Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?

Corey

OverCamping Specialist
Was in my email today at work from a coworker:
This ONLY TAKES 10 SECONDS
Own a Gun? Please Keep This Moving
Guess they were not happy with the poll results the first time, so USA Today is running another one....vote now
Attorney General Eric Holder has already said this is one of his major issues. He does not believe the 2nd Amendment gives individuals the right to bear arms.

This takes literally 2 clicks to complete.
Please vote on this gun issue question with USA Today.
It will only take a few seconds of your time. Then pass the link on to all the pro gun folks you know.
Hopefully these results will be published later this month.
This upcoming year will become critical for gun owners, with the Supreme Court's accepting the District of Columbia case against the right for individuals to bear arms.
Here's what you need to do:
First - vote on this one.
Second - launch it to other folks and have THEM vote - then we will see if the results get published.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/quickquestion/2007/november/popup5895.htm
 

shellb

Adventurer
Or, to look at it another way less than 1 million of 311 million Americans agree.

I'm not sure that is a fair statement to make. Perhaps, "Or, to look at it another way less than 1 million of 311 million Americans have voted in the poll that they agree."
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
--Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764).


"Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular point in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them, is the body of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these, collected from the parts most convenient, in numbers proportioned to the invading foe, it is best to rely, not only to meet the first attack, but if it threatens to be permanent, to maintain the defence until regulars may be engaged to relieve them."
--Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:334



Apparently, Mr. Holder was snoozing during his American History classes.
 

cnynrat

Expedition Leader
Fortunately, what the respondents to a USA Today poll or what Eric Holder think about this issue are not really all that relevant. The fundamental issue has been decided by the Supreme Court in Heller v. D.C and McDonald v. Chicago. There are a number of cases winding their way through the courts that will clarify the precise boundaries over time, but it would be a very radical departure from precedent for the court to ignore the principle of stare decisis and throw these two cases out wholesale.
 
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shellb

Adventurer
So are you suggesting the 2nd does not give such rights?

No, not at all. I think maybe I just read his post wrong.

I thought he was referring to the number of people who actually voted being less than a million of 311 million that they agree yes with the poll "Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?"

Which I didn't think was a fair statement, thus added the phrase voted to his statement, making it more correct in my view.

I'm not sure what he was saying now...
 

Corey

OverCamping Specialist
I was also informed over on MUD where I also posted this that the poll was from 2007.
It is in the URL, and I never noticed it.

I let my friend know, as I am sure someone was trying to be helpful by sending it to him.

Anyways, it will be a cold day in hell if they ever try to take my collection from my hands.

Never give up, never surrender.

94080777_2d5838c086.jpg
 

plainjaneFJC

Deplorable
I was also informed over on MUD where I also posted this that the poll was from 2007.
It is in the URL, and I never noticed it.

I let my friend know, as I am sure someone was trying to be helpful by sending it to him.

Anyways, it will be a cold day in hell if they ever try to take my collection from my hands.

Never give up, never surrender.

94080777_2d5838c086.jpg

Collection of "overland driveway pictures"---- just kidding!!!
 

TangoBlue

American Adventurist
No, not at all. I think maybe I just read his post wrong.

I thought he was referring to the number of people who actually voted being less than a million of 311 million that they agree yes with the poll "Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?"

Which I didn't think was a fair statement, thus added the phrase voted to his statement, making it more correct in my view.

I'm not sure what he was saying now...

So, you really are against the 2nd amendment then...





:coffeedrink:
 

robert

Expedition Leader
So are you suggesting the 2nd does not give such rights?

Well someone has to say it- no, the 2nd does not give such rights. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill or Rights don't grant any rights, they affirm that such rights are innate, granted by the Creator, and that they "shall not be infringed". The Constitution and the Bill of Right are restrictions on government, not the individual, and they acknowledge that such rights as God-Given can't be taken away by a government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

-United States Declaration of Independence​

I've never understood how our "leaders" and especially lawyers and judges who are supposedly schooled in law could screw that one up or why the subject even comes up for debate. It's basic civics and if you read any of the founding father's other writing on the matter, is crystal clear. * Similarly, they make no mention whatsoever of hunting or "sporting use" or any other retarded ideas that get passed off these days. It's very explicit what they feared and why they thought the way they do. To dispute otherwise is to not understand the concept of liberty (which I fear far too few do these days).

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms...The phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments — that is, each and every free person.
A select militia defined as only the privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of the press.
If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.


-Stephen P. Holbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right


I'll leave the politics at that so I don't get the ban hammer.



*Just one link to quotes about the second, there are plenty of them out there. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
 
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F5driver

Adventurer
Well someone has to say it- no, the 2nd does not give such rights. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill or Rights don't grant any rights, they affirm that such rights are innate, granted by the Creator, and that they "shall not be infringed". The Constitution and the Bill of Right are restrictions on government, not the individual, and they acknowledge that such rights as God-Given can't be taken away by a government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

-United States Declaration of Independence​

I've never understood how our "leaders" and especially lawyers and judges who are supposedly schooled in law could screw that one up or why the subject even comes up for debate. It's basic civics and if you read any of the founding father's other writing on the matter, is crystal clear. * Similarly, they make no mention whatsoever of hunting or "sporting use" or any other retarded ideas that get passed off these days. It's very explicit what they feared and why they thought the way they do. To dispute otherwise is to not understand the concept of liberty (which I fear far too few do these days).

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms...The phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments — that is, each and every free person.
A select militia defined as only the privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of the press.
If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.


-Stephen P. Holbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right


I'll leave the politics at that so I don't get the ban hammer.



*Just one link to quotes about the second, there are plenty of them out there. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution


Well said Robert!
 

plainjaneFJC

Deplorable
Well someone has to say it- no, the 2nd does not give such rights. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill or Rights don't grant any rights, they affirm that such rights are innate, granted by the Creator, and that they "shall not be infringed". The Constitution and the Bill of Right are restrictions on government, not the individual, and they acknowledge that such rights as God-Given can't be taken away by a government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

-United States Declaration of Independence​

I've never understood how our "leaders" and especially lawyers and judges who are supposedly schooled in law could screw that one up or why the subject even comes up for debate. It's basic civics and if you read any of the founding father's other writing on the matter, is crystal clear. * Similarly, they make no mention whatsoever of hunting or "sporting use" or any other retarded ideas that get passed off these days. It's very explicit what they feared and why they thought the way they do. To dispute otherwise is to not understand the concept of liberty (which I fear far too few do these days).

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms...The phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments — that is, each and every free person.
A select militia defined as only the privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of the press.
If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.


-Stephen P. Holbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right


I'll leave the politics at that so I don't get the ban hammer.



*Just one link to quotes about the second, there are plenty of them out there. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Definitely agree with you one this one, I just didnt think the conversation would go this deep.
 

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