Replies to post #195138 on Just Politics

[janice shell]

My God, what a bore you are.

[blackhawks]

Even Scalia Would Allow Today’s Gun-Control Proposals

Republicans should stop using the Constitution as cover. All gun control measures being debated today would be perfectly legal under the Supreme Court’s last major gun decision.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/even-supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-would-allow-todays-gun-control-proposals-after-el-paso-and-dayton

Crucially, however, like all constitutional rights, the right to gun ownership is not unlimited. Just as you can’t shout fire in the proverbial crowded theater, so too, you can’t stockpile weapons free of any regulation. In Justice Scalia’s words, it is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

In particular, Justice Scalia strongly suggested that his reading of the Second Amendment would still allow laws prohibiting felons from owning guns, prohibiting the carrying of firearms near schools and government buildings, and “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

Even more importantly, Justice Scalia limited the Second Amendment right to the kinds of weapons “in common use at the time” of the amendment’s passage. Total bans on assault-style weapons are completely constitutional (though the law expired in 2004).

The fact is, there’s no legal basis for claiming that the Constitution bans gun control. It’s just convenient for Senate Republicans to say so.

[Porgie Tirebiter]

"Well Regulated" Yeah, OK.

[DragonBear]

2A
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.

Because the Founding Fathers did not believe in a large standing army. With the security of a free state, meaning the security from its citizens being attacked. Attacked not by the Federal gov, but attacked on the frontier by Indian tribes, often fomented by British agents. Or the return of the British army invading as happened in 1812. So ends another history lesson.

Today the gun wingnuts have turned this upside down: Must have guns to protect ourselves from the tyrannical Fed gubbermint! Yeah, right someone holed up in their house with their AR-15 getting ready to do battle with an M1A3 tank, rumbling down their driveway.

Neither does the US need: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state so that all citizens can grab their guns, in the middle of the night, to defend against invasion from Mexico or Canada.

Also one can forget about the Movies, and the "Red Dawn" scenario. In the nuclear age we don't have to worry about hordes of Chinese or Russians invading us, and they don't have to worry about US forces invading them. There are only loosers in a nuclear war.

There's nothing wrong with having a gun for home defense. To protect against criminals. Nothing wrong with hunting with a rifle (bolt action only). But it's pure bullshit everyone needs to be armed, and in a militia to protect from foreign invasion. Likewise for opposing "the tyrannical Fed gubbermint". And if one needs a "militia" to restore order... it's called the National Guard.