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popeye1250 -> RE: Effective Gun Control in England (3/25/2007 9:45:49 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: dcnovice
Well, I'm in over my head at this point. As I've said from the beginning, I'm not an expert on con law, which is why I've tried to raise questions rather than make assertions. Your question about what collective rights the Constitution gives/recognizes is a good one, for which I don't have a good answer.
With help from dear old Wikipedia (not a scholarly source, I know!), I did learn that courts have construed the Second Amendment in different ways.
These are examples from Courts of Appeals in different circuits:
United States v. Emerson (2001)
"There is no evidence in the text of the Second Amendment, or any other part of the Constitution, that the words 'the people' have a different connotation within the Second Amendment than when employed elsewhere in the Constitution."
We hold . . . that it protects the rights of individuals, including those not . . . actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms . . . that are suitable as personal, individual weapons."
Silveira v. Lockyer (2002)
Because the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms, we affirm the dismissal of all claims brought pursuant to that constitutional provision."
United States v. Haney (2001)
"we hold that a federal criminal gun-control law does not violate the Second Amendment unless it impairs the state's ability to maintain a well-regulated militia. This is simply a straightforward reading of the text of the Second Amendment."
Parker, et al. v. District of Columbia (2007)
"To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms."
Wikipedia also quotes the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), but I'm not really sure what the passage means!
"[T]he people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by 'the people of the United States.' The Second Amendment protects 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,' and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to 'the people.' See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ('Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble') (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 ('The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States') (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that 'the people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community. "
That's why they call them "opinions" I guess.
Without a person you can't have The People. They're both human.
I couldn't find anywhere where "The State" has the right to bare arms.
How can a "state" have rights anyway? Yu have to be "human" to have rights.
And Caitlyn is right, there are more than 300 million firearms in the hands of The People in this country. I own 16 of those 300 million.
And ammunition of all flavors. (I hope there's never a fire in here!)
If Bush, Clinton or anyone else thinks they can take them away from us let them try! We'd have all the police locked up in the jails under guard and then you *would *see 20-30 million VERY heavily armed, pissed-off Citizens encircling Washington, D.C.
Does any Administration really think that any Troops would side with (them) in that scenario?
THEN you'd see some Butt Pyramids, before we hung them.
All a conflagration takes is *one spark.*
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