Shooting rampage master thread

[Goldwyrm]

For example, of course the president is going to have armed guards - and that's not a erosion of civil liberties based on inequality of access.

His right to be protected is not the argument. Taking away the effective means for someone else to protect themselves while maintaining his own effective means for security is the elitist hypocrisy.

[da_bish]

His right to be protected is not the argument. Taking away the effective means for someone else to protect themselves while maintaining his own effective means for security is the elitist hypocrisy.

Exactly what is being taken away to result in such "hypocrisy?" Has Obama proposed a total ban on guns and an enforced collection of all of same?

You can't protect your family without an M4?

[Colonel Kane]

For example, of course the president is going to have armed guards - and that's not a erosion of civil liberties based on inequality of access.

His right to be protected is not the argument. Taking away the effective means for someone else to protect themselves while maintaining his own effective means for security is the elitist hypocrisy.

That just sounds so utterly loopy I can't even think of a coherent counter. You win

[SaigonSaddler]

For example, of course the president is going to have armed guards - and that's not a erosion of civil liberties based on inequality of access.

His right to be protected is not the argument. Taking away the effective means for someone else to protect themselves while maintaining his own effective means for security is the elitist hypocrisy.

I assume shotguns and pistols will remain available. That's even in the unlikely event of home invasion or kidnap attempt. What kind of firepower do you need to feel safe?

The claim that the president and another person's need for security should be anywhere near the same obviously flawed and is one of the weak arguments I was refering to.

[Colonel Kane]

Out of interest, have the NRA ever objected to past presidents being granted lifetime Secret Service protection?

[da_bish]

The claim that the president and another person's need for security should be anywhere near the same obviously flawed and is one of the weak arguments I was refering to.

It's all they've got at the moment. That and the old standby that they've have from time immemorial a sacred constitutional right to own whatever weapon they want (absolute rubbish, as is shown here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/c ... ntPage=all ), and the ever popular argument that without assault weapons in the population the gubment will start depriving us of our precious bodily fluids, a la Brig Gen Jack D. Ripper.

[Goldwyrm]

Out of interest, have the NRA ever objected to past presidents being granted lifetime Secret Service protection?

An objection would be in the context of highlighting a double standard. It's a political tactic obviously but to stimulate a valid discussion on double standards.

Substitute this for anything really. If Berlusconi was advocating public decency laws when he was in power in Italy a similar juxtaposition could be made.

[Il Segaiolo Pedantesco]

An opinion piece from the New Yorker, by noted liberal Jeffrey Toobin, with his own re-interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

It's wiki, but there's some useful information:Early Commentary

The earliest published commentary on the Second Amendment by a major constitutional theorist was by St. George Tucker. He annotated a five-volume edition of Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, a critical legal reference for early American attorneys published in 1803.[105]

In footnotes 40 and 41 of the Commentaries, Tucker stated that the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment was not subject to the restrictions that were part of English law: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Amendments to C. U. S. Art. 4, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government" and "whoever examines the forest, and game laws in the British code, will readily perceive that the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the people of England." Blackstone himself also commented on English game laws, Vol. II, p. 412, "that the prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to government by disarming the bulk of the people, is a reason oftener meant than avowed by the makers of the forest and game laws."[105] Blackstone discussed the right of self-defense in a separate section of his treatise on the common law of crimes. Tucker's annotations for that latter section did not mention the Second Amendment but cited the standard works of English jurists such as Hawkins.[106]

Further, Tucker criticized the English Bill of Rights for limiting gun ownership to the very wealthy, leaving the populace effectively disarmed, and expressed the hope that Americans "never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty."[105]

Tucker's commentary was soon followed, in 1825, by that of William Rawle in his landmark text, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America. Like Tucker, Rawle condemned England's "arbitrary code for the preservation of game," portraying that country as one that "boasts so much of its freedom," yet provides a right to "protestant subjects only" that it "cautiously describ[es] to be that of bearing arms for their defence" and reserves for "[a] very small proportion of the people[.]"[107] In contrast, Rawle characterizes the second clause of the Second Amendment, which he calls the corollary clause, as a general prohibition against such capricious abuse of government power, declaring bluntly:

No clause could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.[108]

Rawle, long before the concept of incorporation was formally recognized by the courts, or Congress drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, contended that citizens could appeal to the Second Amendment should either the state or federal government attempt to disarm them. He did warn, however, that "this right [to bear arms] ought not...be abused to the disturbance of the public peace" and observed, paraphrasing Coke, that "[a]n assemblage of persons with arms, for unlawful purpose, is an indictable offence, and even the carrying of arms abroad by a single individual, attended with circumstances giving just reason to fear that he purposes to make an unlawful use of them, would be sufficient cause to require him to give surety of the peace."[107]

The orthodox view of the meaning of the Second Amendment was articulated by Joseph Story in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution. In his view the meaning of the Amendment was clear:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.[109]

In this quote, Story describes a militia as the "natural defence of a free country," both against foreign foes, domestic revolts and usurpation by rulers. The book regards the militia as a "moral check" against both usurpation and the arbitrary use of power, while expressing distress at the growing indifference of the American people to maintaining such an organized militia, which could lead to the undermining of the protection of the Second Amendment.[109]

Abolitionist Lysander Spooner, commenting on bills of rights, stated that the object of all bills of rights is to assert the rights of individuals against the government and that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was in support of the right to resist government oppression, as the only security against the tyranny of government lies in forcible resistance to injustice, for injustice will certainly be executed, unless forcibly resisted.[110] Spooner's theory provided the intellectual foundation for John Brown and other radical abolitionists who believed that arming slaves was not only morally justified, but entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.[111] An express connection between this right and the Second Amendment was drawn by Lysander Spooner who commented that a "right of resistance" is protected by both the right to trial by jury and the Second Amendment.[112]

The congressional debate on the proposed Fourteenth Amendment concentrated on what the Southern States were doing to harm the newly freed slaves, including disarming the former slaves.[113]

[da_bish]

An opinion piece from the New Yorker, by noted liberal Jeffrey Toobin, with his own re-interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

Erm, are you arguing his statements are factually incorrect?

and what of your wikipedia blurb, all drafted by Harvard Law Review alum too I assume?

Thanks anyway though, Copypasta.

[Il Segaiolo Pedantesco]

An opinion piece from the New Yorker, by noted liberal Jeffrey Toobin, with his own re-interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

Erm, are you arguing his statements are factually incorrect?

and what of your wikipedia blurb, all drafted by Harvard Law Review alum too I assume?

Thanks anyway though, Copypasta.

He's not only incorrect, but is influenced by his political bias - he's referred to Justice Clarence Thomas as an extremist.

As for Wiki, hasn't stopped you from trying to contradict me about the popular vote, despite the entry using the source that I linked to, but you rejected it. Lysander Spooner, an abolitionist, supporting the 2nd Amendment for the right to individual ownership of guns, isn't good enough for you?