Thu Sep 08, 2022 8:43 am
Thu Sep 08, 2022 9:21 am
Thu Sep 08, 2022 9:43 am
Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:34 pm
Stokes wrote:When I listen to those that would like to curtail this right, I see lots that is up for debate. I think ignoring it with an attitude that we won with Heller and the debate is closed won't actually get very far. And, it didn't, as proved by Chicago and Bruen. Roe was 'settled law' for fifty years and we see how that turned out. These debates will go on forever.
Defining 'the people' is important as well. Obviously, 'the people' meant something different (especially thru a 2a lens) in 1791 than it does today. Saint Thomas did a good analysis of this in Bruen.
Sat Sep 10, 2022 1:56 pm
Sun Sep 11, 2022 7:52 am
Stokes wrote:Cuz, thanks for posting those. Those are the exact points RKBA proponents need to think about. That is why there is still debate.
Along those lines, we should think about how the 2A ‘shall not be infringed’ differs from the 1A ‘make no law…prohibiting…abridging’? Or 4A ‘shall not be violated’. Or 7A ‘right….preserved’.
Infringed isn't the same as prohibit, nor abridge, nor not violate. People love to believe that the 2A is clear on it's plain reading, all while ignoring (or being ignorant of) these other issues.
As an aside to your comments, I do think that the Reconstruction Era amendments obviously didn't change society's perception, but they certainly changed the legal meaning.
Sun Sep 11, 2022 8:58 am
Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:22 am
Stokes wrote:The 'people' mentioned in the pre-Civil War Constitutional framework was solidified in the Reconstruction Era amendments to include more inhabitants of our country. The immunities and privileges now extended to more than just white, land owning males. By this time, women still didn't have universal suffrage, but that was because of state restrictions and not because limitations in the federal constitution. So, legally, the class of individuals that constituted the people with these immunities and privileges expanded.
I think it was very easy to make the case that the original 'People' of the federal constitution did include everyone, even if in practice it wasn't followed. The adoption of the 14A, and the incorporation of those rules against the states gave legal recognition to those other classes.
I disagree that for it to be law it needs to be understood by all citizens. And, even moreso, if you were to argue that it need to be universally accepted. A very general definition of 'law' would be 'rules the government can enforce'.
Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:43 pm
Back to the interpretation of the 2A...[w/o NRA-ILA bias]
Many historians agree that the primary reason for passing the Second Amendment in 1791 was to prevent the need for the United States to have a professional standing army. At the time it was passed, it seems it was not intended to grant a right for private individuals to keep weapons for self-defense.
Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:21 pm
shewter wrote:Back to the interpretation of the 2A...[w/o NRA-ILA bias]
Many historians agree that the primary reason for passing the Second Amendment in 1791 was to prevent the need for the United States to have a professional standing army. At the time it was passed, it seems it was not intended to grant a right for private individuals to keep weapons for self-defense.
That really doesn't make sense contextually. The country was recently formed via a bloody revolution in which the (effectively) peasants of the nation utilized their personal firearms to oust an occupational force. That occupational force being the arm of the British Government.
Furthermore, the opinions of the framers are not unknown to us.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
With this in mind, the take on the 2nd amendment not being for the individual to be armed for self defense seems to be reaching for a conclusion that wasn't made. Obviously, the intent was for the individual to be armed in order to defend his rights, his land, and his very existence. I would like to see these historians trying to separate personal ownership from lawful use in self defense.
Sun Oct 23, 2022 5:17 pm
curiouscuz wrote:shewter wrote:Back to the interpretation of the 2A...[w/o NRA-ILA bias]
Many historians agree that the primary reason for passing the Second Amendment in 1791 was to prevent the need for the United States to have a professional standing army. At the time it was passed, it seems it was not intended to grant a right for private individuals to keep weapons for self-defense.
That really doesn't make sense contextually. The country was recently formed via a bloody revolution in which the (effectively) peasants of the nation utilized their personal firearms to oust an occupational force. That occupational force being the arm of the British Government.
Furthermore, the opinions of the framers are not unknown to us.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
With this in mind, the take on the 2nd amendment not being for the individual to be armed for self defense seems to be reaching for a conclusion that wasn't made. Obviously, the intent was for the individual to be armed in order to defend his rights, his land, and his very existence. I would like to see these historians trying to separate personal ownership from lawful use in self defense.
So why did you pick Jefferson's first draft to quote and not the second or third, e.g., quote:
First Draft: "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."[1]
Second Draft: "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]."[2]
Third Draft: "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]" [3]
Moot point since "the sentence does not appear in the Virginia Constitution as adopted." unquote.
https://www.monticello.org/research-edu ... -use-arms/
[Sidebar: to quantify/qualify terms - let's define the colonial period's term of "freeman" shall we, quote:
-During the American colonial period, a freeman was a person who was not a slave. The term originated in 12th-century Europe.
-"Freedom" was earned after an allotted time, or after the person demanding "payment" was satisfied. This was known as indentured servitude, and was not originally intended as a stigma or embarrassment for the person involved; many of the sons and daughters of the wealthy and famous of the time found themselves forced into such temporary servitude, Gary Nash reporting that "many of the servants were actually nephews, nieces, cousins and children of friends of emigrating Englishmen, who paid their passage in return for their labor once in America."
-An indentured servant would sign a contract agreeing to serve for a specific number of years, typically five or seven. Many immigrants to the colonies came as indentured servants, with someone else paying their passage to the Colonies in return for a promise of service. At the end of his service, according to the contract, the indentured servant usually would be granted a sum of money, a new suit of clothes, land, or perhaps passage back to England. An indentured servant was not the same as an apprentice or a child who was "placed out."
-Once a man was made a freeman and was no longer considered a common, he could become a member of the church (and would usually do so) and he could own land. The amount of land that he was able to own was sometimes determined by how many members there were in his family. As a freeman, he became a member of the governing body, which met in annual or semiannual meetings (town meetings) to make and enforce laws and pass judgment in civil and criminal matters. As the colonies grew, these meetings became impractical and a representative bicameral system was developed.]
Terribly sorry to inform you shewter you completely misquoted the VA's Congressional delegate Lee's quote in the 1788 edition of the Federal Farmer as his original text stated, quote:
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." unquote.
https://www.madisonbrigade.com/rh_lee.htm
Further shewter, you really should verify your quotes...your Patrick Henry quote is a verifiable horribly botched quote in a horrific 2015 book by Dana Loesch who attempts to demonstrate that the Founding Father's view of the Second Amendment matches her own, but in doing so she misquotes, and often takes out of context, the Founder's true words.
Here is what Henry actually stated, quote:
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined... May we not discipline and arm them, as well as Congress, if the power be concurrent? So that our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets of regimentals, and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed. The great object is, that every man be armed. But can the people afford to pay for double sets of arms, Every one Who is able may have a gun. But we have learned, by experience, that, necessary as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case. unquote
[sidebar: The NRA has blown this up into a poster-sized blurb embossed with Patrick Henry's image."]
https://www.mediamatters.org/dana-loesc ... ng-fathers
Per Patrick Henry historian & scholar, quote:
"Henry was actually talking about ensuring that members of the militia were adequately armed, not the general public. Furthermore, the Henry quotation uses ellipses to join together two ideas that Henry expressed days apart. Henry spoke about guarding “the public liberty” on June 5, 1788 at the Virginia Ratifying Convention. His comments about arms, which appear distorted in Loesch's book, occurred on June 14 at the same convention.
https://www.mediamatters.org/dana-loesc ... ng-fathers
Finally, to address your comment about my 2A closure, allow me to quote Madison, quote:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. unquote
https://www.mediamatters.org/dana-loesc ... ng-fathers
Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:03 am
Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:41 am
shewter wrote:
Not a moot point. The framers' view on civilian armament is fundamental to the right to keep and bear arms. The importance of understanding their frame (hah) of mind when discussing what would be codified can't be understated. Especially when the go-to arguments tend to fall into categories of "they never could have predicted the advancement in personal armament" (They owned warships, cannons etc.) or "it was intended to give the states the right to form militias" <-- probably the most important reason for discussing their view on personal ownership.
Sat Nov 26, 2022 10:18 am
Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:21 pm