History 102: Which people form part of a well-regulated militia?

Discussion in 'Gun Control' started by Golem, Jul 6, 2021.

  1. SiNNiK

    SiNNiK Well-Known Member

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    The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
     
  2. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely.
     
  3. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    Yah it shall be and will be based on federal and state laws.

    Hard as it is for you to grasp, the right to own a gun and the right as to how you use the gun are handled differently in law and not one and the same.

    If people could use guns in any way they wanted (not be infringed) they would not be culpable for crimes committed with weapons.

    Is that really so hard to understand?
     
  4. SiNNiK

    SiNNiK Well-Known Member

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    Infringement doesn't mean what you think it does.
     
  5. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    Lol.

    Just answer the question then.... Do you think there are no gun regulations? If a regulation does not infringe on your agenda do tell.

    Explain. Enunciate how much freedom you think your right to own a gun gives you to do what you want. Explain it. Put it in words.

    Just once I would like to hear someone like you enunciate how far you think you are entitled to go with your gun ownership rights.

    Please explain.
     
  6. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Also, Golem, note that the English 'Tradition' was meant for Protestants. Catholics, Muslims, etc., were not allowed to own guns. This is why I say to those who argue 'English common law', no, you can't use that argument that because of this fact.

    Heller is rather recent, and was decided by a conservative court, 5/4, and for purpose of precedent setting, Heller is weak, not to mention flawed. Justice Breyer pointed out the flaws in Heller, rather eloquently.

    And, as you rightly point out, to refute those on the right who suggest that the court is not supposed to make law, yet there it is, in Heller, and so they have no leg to stand on.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
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  7. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    What you fail to realise is the real issue. Gun ownership isn't the issue here, no one is going to take away your guns.
    The cherry picked quotes romanticizing gun ownership are not arguments for why they installed the second amendment, as much as you would like them to be, if you look at the historical evidence, it just isn't there. Let's dive deeper:

    https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/9064/Campbell_okstate_0664M_12057.pdf

    Jack N. Rakove is a historian at Stanford University who studies the original intent of the founding fathers. His Pulitzer Prize-winning work Original Meanings examines the difficult concept of originalism

    Rakove points out that evidence of the founders’ intent is not limited to James Madison’s notes, or the debates in the press, but also the philosophical and intellectual underpinnings of American political thought during the Revolution. Some works, such as Stephen P. Halbrook’s The Founders’ Second Amendment, either refrain from dealing with the broad historical background of the American Revolution and the Constitution, or simply misrepresent them to strengthen the originalist argument

    Rakove rejects the individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment. History does not show the founding fathers were concerned with individual gun rights, as there were “only a handful of sources from the period of constitution formation that bear directly on the questions that lie at the heart of current controversies about the regulation of privately owned firearms.” Clearly, if the founders were concerned with this and had addressed it, “proponents of the individual right theory would not have to recycle the same handful of references to the dissenters in the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention and the protests of several Massachusetts towns against their state’s proposed constitution, or to rip promising snippets of quotations from the texts and speeches in which they are embedded.” Rakove laments that many individual rights’ supporters “ransack the sources for a set of useful quotations” that do not correspond to the historical record, which shows the founders more concerned with “the militia and its public functions, not with the individual ownership and use of firearms.


    Morever, on the issue of 'originalism', Rakove writes:

    “the case for regulation of the sale, use, and possession of firearms rests on the simple conviction that the high number of casualties incurred annually by the deliberate and accidental use of firearms provides a sufficient, not to say compelling, justification for state action.” Even if the Second Amendment prohibited regulation of firearm ownership, Rakove disagrees with originalism in general, as the “concerns of the present have every right to supersede the obsolescent understandings of generations long past.



    You don't 'bear arms' to shoot rabbits, you bear arms to fight.

    The right to keep guns in homes for self defense was a given, inherited from English Common law, and because of that fact, they didn't believe the new congress would ever deny individuals from owning guns, they weren't worried about that, they were worried about congress emasculating state militias,by absorbing them to the federal level, turning them into standing armies, using them for federal purposes. All the this talk about right wingers saying 'second amendment was a response to thwart government overreach' you must consider that the nation has just broken away from England, when they were thinking of tyranny, they were thinking of how the Monarchial government ruled of the colonies, mostly, and they were afraid that the new federal government might become like a monarch if allowed to control a 'standing army'.

    Thing is, it hasn't, so that point is rather moot, today. Soldiers take their oath to the constitution, not any president or man, and that's a pretty solid thing and has been, for a long long time. Now that we have a constitution, the militia clause specifically empowers federal control over state's militias, that their purpose is to prevent uprisings and insurrections, NOT 'government overreach'. Moreover, state's militias are a thing of the past, they have been replaced by the National Guard. And, even before the constitution was ratified, militias were always considered to be 'well-regulated' organized and controlled by the respective states, and by 'well-regulated' it means 'fit to serve. trained, uniformity of purpose' etc.

    Additionally, given that the Constitution has a militia clause, which sets for their purpose, to quell uprisings and insurrections, ie.., NOTHING about 'federal government overreach', etc., so that might have been an issue BEFORE the constitution was ratified, but not AFTER. Because, that IS our constitution now and it says what militias are for (noting they have been replaced by the national guard) so conservative arguments fall flat.

    That was what the second amendment was really about. It was a militia vs standing armies argument. Read the transcripts of all the arguments presented at the constitutional ratification conventions, no talk of 'individual right to bear arms' was mentioned, it wasn't on their minds, the militia versus standing army was on their minds.

    Since they needed Virginia's signature to ratify the convention, Madison put it in there, worded as a collective guarantee to preserve the state's militia to placate Virginia's concern. "The People" was everyone but women, blacks, and children. "The militia" and 'the people" are the same thing. Read Patrick Henry's oratory. Digging a little deeper, they were concerned that if congress usurped the state's militia, they would no longer be able to conduct slave patrols, since the militia was used for that purpose, often, and slave uprisings were not uncommon, and Virginia's economy was built on slavery.

    "They [Congress] are going to take away our negroes' --- Patrick Henry, in his oratory at the ratification convention.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/3124758?origin=crossref#metadata_info_tab_contents

    if you read the transcripts of all the arguments made before the constitutional ratification convention, was all about militia versus standing armies,The militias, in fact, lasted for a number of years into the 19th century, and was gradually replaced by a standing army as it eventually was understood that soldiers took their oath to the constitution (as opposed to loyalty to a man), and that oath was seen as rather sacred, such that the big fear of the arguments made at the ratification convention, the arguments against standing armies, that they might be tools of future tyrants, that fear eventually faded because it became apparent that militias aren't as fit for fighting as a conventional army is and soldiers taking their oath to a constitution.

    Moreover, 'bear arms' gives the second amendment a collective, as opposed to an individual', guarantee. That argument, collective vs individual, has been argued for over 200 years, and wasn't completely settled until Heller. But, since Heller was decided on a 5/4 party line vote, and is rather recent, by precedent setting standards, I wouldn't call that solid grounds. I mean, how often have I heard those on the right that SCOTUS shouldn't 'make law' but apply and interpret it. Well, there it is, in Heller, a new law.

    The digitization of historical documents provides historians with the capability to determine the meaning of the right to bear arms. Nathan Kozuskanich searched “bear arms” in “120 American newspapers from 1690 to 1800” along with numerous newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides in the Library of Congress online database. He found that nearly all of the articles “use the phrase ‘bear arms’ within an explicitly collective or military context to indicate military action.” Kozuskanich concludes that Americans in the eighteenth century “overwhelmingly used ‘bear arms’ in a military sense both in times of war and in times of peace.”

    Clearly, the second amendment was written with a collective entity, the militia, and thus a collective guarantee, in mind, NOT an 'individual' guarantee. Again, America, the frontier, and all that, owning a gun was seen as a natural right, it wasn't necessary to put it as right in the constitution because the framers didn't fear that about congress, they feared congress would usurp their militias and absorb them for the purpose of a standing army. Read the transcripts of all the arguments made at the constitutional ratification convention, NOTHING about 'individual right' was made in the arguments. Again, why? It wasn't a concern, America inherited the right of gun ownership from English Common Law ( pretty much, though ECL was meant for Protestants ).
    MILITIAS were the concern, Militias versus Standing armies were the concern, NOT 'individual right'.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
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  8. ToughTalk

    ToughTalk Well-Known Member

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    Since the rise of left leaning politicians placating and supporting BLM violence and riots...forming a well armed and regulated militia has suddenly never been more important.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  9. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    I don’t believe you. Allow me to demonstrate.

    You make a list of all of the “common sense gun regulations” that you think should be applied. As long as they’re not wholly preposterous (and without seeing the list), we will accept those demands on the condition that you agree to a constitutional amendment that says something to the effect of, No matter how many atrocities which occur (mass shootings, school shootings etc) or for any other reason... there will never be another regulation, law or tax restricting gun ownership including ammunition.

    Deal?
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  10. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Amendments, on the whole, are not quid pro quo deals. In fact, the last quid pro quo amendment was the second amendment. Besides, Refusing an absurd agreement such as that one doesn't prove a damn thing.

    Moreover, you haven't refuted the salient point raised.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  11. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    How is that an absurd agreement? You assert you want common sense gun regulations but you do NOT want to take away firearms.

    I say okay that’s fine we will accept your regulations as long as you put in a constitutional amendment that ensures you will never ask for more regulations on guns again.

    You get what you want and we get what we want. What’s the problem?

    Unless of course you’re lying about taking away guns.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  12. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    See the problem here is we don’t believe you when you say you don’t want to take away guns. We believe that if we give you gun regulations today then the next time there’s a mass shooting or school shooting, you’re going to come back again demanding more regulations. And then again and again and again until you have effectively eradicated the second amendment.

    Your unwillingness to accept an agreement or even provide one which protects from that legitimate concern we have only underscores why we don’t believe you and provides evidence our concerns are wholly legitimate.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  13. Golem

    Golem Well-Known Member Donor

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    You are confusing restrictions to purchase guns with taking away your guns. Nobody is taking away your guns because you can't take away guns that you don't have.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  14. Polydectes

    Polydectes Well-Known Member

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    Oh that really didn't have anything to do with the guns that has to do with laws against murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

    Yeah those things are illegal regardless of whether it's a gun or not nobody argued that they weren't do you think people who support the Second Amendment want to commit murder?

    Are you really that out of touch with this entire thing or with human beings in general?
     
  15. Polydectes

    Polydectes Well-Known Member

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    Taking away the ability to purchase them is taking away the right it's just an underhanded dishonest way to do it.

    Are you familiar with the extreme white supremacy racism involved in gun control? The only point to any gun control ever in the history of the world was to stop racial minorities from having them.
     
  16. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    Lol you don’t want to take away my guns just my ability to purchase more. And what about the 10 year old that turns 18 after you pass this rule. He just doesn’t get a gun right?

    The left is SO dishonest lol
     
  17. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    It is permanent. Nothing in life is permanent and I can't predict what the future will bring.

    Only a fool would agree to your terms.
     
  18. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    Then on what grounds do you assert you should simply trust you have no intention of upending the second amendment when you refuse to accept any terms that would provide such assurances?

    Only a fool would agree to that.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  19. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    You are confused, arguing that the second amendment wasn't put there for the reason of guaranteeing the individual right, does not equal 'upending 2a' The argument merely corrects a historical misunderstanding of why the second amendment was put in the constitution.

    Your 'offering' is a red herring to that point.
     
  20. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    That’s because your actual argument is fallacious and predicated upon a false premise. Specifically your misunderstanding of the term well regulated.

    The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the
    writing of the 2nd amendment:

    1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."

    1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."

    1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."

    1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor." (other docs say “Major”)

    1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."

    1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."

    The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.
     
  21. Golem

    Golem Well-Known Member Donor

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    This thread is about neither of those things. I'm just pointing out that you confuse the two. And, given that you are confused about that, it becomes more likely that you are confused about other things too.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  22. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Who was arguing on the term 'well - regulated'?

    The argument was about the reason why the second amendment was put in the constitution.

    The meaning of 'well-regulated militia' in 1789 meant 'fit, trained, ready to serve/fight, etc'.

    But, no way was I arguing on the meaning of 'well-regulated'. Nor did my argument rest on it's understanding or lack, thereof.

    If you do not understand what I was arguing, and you clearly don't, how can you possibly render the judgement that it was fallacious?

    You can't.
     
  23. SiNNiK

    SiNNiK Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]
     
  24. ShadowX

    ShadowX Well-Known Member

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    Of course it does. Your argument hinges upon this paragraph of your OP:

    So the "well regulated militia" became a well trained, well disciplined and well armed portion of the population, which was under direct control of Congress. Not "the body of the people", like it was in the English tradition.

    Here I’ll prove it. Who are the militia?
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  25. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    You are quoting Golem, not me. Get your quotes in order, please. He and I agree often, but not always.

    No argument I made depends on the term.

    the 'English Tradition' arms ownership applied to protestants, not Catholics Muslims or anyone else, so you can hardly use the ET as the derivative.

    At the time of the constitution, 'the people' and 'the militia' were the same, which were anyone but women, blacks, and males who weren't adults as anyone who were not female, nor black, nor a child, were required to be a member of the militia. Was this true in every state? I don't know, but it was true in Virginia, as I understand it, because it was all about Virginia, whose final signature was needed in order to ratify the constitution.

    In point of fact, 'the militia' wasn't all that 'well-regulated' which is why, eventually, they were replaced with national guard and standing armies once their fears of the army being a federal tool of tyranny wasn't a realistic fear given that soldiers swore an oath to a constitution and not a president. This change of attitude towards standing armies took a number of decades, of course.

    Think of 'well-regulated' as something strived for, something hopeful.

    "The people' which is to say, 'the militia' were required to muster ever so often and do drills and go on patrols, directing their attention especially to slave uprisings, which occurred from time to time.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2021

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