<p>The framers of the 2nd Amendment had no interest whatsoever in sportsmen, hunters, or even in individuals who owned weapons for personal protection against their neighbors. None whatsoever. (And they could have - Pennsylvania and Vermont already had laws protecting the ownership of guns for purposes of hunting and self-defense - the framers of the Second Amendment knowingly left those rationales out.) You can read all about what they were thinking in discussions of the time. They remembered that it was individuals gathered into well-organized militia that protected them against the encroachments of their own government - at the time, the British colonial government - and they wanted to make sure that if the new American government usurped power again and acted against the freedoms guaranteed, people could effectively take arms to defend themselves and their freedoms. Against the U.S. government.</p>
<p>Now it seems obvious, or at least it does to me, that pistols, and handguns and hunting rifles would be pretty useless against the forces of the U.S. government. (This one has never been tested in court, as far as I know.) But big tanks, suitcase nukes, surplus Cruise missiles, etc., might do the trick.</p>
<p>The 2nd Amendment is all about a citizen’s government, where we the people have a well-armed militia in defense of our country. It doesn’t suppose that our government is our enemy as it takes for granted that “we are the people…”</p>
<p>For the last 10 years all I have heard is that I had to give up my individual rights for the safety of all. Why can’t we have better registration of weapons in this country? We will still have illegal guns but the penalties for using the illegal guns make for automatic felonies with mandatory sentencing with no possibility for parole.</p>
<p>Right, and when the citizen’s government is usurped, the Second Amendment protects the right of citizens to effectively take up arms to defend themselves against it.</p>
<p>Look - personally, I think the Second Amendment today is just dumb. It made perfectly good sense in its time. It doesn’t now. But I do recognize why some very, very intelligent people wrote it.</p>
<p>mini’s right about this–when the Second Amendment was written, ordinary citizens could band together and resist the government, using the weapons they had available–and that’s essentially what they did to resist the British Government. (Although who, exactly, owned the artillery they used?) But now, the kind of armament that would be needed to actually resist a tyrannical government is so devastating that it should be obvious why ordinary citizens shouldn’t be allowed to have it. Indeed, I would suggest that the whole idea that citizens could band together and throw off the yoke of the Federal Government by force became patently obsolete in 1865.</p>
I think the argument is that history and technology have already emasculated the Amendment in terms of what it’s supposed to do–protect the power of the people to form effective militias–and that it’s now being used to protect activities that really have nothing to do with its purpose. Note that the Second Amendment protects arms, but not fishing rods.</p>
<p>We vote to replace tyrannical governments is the point the I meant to make, but obviously I can’t watch TiVo and post at the same time. I didn’t want anyone to think that as it is written we weren’t supposed to arm ourselves against an oppressive government but that it is an unnecessary provision while other rules of law are in place. </p>
<p>Registration has always been thrown about among gun owners as the horrible fear that the government would know where to go to squash a rebellion and we wouldn’t want to trust our government to know who was or wasn’t a gun owner, so we operate blind in matters of crime.
I can’t deposit or withdraw $5000 in cash without that money being noted, so why should I be able to buy 5000 rounds of ammunition?</p>
<p>Personally, I’d repeal it (or get rid of the ridiculous business about the well-organized militia, and perhaps replace it - if needed - with what state constitutions have written). But I can’t imagine that happening, so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.</p>
<p>The Whiskey Rebellion and the Civil War are just the sort of examples that point up the glaring hole in the Second Amendment - whether the rebellion is just is something that is decided by the victors. But even there - Robert E. Lee wasn’t charged with treason despite violating his West Point oath and taking up arms against the U.S. government.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if the 1994 Ban was challanged on 2nd amendment grounds? </p>
<p>If it is not unconstitutional to ban certain (but not all) weapons/magazines, then I guess you wouldn’t need a repeal of the 2nd Amendment.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that all 50 states would pass sufficiently similar legislation to stop cross state availability. </p>
<p>The original 1994 ban did not even apply to all weapons of the same type and from what I read slight changes to design allowed for large loop-holes. And, it grandfathered 30 million LCMs. It has been 8 years since the ban lifted in 2004. I imagine the number of LCMs greatly exceed 30 million since they have been legal and if there is a serious movement to ban again I imagine the sales would mushroom.</p>
<p>I read that there have been many efforts to try to get legislation at the national level since the ban went away. All unsuccessful.</p>
<p>This argument was taken care of in Heller v DC (recent SCOTUS case), which overturned the DC handgun ban because you can’t ban an entire class of firearms.</p>
<p>Icarus–there was a significantly narrower holding.</p>
<p>The Districts total ban on handgun possession **in the home **amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of arms that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. </p>
<p>The requirement that any lawful firearm **in the home **be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Can’t ban home possession of an entire class of arms that is the over-whelming choice for self-defense.</p>
<p>Self-defense is not a core lawful purpose under the Constitution, at least as the framers crafted it. (And they had considered both hunting and self-defense as core lawful purposes - and rejected them both.)</p>
<p>But activist judges often make new law. What else is new?</p>
<p>So, mini, do you think the “core lawful purpose” is societal rather than personal defense?
Personally, I’d just leave it at defense, since anything you are willing to justifiably shoot someone over is going to be a big deal.</p>
<hr>
<p>
Well, I’m not the one advocating a ban on magazines with over X capacity. I think the burden lies more on those trying to make something illegal that currently isn’t.<br>
By current, conventional standards, a 99-round magazine is considered large. Magazine fed firearms come with a variety of “standard” capacities. The current industry standard for an AR-15 magazine is 20 or 30 rounds. The current standard for a Beretta 92fs pistol is 15 rounds. “Standard” for a Ruger 10/22 is 10 rounds, although the 25 round magazines are becoming more popular now. Larger magazines, like 50, 100, or 200 round drums, have been around for a long time. However, they remained only marginally popular because of design and manufacturing limitations made them less reliable than the smaller designs. Semi-auto (and full-auto) magazine fed firearms require specific spring tensions to feed the next round into the chamber before the action completes its cycle (usually closing the bolt over the magazine). Larger magazines traditionally have trouble maintaining spring tension between the first and ending shots. Often, the firearm would jam because the magazine could not supply the next cartridge in the right amount of time, before the bolt either closed or hit the partially supplied cartridge. This is called a “failure to feed” malfunction. (Based on news reports, this malfunction occurred at the Colorado theater shooting.)</p>
<p>“So, mini, do you think the “core lawful purpose” is societal rather than personal defense?”</p>
<p>I don’t think anything. The framers deliberately and knowingly rejected “personal defense” and “hunting”, both of which were included in the state constitutions of Pennsylvania and Vermont, as “core lawful purposes” to be protected by the Second Amendment. They wrote quite clearly - the right to bear arms was tied to the existence of well-regulated militia, to quote:</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>So it is isn’t that they left the “core lawful purposes” unclear - they put it right there in the Second Amendment. Personal defense (except perhaps against the encroachments of one’s own government) has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m not opposed to hunting (though I think guns could be better kept in community hunt clubs). Having lived for long periods of time abroad, I’m not convinced that guns for personal defense make us safer, but I’m not willing to fight about it either. I’m likely in favor of far more regulation than we have.</p>
<p>But none of this has anything to do with the Second Amendment, which is both antiquated and irrelevant, except as regards one’s ability to own personal nuclear weapons and the like.</p>
<p>mini–that’s an interesting conclusion. Because the only way to effectively “fight back” against the US government would be a nuclear weapon, the 2nd Amendment no longer provides a right to bear “lesser arms?”</p>
I thought you were the one arguing against bans–at least by those who didn’t understand weapons. It’s easy to meet the burden for banning these–a guy just used one to kill 12 people and wound 70. I’m just wondering what the counterargument could possibly be.</p>
<p>Illegal drag racing and speeding above the maximum highway posted speed kill people all the time. Why aren’t cars that have horsepower ratings that allow for going way above the maximum speed not illegal? Why do we just arrest/fine the speeders (if they live) rather than ban the possession of the high horsepower vehicle/engine?</p>
<p>A 100 round magazine does not make the owner kill any more that a high horsepower engine makes the owner kill.</p>