Heller, 2nd Amendment, Automatic Weapons etc.

TG, individuals acting beyond a command and control structure may give you the willies; it is not uncommon for people who have spent much time is very structured environments to come to view that level of organisation as normal. However, one of the points of a written COTUS is to place law beyond the feelings, whims and willies of voters.
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I maintain that in the context of what we have been discussing, reason as well as the COTUS and I agree. Maybe not but we'll see. Undisciplined quasi-military forces I believe are dangerous to us and each other AND our liberties. I think the SCOTUS will agree but just my opinion.
 
While historically correct what I think is the correct view of the second amendment will not sit particularly comfortably with any Court- it will to some be an anachronism, and I think it will be interesting to read the judgement, as I think the Court will have a bit both ways.
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I agree with you and maintain that you cannot JUST read the COTUS without a modern context to apply the interpretation. The gentleman on Tom Gresham's show the other day said he couldn't think of a perfect machine gun case and neither can I. Doesn't mean I don't like 'em.;)
 
Their military effectiveness was virtually nil. They did in some cases provide political effectiveness (Viet Cong) in causing the wars to become unpopular but none of the ones you mention above won militarily. Without a disciplined military force to support them they would and did fail. Same is true in Iraq today, the insurgency pose little military threat to our forces but rather political dangers.
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If you consider five years of war spending billions of dollars daily to maintain a chaotic state of ambiguity to be winning for us and losing for them then I will cede your point.

Didn't the Soviet Union spend its way into economic collapse?

Besides, Iraqi insurgents aren't the cream of the crop.:p I think your average american might do a bit better.
 
You have it the other way around TN Gent, that large well trained army you mentioned in an earlier post is the true threat to our liberties. And I don't mean the army itself, but what it represents, an excessively large govt. with too much power, exerting too much control, placing too many restrictions, adding too many regulations, levying too many taxes, etc. that is a real threat to our liberties.

That unorganized band of "untrained" people is what the 2A represents. I have read that you were pretty much a career military man, and having a little bit of military experience myself, I can honestly see where you don't like relinquishing control and order, but in this context, that is the heart of the matter.

Apologies if the first paragraph sounds a little too much like a "tinfoil hat" wearer's diatribe. I'm not saying it'll happen in my lifetime, but if it continues this way, I can most certainly envision a very different America for our future generations.

All of the following start out with stated good intentions, all of them have the potential to destroy everything this country was supposedly founded upon:

REAL ID
domestic terrorism act (want to pass)
warrantless surveillance
Patriot Act
unscrupolous asset forfeiture laws that is SOP for pretty much all LE agencies on every level now

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - "Who watches the watchmen?"
 
You seem to forget, TG, machineguns are legal. Can they be regulated if the SC rules favorably on the individual rights interpretation, maybe? Can an important government interest (such as avoiding sales to felons) be articulated, and laws narrowly tailored to protect that interest? We'll see. I think that continuing the tax and the freeze would be problematic. Your other arguments are invalid. An irregular military force that causes its enemy to abandon its mission has won militarily, no matter how painful the admission. Machineguns do have self-defense value, that's why we allow the police to use them.
 
TG, individuals acting beyond a command and control structure may give you the willies; it is not uncommon for people who have spent much time is very structured environments to come to view that level of organisation as normal. However, one of the points of a written COTUS is to place law beyond the feelings, whims and willies of voters.
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I maintain that in the context of what we have been discussing, reason as well as the COTUS and I agree.
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How is it consistent with reason to apply a 2d Am protection only to what are commonly used by civilians, if what is commonly used by civilians is the result of laws inferior to the COTUS?

If the 2d Am only allows what other laws allow, it words serve no function in the COTUS. Is this your theory of the amendment?
 
All of the following start out with stated good intentions, all of them have the potential to destroy everything this country was supposedly founded upon:
REAL ID
domestic terrorism act (want to pass)
warrantless surveillance
Patriot Act
unscrupolous asset forfeiture laws that is SOP for pretty much all LE agencies on every level now
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Agree that we must be vigilant and watch the government, however, I believe that is through the political process rather than the unorganized militia.

You seem to forget, TG, machineguns are legal.
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I know that they are legal. Some here have said they were banned because of the '86 FOPA.

Can they be regulated if the SC rules favorably on the individual rights interpretation, maybe? Can an important government interest (such as avoiding sales to felons) be articulated, and laws narrowly tailored to protect that interest? We'll see. I think that continuing the tax and the freeze would be problematic.
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Don't bet the farm on that one. The SCOTUS will not I think lift the '86 FOPA or the 1934 NFA. I not not a gambler but I would bet on that. You ain't gettin' more machine guns I'm afraid.

An irregular military force that causes its enemy to abandon its mission has won militarily, no matter how painful the admission.
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None have done that militarily. Only politically.

Machineguns do have self-defense value, that's why we allow the police to use them.
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I disagree. They are area denial and fire supression weapons and the vast majority of police forces do not use them even if they have a few on hand. They are impractical for civilian self-defense.
 
How is it consistent with reason to apply a 2d Am protection only to what are commonly used by civilians, if what is commonly used by civilians is the result of laws inferior to the COTUS?
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Because you have to define and apply what the amendment means. If all the constituition was self-explantory we would all agree on what it means and have no judiciary. But we do and so comoon use comes into play
 
If the 2d Am only allows what other laws allow, its words serve no function in the COTUS. Is this your theory of the amendment?
 
The founders didn't really mean that the government couldn't infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. They really meant that the right could be infringed for anything that the government said was a "reasonable" infringement. You see, the Bill of Rights is not a check on government power per se, it is a "guideline" for what rights the citizens might enjoy at the behest of the government. Those rights can only be enjoyed in a reasonable fashion which doesn't endanger the government and public safety. Thus, you can only have double barrel or single shot scatterguns. Anything more lethal could endanger public safety. Cripes, a 30-06 round can travel several miles. We can't let the untrained citizenry have such dangerous weapons.

Also, the government can reasonably limit what the press is allowed to report as news so that they don't cause panic in the public and so that copy cat killers don't get any ideas from other mass shootings. We will let the news out that there were "some" people killed by an "insane criminal" but we won't say how many were killed, what weapons were used, or the name of the insane criminal. The government feels that this is pefectly reasonable and is using a low level of scrutiny to protect the safety of the public.
 
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Machineguns do have self-defense value, that's why we allow the police to use them.
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I disagree. They are area denial and fire supression weapons and the vast majority of police forces do not use them even if they have a few on hand. They are impractical for civilian self-defense.
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Then why do the police "have a few on hand?" The police are limited to use of force for self-defense. Every pic of a raid shows LOTS of subguns being bandied around. Why? The police ARE civilian, BTW, no matter how militarized they may have become.

Quote:
Can they be regulated if the SC rules favorably on the individual rights interpretation, maybe? Can an important government interest (such as avoiding sales to felons) be articulated, and laws narrowly tailored to protect that interest? We'll see. I think that continuing the tax and the freeze would be problematic.
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Don't bet the farm on that one. The SCOTUS will not I think lift the '86 FOPA or the 1934 NFA. I not not a gambler but I would bet on that. You ain't gettin' more machine guns I'm afraid.
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Well, depending on how they rule, one would think that if the individual rights position prevailed the SC would, at least, try to maintain some semblance of consistency with prior Constitutional doctrine. How do you think the tax and freeze would survive strict or even intermediate scrutiny?
 
They did in some cases provide political effectiveness (Viet Cong) in causing the wars to become unpopular but none of the ones you mention above won militarily.
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War is fundamentally political. Who held Viet Nam and who fled in the end? By ALMOST any standard we won that war militarily, but fleeing in the end kind of cancels all that out. That's what a military victory that is unaccompanied by a political victory looks like.

From the opposite side, a military loss accompanied by a political victory looks like, well, the helicopters of your enemies taking the last few from atop the embassy.

Though it was closer, you could also argue that the British won the Revolutionary War from a military perspective. At the end, we held America and they (the mightiest empire of the day) fled.
 
It is interesting to read Tennessee Gentleman make the comment that the unorganised militia idea gives him the willies. I think it gives most trained members of the military the willies.
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And it gives the elected officials the willies, AND THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT. IT'S SUPPOSED TO. The entire premise of our system of government is to make the seats of power uncomfortable, temporary, intensely scrutinized, and not in any way a means of making a living. We are deliberately supposed to NOT have a "ruling class." Today none of such are the case, and that is the source of our problems with it not working properly. If something makes politicians uncomfortable, I want it all the more and so should you. Militias and arms that make them effective are indeed their enemy which makes them the friend of the common person.
 
How is it consistent with reason to apply a 2d Am protection only to what are commonly used by civilians, if what is commonly used by civilians is the result of laws inferior to the COTUS?
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The law you refer to was upheld by the SCOTUS as constitutional so it is not "inferior" to the COTUS so your argument is null. The 2A is to be applied by precedence, public policy and reason. Just like all the other amendments.
 
And it gives the elected officials the willies, AND THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT. IT'S SUPPOSED TO.
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No, what gives them the willies is when we vote. Which is why they aren't proposing much gun control these days. Our system of government keeps them in line. We can vote them out anytime. If we don't shame on us.
 
Who held Viet Nam and who fled in the end? By ALMOST any standard we won that war militarily, but fleeing in the end kind of cancels all that out.
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You make my point for me. The Viet Cong were militarily ineffective and only succeeded in the political realm. An unorganized militia filled with pot-bellied bubbas is militarily ineffective.
 
An unorganized militia filled with pot-bellied bubbas is militarily ineffective.
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I know quite a few "pot-bellied bubbas" that'd prove you very wrong there.

Just as I know a few career military-types that barely know which end of the rifle the bullets are supposed to come out of.
( Got a relative that spent 30 years in the military... his main piece of equipment for all those years was a radio receiver. To hear him tell it, you'd think he was John Rambo, instead of the REMF that he actually was. )



J.C.
 
You make my point for me. The Viet Cong were militarily ineffective and only succeeded in the political realm. An unorganized militia filled with pot-bellied bubbas is militarily ineffective.
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But they have lots of inertia! ;) In the end, being effective involves simply being there in the end.
 
How is it consistent with reason to apply a 2d Am protection only to what are commonly used by civilians, if what is commonly used by civilians is the result of laws inferior to the COTUS?
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The law you refer to was upheld by the SCOTUS ...
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What law limits the second amendment to items commonly used by civilians, and when was it upheld? The arguments in Heller are not themselves law.

The law you refer to was upheld by the SCOTUS as constitutional so it is not "inferior" to the COTUS so your argument is null.
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As a preliminary matter, a line of constitutional analysis is not invalidated as a coherent analysis simply because it is a minority opinion.

More importantly acts of congress the constitutionality of which are measured against the COTUS are categorically inferior to the COTUS. That is what inferior means.

The 2A is to be applied by precedence, public policy and reason. Just like all the other amendments.
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That's an interesting view of constitutional law.

So your position is that the 2d Am affords no protection against laws that would infringe upon the right to keep or bear arms, correct? That seems to be your position, especially considering your reticence at answering,

If the 2d Am only allows what other laws allow, its words serve no function in the COTUS. Is this your theory of the amendment?
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...while answering the prior question twice.
 
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