• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Biden takes his unconstitutional gun control rhetoric up a couple of notches

KingLeo said:
Not sure opinions of the states from the mid 1700s and early 1800s really apply to 2022 where gun violence is rampant.
Even conservative SC judges have ruled on two occasions that the 2nd Amendment is not an unlimited right.
The argument is not that guns should be and need to be regulated, they already are, the decision is really about to what extent.
Click to expand...

It’s really about whether criminal abuse of X is justification to ban the possession of X. If “gun crime” (aka the criminal abuse of guns) was the real issue (excuse?) then handguns would top the list of types of guns to be banned.
 
KingLeo said:
Not sure opinions of the states from the mid 1700s and early 1800s really apply to 2022 where gun violence is rampant.
Click to expand...
They certainly apply to any claim that the Founders only intended that the right apply to the militia. Note also that these state constitutional and court decisions weren't limited to the mid-1700s and the early 1800s. During the 1960s through the 1980s, a period likely to have the highest homicide rates in our country's history, the affirmation of an individual right to keep and bear arms by the states happened 16 times.


KingLeo said:
Even conservative SC judges have ruled on two occasions that the 2nd Amendment is not an unlimited right.
Click to expand...

Scalia in Heller and Alito in McDonald, later, expressed a very limited view of what gun control laws could be considered Constitutional.
DC v Heller

"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."

Chicago v McDonald.

"We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “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.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. "

The restrictions listed in these two opinions, all existing laws at the time, are the only ones that can be presumed to be Constitutional. Nothing else can be presumed to be Constitutional.


KingLeo said:
The argument is not that guns should be and need to be regulated, they already are, the decision is really about to what extent.
Click to expand...
True, and I'm happy to discuss that topic with you.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
All Gun Violence Restraining Orders do the same thing: take guns, ammunition, and magazines away from the restrained person, and prevent them from buying new ones.
Click to expand...
Good point, I stand corrected. Yes, a side effect of a GVRO is that as a restraining order it will prevent a person from buying new guns at least temporarily. That is hardly its primary purpose. The main effect of a GRVO is that the gun owner will have his guns confiscated, often without any knowledge that there is an issue, often by a 3am armed raid. It is not to be confused with the other reasons that a person could be prevented from legally buying a new gun.
 
Last edited:
natman said:
Addressing a group of firefighters in Nantucket, Massachusetts, Biden gave us a preview of coming detractions:

Look, the idea that we’re not enforcing red-flag laws, period, just based on knowledge, not on parents saying or a loved one saying you should arrest this person now for his own sake, is ridiculous.

Red Flag laws destroy due process and presumption of innocence for gun owners. They should be used only in the presence of a clear tangible threat. Apparently Biden wants to be able to use them without someone who knows the suspect making a complaint. It would be interesting to know what he means by "based on knowledge". Social media posts he doesn't like? NRA membership? After all, according to Democrats the NRA is a "terrorist organization".

Number two, the idea — the idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It’s just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.

As I've long said:



Apparently Biden has decided to take a bigger slice. If he gets any kind of gun ban passed, it will be overturned by the Supreme Court. Heller, McDonald and Bruen have made it quite clear that guns "in common use for lawful purposes" are protected by the Second Amendment. They he'll use that as campaign fodder, maybe even an excuse to try and pack the court.
Click to expand...
He’s not serious about it. If he were he’d be pressing hard to get the 2nd amendment repealed, but he’s not. All this picking around the edges is pointless.
 
Moon said:
He’s not serious about it. If he were he’d be pressing hard to get the 2nd amendment repealed, but he’s not. All this picking around the edges is pointless.
Click to expand...
Biden will be hard pressed to get an "assault weapons" ban passed. There's no way he's going to get 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate and 3/4 of the states to approve a repeal of the Second Amendment. That's why he's not calling for it; he knows he'd lose. So he has nothing left but to nibble around the edges. Constantly.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
It’s really about whether criminal abuse of X is justification to ban the possession of X. If “gun crime” (aka the criminal abuse of guns) was the real issue (excuse?) then handguns would top the list of types of guns to be banned.
Click to expand...
Handguns have explicitly been included under Second Amendment protection in Heller. While guns like the AR15 are indisputedly in "common use for lawful purposes", they haven't been explicitly included, at least not until Bianchi v Frosh (a Maryland AW ban case that SCOUTS remanded back to the lower courts to reevaluate according to the guidelines given in Bruen) is resolved.
 
natman said:
OK, I stand corrected. Yes, a side effect of a GVRO is that as a restraining order it will prevent a person from buying new guns for the duration. That is hardly its primary purpose. The main effect of a GRVO is that the gun owner will have his guns confiscated, often without any knowledge that there is an issue, often by a 3am armed raid. It is not to be confused with the other reasons that a person could be prevented from legally buying a new gun.
Click to expand...

IMHO, ’red flag’ laws make little sense. Why would a “known to be dangerous” person not be arrested and charged with a crime (indicted) or involuntarily committed until they are deemed to no longer be “dangerous”?

It’s basically a ‘see, we did something’ (virtue signaling?) law which leaves “known to be dangerous” folks still able to roam freely among us, but they have been ‘temporarily’ (mostly?) disarmed and prevented from buying (more?) guns from FFL dealers. They can still buy guns (from non-FFL dealers) and/or borrow or steal guns and have likely become further enraged having been ‘unfairly’ targeted by a ‘red flag’ law.
 
KingLeo said:
Not sure opinions of the states from the mid 1700s and early 1800s really apply to 2022 where gun violence is rampant
Click to expand...

It's not just the states, also the federal government with the militia act of 1792. It states all eligible men must aquire their own firearms and ammo. Which infers private ownership as they were not provided by the federal government.
 
Patriotic Voter said:
That is an extremely obvious lie.
Click to expand...
You need to be a lot more careful about calling people liars just because you disagree with them.

In 2019 1,476 people were killed using "knives or cutting instruments". 364 were killed using ALL rifles, including AR15s. That's from the FBI table Rucker61 linked to. Phone your local FBI office and call them liars.
 
KingLeo said:
And yet you ignore the first four words, 'A well regulated Militia.....'
Many legal scholars, along with at least two of the Supreme Court justices who dissented in Heller, believe the Second Amendment, properly construed, never guaranteed an individual right at all, or at least not one related to personal self-defense in the home. Their argument is based on that amendment's reference to "a well regulated militia," which they define as a military force organized and supervised by the government. Outside a well-regulated militia, they suggest, the Second Amendment has no practical effect a lawmaker need respect.
Click to expand...
Yes dishonest people do try that argument all the time.

The problem is the the amendment says the right of the people not the people in the militia.
The people is everyone. And you don’t have to take my word for it just read the writings of the people who wrote the constitution.


But the good thing about this argument is that it identifies those who either are ignorant of the constitution or those who don’t lying to push their ideas.
 
natman said:
Biden will be hard pressed to get an "assault weapons" ban passed. There's no way he's going to get 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate and 3/4 of the states to approve a repeal of the Second Amendment. That's why he's not calling for it; he knows he'd lose. So he has nothing left but to nibble around the edges. Constantly.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I get that. My opinion is it would be a more honorable thing for him to push for the repeal of the 2nd, but I also realize that honor is a very scarce commodity in government.
 
braindrain said:
Yes dishonest people do try that argument all the time.

The problem is the the amendment says the right of the people not the people in the militia.
The people is everyone. And you don’t have to take my word for it just read the writings of the people who wrote the constitution.


But the good thing about this argument is that it identifies those who either are ignorant of the constitution or those who don’t lying to push their ideas.
Click to expand...

Even more ridiculous is many of those (Constitutional scholars?) also see the militia clause as being irrelevant when they try to assert that 2A rights should not apply to ’military style’ guns or ‘weapons of war’.
 
Moon said:
Yeah, I get that. My opinion is it would be a more honorable thing for him to push for the repeal of the 2nd, but I also realize that honor is a very scarce commodity in government.
Click to expand...
I agree. I would fight a move to repeal the 2nd tooth and nail, but at least I would respect it. In contrast to the lying, distortion and manipulation that is the lifesblood of the Democratic gun control movement.
 
natman said:
Addressing a group of firefighters in Nantucket, Massachusetts, Biden gave us a preview of coming detractions:

Look, the idea that we’re not enforcing red-flag laws, period, just based on knowledge, not on parents saying or a loved one saying you should arrest this person now for his own sake, is ridiculous.

Red Flag laws destroy due process and presumption of innocence for gun owners. They should be used only in the presence of a clear tangible threat. Apparently Biden wants to be able to use them without someone who knows the suspect making a complaint. It would be interesting to know what he means by "based on knowledge". Social media posts he doesn't like? NRA membership? After all, according to Democrats the NRA is a "terrorist organization".

Number two, the idea — the idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It’s just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.

As I've long said:



Apparently Biden has decided to take a bigger slice. If he gets any kind of gun ban passed, it will be overturned by the Supreme Court. Heller, McDonald and Bruen have made it quite clear that guns "in common use for lawful purposes" are protected by the Second Amendment. They he'll use that as campaign fodder, maybe even an excuse to try and pack the court.
Click to expand...

Democrats need be careful lest they fall into the trap Republicans just found themselves in. Like the dog catching the bus, Republicans stacked the courts and much to their chagrin SCOTUS overturned Roe. This turned one of their signature wedge issues into a big negative in the 2022 elections. Given enough time with the presidency and senate Democrats could return the favor and stack the bench with progressives. So with five supreme court votes they could in turn catch the bus over the wedge of guns in the hands of civilians.
 
Patriotic Voter said:
Everyone who graduated from high school knows "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is neither absolute nor the purpose of the Second Amendment.

There is nothing unconstitutional about preventing injuries and deaths by preventing bad people from buying guns. If you think only the literal meaning of one phrase matters, you love injuries and deaths of many totally innocent people every year.
Click to expand...
What part of the word arms and shall and not, do you not understand? The word arms includes far more than firearms.
 
braindrain said:
Yes dishonest people do try that argument all the time.

The problem is the the amendment says the right of the people not the people in the militia.
The people is everyone. And you don’t have to take my word for it just read the writings of the people who wrote the constitution.


But the good thing about this argument is that it identifies those who either are ignorant of the constitution or those who don’t lying to push their ideas.
Click to expand...
Most judges for some reason seem to become illiterates when they sit on the bench. The constitution is not an obtuse document that requires "interpretation". It just needs to be read and obeyed.
 
PirateMk1 said:
What part of the word arms and shall and not, do you not understand? The word arms includes far more than firearms.
Click to expand...

What part of the word "militia" don't you understand? The Second Amendment was obviously written only for the military, not private civilians, unless civil war breaks out.
 
Patriotic Voter said:
What part of the word "militia" don't you understand? The Second Amendment was obviously written only for the military, not private civilians, unless civil war breaks out.
Click to expand...

Why in the corn bread **** would a government entity....never mind.
 
Patriotic Voter said:
What part of the word "militia" don't you understand? The Second Amendment was obviously written only for the military, not private civilians, unless civil war breaks out.
Click to expand...
What part of "right of the people" don't YOU understand?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom