Just as the Constitution doesn't say everyone has the right to abortion...

They largely were, yes. semi-autos and machine guns existed when the Bill of Rights was made. Lewis and Clark went on their expedition with semi-auto weapons. Sorry you can't handle history.
ha ha ha

Let’s be clear, you are actually “arguing” guns 250 years ago were the same as today.
 
ha ha ha

Let’s be clear, you are actually “arguing” guns 250 years ago were the same as today.

No he’s not arguing that. I think he IS saying that they had much more advanced weapons than muzzle loaded muskets, and that the population was allowed to own the most advanced weaponry of the day.
 
No, if you'd read that.
I don't know anyone who denies his financial backing, but once he was elected, he did what all politicians do when they need money, they print it. They engage in reckless inflationary monetary policies that ruin the economy.

Those business interests didn't want to see the south secede from the Union as this would cut into their profits. The south saw that they were being treated as a foreign country anyways so why not make it official? The reality is that they were being treated as an opposing enemy. Any time economic sanctions or tariffs are utilized, it is an act of war. The south did only what was economically prudent and just under the circumstances.
 
Interesting. Has nothing whatsoever to do with what we were discussing,
It has to do with this: "So I’ve read numerous articles supporting what I’ve said." Now you can add my little article to your collection. What I've discovered through trial and error is that when I provide links, I am peppered with one objection after another, e.g. "talking points", "quote mining", etc.

You didn't provide any links either, and I'm not asking for any. At least I'm consistent.
 
It has to do with this: "So I’ve read numerous articles supporting what I’ve said." Now you can add my little article to your collection. What I've discovered through trial and error is that when I provide links, I am peppered with one objection after another, e.g. "talking points", "quote mining", etc.

You didn't provide any links either, and I'm not asking for any. At least I'm consistent.

Im not being inconsistent. If you had asked for links I would have provided some. You didn’t. -shrug-
 
Yes, I have heard you make that argument before.
Somehow the presence of a comma means the first part of the sentence can be ignored,
I'm sorry you dislike grammar.
according to you,
According to grammar and a number of other examples of the use of the prefatory clause around the time of the writing of the Amendment.


Here's an analogy.

“A well kept library, being necessary to the education of an intelligent nation, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."

Whose right to keep and read books shall not be infringed, the library, or the people?

Is the act of keeping and reading books subservient to how the library is kept?

Does the library have to belong to the state?

Would you accept any infringement on what books you may or may not own and read?



but if that were the case, then why was it included.
It announces a purpose, but does not limit that which follows (the operative clause) to that purpose .

Prefatory clauses are not common today, but in this case it is the equivalent of having written "Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Here's Rhode Island's constitution using a similar prefatory clause:
The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state, any person may publish his sentiments on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty

Would you assert that Rhode Island only gave the right to publish their sentiments on any subject, to the press? Of course not, that's not remotely how it reads. Yet that's how you are trying to read the 2nd Amendment.

And as it was included, what is your interpretation of its meaning? The fact is that this clause does indeed modify the rest of the sentence, and eliminating it altogether when quoting the amendment is what is dishonest.
It does not modify the rest of the sentence. It enhances it by providing an important reason why the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.
It is clear that the new federal govt of the USA was dependent on militias for defense and needed to make sure they were armed. That was the whole point of the second amendment. This need is obviously no longer operational, as we now have a standing army.
George Mason, the co-writer of the 2nd Amendment:
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." -- Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1778

"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power." -- Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776

Richard Henry Lee wrote in Letters From the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Letter XVIII, January 25, 1788 that "A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves" and made it clear that it "include all men capable of bearing arms" and added that "The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle."

The position that the Second Amendment guarantees a right of individual Americans to own and carry (private ownership), was embraced by every known legal scholar in the 19th century who wrote about the Second Amendment (although several wrote about its limitations, all considered it an individual right), and is the consensus of most modern legal scholarship. Any claim to the contrary is pure historical revisionism.

St. George Tucker, a judge and law professor from Virginia, published an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, in 1803, where he added explanations of how it related to American law, including the new Constitution. Shortly after, Tucker's Blackstone became nearly universally regarded as being the leading American authority on both Blackstone and American law.

Tucker addressed the Second Amendment in several places, clearly saying that it protected the individual, natural right of self-defense. After quoting the amendment he wrote:

"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty... The right of self defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

In his notes concerning Blackstone's description of the individual's right to have and use arms for self-defense, Tucker applauded the Second Amendment's "right of the people" for being "without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government." In everything that Tucker wrote he explained that the right belonged to the individuals and not to some collective state right.


William Rawle of Pennsylvania, who had turned down an offer by George Washington to be the nation's first Attorney General, published his View of the Constitution of the United States of America in 1825 with a second edition printed in 1829. In it, especially in the second edition, he made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms belonged to the ordinary citizen, writing that
"No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people."

This same view can again be seen in the very influential 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States by Supreme Court Justice and law professor Joseph Story, as well as in his later Familiar Exposition of the Constitution. By paraphrasing the "right of the people" as the "right of the citizens" -- not of States or members of a militia -- Story left zero doubt that he meant the right to belong to individuals. He unequivocally stated that:
"the right of the citizens to keep, and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic."

Story was even more direct in his Familiar Exposition when he wrote:

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is by disarming the people and making it an offense to keep arms."

Henry Tucker (son of St. George) shared the view of the Second Amendment as securing an individual right. In an 1831 commentary he stated:

"The right of bearing arms ... is practically enjoyed by every citizen, and is among his most valuable privileges."

And this view was the one expressed after the Civil War as well (Woods 1886, Black 1895) as well as in how the Freeman Bureau Act of 1866, referred to the rights of the people included:
"the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such State or district without respect to race or color, or previous conditions of slavery."
 
Yes. And…? That has nothing to do with your claim that I was addressing. Which was, to refresh your memory: “And those musket owners would have to be part of a well-regulated militia.”

So yes the general population had to be armed in order for the militia to work. But not every musket owner had to be part of the militia.

You get it?
And you don't get my point, which is that if you deny individuals the right to own guns, there would be no militias. the goal was clearly to find a way to arm militias, and if some armed men chose not to join, well, OK.
 
I'm sorry you dislike grammar.

According to grammar and a number of other examples of the use of the prefatory clause around the time of the writing of the Amendment.


Here's an analogy.

“A well kept library, being necessary to the education of an intelligent nation, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."

Whose right to keep and read books shall not be infringed, the library, or the people?

Is the act of keeping and reading books subservient to how the library is kept?

Does the library have to belong to the state?

Would you accept any infringement on what books you may or may not own and read?




It announces a purpose, but does not limit that which follows (the operative clause) to that purpose .

Prefatory clauses are not common today, but in this case it is the equivalent of having written "Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Here's Rhode Island's constitution using a similar prefatory clause:
The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state, any person may publish his sentiments on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty

Would you assert that Rhode Island only gave the right to publish their sentiments on any subject, to the press? Of course not, that's not remotely how it reads. Yet that's how you are trying to read the 2nd Amendment.


It does not modify the rest of the sentence. It enhances it by providing an important reason why the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.

George Mason, the co-writer of the 2nd Amendment:




Richard Henry Lee wrote in Letters From the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Letter XVIII, January 25, 1788 that "A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves" and made it clear that it "include all men capable of bearing arms" and added that "The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle."

The position that the Second Amendment guarantees a right of individual Americans to own and carry (private ownership), was embraced by every known legal scholar in the 19th century who wrote about the Second Amendment (although several wrote about its limitations, all considered it an individual right), and is the consensus of most modern legal scholarship. Any claim to the contrary is pure historical revisionism.

St. George Tucker, a judge and law professor from Virginia, published an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, in 1803, where he added explanations of how it related to American law, including the new Constitution. Shortly after, Tucker's Blackstone became nearly universally regarded as being the leading American authority on both Blackstone and American law.

Tucker addressed the Second Amendment in several places, clearly saying that it protected the individual, natural right of self-defense. After quoting the amendment he wrote:



In his notes concerning Blackstone's description of the individual's right to have and use arms for self-defense, Tucker applauded the Second Amendment's "right of the people" for being "without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government." In everything that Tucker wrote he explained that the right belonged to the individuals and not to some collective state right.


William Rawle of Pennsylvania, who had turned down an offer by George Washington to be the nation's first Attorney General, published his View of the Constitution of the United States of America in 1825 with a second edition printed in 1829. In it, especially in the second edition, he made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms belonged to the ordinary citizen, writing that


This same view can again be seen in the very influential 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States by Supreme Court Justice and law professor Joseph Story, as well as in his later Familiar Exposition of the Constitution. By paraphrasing the "right of the people" as the "right of the citizens" -- not of States or members of a militia -- Story left zero doubt that he meant the right to belong to individuals. He unequivocally stated that:


Story was even more direct in his Familiar Exposition when he wrote:



Henry Tucker (son of St. George) shared the view of the Second Amendment as securing an individual right. In an 1831 commentary he stated:



And this view was the one expressed after the Civil War as well (Woods 1886, Black 1895) as well as in how the Freeman Bureau Act of 1866, referred to the rights of the people included:
This all boils down to the fact that there was no standing army at the time, and the only way to ensure national defense was through militias, and in order to ensure that the militias were armed, individuals had to have the right to own guns.

Maybe you noticed that we no longer rely on militias, as we have an army, so the point of the right to bear arms no longer applies.
 
And you don't get my point, which is that if you deny individuals the right to own guns, there would be no militias. the goal was clearly to find a way to arm militias, and if some armed men chose not to join, well, OK.

I was simply responding to your claim, “And those musket owners would have to be part of a well-regulated militia.” Which isn’t necessarily true. The right to bear arms was broad. Not everyone with the right to bear arms would end up in the militia.
 
This all boils down to the fact that there was no standing army at the time, and the only way to ensure national defense was through militias, and in order to ensure that the militias were armed, individuals had to have the right to own guns.

Maybe you noticed that we no longer rely on militias, as we have an army, so the point of the right to bear arms no longer applies.

Then the solution is to amend the constitution, not pretend that the right to bear arms doesn’t exist anymore.
 
This all boils down to the fact that there was no standing army at the time, and the only way to ensure national defense was through militias, and in order to ensure that the militias were armed, individuals had to have the right to own guns.

Maybe you noticed that we no longer rely on militias, as we have an army, so the point of the right to bear arms no longer applies.
No, it doesn't boil down to that. Sorry, but it most certainly applies. I see you couldn't manage to actually address the points I took the time to research and write out. Not surprised.
 
That's correct. It says, "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 first clause is a dependent clause, dependent upon the second clause. The second clause is an independent clause. It stands on its own.

The rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed -- a complete thought that stands on its own.
 
No he’s not arguing that. I think he IS saying that they had much more advanced weapons than muzzle loaded muskets, and that the population was allowed to own the most advanced weaponry of the day.
so?

Can we not agree that Thomas Jefferson was unaware of the AR-15?

I understand how desperate gun fetishists are to protect their toys, but the most advanced weapons today are biological and nuclear. We certainly aren't allowed to own those.

I am not for taking guns from responsible gun owners, which is pretty much every gun owner I know.

All I would like is an honest conversation, which neither side seems to be up for.
 
And you don't get my point, which is that if you deny individuals the right to own guns, there would be no militias. the goal was clearly to find a way to arm militias, and if some armed men chose not to join, well, OK.
But owning a gun doesnt kill anyone. To.kill someone one needs to shoot the gun at a human being or abort them from their mother's womb.

sorry, what was your point?
 
Im not being inconsistent.
Of course you are. You're also only reading one perspective on the subject.
If you had asked for links I would have provided some. You didn’t. -shrug-
I don't need links. You might as well provide a link to Gone With the Wind. I've heard these claims already. They're as common as the nonsense claiming the Civil War was to free slaves, or that the Boston Tea Party was to do away with onerous taxes, or that the citizenry of the US are free etc. smh.
 
Of course you are. You're also only reading one perspective on the subject.

False. And false.

I don't need links. You might as well provide a link to Gone With the Wind. I've heard these claims already. They're as common as the nonsense claiming the Civil War was to free slaves, or that the Boston Tea Party was to do away with onerous taxes, or that the citizenry of the US are free etc. smh.

Ok, you don't need links, but that just shows that I'm not being inconsistent. I've asked you for links, you won't provide it. You're not asking me for links, so I'm not giving you any. But I would if you asked. That's actually me being CONSISTENT, not inconsistent. LOL
 
This was the first ruling that recognized an individual right to own a gun, a right that did not exist in the 200+ years before that.
This ruling was one of many made by a SCOTUS that was remade as a wing of the GOP.
Prior to Heller it was recognized that in lieu of a standing army, the USA was dependent on "well-regulated militias" for defense. As the govt did not supply arms to these militias, it was recognized that the militia members should use their own personal weapons, and therefore needed to have the right to own those weapons for this particular purpose.
Ukrainians have the right to guns… paid for by the American people. But the American people shouldn’t? Is that it???
 
Ukrainians have the right to guns… paid for by the American people. But the American people shouldn’t? Is that it???
Right, because there's no difference between what's happening in these two countries, is there? They're both going through the same hardships, aren't they?

:rolleyes:
 
False. And false.
The fact that you believe the mainstream narrative spotlights that you've made no progress whatsoever in finding anything to the contrary.
Ok, you don't need links, but that just shows that I'm not being inconsistent. I've asked you for links,
And yet you never provided one yourself. That's not just inconsistent, it's a double standard. You ask for a higher standard for what others post than you provide yourself. Perhaps you haven't been here very long. History is presented through the lens of those who write it, and quite often they have an axe to grind, or some other motives.

I grew up believing the same nonsense you're presenting now. It's what they continue to teach in schools so no surprise that people continue to propagate this as if it's a Given.
 
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