Barton: Second Amendment Guarantees An Individual Right To Own A Tank Or Fighter Jet

Professor Baxter said:
It's about the reasons and arguments for the second. Gun rights advocates ignore/evade the fact that most of the founders arguments about liberty and the second dealt with the danger of a standing army. They were not arguing that if individuals were not permitted to walk the streets with guns or own artillery that the government might become tyrannical. They were arguing that without a well trained and prepared citizen militia there would be a demand for standing armies.

We have a standing army and so any sober and honest person has to consider the changed context. Of course, that excludes grind and others. A standing army does not and should not nullify the second. But if one truly shares the founders fear of a loss of liberty then your focus should be on reducing the size and power of the military not whether citizens should be able to own a tank.

You can own a machine gun but it is regulated. According to some who demand an extreme and likely unworkable reading of the second amendment this must be an unconstitutional infringement. I don't think it is and I don't have much problem with allowing it under the existing scheme. An unregulated trade in such weapons mixed with the black market created by our war on drugs, I fear, would have very negative results. I might be wrong, but as a libertarian I'll prioritize and demand an end to the drug war before we test that.
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I had thought the "well regulated militia" was now the national Guard -a citizen army.
Not the US Armed Forces, which are not a citizens Army ( recall GI Joe = Government Issued Joe).

The whole discussion is really beond my ability to neatly follow (though interesting).
I do agree with the libertarian ideas that any prohibition invariably leads to a black market;
as people do want the guns and drugs.
 
Dick Puncher EXPRESS said:
And yet you seem to blissfully IGNORE the precedent that you support directly leads to an erosion of all our rights. You seem to pretend that the 2A exists in a vaccuum away from all other rights and that we can infringe and regulate it at will and it will not give cause and precedent to do the exact same thing to our other rights.
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Never understood this so-called argument.

We DO limit rights.

Two quick examples: Felons (and ex-cons in many cases) can't vote. You can't slander someone and claim "freedom of speech".

Constitution is interpreted by the courts and they have allowed restrictions on other rights. It's not just guns.

Rights have to be balanced; that's what civilization does.
 
tekkychick said:
More intelligent than a lot of them, actually. They weren't all brainiacs.
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so you then believe that their experience with an overbearing and oppressive central government should not have influenced their ideology about the people themselves being as well armed as any standing army?
 
SmarterthanYou said:
so you then believe that their experience with an overbearing and oppressive central government should not have influenced their ideology about the people themselves being as well armed as any standing army?
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They did not intend to have a standing army. The second amendment was largely intended to prevent it, not combat it or compete with it.
 
Professor Baxter said:
They did not intend to have a standing army. The second amendment was largely intended to prevent it, not combat it or compete with it.
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completely false. the war for independence taught the founders that a standing army was necessary, but they were not to be trusted. the 2nd Amendment was specifically to ensure that the people would be able to outgun any standing army. this is evidenced by numerous statements in the federalist papers.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
so you then believe that their experience with an overbearing and oppressive central government should not have influenced their ideology about the people themselves being as well armed as any standing army?
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I think their experiences in 1776 with the current state of artillery then are pretty darned non-relevant to today's society.
 
tekkychick said:
I think their experiences in 1776 with the current state of artillery then are pretty darned non-relevant to today's society.
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and at this point, i'm not asking you about the difference in arms, i'm asking you about their experience with regards to the state of who maintains superiority in power.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
completely false. the war for independence taught the founders that a standing army was necessary, but they were not to be trusted. the 2nd Amendment was specifically to ensure that the people would be able to outgun any standing army. this is evidenced by numerous statements in the federalist papers.
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You are wrong. They were opposed to large standing armies which is evidenced by the federalist and anti federalist papers. The federalists felt that a general rule excluding them was misguided but they shared the concern while arguing that the likelihood of large standing armies in peace time was low uder a union (see Federalist 8). The right to bear arms was assumed and the second amendment was added as a precaution against the small and temporary standing armies. It was not intended that citizens compete with a large and extensive army which polices the globe or that they would be able to do so.
 
sedan said:
Owning and enjoying guns isn't what's insane.

It's thinking you have a right to your own personal nuclear weapon that's insane.
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Your hyperbole does not help your argument when you think that anyone WANTS to own a nuke to begin with, because your insinuation that everyone (or anyone) does is equally insane.
 
Dick Puncher EXPRESS said:
Your hyperbole does not help your argument when you think that anyone WANTS to own a nuke to begin with, because your insinuation that everyone (or anyone) does is equally insane.
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Are you high?

Are you trying to claim that no one wants a nuclear weapon? That it's insane for me to 'insinuate' that anyone does?
 
sedan said:
Are you high?

Are you trying to claim that no one wants a nuclear weapon? That it's insane for me to 'insinuate' that anyone does?
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if you knew HOW to build a nuclear weapon or how much one costs because of the expense of building one, I can assure you that you would not want one.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
if you knew HOW to build a nuclear weapon or how much one costs because of the expense of building one, I can assure you that you would not want one.
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I don't need your assurance to know that I don't want one.

Figured that out all by myself.

Other people do, however -- terrorists, for example.

And not all terrorists are foreign, you know.
 
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