So, I've decided to examine the OP's article and pull out some points that are especially "fantastic" LOL. Only people who lasso and ride rainbow farting unicorns would consider this article of any value. It's only value is bias confirmation for people who already hate gun rights, gun owners and the Constitution.
The PBS Burger "quote" is a zombie that keeps coming to life. Nowadays when presented by anti-gunners the actual quote, uttered on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on December 16, 1991 is OMITTED and this assignment of meaning (AKA strawman) is substituted. The actual quote is:
I have searched high and low for a video or full transcript of this show because context is important, especially when brackets inserting words not originally spoken are used. Was Burger decrying an idea -promoted by unnamed special interest groups- that actually claims that "the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun" or is that simply a narrative that fits the stance of the author of the Politico piece? Given Burger's statements a year earlier recognizing that the 2nd Amendment protects a right to arms without any militia conditioning, challenging the Politico's inventive rephrasing of Burger is appropriate.
LOL. Actually "in fact" in the Court's first 2nd Amendment case (Cruikshank, 1876), the Court recognized the right to be armed for self defense outside the home / in public possessed / exercised by two Freemen (former slaves, then citizens) in 1873 Louisiana, a state which at that time had no state militia (ordered disbanded by Congress) and even if active the Freemen would have been excluded from enrolling.
The Constitution didn't change you silly rabbit.
The Supreme Court has never wavered from the individual right view and has never embraced any aspect of any permutation of the collective right view. The collective right interpretations were inserted in the federal courts in 1942 at the Circuit court level. In 2008 SCOTUS invalidated those perversions. That's all Heller did; it did not disturb or alter any Supreme Court precedent.
Only progressive / leftist / collectivist / statist authoritarians trouble themselves with such things in an attempt to explain away the right to arms. They lie to themselves and ignore the plain and boringly consistent (going on 140 years) direction from the Supreme Court -- that since the right to arms is a pre-existing right and not granted by the 2nd Amendment the right is not in any manner dependent upon the Constitution for its existence.
That means tortured definitions of the words of the 2nd, and inventive conclusions based on comma placement all leading to forced interpretations allowing conditions and qualifications to be placed on the right, are illegitimate and anti-constitutional.
Perhaps someone needs to read about Reconstruction, the Black Codes and the impetus for the 14th Amendment (just to name one significant period of 2nd Amendment understanding).
Really?
I would reply to that ridiculousness by arguing that we know what he didn't mean / want on June 8, 1789.
We know he didn't mean that any sort of government power was being recognized (or created) that would allow the federal government to dictate who the approved arms bearers would be. We know on that day Madison proposed the particular provisions be inserted in the body of the Constitution in the Article, Section and clause it modified / expanded.
For what would become the 2nd he proposed inserting it (and the others recognizing individual rights), "in article 1st, section 9, between clauses 3 and 4," right after, "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed" and among other prohibitions and limitations on Congressional action.
No discussion in the House debating the BoR provisions huh? A reason why the "conscientious objector provision" was rejected was because of fear of the tactics of twisting intent and inventing powers you employ. It was feared that the government would use those words to assume a power to declare which (or all) citizens are religiously scrupulous and thus move to disarm the people.
They weren't dissolved, they were extinguished by Congress when they passed the Dick Act in 1903 (and subsequent National Defense Acts nailed the coffin shut) which overrode the Militia Acts. That's what always puzzled me about the anti's theory that the 2nd protects state militias from being destroyed by the feds . . . Why didn't a single state claim this supposed protection of the 2nd to repel the feds nationalizing their militias?
Bullshit and to be dismissed without any rebuttal because no citations are given.
This could be its own post.
To use Aymette and OMIT the parts that the Supreme Court cited as the source of their reasoning in Miller is the height of disingenuousness (but typical for anti's).
That's enough for now. Anybody got the goods to challenge anything I've said?
POLITICO.COM: said:
The PBS Burger "quote" is a zombie that keeps coming to life. Nowadays when presented by anti-gunners the actual quote, uttered on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on December 16, 1991 is OMITTED and this assignment of meaning (AKA strawman) is substituted. The actual quote is:
"[The Second Amendment] has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word 'fraud,' on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
I have searched high and low for a video or full transcript of this show because context is important, especially when brackets inserting words not originally spoken are used. Was Burger decrying an idea -promoted by unnamed special interest groups- that actually claims that "the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun" or is that simply a narrative that fits the stance of the author of the Politico piece? Given Burger's statements a year earlier recognizing that the 2nd Amendment protects a right to arms without any militia conditioning, challenging the Politico's inventive rephrasing of Burger is appropriate.
POLITICO.COM: said:
LOL. Actually "in fact" in the Court's first 2nd Amendment case (Cruikshank, 1876), the Court recognized the right to be armed for self defense outside the home / in public possessed / exercised by two Freemen (former slaves, then citizens) in 1873 Louisiana, a state which at that time had no state militia (ordered disbanded by Congress) and even if active the Freemen would have been excluded from enrolling.
POLITICO.COM: said:
The Constitution didn't change you silly rabbit.
The Supreme Court has never wavered from the individual right view and has never embraced any aspect of any permutation of the collective right view. The collective right interpretations were inserted in the federal courts in 1942 at the Circuit court level. In 2008 SCOTUS invalidated those perversions. That's all Heller did; it did not disturb or alter any Supreme Court precedent.
POLITICO.COM: said:
Only progressive / leftist / collectivist / statist authoritarians trouble themselves with such things in an attempt to explain away the right to arms. They lie to themselves and ignore the plain and boringly consistent (going on 140 years) direction from the Supreme Court -- that since the right to arms is a pre-existing right and not granted by the 2nd Amendment the right is not in any manner dependent upon the Constitution for its existence.
That means tortured definitions of the words of the 2nd, and inventive conclusions based on comma placement all leading to forced interpretations allowing conditions and qualifications to be placed on the right, are illegitimate and anti-constitutional.
POLITICO.COM: said:
Perhaps someone needs to read about Reconstruction, the Black Codes and the impetus for the 14th Amendment (just to name one significant period of 2nd Amendment understanding).
POLITICO.COM: said:
Really?
I would reply to that ridiculousness by arguing that we know what he didn't mean / want on June 8, 1789.
We know he didn't mean that any sort of government power was being recognized (or created) that would allow the federal government to dictate who the approved arms bearers would be. We know on that day Madison proposed the particular provisions be inserted in the body of the Constitution in the Article, Section and clause it modified / expanded.
For what would become the 2nd he proposed inserting it (and the others recognizing individual rights), "in article 1st, section 9, between clauses 3 and 4," right after, "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed" and among other prohibitions and limitations on Congressional action.
POLITICO.COM: said:
No discussion in the House debating the BoR provisions huh? A reason why the "conscientious objector provision" was rejected was because of fear of the tactics of twisting intent and inventing powers you employ. It was feared that the government would use those words to assume a power to declare which (or all) citizens are religiously scrupulous and thus move to disarm the people.
POLITICO.COM: said:
They weren't dissolved, they were extinguished by Congress when they passed the Dick Act in 1903 (and subsequent National Defense Acts nailed the coffin shut) which overrode the Militia Acts. That's what always puzzled me about the anti's theory that the 2nd protects state militias from being destroyed by the feds . . . Why didn't a single state claim this supposed protection of the 2nd to repel the feds nationalizing their militias?
POLITICO.COM: said:
Bullshit and to be dismissed without any rebuttal because no citations are given.
POLITICO.COM: said:
This could be its own post.
To use Aymette and OMIT the parts that the Supreme Court cited as the source of their reasoning in Miller is the height of disingenuousness (but typical for anti's).
That's enough for now. Anybody got the goods to challenge anything I've said?
