For that and other reasons (probably no more important a reason than now that Posse Comitatus is effectively defunct), to argue the 2nd amendment as protection against tyranny is abzurd.
About Gun Control
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Some scholars have said that it is wrong to read a right of armed insurrection in the Second Amendment because clearly the founding fathers sought to place trust in the power of the ordered liberty of democratic government versus the anarchy of insurrectionists. Other scholars, such as Glenn Reynolds, contend that the framers did believe in an individual right to armed insurrection. The latter scholars cite examples, such as the Declaration of Independence (describing in 1776 "the Right of the People to...institute new Government") and the New Hampshire Constitution (stating in 1784 that "nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind").
There was an ongoing debate in the 1780s about "the people" fighting governmental tyranny (as described by Anti-Federalists); or the risk of mob rule of "the people" (as described by the Federalists) related to the ongoing revolution in France. A widespread fear, during the debates on the ratification of the Constitution, was the possibility of a military takeover of the states by the federal government, which could happen if the Congress passed laws prohibiting states from arming citizens, or prohibiting citizens from arming themselves. Though it has been argued that the states lost the power to arm their citizens when the power to arm the militia was transferred from the states to the federal government by Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, the individual right to arm was retained and strengthened by the Militia Act of 1792 and the similar act of 1795.
About Gun Control
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The right of the colonists to arms and rebellion against oppression was asserted, for example, in a pre-revolutionary newspaper editorial in 1769 Boston objecting to the British army suppression of colonial opposition to the Townshend Acts:
Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the peace still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature, and have been carried to such lengths, as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as prudent as it was legal: such violences are always to be apprehended from military troops, when quartered in the body of a populous city; but more especially so, when they are led to believe that they are become necessary to awe a spirit of rebellion, injuriously said to be existing therein. It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude[,] that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.
During the 1760s pre-revolutionary period, the established colonial militia was composed of colonists, which included a number who were loyal to British imperial rule. As defiance and opposition to the British rule developed, a distrust of these Loyalists in the militia became widespread among the colonists, known as Patriots, who favored independence from British rule. As a result, these Patriots established independent colonial legislatures to create their own militias that excluded the Loyalists and then sought out to stock up independent armories for their militias. In response to this arms build up, the British Parliament established an embargo on firearms, parts and ammunition on the American colonies.
British and Loyalist efforts to disarm the colonial Patriot militia armories in the early phases of the American Revolution resulted in the Patriot colonists protesting by citing the Declaration of Rights, Blackstone's summary of the Declaration of Rights, their own militia laws and common law rights to self-defense. While British policy in the early phases of the Revolution clearly aimed to prevent coordinated action by the Patriot militia, some have argued that there is no evidence that the British sought to restrict the traditional common law right of self-defense. Patrick J. Charles disputes these claims citing similar disarming by the patriots and challenging those scholars' interpretation of Blackstone.
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About Gun Control
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Early American settlers viewed the right to arms and/or the right to bear arms and/or state militias as important for one or more of these purposes:
1. deterring undemocratic government;
2. repelling invasion;
3. suppressing insurrection;
4. facilitating a natural right of self-defense;
5. participating in law enforcement;
6. enabling the people to organize a militia system.
Which of these considerations they thought were most important, which of these considerations they were most alarmed about, and the extent to which each of these considerations ultimately found expression in the Second Amendment is disputed. Some of these purposes were explicitly mentioned in early state constitutions; for example, the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 asserted that, "the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state".
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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Just as stricter abortion laws don't mean "no abortions"?
It is a slippery slope.
Now if I, a gun-control person, can see that, why can't anti-abortion people admit what they're up to?
About Gun Control
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
"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."
No matter how one interprets the 2nd amendment, the current Supreme Court and their latest rulings interpret it as the NRA does. FWIW, I don't, but how I interpret it doesn't matter.
If I am forced to accept the anti-regulations' point of view on the matter, can we at least agree that having guns for the sake of fighting government tyranny is BS? Have you seen the arsenal the government has at its disposal?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I wrote this after Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson:
Neither party is for gun control.
The Democratic Party has been courting the gun lobby.
Gabrielle Giffords is not for gun control. The weapon used on her was purchased legally. The weapon was one that had been banned during the 1990s, but that law expired in 2004 and Giffords supported ending the ban. She supports gun rights, opposed the Washington DC gun ban, and signed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court in support of overturning the ban.
The roll call vote in the Senate on the (Dianne) Feinstein amendment to extend the ban, March 2, 2004. Russ Feingold lovers, note his "nay" vote, as well as other Democrats still serving, like Harry Reid, Mary Landrieu, Tim Johnson (not voting), Ben Nelson, Max Baucus.
In 2007, Representative Carolyn Maloney's bill to reinstate the ban with 67 co-sponsors (Giffords was not among them), went nowhere.
HR 6257 (a bill to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, as well as to expand the list of banned weapons, for ten years) was introduced in June 2008, and then got buried in a House subcommittee one month later, where it d!ed at the end of that Congress (2008).
After Obama and Democrats won the 2008 elections and took control of the White House and Congress, Dianne Feinstein said in April 2009 about introducing legislation in the Senate to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, "I wouldn't bring it up now."
Obama has stated that he wouldn't push for the reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban. He supports ratifying CIFTA, an inter-American treaty to curb international small arms trafficking.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing to take on the gun lobby (or any corporate industry), nor spend the money on the prevention side (funding for mental health treatment, public education and social safety nets, etc.).
So across America, the fight (& gridlock) continues.
If I had to bet right now, I'd say what is going to come out of this are more draconian laws to ban speech and privacy rights (all of said legislation will be used for drug crimes and political groups working to unseat the entrenched corporate power, and not crimes of 'terror'). All because it happened to "their own" (Giffords, Judge John Roll and Giffords aide Gabriel Zimmerman).
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