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BamaD -> RE: What if it wasn't a gun? (4/23/2014 6:25:03 PM)
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ORIGINAL: igor2003
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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
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Anyway, I stand by own beliefs that at the time the Constitution was written, when they used the word "people" it meant adult men. If you have something to show that this is and was not the case, please share it.
Like you, I can only make my best guesses, Igor. As I understand it, though, a lot of people got dispossessed during those wars. Also from what I know, the term 'property' itself was pretty fraught before the Revolutionary War - considering such things as ownership of the country itself was being fought over; people were still staking claims to land, building their homes and towns from scratch, and so forth.
Assuming that you're right about all those boys who fought in the Revolutionary War in particular, was there some decree - presumably soon after the Revolutionary War and the 2nd Amendment was passed - that restricted the rights of those under a particular age to own and use a gun? That would be a clincher if so. I'd be surprised, though: those boys might well be needed in any future 'militia' that the 2nd talked about - and their previous experience would be invaluable. Not to mention their numbers, of course . . . .
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I'm not really sure what you are getting at when you ask, "It wasn't seen as an infringement of men's rights that women were now allowed to hold guns against them?" Men's rights were not infringed upon. Women's rights were expanded. When that amendment was passed there were definitely men that were against it. I'm guessing there still are. You can't please all the people all the time.
Simply that one person's extension of freedom is generally another person's reduction of freedom. If a woman can defend herself effectively against a man who once saw it as part of his range of freedoms to use women in one way or another, then he's going to feel that his freedoms to be now restricted. He'd be incorrect, of course, by the (stated) standards of most people today, but I suspect would feel that loss of freedom in the past.
I know of no such decree as what you asked about. I think at the time they had their hands full just coming up with the Constitution. But to me, if an underage boy was considered as a "possession" of the father, then by default if he owned a firearm, then that firearm would also be a "possession" of the father, making such a decree moot. If the father were dead, then I don't know what the considerations would have been, and I think that, there again, that would have been a very minor thing to worry about at the time. You have to keep in mind also, that hunting was a very big part of putting food on the table during those times, and very often it would be the "boys" doing the hunting while the father worked the fields or tended to earning income for the family.
Kids during that period grew up quicker than they do today. They had to. Overall life expectancy was shorter, and so the time for "childhood" was shorter. Younger people were more responsible and had more responsibility. People didn't worry about a teenage boys ability to safely use a firearm. So the concern of the time was not whether the teenage boy could "own" a firearm. There was no problem with them having access to their father's guns. The concern was in making sure that confiscation of those weapons never occurred.
(Sorry if this seems a little disjointed. I've fielded five phone calls while trying to write something coherent!)
My point earlier was that kids aren't given the duties and responsibilities today they then, and
you are correct that if a 10 year old had a gun it, like him, belonged to the father.
More people have rights to firearms than then.
Theb argument that a 10 year old had the same right to own a firearm is to disconnect from reality.
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