The Second Amendment: Original Intent
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
This is a task they're already well equipped for, well practiced in, and pretty much designed for.
(And I believe it was always meant to be this way. The wisest idea "the founding fathers" left us with, was that of amendments - that none of this was carved in stone, nor should it be, nor could be.)
Electronic Frontiers Forum Presented at Dragon Con 2015 The Second Amendment: A Refreshing Perspective Tom Cross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp0-g-cjxmM
he's _decius_ on twitter.
I found his presentations at Blackhat and Defcon security conferences to be eye opening aswell.
You get a better sense here.
>“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
I bet the same people that use this section as a justification of armed citizenry acting as a militia have no issue with the US army being active
The dislike for a standing army was always more of a warning and a distaste among the founders than any actual legal or constitutional prohibition. Via the constitution, militias are desired (expected?) to be well-regulated, meaning you probably don't get to be a "militia" (in the any legal sense) just because you declare it. But the right to bear arms is really independent of that; and comes from fear of military occupation (foreign or domestic) as much as by anything else.
Sorry, I'm Canadian and think the entire US legal system is insane but that's NOT what the 2nd says. They're going to need to buckle down and amend it or agree it doesn't apply to crazy people or ... I don't know ... something. They can't just reinterpret it.
The firearms conflict is basically unending, because what it comes down to is personal philosophy. You either trust most people to be reasonable, or you trust only a select few. Since it's a personal belief, it's nigh-impossible to get someone to change their mind on it.
> The U.S. Supreme Court had never, until 2008, suggested even once that there was any such right. Warren Burger, the arch-conservative Supreme Court justice appointed by Richard Nixon, in an interview in 1991 described the then-new idea of an individual right to bear arms as “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
* http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/article28078752....
There's a book mentioned in the above article called "The Second Amendment: A Biography”, but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. The author, Michael Waldman, has some good interviews and talks online. It was released in 2014 and most of them are from then. These two are pretty good (about an hour each):
"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own land or tenements]" -Thomas Jefferson's proposal of language to add to the Virginia Constitution
Also, there is a supreme court ruling from my home state which expresses a view of the origin of this right which goes back to England before the founding the United States:
Nunn vs Georgia (1846) "The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women, and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: The rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I, and his two wicked sons and successors, re-established by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Manga Charta!"
You have the right to have arms within your own house in order to potentially use it in a rebellion against an autocratic state in case it arrises. Nowhere it gives you the right to carry weapons around with you on the public place.
This makes it as clear as water really.
I suspect however that Jefferson would have extended his support for the right to cover ones stagecoach and personal property when traveling down the right of way..
I suspect however that Jefferson would not have ....
It's useless to speculate. We can all pull things out of thin air. What did he write down?
That also doesn't mean it should be illegal... we've seen immense decrease in violent crimes over the past two decades -- we've also seen a dramatic shift in state laws allowing the right for people to conceal carry.
Correlation != causation and such, but science and numbers matter... They are really interesting when you review them.
The reason you cannot make ilegal is that some people (read NRA loonies) keep trying to make look as carrying a concealed weapon is a constitutional right granted by the 2nd amendment. When it's clearly not.
A proposal which was rejected AFAIK, and so all the others around him thought it inappropriate. What was actually passed:
> That a well-regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence 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.
No mention of individual rights to "keep and bear arms". In the recorded debate there was no mention in the Virginia debates of individuals carrying arms, but rather the debate was in the context of whether the government would provide arms for the militia.
Also, the phrase "bear arms" was, grammatically in that time period, generally used to refer to military soldiers having weapons, not civilians. It is inappropriate to take the words individually, but rather the phrase must be taken as a whole.
An in Alabama State vs Reid (1840) the 'court held that the law “to suppress the evil practice of carrying weapons secretly,” did not violate the Alabama constitution. While the legislature could not prevent the carrying of arms, it did retain the right “to enact laws in regard to the manner in which arms shall be borne.” Because the restriction on concealed carry was not a prohibition on the right, it was within the ambit of the legislature to restrict concealed carry.[10]'
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn_v._Georgia
So open carry if fine (?), but concealed can be regulated.
Canada also comes with common law going back to England, and the Supreme Court there ruled that while the right to self-defence exists, the right to arms does not.
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Mags/crburger.htm
I can't find any indication that Saunders has any expertise in American law in general or firearms law in particular (his web page doesn't even mention any college degree), but statements like "Until 2002, every U.S. president (sic) and government had declared that the Constitution’s Second Amendment did not provide any individual right for ordinary citizens to own firearms" are categorically false (most Presidents and Congresses have been mute on the subject).
Ignoring the point that common law allows for self defense - back then the UK even let Catholics and other subversives own weapons.
Basically every society preserved the right to self defence from the time humans first started to gather until now in more advanced cultures where gun possession is strictly controlled.
Ready any Sherlock Holmes story and you can see that Watson often caries a gun for protection.
"it should not be lawful for any person or persons ... to have in his or their custody... broad sword or target, poignard, whinger, or durk, side pistol, gun, or other warlike weapon"
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/jacobit...
"The gestation period of some species of opossum being seven months, the right of the people to speak freely shall not be infringed."
Even if there isn't a species of opossum that gestates for seven months, free speech might still be a good idea. Or it might not. Either way, the first statement's truth value doesn't change the command.
Now, to be fair: Compared to the founding fathers, we know much more about pretty much everything. I don't really care what they thought was best. I care about what is best for society. If that means more restrictions on guns, ok. If that means fewer restrictions on guns, ok. If it means some other thing, great. Deferring to previous generations makes no sense. We don't do that for disciplines such as math, biology, chemistry, or engineering. Why should we do it for law?
The whole point of the constitution is that it is not driven by politics or emotional events. It is changed when a super majority of our citizens / states feel it should be changed.
I don't like the ambiguity in the second amendment, but allowing an emotional event to be the catalyst to circumvent one of the other liberties enshrined in the constitution is scary.
Regardless, with the advent of 3D printing, it's a stupid fucking argument anyway. Over the next few decades, every evil doer will be able to print a weapon.