Repeal the Second Amendment, says former Justice Stevens.
There is a recent book by historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment which sounds interesting. She tries to document that the well regulated militias had their origins in genocide of the Native Americans in the colonial land grab era followed by hunting down the rogue slaves later on. I hope Stevens' idea gets some traction.
There is a recent book by historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment which sounds interesting. She tries to document that the well regulated militias had their origins in genocide of the Native Americans in the colonial land grab era followed by hunting down the rogue slaves later on. I hope Stevens' idea gets some traction.
There was always a fear of slave uprisings that led to a militarization of areas of the country with large slave populations.
Factotum said:
There is a recent book by historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment which sounds interesting. She tries to document that the well regulated militias had their origins in genocide of the Native Americans in the colonial land grab era followed by hunting down the rogue slaves later on. I hope Stevens' idea gets some traction.
tjohn said:
There was always a fear of slave uprisings that led to a militarization of areas of the country with large slave populations.
That is, even the founders applied the Second Amendment protections somewhat selectively.
one of the striking bits of info about gun ownership in the U.S. is how few people actually own a firearm. It's roughly a quarter of the population, who own on average 3 guns. More astounding is that 3% of Americans own 50% of the firearms.
our country is being held hostage politically by a rather small minority of firearm owners. Their strength comes from the fact that they are easily motivated to get out and vote in disproportionate numbers. If the people who want stricter gun control laws want to succeed, they need to get out and vote the way NRA members do.
https://qz.com/1095899/gun-ownership-in-america-in-three-charts/
and a recent Gallup poll shows that half of gun owners support stricter gun laws. So it's an even smaller minority who are controlling the narrative.
The strength of the gun lobby is that they have single-issue voters on their side. If we were to give up on various issues that are important to us and vote solely on where a candidate stands on guns, we might make some progress.
I forgot to say - good post!
Coffeegretchen said:
I agree, we should not be afraid to argue for repeal of the second amendment, for all the reasons stated above, to move the debate in a direction away from the ground rules that have been set by the NRA for far too long. Because it's past time. Because it's the right thing to do.
Since the 1950's any idea that smacked of socialism or communism was dismissed without discussion, and in fact labelling an idea "socialist" was a great way to get it dismissed without examination. To the great detriment of our understanding of issues related to publicly shared benefits, such as health care, education, child care, social safety nets, transportation...
The Democratic party has spent the past 40 years arguing for moderate, centrist pragmatism. That has been a significant contributing factor to the mess we are in today. How many progressive candidates have been dismissed as "unelectable" before they even ran?
You can't win if you give up before the fight has even begun.
our country is being held hostage politically by a rather small minority of firearm makers.
Fixed that for you.
But the makers also hate when Republicans are in power, as there's no fear of guns being taken away. Remington filed for bankruptcy this week. I doubt they'll completely go under, but just buy time in paying creditors until Dems threaten again. All-in-all, a weird co-dependency.
It should be noted that Remington was yet another company sucked dry by a parasitic private equity firm, Cerberus Capital, not really anything related to anti gun sentiments.
Thanks @drummerboy! I'm so glad to see that people are finally questioning this, so thanks for starting this thread.
I want to read Loaded, Jeremy Scahill interviewed Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on Intercepted and it was fascinating. https://theintercept.com/2018/02/28/intercepted-podcast-white-supremacy-and-the-church-of-the-second-amendment/
GoSlugs said:
You folks may as well be making cash donations to the NRA. Statements like this are fundraising gold for them. Nothing turns out the Republican base like someone threatening to repeal the 2nd Amendment.
We didn't make any serious progress over the last 20 years, and these gun folks cannot possibly dig themselves in deeper, so we have nothing to lose by asking for what is really necessary. And repealing an amendment is not the same as changing the constitution.
Oh, and another thing to all the NRA folks that are saying "but these liberals want to take your guns away": of course we want to take their guns away, because it will save lives. Give me one good reason why we should not come after their guns (and the 2nd amendment is not a good reason, because it talks about militia, not individual citizens).
conandrob240 said:
this is a path that will end badly. It’ll just make the gun supporters sink in further. And even I, a staunch anti-gun person don’t believe in changing the constitution like that.
We are much better off working on a plan for stricter gun laws. I’d consider that progress. And we’re at least getting some traction on this. Pushing to repeal the 2nd ammendment will halt any progress being made.
I understand that given the tragic events good people want something done. However, I'm not sure a gun ban/confiscation is the way to go.
We should be careful about concentrating all the firepower into the government sphere. While the school shootings are all tragedies, they pale in comparison to our government's standard operating procedures.
Perhaps there's a bit of a conflation of issues here. The issue of repealing the 2nd amendment has nothing to do with banning all guns or confiscation. It is about removing an antiquated amendment that has improperly served as a justification for unfettered gun ownership by the NRA. Once repealed, it is then up to the government to put in place reasonable regulations of firearms, or decide they should be banned, but that is a totally separate issue from the amendment itself. This thread should, IMHO, be about the amendment, and whether it is relevant in the modern world. And if not, why we should, or should not, repeal it.
It is totally relevant. If one does not have the right to defend oneself, what rights does one have.
Many of these debates involve the proverbial camel nose under the tent. I'm not sure I can recall an example as obvious as repealing the 2nd amendment.
It's not repeal. It's repeal and replace, you should pardon the expression.
terp said:
It is totally relevant. If one does not have the right to defend oneself, what rights does one have.
Many of these debates involve the proverbial camel nose under the tent. I'm not sure I can recall an example as obvious as repealing the 2nd amendment.
How is it relevant??? It says NOTHING about personal self-defense. Don't twist it to mean something it doesn't say. That's just plain dishonest. It does require a militia for it to be relevant. When was the last time you saw a real militia??? If there are no militias, then the whole premise of the amendment is moot, so let's repeal it and use the legislative function to fashion gun regulations that show real common sense.
The reason that militia is mentioned is that the alternative defense was to have a standing army. The militia therefore would prevent the central government from having a standing army. If you read about the individual state constitutions like Virginia, the ratifying conventions, etc this is what is discussed.
The idea was that the people would have arms and form militias when the nation was threatened. The lack of a standing army protects the citizens from tyranny and the militia protects the people from external threats.
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms." - Richard Henry Lee
So, if you are going to revoke the right of the citizens to arm themselves, what are you going to do about the standing army? This is the central government that kills children every day, violates the bill of rights on a regular basis, and imprisons many non-violent criminals for technical crimes, confiscates property, etc.
There are some historical precedents for this tilt of power to a central government not turning out so well. We realize that. Yes?
The reality of "militias" is that we'll end up like Syria. Ruthless destructive little competing armies all over the place. We already do have militias, by the way, and they are the worst and scariest of us - paranoid, conspiracy-theory enthusiasts, white power, hate groups.
bub said:
The reality of "militias" is that we'll end up like Syria. Ruthless destructive little competing armies all over the place. We already do have militias, by the way, and they are the worst and scariest of us - paranoid, conspiracy-theory enthusiasts, white power, hate groups.
And these groups seem to be doing most of the shootings in the major cities.
are you seriously arguing that the second amendment, today, means that all those wackos who buy a gazzilion guns are actually our "militia", and that they will present a bulwark against a renegade US Military?
That's hilarious.
The second amendment's primary goal was, yet again, to protect the slave states.
It seems to always come down to that.
eta: OMG. Larry King is having his decennial moment of clarity:
http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/380818-larry-king-backs-repealing-second-amendment
terp said:
The reason that militia is mentioned is that the alternative defense was to have a standing army. The militia therefore would prevent the central government from having a standing army. If you read about the individual state constitutions like Virginia, the ratifying conventions, etc this is what is discussed.
The idea was that the people would have arms and form militias when the nation was threatened. The lack of a standing army protects the citizens from tyranny and the militia protects the people from external threats.
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms." - Richard Henry Lee
So, if you are going to revoke the right of the citizens to arm themselves, what are you going to do about the standing army? This is the central government that kills children every day, violates the bill of rights on a regular basis, and imprisons many non-violent criminals for technical crimes, confiscates property, etc.
There are some historical precedents for this tilt of power to a central government not turning out so well. We realize that. Yes?
The intent of the Second Amendment came up last month, and I posted the following at that time, and I'll repeat it.
The “first draft” of the Bill of Rights was prepared by James Madison, in the first months of the first Congress after George Washington was inaugurated as the first President. Actually, his first innovation was to draft the amendments as “add-ons”, instead of actually opening up the text of the original document and revising its sections. That’s why it’s the “Bill of Rights” and enumerated amendments, instead of “Constitution Version 2”.
In his book “The Quartet”, historian Joseph Ellis discusses Madison’s work at the time that the Founders were still working out how the new government would operate:
But there is no question that Madison was the “Father of the Bill of Rights.” He wrote the first draft single-handedly, ushered it through the House, and negotiated with leaders in the Senate as they reduced the seventeen amendments proposed by the House to twelve.
…
Finally, under the rubric of his proposed fourth amendment, Madison wrote the following words: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.” This eventually, after some editing in the Senate, became the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights, and its meaning has provoked more controversy in our own time than it did in 1789.
Madison was responding to recommended amendments from five states, calling for the prohibition of a permanent standing army on the grounds that it had historically proven to be an enduring thread to republican values. It is clear that Madison’s intention in drafting his proposed amendment was to assure those skeptical souls that the defense of the United States would depend on state militias rather than a professional, federal army. In Madison’s formulation, the right to bear arms was not inherent but derivative, depending on service in the militia.
If you're not in a state militia, then the claim that you have a right to have guns at home to protect you from the central government isn't supported by the Second Amendment.
nohero said:
The intent of the Second Amendment came up last month, and I posted the following at that time, and I'll repeat it.
The “first draft” of the Bill of Rights was prepared by James Madison, in the first months of the first Congress after George Washington was inaugurated as the first President. Actually, his first innovation was to draft the amendments as “add-ons”, instead of actually opening up the text of the original document and revising its sections. That’s why it’s the “Bill of Rights” and enumerated amendments, instead of “Constitution Version 2”.
In his book “The Quartet”, historian Joseph Ellis discusses Madison’s work at the time that the Founders were still working out how the new government would operate:
But there is no question that Madison was the “Father of the Bill of Rights.” He wrote the first draft single-handedly, ushered it through the House, and negotiated with leaders in the Senate as they reduced the seventeen amendments proposed by the House to twelve.
…
Finally, under the rubric of his proposed fourth amendment, Madison wrote the following words: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.” This eventually, after some editing in the Senate, became the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights, and its meaning has provoked more controversy in our own time than it did in 1789.
Madison was responding to recommended amendments from five states, calling for the prohibition of a permanent standing army on the grounds that it had historically proven to be an enduring thread to republican values. It is clear that Madison’s intention in drafting his proposed amendment was to assure those skeptical souls that the defense of the United States would depend on state militias rather than a professional, federal army. In Madison’s formulation, the right to bear arms was not inherent but derivative, depending on service in the militia.
If you're not in a state militia, then the claim that you have a right to have guns at home to protect you from the central government isn't supported by the Second Amendment.
Bingo !
Probably the country with the closest thing to a well regulated militia is Switzerland, where there is universal military training, everyone keeps a certain kind of gun, locked in a safe, at home and the government will issue ammunition on an as-needed basis. The NRA would not be happy with the way this is done at all!
For those who care, the definition of militia can be found in the US Code. See excerpt below. Please note, 10 USC 246(b)(2) provides for an unorganized militia. However, I think the militia issue is a red herring. As the militia portion of the 2nd Amendment is merely an introduction or prefatory clause.
I believe the subject of the 2nd amendment is the "right of the people." Right of the people in conjunction with the 2nd Amendment being contained in the Bill of Rights demonstrates to me that the 2nd amendment addresses an individual right. The Bill of Rights enunciates individual rights such as speech, association, unlawful search, etc. IMHO, the 2nd Amendment, also a part of the Bill of Rights, consistently enunciates an individual right. I have also pasted the 2nd amendment below also.
======================================
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/second_amendment
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
==================================================================================
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes
prev | next
(a)The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b)The classes of the militia are—(1)the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2)the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
(Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 14, § 311; Pub. L. 85–861, § 1(7), Sept. 2, 1958, 72 Stat. 1439; Pub. L. 103–160, div. A, title V, § 524(a), Nov. 30, 1993, 107 Stat. 1656; renumbered § 246, Pub. L. 114–328, div. A, title XII, § 1241(a)(2), Dec. 23, 2016, 130 Stat. 2497.)
LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.
RealityForAll said:
As the militia portion of the 2nd Amendment is merely an introduction or prefatory clause.
You state that as a fact. There is also, however, this line of thought:
Opponents of gun control have argued that there are linguistic reasons for dismissing the first part of the Second Amendment as merely “prefatory” or “preambulatory,” even though18th-century readers would never have seen it that way. In addition, they reinterpret the meanings of the phrase bear arms and the word militia in ways that support their cause but go against the sense those words had in the federal period, and continue to have today. In support of the District of Columbia’s appeal to reverse that lower court ruling, we presented linguistic evidence arguing,
1. that the Second Amendment was intended to be read in its entirety;
2. that the first part of the amendment is both syntactically and semantically tied to
the second;
3. that the first part of the amendment specifies the reason for the second, that the
right to keep and bear arms is tied directly to the need for a well-regulated militia;
4. that the ordinary and customary meaning of the phrase bear arms in the 18th
century is tied to military contexts, not to contexts involving hunting or self
defense;
5. and that the word militia refers in the federal period to an organized and trained
body of citizen-soldiers, or to those eligible to serve in such a body, not to any and all Americans, most of whom were actually barred from militia service.
Guns and Grammar: The Linguistics of the Second Amendment (Dennis Baron, professor of English and linguistics, University of Illinois)
You have made some interesting arguments with respect to my analysis. I will try to take them on one at a time. The first issue that I will address is your point four ("4"). Namely, your assertion that the ordinary and customary meaning of the phrase bear arms in the 18th century is tied to military contexts, not to contexts involving hunting or self defense). Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm long, a leading authority on the historical English right to arms, authored an amici brief in the Heller case. See http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/07-290_amicus_cato.pdf Professor Maclcolm's brief is at odds with your explanation.
My understanding is that after the 2nd Amendment's adoption, the 2nd amendment was recognized as both securing, and expanding, the rights originally derived from English (with the 2nd Amendment NOT having class or religious restrictions as the Englisg rights did). The expansion of the right under 2nd amendment apparently entailed facilitating a militia of the people.
Let me know your thoughts.
======================================================================================
A Brief Excerpt from Professor Malcolm's Amici Brief in Heller:
Over a century ago, this Court declared it “perfectly well settled” that the Bill of Rights was
“not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties
and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors,” including the rights’ “well recognized
exceptions.” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281 (1897). Indeed, “[t]he language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted.” Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-09 (1925).
Robertson included among those inherited rights “the right of the people to keep and bear arms (art. 2).” 165 U.S. at 281-82. The court below briefly made “reference to” the Second Amendment’s foundation in English law. See Pet. App. 20a-21a. But Petitioners make none, citing neither the English Bill of Rights, nor any English case, nor Blackstone (yet citing him for another purpose, Pet. Br. 17), nor any other English authority—nor even the three leading early commentators on the Constitution, all of whom recognized the Amendment’s English foundation.
Amici therefore set out below the right to have and use arms in English law by the time of the Founding.
Amici then show how early American authorities claimed and extended that right, including in interpreting the Second Amendment. The English right was a right of individuals, not conditioned on militia service; individuals might exercise the right collectively, but the unquestioned core was a broadly applicable and robust right to “keep” firearms in one’s home for self-defense. Even the “well recognized exceptions” confirmed this core right, by focusing on the carrying, not the keeping, of weapons.
DaveSchmidt said:
RealityForAll said:
As the militia portion of the 2nd Amendment is merely an introduction or prefatory clause.
You state that as a fact. There is also, however, this line of thought:
Opponents of gun control have argued that there are linguistic reasons for dismissing the first part of the Second Amendment as merely “prefatory” or “preambulatory,” even though18th-century readers would never have seen it that way. In addition, they reinterpret the meanings of the phrase bear arms and the word militia in ways that support their cause but go against the sense those words had in the federal period, and continue to have today. In support of the District of Columbia’s appeal to reverse that lower court ruling, we presented linguistic evidence arguing,
1. that the Second Amendment was intended to be read in its entirety;
2. that the first part of the amendment is both syntactically and semantically tied to
the second;
3. that the first part of the amendment specifies the reason for the second, that the
right to keep and bear arms is tied directly to the need for a well-regulated militia;
4. that the ordinary and customary meaning of the phrase bear arms in the 18th
century is tied to military contexts, not to contexts involving hunting or self
defense;
5. and that the word militia refers in the federal period to an organized and trained
body of citizen-soldiers, or to those eligible to serve in such a body, not to any and all Americans, most of whom were actually barred from militia service.
Guns and Grammar: The Linguistics of the Second Amendment (Dennis Baron, professor of English and linguistics, University of Illinois)
RealityForAll said:
You have made some interesting arguments with respect to my analysis.
Sorry if my italicizing wasn’t clear. Those interesting arguments were made in “Guns and Grammar” by Dennis Baron, a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois.
ETA: My thoughts are that Nos. 1 to 3 are more germane to the clause of yours I flagged.
Rentals
Sponsored Business
Promote your business here - Businesses get highlighted throughout the site and you can add a deal.
jamie said:
Let's just change the 2nd amendment to:
The right of the people to own a musket, shall not be infringed.
tjohn said:
Yep. I have always wondered how the people who insist on the original intent interpretation of The Constitution can somehow ignore the reality of technical change. Certainly the Founding Fathers never envisioned modern weaponry.
In any case, reasonable gun control is constitutional.
Gun technology had already advanced beyond muskets, and while the founders would have been hard-pressed to envision semiautomatic rifles with high-capacity magazines, they were probably aware that guns would continue to become more deadly.
Does that have any bearing on today’s gun control debate? “In any case” seems like a respectable way to begin an answer.