Would You Accept a Supreme Court Ruling That there is No Individual Right Under

Rabbi

The joke is that the 2A has ever been a factor in any national debate on gun control.
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I disagree. The fact that enough people believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms lends legitimacy to the pro-rights movement, and presents a hurdle for the anti-rights movement. The fact that the antis have to flat out lie about Miller's holding is evidence how much of a thorn in the side the Second Amendment is to them. a collective rights interpretation by SCOTUS would embolden the anti-rights crowd and would lead a lot of people to conclude that "well, I guess I didn't have the right to own a gun after all."

But the rest of what I said still stands. State laws will serve as no barrier to federal anti-gun laws. If such a barrier is to be found anywhere, it will be found in the Second Amendment (or at least the belief that the Second Amendment means what it says).
 
knox I had no idea that had come around already, its scary. Problem is I stopped keeping track of antigun arguments a while back, seeing as how they are mostly well proven lies, or based on crap statistics.
 
I disagree. The fact that enough people believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms lends legitimacy to the pro-rights movement, and presents a hurdle for the anti-rights movement
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You disagree based on what? Show me one congressional debate where the 2A was invoked as a counter argument to gun control.
I dont think people generally believe in the 2A as an individual right. Generally they believe it has to do with militias and national guards. I was actually taught this way in 7th grade American History.
 
Rabbi

What part of the country are you from? My experience living in the south is that the average Joe on the street thinks owning a gun is as much his right as speaking his mind or having the benefit of a trial before he's thown in jail.

I think this mindset translates into respect for gun rights in Congress. Forget even supporting gun control-- in many congressional districts in my neck of the woods failing to affirmativly support the right to keep and bear arms is a political liability.

Now to answer your question: the Second Amendment is invoked all the time in congressional debates. Watch C-Span next time a bill affecting gun rights is debated. Moreover, there is now a Second Amendment caucus in the House. Even where the Second Amendment doesn't pose a legal barrier to gun control, it poses a strong political barrier.

I dont think people generally believe in the 2A as an individual right. Generally they believe it has to do with militias and national guards. I was actually taught this way in 7th grade American History.
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We must come from different parts of the country, that's all I can say about that. Granted, college history text books will teach this point, but consider the source.
 
No question geography plays into it. My 7th grade was in a liberal private school in NYC in the 1970s. I am certain that at the same time there were plenty of kids going to 11 and 12th grade in small towns inthe South with rifles in their cars for hunting after school.
But, if you look at the "Red/Blue" Map county by county you notice the sea of red and little pockets of blue on the coasts. In some ways that should not be comforting because the popular vote was fairly close. This means that the blue counties have tremendously more people in them per county than the red ones. And the blue county folks still think of the 2A as militia oriented.
 
So let's take this one step further. What happens if enough people are brainwashed by the Brady Bunch and they convince congress to repeal the 2nd Amendment? This eliminates SCOTUS from the equation as there is no longer anything in the Constitution about firearms. And thanks to the "commerce clause", it could have a great impact on states that have their own 2nd Amendment written into the state constitution.
 
Rabbi

But, if you look at the "Red/Blue" Map county by county you notice the sea of red and little pockets of blue on the coasts. In some ways that should not be comforting because the popular vote was fairly close. This means that the blue counties have tremendously more people in them per county than the red ones. And the blue county folks still think of the 2A as militia oriented.
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True, and we see what happens when gun owners are grossly out numbered by city dwellers who are all too willing to ban guns, and when there is no legitimate constitutional protection to the RKBA: England.

After Dunblane, the vast majority of Brits not only accepted a near total gun ban, but they practically demanded it. Pity the lone Brit here and there who said "but wait, guns don't kill anyone, people kill" or "but self protection is a natural right . . . " it didn't matter because those voices were marginalized by force of numbers.

But I think it would still be a bit premature to assume that growing "blue" populations in the United States will automatically be anti-gun populations. For example, in my home state of Florida, we are definitely a mixed urban and rural population. And, I'd venture to guess that there are as many transplants from "blue states" like New York as there are native southerners. Yet, we still managed to pass the most progressive self-defense law in the country just a few months ago, and we enacted the nation's first "shall issue" concealed carry law in 1987. All this despite the fact that Florida is more or less 50/50 when it comes to blue and red populations.
 
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Hk

So let's take this one step further. What happens if enough people are brainwashed by the Brady Bunch and they convince congress to repeal the 2nd Amendment? This eliminates SCOTUS from the equation as there is no longer anything in the Constitution about firearms. And thanks to the "commerce clause", it could have a great impact on states that have their own 2nd Amendment written into the state constitution.
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You're exactly right, and you've made my point about the Supremacy Clause and the importance of protecting Second Amendment. That's why, IMHO, it is quite misguided to dismiss the Second Amendment as insignificant, as some on this board have suggested it is.
 
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For a Supreme Court to rule that the 2nd Amendment is "absurd " collective rights" interpretation, they would have to be illiterate. And I mean that literally. They would have to be oblivious of the English language. Go back to the 5th and 6th grade and outline the sentance. When you're done there's no way an educated man or woman would ever see the 2nd as a "collective rights" interpretation.
How do these morons get to a point they can effect public opinion?
 
So let's take this one step further. What happens if enough people are brainwashed by the Brady Bunch and they convince congress to repeal the 2nd Amendment? This eliminates SCOTUS from the equation as there is no longer anything in the Constitution about firearms. And thanks to the "commerce clause", it could have a great impact on states that have their own 2nd Amendment written into the state constitution.
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I suggest you take a look at the Constitution and its process for amending before writing this.
 
If an amendment repealing the 2nd Amendment were passed by congress and ratified by the states, many of the founders would view that as a bright line for armed resistance. That means there is an unwritten superconstitutional framework from which the constitution cannot deviate, even by amendment.
 
Federal law always trumps state law when they conflict.
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I absolutely disagree. The US is a federal system of dual sovereignties, and when State and federal laws conflict, it is a question of which government has jurisdiction.
 
If an amendment repealing the 2nd Amendment were passed by congress and ratified by the states, many of the founders would view that as a bright line for armed resistance. That means there is an unwritten superconstitutional framework from which the constitution cannot deviate, even by amendment.
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This is not comprehensible to me. Do you mean the Founding Fathers would advocate armed resistence if they were around today? Do you mean that people advocating armed resistence are the founders of something?
Also, where is this "superconstitutional framework" to be found? What is the source of it?
Further, let's say there was a repeal of the 2A. What would be different? Many states equally have RKBA in their constitutions. Would merely repealing the amendment be enough to trigger armed resistence (whatever that is) or would the federal government have to take steps to confiscate guns from the citzenry?
 
Hugh

Hugh Damright wrote:
I absolutely disagree. The US is a federal system of dual sovereignties, and when State and federal laws conflict, it is a question of which government has jurisdiction.
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Disagree all you want, but the Supremacy Clause, as written and as applied, says otherwise. When state law conflicts with valid federal law, federal law always wins (unless the federal law is successfully challenged and overturned as violative of the United States Constitution, e.g. the 10th Amendment).
 
Hk

Rabbi wrote:
I suggest you take a look at the Constitution and its process for amending before writing this.
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Rabbi is correct in pointing out that any amendment to the Constitution would require ratification by 3/4 of the states. See U.S. Const. Art. V. However, Rabbi is unnecessarily splitting hairs, as you were only concerned with the implications of a majority of the U.S. population acquiescing to the repeal of the Second Amendment. In your scenario, popular pressure could be applied to state legislatures or to state constitutional conventions to vote yes on ratification as easily as it could be applied to Senators and U.S. representatives to propose the constitutional amendment in the first place. So Rabbi's attempt to learn you some constitutional law is really pointless in this regard.

Of course, a far more likely scenario is that SCOTUS will simply "interpret" the Second Amendment out of the Constitution and thereby sidestep the amendment process altogether. At any rate, the end result would be the same when it comes to state law protections of the RKBA (assuming federal gun laws are enacted that directly conflict with state RKBA protections).
 
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I suggest you take a look at the Constitution and its process for amending before writing this.
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Why? Do you think it is impossible?

What would be different? Many states equally have RKBA in their constitutions.
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As the federal government licenses gun dealers, manufactures and importers and regulates their business, they can prohibit the sale of firearms from dealers to civilians. They regulate explosives, so they control gun powder and primers. They can deem anything that travels in interstate commerce, like steel, cannot be used to make firearms. They pass a law that all existing firearms must be transferred through a FFL (no private person transfers).

That limits you to only homemade guns with homemade ammo. So much for the state's RKBA.
 
No, such a ruling would clearly violate the Constitution. Only a Constitutional ammendment would be legal.
As to how I would feel about it, read my signature.
 
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