<p>I’m with Kluge on the gun nuts. </p>
<p>You all are a scary bunch.</p>
<p>You know what scares me? People who are completely intolerant of other people’s opinions, or who refuse to give the courts a chance to work out the question raised in this case. </p>
<p>I am as conservative as they come, yet we do not own a gun, never have and never will. I am content to let the SCOTUS consider the law and make a decision. I’m in favor of gun control. I also have some VERY liberal relatives in California who do own guns – one is a hunter, but another bought a handgun after the LA riots of 1992. My feeling is that people may believe one thing in theory, but act in a different way if they feel threatened.</p>
<p>I also feel strongly about guns and children, and would probably view the need for a gun differently if I lived in Wyoming instead of in the northeast.</p>
<p>Here’s an opinion piece from the WSJ that makes some sense to me. What I really don’t like is the attempt to rewrite the Constitution – if an amendment is deemed to be out of sync with current thinking, then repeal it.</p>
<p>[OpinionJournal</a> - Hot Topic](<a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010902]OpinionJournal”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010902)</p>
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<p>Sjmom, I’m curious how you find an argument as lame as the WSJ’s to be “convincing.” They couch they’re argument in terms of interpreting the words in the Constitution “to mean what they say” and then proceed to ignore the first words of the sentence in question: “A well regulated militia…” to arrive at the conclusion that it refers not to a group of people acting under government control but to “all able-bodied male citizens.” What happened to the “well regulated” militia?</p>
<p>Further, if it’s an individual right which “shall not be abridged” how do you justify the weasely “reasonable limits on use” copout? </p>
<p>It’s a conclusion in search of a justification.</p>
<p>Thanks, but I don’t need all these bozos with deadly weapons thinking they are protecting themselves from state’s interference.</p>
<p>I know that Americans love their weapons. What I can’t understand is why the culture police don’t see the relationship between the the cultural breakdown in society that they so often discuss, and the violent society we have become. This violence has contributed far more to breakdown of American families, etc., than any working mother, divorce, gay parents/marriage, stem cells,etc.</p>
<p>The question of militias at the birth of the United States led me (surprisingly) to the Anti-Defamation website that has a FAQ on the history of the various colonial militias. Judge Silberman is correct that all (white) able-bodied male citizens may be called upon to defend the country. What the judge leaves out is the fact that all of the colonies had laws governing their local militias. See:
[New</a> Militia FAQ Part Three](<a href=“You are being redirected...”>You are being redirected...)</p>
<p>3.2 Was there such a thing as a common law militia?
A. The militia were not created by the common law. Militia law is statutory law. The charter of each American colony included authority to create militia units. All American colonies passed militia laws under the authority granted by their charters. All states and the federal government have militia laws. There never was a period of common law militia in America.
Interpreting statute law and the Constitution to understand the meaning of ‘militia’, for example, does not mean that there ever was a common law militia. Even if the Bill of Rights or the Fourteenth Amendment means that laws against unauthorized paramilitary organizations are unconstitutional the result would not change civilians into some sort of common law militiamen. [Note: To date these laws have been found constitutional]
3.3 Was duty in the militia voluntary in the American colonies?
A. No, white able-bodied free males were required by law to belong to the miliita by the statute law of the colony. Whether or not they actually served in militia units is another question. Sometime the militia laws were strictly enforced, sometime laxly. The requirement for service could be met by joining either the colony’s militia in your local area or joining (if they would have you) a volunteer militia unit. These companies were allowed under colonial legislation and were, of course, subordinate to the authority of the colony. Some colonies provided religious exemptions to militia duty.</p>
<p>Included in the FAQ section were the following references:</p>
<p>• Cress, Lawrence Delbert Cress. Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812
• Cunliffe, Marcus, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775-1865
• Mahon, John K, The History of the Militia and the National Guard
• Millett, Allan R. & Maslowski, Peter, For The Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of American: Revised Edition
• Riker, William H, Soldiers of the States
One of the few Law Review articles discussing the historical militia is “The Militia Clause of the Constitution” by Frederick Wiener 54 Harvard Law Review 181(1940).</p>
<p>ninja.of.love, you presented a trite but implausible scenario, using an ax murderer as the centerpiece. Although “ax murderer” is a familiar cliche, actual murder-by-ax is extraordinarily rare. A recent ax murder that totally escaped the attention of all of the voracious news media is pretty unlikely. Then you have the ax murderer released on bail pending trial - again, a highly improbable plot twist - which again, has totally escaped the attention of the nation’s media. Don’t you think Rush Limbaugh would have had something to say about the liberal judge who let that happen? You have the mysterious “(A5, A6, A8)” appearing in the middle of your post, looking for all the world like inadvertently cut 'n pasted footnotes from the original source. You include (convenient) direct quotes from a conversation you could not have been present to have heard. And you presented this story - which, if true, constitutes an extraordinarily rare set of circumstances - as being indicative of why individual gun ownership is reasonable for America’s 300 million people. </p>
<p>So, yeah, I found your post to be unlikely to be based on real events, happening to a member of your family as presented. If in fact your aunt’s uncle was the victim of an ax murderer your family has my sympathy. But your post really has enough of the look of the kind of faux news stories I’ve seen planted on the internet by special interest groups to make me dubious.</p>
<p>Michuncle - There you go! Taking that into consideration, and eliminating the “free, able bodied, male” part I see no problem with honoring the text of the entire Second Amendment by making gun ownership free to every person willing to meet the standards in effect at the time it was adopted - including enlisting in the current embodiment of the militia - the state’s national guard units.</p>
<p>Trite and implausible as it may sound, it happened. The national media has overlooked 7,500 gang murders in the state of California (92-03), why would it care about an 84 year-old man in rural NC? He was released on bail at first because there is insufficient evidence to hold him. The accused has not been indicted. I asked my mother earlier tonight and she gave me that update. The case is currently unsolved. I don’t care what the hell Rush Limbaugh and the rest of those airbag demagogues say or think. It is obvious that they have overlooked it because it happened and there is no media coverage. I inserted the A5, A6, A8 to show that those amendments focus on the individual’s rights, just as A2 does. FIND THE ORIGINAL SOURCE THAT I COPIED if it’s so apparent that I used a “cut 'n pasted” argument. Give me the URL or book title or magazine or pamphlet or whatever I copied that from.</p>
<p>I used convenient direct quotes because I spoke to my uncle about the situation. He was present. Sure, hearsay isn’t admissible in a court but this hardly a court. This extraordinarily rare of circumstances HAPPENED and I expect you to substantiate your claims that I lied about it. So far, you haven’t cared about corroboration, as you haven’t asked for the man’s name, his hometown, or any other information about the situation. </p>
<p>I did not present that situation as a validation of individual gun ownership, only that you’re sweeping and insulting stereotype about gun owners was at best, false and at worst, a malicious attempt at characterizing people who disagree with you. If you want to call or email the sheriff’s office to ask, I’ll PM you his name, just as I PM’d his name to the other poster who asked.</p>
<p>Trying to achieve an agreement on something like a personal right to weapons is probably impossible. I don’t even worry about the so-called “gun nuts” or the nuts that call them by that name. </p>
<p>What probably is most important is the fact that the right to choose is very probably to be clarified and embraced for the first time in the history of the United States. This is remarkable. This is a view of history in the making.</p>
<p>I just find it fascinating.</p>
<p>parent2noles has it exactly right and said it very eloquently. I hope everyone involved looks forward to and embraces the decision of the court. Nice to live in a country where the President isn’t going to sack the head of the SC also.</p>
<p>P2N, I agree that it’s an interesting legal question. Although I probably don’t find it as significant as you do (right to choose?); a change (or no change) in the status quo of our gun laws is unlikely to make much of a difference in the everyday lives of many Americans.</p>
<p>It will, however, as you suggested before, be another visceral wedge issue the cynical economic right wing will use to manipulate the “values” voters into shooting themselves in the foot. Again.</p>
<p>Every time I see people being manipulated by these same tactics I can only think of one word: Prestidigitation.</p>
<p>It’s perfect timing. Such issues SHOULD be addressed during campaigns. This is when hot political issues need to be aired. </p>
<p>Then we can vote our preferences.</p>
<p>I love it. The power of the ballot.</p>
<p>P2n, what is it about the Second Amendment that makes it a “hot political issue” in your mind?</p>
<p>ninja.of.love: I apologize for doubting you. With the additional detail you have added, the story is less suspicious sounding.</p>
<p>So let me ask you this: What is it in your aunt’s story that you think challenges anything I wrote about the motivation of the “gun nuts” who are driving the second amendment issue in America?</p>
<p>I think I posted the essence of that earlier - quoting Stanford Levinson. It’s a subject many folks relate to and care enough about to formulate an opinion.</p>
<p>This issue also transcends gender and race. Have you ever heard what Condoleeza Rice has to say about the Klan and African American’s right to firearms? Priceless. </p>
<p>One tactic of racists early on was to try and deny the right to firearms to the newly freed slaves. And how those people defended themselves from the domestic terrorists that are the Klan with firearms as late as the 1960s?</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to check it out, Kluge. My main point in that story was that some people are not caught in a video game driven adolescent frenzy to stop the bad guys. Many are looking at protecting there homes and selves from outside attack. This passive approach is different from the active vigilantism that a minority of gun owners pursue. While it is the rabble rousing NRA and radical groups who lead the rhetoric and dominate the press, it is a Libertarian lawyer who brought the original suit against the District. There are rational, law abiding gun owners and while the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is a matter of legal and political debate, there are mature and immature members of both sides. Sweeping generalizations are impediments and distractions to rational argument. That point got a little lost in the details.</p>
<p>The GOP of Powell And Rice</p>
<p>(From the Jewish World Review: [George</a> Will](<a href=“http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will080700.asp]George”>George Will) )</p>
<p>IN A PLEASANTLY meandering conversation over lunch in San Francisco last summer, Condoleezza Rice, then still provost of Stanford but already unofficially what she now is officially, George W. Bush’s senior foreign policy adviser, was asked her thoughts about gun control. “I am,” she answered crisply, “a Second Amendment absolutist.” Growing up in Birmingham, Ala., in the early 1960s, when racial tensions rose, there were, she said, occasions when the black community had to exercise its right to bear arms in self-defense, becoming, if you will, a well-regulated militia.</p>
<p>Last week’s Republican convention got acquainted with Rice’s economical and lucid way of speaking her formidable mind. For example:</p>
<p>"My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. I want you to know that my father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.</p>
<p>“I joined the party for different reasons. I found a party that sees me as an individual, not as a part of a group. I found a party that puts family first. I found a party that has love of liberty at its core. And I found a party that believes that peace begins with strength.”</p>
<p>A fine conservative catechism, that. And note the deft combination of the colloquial and the elegant in her story of her grandfather Rice, the son of a farmer in rural Alabama:</p>
<p>"Around 1918 he decided he was going to get book learning. And so, he asked, in the language of the day, where a colored man could go to college. He was told about little Stillman College, a school about 50 miles away. So Granddaddy saved up his cotton for tuition and went off to Tuscaloosa.</p>
<p>"After the first year he ran out of cotton and he needed a way to pay for college. Praise be, as he often does, God gave him an answer. My grandfather asked how those other boys were staying in school, and he was told that they had what was called a scholarship. And they said, ‘If you wanted to be a Presbyterian minister, then you could have one, too.’ Granddaddy Rice said, ‘That’s just what I had in mind.’</p>
<p>Kluge, your response to anyone who disagrees with you seems to be, “You’re stupid.” Am I wrong? Isn’t the essence of your argument that people who interpret the 2nd amendment to allow citizens to own guns are really just overemotional, irrational cretins who can’t think logically?</p>
<p>I think this question is worthy of debate. It is one that has been discussed and analyzed by many intelligent people – some who don’t resort to name calling to make their point.</p>
<p>I’ve already said that I support gun control. So what is your problem?</p>
<p>And as a “born again” conservative, I’ll second Condoleeza Rice:</p>
<p>“I joined the party for different reasons. I found a party that sees me as an individual, not as a part of a group. I found a party that puts family first. I found a party that has love of liberty at its core. And I found a party that believes that peace begins with strength.”</p>
<p>Sjmom, I certainly didn’t mean to say “you’re stupid.” I find the interpretation of the second amendment to be an interesting intellectual exercise, and reasonable (and smart!) arguments can be made both ways. But the WSJ article isn’t even remotely internally consistent in its document interpretation argument - that’s why I criticized it.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I absolutely do think that pro-gun enthusiasts are driven by an irrational and emotionally-based need to try to create seemingly logical justifications for a decision which is logically indefensible – and they get really angry when that is pointed out - as people driven by a motivation they don’t want to admit usually are. Did I call them “cretins”? No. Everyone has things they want for reasons they lie to themselves and others about because the real reason isn’t as noble or logical as the reason they prefer to pretend motivates them. Gun nuts are no exception - they’re just more aggressive than most people at attacking anyone who points out that their Emperor has no clothes. Gun ownership for individuals actually makes no sense for most people - but it makes them feel better, so they want to believe that it actually is a rational decision.</p>
<p>Similarly, lots of people smoke. And while it’s really hard to come up with a justification for smoking you’ll still hear lots of superficially logical - yet transparently bogus - justifications for smoking getting tossed out by smokers. Same thing with people who don’t want to use seatbelts, wear crash helmets, or pay income tax. </p>
<p>People who drive SUV’s “because I want my family to be safe” are perhaps the best parallel to gun nuts. In fact, an SUV is no safer for its occupants, mile for mile, than a sedan. (They are six time more likely to kill someone outside the car, however.) But an SUV kills the passengers by rolling over - which usually is the result of driver error, while sedan deaths are usually the result of other types of accidents, which are less likely to be the fault of the car owner. So people, refusing to believe that they could be at fault in a car crash, believe that their SUV will make their family safer. It’s an emotion based belief, not a rational one - but they’ll bite your head off if you point it out and show them the NHSA statistics. The gun nuts arguments are absolutely on the same level - which is why they try to use the Constitution as a trump card - that way you don’t actually have to actually be right. </p>
<p>P.S. I drive an SUV - I just don’t try to justify it on safety grounds.</p>
<p>“What probably is most important is the fact that the right to choose is very probably to be clarified and embraced for the first time in the history of the United States. This is remarkable.”</p>
<p>People trumpet right to choose as long as the stuff to choose is from an ‘approved’ conservative agenda. </p>
<p>“It’s perfect timing. Such issues SHOULD be addressed during campaigns. This is when hot political issues need to be aired.”</p>
<p>You can sure hope and gloat that this becomes a wedge issue, but it won’t.</p>