FuzzyLumpkins
10-23-2016, 02:51 AM
http://therivardreport.com/mounting-u-s-gun-massacres-direct-result-supreme-courts-2008-blunder/
Largely unaddressed in the 154 pages comprising both the Court’s 2008 opinion and its dissents was how the American Revolution shaped the wording and meaning of the Second Amendment.
In order to better understand why the Court made such a grievous error, we need to go back in time, to first understand the origins of the Second Amendment and then examine how it guided gun use throughout American history.
Our forefathers created the Second Amendment to allow members of a “well regulated Militia” to bear arms for common defense. And by well-regulated militia, they meant a military force formed from a population of civilians in order to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution says the purpose of these militias is “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”
In 1792, Congress further clarified the Second Amendment by passing an act that established a “uniform” militia for the country. It read, in part:
“Each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years…shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia…provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges…and shall appear, so armed, accoutered and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service…”
Survival of the nation and states was wholly dependent on the founders’ limiting arms bearing rights in the Second Amendment solely to common defense. Self-defense, if the matter was debated at all, took a back seat to the notion that the nation’s security had to be provided through a plan for organized militias to bind together to protect communities and states from internal and external threats. The brilliance of the plan, to secure the blessings of liberty and freedom achieved in the American Revolution, was spelled out in the Second Amendment.
Providing a right to bear arms to individual members of the expanding population – approximating 3.9 million in 1790 – in the Second Amendment would have compromised the security of a free country. Included in that total were 500,000 former British loyalists/sympathizers, 600,000 non-free slaves, numerous indentured servants, and convicts shipped from England to serve time in the colonies. Domestic tranquility could not have been preserved by granting arms bearing rights to each and every person.
The term “well regulated Militia” should have prevented a future Supreme Court from extending a fundamental right of a domestic security force, formed from a subset of citizens, to all citizens. But the 2008 Court Decision overruled the Founding Fathers, using a presumption that the security of the “free State” would be provided by granting non-militia members the same arming rights as members of a militia.
THE COURT CONFUSES COLONIAL BRITISH LAW WITH OUR FOUNDING FATHERS’ INTENTIONS
The 2008 opinion includes this nugget: “The conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty.”
But this finding of the Court was only true prior to the American Revolution. It was wrongly based on British governance of the colonies, rather than American governance of the states. Under the 1689 English Bill of Rights, colonial subjects (before our country was our country) had arms bearing rights whether they served in British-controlled militias or not. This backfired on the British when, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, colonists used those same arms to turn on their rulers in the Revolution from 1775 to 1783.
Under the Constitution, colonial citizens in sovereign states retained arms bearing rights. After the Constitution was ratified in 1791, security of the free state resided in members of state militias. The Second Amendment provided members of the militias the right to bear arms. It’s as simple as that.
Yet the Supreme Court in 2008 decided to reinterpret these historical facts. And instead of confirming that arms bearing rights in the Second Amendment are limited to a subset of the people comprising militias for common defense, they re-set the clock and decided instead that the Second Amendment referred to individual defense rights, as set forth in the 1689 English Bill of Rights.
Wrong answer.
THE 2008 COURT DECISION TAKES AWAY STATES’ TENTH AMENDMENT POWER TO REGULATE CITIZENS’ RIGHTS TO POSSESS GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE
By 1789, all 13 original states had constitutions. Pennsylvania specifically included the former English common-law-right of citizens to bear arms to defend themselves. Citizens in the remaining twelve states had “default” arms bearing rights carried over from the 1689 English Bill of Rights. By 2008, a total of 45 states included the right to bear arms for individual defense in their respective constitutions.
Yet why, one might ask, were the states allowed to regulate arms for individual self-defense if the Second Amendment was established to only allow guns for the common defense of the nation? The answer can be found in Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
It expresses the principle that the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution. All remaining powers are reserved for the states or the people – one of the checks and balances our Founding Fathers wanted to instill.
Therefore, the Second Amendment governs arms for the purpose of defending the nation; the Tenth Amendment gives regulation power over all other gun use, gun-related laws, guns allowable for use, etc. to the states. Conversely, states also impose limitations tied to evolving federal criteria such as mental illness, sensitive places, felons, and more.
Through the years, the different states have put different restrictions on the use and sale and type of guns allowable. There were limitations put on the general population that didn’t apply to militias, or law enforcement. The 2008 decision, however, essentially transferred regulatory power over all guns in the U.S. from the states to the federal government.
Deciding that the Second Amendment applies to all people, not just the people in governmental organizations that have been put into place to defend and protect the country, the Court’s ruling opened the floodgates for anyone and everyone to purchase pretty much any kind of gun they wanted. Guns that had been limited for militia use (law enforcement use) under the previous interpretation of the Second Amendment were now legally available for your next-door neighbors to stockpile as well.
District of Columbia v. Heller essentially ripped apart the checks and balances component between the states and the feds, a system the Tenth Amendment was designed to protect.
Largely unaddressed in the 154 pages comprising both the Court’s 2008 opinion and its dissents was how the American Revolution shaped the wording and meaning of the Second Amendment.
In order to better understand why the Court made such a grievous error, we need to go back in time, to first understand the origins of the Second Amendment and then examine how it guided gun use throughout American history.
Our forefathers created the Second Amendment to allow members of a “well regulated Militia” to bear arms for common defense. And by well-regulated militia, they meant a military force formed from a population of civilians in order to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution says the purpose of these militias is “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”
In 1792, Congress further clarified the Second Amendment by passing an act that established a “uniform” militia for the country. It read, in part:
“Each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years…shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia…provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges…and shall appear, so armed, accoutered and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service…”
Survival of the nation and states was wholly dependent on the founders’ limiting arms bearing rights in the Second Amendment solely to common defense. Self-defense, if the matter was debated at all, took a back seat to the notion that the nation’s security had to be provided through a plan for organized militias to bind together to protect communities and states from internal and external threats. The brilliance of the plan, to secure the blessings of liberty and freedom achieved in the American Revolution, was spelled out in the Second Amendment.
Providing a right to bear arms to individual members of the expanding population – approximating 3.9 million in 1790 – in the Second Amendment would have compromised the security of a free country. Included in that total were 500,000 former British loyalists/sympathizers, 600,000 non-free slaves, numerous indentured servants, and convicts shipped from England to serve time in the colonies. Domestic tranquility could not have been preserved by granting arms bearing rights to each and every person.
The term “well regulated Militia” should have prevented a future Supreme Court from extending a fundamental right of a domestic security force, formed from a subset of citizens, to all citizens. But the 2008 Court Decision overruled the Founding Fathers, using a presumption that the security of the “free State” would be provided by granting non-militia members the same arming rights as members of a militia.
THE COURT CONFUSES COLONIAL BRITISH LAW WITH OUR FOUNDING FATHERS’ INTENTIONS
The 2008 opinion includes this nugget: “The conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty.”
But this finding of the Court was only true prior to the American Revolution. It was wrongly based on British governance of the colonies, rather than American governance of the states. Under the 1689 English Bill of Rights, colonial subjects (before our country was our country) had arms bearing rights whether they served in British-controlled militias or not. This backfired on the British when, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, colonists used those same arms to turn on their rulers in the Revolution from 1775 to 1783.
Under the Constitution, colonial citizens in sovereign states retained arms bearing rights. After the Constitution was ratified in 1791, security of the free state resided in members of state militias. The Second Amendment provided members of the militias the right to bear arms. It’s as simple as that.
Yet the Supreme Court in 2008 decided to reinterpret these historical facts. And instead of confirming that arms bearing rights in the Second Amendment are limited to a subset of the people comprising militias for common defense, they re-set the clock and decided instead that the Second Amendment referred to individual defense rights, as set forth in the 1689 English Bill of Rights.
Wrong answer.
THE 2008 COURT DECISION TAKES AWAY STATES’ TENTH AMENDMENT POWER TO REGULATE CITIZENS’ RIGHTS TO POSSESS GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE
By 1789, all 13 original states had constitutions. Pennsylvania specifically included the former English common-law-right of citizens to bear arms to defend themselves. Citizens in the remaining twelve states had “default” arms bearing rights carried over from the 1689 English Bill of Rights. By 2008, a total of 45 states included the right to bear arms for individual defense in their respective constitutions.
Yet why, one might ask, were the states allowed to regulate arms for individual self-defense if the Second Amendment was established to only allow guns for the common defense of the nation? The answer can be found in Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
It expresses the principle that the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution. All remaining powers are reserved for the states or the people – one of the checks and balances our Founding Fathers wanted to instill.
Therefore, the Second Amendment governs arms for the purpose of defending the nation; the Tenth Amendment gives regulation power over all other gun use, gun-related laws, guns allowable for use, etc. to the states. Conversely, states also impose limitations tied to evolving federal criteria such as mental illness, sensitive places, felons, and more.
Through the years, the different states have put different restrictions on the use and sale and type of guns allowable. There were limitations put on the general population that didn’t apply to militias, or law enforcement. The 2008 decision, however, essentially transferred regulatory power over all guns in the U.S. from the states to the federal government.
Deciding that the Second Amendment applies to all people, not just the people in governmental organizations that have been put into place to defend and protect the country, the Court’s ruling opened the floodgates for anyone and everyone to purchase pretty much any kind of gun they wanted. Guns that had been limited for militia use (law enforcement use) under the previous interpretation of the Second Amendment were now legally available for your next-door neighbors to stockpile as well.
District of Columbia v. Heller essentially ripped apart the checks and balances component between the states and the feds, a system the Tenth Amendment was designed to protect.