- Joined
- Jan 17, 2022
- Messages
- 7,432
- Reaction score
- 6,200
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
As I've stated repeatedly, nobody was talking about the Second Amendment being an unequivocal right to own guns until the late 1970s. So for the first 200 years of this country's history, no Republicans (or Democrats) were talking this stupid shit.
This is nothing but propaganda cooked-up by the NRA less than 50 years ago and it has brainwashed unsophisticated Republican goobers ever since, as this article explains. --
And here is why all of the Republican Constitution "Originalist scholars" are so full of shit as well. --
This is nothing but propaganda cooked-up by the NRA less than 50 years ago and it has brainwashed unsophisticated Republican goobers ever since, as this article explains. --
To counter calls for stricter gun laws in the wake of the massacre of elementary school students in Uvalde, Tex., Republican politicians cite the Second Amendment, saying that the government cannot infringe on people’s right to protect themselves, and that this is fundamental to preserving liberty.
“[R]arely has the Second Amendment been more necessary to secure the rights of our fellow citizens,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said at this year’s National Rifle Association convention, held in Houston days after the shooting.
But historians say that the notion that the amendment protects people’s right to have guns for self-defense is a relatively recent reading of the Constitution, born out of a conservative push in the 1980s and ’90s.
The text of the Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The historical consensus is that, for most of American history, the amendment was understood to concern the use of guns in connection with militia service. The Founding Fathers were likely focused on keeping state militias from being disarmed, said Joseph Blocher, who specializes in the Second Amendment at Duke University’s law school.
“An individual’s right to use guns in self-defense is not expressly written in the Constitution,” said Reva Siegel, a law professor at Yale who has written prominent law review articles on the subject.
The interpretation that the Second Amendment extends to individuals’ rights to own guns only became mainstream in 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark gun case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns in their homes, knocking down the District’s handgun ban.
“That was the first Supreme Court decision to strike down a gun-control law in constitutional history,” Siegel said — and at the time, the court’s reading was considered broad even to a number of conservatives.
In the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the “militia” phrase was merely a “preface” rather than part of its integral meaning. With the exception of felons, some people deemed to have serious mental illness, “sensitive places” such as schools or courthouses, or “dangerous weapons,” the Second Amendment allows regular people to own firearms in their homes, he argued.
And here is why all of the Republican Constitution "Originalist scholars" are so full of shit as well. --
More liberal and moderate justices like Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, advocating for the long-standing view that the amendment concerned the use of guns in connection with militia service.
It is “striking” that professed originalists of the constitution, like Scalia, would set aside such a major phrase in the constitution — about militias — in favor of a more modern-day interpretation, Siegel wrote in her paper.