Originally Posted by
ConHog
The 2nd simply isn't adequate for the times. Not in protecting our right to own guns and not in protecting us from unlawful gun use.
The reason that the 2nd isn't adequate is that the people at large no longer hold the government to the confines of the Constitution. To rely on a superfluous, redundant sentence to be the final security for the right to arms when government has far exceeded the powers granted to it, is futile and doomed to fail. When the debate of what the right "is" can be focused on a semantics argument over what words mean, to discern what the 2nd Amendment "lets" the citizen own . . . INSTEAD of examining the Constitution to discern what the government is allowed to do . . . Well, the discussion of "rights" is moot as you are now debating the breadth of a privilege and how it is to be permitted, licensed, conditioned and qualified by bureaucrats.
Originally Posted by
ConHog
We need a new amendment which does just that. I question how ANY gun control law can be ruled constitutional when the 2nd in fact says " can NOT be infringed"
I would support an amendment that when enforced as a general rule, would end all extra-constitutional power. Something that reminds all, governments and citizens alike, that the federal government only possesses the limited, expressly enumerated powers granted to it and everything else is excepted out of that grant of power and retained by the people or the states . . . Oh wait, somebody already thought of that.
Originally Posted by
ConHog
accepting of course that the court has ruled that the states are bound the by the 2nd as well. Which I'm not sure I agree with that either, but more on that later.
At least when the Freedmens Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment were debated and ratified and enacted the action of the 2nd Amendment had not yet been subjected to the communitarian, government enabling, Constitution destroying cancer of the Bolshevik Revolution.
That the enforcers of the discriminatory statutes known as the Black Codes were the official militias of the states demanded federal action.
Of course Congress disbanding the state militias and trying to protect the rights (including gun rights) of former slaves, now citizens from those government agents, is lost on modern, enlightened people on the left (especially Black "civil rights activists"). They now essentially argue that the Amendment is moot and outdated and that we owe the benevolent, munificent government our complete trust, evidenced by our surrender of arms and granting government an absolute monopoly of force.
Originally Posted by
ConHog
At the same, any sane person can recognize that there does need to be some form of checks allowed so that the government can provide for the safety of people. I know I know many argue that it is a person's own responsibility to protect themselves , and that is true - as far as it goes . In reality the government is also constitutionally bound to provide for the security of her citizens.
Governments at all levels claim and hold legal immunity and are not "constitutionally bound to provide for the security of her citizens". This has been enforced in statute and established by state and federal courts including SCOTUS. The only circumstance when a government entity is responsible for the safety of any citizen is in a custodial situation (e.g., child services) or when a person is in custody, AND THE ABILITY OF THE PERSON TO ACT IN THEIR OWN DEFENSE HAS BEEN DISABLED.
You have no right to feel or actually be "safe" as there is no government entity to hold responsible if you are scared or are actually harmed.
Of course you do have a right to self-defense but various governments have claimed the power to disarm you for the safety of other people (which they refuse responsibility for). Does anyone else recognize the cognitive dissonance inherent in that policy? Can anyone argue that condition is a legitimate one to enforce against a free people?
Originally Posted by
ConHog
I propose that a new amendment be written that clearly identifies what we may own, and under what circumstances.
No thanks. I don't need any agent of the government to tell me what my rights are. My rights predate the Constitution and the governmental authority created by it. By the Constitution's structure, no governmental agency, elected official or bureaucrat has any legitimate import on the extent of my rights, only of laws. This also extends to the courts including SCOTUS . . . As a creation of the Constitution their duty is NOT to determine if a right exists, or its scope, or whether enforcing it will be popular or have sociological impact; their only duty and jurisdiction is to determine whether a challenged law is beyond the strictly limited, clearly defined powers delegated to the legislature.
I find especially repugnant any member of Congress pontificating on the extent of my rights or reassuring me that their proposed actions won't harm my rights. Their purview is only the creation of law at the citizen's behest, not the extent of the citizen's rights.
Their only legitimate concern regarding my rights is to not exceed the legislative authority granted to them by the Constitution . . . if the bastards could only stick to that all our rights would be safe and this discussion and innumerable ones like it would not be necessary.
The Bill of Rights is redundant; the only thing those provisions "do" is redundantly forbid the government to exercise powers it was never granted.
Originally Posted by
ConHog
The whole bit about militias and such can just be thrown out the window. We need no written reason to exercise our right to own firearms. Does the first supply a reason for needing the right to free speech? No, it simply states that we have that right.
And that has been the unwavering holding of SCOTUS regarding the right to arms for going on 140 years.
". . . it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment , like the First and Fourth Amendment s, 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 United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876) , “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. . . . "
DC v Heller
Both you and the statist, communitarian left is on a mission to purposely ignore the Constitution and ignore the Supreme Court.
What you say you want and what the left no doubt wants to completely destroy, is already constitutional law.
It just needs to be respected and obeyed.