Tuesday, June 4, 2013

What Rights Does the 2nd Amendment Cover?

In the words of Bill Maher, the 2A is bullshit. It is meaningless in today's world, in spite of the mistaken and nonsensical rulings of the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald. Those were the result of political bastardization of an antiquated right which had long since lost all meaning.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

25 comments:

  1. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Yeah, I know, I left out the militia clause. That's not the part that names the right. The clause that I quoted is clear. I see nothing meaningless about it.

    You can't just wish away an amendment to the Constitution. You have to repeal it if you want it to be void. You say it's lost any meaning, but your statement is meaningless. The right is clear and enumerated. A person might as well say that every other right listed is no longer applicable in the modern word--that would be convenient to you control freaks, but if wishes were horses, we'd all be deep in shit.

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  2. Maybe lost all meaning to someone who doesn't care about their civil rights, but has meaning to those that believe in keeping ALL civil rights equally protected.

    Bill is entitled to his own opinion, just like you Mike, but not to your own "facts".

    The Second Civil Right means as much today as it did as when written and ratified. It protects you from the government, rights belonging to you from birth even before there was a law written in stone.

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  3. And who has the authority to determine that if not the Supreme Court? Do you find our whole system of checks and balances to be bullshit?

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    1. Don't forget the Supreme Court Approved the Heller and McDonald rulings by 1 vote. If just one of the 5 conservative judges had been a liberal, those rulings would have gone the other way by 1 vote.

      Also, don't forget your favorite judge, Scalia said even the 2A is not unlimited - like all rights, it must have reasonable restrictions.

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    2. Don't forget the Supreme Court Approved the Heller and McDonald rulings by 1 vote.

      A 55.5% to 44.4% margin, in other words. Obama's "sweeping victory" over Romney was by a popular vote margin of what--something like 51.1% to 47.2%?

      That "1 vote" margin is starting to look pretty huge, isn't it?

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    3. Yes, Scalia s right about the "not unlimited" part and the reasonable restriction part is not what you believe it to be, or want it to be Mike. Those "reasonable restrictions" are also included in the Constitution, if you bother to read the whole thing, and doesn't require any more laws to bring those restrictions to bear for enforcement.

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    4. So 5-4 rulings don't count as much? Is that your point?

      As for the reasonable restrictions, we've also covered this before. Your definition of reasonable seems to be that we are honoring the amendment as long as some people have some access to some kind of guns; that does not mesh with the definition of Reasonable restrictions applied to other rights.

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    5. Why are you on about "reasonable restrictions"? You say the 2A is "bullshit", and that there is no right, which means keeping and bearing arms is not subject to any level of reasonableness. You could do whatever you want. That's what you want right? And you want it to be that way in spite of the Supreme Court rulings, so why argue that it was only a one vote difference? It's "bullshit" anyway. Why listen to the Supreme Court?

      "You want it to be one way, but it's the other way."

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    6. Marlo's famous line from The Wire does not apply to this. Thanks for the memory though.

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    7. "That "1 vote" margin is starting to look pretty huge, isn't it?"

      No, Kurt, it's still one single replacement on the Court while the Democrats control the White House.

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    8. . . . it's still one single replacement on the Court while the Democrats control the White House.

      If that happens, we might have to pause in pushing gun cases (gun court cases--not containers in which guns are stored/transported) to the Supreme Court, until the Court's human to "progressive" ratio improves.

      A temporary setback.

      We waited almost 70 years for SCOTUS to partially redeem itself for United States v. Miller (a case "argued," by the way, without any defense counsel), and reestablish the fact that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual's fundamental human right to keep and bear arms.

      We can be patient in getting the job finished.

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    9. Kurt, we'll also keep pushing in the Federal and state legislatures. This is a war on many fronts.

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    10. "So 5-4 rulings don't count as much? Is that your point?"

      In a way, yes. An 8 to 1 ruling would have carried more weight and been safe from a minor change in the balance of the Supreme Court.

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  4. You are welcome to your opinion, as is Bill Maher. You are not welcome to your seeming insistence that the 2A can just be legislated away at the whim of a few politicians.

    I would respect a push for a Constitutional Amendment (per Article V of the U.S. Constitution) to amend or eliminate the 2A. I would not support it, but I would at least respect you for trying to do it the right way. Trying to legislate it away? Nothing but cowardice, and you get no respect from me for supporting that kind of effort.

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  5. We've been over this territory before. You have never presented a coherent argument, while we have. Now, you're too lazy to even bother making an argument, you're just tossing an assertion out there to stir the pot. Frankly, I've got better things to do than bother re-arguing a point that you have already proven that you will not even pay attention to.

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    1. Don't you realize I can say exactly the same thing to you. I have a coherent argument and you do not. Why aren't you getting it?

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    2. Mikeb, if you have a coherent argument, I'd like to see it. So far, all I've seen from you is emotionalism and wishful thinking.

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    3. I've presented legal analyses before and been unanswered. You present well reasoned legal opinions like: "This part of the Constitution is bullshit."

      As I said before, if you present an argument rather than a re-assertion of Bill Mahr's opinion, I'll engage you, even if we've covered the ground before, on the points in contention. However, I'm not going to go from this re-assertion and dig up the old comments to rehash the argument.

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  6. It is meaningless in today's world . . .

    Well, "meaningless," except for the fact that is protects our right to kill anyone trying to disarm us ;-).

    With a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

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    1. Well, "meaningless," except for the fact that is protects our right to kill anyone trying to disarm us ;-).

      OUCH! While your statement is true, OUCH!

      With a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

      Again,,,,,,,,, OUCH!! Damn OUCH!

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    2. First of all, no one is coming to disarm you. Secondly, if they did, you tough-talkers would be the first to submit.

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    3. Secondly, if they did, you tough-talkers would be the first to submit.

      We would be "the first"? How do you figure? Do you mean that our hands will be cold and dead first? Perhaps, but I'd wager we'll take some government hired muscle with us.

      To quote a frequent Mike Vanderboegh reply to what you're spewing here: "Don't extrapolate from your own cowardice."

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    4. "Don't extrapolate from your own cowardice." I love that.

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    5. Kurt, I invented "grandiose victimism" too, and it's perfect for you and your vision of ending up with cold dead hands at the mercy of the government.

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