The Unlimited Right to Bear Arms

[Buzzard Bait]

Get Real

Come on guys its not the sharp object it's the person, as long as you have people willing to harm others running lose they will find a way to do it if guns had never been invented the same people that are committing gun crimes would be committing the same crimes they would just be using some other tool be it a knife a bat, a piece of pipe a car it's endless you can't disarm people intent on doing harm they will find a way. You got to lock up your crazy's and your criminals. Or face the harm they are going to do.
bb

 

[Frank Ettin]

Come on guys its not the sharp object it's the person, as long as you have people willing to harm others running lose they will find a way to do it if guns had never been invented the same people that are committing gun crimes would be committing the same crimes they would just be using some other tool...

Okay, but so what?

There are really three questions here:

1. What sort of regulation of the RKBA do we in the gun community think there should be?
   
   
2. What sort of regulation of the RKBA will there be sufficient support in the body politic to enact?
   
   
3. What sort of regulation of the RKBA adopted with the support of the body politic will be upheld by the courts?

We might think there shouldn't be any regulation. But, depending on the political climate in any given place, some regulation will no doubt be enacted; and of that some will probably be upheld by the courts.

 

[Beretta686]

I've never understood the Second Amendment absolutists, desperately clinging to their guns in some deluded fantasy that they're somehow a modern Minute Man to find relevance in the modern world.

I know it makes watching Red Dawn so much less entertaining, but the idea that you and your drinking buddies are going to overthrow the US Government is absurd (even if you have short-barreled shotguns).

But on the upside, The Onion did do a great job profiling how some of the people on this forum see themselves.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/62yearold-with-gun-only-one-standing-between-natio,30984/

I love my guns, be they my 870 field gun and 10/22 to my MAC-10 SMG and SCAR .308, but they're just fun toys to have fun with, not some ultimate backstop to protecting freedom, that I should have some unlimited right to own.

 

[zukiphile]

I've never understood the Second Amendment absolutists, desperately clinging to their guns in some deluded fantasy that they're somehow a modern Minute Man to find relevance in the modern world.

I know it makes watching Red Dawn so much less entertaining, but the idea that you and your drinking buddies are going to overthrow the US Government is absurd (even if you have short-barreled shotguns).

I am pretty comfortable with the development of Heller and the cases that confirm and expand its scope. I cannot even work up outrage at Scalia's dictum about Heller not being a prohibition of any and all federal regulation.

However, I find the impulse to ridicule those with a more expansive view of the right mysterious. It is not a wild or unreasonable position to hold that the right described in the Second Amendment is an important civil right with real political consequences, just like voting, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a right to due process.

In that sense, a fellow who understands his firearm ownership in the context of the sort of political leverage exercised by Minutemen does not differ materially from modern bloggers who understand the importance of the rights they exercise in the context of activities of colonial pamphleteers.

Not everyone understands all or even any of their civil rights in detail and with nuance. Some who ardently defend one or another civil right may push for an understanding that just is not borne out by current case law. Ridiculing them for being simpletons is uncharitable.

I've yet to come across a creed that doesn't have its deeply flawed adherents.

 

[johnelmore]

The "Unlimited Right to Bear Arms" is the typical Strawman's Argument. The "Strawman" is a person who was made up by one side in a debate to caricature the other side. The caricature is oftentimes false.

So in this debate the anti-gun crowd creates a person or entity which is for the unlimited right to bear arms and then debates the person or entity they created...or the "Strawman". However, in reality, there is no one out there who wants there to be an unlimited right to bear arms. For example, the NRA and Wayne Lapierre have stated many times that they believe that people with certain mental illnesses should not bear arms.

So there is no one out there who wants there to be an unlimited right to bear arms. They do not exist. The anti-gun crowd wants to make it seem like the NRA will put a firearm in anyones hands, but thats not the case at all. The NRA is for responsible ownership and only wants the owners to be responsible, rationale, safety-minded, trained and reasonable. They do not want all people to bear arms or unqualified people to bear arms. The NRA promotes many different training courses which emphasize safety and responsibility. So even the strongest advocate of the right to bear arms only wants it to be done in a safe responsible manner.

 

[Beretta686]

However, I find the impulse to ridicule those with a more expansive view of the right mysterious. It is not a wild or unreasonable position to hold that the right described in the Second Amendment is an important civil right with real political consequences, just like voting, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a right to due process.

In that sense, a fellow who understands his firearm ownership in the context of the sort of political leverage exercised by Minutemen does not differ materially from modern bloggers who understand the importance of the rights they exercise in the context of activities of colonial pamphleteers.

The idea that privately owned small arms serve as a counter-balance to the US Government armed with armored vehicles, aviation assets, signals intelligence, unlimited firepower and such is rather silly.

Sure, 200 years ago an armed citizenry could fight off an Army, but not in 2013. Trust me, I saw people try to do it in Iraq armed with much more than your dinky ARs and such, and they failed to ever tactically defeat us or fundamentally limit our ability to move around the battlefield.

The rule of law, right to due process, open government, a free and vigorous press do quite a bit more to keep us free, than our ownership of guns.

Yes, gun ownership may be a "civil right", but that doesn't mean it's important. The 2nd Amendment is about as relevant as the 3rd Amendment in modern-day America.

I know that's not sexy or dramatic to realize you'd make a lousy freedom-fighting insurgent and makes Heston's stupid "Cold dead hands" speech seem even sillier, but it's better we acknowledge reality, rather than clinging to our John Wayne/Red Dawn delusions.

 

[zukiphile]

I know that's not sexy or dramatic to realize you'd make a lousy freedom-fighting insurgent and makes Heston's stupid "Cold dead hands" speech seem even sillier, but it's better we acknowledge reality, rather than clinging to our John Wayne/Red Dawn delusions.

It is a weak argument against a civil right to call those who deem it important delusional.

Your argument also features the fallacy of an excluded middle. We have more from which to choose than "John Wayne/red Dawn delusions" and a dismissal of a constitutionally explicit civil right.

The idea that privately owned small arms serve as a counter-balance to the US Government armed with armored vehicles, aviation assets, signals intelligence, unlimited firepower and such is rather silly.

I believe you would agree that a privately armed population would make a better counterbalance than a disarmed one.

Sure, 200 years ago an armed citizenry could fight off an Army, but not in 2013. Trust me, I saw people try to do it in Iraq armed with much more than your dinky ARs and such, and they failed to ever tactically defeat us or fundamentally limit our ability to move around the battlefield.

Are we leaving Iraq? Did we defeat the crown militarily, or did we merely demonstrate sufficient resolve at a time when the crown had bigger fish to fry closer to home?

None of this is to support insurrectionist theory, but to prompt more than facile dismissal of the issue.

Yes, gun ownership may be a "civil right", but that doesn't mean it's important. The 2nd Amendment is about as relevant as the 3rd Amendment in modern-day America.

You are under no obligation to personally value any specific civil right. However, each of them does depend on a fidelity to the rule of law. Dismissal of an explicit constitutional right because you have personally concluded that it is unimportant does not display that kind of fidelity.

More broadly, it is an error to conceive of civil rights solely in terms of their immediate utility.

I have certainly heard people describe the right as if it only extended to hunting and skeet shooting. I have also heard people describe the right solely as a function of insurrectionist theory. Neither is a comprehensive explanation.

In the Bill of Rights, the Constitution does not purport to create rights or grant them, but to protect them. There is at work an idea of natural rights, i.e. rights possessed by free men as a consequence of their nature. Those rights include an ability to speak without prior restraint from the government, a right to choose one's own religious observance and doctrine, and a right to keep and bear arms. The idea is not that these are narrow, technical privileges. Therefore, to argue that one possesses the right described in the Second Amendment for the purpose of carrying out insurrectionist theory, or hunting geese, or shooting Indians, or shooting trap misses the point that it is described as a right, not a narrow, technical license granted toward a specific and socially agreed end.

Each of these rights certainly has utility, but their existence and legitimacy do not hinge on their utility.

 

[44 AMP]

The idea that privately owned small arms serve as a counter-balance to the US Government armed with armored vehicles, aviation assets, signals intelligence, unlimited firepower and such is rather silly.

Actually, I do find this statement "rather silly". Particularly when combined with the next..

Sure, 200 years ago an armed citizenry could fight off an Army, but not in 2013. Trust me, I saw people try to do it in Iraq armed with much more than your dinky ARs and such, and they failed to ever tactically defeat us or fundamentally limit our ability to move around the battlefield.

I trust you saw what you saw, but I believe the conclusion you are making is not correct. Very common, lots of people on both sides of the issue have made the same, incorrect conclusion. Using the word counterbalance shows that you do have an understanding of the original intent of the Founders. But, from there (in my opinion) the idea goes off the rails.

What you, and others have seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, even in Vietnam shows you that an "armed citizenry" cannot defeat the US military, in open battle.

Everybody knows this, so virtually everybody dismisses the idea, looks at the difference in weapons and technology today vs the 1700s, and says, "well you can't win today, its stupid to try, you can't beat tanks, jets", etc.

Sounds neat and logical. But, its not the point. Focusing on the inability of a armed citizenry (with basically only small arms) to defeat the US military with all its resources, on the field of open battle, obscures the real point.

Our Founders believed that the citizenry had the right to access "all the terrible implements of the soldier", and if they wrote that into the framework of our government, then the need to use those implements would never arise.

That is the counterbalance.

The lessons of history are there to be seen. But all to many only see the lessons that they already thought were the important ones and miss a lot of what else there is to learn.

Look at the US Civil War, for one example. WHY did we have a civil war? I don't mean what issues we fought about, but why did it take a war? Because when people have arms, they have the physical ability to resist tyranny, (whatever they deem it to be), if they have the will. That means that it takes a war for on side to dominate, or full blown subjugate the other (no matter the issue).

The armed citizen side seldom wins in open combat, above small unit level, unless/until they become more than just armed citizens. History shows that as well. The US Revolutionary war shows that, for another example. Contrary to the common belief, we didn't beat England. And it wasn't the armed citizen militia that finally defeated British forces in the Colonies. It was formed, trained, and equipped military units, supplemented by the militias that did that.

It was the armed citizens resistance that began, and kept the revolution alive, long enough for it to gain enough strength to meet, and eventually defeat the British military forces. And the final straw, for England, was when the French fleet showed up. The colonists did not defeat the British Empire militarily. After years of fighting, they did defeat the English "expeditionary forces".

The Crown found itself not just with an expensive colonial war (and one where their forces in place were being matched, making the prospect of a clear military victory look dimmer and dimmer), but one that promised to become hugely more expensive, and even turn into another European war due to the looming French involvement. With a rather untypical rationality of judgement, the cost/benefit to the Crown (and the Empire) resulted in England abandoning the fight.

We see that same reasoning, to a degee, in Viet Nam. When the perceived cost to our nation became too great, we left. We were not militarily defeated, we chose to quit. Russia in Afghanistan, same thing. One can will ALL the battles, but if the cost is greater than the gain, its...silly. Another factor in the examples I chose, all but the civil war, was that for one side, they were foreign wars. There is a tremendous difference in the cost/benefit when the fighting is in a far foreign land than when it is on your citizen's doorsteps and in their streets.

No, all the "gun nuts" in the country couldn't defeat our military on the field of battle. But they could make it very, very expensive to defeat them, and our Founders believed that no democratically elected republic's government would be stupid enough to try.

 

[Beretta686]

Each of these rights certainly has utility, but their existence and legitimacy do not hinge on their utility.

Indeed, I'm not arguing that you don't have a right to bear arms. But rather that doesn't make the right relevant.

Are we leaving Iraq? Did we defeat the crown militarily, or did we merely demonstrate sufficient resolve at a time when the crown had bigger fish to fry closer to home?

None of this is to support insurrectionist theory, but to prompt more than facile dismissal of the issue.

We went home because we finally realized the futility of the whole endeavor rather than a military defeat. Though every casualty in OIF was a tragic waste, compared to Vietnam or WWII we had minimal casualties. The insurgency was a pest, rather than a mortal threat.

However, a home garrisoned military that you're supposedly going to defend against has nowhere else to go home to.

We've spent the last 12 years doing COIN operations in the Middle East and gotten very good at it. In a modern society connected by technology such as the US, mopping up a bunch of armed insurgents would be rather simple. You'd be amazed what you learn from dumping a few cell phones.

So yes, as someone who has done COIN, I do give a facile dismissal of the idea that an armed populace is anything but a nuisance to a determined military. Especially considering the lack of actual training most gun owners have and the logistics on conducting an insurgency. It's more than just locking and loading and running off to a blaze of glory.

I believe you would agree that a privately armed population would make a better counterbalance than a disarmed one.

I'd agree, but that doesn't mean that it would make a tangible difference.

No, all the "gun nuts" in the country couldn't defeat our military on the field of battle. But they could make it very, very expensive to defeat them, and our Founders believed that no democratically elected republic's government would be stupid enough to try.

I very much disagree. Technology has rendered an insurgent in a modern country irrelevant as they can easily be tracked down and destroyed. They'd quickly hunted down and destroyed.

As I said, launching an insurgency is more than just running off to the woods with your guns and holding out. Hell, how many people have more than 100 rounds of ammo on hand? You'd be shocked how fast 100 rounds goes when you're in contact and once your ammo on hand is gone, where does the resupply come from? Canada?

 

[manta49]

I am with Brian and tom on this'n... I don't think all felony crimes should strip one's right to bear arms either...

Brent

The law in the UK not all convictions or even a jail term prevents someone from owning firearms.

•Any person sentenced to serve between three months and three years is prohibited from possessing any firearm for a period of five years, from the date on which they are released from prison.
•Any person sentenced to serve a prison sentence of three years or more is prohibited as above for life (unless the prohibition is lifted by the Crown Court).

 

[zukiphile]

I believe you would agree that a privately armed population would make a better counterbalance than a disarmed one.

I'd agree, but that doesn't mean that it would make a difference.

Except for every time that it does make a difference, right? As noted above, casualty rates that would have been easily tolerated 70 years ago are politically intolerable now.

So yes, as someone who has done COIN, I do give a facile dismissal of the idea that an armed populace is anything but a nuisance to a determined military.

I believe your statement may be true as far as it goes, but that it does not go far enough. Where the decision to devote extraordinary resources (armored vehicles, aviation assets, signals intelligence, unlimited firepower) has a political component, one needs exactly 0 battlefield victories in order to prevail.

Again, some recent examples are set forth above, and our own insurrection against the crown serves as a similar example.

Whether a specific military organization is "determined" may be less important than the determination of the group that instructs it. Determination is a variable.

Technology has rendered an insurgent in a modern country irrelevant as they can easily be tracked down and destroyed.

Inasmuch as we are withdrawing from two theaters in the face of continuing insurgent movements before we have achieved the goal of our stated policy, your assertion is problematic.

Especially considering the lack of actual training most gun owners have and the logistics on conducting an insurgency. It's more than just locking and loading and running off to a blaze of glory.

Here, your commentary returns to pastiche. Has anyone argued to the contrary?

Civil liberties help to describe the relationship between a citizen and his government. A relationship in which a citizen is permitted to exercise his full array of rights differs very significantly from a relationship in which there is no legal limit on the ability of a government to curtail those rights.

That is why the rights described in the first, second, fourth and fifth amendments are important and relevant. That a fellow with a rifle cannot defeat the U.S. Navy should not suggest that the right described in the Second Amendment is unimportant or irrelevant, since that is not the rationale for the description of the right.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

The actual combat effectiveness of the armed citizenry isn't the point.

The potential of the citizenry to put up a fight of any kind means that the government has to be willing to reciprocate in kind.

A disarmed citizenry has nothing but rocks and bull horns. Pretty easy for government to put down that sort of dissent.

A citizenry that is armed requires the government with nefarious plans to be willing to go to open combat against it's own people, a completely different world.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

We went home because we finally realized the futility of the whole endeavor rather than a military defeat. Though every casualty in OIF was a tragic waste, compared to Vietnam or WWII we had minimal casualties. The insurgency was a pest, rather than a mortal threat.

However, a home garrisoned military that you're supposedly going to defend against has nowhere else to go home to.

We've spent the last 12 years doing COIN operations in the Middle East and gotten very good at it. In a modern society connected by technology such as the US, mopping up a bunch of armed insurgents would be rather simple. You'd be amazed what you learn from dumping a few cell phones.

So yes, as someone who has done COIN, I do give a facile dismissal of the idea that an armed populace is anything but a nuisance to a determined military. Especially considering the lack of actual training most gun owners have and the logistics on conducting an insurgency. It's more than just locking and loading and running off to a blaze of glory.

The original question of this thread was about the 2A and the right of U.S. citizens to unlimited arms. It seems to me that ALL your arguments are arguments that support the notion that, in order for the intended purposes of the 2A to be fulfilled, the American populace must HAVE unlimited arms. You are correct -- I can't take a neutered, California-compliant AR-15 out against a tank or even an APC and have much chance of winning.

How is that an argument supporting the view that I should not have access to more powerful weapons, weapons that WILL allow me to take on tanks and Bradleys on an even (or better than even) basis?

Someone above quoted Tench Coxe and his famous statement that "the sword and all the terrible implements of the soldier are the birthright of the American." That's the point -- we were intended to have access to any weapon a standing army might have. The fact that private citizens armed with the puny weapons we are allowed to own today can't match the United States military doesn't mean that we shouldn't be allowed to own any arms at all, it proves that we should be allowed to own more and better arms.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The outcome of a war is not the battles - it is the total end state. That's been put forward by students of military history for quite a few years.

Set piece battles that are won but lead to those 'losing' the set piece battles having accomplished what they intended is a victory for the latter.

Of course the winners of the set piece battles don't see it and regard the outcome by the losers of the set piece battle as due to their own leaders, cowardly public, etc.

They don't understand grand strategic goals. Took military history from a major general with a PhD in history. He was very clear on that.

The armed populace would not be threat to F-22s in the sky. However, there are only about 170 of them. 3 or so per state. They will police and control a large unruly populace?

 

[FoghornLeghorn]

I've yet to meet a single gun owner that feels that there should be no firearm regulations

Well, you and I haven't actually "met", but I'm a gun owner that believes there should be no firearm regulations whatsoever.

I do believe, however, there should be severe retaliation and punishment for anybody and everybody who commits a crime using firearms.

If a bad guy kills a good guy, the bad guy, upon conviction, should immediately be taken into the street and hung by the neck until dead. The event should be televised.

This should be how we dispose of everybody who murders.

If somebody robs, using a firearm, that person should be sentenced to ten or fifteen years in prison, having to work for his food, etc.

You get the idea.

If we start killing these people, across the board, we won't need gun laws.

 

[44 AMP]

Here's another gun owner who also feels there should be no firearms regulations. Period.

Since we began as a nation (and even well before that) we have had laws that make it a very serious crime to shoot people for fun or profit. Really, what more is needed? Everyone I ever heard of that was willing to shoot someone in violation of that law was quite willing to break any and all other gun laws as well.

Firearms regulations are nothing more than a legal way to punish us for something someone else (govt) disapproves of. And to stick their hand in our pockets if we choose to do something they don't like. All the rules about what is legal to own, and all the rules about what can be carried, when, and how, are just BS. If you don't shoot someone, who are you harming? NO ONE!

And, if you are someone who shoots someone for your pleasure or profit, then punishment should be as severe and certain as humanly possible. It ought to be swift, but I will gladly allow some leeway on that, if punishment is certain.

I do believe that we should have an unlimited right to keep and bear arms. All arms. Why should free citizens, adult enough to manage their own affairs, even trusted with a voice in who forms the government, have to put up with regulations, restrictions, and taxation simply because they wish to own a particular kind of machine?

What one does with that machine is what matters. I feel that what one might do with it should not matter. Own anything you want. Deliberately harm someone (other than in defense), and you should be hit with the hammer of the gods (or as close as we can make it).

Let me also explain that while I do believe we should have an unlimited right to keep and bear arms, I also believe that the government has a legitimate interest in regulating what can be sold.

Laws restricting/forbidding the sale of a particular arm are one thing. Laws forbidding the possession are something else entirely.

The former only infringes on our convenience, the latter, on our rights.

Whenever we talk of unrestricted right to arms, (all arms) someone always seems to bring up the far end of the scale, nuclear weapons. Sure, its a strawman argument, but I think the principles still apply.

"would you want the crackhead down the street to have a nuclear weapon?"
Obviously, no. But how's he gonna get one? I'm fine with the govt saying "we won't sell one". I'm fine with the govt saying "if you do find someone in the world who will sell one, you CANNOT bring it here".

If you can build it yourself, mine the ore, refine it, and construct the device, all on your own property, then the govt should not be able to say "you cannot have that". They can say you cannot test it, or use it (because the effects will certainly go beyond your property), I'm fine with that.

Because, if you have the mental, and other resources to be able to do all that, you are either the kind of person who would not harm others with it, or the kind of mad evil genius that no law(s) will stop anyway.

The idea that things are evil, and possessed of both intent and ability to harm, all on their own is a carryover from our ancient superstitious past. It was intensified into law by medieval nobility, for their personal gain (things deemed bad/evil were forfeit to the Crown, or their local represtative). This has no place in modern thinking, in my opinion.

Laws should regulate acts, not items.

(yes, I know the reality of our modern world, and live within it. I just feel things ought to be done differently than they are. Just my opinion, and worth to you what you paid for it.)

 

[zukiphile]

Here's another gun owner who also feels there should be no firearms regulations. Period.

You will recognize that yours is an opinion shared by very few people. Certainly, it doesn't invalidate a position to note its rarity. Did you really mean "period"? Would you endorse the exercise of this right by imprisoned felons? Children in juvenile detention?

Let me also explain that while I do believe we should have an unlimited right to keep and bear arms, I also believe that the government has a legitimate interest in regulating what can be sold.

Laws restricting/forbidding the sale of a particular arm are one thing. Laws forbidding the possession are something else entirely.

The former only infringes on our convenience, the latter, on our rights.

You lost me on that. If I have a right to freedom of speech, what legitimate interest does the government have in prohibiting my purchase of paper and ink? If I am prohibited the commerce that would permit the means to exercise a right, I would think my exercise of that right is very substantially infringed.

If I have a right to any weapon whatsoever, then what legitimate interest does the government have in a prohibition of the purchase of that weapon?

 

[44 AMP]

devil in the details

Did you really mean "period"? Would you endorse the exercise of this right by imprisoned felons? Children in juvenile detention?

Yes, I did mean "period". Laws about the physical features of the arm, how bit, how small, how many rounds it can hold, how fast it fires, all of them are (IMO) at best, buzzkills for people who enjoy the recreational use of firearms, and at worst, onerous burdens with potential legal traps (because the people writing them behave as if the only thing they can clearly articulate is gun=bad), that do nothing to restrain, inhibit, dissuade, or prevent people who intend violence from committing it.

Incarcerated individuals (for what ever reason) are already being denied the exercise of a number of natural rights. I have no issues with including denial of the right to arms in that group.

Children in Juvenile Detention? see Incarcerated Individuals.

I decided a long time ago that I am not my brother's keeper. I dislike the assumption that I am, must, or should be. I resent the implied accusations that other's deliberate actions are my actions. Tarred with the same brush isn't fair, but it is just as sticky.

Yes, I know I'm a minority. But that doesn't change what ought to be.

Nor, sadly, can it change what is...

 

[zukiphile]

Did you really mean "period"? Would you endorse the exercise of this right by imprisoned felons? Children in juvenile detention?

Yes, I did mean "period". Laws about the physical features of the arm, how bit, how small, how many rounds it can hold, how fast it fires, all of them are (IMO) at best, buzzkills for people who enjoy the recreational use of firearms, and at worst, onerous burdens with potential legal traps (because the people writing them behave as if the only thing they can clearly articulate is gun=bad), that do nothing to restrain, inhibit, dissuade, or prevent people who intend violence from committing it.

Incarcerated individuals (for what ever reason) are already being denied the exercise of a number of natural rights. I have no issues with including denial of the right to arms in that group.

Then let me suggest that you do not believe in an unlimited right. My purpose in posing those questions was not to argue out of your position, but to note that your position has more detail and nuance than the caricature of a position set forth by 2d Am. opponents.

What legitimate interest does the government have in a prohibition of the purchase (as opposed to possession) of a weapon?

 

[JerryM]

There is no Constitutional right of the 2nd without limit, and I do not believe that if all the ramifications were explored any thoughtful person would want unlimited rights to firearms of any kind.
Jerry