Summations Only

You use the phrase "reserved the right". The verb "reserved" means to keep back or retain. For it to have meaning, the thing which is being reserved must be in existence already at the time of its reservation. So what I'm looking to drill down to is what is it that you feel created the right to bear arms, before the constitution reserved it.

I'm not seeing it. In order to exemplify it, all you do is go on to trivialize the right by making it about something mundane like driving on the road.However, if there was a cop on the street stopping you from using the road to go the store and get breakfast, or whatever, I think you'd quickly change your mind about how trivial that right of yours is (obviousloy depending on why you were being stopped). I don't think bearing arms is a trivial matter at all. The right to self-defense is one of the most important rights you can have. Ya know, its even #2. That's pretty high on the list.And the 2nd simply does not create the right. Read it again. Quote it. Show me where the right is created. How and why? I mean, if you were prevented from doing your day to day activities, wouldn't you be pissed off? Wouldn't you feel slighted? No, that's the exact opposite of the way it works. If the second amendment simply did not exist, then everyone would still be able to have arms until some law was passed that disallowed it. You get to have arms by default, that's why its a right. The second amendment prevents those laws that would disallow people from having arms. That's not creating the right, that preventing the existing right from being removed. I'll have you know, I do think it is something to limit and debate.

What the fuck? That's a lie. Don't lie about me.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

But that doesn't mean anything at the individual level, so... so what?

It is impossible to answer that from the wording of the amendment alone. What you are asking is an historical question.For example, was there some right for 18 year olds to vote that we already had, but that was somehow not recognized until passage of the 26th amendment? I think it is clear, historically, that the 26th amendment created a right for people between 18 and 21 to vote. Yet both the 2nd and the 26th amendment talk of a right that shall not be infringed.

So are you saying that we should get rid of these other laws as well?

You never offered any support for your claim that there is a natural right to guns.Do you want me to research and show how you were asked to back up the natural right argument in the other gun control thread? Message 933
Also see the conversation with Straggler before this comment.Straggler and I both called you on this to support the claim of a natural right to guns.
Message 934
Message 935Your response to both of us was utter silence.So don't accuse me of lying.All your post showed was a lack of understanding between legal rights and the philosophical idea of natural rights. Natural rights have no standing or bearing in any court, even the US Supreme Court. It is a philosophical construct.

Yeah, that makes sense. But I still don't see any creation of the right. I dunno. Isn't voting a legal right? Were 18 y/os being prevented from voting before the 26th? OTOH, were people being prevented from bearing arms before the 2nd? As you exemplified, you could say that 18 year olds did have the right already and that it was just being infringed, but I'm not sure that voting is a natural right to begin with. Considering that its part of a legal system, it seems like it would have to be a legal right. Was there any influence on the wording of the 26th by the 2nd?But you have a valid point that the wording alone doesn't determine whether the right was being created or not.

Hi Taq, What I am saying is that you can't get the criminals to obey the laws we already have concerning firearms and it don't make any difference how many new laws are made they are not going to obey any of them.The only people that will obey laws are law abiding citizens.Therefore if you make any new laws you are not hindering the people who are committing murders and mass murders you are only infringing on the rights of the law abiding citizens to protect themselves from the people who are not going to obey any laws.So leave the firearms of the law abiding citizens alone and if we never need to use them that will be great. But if the time comes that we need them we will have them.God Bless,

Just because I don't reply to your inane posts doesn't mean I'm bailing on the argument. Also, I have a real life outside of EvC and cannot reply to everything. Stop posting dickish replies about the persons and start making actuall arguments about the topic. Or just don't post at all.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : spelling

You speak of natural rights as if it is some sort of codified list. Can you please spell out what you think the natural rights are? Also, some sort of court case showing "natural rights" have any legal standing.Is not being held in servitude a natural right?

If you don't agree it is inane?Please show me what part of my post was lacking sense, significance, or ideas. I have made lots of actual arguments. I was pointing out that ICANT was not the only one that has failed to support the idea that owning guns is a natural right. I was trying to point out that those using the argument that gun ownership is a natural right seem to believe their argument is inane, as they have no support for it.So lets go back to your argument.What do you have to show that gun ownership is some sort or "natural right" and what affect does that have on our legal regulation of guns?

What I am saying is that criminals break laws all of the time. That is why they are criminals. Are you then arguing that we should get rid of all the laws that criminals break? If so, we wouldn't have any laws left. You are arguing for complete anarchy.

Where did the Founders, or anyone for that matter, claim that the right to bear arms is unlimited? The courts have consistently ruled that the 2nd Amendment was based on existing philosophies which allowed for people to bear common arms, but not unusual or extremely deadly arms.

quote:

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Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose . . .
--US Supreme Court, DC v. Heller 2010

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Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Hi vimesey,I suppose that in your history books there are a lot of things left out just as many things have been rewritten in our history books.So that you may understand our passion for our firearms a little more I present the following"

quote:

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This Article reviews the British gun control program that precipitated the American Revolution: the 1774 import ban on firearms and gunpowder; the 1774-75 confiscations of firearms and gunpowder; and the use of violence to effectuate the confiscations. It was these events that changed a situation of political tension into a shooting war. Each of these British abuses provides insights into the scope of the modern Second Amendment.

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Furious at the December 1773 Boston Tea Party, Parliament in 1774 passed the Coercive Acts. The particular provisions of the Coercive Acts were offensive to Americans, but it was the possibility that the British might deploy the army to enforce them that primed many colonists for armed resistance. The Patriots of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, resolved: That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles. A South Carolina newspaper essay, reprinted in Virginia, urged that any law that had to be enforced by the military was necessarily illegitimate.

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The Royal Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, had forbidden town meetings from taking place more than once a year. When he dispatched the Redcoats to break up an illegal town meeting in Salem, 3000 armed Americans appeared in response, and the British retreated. Gage’s aide John Andrews explained that everyone in the area aged 16 years or older owned a gun and plenty of gunpowder.

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Military rule would be difficult to impose on an armed populace. Gage had only 2,000 troops in Boston. There were thousands of armed men in Boston alone, and more in the surrounding area. One response to the problem was to deprive the Americans of gunpowder.

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Modern smokeless gunpowder is stable under most conditions. The black powder of the 18th Century was far more volatile. Accordingly, large quantities of black powder were often stored in a town’s powder house, typically a reinforced brick building. The powder house would hold merchants’ reserves, large quantities stored by individuals, as well as powder for use by the local militia. Although colonial laws generally required militiamen (and sometimes all householders, too) to have their own firearm and a minimum quantity of powder, not everyone could afford it. Consequently, the government sometimes supplied public arms and powder to individual militiamen. Policies varied on whether militiamen who had been given public arms would keep them at home. Public arms would often be stored in a special armory, which might also be the powder house.

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Before dawn on September 1, 1774, 260 of Gage’s Redcoats sailed up the Mystic River and seized hundreds of barrels of powder from the Charlestown powder house.

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The Powder Alarm, as it became known, was a serious provocation. By the end of the day, 20,000 militiamen had mobilized and started marching towards Boston. In Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, rumors quickly spread that the Powder Alarm had actually involved fighting in the streets of Boston. More accurate reports reached the militia companies before that militia reached Boston, and so the war did not begin in September. The message, though, was unmistakable: If the British used violence to seize arms or powder, the Americans would treat that violent seizure as an act of war, and would fight. And that is exactly what happened several months later, on April 19, 1775.

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SourceThe colonist had firearms and thus had the right to keep and bear Arms.The British government sought to infringe upon that right and it caused a war to be fought.Guess who won.So the colonist paid for their right to keep and bear Arms by fighting and dying for their independence from an oppressive government.So the right to keep and bear Arms was paid for by the blood of many colonists and many wounded men.When the United States was formed the people decided they would reserve their right to own, keep and bear Arms in order to defend their lives and property against those who would try to relieve them of either. Since they had just had the experience with the British trying to confiscate their weapons they also wanted to insure that the newly formed government would not in the future try to do the same as the British government had done. They wanted to be prepared if such a case ever occured.So through the second amendment they reserved that right and forbid the Federal government from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.As I have said many times the second amendment does not create a right. It simply forbids the Federal government from infringing upon that right which the people already possessed, which was purchased with blood.God Bless,