this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
526 points (96.5% liked)

politics

19124 readers
2685 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] open2db8 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is that so? I'll be wanting a citation for that assertion. In the interim, you might read the following. It presents an actual informed, expert opinion on the subject at hand:

https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/2ll/schol/2amd_grammar.htm

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Just one I found real quick:

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/14/1113705501/second-amendment-supreme-court-dick-heller-gun-rights

An individual right to own a gun for personal protection is an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture. But for most of U.S. history, there was little actual legal framework to support any such interpretation of the Second Amendment. It wasn't until a relatively recent Supreme Court decision that this all changed.

[...]

the case that bears his name redefined gun ownership, as it marked the first time the Supreme Court affirmed an individual right to gun ownership that was separate from the "militia clause" in the Second Amendment.

(Emphasis mine)

[–] open2db8 1 points 11 months ago

Thanks! I'll look it over after I get home.

[–] open2db8 1 points 11 months ago

“for most of U.S. history, there was little actual legal framework to support any such interpretation of the Second Amendment. It wasn't until a relatively recent Supreme Court decision that this all changed.”

The article you linked to bases its premise on that statement, which is demonstrably incorrect. Any review of the debates on the BoR of the day, in particular of the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers will have little difficulty in discerning the intent of the founders. Concerning court interpretations, as I am not as erudite as most, I'll refer you to this. It is taken from a constitutional commentary from the University of Minnesota Law School (https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1275&context=concomm):

"From the enactment of the Bill of Rights through most of the twentieth century, the second amendment seems to have been understood to guarantee to every law-abiding responsible adult the right to possess most ordinary firearms. Until the mid-twentieth century courts and commentaries (the two earliest having been before Congress when it voted on the second amendment) deemed that the amendment "confirmed [the people] in their right to keep and bear their private arms," or "their own arms."

In a 1939 case which is its only full treatment, the Supreme Court accepted that private persons may invoke the second amendment, but held that it confines their freedom of choice to militia-type weapons, i.e., high quality handguns and rifles, but not "gangster weapons" such as sawed-off shotguns, switchblade knives and (arguably) "Saturday Night Specials. " In the 1960s this individual right view was challenged by scholars who argued that the second amendment guarantee extends only to the states' right to arm formal military units. This states' right view attained predominance, and was endorsed by the ABA, the ACLU and such texts as Lawrence Tribe's American Constitutional Law. During the 1980s, however, a large literature on the amendment appeared, much of it rejecting the states' right view as inconsistent with the text and with new research findings on the legislative history, the attitudes of the authors, the meaning of the right to bear arms in antecedent American and English legal thought, and the role that an armed citizenry played in classical liberal political philosophy from Aristotle through Machiavelli and Harrington to Sidney, Locke, Rousseau and their various disciples. Indicative of the current Supreme Court's probable view is a 1990 decision which, though focusing on the fourth amendment, cites the first and second as well in concluding that the phrase "right of the people" is a term of art used throughout the Bill of Rights to designate rights pertaining to individual citizens (rather than to the states)."

There is an easily traced history regarding the Second, clearly showing the intent to protect a naturally-existing right of the individual against incursion by government.