The excitement is in the air here in DC, where rumor has it that the Supreme Court is about to hand down a decision on Heller. Finally, hopefully, we'll have an answer: does the Second Amendment protect an individual right, or not? If so, we can then get down to wrangling about whether that right is incorporated against the states.
I confess, I'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I have no particular desperate longing to own a gun, but I have a big jones for more personal liberty.
It is hard to see how it wouldn't be incorporated against the states if the other amendments are- at least it would be hard to argue otherwise with a logically consistent argument.
Megan: "... but I have a big jones for more personal liberty."
Why? What do you want to do?
I believe in facing the consequences of your own actions, and so feel that Washington DC (the mecca of modern liberalism) should not allow non-criminals to own guns. Let them remain at the mercy of the environment they helped create. If that bodes ill for some beltway libertarians...well, they chose to lie down with dogs, didn't they.
But what does Megan think about FISA?
Looks like you'll have to wait a little longer. Anticipation.
There are many parts of constitutional law where logical consistency is not held to be a high virtue.
For instance, the whole collective right thing is groundless and at heart a cynical attempt to interpret the 2nd amendment out of existence. I've yet to hear an argument for it that wasn't based on an ignorance of what the militia is and what it meant when it was written.
SCOTUSblog sez tomorrow, 6/26:
At the close of Wednesday’s public session, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., announced that the Court will issue all remaining decisions for the Term at 10 a.m. Thursday. The test case on whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a gun is among those remaining (District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290).
www.scotusblog.com
Esher-
I believe in facing the consequences of your own actions, and so feel that Washington DC (the mecca of modern liberalism) should not allow non-criminals to own guns. Let them remain at the mercy of the environment they helped create. If that bodes ill for some beltway libertarians...well, they chose to lie down with dogs, didn't they.
Y'know what I'm a fan of firearms. But thats unfair. Quite frankly there are some people whose weapons I would like to take away for the mutual safety of all those concerned. There the ones that seem to fantasize about shooting a burglar, or stopping the assault of someone dear to them. I guess its because my own personal motivation when contrasted with their sis what irritates me the most. However, I certainly hope the Supreme Court furthers Gun ownership on this matter.
ben,
I would agree with you, except that "fantasize" is an internal action, and I can't determine what's in the heart of other people. If you mean people who carry in case they need it for self-defense, I'm afraid I don't understand the problem - does purchasing a fire extinguisher mean one fantasizes about their house burning down?
As for mutual safety, I would wager if you take 500 gun clubs around the nation and pick out the more "rabid" members from each, you would have a statistical sample with a much lower incidence of gun violence than the general population. But of course the media covers drunken Cletus pointing his "empty" gun at his cousin, blowing him away, not the many more cases where a gun is justifiably used in self-defense.
Esher-
Sure you can? Listen to them speak, watch their eyes light up when their talking. Body language can intimate much of what is in someone.
Well I'm not thinking Cletus I'm thinking of the guy who buys 2 Desert Eagle .50 handguns. Thinking in all honesty that he can use them both at the same time. Or the guy who buys a S&W .44 because Dirty Harry had one. Do you know what weapon is considered the best for home defense? The old fashioned 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. The sound can scare a criminal right out of your home. But Mossburg and Remington don't look as good as an H&K. They don't chamber .454 Casull rounds.
I'm not arguing against. I support the right of an individual to carry arms. Now I would like an informed and practiced weapon owner. But I can deal with amateur hour. Just don't give me the informed gun club thing. Most of the guys I've seen at those places are a.) Old (too old to really hunt) b.)Fat (I mean 50-inch waistline) c.)incredibly arrogant about their talents. I've seen good, good is not common, good is art, and art requires effort. Not Cletus, or Billy Ray. More like Michael and making 6 figures.
Last line got split off from the rest.
That is the type of person I encounter at a gun club.
ben,
I agree with most of what you say, except the part about taking their guns away because of "body language", whatever that means. You don't really mean that, do you?
I got a laugh at your discription of guys old, fat and arrogant though. Yes, there are quite a few of those guys, and they are as irritating at my club as they are at yours. But I don't think they are quite as numerous as you think, at least not at the competitive level. I shoot IPSC, Steel and High Power. These are highly competitive sports that are not for the old or out of shape (what's old anyway?). Sure, there are a few, but not that many.
The one thing they ALL have in common though, is an absolutely fanatical commitment to weapons safety. One accident, and they know the club gets shut down. So I think your characterization is a bit harsh. Just my opinion of course, FWIW.
Having already seized control over policy regarding abortion and affirmative action, nine unelected men and women, one of them appointed almost two generations ago, are now seizing gun control, wresting it away from legislatures, state and national.
I'm not sure how I would strike the balance between my desire to arm myself and those I trust and my desire to disarm (if I can) intruders whom I distrust. But I am sure that I'd like those who strike the balance to be accountable to me in November.
Ben - Do you know what weapon is considered the best for home defense? The old fashioned 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. The sound can scare a criminal right out of your home.
Not true. You sound like a cop cliche` about telling homeowners why they should only want shotguns.
The problem with shotguns is twofold.
1. Delay in accessing the shotgun, chambering a round, swinging the long barrel around on target can be deadly slow.
2. If you are in a defensive situation and trying to shoot around corners, the long barrel requires you to expose more of yourself to gunfire and again - with the lethal delay - the time differential between when 2-3 pistol slugs can be fired at you and when you can get off an accurate shotgun round, devestating as it may be in close quarters....
Same situation in businesses, only worse. Lots of video of bad guys blasting the storeowner while he wrestles up a shotgun to bear, few of shotguns gaining the upper hand.
Which is why cops use 9mm, .40 cal, 45 cal pistols on home or business entry, why SWAT carries short-barreled 9mm submachineguns in, not shotguns except perhaps one used to blast away door locks.
And mind that in more remote settings, the property owners have a distinct preference for AR-15s, Ruger Mini-14s.
My recommendation - a shotgun for an untrained man or women if they can hole up in a room and only have to cover a single entry door. For experienced shooters (I was a military expert ribbon recipient with pistol and rifle and a good trap shooter outside the military) I would go with a .45 for city and suburb home defense or business (with a .22 Mag with shotload for concealed carry) and rural I'd take the Mini-14, with the .22 Mag loaded with snakeshot.
If they made sawed-off shotguns or frag grenades legal, I might change my choices.
ben-You've been hanging around the wrong clubs. And I doubt that your "Most" is accurate, but then, I don't know your location. I happen to fit your "Michael" description (despite my age) and am pretty much the norm at my club and the several in my area of which I'm familiar. Incidently, the only "Billy Ray" in one of those clubs is competent with a handgun and at skeet and makes well into 7 figures. I really haven't noted any good correlation between shooting skill and handling techniques, and income.
BTW-I would agree with your contention as to a pump shotgun being the better home defense choice, must be why almost all of the members have one (or two). But 20 ga or .410 seems to be the majority choice around here.
Would love to hear where your 'jonesing for personal liberty' puts you on the FISA hyperventillating we're getting from Greenwald and the resulting political witchhunting form the netroots.
Having already seized control over policy regarding abortion and affirmative action...
Really? So AA is mandatory now? State legislatures can't do anything about that?
The problem with abortion jurisprudence--and today's decision that it's just beastly to execute people who rape 8-year-old girls--is not that it takes control from legislators, it's that it isn't grounded in anything resembling legal scholarship. For that matter, the problem with the AA decisions is that they fly in the face of the Constitution's call for "equal protection of the laws."
The Constitution is explicitly intended to take some decisions away from from lawmakers. You can always amend it if you don't like it.
According to the authors of the Constitution, the Second Amendment may very well have meant that individual citizens have a right to own firearms. And if that is true, there would certainly be something deeply troubling if the Supreme Court did not uphold rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
But there is no evidence that the Second Amendment expands personal liberty in the United States, as Megan seems to believe. As a result of the high amount of lethality that the Second Amendment has endowed on virtually everyone in the U.S., liberty had to be curtailed elsewhere. The public demands video surveillance in schools in an attempt to try to protect against school shootings. Hapless schoolchildren are prosecuted under trumped up charges of making terroristic threats for uttering silly comments that all of us made as a child. And the list goes on and on.
At the same time, I only know of two groups who even seriously contemplated an armed rebellion against the U.S. government (I didn't research this at length, so there may be more). The first one was the whiskey rebellion near Pittsburgh. However, when the federel troops showed up, they decided not to have a fight after all, so it doesn't say much for the Second Amendment.
The second incident is more interesting: it concerns a group of property owners (the property in this case consisted of large numbers of cotton-harvesting entities imported from Africa) who felt that the federal government is attempting to deprive them of their property rights without fair compensation. Whether or not the federal government was actually going to do this is a matter of some dispute, but the southern property owners belived that to be the case. And the southerners were actually willing to fight. Although ultimately they lost, this case may still provide a defense for the Second Amendment: if the price of trampling on the citizens' rights is a major armed conflict, governments will be reluctant to do so even if they eventually win.
I would argue that it is unlikely that other groups who are being deprived of their rights will have the organization and the necessary volume of believers in the cause that the southerners had. Further, in recent times, it has become fashionable to portray the federal troops as having liberated colored individuals from a legal status known as slavery. It is not necessary for this post to attempt to draw moral judgments; what is important is that if you believe the northern troops to have occupied the moral high ground, then the inescapable conclusion is that armed groups of citizens may be as much of a threat to liberty as protectors of it.
I'm just hoping they recognize my right to an Uzi and Sidewinder missiles!!
I'm just hoping they recognize my right to an Uzi and Sidewinder missiles!!
As it turns out, both of those items are legal to own but regulated by the National Firearms Act (unlike pistols in DC, which are illegal to own).
(You may have meant Stinger missiles; it'd be hard to use a Sidewinder unless you had a fighter plane handy to hang it off of.)
But there is no evidence that the Second Amendment expands personal liberty in the United States, as Megan seems to believe. As a result of the high amount of lethality that the Second Amendment has endowed on virtually everyone in the U.S., liberty had to be curtailed elsewhere.
First, what high amount of lethality? Europe has far more restrictive gun laws on average than the US, and they still have school shootings (or worse, in the case of Beslan, where rule of law was still in turmoil). Second, the UK with its gun ban hasn't even managed to completely remove firearms from the populace, and they're only the geographic size of a couple western US states and fully surrounded by saltwater.
The 2A has nothing to do with 'unleashing lethality' upon the populace; it simply ensures the intended target has a legal opportunity to level the playing field. The absolute level of violent crime seems to more closely track social and economic trends (as can be seen by examining violent crime trends in the US throughout all of the twentieth century).
The public demands video surveillance in schools in an attempt to try to protect against school shootings. Hapless schoolchildren are prosecuted under trumped up charges of making terroristic threats for uttering silly comments that all of us made as a child. And the list goes on and on.
Oh, you mean the self-declared gun-free zones?
At the same time, I only know of two groups who even seriously contemplated an armed rebellion against the U.S. government (I didn't research this at length, so there may be more). The first one was the whiskey rebellion near Pittsburgh. However, when the federel troops showed up, they decided not to have a fight after all, so it doesn't say much for the Second Amendment.
No, but a handful of cops have died when they broke into the wrong apartment, more often than not on a sloppy or outright corrupted warrant. At some point, the legal ramifications of that must go one of two ways:
1. The corrupt, sloppy cops win by pushing through disarmament laws.
2. The citizens arm up as a defense, and the cops get more timid about doing their job via unlawful means.
Which one remains to be seen, because AFAIK some of the recent high-profile cases involving this kind of situation are still under appeal. If the courts ultimately rule against the violated homeowner, it will have a chilling effect on the citizens and embolden the corrupt cops, or vice versa if ruled otherwise. Limiting tyrrany isn't necessarily a matter of organizing an all-out revolution.
John-
No I wouldn't take their weapons away. But they'd either submit to a couple days of me grilling them in how to use a weapon. Or I'll never shoot with them and any future children will not be at his/her house overnight.
I don't belong to a gun club. I do indoor and outdoor firing once a month. Indoor is just me using the .45. Outdoor I use a .308 and just mil out and keep the long shot skills up a bit. Beyond that I have no use for a place that cheerleads in such a way.
Chris-
Alright man you got me. If you can enter and clear a room yeah a .45, 9mm, or a Carbine is probably a better deal. But if your that 95% of America that has only seen that on movies and TV. A shotgun is the way to go. A burglar will know the sound of a pump action shotgun. And even if your shaking all over and you hipfire the thing you still got a good chance of hitting your target. A much better one than if you don't know a proper offhand pistol firing stance. Let alone if your scared silly.
MikeinAppalachia-
I haven't either but I have noticed a correlation in income with those who belong to gun clubs. Correlation though is not causation.
Jeff Goldman-
Look I understand why people don't like the idea of personal gun ownership. It isn't the 25 people you know who own weapons, are responsible with them, and you don't even know they have weapons in their home. Its that idiot you've met who seems to spend too much time loading his own ammunition, or cleaning weapons. And seems to have his own personal arsenal. You look at him and go, "In one year does this person actually fire all these weapons once?" "If not why have them?" A logical thought, I don't have a defense for those individuals. I don't get it either, I have a pistol, a rifle and a shotgun. I don't hunt, it isn't partiuclarly fun (it kinda feels the same to me as pool, with ear protection), so why? Well I learned a skill, one that can be useful, I put a lot of false effort and motivation to learn it so it would almost be a shame to waste so many hours (days) when all it takes is a little practice now and then. And the one time it is a useful skill their is a lot at stake. I don't freak out over regulation, I don't say "from my cold dead hands" I only say that don't judge gun owners because you've met a few people for whom its a disturbing hobby.
I don't foment armed resistance, in fact I find it ironic that such patriots care about the removal of an object so much. The means to protect an idea? Please, if the US undid the bill of rights do you really think people in the US could stand against the US military (assuming they went along)? That comment could really draw this thread down a road completely unintended by the hostess. Ultimately though it is part of the bill of rights. It is a freedom that ought not be taken away by a 8 man/1 woman gang. It isn't abortion and the 10th amendment is not in play. It is an enumerated right that has been made clear in legal precedent, and in the contemporary papers of the author of the Bill of Rights (Madison) and his influencers.
Its that idiot you've met who seems to spend too much time loading his own ammunition, or cleaning weapons
Jeez, what do you have against hand-loaders? Do you look down on people who work on (or wash) their own cars, too?
Jeff Goldman-
On further review I realize you were challenging Megan's view that the 2nd amendment expands freedom. Although I don't think she meant precisely that. I apologize for going at the wrong topic. I'd have to ask how though? Lethality doesn't seem to infringe on any right unless someone imposes a view upon you using lethal means. If its a government issue, that can be worked out. However, if its a person personally bullying you with threats. I advise one to involve the police.
aMouseforallSeasons,
So do you believe that if schoolchildren, or their teachers, were allowed to bring guns to schools, parents would be less jumpy about silly comments that children are prone to make? All of us children say dumb things, and some of those may be interpreted as threats. A civilized society recognizes that children by definition are not fully mature with respect to judgment and impulse control, and the way to deal with dumb comments is certainly not through the criminal justice system. The gun lobby in the United States argues that if we were just brutal enough to even young children and prosecuted them as adults for dumb comments, private gun ownership wouldn't be a problem. It is ludicrous.
Rob-
Now its time to accept that if your loading your own ammo, its on par with growing your own pot, for obsessive? The only reason financially to do that is if you expend so much ammo that it is cheaper for you to invest the capital and manpower to load your own. If you're shooting that much you'd better be a competetive shooter or your pouring money downrange.
he only reason financially to do that is if you expend so much ammo that it is cheaper for you to invest the capital and manpower to load your own.
Or you you have a non-financial motivation, such as: you like it, like some people like knitting or photography, or you get greater accuracy out of it, or on the financial side, you wouldn't be earning money with the time you spend in front of the TV in the evening anyway so why not do something useful. Really, I'm struggling to see a reason why you feel compelled to insult me, or more precisely, the me I was before children took over all my free time.
I mean, I would never spend my money on, say, collecting Barbie dolls, but I don't look down on people who do it as though I'm somehow better than them.
The gun lobby in the United States argues that if we were just brutal enough to even young children and prosecuted them as adults for dumb comments, private gun ownership wouldn't be a problem. It is ludicrous.
You're right, that is a ludicrous and false characterization of the "gun lobby."
Wait a second, how is growing your own pot obsessive? Seems like a good way to avoid buying it from an informant to me.
But then again, apparently you think people with vegetable or herb gardeners are dangerous lunatics, too, because after all, there's no financial motivation to invest your capital and time into creating something you could buy at the grocery store.
So I suppose, as a former "urban farmer" who canned his own produce, and also former handloader, (and someone who aspires to return to both someday) I'm doubly dangerous now.
Rob-
Ask a non gun owning friend about what they think of people who load their own. Its not an herb garden, its not brewing your own beer, or having your own vineyard. Personally I find people who look at weapons with joy as people who don't understand the intent (they ought to inspire a somber recognition, they do for me anyway). From club to sword to rifle, the only intended purpose of each is to kill. Thats it, its not target practice. So to me the analogy you've drawn is false. For me the object can never be putting a 1.5" diameter circle in a 25 meter target without remembering the purpose is to put holes in people. Dangerous lunatics? No, your right in that no one characteristic can determine anything about anybody a set however, can.
And I know too many people who own their own Gun store in a walk-in safe at their home. Who load their own, and let their kids own .22 rifles. None of them are any more eccentric than anyone else. But to peolpe who don't own weapons they appear to. And they're quite happy about it because your discomfort is not their problem. But if your arguing its not unsettling to see a table full of powder, a scale, a press and maybe even a cauldron of (hell I don't even know what the standard for ammo is anymore as far as contents of the actual shell.) lead for actual shell making. To someone who doesn't know what your doing it is unsettling. For me it just seems like your wasting your own time.
Ask a non gun owning friend about what they think of people who load their own.
I don't know what kind of prissy judgmental crowd you run with, by my non-gun-owning friends seem to think that "accuracy and cost savings" are perfectly non-scary reasons to load your own, and many of my gun owning friends say things like "yeah, I've been meaning to try that..."
Its not an herb garden, its not brewing your own beer, or having your own vineyard.
That's a nifty categorical assertion made without support. So creating intoxicants is OK, but creating ammunition isn't? Because...guns can kill people and liquor can't? Because drunkenness is better than target practice? Because you, personally, don't enjoy it the way some people do?
Obviously I can't change your mind here, so I should give up trying. But I had to chime in when attacked; yes, that is me you're talking about.
The basic question is; what other amendment in the Bill of Rights ascribes a collective right, rather than an individual right? The Tenth maybe, but not the others.
The Bill of Rights is a laundry list of individual rights, to deem the second amendment an exception takes quite a suspension of context.
ben,
If someone is unsettled by firearms, then they are guilty of judgeing something of which they know very little. That's not my problem, nor is it my obligation to make them more comfortable. If they ask, I'll show them, but I'm not going to try to address their adherence to a prejudice, if that's what it is. I couldn't possibly care less.
As for seeing a table full of powder, a scale, etc., the only way someone would ever see that is if they were poking their noses around my basement. Unless I invited them there, they'd be trespassing.
I do agree with you that if your not in competition, there's not a lot of reason to reload. That's why almost no one not in competition does. I think that's a bit of a straw man argument.
Ask a non gun owning friend about what they think of people who load their own.
I know nothing about guns. Doesn't all gunowners load their own guns? How else do the bullets get in there? Or does "loading" mean something different from what I think it means? This is a serious question.
There is not a non-judgmental person on the planet earth. Rob I'm not trying to make anybody out to be a bad guy or a quack. If I personally offended you by insinuating that somehow you're a quack then I apologize. That ain't my style, and looking over what I've wrote I come off in some ways as a very strict/judgmental person. I am and always will be with weaponry. Much to the chagrin of people I seem to meet at gun clubs:)
Hei Lun Chan,
The loading discussed here is the home construction of the bullet. Taking a brass casing, putting in the appropriate amount of powder, a percussion cap to ignite the powder and the affixing of the projectile. Yes, most people load their own guns, but do not construct the ammunition, but buy it pre-configured.
I come off in some ways as a very strict/judgmental person. I am and always will be with weaponry.
They don't call me the "safety Nazi" for nothin'. I once had an Army officer tell me that I scared him more than the Master Sergeant who taught them riflery at the USMA, although I was not inclined to believe him.
But hey, fair enough.
Hei-
I'm refering to a common practice whereby somebody makes their own bullets (yes I'm skipping a lot, I know). So its not loading bullets into a gun. Its loading a casing with a specific grain weight of powder, putting a new primer in the casing, and in some cases making the round (the projectile part)itself and placing it in the casing thus completing one bullet and repeating till you get your desired number.
"The gun lobby in the United States argues that if we were just brutal enough to even young children and prosecuted them as adults for dumb comments, private gun ownership wouldn't be a problem. It is ludicrous.
You're right, that is a ludicrous and false characterization of the "gun lobby."
I don't believe that this is a ludicrous characterization of the gun lobby.
According to eschoolnews.com, just in Pima County in Arizona, more than 500 students faced felony charges in one single school year. The article says that though many charges were reduced, these students will carry felony charges on their records.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=33791&CFID=7068252&CFTOKEN=22043280
Finally, hopefully, we'll have an answer: does the Second Amendment protect an individual right, or not?
Obviously it does, Megan. The real question to be answered is, will the Supreme Court recognize that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, or will it depart (again) from the plain meaning of the text?
The Constitution says what it says - it is written, for the most part, in non-technical plain English. It is not written on golden slabs that can only be read with magic spectacles. SCOTUS is not empowered to amend the Constitution (although they sometimes forget this), and, in fact, nowhere does it say in the Constitution that they are the ultimate arbiter of interpreting and applying the Constitution.
Please, don't fall into the common error of thinking that SCOTUS opinions = what the Constitution says or means.
in Pima County in Arizona, more than 500 students faced felony charges in one single school year. The article says that though many charges were reduced, these students will carry felony charges on their records.
And it was the NRA which was behind those prosecutions?
I'm not saying that "zero tolerance" isn't a stupid and destructive policy, I'm saying it has nothing to do with the "gun lobby."
FREEEEEEE-DOMMMM!
/William Wallace