Washington (CNN) -- In another dramatic victory for firearm owners, the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional Chicago, Illinois', 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons.
A 5-4 conservative majority of justices on Monday reiterated its 2-year-old conclusion that the Constitution gives individuals equal or greater power than states on the issue of possession of certain firearms for self-protection.
"It cannot be doubted that the right to bear arms was regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as states legislated in an evenhanded manner," wrote Justice Samuel Alito.
The court grounded that right in the due process section of the 14th Amendment. The justices, however, said local jurisdictions still retain the flexibility to preserve some "reasonable" gun-control measures currently in place nationwide.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer predicated far-reaching implications. "Incorporating the right," he wrote, "may change the law in many of the 50 states. Read in the majority's favor, the historical evidence" for the decision "is at most ambiguous."
I'm a liberal, but I agree with Penn and Teller. The 2nd Amendment says there's a right to bear arms. It's really ungrammatical, but the meaning is clear. I think the 2nd Amendment seriously needs updating because the Founding Fathers never contemplated fully automatic weapons and rocket launchers. However, the way to deal with this is a constitutional amendment, not piecemeal legislation by individual states and cities. That's going to be a hell of a fight, but I'm convinced that it's a conversation we as a country are going to be forced to have within a few decades.
Meanwhile, though, the practical effect of this ruling is that the Supreme Court is now going to have to figure out where to draw the line on gun control. Mandatory background checks? Gun safes? Mandatory training? Stamping every bullet with identifying marks? The Supreme Court has now made this a Constitutional (read: Federal) issue, so the bag is in their hands.
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I think considering the US has the biggest and most powerful professional military in the world the right to bear arms becomes void considering the need for a peoples militia is 100% unnecessary.
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The 2nd Amendment says there's a right to bear arms.
It only says that because the British were coming.
The British already came. Then they left.
I don't think they're coming back.
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It only says that because the British were coming.
The British already came. Then they left.
I don't think they're coming back.
Well not exactly. When you look through historical documents, what you see is at least some of the Founding Fathers considered the Second Amendment to be a stopguard against tyranny. At the time, it was the British. But later on, it could be anybody including the US government itself. The people were supposed to have a right to defend themselves against tyrannical rule (and home invasion).
The problem is these days there's no way anybody with a bunch of rifles could possibly overthrow our government, so that whole justification no longer works. Nonetheless, it is clear that the people were meant to have guns so that they could protect their homes and their property. What that means today has yet to be decided.
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I think considering the US has the biggest and most powerful professional military in the world the right to bear arms becomes void considering the need for a peoples militia is 100% unnecessary.
When the 2nd amendment refers to a militia, they are referring to the state run military, not a bunch of civs carrying muskets. To clarify, read the 2nd amendment as follows: "Because the government must maintain a military to protect itself and its people, the people should have the right to bear arms to protect themselves against that military if it is ever used to infringe the rights of the people."
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It only says that because the British were coming.
The British already came. Then they left.
I don't think they're coming back.
The American Revolution ended in 1783, well before the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. I'd say something about how Canadians are taught American history, but we Americans are fed the same junk history in the states as well.
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Last edited by Professor S : 06-28-2010 at 11:05 PM.
"Because the government must maintain a military to protect itself and its people, the people should have the right to bear arms to protect themselves against that military if it is ever used to infringe the rights of the people."
Well, if you want to know if a bunch of untrained, but armed people, can legitimately fight an organized and professionally trained and armed military... just watch the news. No army on the planet can subdue the will of an armed populace without consent of those people. Only by getting the civilian authorities on the side of US military did we succeed in Iraq.
If your comment is about whether or not its necessary to arm a populace to defend against a tyrannical government in today's day and age: Well, if you could fit all of civilized history into an hour, true democratic governments would take up about 5 seconds. Democracy as we know it (and its various iterations) is a relatively new idea and is still the minority in the world.
Well, if you want to know if a bunch of untrained, but armed people, can legitimately fight an organized and professionally trained and armed military... just watch the news. No army on the planet can subdue the will of an armed populace without consent of those people. Only by getting the civilian authorities on the side of US military did we succeed in Iraq.
If your comment is about whether or not its necessary to arm a populace to defend against a tyrannical government in today's day and age: Well, if you could fit all of civilized history into an hour, true democratic governments would take up about 5 seconds. Democracy as we know it (and its various iterations) is a relatively new idea and is still the minority in the world.
Those types of arms are not that comparable. You should also know that those people are fighting with surplus soviet arms including 107 mm rockets, 82 mm mortars, C4, RPGs, (any of those can be made into IEDs) recoil-less rifles, etc. All of those arms are illegal (at least i would hope) in the US. Those are the real killers, I think it takes around an average 2,500 rounds fired to account for 1 kill.
EDIT, my bad, it wasnt that many.......... it takes 250,000 for each kill. as an underestimate
You also seem to forget that we are trying to win the hearts and minds of those people in order to establish a self supporting entity, and that often gets in the way of firefights, operations, even scouting of enemy positions.
Insurgents in iraq and Afghanistan have been fighting for years and years and years, that hardly qualifies them as inexperienced. A lot of the fighters have military training and knowledge.
You should also know that those people are fighting with surplus soviet arms including 107 mm rockets, 82 mm mortars, C4, RPGs, (any of those can be made into IEDs) recoil-less rifles, etc. All of those arms are illegal (at least i would hope) in the US.
Get 350 million people fired up and they would overthrow any army with .22s. They likely could overthrown the government with pitchforks.
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You also seem to forget that we are trying to win the hearts and minds of those people in order to establish a self supporting entity, and that often gets in the way of firefights, operations, even scouting of enemy positions.
And why do you think we're trying to win the hearts and minds of those people? Its our best chance of winning and the only reason why we won in Iraq.
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Insurgents in iraq and Afghanistan have been fighting for years and years and years, that hardly qualifies them as inexperienced. A lot of the fighters have military training and knowledge.
And so would we if we fought for years and years against what we thought was a tyrannical government. They had success before they ever had that experience. If they didn't have an success... they never would have gotten any experience... they'd be dead.
Lets say you're right, though, and it still changes nothing. The 2nd amendment still grants the right to keep and bear arms. Until that is changed, all our modern wrangling over the necessity of bearing arms is useless.
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Last edited by Professor S : 06-29-2010 at 12:26 AM.
Get 350 million people fired up and they would overthrow any army with .22s. They likely could overthrown the government with pitchforks.
And why do you think we're trying to win the hearts and minds of those people? Its our best chance of winning and the only reason why we won in Iraq.
And so would we if we fought for years and years against what we thought was a tyrannical government. They had success before they ever had that experience.
1. Then why not limit the 2nd amendment to .22's and pitchforks if that's all it takes?
Also you magically made up about 50 million people....
2. if the US populace had to rise up and fight the government in this age that would be a fictional "apocalyptic" situation. Part of my reasoning about the "that works for that time period, but now?" comment is that you are the friggin USA, The government and military would never turn against the populace at all. That is the whole point of democracy, and if you think its going to crumble and some crazy regime is going to sprout up, then you may be reading too many right wing news letters or attending too many conspiracy meetings. Also i think you should use the term "won" loosely, as you are still fighting, and only time will tell if the desired outcome happens when western forces leave the middle east.
3. Now you're just throwing "ifs" around and dabbling in hypothetical situations to aid your point. AMERICANS haven't had to fight a tyrannical governments have you? so again, you cant compare fighting insurgents to the American populace and call them both untrained combatants.
I'd say something about how Canadians are taught American history
We learn Canadian history in Canada.
Anyways, all I'll say about the gun laws is this:
They're out-dated, and un-needed. People need guns for one thing, hunting.
I stand by my statement of guns beget more guns.
If you have a knife to defend against a guy with fists, he'll get a knife. If you have a gun to defend your home against a guy with a knife, the next guy will have a pistol. If you get a shotgun to defend that pistol, the next guy will have two shotguns. If you get a mounted turret to protect against a guy with two shotguns, he'll get explosives.
The system never ends, and it is that 'constitutional law' to have guns that not only started the chain of events you have in your country, but keeps it progressing.
And I honestly think all of the United States' violence and gang problems stem from that one single 'right'.
It started as a way to backhandedly cut down on policing and government armament. If people police themselves, all is well. It was a few hundred years ago after all. But as time went on and civilization evolved and advances into a technological age, the right to have a deadly weapon remains, and is backed up with "our forefathers said yadda yadda."
To which I say "Big fucking whoop." It's 2010. 2000 years after Jesus, and more than 200 years after some guy said "Sure, have a gun. Write that down there, too."
"Freedom to own a gun" is a joke. There is no such thing as freedom. If you want to talk about freedom run down the street naked and brandish your gun. Then say you have the right to have a gun, and be naked if you so choose. You're only as free as the rules allow you to be. And this is one specific case where nobody anywhere in the world should be free to have a gun.
Guns beget guns, which beget bigger guns, which beget bigger guns.
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Ok. I was mistaken. Doesn't change my opinion on the result of a mass uprising.
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2. if the US populace had to rise up and fight the government in this age that would be a fictional "apocalyptic" situation. Part of my reasoning about the "that works for that time period, but now?" comment is that you are the friggin USA, The government and military would never turn against the populace at all. That is the whole point of democracy, and if you think its going to crumble and some crazy regime is going to sprout up, then you may be reading too many right wing news letters or attending too many conspiracy meetings.
I don't think we're anywhere close to having a situation where the people would be forced to rise up against their government. As you said, we are a democracy. But all that needs to happen for violence to become necessary is for the democratic process to end. I don't see that happening any time soon, but that doesn't mean that it will never happen.
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Also i think you should use the term "won" loosely, as you are still fighting, and only time will tell if the desired outcome happens when western forces leave the middle east.
Point taken. I only use "win" only in Iraq, BTW, because it looks like we have won in general terms. That can change, but I don't think I'm being overly optimistic.
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3. Now you're just throwing "ifs" around and dabbling in hypothetical situations to aid your point. AMERICANS haven't had to fight a tyrannical governments have you? so again, you cant compare fighting insurgents to the American populace and call them both untrained combatants.
Do you have any numbers or proof that these people were trained combatants? To my knowledge, most were simply loosely trained armed populace. Keep in mind, RPGs and Aks are loved by resistance fighters BECAUSE they are easy to come by and require almost no training.
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Last edited by Professor S : 06-29-2010 at 11:01 AM.
They're out-dated, and un-needed. People need guns for one thing, hunting.
I stand by my statement of guns beget more guns.
If you have a knife to defend against a guy with fists, he'll get a knife. If you have a gun to defend your home against a guy with a knife, the next guy will have a pistol. If you get a shotgun to defend that pistol, the next guy will have two shotguns. If you get a mounted turret to protect against a guy with two shotguns, he'll get explosives.
The system never ends, and it is that 'constitutional law' to have guns that not only started the chain of events you have in your country, but keeps it progressing.
And I honestly think all of the United States' violence and gang problems stem from that one single 'right'.
It started as a way to backhandedly cut down on policing and government armament. If people police themselves, all is well. It was a few hundred years ago after all. But as time went on and civilization evolved and advances into a technological age, the right to have a deadly weapon remains, and is backed up with "our forefathers said yadda yadda."
To which I say "Big fucking whoop." It's 2010. 2000 years after Jesus, and more than 200 years after some guy said "Sure, have a gun. Write that down there, too."
"Freedom to own a gun" is a joke. There is no such thing as freedom. If you want to talk about freedom run down the street naked and brandish your gun. Then say you have the right to have a gun, and be naked if you so choose. You're only as free as the rules allow you to be. And this is one specific case where nobody anywhere in the world should be free to have a gun.
Guns beget guns, which beget bigger guns, which beget bigger guns.
Well your argument is age-old, but it really has nothing to do with guns. Its about freedom vs. safety, and that debate has been going on since civilization began. You don't believe in freedom, but you believe in safety. That's certainly one way to look at it.
Well your argument is age-old, but it really has nothing to do with guns. Its about freedom vs. safety, and that debate has been going on since civilization began. You don't believe in freedom, but you believe in safety. That's certainly one way to look at it.
As I said "Freedom" is a concept. You're not free. And I'm not free. At least not in the definition of the meaning "free", which is "To do whatever one pleases." Considering there are people in jail, I'd assume they broke a law, which means they went against a rule. Which means they weren't free to do as they pleased.
We are, however "free" compared to less developed nations, or developing nations. Does this make us have "freedom"? No. Freedom is a concept. "Freedom" is another term for democracy, essentially - Which I highly disagree with [using].
If anything I've said [Such as "Don't own a gun", or "Guns are bad"] makes me hate freedom, then I suppose disliking the ownership of guns makes me hate freedom. Good thing for me I live in a country that has freedom defined as "Not being able to own a gun."
The problem, Strangler - is that it has to do with guns. Without the law for ownership of guns, you wouldn't need guns to protect yourself. It all stems from that one law you have. It's turned into a myriad of issues that all starts with "We're free to own guns."
I've posted the violent crimes numbers [which was per capita] for Canada [where we don't have guns] in comparison with the US numbers [where you have guns] and your violent crime numbers are well above the ones here.
As I said before, I don't 'believe' in guns for anything other than hunting. Will someone somewhere use a hunting gun to commit a crime? You bet they will. But that doesn't mean I'd jump on the "Holy fuck, we all need guns to protect ourselves" bandwagon. Guns aren't the answer, solution or question. Guns are the entire problem.
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Do you have any numbers or proof that these people were trained combatants? To my knowledge, most were simply loosely trained armed populace. Keep in mind, RPGs and Aks are loved by resistance fighters BECAUSE they are easy to come by and require almost no training.
That was one of the first asked questions when the insurgents started fighting back...........
Investigations have shown that the ideal insurgent candidate are those with military training.
This is recent stuff, but you dont go through 60+ years of conflict and not have experience with weapons and guerrilla fighting. Of course this stuff was happening against the Soviets, and Israel.
I don't get how you can't concede the fact that militant insurgent groups are at a higher level of conflict experience than the American public. That is a positive for the American public! You just chose a bad example saying that insurgent groups are a model for how Americans would use their guns to fight their own military.
Most of the casualties are caused by IED's which take military level training and more importantly MILITARY MUNITIONS (c4, rockets, large caliber shells, mortars, etc) to make effectively. I think around 75% in Afghanistan casualties and around 60-65% in iraq are caused by IEDs, not small arms.
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