems some people think freedom is the freedom for other people to be disadvantaged and downtrodden on a generational and largely chromatic basis.
But hang on, if it's in the Bill of Rights that people can fight governmental despotism by armed force, that means people who are disadvantaged and downtrodden on a generational and largely chromatic basis have a legal basis for armed insurrection! Provided they form militas, that is...