Clearing the air on guns, anti gun owners start.

[jaeger19]

Gee.. no answer to my post... things that make you go hmmmm...

 

[molten_dragon]

Let the "anti gunners" say first just exactly what it is they have against many of us excersizing our 2A rights.
Is it the Zimmerman type of self defense, not trying to re try the case seeing as its settled law.
Is it just that you dont believe that in 2013 we should be owning such things. Or is it against certian types of firearms?
Moot, Haymarket, Sharon and the rest have the floor. No name calling, no calling out, no assumptions about people you dont actually know.

Guns are cool. I like to go theo range and go pew pew pew pew pew pew.

 

[Willie Orwontee]

The top item you quoted, yes, sort of. It's not my position, per se; it's the recurrent theme in what SCOTUS has upheld in its decisions, which is the de facto law of the land since LE and The Courts abide by SCOTUS decisions.

But.It's.Not . . .

The descriptors "offensive" - "defensive" have no determinative presence in any SCOTUS right to arms / 2nd Amendment decision. (The only use in Heller is Scalia quoting Justice Ginsberg in Muscarello v. United States, which actually works against your position . . .)

The determinative factors for 2nd Amendment protection are focused on the type of arm and its usefulness in a military context. Miller's reasoning and thus its multi-pronged tests were taken from Aymette and consist of (in no particular order) whether the arm is of the type that constitutes the ordinary military equipment (of a type usually employed in civilized warfare), and/or in common use at the time, and/or can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.

That those types of arms now commonly refered to as "assault weapons" meet all those criteria means they can not be deemed "dangerous and unusual" thus the right to keep and bear those arms by private citizens must be preserved and any power claimed by the government to restrict possession and use by private citizens must be repelled (or invalidated if in force).

The second item was merely a query, which illustrates that many ambiguities exist within the 2A. And as an aside, no one has yet answered it, herein.

Correct, except with the context of a well regulated militia being necessary.

Well regulated = what?

​

To ask the question only demonstrates a forced, self-imposed "ambiguity" that needs to be advanced to support your gun policy positions . . .

According to the boringly consistent SCOTUS, "well regulated" has absolutely no bearing on the right to arms because the right to arms is an original, pre-existing right that is not granted, given, created or established by the 2nd Amendment, thus the existence of the right is not in any manner dependent upon what the Constitution says:

Supreme Court, 1876: "The right . . . of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose" [that of self-defense from the KKK by ex-slaves in Louisiana] . . . is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, . . ."

Supreme Court, 1886: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, . . . "

Supreme Court, 2008: "it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in . . . 1876 , “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”
​

​
​
So, the only thing that can be taken away from a reading of the 2nd Amendment regarding the right to arms is that the 2nd Amendment declares that "it" shall not be infringed.

The "it" is of course, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms".

The right itself does not in any manner depend on what the 2nd Amendment says (or doesn't say), because the right pre-exists the Constitution and is not created or established by it (or controlled, limited, qualified or conditioned by it).

This means it is illegitimate to undergo the inspection you demand and the outcome you expect; to find a conditioning effect on the right to arms from the words of the declaratory clause.

The third and last item was merely to demonstrate that even if taken literally (it is not; SCOTUS considers Framer intent within the context of modern times), not even a literal interpretation supports the free-for-all scenario many Gun Supporters seem to think the 2A guarantees,

The "free-for-all scenario" you condemn isn't created by the 2nd Amendment; the only thing the 2nd Amendment "does" is redundantly forbid the federal government to exercise powers never granted to it . . . The "free-for-all scenario" is simply an unavoidable outcome of the complete silence of the Constitution granting to government any power to have any interest whatsoever in the personal arms of the private citizen.

which it does not, pursuant to SCOTUS rulings on it, including its most recent ruling on the DC gun-ban, which was overturned since it went too far, but also made clear that no rights are unlimited, and not every type of weapon is protected under 2A.

The federal government can only argue for a power to be granted to it to restrict the possession and use of arms that fail the protection tests and are thus "dangerous and unusual". It has no power to restrict the private citizen's possession and use of arms that are of the type that constitute the ordinary military equipment, and/or in common use at the time, and or can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.

And to clarify, I am merely stating SCOTUS opinion, which not only matters, but is THE law of the land. Opinions expressed herein are little more than wishful-thinking.

That is obviously incorrect, you quote not a syllable of SCOTUS opinion to support your inventions . . . because you can't.

SCOTUS has ruled that hand guns have been and are used primarily for self-defense. Conversely, SCOTUS has never held that ARs/AWs are primarily used for self-defense, nor ever overruled an AWB.

And whether or not you like that or agree with it, it remains a fact.

SCOTUS only needed to use one protection criteria to strike down the DC statutes. SCOTUS stated that handguns were "in common use" thus they can not be deemed "dangerous and unusual" thus the government's claim of power to restrict the possession and use by law-abiding citizens was invalidated.

Assault weapon bans have never been examined under any established test so how can you say that any AWB would survive (especially when any reasonable application of the protection criteria demands the opposite)?

 

[Federalist]

Hitler? Please provide me a list of rights of the Holocaust victims and I will be glad to tell you if their rights were violated.

This is one of the most asinine posts I have seen here on DP.