Help Me Understand Gun Rights

[Xaevian]

but by people who are led by emotions and money

Vagi-mony!

 

[The Resister]

My opinion is difficult to express.
On one hand, every law that restricts arms in any way is unconstitutional.
On the other hand some weapons/arms are far too powerful, indiscriminate, or uncontrollable by the user.
Where that line is? I don't know.

But I do know that anything that can destroy cities should be tightly controlled. George Soros and his ilk can certainly afford a few low yield nukes and bio/chem weapons. Imagine if he funnels those to the ANTIFA/BLM types.

Again, I don't know where to draw that line.

It's pretty elementary to figure that out if you keep up with the founders:

'...on every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, & instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text." (an 1823 letter to William Johnson)

 

[The Resister]

I agree. Once it is established that constitutional protection of the RKBA is not unlimited, the only remaining question is where to draw the line. That is a political issue, decided by the people who decide whether constitutional law shall be upheld, and also by whichever side is willing to organize effective political support.

The Right, was however, intended to be absolute. The only legitimate way to change it to a limited "right" is to amend the Constitution.

 

[The Resister]

"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller's holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those 'in common use at the time' finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56." - Antonin Scalia, USSC Justice, District of Columbia v. Heller, for the majority.

Here Scalia is speaking of the legal landscape at the time the Heller decision was written, and he is enumerating the case law that was used to arrive at the Heller decision. The current legal situation regarding the right to keep and bear arms is an entirely different matter than the philosophical situation regarding that same right.

I will not respond specifically to the rest of your post, except to say that I agree with Scalia on the question of what the actual words of the 2nd Amendment mean. The prefatory clause has NO effect on the operative clause. It could read, "The moon being made of green cheese..." and it would not change the meaning of the operative clause, "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

From the Heller decision:

"(1) The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.
(a) The Amendment's prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court's interpretation of the operative clause. The "militia" comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens' militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.
(c) The Court's interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.
(d) The Second Amendment's drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.
(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court's conclusion. Pp. 32–47.
(f) None of the Court's precedents forecloses the Court's interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes."

My point in this thread was to ask questions about what gun owners think. You have given me more than enough information as to what you think. So, this is what I would say with respect to Heller.

The Right to keep and bear Arms was intended to be an absolute Right. The principle was upheld all the way up to the time of the Heller decision (despite many court decisions whittling down the Second Amendment to get to Heller). The word absolute is a synonym for unlimited. According to court precedents:

"By the "absolute rights" of individuals is meant those which are so in their primary and strictest sense, such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it. The rights of personal security, of personal liberty, and private property do not depend upon the Constitution for their existence. They existed before the Constitution was made, or the government was organized. These are what are termed the "absolute rights" of individuals, which belong to them independently of all government, and which all governments which derive their power from the consent of the governed were instituted to protect." People v. Berberrich (N. Y.) 20 Barb. 224, 229; McCartee v. Orphan Asylum Soc. (N. Y.) 9 Cow. 437, 511, 513, 18 Am. Dec. 516; People v. Toynbee (N. Y.) 2 Parker, Cr. R. 329, 369, 370 (quoting 1 Bl. Comm. 123) - {1855}​

"The absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right to acquire and enjoy property. These rights are declared to be natural, inherent, and unalienable." Atchison & N. R. Co. v. Baty, 6 Neb. 37, 40, 29 Am. Rep. 356 (1877)

 

[American123]

Thanks for the reply.
In broad terms, you label the "limits" argument with a negative connotation, then refute it with a "people" argument, then engage in it by denying a personal belief that people should have ready access to WMD.

In reply:
1 - Straw man. The extreme example doesn't have to be nukes. It can be chemical weapons, kilowatt infrared lasers, MOABs, armed supersonic aircraft, etc. Should individual citizens have constitutional protection of a right to keep and bear these types of arms?
A straw man is a fallacy intended to misdirect. The preceding question is not fallacy, it is legitimate. In it's absence, nothing is defined.
The idea that "shall not be infringed" applies to all forms of weapons places an entire society in the untenable position of not knowing who will kill everyone or when it will happen. This is not a politically viable position. No one will support it, ergo no clout, ergo no success.

2 - "People already have nukes." No individual has the capability of deploying state-owned nuclear weapons. To the contrary, a complex system is in place defining protocols and procedures for deployment. Yes, the govt consists of people, but that doesn't equate to "people already have nukes" in the way you suggested.

3 - The "limits" argument is not new. It predates the internet by decades. Your closing comments place you on the same ground as most other informed gun owners: our right to KBA fighting arms shall not be infringed, and we typically consider fighting arms to be those portable weapons that can be used by individuals or groups in effective resistance against other individuals or groups.

My personal opinion: the overriding goal is to preserve a massive guerilla capability against which no professional military can prevail because the costs in terms of loyalty, money, and attrition are too high.
When a govt attempts to oppress a righteous armed citizenry, it is difficult to sustain the effort long enough for success because the military will tire of killing righteous citizens and many will defect to the resistance taking their weaponry with them, and the govt will run out of money to support the oppression, and the citizens will never stop picking off the oppressors.

The most important point that can be made, IMO, is that an adequately armed citizenry serves as a peaceful deterrent to the ambitions of tyrants.
Peace and freedom can prevail as long as the citizenry retains the ability to defend peace and freedom.
The fight doesn't have to happen. The deterrent by itself can preserve peace and freedom. Which is why we need to preserve the deterrent.

Americans who support the gun control agenda are either uninformed, or evil.

2 cents.

Straw man - the method of argument with which you weakly build up a point that the opponent isn't really making and then argue against that point successfully "winning" that argument that has been construed.

I think my point was misinterpreted.

The point I brought up with how I have experienced the use of nukes in a straw man argument is that those who argue for restrictions on the "arms" citizens may possess may sometimes use things like Nukes as a straw man to argue that since we don't allow private citizens to own nukes, that therefore restrictions on the right to bear arms are acceptable and then they continue to argue that therefore restrictions on rifles are acceptable as well, because by their logic, any restriction that is allowed, allows for additional restrictions to take place since the precedent of restrictions being allowed has already been set.

I deviated a bit just in explanation that although nukes aren't personally owned, at the end of the day there are "persons" in charge of them, and they could in theory use them. Yes there are protocols in place for their use, but the reality is, every rule has the potential for it to be broken and at the end of the day we are really just counting on people following the rules, and not wanting to die, that keep them from being used. I'm not advocating people widely possess them, but merely acknowledge the fact that we live our lives every day trusting the people in charge of them to use them, they are just people.

I'm a strong advocate of people's right to bear arms. How that line is drawn is tough to say. I would argue that if the intent is to maintain a sufficient guerrilla force always within the US populace that it deters threats from both foreign and domestic. To what extent are nuclear, and biological weapons guerrilla arms, I'd say they aren't. They can't discern their targets sufficiently to be used for guerrilla warfare.

I don't know how to reconcile that if we are to argue for absolute freedom in our society, that that freedom would be equally extended to some serious nut jobs who shouldn't have access to some of these things. It is truly more of a character/moral value thing.

I've mentioned this idea in other threads, that some rules and freedoms work for some people, but not everyone. The founding fathers even are credited with saying that our government and constitution was designed for a god-fearing people and would be inappropriate for a society that wasn't. I take that to mean that: some people you could hand a nuclear football too and the whole world would still be safe, other people you can't even trust with a lighter.

After all this banter, I think if I were to summarize my thought process, it would be something to the effect of, I'm comfortable with absolute freedom for people of good moral virtue, but since there are some truly evil people in society, I don't know how to reconcile that if those people are still alive and enabled to participate in society, they would experience that absolute freedom as well, and more than likely use it toward evil means.

 

[dfisher1981]

Have you ever submitted a 4473 in your name? If the answer is yes, that means you've complied with government regulations controlling the sale and transfer of firearms. You may not have agreed with the principle behind the background check, but you voted with your wallet and did it anyway.

Everything after that is just the nitty gritty.

 

[The Resister]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, or what question you are trying to ask.

Inalienable and unalienable mean the same thing. They were used interchangeably by the people who wrote the DoI, while they were writing it.
https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/unalienable.html

Neither mean unlimited.

Constitutional protection of your right to freedom of religion is not unlimited. Start an Aztec church and begin sacrificing girls, get arrested and prosecuted, argue in trial that your right to sacrifice humans is protected by 1A, learn firsthand that in/unalienable does not mean unlimited, go to jail. Simple.

The reason I think we can win a battle in court to preserve the citizen right to arms is this: America is a constitutional republic.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. No other law can violate its provisions.
The duty and responsibility of the judicial branch is to rule according to the law. When the Court fails this duty, the people have recourse.
They can assemble and petition for redress, can elect representatives who will impeach justices who violate the oath to support and defend the Constitution, can organize en masse to oppose the narrative of the irrational left with their own narrative of rational facts and logic, etc.

I respect your attempts to foster public support for the right to arms, but I'm not sure about your footing, or about your specific objectives.
What's up with unalienable?

Thx.

You gave me a layman's definition of the word unalienable to somehow prove (in your mind )it is the same thing as inalienable. The greatest wordsmiths in the world are lawyers and judges. Judges lay down their interpretations of what words mean. That is why I presumed you know the legal differentiation. I'm going to try and give you the Cliff's Notes. The words absolute and unalienable have been legally defined to mean the same thing (see post # 84).

In layman's terminology the words absolute and unlimited are synonyms. Now, let me walk you through the basic cases to show you how the courts used literary prestidigitation to come up with the word unlimited:

"Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;'and to 'secure,'not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)

According to Wikipedia:

"The first state court decision resulting from the "right to bear arms" issue was Bliss v. Commonwealth. The court held that "the right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State must be preserved entire, ..." "This holding was unique because it stated that the right to bear arms is absolute and unqualified."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms_in_the_United_States

In 1846 the Georgia Supreme Court ruled:

"The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!" Nunn v State 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846)

In Texas, their Supreme Court made the point unequivocally clear:

"The right of a citizen to bear arms in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power."

-Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394 (1859)

Then, the United States Supreme Court weighed in:

"The Government of the United States, although it is, within the scope of its powers, supreme and beyond the States, can neither grant nor secure to its citizens rights or privileges which are not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction. All that cannot be so granted or secured are left to the exclusive protection of the States.

..The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. United States v. Cruikshank 92 US 542 (1875)

Notice that the United States Supreme Court never over-ruled the standing precedents. The Right to keep and bear Arms exists. It is not granted by the government. The Right is not dependent upon the Constitution. That means that the above precedents are valid law as of the FIRST time the United States Supreme Court weighs in to rule on the matter. You will note, that the courts didn't interpret the word "inalienable" with respect to gun Rights. That is a separate topic on its own. But, the courts defined the word inalienable quite differently than they did the word unalienable. In LAW, the two words have different meanings. Would you like the Cliff's notes on what the word inalienable means?

 

[The Resister]

A point of this thread was discussion on whether constitutional protection of the citizen right to arms is limited or unlimited.

In that context, types of arms does matter. Nuclear bomb vs. handgun. Arguably, the latter should be protected, the former not. Again, the real question is where to draw the line, and the answer to that question is determined by the side that most effectively unites & organizes political support.

I believe the Resister seeks the same thing most of us seek: common ground on which massive numbers of gun owners can be united to effectively oppose the irrational GC agenda. IMO - his effort is slightly more focused on convincing people to organize around his specific position, rather than seeking a position on which the most people can be organized. But I could be wrong about this, and maybe i am.

The needed common ground is surprisingly difficult to find, as evidenced by the 20 year observation that most threads on most gun boards consist of people arguing with each other, with agreement rarely attained.

Thank you for putting it that way. I've posted my opinion in posts # 84 and # 87 (other than explaining the differences in inalienable rights and unalienable Rights as defined in law). The courts define words and concepts differently, so you have to know exactly what they are saying in order to fully appreciate what the law says and what they are really saying - without actually saying it.

The government's view and that of the courts does not mirror that which we believe in . The words in court decision acknowledging a "personal right" are overshadowed by words like the Second Amendment is not a "right" to keep any kind of gun for whatsoever purpose. I fail to see, at a personal level, how philosophical talk about nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry are relevant to the immediate problem of shoulder fired weapons used by the militia to defend the country from enemies (foreign and domestic) and for self defense. There is no legislation that I'm aware of that addresses nuclear, biological, and / or chemical weapons.

So, I'm focused on getting to the bottom line. The Second Amendment, in the eyes of the founders and framers, and confirmed by the FIRST United States Supreme Court decisions held that the people have a Right to keep and bear Arms for self defense, personal protection; to provide a reserve of citizen soldiers in the event of invasion and as a bulwark against tyranny if the government rises up against the people. Subsequent rulings by the United States Supreme Court attempted to reinterpret the Second Amendment by using synonymous language, ascribing different meanings to those synonyms and rely on illegally ratified concepts. Or, put another way, they legislated from the bench to neuter the Second Amendment. My personal opinion (confirmed by the founders and framers) is that once the Constitution was ruled on, if we wanted to change the law it should have been done via an amendment in a manner in which the Constitution specifies. It wasn't. Now, Biden wants our guns and we need unity in purpose and understanding, never just blindly accepting the government's meaningless platitudes about a Right to keep and bear Arms while they get to tell us which ones. And, again, we don't need to go off on a tangent to argue about weaponry we cannot afford, is not readily available, and not part of the militia's everyday equipment. Thank you for the post.

 

[The Resister]

Have you ever submitted a 4473 in your name? If the answer is yes, that means you've complied with government regulations controlling the sale and transfer of firearms. You may not have agreed with the principle behind the background check, but you voted with your wallet and did it anyway.

Everything after that is just the nitty gritty.

I have, but having reclaimed my Preamble status, I don't do that any longer.

 

[baker3gun]

The Right, was however, intended to be absolute. The only legitimate way to change it to a limited "right" is to amend the Constitution.

I understand you to say that constitutional protection of the natural right to arms was intended to be absolute.

In late 18th century America, suffrage was denied to Jews, Quakers, Catholics, women, Negroes, Indians, and unpropertied poor people.
Various laws identified "lunaticks" as exempt from otherwise nearly universal militia service requirements for men.
Various states had laws against the transfer of guns to Indians, Negroes, and Loyalists, especially during the War.

If you argue that the Founders intended an absolute protection of the right to arms for all people, a student of history will be able to cite numerous counter examples that invalidate your argument.

There is no evidence that Madison or the 1st Congress intended to limit protection to only certains types of arms or purposes for arms. In that context, "absolute" may be a little safer to claim, but there are still the numerous examples of colonial and confederation laws prohibiting transfer of guns to Indians, Loyalists, Negroes, etc.

Perhaps there are two legitimate ways to "change" 2A such that it's protection is more limited now than it was at the founding:

1 - amend it, or repeal it, as mentioned by you and others in this thread.

2 - pass laws that infringe on 2A protection of the right to arms, and then see what happens.

In the latter case, sometimes nothing happens: the new more restrictive laws go uncontested.

I'm no expert on laws prohibiting civilian sale or possession or use of nerve gas, but I think the federal govt and many state governments have such laws. No one has ever seriously contested those laws, so the laws stand as accepted infringements on 2A protection of the citizen right to arms.

Same observation applies to nuclear weapons, etc.

The Washington DC ban on handguns stood for 20 years I think. Then Heller struck it down.

So it seems that American society has devised a process whereby 2A protection can legitimately be less than absolute without amending 2A.

It is logically justifiable to stand and argue that no such infringement is legal. But it is not politically astute to do so. No one will join you. Because you always end up arguing that absolute 2A protection includes nukes and Sarin etc. So you'll lose.

It seems wiser to acknowledge how the current playing field works, and then improve your game. Namely, find a platform that 20 million people will support, and then try to get them to support it.

Clarence Thomas has written a handful of certiorari dissents suggesting that the 2nd Amendment receives lesser treatment than other rights protections in the Bill of Rights. He is correct.

IMO, the solution to that problem is to develop a thing that is currently missing: broad unified public support for 2A.
Because as I mentioned in my 1st post in this thread, SCOTUS does not operate in a vacuum. They are not immune to public opinion.

nuther 2 cents.

Good discussion.

 

[CamoDeafie]

They are not immune to public opinion.

Only if public opinion is widely reported. After all, it depends on who is doing the "reporting". See all the polls that invariably use the following tactics
1. Small sample sizes of 700-1000 persons
2. Selective survey locations/calls
3. Wording of the survey questions so as to be ambigiously answered

 

[NW Backpacker]

You can own fighter jets, tanks, and aircraft carriers.

Fighter jets:

This Man Owns The World's Most Advanced Private Air Force After Buying 46 F/A-18 Hornets

We talked to the owner of Air USA about probably the most incredible private aircraft purchase of all time and the future of his adversary business.

www.thedrive.com

Tanks:

The Jacques M. Littlefield Story - The American Heritage Museum

Jacques Littlefield’s fascination with military vehicles began in childhood. From his earliest days, he studied and created intricate models of tanks and military machines. His first remote-controlled scale model tank was completed in college. Jacques acquired a full size military vehicle in...

www.americanheritagemuseum.org

Aircraft carrier:

Now's Your Chance To Buy an Aircraft Carrier

For sale: One HMS Illustrious, in good condition, 900,000 miles.

www.popularmechanics.com

With nukes, as with all arms, practice makes perfect:

NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein

NUKEMAP is a website for visualizing the effects of nuclear detonations.

nuclearsecrecy.com

 

[baker3gun]

Jefferson wrote the D of I. He used the word inalienable. Adams used unalienable.
You can access the handwritten drafts at the link I provided, and see for yourself.
The final draft says unalienable.
To my knowledge, no historian or justice has ever claimed that the choice to use UN rather than IN had any legal significance or changed any intended meaning.

Inalienable vs unalienable: it's not as important as you make it out to be.

Scholars universally recognize an intent among the founders to protect what were considered to be essential natural rights.

The enemies of freedom do not attack that assertion.
Rather, they employ emotion and handouts and various forms of direct democracy to undermine freedom, and they hope to stack the court with biased "judges" to prevent their unconstitutional laws from being struck down.
Why spend so much energy to develop a defense against an attack that never occurs, when you could redirect your energy at the attacks that are occurring?

If you want to post your cliff notes about the meaning of inalienable, go ahead. I'm not the only person here wondering what you're on about, so you may as well come out with it.

Also, I don't know what "reclaiming preamble status" means, or how it applies to buying a gun under the current system of unconstitutionally restrictive laws, so you may as well spell that out too.

A suggestion: if you seek to garner political support, raging about the difference between "regardless" and "irregardless" or announcing personal sovereignty may not be effective strategies.

OK. My rainy Sunday is over. I gotta clean up the kitchen.

Thx.

 

[baker3gun]

Only if public opinion is widely reported. After all, it depends on who is doing the "reporting". See all the polls that invariably use the following tactics
1. Small sample sizes of 700-1000 persons
2. Selective survey locations/calls
3. Wording of the survey questions so as to be ambigiously answered

Possible alt perspective:

Get a large following, raise some money, overcome biased media by advertising your presence. Petition all three branches directly.

The biased media is not a barrier. It's a house of cards, losing its appeal year by year, in a repetitive political cycle.

Thx.

 

[The Resister]

I understand you to say that constitutional protection of the natural right to arms was intended to be absolute.

In late 18th century America, suffrage was denied to Jews, Quakers, Catholics, women, Negroes, Indians, and unpropertied poor people.
Various laws identified "lunaticks" as exempt from otherwise nearly universal militia service requirements for men.
Various states had laws against the transfer of guns to Indians, Negroes, and Loyalists, especially during the War.

If you argue that the Founders intended an absolute protection of the right to arms for all people, a student of history will be able to cite numerous counter examples that invalidate your argument.

There is no evidence that Madison or the 1st Congress intended to limit protection to only certains types of arms or purposes for arms. In that context, "absolute" may be a little safer to claim, but there are still the numerous examples of colonial and confederation laws prohibiting transfer of guns to Indians, Loyalists, Negroes, etc.

Perhaps there are two legitimate ways to "change" 2A such that it's protection is more limited now than it was at the founding:

1 - amend it, or repeal it, as mentioned by you and others in this thread.

2 - pass laws that infringe on 2A protection of the right to arms, and then see what happens.

In the latter case, sometimes nothing happens: the new more restrictive laws go uncontested.

I'm no expert on laws prohibiting civilian sale or possession or use of nerve gas, but I think the federal govt and many state governments have such laws. No one has ever seriously contested those laws, so the laws stand as accepted infringements on 2A protection of the citizen right to arms.

Same observation applies to nuclear weapons, etc.

The Washington DC ban on handguns stood for 20 years I think. Then Heller struck it down.

So it seems that American society has devised a process whereby 2A protection can legitimately be less than absolute without amending 2A.

It is logically justifiable to stand and argue that no such infringement is legal. But it is not politically astute to do so. No one will join you. Because you always end up arguing that absolute 2A protection includes nukes and Sarin etc. So you'll lose.

It seems wiser to acknowledge how the current playing field works, and then improve your game. Namely, find a platform that 20 million people will support, and then try to get them to support it.

Clarence Thomas has written a handful of certiorari dissents suggesting that the 2nd Amendment receives lesser treatment than other rights protections in the Bill of Rights. He is correct.

IMO, the solution to that problem is to develop a thing that is currently missing: broad unified public support for 2A.
Because as I mentioned in my 1st post in this thread, SCOTUS does not operate in a vacuum. They are not immune to public opinion.

nuther 2 cents.

Good discussion.

I disagree with what you're saying. Jefferson had an idea about what unalienable Rights are. The politicians - even the general public of the time got Rights conflated with privileges of citizenship. You still see people on the right that don't comprehend the full meaning. The left doesn't care. The United States Supreme Court Justices are immune to public action / opinion and will rule accordingly. Supreme Court Justices are vetted through the American Bar Association and, to the best of my knowledge, if there is a more liberal organization, I have been unable to find it. Always expect a liberal slant from that body. The fact that they assign different meanings to words in order to reinterpret their own standing precedents ought to tell you something.

The one thing we agree on is that the courts have devised a method other than amending the Constitution to change the laws. Our founders would like a word with you:

".. .on every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was past (sic). Thomas Jefferson
From Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 12 June 1823 (archives.gov)

"If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." George Washington, Farewell Address 1796

 

[The Resister]

Jefferson wrote the D of I. He used the word inalienable. Adams used unalienable.
You can access the handwritten drafts at the link I provided, and see for yourself.
The final draft says unalienable.
To my knowledge, no historian or justice has ever claimed that the choice to use UN rather than IN had any legal significance or changed any intended meaning.

Inalienable vs unalienable: it's not as important as you make it out to be.

Scholars universally recognize an intent among the founders to protect what were considered to be essential natural rights.

The enemies of freedom do not attack that assertion.
Rather, they employ emotion and handouts and various forms of direct democracy to undermine freedom, and they hope to stack the court with biased "judges" to prevent their unconstitutional laws from being struck down.
Why spend so much energy to develop a defense against an attack that never occurs, when you could redirect your energy at the attacks that are occurring?

If you want to post your cliff notes about the meaning of inalienable, go ahead. I'm not the only person here wondering what you're on about, so you may as well come out with it.

Also, I don't know what "reclaiming preamble status" means, or how it applies to buying a gun under the current system of unconstitutionally restrictive laws, so you may as well spell that out too.

A suggestion: if you seek to garner political support, raging about the difference between "regardless" and "irregardless" or announcing personal sovereignty may not be effective strategies.

OK. My rainy Sunday is over. I gotta clean up the kitchen.

Thx.

You are not reading what I'm writing. It does not matter what Jefferson, Adams, or all the wordsmiths in the world say. If the United States Supreme Court has two words and they are synonyms, but they apply a different meaning to each word in their holdings, then that is the ONLY thing that matters.

In the instant case, the words unalienable and inalienable have been interpreted by the courts to be completely different. The rulings of courts takes precedence over the intent of the law, the words as defined in layman dictionaries, and the statute itself. Since I am unaware of what you're talking about with respect to wordsmiths, FWIW, there is no such word as irregardless. That is a double negative.

Let me make this as easy as I can for you:

I have demonstrated how the terminology absolute, unlimited, an unalienable are related. If you will check the citations given (and I can add more), the following terminology has been interpreted by courts as meaning the same thing: inherent, natural, irrevocable, God given, unalienable, absolute and above the law. The word inalienable, however, is defined differently. ALL of us here would agree that an unalienable Right means :

"impossible to take away or give up" (Source: Unalienable | Definition of Unalienable by Merriam-Webster (merriam-webster.com) )

Now, Merriam - Webster is a layman's dictionary and they say that the two words mean the same thing. Now watch very closely as the courts hoodwink you and begin changing the meaning of words. Read this holding very carefully:

"Inalienable Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights" Morrison v. State, Mo. App., 252 S.W.2d 97, 101 (1952)

You cannot give up an unalienable Right. It is impossible. That was the original meaning of unalienable; laymen and courts alike ruled so. You can, however consent to giving up an inalienable right. We know it to be true because that is how the courts ruled. You have the case citation to prove it. In law, you can give up an inalienable right; you can never give up an unalienable Right.

If I were to move from that to explain HOW the courts did this, you would first have to acknowledge that you can see the legal difference between those two words. And just so you understand that the courts interpret words to their liking, let's look at the word "shall." Here is a list of the words you find that are synonymous with the word shall:

What is another word for shall? | Shall Synonyms - WordHippo Thesaurus

Now, let me define, from a layman's dictionary a word for you not on that list:

"May - v. a choice to act or not, or a promise of a possibility, as distinguished from "shall" which makes it imperative. 2) in statutes, and sometimes in contracts, the word "may" must be read in context to determine if it means an act is optional or mandatory, for it may be an imperative. The same careful analysis must be made of the word "shall." Non-lawyers tend to see the word "may" and think they have a choice or are excused from complying with some statutory provision or regulation. "

May

Definition of May in the Legal Dictionary by The Free Dictionary

legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com

So, how did that misunderstanding come about? Well, the United States Supreme Court defined the word "may" to suit their needs:

In the case of Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno 515 U.S. 417 (1995), the United States Supreme Court ruled that the word shall means may. Because someone DID get interested in the literary prestidigitation of playing with the meaning of words as interpreted by the courts, this one stirred up a hornet's nest:

Volume XXVI, Issue 2, The False Imperative (ncsl.org)

 

[RX-79G]

As for the limits on any natural right, sure you can libel or slander someone, just as I could endanger someone with a gun by shooting carelessly in their general direction.

The problem with this statement is that it presumes the penalties that act as deterrents to libel or perjury are equal to the deterrents to shooting people. As murder clearance rates and mass shooter behavior shows, there isn't the same sort of psychology at work - the gross misuse of firearms is both more serious and less impacted by the threat of legal action than other sorts of misuse of rights.

As for polygamy - that is irrelevant. As long as all parties concerned are consenting informed adults, an adult should be able to enter into any kind of legal partnership they wish, with as many people as they wish. That includes marriage - something that the government should mostly keep their nose out of any more than it does with any other form of legal partnership. The ban on polygamy is based on Judeo-Christian religious beliefs and should not exist as the US government should make no law respecting any given religion or the practice thereof.

The ban on polygamy - specifically the kind where men have multiple wives - is a public policy for the health and welfare of a population that has an equal birthrate between sexes. Non-violent polygamous groups very quickly become old men marrying teen girls, leaving large groups of men unable to marry for most of their lives and taking away the rights of woman to make adult choices. It is a good example of a public policy that prevents society from killing itself in a suicide pact with the protection of rights. Rights have to reflect the consequences of their abuse, and that's why laws restrain rights to a degree.

The rights of an incarcerated person are necessarily infringed because that person has presumably broken a law.

Show how it is necessary to violate someone's uninfringeable rights while they await trial in a state of presumed innocence. Because if you believe that people who are suspected of a crime are transformed into people not entitled to rights, then you don't believe it is an "uninfringeable right" and you open the door to needing to discern who else fails to qualify for that right. That's what a background check is - not a license, but a process to keep the people YOU believe are unqualified from illegally using a right you don't think they should have anymore. In most of the US do you need a license to buy a gun, but you may need to demonstrate how you are not barred from such a purchase. While you could argue a one time "purchase permit" is a license, but since it becomes a lifetime permit to continue to own that gun, it isn't really. Licenses expire.

We are not talking about the extremes where an entity has crossed some clear line in the sand, we are talking about the slow and unceasing encroachment on the gun rights of law abiding citizens - without reason.

They aren't without reason: Most of them had popular support because of various extremes of violence. The problem isn't that the general public thinks 2A should have restrictions - it is that 2A defenders offer no affirmative legislative defense of the right aside from pointing at it and saying "It's my right!". We are like defendants in a trial who's only defense is to insist our innocence.

Of course, the big exception to that is when we lobbied to be licensed to carry firearms in all states. That was a type of gun control gun owners requested and received because we engaged in the legislative process of defining and restricting gun rights to expand gun owner's ability to exercise those rights. It was incredibly successful, but seemed to have left zero impression on gun owners going forward.

 

[RX-79G]

My short answer would be yes except to the last one and it requires an explanation.

I have Rights. You have Rights. Sometimes we cannot both exercise our Rights at the same time without jeopardizing each other's Rights. For example, I have a Right to keep and bear Arms. You have a Right to the quiet enjoyment of your property. If I shoot my weapon too close to your home I am jeopardizing your Rights.

We consent to be governed by men so if someone breaks the law by shooting their weapon too close to your home it could be turned into a jail sentence. This results in the offender making the choice to temporarily suspend their Rights and be punished where weapons are barred. BTW, this could also apply if you jeopardize the Rights of your fellow man with a vial of weaponized smallpox.

If you answer to all of those is yes, then you are simply an anarchist. Societies have laws to prevent people from selling you poisoned food, keeping you from starving because no one will employ you after you've been smeared and prevent the breakdown in social fabric from conditions that can't be maintained. Free speech doesn't exist the moment you sign a contract, because you can't later claim you didn't mean it and it is your right to lie.

But if you believe, in a system where people are innocent until proven guilty, that anyone suspected of being petty thief has lost their inalienable rights because of the accusation of another - then you don't believe it was a right. Period.

 

[Dinglenutz]

If this wasn't a troll thread before ...

 

[The Heretic]

The problem with this statement is that it presumes the penalties that act as deterrents to libel or perjury are equal to the deterrents to shooting people. As murder clearance rates and mass shooter behavior shows, there isn't the same sort of psychology at work - the gross misuse of firearms is both more serious and less impacted by the threat of legal action than other sorts of misuse of rights.

No, it doesn't presume that anywhere at all - it is a leaky analogy that answered a question.

The ban on polygamy - specifically the kind where men have multiple wives - is a public policy for the health and welfare of a population that has an equal birthrate between sexes. Non-violent polygamous groups very quickly become old men marrying teen girls, leaving large groups of men unable to marry for most of their lives and taking away the rights of woman to make adult choices. It is a good example of a public policy that prevents society from killing itself in a suicide pact with the protection of rights. Rights have to reflect the consequences of their abuse, and that's why laws restrain rights to a degree.

Here is an example of a government "policy" that is advocated for some presumed, probably bogus, benefit to society, that may or may not be true, and where the the offenders are presumed to have evil intent and/or bad results. Show me the studies where a human society that allows polygamy has resulted in the denial of marriage to bachelors.

This is the kind of thinking that allows government to become socialism.

All kinds of laws, rules and regulations have been created in the name of "good government policy", many of them on a dubious premise and infringe on individual rights and was more of a response to Mormonism as a religion than it was to the act of polygamy.

In polygamous cults where there are underage females being married off to older men, yes, and I mentioned that. But the problem there is the fact that the women are not consenting adults - and I mentioned that in my post: "As long as all parties concerned are consenting informed adults,".

Show how it is necessary to violate someone's uninfringeable rights while they await trial in a state of presumed innocence.

Incarceration itself is an act that could be interpreted as infringing on the rights of someone who is presumed to be innocent. So do you assert that someone who murders another should not be incarcerated until they go to trial?