Hacker News Reader

Comment by 71615BFC3796 | Hacker News Reader

You make a good point. The second amendment is already dreadfully infringed throughout the US (in some states far more than others), and the first amendment is being chipped away, too. It's unfortunate that we the people allowed it to get so bad.

But guns are scary.

View on HN

The problem with the second amendment is that it is an awful sentence. Malcolm Gladwell went over this in a podcast with an NYT chief editor, the way it is structured makes in ambiguous whether the intention was for militias to have access to firearms, or the people. That's why it is a such a hotly contested topic, that and we're talking about guns. To say it's "already dreadfully infringed" completely depends on your interpretation of that amendment.

I think pro gun advocates need to distance themselves from irresponsible gun owners and the NRA. It doesn't help your cause. Promoting responsible gun legislation without spouting "they're going to take our guns over my dead body" just makes you sound like a nut. We also need to address the vastly different circumstances the city living has compared to rural in terms of gun ownership. As well as stop burying the conversation when it comes to mass shootings, they happen way to often and absolutely would not happen if gun control was stricter, the entire world is evidence of this. Making guns harder to acquire makes them less likely, but only if that applies to an entire geographic region. If DC makes guns really hard to get, but Virginia makes them super easy, then it doesn't matter at all.

I just don't have much hope for anything bipartisan to actually work. Things are too split, and there's very little upside for people to change sides.

The sentence is only ambiguously defined if you look at the sentence by itself. Thankfully courts don’t do that and shouldn’t. When an interpretation is hotly contested you need secondary supporting documents to interpret it properly.

Of which we have numerous writings and documents to show what that sentence means. We have documents which break down what the Founders at the time meant by militia and what they thought about ownership.

There was disagreement at the time of writing between the founding fathers, which was a factor in ending up with its somewhat quirky phrasing[0]. Most of this disagreement does seem to be about State vs Federal power rather than the topics in contemporary discussions about it.

The Supreme Court does seem to have settled upon it being an individual rights[1] issue. Considering all the other rights in the bill of rights are individual, there does seem to be some consistency to that.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp0-g-cjxmM

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...

>Considering all the other rights in the bill of rights are individual, there does seem to be some consistency to that.

But it could be argued that we would be a safer country if all of the rights in the bill of rights were collective rather than individual.

Safety was never the primary goal.

I would be interested in hearing that argument. On the surface it appears to be an argument of creating special privileged groups who are the only ones who have freedom of speech or the ability to avoid having troops billeted in their dwellings. Maybe that would lead to more safety?

That makes me think of the society from Heinlein's Starship Troopers where you had to earn citizenship through civic duty. He certainly portrayed the non-citizens having a safe existence (during peacetime).

Yep, turns out "shall not be infringed" meant exactly what it says. I keep trying to find where they say that we only need single shot hunting rifles, or that any scary-looking guns should be banned. But I haven't been able to turn anything up.

well considering those types of weapons didn't exist and weren't even a possibility for another like 70 years, your argument is pointless and irrelevant. The landscape the founding fathers were in was so different it's stupid to take everything they said literally.

I consider nuclear weapons to be arms, I should be able to have my own nuclear weapon for hunting. The second amendment makes no mention of it, thus I should get one.

> well considering those types of weapons didn't exist and weren't even a possibility for another like 70 years

At the time the Second Amendment was ratified, private individuals could, and did, own field artillery pieces and fully-armed and -crewed ships of war.

When it comes to inducing a mass-casualty event, a 32-pounder full of grapeshot is going to beat the hell out of an AR-15.

Edit: an AR-15 bullet masses somewhere around 4 grams, depending, so a 32-pounder would fire roughly the equivalent of 3,500 AR-15 rounds in one shot.

>I should be able to have my own nuclear weapon for hunting

The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting.

> The second amendment makes no mention of it, thus I should get one.

I strongly suspect than anyone with the financial resources, technical infrastructure, and desire to own a nuclear weapon already has one, laws or no laws.

This completely misses the point at what the issue is. Try to commit any act of mass murder with it and you’ll fail. It’s unreliable, and you won’t be a let to reload. An semi automatic weapon is going to be far more lethal. Also the odds of someone with the know how of how to use one and committing to it is extremely low.

The argument always comes up, well someone could commit an act of mass murder with xyz do limiting firearms won’t do anything. And yet, it absolutely will. Firearms are the path of least resistance by a long shot for the goal. So limit that path and it’s much less likely people will do it with anything else.

Just admit you like your guns more than you want lower murder rates

During the War of 1812, American civilian mariners used large cannons to commit mass murder against British sailors. It was pretty common at the time.

Depending on what you are considering the defining features of an AR-15 type there was for example a 20 round repeating airgun that was around during the period [0]. Lewis and Clark are believed to have used one.

Although using a fixed magazine, I don't think it would have been too much of a stretch to imagine a detachable one - especially as the air reservoir was.

Energy-wise it's about 10% of a standard 5.56x45mm round, but still apparently quiet effective.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle

We put reasonable restrictions on all sorts of rights when the non-restriction of those rights starts to impact other people and other rights. The common example would be libel laws on speech or punishment for causing panic in a crowded theater by yelling "fire."

Vehicles can be a deadly weapon but are highly available. We put reasonable regulation in place so that getting a driver's license for a small car is not very onerous while obtaining a commercial driver's license to pilot an 18 wheel tractor trailer requires more training. Similar rules around firearms with differing capabilities to harm others seems reasonable. We also require insurance for vehicle owners at various amounts based on risk.

As I understand it there aren't restrictions on who can own vehicles, only on who can use them on public infrastructure.

I think comparing a driving license with a concealed carry permit is the most apt although not a perfect case. In many states a course must be undertaken to obtain a concealed carry permit, and some states put many restrictions on obtaining one.

A driving licence does however allow you to use any public road, whereas concealed carry permits are per state. I've wondered if lawmakers could use the possibility of federal level permits in exchange for tightening of current restrictions on say background checks.

Right it goes back to the whole concept of castle doctrine. Which is basically a wo/man is basically recognized as the king of their castle. This is where all rights are bestowed. When one enter into public some of those rights have to wane due to nature of now you have other individuals in public. So the law did not view you as king when outside of your property. To accommodate this the concept of privilege's arose. You have the right to own a car and to drive it, even drunk on your property. You are extended the privilege to do it via licensing in public. Privilege's require responsibility or they can be revoked. The government recognizes the right to self defense of each individual in public or private but it extends the privilege of allowing responsible people the ability to carry a firearm to extend that right of self defense to public places. This is why revoking a CCW permit is not an infringement on your second amendment right, you still have the right to "bare" arms, you are just not extended the privilege of doing so in public. It is generally accepted that the 2A is applicable to small arms / personal arms and is why a lot of restrictions on small arms get ruled unconstitutional, because they go against the right to own not the privilege to be in possession of in public.

So are you suggesting that we restrict people's civil rights based on the population density of where they happen to live? Should we also apply stricter limits to free speech if more other people are nearby?

Try yelling fire in a crowded location vs in the middle of an empty field. We do. This happens all over.

The funny part is I once watched a legal scholars breakdown of the 2A and why it made sense and how language drift has caused the issue and that this would not have been a confusing sentence to individuals of the period it was written in. The supreme court rulings and positions support his conclusion and based on it, there is little in the law to be "interpreted".

If we look at the crux of the issue it is this part of the text that causes issues: "a well-regulated militia" this issue, specifically is the term regulated. In modern terminology, regulated takes on the meaning of controlled and generally implies controlled by an authority, which even in classical definition there is some connotation to control by a system of rules that govern it, but it implies that the control are a ruleset that guarantee a desired outcome. In colloquial terminology regulation would more translate into a word that meant "to supply via a process or ruleset to keep functioning properly" and in this context the 2A makes perfect sense. The best example I can think of is a regulator on a SCUBA tank, it regulates the supply of air so that the diver receives the correct amount of air. This is the concept that is being transferred in the 2A. The framers where concerned with government infringement, they wanted to ensure that the militias where well supplied via a process, the 2A is that process or ruleset to regulate (supply the militia) thus their individual right to keep and bare arms shale not be infringed. I have tried and tried to find that video and wish I would have bookmarked it as it really helped make sense of a confusing sentence that can imply a different meaning when "interpreted" with the modern dual use of the word regulated.

If one takes the text and replaces the word regulated with supplied it becomes apparent what the intent was:

"A well supplied 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 issue is, that regulated more confers what they where trying to say and that was that they need the Militia supplied by men and guns via a process, that process and ruleset that regulates the supply is the 2A, specifically the lack of ability to infringe the right to keep and bare arms.

This is also why the practice of possession of a weapon in public is not an extension of the 2A. As it does not deprive a person of their right to keep and bare arms, yet restricting a particular class of arms does, thus we cannot ban handguns.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com