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My biggest pet peeve in gun debates

Yes we are a violent society. And guns make homicide and suicide easier.
Knives make homicide easier. Belts and ropes make suicide easier.

Should we allow the government to ignore the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and SCOTUS to try to make us safer?
 
Knives make homicide easier. Belts and ropes make suicide easier.
lol...don't forget swimming pools...smh
Should we allow the government to ignore the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and SCOTUS to try to make us safer?
Yes. After all, they do it for pretty much everything except guns. Read the Patriot Act. Let me know if you understand it.
 
Knives make homicide easier. Belts and ropes make suicide easier.

Should we allow the government to ignore the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and SCOTUS to try to make us safer?
One can honor the Constitution and control guns. Supreme Court said so.
 
One can honor the Constitution and control guns. Supreme Court said so.
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 are the only ones that can be presumed to be Constitutional. All others must be reviewed for Constitutionality.
 
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 are the only ones that can be presumed to be Constitutional. All others must be reviewed for Constitutionality.
I disagree but accept the court’s dumb decision. Let the carnage continue! Freedom!
 
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 are the only ones that can be presumed to be Constitutional. All others must be reviewed for Constitutionality.
You are mistaken. First, United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) was not constitutionally decided. Second, the Supreme Court already held that the federal government may not establish "Gun Free School Zones" in United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995). Which also makes the new criteria added by Scalia in Heller and latter regurgitated in McDonald unconstitutional, since none of that exists anywhere within the US Constitution much less the Second Amendment. The federal courts has already held the conditions and qualifications of age on the commercial sale of arms to be unconstitutional.


The only reason States have established these firearm restrictions in the first place is because the Supreme Court has been negligent for 153 years by failing to apply the Fourteenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights and allowing States to deliberately violate the Second Amendment.

Why are you so eager to adopt what is clearly a violation of the US Constitution?
 
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Why do you disagree? Can you defend your position?
My belief is that the Second Amendment is about militias, since as with other items in the Bill of Rights, it reflects reactions to the beefs the Founders had with British rule. (Cf the 3rd Amendment: if the Founders were composing a “Bill of Rights” from scratch without the memory of British rule, doubt they would have included something about the quartering of troops.) The 2nd is also a poorly written sentence. The Founders should have put a “thus” between the clauses for the meaning I prefer if that’s what they meant, or an “and” or “in addition” between the two clauses for the spin Supreme Court put on the language. A semicolon would have also served to reinforce the gun advocates position. As it is, the comma makes the amendment open to both interpretations.
 
I disagree but accept the court’s dumb decision. Let the carnage continue! Freedom!
What should the court have held?
 
My belief is that the Second Amendment is about militias, since as with other items in the Bill of Rights, it reflects reactions to the beefs the Founders had with British rule. (Cf the 3rd Amendment: if the Founders were composing a “Bill of Rights” from scratch without the memory of British rule, doubt they would have included something about the quartering of troops.) The 2nd is also a poorly written sentence. The Founders should have put a “thus” between the clauses for the meaning I prefer if that’s what they meant, or an “and” or “in addition” between the two clauses for the spin Supreme Court put on the language. A semicolon would have also served to reinforce the gun advocates position. As it is, the comma makes the amendment open to both interpretations.
before we even get to the second, we have to determine what affirmative powers the federal government has. where in the constitution was gun control a power granted to the federal government . As to the second, there is no claim that the "right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
 
What should the court have held?
Probably that someone who irresponsibly pulls a gun on innocents three times in ten years, then brags about shooting a "black mope" in the gut, should not be legally allowed to carry a gun. After all, someone bragging about harming another person, as you did in that post cited from 2010, does not make for responsible gun ownership.

If anything, behavior like that fuels the flames for those dead set on banning guns from those of us who ARE responsible gun owners. You know, the peeps who have not shot anyone and then bragged about it in a chat room.
 
Probably that someone who irresponsibly pulls a gun on innocents three times in ten years, then brags about shooting a "black mope" in the gut, should not be legally allowed to carry a gun. After all, someone bragging about harming another person, as you did in that post cited from 2010, does not make for responsible gun ownership.

If anything, behavior like that fuels the flames for those dead set on banning guns from those of us who ARE responsible gun owners. You know, the peeps who have not shot anyone and then bragged about it in a chat room.
why are you calling people innocents when you haven't a clue. The first group were trespassers with one engaged in threatening/assaultive behavior, the second one was charged with DC/D&D and could have been charged with attempted B&E. The third one was indicted for attempted robbery and was also sentenced for probation violations.

How anyone with a shred of honesty claim those individuals were "innocent" is hilarious while claiming that the one person who was not arrested was "irresponsible" demonstrates the intrinsic mendacity in your posts
 
My belief is that the Second Amendment is about militias, since as with other items in the Bill of Rights, it reflects reactions to the beefs the Founders had with British rule. (Cf the 3rd Amendment: if the Founders were composing a “Bill of Rights” from scratch without the memory of British rule, doubt they would have included something about the quartering of troops.) The 2nd is also a poorly written sentence. The Founders should have put a “thus” between the clauses for the meaning I prefer if that’s what they meant, or an “and” or “in addition” between the two clauses for the spin Supreme Court put on the language. A semicolon would have also served to reinforce the gun advocates position. As it is, the comma makes the amendment open to both interpretations.
Your belief appears to stem from a desire to attack legal gun ownership for political reasons. There is nothing in the words of the founders or the context of when the constitution was drafted, that suggests your revisionist interpretation has any support
 
Why indeed. Why are you compelled to brag about shooting another human being? Regardless of the circumstances, responsible gun owners do not brag about shit like that.
 
Why indeed. Why are you compelled to brag about shooting another human being? Regardless of the circumstances, responsible gun owners do not brag about shit like that.
why are you compelled to constantly bring this up-thread after thread-whether it is relevant or not? You don't speak for responsible gun owners-your posts troll them and bait them and insult them. And based on your own words, responsible gun ownership is not something you understand
 
why are you compelled to constantly bring this up-thread after thread-whether it is relevant or not? You don't speak for responsible gun owners-your posts troll them and bait them and insult them. And based on your own words, responsible gun ownership is not something you understand
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to feed the trolls? :rolleyes:

If you don't enjoy being trolled, then why are you continuously responding to trolls? One can only concluded that you enjoy being trolled.

To paraphrase the 1878 edition of The Rochester Evening Express, "Don’t argue with a fool, or the listener will say there is a pair of you." Trolls can't exist in a vacuum.
 
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to feed the trolls? :rolleyes:

If you don't enjoy being trolled, then why are you continuously responding to trolls? One can only concluded that you enjoy being trolled.

To paraphrase the 1878 edition of The Rochester Evening Express, "Don’t argue with a fool, or the listener will say there is a pair of you." Trolls can't exist in a vacuum.
Your point is well taken and I should have done this weeks ago.
 
What am I adopting here?
You appear to be eagerly adopting the unconstitutional criteria added in both the Miller (e.g., your "common use" reference) and Heller decisions. Neither of which pass the constitutional test, but you appear to avidly support them none the less.

Nowhere does the US Constitution or the Second Amendment say that only firearms that are in "common use" are covered by the Second Amendment. Nor does the US Constitution or the Second Amendment exempts weapons "specifically designed for military use" or weapons that are "employed in a military capacity." Which makes both criteria unconstitutional.

I can understand the Miller decision, since the Supreme Court was under extreme duress by a fascist President in 1937. No Supreme Court decision between 1937 and 1945 can be trusted as valid. However, Scalia's new unconstitutional criteria in Heller is inexcusable and unacceptable. He simply made up his own criteria, and completely disregarded what the US Constitution actually says.

The only criteria that can be construed from the Second Amendment as it was written is that the individual "...right of the people to keep and bear arms..." must be a weapon system operated by an individual - since it is an individual and not a collective right - and the "arms" in question must be portable by an individual - as in "bear arms." There is no other criteria.
 
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Didn't your mother ever tell you not to feed the trolls? :rolleyes:

If you don't enjoy being trolled, then why are you continuously responding to trolls? One can only concluded that you enjoy being trolled.

To paraphrase the 1878 edition of The Rochester Evening Express, "Don’t argue with a fool, or the listener will say there is a pair of you." Trolls can't exist in a vacuum.
That would require self control, something an irresponsible gun owner who recklessly pulls his gun on innocents three times in less than ten years, eventually shooting one, clearly lacks.
 
You appear to be eagerly adopting the unconstitutional criteria added in both the Miller (e.g., your "common use" reference) and Heller decisions. Neither of which pass the constitutional test, but you appear to avidly support them none the less.

Nowhere does the US Constitution or the Second Amendment say that only firearms that are in "common use" are covered by the Second Amendment. Nor does the US Constitution or the Second Amendment exempts weapons "specifically designed for military use" or weapons that are "employed in a military capacity." Which makes both criteria unconstitutional.

I can understand the Miller decision, since the Supreme Court was under extreme duress by a fascist President in 1937. No Supreme Court decision between 1937 and 1945 can be trusted as valid. However, Scalia's new unconstitutional criteria in Heller is inexcusable and unacceptable. He simply made up his own criteria, and completely disregarded what the US Constitution actually says.

The only criteria that can be construed from the Second Amendment as it was written is that the individual "...right of the people to keep and bear arms..." must be a weapon system operated by an individual - since it is an individual and not a collective right - and the "arms" in question must be portable by an individual - as in "bear arms." There is no other criteria.
One of Scalia's more prominent law clerks, Steve Calabresi-Currently professor at Northwestern Law School and one of the founders of the Federalist Society, noted that his former boss was a "faint hearted originalist" who would not overturn even obviously unconstitutional laws or decisions if doing so would cause "major social upheaval" . Calabresi-in the Taft lecture at the U of Cincinnati School of Law in 2012 (discussing how he thought the supremes would rule on the then pending Obamacare suit) -thus opined that Scalia would not vote to say overturn social security or Medicare even though those laws clearly were unconstitutional as was FDRs expansion of the commerce clause, because doing so would cause that upheaval. However, Calabresi correctly predicted that Scalia would not support Obamacare since it was based on that improper expansion of the commerce clause.

Scalia's opinion in Heller was written in an environment where Justice Kennedy was being lobbied extensively by Breyer and Souter to support the gun ban-the lobbying included claims that Scalia wanted to throw out the Gun Control Act of 68-which is the federal law that federally bans felons, those who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent, etc. They also hinted he wanted to overturn all sorts of state gun laws. Scalia's paying homage to that precedent and stating that such bans were not going to be revisited was specifically designed to keep Kennedy on board, while conforming with Scalia's past practice of not striking down bad-but well entrenched precedent.

BTW Scalia -joining a dissent written by the strongest pro gun justice-Clarence Thomas-noted that semi auto rifles that use detachable magazines-are clearly within the Heller umbrella since they are both in common use and not unusually dangerous
 
One of Scalia's more prominent law clerks, Steve Calabresi-Currently professor at Northwestern Law School and one of the founders of the Federalist Society, noted that his former boss was a "faint hearted originalist" who would not overturn even obviously unconstitutional laws or decisions if doing so would cause "major social upheaval" . Calabresi-in the Taft lecture at the U of Cincinnati School of Law in 2012 (discussing how he thought the supremes would rule on the then pending Obamacare suit) -thus opined that Scalia would not vote to say overturn social security or Medicare even though those laws clearly were unconstitutional as was FDRs expansion of the commerce clause, because doing so would cause that upheaval. However, Calabresi correctly predicted that Scalia would not support Obamacare since it was based on that improper expansion of the commerce clause.
From the new criteria that Scalia added to Heller, I certainly got that impression. One of those "don't rock the boat" Justices with no spine, or common sense apparently. Considering it was the Supreme Court's very actions of "selective incorporation" of the Bill of Rights that led States to enact 153 years of unconstitutional laws. So this was a problem of the Supreme Court's own making.

Scalia's opinion in Heller was written in an environment where Justice Kennedy was being lobbied extensively by Breyer and Souter to support the gun ban-the lobbying included claims that Scalia wanted to throw out the Gun Control Act of 68-which is the federal law that federally bans felons, those who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent, etc. They also hinted he wanted to overturn all sorts of state gun laws. Scalia's paying homage to that precedent and stating that such bans were not going to be revisited was specifically designed to keep Kennedy on board, while conforming with Scalia's past practice of not striking down bad-but well entrenched precedent.

BTW Scalia -joining a dissent written by the strongest pro gun justice-Clarence Thomas-noted that semi auto rifles that use detachable magazines-are clearly within the Heller umbrella since they are both in common use and not unusually dangerous
So how was Scalia new unconstitutional criteria an improvement over Kennedy's lack of support for the US Constitution? Now every firearm the military chooses to employ can be banned, even those "in common use." That includes every 12-guage shotgun made in the US. After all, at some point in time or another, the military has "employed" every 12-guage shotgun made in the US. Since they are no longer covered under Scalia's new criteria, they can be banned freely, even by the federal government.

Scalia made things much, much worse. It would have been better to allow Kennedy to defect to the anti-American side, it would have caused less damage than Scalia's unconstitutional criteria in the long run.
 
From the new criteria that Scalia added to Heller, I certainly got that impression. One of those "don't rock the boat" Justices with no spine, or common sense apparently. Considering it was the Supreme Court's very actions of "selective incorporation" of the Bill of Rights that led States to enact 153 years of unconstitutional laws. So this was a problem of the Supreme Court's own making.


So how was Scalia new unconstitutional criteria an improvement over Kennedy's lack of support for the US Constitution? Now every firearm the military chooses to employ can be banned, even those "in common use." That includes every 12-guage shotgun made in the US. After all, at some point in time or another, the military has "employed" every 12-guage shotgun made in the US. Since they are no longer covered under Scalia's new criteria, they can be banned freely, even by the federal government.
if a firearm is in common use (which is up on the air and Scalia hinted later on that the government couldn't ban a new firearm and claim it was not in common use if civilian authorities commonly used it but I cannot recall if that was a speech or dicta) and is not "unusually dangerous" it was protected. I believe that scalia got as good as he could get given four justices thought the ban was ok and Kennedy was erratic

now that the court is "better" they need to make sure that crap like the Maryland gun bans are stricken
 
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