Leftforge Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment...

No, that is not at all what I am saying.

Your last few posts have all begun by trying to summarise my argument. Each time I have told you that that is not my argument, and restated my actual point. Each time you ignore my statement of my point and come back by misquoting my argument to me again in the same manner. If you want to discuss this, go back to any of my previous summaries and use them to see what I am actually saying.

Could you restate your point? I missed it somehow.

Is it that armed civilians can't effectively oppose a standing army, or that the civilians don't really have a right to be armed, or that they should at least be organized by the government into reasonably effective units?

I've already told you once what I thought it means when I posted the picture. It's your claim that you think I don't know what it means. Back that claim up with evidence. Tell me what you think it means.

I thought your claim was that I'm only interpreting the text as far as it supports my beliefs. I counter that (1) this doesn't matter, as I can still be right even if so, (2) I have demonstrated that my interpretation flows pretty cleanly from the original text (I'm not even bothering with other context as you are fixated solely on the text), and (3) you must show there *is* another interpretation that I'm avoiding.

If I'm wrong about your point, please re-state it. If not, please respond to my last post.

Just noticed this Tererun. Does this mean you would have no problems with a civilian owning military grade equipment like 50 caliber machine guns, an unmodified armored vehicles or man portable SAMs (Stingers) if they could pass some kind of background and mental test?

Don't you know all gun rights advocates think everyone should have nukes in their back yard?

My foot. I was pretty sure that was obvious when I said kick. Had I meant to use my hands I might say something like punch of bitchslap.

As long as they were trained and going to use them or store them safely then that is fine with me. Of course we should not be selling to crazies also, but if people want to screw around while taking on a certain amount of danger to themselves I am fine with it. I am also not talking about people parading around with one in the middle of the street for no fucking reason because that would not be safe either. But there is a reasonable area where someone who is safe and sane should be able to own and use pretty much anything a military can train with or use in peaceful activities.

And i told you it did not mean what you think it means. You still had no explanation as to how you were applying it to the context of the argument. I could find some meaningless picture of words about guns and post that and say my point was made, and it woulkd be the same as what you did. You have no clue what you posted means, and it certainly does not mean what you say it did. You cannot even explain how it applies, so why should I explain for you why it applies? Go actually make your own fucking argument you dunce. I am not going to argue for you. Take your picture and shove it up your ass until you have the proper understanding of it to explain what it means.

Nukes are things that need proper storage and cannot be reasonably made safe by your average citizen. However, if a person like the koch brothers wanted to have a nuke and could show it's safe storage I cannot say I would find a reason to tell them no considering they have the resources and do not seem to be ......Ok lets say Bill Gates as the koch brothers do tend to be a little malicious and do not consider public safety concerns.

I would say NO to any consideration of private nuclear weapons regardless of how many background checks and psych studies you pass.

There are some levels of power that no civilian (and precious few military personnel) should be responsible for wielding.

Wow, Dayton finally admitted to some limit.

You're telling me that it doesn't mean what I think it means. WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS? If you are so sure that you know what it means, then it shouldn't be hard for you to tell me what you think it means. Telling me that it's not what I think it means is nothing. You are just making a statement. Your statement is not backed up by anything. My statement on the other hand, is. PROVE YOUR FUCKING STATEMENT OR SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!! You don't get to tell me that I don't know what it means and then walk away, you have to back your statement up with evidence. I gave you an explanation of what I think it means, it's now your turn.

The problem, dumbass, is nobody really knows what you think it means. It's kind of like this:

You can't ask somebody to prove your source when it is so completely disconnected from the conversation.

I posted what I think it means when I posted the fucking picture, moron.

You said something about the individual right not being connected to the militia, then posted a picture listing some procedural votes on other matters. Nothing in that document regards the 2nd amendment. Did you even look at it? The cloud picture is actually more relevant, because somebody might want to shoot a bird flying through.

So I'm going to say that you in fact did not explain what it means. Do you not know? Who told you it meant something about the militia and individual rights?

Well, we should probably discuss how the militia has changed. Since most of us are in the militia, yet none of us are assigned to front line infantry or cavalry units, I think it's fair to say that the militia has way too many desk jobs. In fact, we probably have more people working in cyber warfare, PR, and food service than in combat roles. It's as if the bulk of the militia is made up of pretty lazy couch potatoes.

Let's try this one more time since Tererun is so completely retarded. It's been Packard's claim that the individual right to bear arms is linked to the militia. In other words, without the militia, the individual right does not exist. I'm arguing that that notion was rejected by the framers and that the individual right is independent of the militia. Here is proof that the framers rejected Packard's argument.



http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsj&fileName=001/llsj001.db&recNum=74&itemLink=r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(sj0011)):#0010001&linkText=1
You'll notice around the second paragraph that the Senate voted against inserting the words "for common defense" from the amendment next to the words, "bear arms" as to separate the right to bear arms from the militia. The individual right to bear arms is not dependent upon the militia. Furthermore, the men in the militias were to provide their own arms when training and what not. How would you provide your own arms if there is no individual right? Anyway, Tererun claims that this source doesn't say what I think it say, so he can back up his claim with evidence. I've provided evidence to back up my claim, the ball is in your court.

Yeah, I read the fucking document moron, did you? Nothing in it talks about the second amendment, nothing at all, huh? How about the second or third paragraph down? Anything there look familiar, dipshit, anything at all? Look a little closer. And I quote.

Nothing regarding the 2nd amendment, right? Wrong. Maybe you should have read it before you accused me of not reading it, jackass.

Okay, good, we are making progress. I hoped that if I said there was no mention of the second, you'd point out where it mentions it, and what it says.

Now that you are thinking about the data, please explain how that change negates dependence on a militia. What makes you think it was specifically for that purpose, rather than poetic consideration?

And what do you think about the other vote, regarding inserting the words "necessary to the" rather than "the best". That means they saw the militia as the crucial element. It wasn't just best to have one, it was absolutely necessary. So, why should we think they didn't consider that to be the primary focus?

I should add, that while interesting to think about intent, ultimately, the Constitution is significantly more than the words of the framers. Only religionists are blindly obedient to scripture. The Constitution actually evolves with society, and every court ruling, every precedent, adds to the document. Anybody who thinks it starts only with "we the people," and ends with the final word in the 27th amendment doesn't actually understand constitutional democracy. They understand dogma.

Yeah gul, it was just a poetic choice. Give me a break. You'll do anything to wiggle out of this one, won't you? Why would they vote on a "poetic choice"? Never mind the fact that this is vote on the Bill of Rights. As you can see, if you actually read it, they go on to discuss other wording in other amendments. The wording matters. Furthermore, this comes on the heals of debates over the amendments and their wording. Going by my quotes earlier, plus this, it seems pretty clear that most people believed that the militia was the best defense against tyranny, but they also believed people should have the individual right and the two were not coupled.

I'll grant you that they believed the militia was necessary to secure the free state, but who are the militia? They are the people. The people need to be armed and like I pointed out, the people were to supply their own arms when in service of the militia. If the right to bear arms was for the common defense only, then they wouldn't have struck the wording from the amendment. This poetic choice theory is complete bullshit and you know it.

Gun grabbers and statists will twist the Constitution however they can to divine the meaning they want. This is why I don't believe in loose construction because you can interpret the Constitution however you want and it places no limits on any branch of government gives them limitless power. Interpreting the Constitution should be to the narrowest sense. You look at the text and the intentions behind the text, that's it. The text alone and the intentions behind the text is enough to tell you exactly what the framers meant when they wrote the law. Go ahead though. If you think you can find a better interpretation, be my guest I and others have provided example after example. I've provided actual quotes by the framers and what they actually said and meant, not just a bunch of gibberish of what some fool thinks they said and meant.

As I pointed out earlier, if you insist on strict construction, then there is no individual right, the document just doesn't say it. Now, it may surprise you, since you don't often follow what's been said in these conversations, but I don't deny an individual right. But you can't get there through strict construction.

Yes you can, it says the right of the people. Duh.

I do not think the 2nd Amendment was ever intended as an "individual right". I think the founders would've considered the "right" to keep a firearm to be such a no brainer that they wouldn't bother listing it. It would be just something considered in the 9th amendment.

But remember independence era American leaders had a fixation with the "militia". Many believed in the idea that it was citizen soldiers "answer the call" to bear arms that defeated the British while the reality was it was a professional army trained by European expert Baron Von Steuben that won the lions share of the key battles.

Plus, the founders had a natural distrust of standing armies. After all it was a standing army of British soldiers that required funding that led to the whole "taxation without representation" thing.

So with this preference for militia troops and colonials unhappy history with standing armies, with the second amendment they sought to enshrine in the Constitution the standing of militia (citizen soldier) forces.

I don't see how you can support that. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" is clearly an individual right, and its existence is taken as a given by the wording of the Second Amendment. I'd ask simply: "What does the Second Amendment prohibit from infringement?"

ARMED men. With your Japanese-schoolgirl-uniform-shod foot. Right.

Learn to read. This has never been my claim at any point in this thread.

My claim is that you are not even trying to present a full interpretation of the text. If you believe that you can be right even if you're not providing a full interpretation, then I guess my point is pretty much made. Whatever you hope to be right about can't be a full interpretation if you can be right about it without providing one.

This doesn't relate to whether your claims are false. If I claim that the 2nd amendment does not explain analytical geometry, then that claim would neither be generally false, nor is there a more correct interpretation of the amendment that proves me wrong. But I have still contributed very little to a full interpretation of the text.

You have repeatedly said, for instance, that a detailed understanding of 'militia' is irrelevant because the right to bear arms is not tied to it; that the specification of 'arms' is irrelevant because no court would rule on it; that the relation of the participle to the main clause is irrelevant beyond ensuring that the former does not limit the latter; and then you even argued that it does in fact limit the latter, but that that contradiction is also irrelevant because it does not apply to any concrete weapons anyone would like to either ban (assault weapons) or legalise (nukes).

So in a thread about understanding the 2nd amendment, you have consistently argued that a comprehensive understanding is irrelevant, since only the effect on a right to own guns matters. This is, of course, a point of view. My point is that if this is your stance, you should admit it. Instead, you have been telling others, including me, that our reading of the amendment is slanted due to a specific political agenda. But your argument makes it clear that the opposite is true: Yours is, ours isn't. We respect the constitution; your interest in what it says is politically circumscribed.

The full text is one sentence long. A full interpretation takes perhaps three sentences, maybe four. It's not rocket science.