The Supreme Court Rules That the Second Amendment Means What It Says

obama

you have no right to say that he is important and he is doing his job he is running for president

D.C. Gun Case.

All one has to do is read the Declaration of Independence to understand where the founders were coming from when they wrote the Second Amendment (Yes, it's true that the DOI is not law, so don't even go there. It's the best declaration of the philosophical principles upon which the much of the constitution is based.)

"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,"

The founders believed that any government, including an elected one, was subject to corruption and that at some point may become so destructive of the rights of its citizens such that force would have to be used to abolish it.

Just my opinion.

No reason to fear a total gun ban

Since the Supreme Court in the Heller decision struck down the D.C. handgun ban by affirming the 2nd Amendment represents an individual (but by no means absolute) right, that leaves existing federal gun laws intact and allows some state/local gun regulations, but prohibits a total gun ban.

Ironically, some American gun owners may still fear a total ban on private ownership even though it's clearly impossible.

Obama and Guns

Obama is nothing more than another elitist gungrabber who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. First, despite the ahistorical lies of commie/leftist Democrats in this country over the last forty or so years, the term "militia" as used in the Second Amendment refers to the whole body of the People. If the founders had wanted to direct the amendment to the right of state militias to be armed (i.e. the National Guard units which didn't come into existence until the early 1900s), they would have used the term "state militia" or select militia." The leftist view is totally absurd on two levels. First, the constitutional architects would have used either the term "select militia" or "state militia" and not simply "militia." Secondly, when does it become necessary to guarantee "state militias" or the "National Guard" the right to be armed? Absolute bunk ... but what do you expect from a bunch of leftist gungrabbers who haven't an honest intellectual bone in their body.

As far as I'm concerned any sane, law-abiding citizen of legal age (indexed to the reality one can serve in the American Armed Forces and die for their country at the age of 17) ought to be able to own any smallarm(s) of their choice. The problem isn't whether a firearm is single-shot, semi-automatic, or full-automatic, the problem is whether a person is insane or a criminal. Even now a law-abiding person is able to own full-automatic small arms in 48 states (and no, you can't own a nuclear weapon or explosive/destructive device since the historical definition of "arms" in the Second Amendment is "small arms" ... not artillery pieces or handgrenades) if they file a Class III application and pay a $200 fee. And even then it can be legitimately argued this too is an "infringement" of the Second Amendment by the federal government.

Despite all the hysterics of left-wing gungrabbers, the reality still remains, that despite the hundreds of thousands of full-automatic weapons in the hands of sane freemen everywhere in this country, only about two or three of those weapons have ever been used in the commission of a crime over the last fifty or so years, and one of those was registered to a cop.

But putting aside the full-automatic controverys, it's clear to any honest student of history that the American founders weren't interested in merely establishing a country club (you know, the leftists' "sporting arms argument") but rather a free country zealously protected by a citizens' militia if it came down to that. But I don't expect too many of the elitist leftist in the People's Republic of Illinois, for example, to appreciate that truth even after this latest SCOTUS decision.

Obama and Guns

This is just another issue where Obama is moving to the center to try and get elected. Here is an article I published about it: http://www.antiobama.net/2008/07/obama-runs---no.html

Awful English

"The Supreme Court Rules That the Second Amendment Means What It Says"

Of really? What exactly does thjs awkward piece of sentence construciton mean?

Putting the issue of guns aside, the 27 words of the Second Amendment are horribly written. If they were written for the first time for a junior high English paper, the student would get an F.

Our Founding Fathers were great men, but they didn't pitch a perfect game.

Right to bear arms

Regarding the 2nd amendment...when we attempt to understand the intention of the writers of the Bill of Rights, we must keep in mind the manner in which they spoke the English language back in the late 1700's

More importantly, remember the spirit in which the Bill of Rights was written...the main theme of the Bill of Rights was to outline what the Federal Govt did not have the right to do. It's principal purpose was to set in stone those things that the federal government could not impose on its citizens (thereby ensuring "individual" freedoms).

Here is how the 2nd amendment was originally worded and the copy that was distributed to the states (and subsequently ratified by those states)...."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". Note that in this original writing the only two words capitalized in the sentence were State and People.

My understanding is that the 2nd amendment was establising two separate "rights":

1. Each free state had the right to establish its own well regulated militia.

2. Every citizen of the United States had the right to keep and bear arms (guns).

These two rights are separated by a comma in the sentence.

Read the second amendment for yourself (the actual words) and see if you come up with any different way to interprete what was meant by these words.

You know....no matter how straight forward any words are written, you are always going to have a certain part of the population trying to change the meaning of the words in order to fit their own political agenda.

For those of you who say that in order to interprete the 2nd amendment we must consider the degree of violence caused by hand guns in this country.....you are mixing two completly different issues...one is a constitutional right, the other is a responsibility to obey the laws. We must remember that with each freedom comes responsibility.

Second Amendment

One of your readers who responded to the Second Amend. decision by the Supreme Court use the usual gun graber logic. The 2nd amend. clear states

that the individual has the right to own and BEAR arms. It also says that they are not to be infringed on. To try to argue that it leaves the door open for states and other localities to ban the owning and bear of arms is twisting the meaning of the

words of the amend.

When the founders wrote the 2nd amend. they gave it the same kind of meaning like the 4th and 5th amendments (and also the 9th and the 10th). You can also

read many of the founders writings on the issue. I, at this time, do not remember exactly which founding father said this, (but I can find it) that "no freeman would ever be disbarred the use of arms" this statement alone show their pro ownership

atitutude towards the people owning and bearing arms

By the way does this person know where are "gun control" law where taken from?

They where take from the NAZI gun control laws. After the nazi gun control laws

were implimented, Htler was quoted as saying we have made the country (Germany) safe for government. I wonder why he said that?!

Second Amedment

The Bill of Rights sets out basic rights that cannot be infringed by the federal government. Before the passage of the 14th amendment, it guaranteed none of these rights vis a vis state and local governments. The statement about militias in the Second Amenment indicates that the regulation of guns is beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government. At the time, states had militias. Federal government had an army. The intent of the amendment to restrict what the federal government can do. There was no intention to restrict what states or localities could do. Only with the due process of clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were certain "due process" items in the Bill of Rights interpreted by courts to restrict what states can do. As such, the courts ruling that the DC law is unconstitutional is based on the DC being a federal jurisdiction. To extend it other states and cities would require the court's interpreting the "right to bear arms" as falling under the "due process" clause of the fourteenth amendment. I think it is a stretch to argue that the right to own a gun is essential to the "due process of law."

RIGHT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO BEAR ARMS

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO BEAR ARMS

It is not primarily for their collecting; nor primarily for their hunting; nor even primarily for their self-defense against violent criminals; it is primarily for well regulated militias in every state; ready, when faced with intolerable governmental tyranny, for explosive bloody revolt to preserve their Liberty.

Just as every sensible American child should grow up knowing exactly how to safely use the automobile for transportation; so too every sensible American child should grow up knowing exactly how to safely use the gun for revolution.

Every well informed American knows that the Right to Bear Arms is a sacred integral part of the American system of Constitutional government, by the People and for the People, in which their executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government are subordinate to the supreme democratic majority will of the People.

Every sensible American governmental official has a very healthy fear of this inherent revolutionary power of the American People.

Every American governmental official knows that any action subversive to the Constitutional Rights of the American People is an act of tyranny.