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I have posted this elsewhere, but I feel it says much that is relevant to this thread.

shall-not-be-infringed-clear-enough.jpg
 
This thread is all over the place.
It contains many interesting and worthwhile considerations, but reaches almost no conclusions.
Nothing is being accomplished if we cannot focus on specific issues and resolve those issues to the extent that most participants accept the agreed resolution.

I responded in blue text below:

I disagree with what you're saying.

Which part? Without specific disagreements that lead to specific agreements, we are nothing more than dogs endlessly barking at each other. No progress is made.

Jefferson had an idea about what unalienable Rights are.

Jefferson was the chief author of the D of I. He wrote "inalienable". Did he have an idea about what inalienable and unalienable meant? Did he think those words meant different things? Prove it.
Has any scholar or judge ever published conclusions about the natural rights of man that were based on a defined difference in meaning between those two words? Prove it.
Does any scholar or judge ever question the intent of the founding generation to protect what they recognized as natural rights of man? Prove it.
Is anyone attacking the Constitution by claiming that the right to defend self is not a natural right? Prove it.
If you succeed in convincing all people that unalienable means something different than inalienable, what will you have accomplished? Will you have then proved that a goal of our system of government was to protect natural rights of man? No, you will not have, because that idea is not prevailingly attacked or contested. Generally, everyone already agrees on that idea.

Repeating something does not make it true.
You assert a critical difference between the meaning of unalienable and inalienable, but offer no proof. Your prior quotes and citations fail to prove that anyone ever assigned or construed a critical difference in meaning, or even that it would matter in the context of constitutional law.

Choose a specific focused point, and give supporting proof to show that it is true.
Or, alternatively, stomp your foot and insist that a thing is true without providing true premises that show the thing is irrefutably true.
BTW - I am here to discuss, debate, consider, and to learn. Choose a specific point, provide unassailable premises or evidence that it is true, and I will thank you for the enlightenment and alter my future commentary to embrace the new truth that I have learned.
If you fail, will you embrace a new truth that you have learned?

The politicians - even the general public of the time got Rights conflated with privileges of citizenship.

No they didn't. Prove they did.
Then prove how it matters in the context of identifying the intent and meaning of constitutional law.

You still see people on the right that don't comprehend the full meaning. The left doesn't care.

Many Americans lack knowledge of the history of oppression always universally associated with the 5000 year history of societal government, and the 100% failure of the rule of law by itself to ever preserve human freedom and rights anywhere ever, and the 100% success rate in either conquering or oppressing defenseless people everywhere always. Yah. Things would be better if that information was more widely disseminated. Not new.

The United States Supreme Court Justices are immune to public action / opinion and will rule accordingly.

Untrue. Unsupportable. Incorrect. Uninformed. Wrong.
The opposite is demonstrably true, and very easy to research online with simple searches like this: "The effect of public opinion on the Supreme Court."
Decades of arguments and discussion have occured on this topic.
Should be immune? Debated still, with intelligent pros and cons.
Is immune? Demonstrably NO.

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.

No. I refuse to expect a thing unless a valid, sound, unassailable argument is presented for why I should expect it.
I don't care what you think you can find or not find. If you can't support an assertion, the assertion is not truth, it is unfounded personal opinion.
Once you convince me to expect ABA vetting to result in unavoidable bias on the highest bench, what have you accomplished?
People have been recognizing and bemoaning and debating political bias on the bench for decades.
How does this assertion support any specific point you are attempting to make that has not already been made and widely accepted?

The fact that they assign different meanings to words in order to reinterpret their own standing precedents ought to tell you something.

Prove that "they" routinely work to reinterpret their own precedents by assigning different meanings to words. Give examples.
Prove that the repeated offense is occurring, then prove that the recurrence "ought" to tell me something, then define the something that I ought to garner, then prove that the something is the only something that I should garner, and then show me how it is different than what I or most other gun owners already think.
Then apply the above successes to the idea that I need to move forward based on the acceptance of a new critical difference in meaning between UN and IN, or any of the other non-ordinary ideas that you want people to embrace.
I still cannot identify specifically what your objectives are.


The one thing we agree on is that the courts have devised a method other than amending the Constitution to change the laws.

You didn't agree on that in the prior post. To the contrary, you said "only one way."
I am the person who demonstrated that there seems to be more than one way.
I went further, defining the alternative way in specific terms: a legislature or a population (ballot initiative) creates a law that violates a constitutional law, then no party rises to effectively contest the new law, thus it stands.
My broader point is not to say that this is "right" when it happens, but rather to say that we Americans are failing to effectively contest unconstitutional laws. We fail to put aside minor differences to unite in support of shared goals, therefore we fail to achieve any goals. Equally important, as demonstrated in this thread, we fail to identify common ground. We bicker and distract, but we never reach agreed conclusions upon which we can progress.

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)

You have quoted that more than once in this thread. The quote itself is widely known. Most gun owners like it and agree with its ideas. In a broader sense, many constitutional scholars refer to it when arguing that Originalist/Textualist methods of interpretation are more legitimate and appropriate than other more liberal methods of interpretation.
I'm not sure why you are swinging that quote at me.
You have not used this quote to specifically support any of your "non-ordinary" assertions.
To be clear, IMO, more than half of your assertions are ordinary to gun owners, but some are not.
I have repeatedly introduced information and perhaps even historical references in the form of sound arguments that refute (I think) pretty much all of your non-ordinary assertions, and in response, you have so far experienced two failures: failure to deliver specific support for specific elements of your ideas, and also failure to unassailably refute my specific refutations.

Thus: woof woof woof, ruff ruff ruff, yip yip yip, nothing accomplished.

"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

Again, a quote by a founder, saying some things that nearly everyone here agrees with, but those quoted things in no way support any specific non-ordinary assertion you have made.

This thread is all over the place.

Pick one very specific argument, and then provide the premises that support your true conclusion.

Example 1 - the novel U.S Constitution and Bill of Rights intended to protect natural rights of man. Yawn. Informed people already know that.

Example 2 - There is an important difference in meaning between unalienable and inalienable, and that difference is essential to saving 2A protection of the citizen right to arms. Show how, and show why it is important in America today, where most informed citizens already agree that the founders intended and achieved protection of natural rights of man.
 
Again in blue:

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.

Give a specific example of a court ruling where the law of the people was changed because inalienable was interpreted as OR misinterpreted as unalienable, or vice versa.

In the instant case, the words unalienable and inalienable have been interpreted by the courts to be completely different.

When and where? Cite it and show how any court interpreted those words 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.

No they don't. Example: when a lower court rules according to a law that violates constitutional law, the supreme court often reverses the ruling and strikes down the unconstitutional law, thus the meaning of original law (which is often inferred from the intent of its authors), is upheld over the ruling of the lower court. This has happened often at the scotus level, but not often enough with respect to 2A.

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.

I don't think I said "wordsmith."
People say irregardless all the time. They mean regardless.
No one argues that a critical difference exists between the meaning of those two words.
No scholar or judge has ever postulated that a critical legal difference exists between the meaning of unalienable and inalienable, nor has any ever handed down a ruling that created or changed law based on a difference in interpretation of those two words.

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

OK.

I have demonstrated how the terminology absolute, unlimited, an unalienable are related.

I remember that quotation from your #84:
"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)

If the guy had said inalienable rather than unalienable, what impact would that have had on rights or laws in America?
Prove it. Show how.
Otherwise, this is just some guy saying that absolute rights are natural, inherent, and unalienable.
The guy never said that absolute rights are not inalienable.

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.

Where?
Where is it defined differently, and by whom?
What is the difference?
Who employs the difference by intentionally using both words to expressly mean different things?
Give examples?
You're just making things up and suportingthe fictions with mountains of citations that do not support the fictions.

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) )

Your contention is unsupportable. You cannot prove it or show it to be true.
It is also the first element of an unsound argument.
"Everyone knows that Red is X, and I give an example of someone once saying that Cardinal is Y, therefore Cardinal is not Red, and this truism is irrefutable because everyone knows Red is X."
This weak.
If you can't prove that every premise is true, the conclusion is not true.

Now, Merriam - Webster is a layman's dictionary

No it's not.
Prove it is.
Define layman's dictionary.
More than half of the English language words used in the legal arena are defined in that dictionary.
Prove that they are not.

and they say that the two words mean the same thing.

This is you:
"Merriam Webster is lay-only, and it says that unalienable and inalienable mean the same thing, therefore those words do not mean the same thing to non-laymen."

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 misquoted. This is the actual quotation from Morrison:

"There is a passage in America's most revered document, with which every American school child should be familiar, to wit: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, * * *." Declaration of Independence.
Inalienable is defined as incapable of being surrendered or transferred; at least without one's consent. Webster's New Int. Dictionary, Second Ed. Vol. 2, page 1254.
The Declaration is regarded by the American people as expressing their views of the fundamental purpose of Government. We believe that every human being is endowed by God with the inalienable right to live. The fact that the subject is the infant child of a parent who, arbitrarily, puts his own theological belief higher than his duty to preserve the life of his child cannot prevail over the considered judgment of an entire people, in a case such as this. The other rights, liberty and the pursuit *102 of happiness, are of no benefit to a dead baby. Unless we are to say, in effect, that the "Immortal Document" consists of a collection of beautiful sounding platitudes and meaningless phrases, " * * * as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal," Missouri has the power to interfere in the interests of one of its infant citizens, helpless in its own behalf, and to take such steps as may be necessary to preserve its life, over the protest of its father."

This is one opinion written by one state judge, issued while ruling in 1952 that a Jehovah's Witness father's right to deny a 12-day-old baby a blood transfusion necessary for survival, did not outweigh the State's right to save the baby's life by making the baby a ward of the state for purposes of providing consent for the transfusion.
In his ruling, the judge equated the terms unalienable and inalienable. He used those terms interchangeably.
He used "inalienable" instead of "unalienable" because of recognizable temporal preference for the former that developed over 2 centuries of evolving language. NOT because he wanted to assign a different meaning to the two words.
He argued that the right to live is inalienable. He clearly said that inalienable is defined by Webster as incapable of being surrendered or transferred; [end of clause] at least without one's consent.
The context was this: a 12-day-old baby is not capable of giving or denying consent to live; the state is, and the state is empowered to protect the lives of citizens incapable of protecting their own life.


You used a misquote and obscured context to construct the idea that a single Missouri ruling wherein a single state judge used the terms unalienable and inalienable interchangeably, meant that the American Judicial Branch was NOT using the terms interchangeably, and in fact was assigning different meanings to those words with the intent to hoodwink citizens in order to deny them protection of natural human rights.

Your entire assertion is unsupportable and thus untrue.

You cannot give up an unalienable Right. It is impossible.

The right to live is unalienable and inalienable, and if you shoot yourself in the head, you give up that right.
Again, your assertion is not only unsupportable, but obviously untrue on face.

You CAN give up an unalienable right, by shooting yourself in the head, or by moving to China, or by sitting around bickering about nothing while organized leftists pass laws that violate constitutional protection of your inalienable rights while you do nothing to effectively defend constitutional law,. which is what we are doing right now.

That was the original meaning of unalienable; laymen and courts alike ruled so.

Specifically what are you saying was the original meaning of unalienable?
I've indicated that nearly every part of your argument is unsupportable.
Which unsupportable part are you saying defines the original meaning of unalienable?

You can, however consent to giving up an inalienable right.

Apparently, you can consent to give up any right. Unalienable or inalienable or gifted or stolen or whatever.
For example, see "suicide" above.

We know it to be true because that is how the courts ruled.

In one example you provided, a court ruled that the state can intervene to grant consent for a blood transfusion for a baby.
During that ruling, the court referenced inalienable right to life.
How does that reference support your contention that any court ever intentionally impacted the law of the people by employing inalienable instead of unalienable?

Can you provide a ruling wherein any court ever ruled that an inalienable right differs from an unalienable right, or attempted to change law on the basis of a difference between the meaning of those words?

If you search the legal universe for cases with rulings that used the word inalienable, you can find many cases, but that doesn't mean that inalienable and unalienable have distinct legal meanings, because there are no cases wherein either word has ever intentionally been used to mean something different than the other word.

You have the case citation to prove it.

Nope. The citation you provided proves nothing of the kind. You're just inferring things, without demonstrable basis.

In law, you can give up an inalienable right; you can never give up an unalienable Right.

These assertions are unsupportable and also logically refuted above.

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.

To attain such acknowledgement, you must first demonstrate it.
You haven't.
Never yet have you provided evidence that any scholar or court or judge ever assigned or intended any kind of material difference between the meaning of those two words.
You have only inferred such a difference without any true premise.

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:

You failed to demonstrate evidence of a difference in the legal meaning of inalienable vs unalienable.
Now you move to a different single word, to suggest the new word has multiple meanings.
This does not support your argument about inalienable vs unalienable.

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. "


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)

Off on another tangent.

In the future, choose and establish individual specific contentions, and establish them wholly, only then move on to another.

I saw some interesting comments from other persons after page 5 of this thread, but haven't read all of pages 5 through 10.

The thread is all over the place, with nothing being accomplished.

I get that you pursue a platform for 2A support.
Half of what you say, most people already agree with.
The other half is senseless in that no new fruit is yielded by proof of the unique assertions you make,
and the as yet proffered premises and evidence for these assertions are nothing more than personal inferences unsubstantiated by any legal example of intentional differentiation between the words inalienable and unalienable.

Conversations on theory and law and intent are useful for efforts to find common ground upon which many (not all) gun owners or perhaps gun forum members might be united to commence a more effective defense of constitutional protection of the citizen right to arms,
which is why I like to engage in such conversations,
but my takeaway from this is I've seen nothing to suggest intent to establish robust positions that are strategically useful or logically defensible or politically viable.

Thx.
 
This thread is all over the place.
It contains many interesting and worthwhile considerations, but reaches almost no conclusions.
Nothing is being accomplished if we cannot focus on specific issues and resolve those issues to the extent that most participants accept the agreed resolution.

I responded in blue text below:



This thread is all over the place.

Pick one very specific argument, and then provide the premises that support your true conclusion.

Example 1 - the novel U.S Constitution and Bill of Rights intended to protect natural rights of man. Yawn. Informed people already know that.

Example 2 - There is an important difference in meaning between unalienable and inalienable, and that difference is essential to saving 2A protection of the citizen right to arms. Show how, and show why it is important in America today, where most informed citizens already agree that the founders intended and achieved protection of natural rights of man.

I was doing that, but the issue doesn't fit on a bumper sticker and nobody was following the thread.
 
Again in blue:



I saw some interesting comments from other persons after page 5 of this thread, but haven't read all of pages 5 through 10.

The thread is all over the place, with nothing being accomplished.

I get that you pursue a platform for 2A support.
Half of what you say, most people already agree with.
The other half is senseless in that no new fruit is yielded by proof of the unique assertions you make,
and the as yet proffered premises and evidence for these assertions are nothing more than personal inferences unsubstantiated by any legal example of intentional differentiation between the words inalienable and unalienable.

Conversations on theory and law and intent are useful for efforts to find common ground upon which many (not all) gun owners or perhaps gun forum members might be united to commence a more effective defense of constitutional protection of the citizen right to arms,
which is why I like to engage in such conversations,
but my takeaway from this is I've seen nothing to suggest intent to establish robust positions that are strategically useful or logically defensible or politically viable.

Thx.

That is a lot of left wing, pabulum puking, inaccurate, uninformed nonsense. You wasted a lot of words to convey a thought that is neither accurate or honest. What exactly is it you wanted to accomplish?

What was proven?

1) The Right to Keep and Bear Arms was originally decided by the courts to be a God given, irrevocable, unalienable, natural, inherent, absolute Right that was above the law

2) IF we did not cover it, there is no provision in the United States Constitution that allows the United States Supreme Court to revisit, reinterpret, and reverse their own rulings. That would be called legislating from the bench . The founders and framers were opposed to such a practice. George Washington, in his Farewell Address of 1796 admonished us:

"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"

3) The current rulings of the courts runs exactly 180 degrees opposite of what the founders / framers intended and how the FIRST rulings interpreted the Constitution. Regardless of what a statute says; regardless of what you think key words mean; no matter what you agree or disagree on, when the United States Supreme Court says this is what the law is, then that is what the law is. These are facts that you must understand IF you want to understand where you currently stand in terms of what the law is, jurisdiction, and how the Heller decision was the worst possible thing the high Court could do to gun owners.

I presented a wide array of state, federal and United States Supreme Court decisions to prove the case. You can disagree with them all you like. They are still the holdings in the law. Sooooo... IF I'm right, then you have to figure out how the Heller case has this in its holding:

".. 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..."

Since you are attempting to insult me by telling what I've proven and not proven, I will presuppose that you know what the HOLDING in a court ruling is. Since you're disagreeing with me, it would save us a lot of time for you to explain the history of how the United States Supreme Court reversed all the court rulings, including their own precedents to come up with some crap line that the Right is not unlimited. IF you followed the thread and IF you read the chronological history of the holdings, then you should be able to explain to us precisely what came after The United States Supreme Court's usurpation of power and how they rationalized their role in gun control. And IF you know the answer, you should be able to figure out how the federal government CAN legally (sic) outlaw a weapon in common use. Here's a hint: IF you had a Right to keep and bear Arms you would not be complying with licensing, registration, waiting periods, bans on magazine capacity, the mode of firing, or some bureaucrat telling you that you can't sell your weapon to another person in a casual sale. THAT was the direction I was going with the thread. IF the gun owners wanted to win, they would at least hear me out. All you seem to want to do is insult me, belittle me, be dishonest about what was proven (if you don't know, my posts are in chronological order - and if you are lazy I will look the post numbers up for you so you can read them in the order presented). Yeah, I know the deflections: bump stocks, magazines, flash suppressors, bayonet lugs are features, not the weapon itself. What a cop out! You and I know it's a reason not to invest a few hours in honest and serious research. Thank you for your ill thought out criticisms, however.
 
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.
The USSC has held that the 2nd Amendment, the right to keep and BEAR arms applies to BEARABLE weapons. Further, in Heller they laid out the governing rules for what weapons are constitutionally protected.

Justice Scalia made clear that the types of firearms protected by the Second Amendment include those "in common use at the time" for "lawful purposes like self-defense." The AR-15, which is the favorite target of so-called "assault weapon" ban legislation, is the most popular rifle in America and therefore undoubtedly "in common use" and protected by the Second Amendment. Gun control advocates seem to agree that such semi-automatic rifles are common, considering they routinely complain about the "proliferation" of these firearms.

Further, in the 1994 case Staples v. United States, the Supreme Court determined that semi-automatic rifles were common. The case concerned the mens rea requirement for a conviction for possession of an unregistered machine gun. The subject of the case had argued that he was unaware that the AR-15 in his possession had been modified for automatic fire and was not simply a legal semi-automatic AR-15. In the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas made clear that the mere possession of a converted AR-15 is not enough to infer a mens rea sufficient for conviction, as some firearms are, "so commonplace and generally available that we would not consider them to alert individuals to the likelihood of strict regulation." Justice Thomas went on to write that most categories of guns, including semi-automatic rifles, "traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful possessions."

If after Heller there was any remaining doubt as to where Justice Scalia stood on this matter, he settled the matter in 2015. That year, Justice Scalia joined Justice Thomas in a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.

In the dissent, Justice Thomas lamented that despite the Supreme Court's holdings in Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, "several Courts of Appeals… have upheld categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes," which he made clear was "noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents."

Justice Thomas went on to explain,

"Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons."
 
The USSC has held that the 2nd Amendment, the right to keep and BEAR arms applies to BEARABLE weapons. Further, in Heller they laid out the governing rules for what weapons are constitutionally protected.

Justice Scalia made clear that the types of firearms protected by the Second Amendment include those "in common use at the time" for "lawful purposes like self-defense." The AR-15, which is the favorite target of so-called "assault weapon" ban legislation, is the most popular rifle in America and therefore undoubtedly "in common use" and protected by the Second Amendment. Gun control advocates seem to agree that such semi-automatic rifles are common, considering they routinely complain about the "proliferation" of these firearms.

Further, in the 1994 case Staples v. United States, the Supreme Court determined that semi-automatic rifles were common. The case concerned the mens rea requirement for a conviction for possession of an unregistered machine gun. The subject of the case had argued that he was unaware that the AR-15 in his possession had been modified for automatic fire and was not simply a legal semi-automatic AR-15. In the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas made clear that the mere possession of a converted AR-15 is not enough to infer a mens rea sufficient for conviction, as some firearms are, "so commonplace and generally available that we would not consider them to alert individuals to the likelihood of strict regulation." Justice Thomas went on to write that most categories of guns, including semi-automatic rifles, "traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful possessions."

If after Heller there was any remaining doubt as to where Justice Scalia stood on this matter, he settled the matter in 2015. That year, Justice Scalia joined Justice Thomas in a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.

In the dissent, Justice Thomas lamented that despite the Supreme Court's holdings in Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, "several Courts of Appeals… have upheld categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes," which he made clear was "noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents."

Justice Thomas went on to explain,

"Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons."

Go tell that one to the California legislature. Have you ever seen a California style AR 15? And, again, the ingredients of what makes the AR 15 an AR 15 are being outlawed. THAT is one of the two major flaws of the Heller ruling. No amount of arguing can over-come these words in the Heller ruling:

"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"

The original intent is that the Right IS, in fact, unlimited (except as you accurately defined that "arms" are bearable arms). The United States Supreme Court legislated from the bench to outlaw the AR one feature at a time, but worse they set the stage for the McDonald v. Chicago ruling that forever changed who the grantor of your Right to Keep and Bear Arms is. In doing that, you should see the difference of what an AR 15 in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and most southern states on the east coast looks like compared to one you find in California.

The basic reason the laws is what they say it is, is due to the fact that the United States Supreme Court interprets what they say the way they want to explain it. Despite what they may say in orbiter dicta, the holding is the part that counts. Take a look at a Cali AR and get back to me.
 
Go tell that one to the California legislature. Have you ever seen a California style AR 15? And, again, the ingredients of what makes the AR 15 an AR 15 are being outlawed. THAT is one of the two major flaws of the Heller ruling. No amount of arguing can over-come these words in the Heller ruling:

"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"

The original intent is that the Right IS, in fact, unlimited (except as you accurately defined that "arms" are bearable arms). The United States Supreme Court legislated from the bench to outlaw the AR one feature at a time, but worse they set the stage for the McDonald v. Chicago ruling that forever changed who the grantor of your Right to Keep and Bear Arms is. In doing that, you should see the difference of what an AR 15 in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and most southern states on the east coast looks like compared to one you find in California.

The basic reason the laws is what they say it is, is due to the fact that the United States Supreme Court interprets what they say the way they want to explain it. Despite what they may say in orbiter dicta, the holding is the part that counts. Take a look at a Cali AR and get back to me.
Why don't you try attending law school and briefing a few thousand federal and state court cases and then get back to me. You're entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts. Had you read to the bottom of my post you would have seen that Justice Thomas was, and still is decrying the fact that the lower courts are ignoring or twisting the meaning of both Heller and McDonald. The fact that you can somehow see McDonald as a negative for gun rights demonstrates that you have no idea what you are talking about. There's nothing magical about using a certain word versus a similar one, or whence our rights are derived. There are simply bad judges out there who ignorantly or purposefully get things wrong. Eventually they get corrected.
 
There are simply bad judges out there who ignorantly or purposefully get things wrong. Eventually they get corrected.
That "eventually" might as well be "never". Still waiting for some 1934 legislation to be thrown out. Never mind the '68 stuff, order it was enacted and all that...
 
Why don't you try attending law school and briefing a few thousand federal and state court cases and then get back to me. You're entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts. Had you read to the bottom of my post you would have seen that Justice Thomas was, and still is decrying the fact that the lower courts are ignoring or twisting the meaning of both Heller and McDonald. The fact that you can somehow see McDonald as a negative for gun rights demonstrates that you have no idea what you are talking about. There's nothing magical about using a certain word versus a similar one, or whence our rights are derived. There are simply bad judges out there who ignorantly or purposefully get things wrong. Eventually they get corrected.

Law school - CHECK
Litigation Experience - CHECK
United States Supreme Court Experience - CHECK

I check all the boxes, sir. I was lead legal research when Sheriff Richard Mack sued the federal government saying that Sheriffs could not be compelled to enforce federal laws with respect to the Brady Bill. My activism began at the age of 17 and I'm now 64. There are more than 40,000 plus federal, state, county, and city ordinances, statutes, rules, regulations, Executive Orders, edicts, mandates, court holdings, etc. governing the ownership of firearms.

The fact that you don't understand that the courts can interpret a word to mean something other than the dictionary definition and make a ruling that is contradictory to all established precedent is proof that you are blowing smoke. The liberals try to argue that the Second Amendment means that only the military is supposed to have firearms predicated upon a freaking comma. The next fact is that you ignored the holding of the FIRST time United States Supreme Court addressed the grantor of the Right versus Heller and McDonald.
 
This thread is becoming increasingly hilarious. I started out with the OP and asked people to help me understand gun Rights. Nobody really put any thoughtful effort into it. We just all agree on our interpretation and that is NOT working in many states. Why? I took many years researching, interviewing constitutional scholars, working on gun Rights cases, lobbying, researching constitutional law (and not only the Second Amendment).

The undeniable fact is the laws do not say what my critics say it means. THAT is why they can only attack my findings, not comply with the request in the first in the OP. They only see this issue through their prism of right and wrong. The cold, hard, fact is: The Second Amendment is being applied 180 degrees opposite of what the framers intended. Unless these critics wake up, the liberals will having you defending your homes and lives with flintlocks pretty soon. BTW, how many of you attend church with a registered Bible?

 
That is a lot of left wing, pabulum puking, inaccurate, uninformed nonsense. You wasted a lot of words to convey a thought that is neither accurate or honest. What exactly is it you wanted to accomplish?

What was proven?

1) The Right to Keep and Bear Arms was originally decided by the courts to be a God given, irrevocable, unalienable, natural, inherent, absolute Right that was above the law

2) IF we did not cover it, there is no provision in the United States Constitution that allows the United States Supreme Court to revisit, reinterpret, and reverse their own rulings. That would be called legislating from the bench . The founders and framers were opposed to such a practice. George Washington, in his Farewell Address of 1796 admonished us:

"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"

3) The current rulings of the courts runs exactly 180 degrees opposite of what the founders / framers intended and how the FIRST rulings interpreted the Constitution. Regardless of what a statute says; regardless of what you think key words mean; no matter what you agree or disagree on, when the United States Supreme Court says this is what the law is, then that is what the law is. These are facts that you must understand IF you want to understand where you currently stand in terms of what the law is, jurisdiction, and how the Heller decision was the worst possible thing the high Court could do to gun owners.

I presented a wide array of state, federal and United States Supreme Court decisions to prove the case. You can disagree with them all you like. They are still the holdings in the law. Sooooo... IF I'm right, then you have to figure out how the Heller case has this in its holding:

".. 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..."

Since you are attempting to insult me by telling what I've proven and not proven, I will presuppose that you know what the HOLDING in a court ruling is. Since you're disagreeing with me, it would save us a lot of time for you to explain the history of how the United States Supreme Court reversed all the court rulings, including their own precedents to come up with some crap line that the Right is not unlimited. IF you followed the thread and IF you read the chronological history of the holdings, then you should be able to explain to us precisely what came after The United States Supreme Court's usurpation of power and how they rationalized their role in gun control. And IF you know the answer, you should be able to figure out how the federal government CAN legally (sic) outlaw a weapon in common use. Here's a hint: IF you had a Right to keep and bear Arms you would not be complying with licensing, registration, waiting periods, bans on magazine capacity, the mode of firing, or some bureaucrat telling you that you can't sell your weapon to another person in a casual sale. THAT was the direction I was going with the thread. IF the gun owners wanted to win, they would at least hear me out. All you seem to want to do is insult me, belittle me, be dishonest about what was proven (if you don't know, my posts are in chronological order - and if you are lazy I will look the post numbers up for you so you can read them in the order presented). Yeah, I know the deflections: bump stocks, magazines, flash suppressors, bayonet lugs are features, not the weapon itself. What a cop out! You and I know it's a reason not to invest a few hours in honest and serious research. Thank you for your ill thought out criticisms, however.
The issue that you avoid is that the right to arms was tacitly limited from day one by those that created the amendment. How does one argue that the intention by someone like Jefferson was an unlimited right when Jefferson's actions demonstrated limiting who could be armed?

I'll ask again: Is it your contention that the Founders were hypocrites or that an unlimited right somehow has exceptions that aren't limitations?
 
This thread is becoming increasingly hilarious. I started out with the OP and asked people to help me understand gun Rights. Nobody really put any thoughtful effort into it. We just all agree on our interpretation and that is NOT working in many states. Why? I took many years researching, interviewing constitutional scholars, working on gun Rights cases, lobbying, researching constitutional law (and not only the Second Amendment).

The undeniable fact is the laws do not say what my critics say it means. THAT is why they can only attack my findings, not comply with the request in the first in the OP. They only see this issue through their prism of right and wrong. The cold, hard, fact is: The Second Amendment is being applied 180 degrees opposite of what the framers intended. Unless these critics wake up, the liberals will having you defending your homes and lives with flintlocks pretty soon. BTW, how many of you attend church with a registered Bible?

Why do you need help understanding something you insist you're the only one bright enough to understand? Seems disingenuous.
 
This thread is becoming increasingly hilarious. I started out with the OP and asked people to help me understand gun Rights. Nobody really put any thoughtful effort into it. We just all agree on our interpretation and that is NOT working in many states. Why? I took many years researching, interviewing constitutional scholars, working on gun Rights cases, lobbying, researching constitutional law (and not only the Second Amendment).

The undeniable fact is the laws do not say what my critics say it means. THAT is why they can only attack my findings, not comply with the request in the first in the OP. They only see this issue through their prism of right and wrong. The cold, hard, fact is: The Second Amendment is being applied 180 degrees opposite of what the framers intended. Unless these critics wake up, the liberals will having you defending your homes and lives with flintlocks pretty soon. BTW, how many of you attend church with a registered Bible?

Your first statement was "Help me understand..." when you obviously had no intention of being informed. In your own mind you are already an expert. You were just baiting people here. What's wrong? Did you run out of people in Georgia to harangue with your simplistic "legal" reasoning?

The fact is that a lot of people, you included, seem to think that the utterance of one magical word forever changes the world and has some binding power over government officials, and you're angered and dismayed when that's not the case. There are always boundaries across which a given law cannot wander without approaching absurdity. And yes, even our rights have limits. The job of the courts is to determine where those boundaries lie. Judges, being human, are not always correct or consistent in their rulings. In such cases we bring suit and we wait for the questions to be resolved.

I'm not going to waste my time arguing with such a great "expert" in the law. You can't be informed because you already know everything, so further discourse with you is pointless. On this forum we have an "Ignore" button. I will now use it.
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