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2nd amendment rights.

Are restrictions on the purchase/sale of firearms constitutional?

  • Total voters
    61
Guy Incognito said:
Ok, so age requirements may be implied, and same goes for former convicts and people with civil liberties lawfully taken away. But that doesn't say anything about a citizenship requirement or anything a nebulous as a mental health requirement, which is my point.
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Federal law allows foreigners to buy firearms, with certain restrictions. Where's the issue?
 
Goobieman said:
Federal law allows foreigners to buy firearms, with certain restrictions. Where's the issue?
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Somebody else earlier in the thread was arguing the Second Amenement only applied to US citizens.
 
Guy Incognito said:
Somebody else earlier in the thread was arguing the Second Amenement only applied to US citizens.
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Depending, one could make the argument that there is a compelling state interest to more closely restrict foreigners in this regard.
 
The government should not be permitted to require registration or back round checks, reason being that criminals will get a firearm despite these laws anyway, so these laws only stop law abiding citizens.

N.B.C., launch and guided munitions pose a greater threat to the general public than do firearms and therefore should not be permitted among the general population.

You should not need a special permit to carry/transport concealed. However, as driving is not a right, a shall-issue endorsement for mounted firearms on your vehicle is reasonable.

Hospitals and government buildings should be the only places where one can be restricted from carrying a firearm. This means carrying a firearm on public school grounds should not only be supported, but normal.
 
Goshin said:
Therefore it is not Constitutional to restrict the citizenry from owning/possessing/carrying anything that a US military Infantryman might carry as a personal weapon.
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What do you define as personal weapon? Because infantry soldiers weapons do not just consist only of hand grenades, M203 grenade launcher, M16s,M4 and M249LMG (previously designate the M249SAW). Depending on the type of squad and position there is M240s,MK19,AT4s and various other weapons that a infantry soldier may use and carry. I believe the average citizen should be able to get what ever the military and law enforcement can get assuming they can pay for it and have a place to put it.
 
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jamesrage said:
What do you define as personal weapon? Because infantry soldiers weapons do not just consist only of hand grenades, M203 grenade launcher, M16s,M4 and M249LMG (previously designate the M249SAW). Depending on the type of squad and position there is M240s,MK19,AT4s and various other weapons that a infantry soldier may use and carry. I believe the average citizen should be able to get what ever the military and law enforcement can get assuming they can pay for it and have a place to put it.
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I think a compelling government intrest in the case of explosives could be and has been made. The indiscriminate nature of explosives, and hazards associated with their storage and use, are such that reasonable regulation could meet a strict Constitutional test.

Light support weapons, like full-auto LMGs, could be argued either way.

Actually I'm mostly okay with how things are right now in many states: you can buy most any common weapons without any restrictions; you have to have a Class III license for full-auto or grenade launchers, with storage requirements. The main thing I'd change is removing selective-fire "assault rifles" from the Class III list and returning them to unrestricted status.
 
Guy Incognito said:
Somebody else earlier in the thread was arguing the Second Amenement only applied to US citizens.
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On reflection, it could be argued either way I suppose. We typically extend most rights in the BoR to visiting foreigners, unless they do something to get them classified as enemy combatants.

I have no problem with a Canadian visiting Colorado and hunting Moose there with his .350 Nitro Express bolt rifle.
 
Going strictly by the wording of the 2nd amendment, no restrictions of any kind are Constitutional. That includes the insane, felons, terrorists, etc. There simply are no provisions from stopping any American from owning and/or bearing weapons, based solely on the text. I think most people would agree that's not acceptable. Therefore, regardless of what the Constitution says, we can and must control who has access to what arms.
 
Cephus said:
Going strictly by the wording of the 2nd amendment, no restrictions of any kind are Constitutional. That includes the insane, felons, terrorists, etc. There simply are no provisions from stopping any American from owning and/or bearing weapons, based solely on the text. I think most people would agree that's not acceptable. Therefore, regardless of what the Constitution says, we can and must control who has access to what arms.
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So with the right to restrict a felon and a crazy person means that the right to restrict me or goshin is on the table as well?
 
Goshin said:
I have pages and pages of Founder comments on the 2A.

To sum up:
All American citizens are members of the "unorganized militia".
The Founders, those who wrote the Constitution, clearly intended the militia, that is the people, to be as well armed as the "Standing army".
Therefore it is not Constitutional to restrict the citizenry from owning/possessing/carrying anything that a US military Infantryman might carry as a personal weapon.
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You have to understand that at the time the Constitution was written, there was no such thing as a standing army. Every able-bodied white male was expected to not only own weapons, but to use them to come to the defense of their town/state/nation when called. The people *WERE* the militia. Of course, this didn't apply to non-whites, which shows that even at the time it was written, there were restrictions on the verbage of the 2nd amendment. However, times have certainly changed and we do have a standing military, national guard, police forces, etc. We cannot blindly follow what was written 250 years ago, we have to realize that as times change, our interpretation of things must change too, unless you want to go back to having Joe Blow Plumber being required to have a gun and go out and stop crime at night whether he likes it or not.
 
ReverendHellh0und said:
So with the right to restrict a felon and a crazy person means that the right to restrict me or goshin is on the table as well?
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It means that you cannot go strictly by what's written. Doing so means we cannot restrict a felon or crazy person. You can't have it both ways, demanding no restrictions whatsoever and then imposing restrictions.
 
Cephus said:
It means that you cannot go strictly by what's written. Doing so means we cannot restrict a felon or crazy person. You can't have it both ways, demanding no restrictions whatsoever and then imposing restrictions.
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One gets a judgment against them, the other are freemen like myself and Goshin, there is no comparison.
 
Cephus said:
...we have to realize that as times change, our interpretation of things must change too, unless you want to go back to having Joe Blow Plumber being required to have a gun and go out and stop crime at night whether he likes it or not.
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:lamo: that hit the funny button!
 
Cephus said:
It means that you cannot go strictly by what's written. Doing so means we cannot restrict a felon or crazy person. You can't have it both ways, demanding no restrictions whatsoever and then imposing restrictions.
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No, we handle it the same way we handle other fundamental rights, like speech and religion.

You can have all the free speech you want, but you cannot slander or fraud. These are abuses of free speech.

You can have freedom of religion all you wish, but you can't engage in human sacrifice even if Beelzebubbah demands it.

It is commonly held that the fundamental rights of the BoR may not be infringed, unless a compelling gov't/societal intrest can be proven, and the infringement is minimally restrictive and focused to prevent a specific wrong or problem, and so on.

Restricting loonies, drug addicts and violent felons is reasonable under that approach. Restricting sane and law-abiding citizens is not.
 
earthworm said:
If a man truly possessed a "sound mind", that last thing he would be doing is buying more guns and ammo..
England has the answer.
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Now that is some serious insanity. England punished thousands of law abiding hand gun owners merely because one nut case killed some people. England's rate of handgun violence has increased as legal gun ownership decreased. Cowards hate gun ownership because it reminds them that other men make personal safety an individual responsibility which in turn accentuates feelings of inadequacy in the cowards. Cowards try to ban guns to drive away their own timidity.

Read A NATION OF COWARDS By Jeffrey Snyder ("The Public Interest") several years ago
 
earthworm said:
If only we had the quality of people for this to be possible..
We did not back then, and we do not, today...
IMO, the Constitution was written back then, in the 1700s by the tea baggers of that era to appease the gun lovers of that day...
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This one has to be saved in my collection of truly stupid posts
 
ReverendHellh0und said:
One gets a judgment against them, the other are freemen like myself and Goshin, there is no comparison.
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Please point out where, specifically, in the Constitution it draws that distinction.
 
Goshin said:
No, we handle it the same way we handle other fundamental rights, like speech and religion.

You can have all the free speech you want, but you cannot slander or fraud. These are abuses of free speech.

You can have freedom of religion all you wish, but you can't engage in human sacrifice even if Beelzebubbah demands it.

It is commonly held that the fundamental rights of the BoR may not be infringed, unless a compelling gov't/societal intrest can be proven, and the infringement is minimally restrictive and focused to prevent a specific wrong or problem, and so on.

Restricting loonies, drug addicts and violent felons is reasonable under that approach. Restricting sane and law-abiding citizens is not.
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No, they are limitations of free speech which are nowhere spelled out in the Constitution. I find it funny that people who keep waving the Constitution around like it's the end-all-be-all of U.S. law have no problem limiting or altering it when it's convenient, even when speaking out of the other side of their mouth when it comes to limitations they don't like. So you're reinterpreting the Constitution as you like while arguing against other people doing the same thing.

Pot, meet kettle.
 
Cephus said:
No, they are limitations of free speech which are nowhere spelled out in the Constitution. I find it funny that people who keep waving the Constitution around like it's the end-all-be-all of U.S. law have no problem limiting or altering it when it's convenient, even when speaking out of the other side of their mouth when it comes to limitations they don't like. So you're reinterpreting the Constitution as you like while arguing against other people doing the same thing.

Pot, meet kettle.
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You are mischaracterizing my position.

The 2A has been, since the 1930's at least, the fundamental Constitutional right that has most been wrongfully restricted beyond anything we would tolerate in other fundamental rights, like speech and religion.

Yes, I react to calls for gun control sometimes by shouting "shall not be infringed!" It gets my goat, because of the history of excessive infringement.

But just as my defense of religion does not mean I support theocracy or human sacrifice, my defense of the 2A does not mean I support the right to arms of dangerous loonies or dangerous felons. Actually my view on felons possessing firearms is a bit more nuanced than just "no", but I've gone into that elsewhere and probably shouldn't derail this thread with it.

All rights have certain limits. My right to swing my fists ends well short of the next man's nose. My right to own an AK47 does not include the right to fire it into my neighbor's house.

The point is that any restrictions on the 2A, like restrictions on the 1A, must be compelling intrest, narrowly construed and focused, specific rather than general, and not one whit more onerous than truly necessary. In my opinion very few gun control laws qualify against that standard, but restrictions on people who have proven themselves to be dangerous (loonies/druggies/felons) are among the few that do pass the smell test.
 
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Goshin said:
By those standards hardly any gun control laws in the US would qualify as meeting constitutional muster, as they are almost entirely ineffective in their stated goals of reducing violent crime.
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What if gun control legislation was suggested which had a goal of reducing accidental firearms related deaths and injuries by insuring that all gun owners were properly trained before they could purchase a gun? Do you feel that would meet constitutional muster?
 
Moderator's Warning:
Okay folks, let's stay on track with the topic and stop baiting. Debate the topic only. Thank you.
 
molten_dragon said:
What if gun control legislation was suggested which had a goal of reducing accidental firearms related deaths and injuries by insuring that all gun owners were properly trained before they could purchase a gun? Do you feel that would meet constitutional muster?
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Of course not-that is an infringement akin to saying you cannot vote until you can prove you know the positions of those who are running for office
 
Goshin said:
I'll sum up at the end of the post, but I prefer to let my "crew" sing the opening verse....




I have pages and pages of Founder comments on the 2A.

To sum up:
All American citizens are members of the "unorganized militia".
The Founders, those who wrote the Constitution, clearly intended the militia, that is the people, to be as well armed as the "Standing army".
Therefore it is not Constitutional to restrict the citizenry from owning/possessing/carrying anything that a US military Infantryman might carry as a personal weapon.
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Why limit it to personalo weapons

The founding fathers would not have imagined something like a tank or APC, so why not allow people to own RPG's, anti tank missiles or anti aircraft missles (man portable ones of course)

Without a way to deal with tanks, APC's and aircraft a peoples militia would be slaughter vs a modern well equiped military. Personal weapons would not cut it
 
TurtleDude said:
Of course not-that is an infringement akin to saying you cannot vote until you can prove you know the positions of those who are running for office
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Wouldnt that be interesting. Would it be fill in the blank or multiple choice test?
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Why limit it to personalo weapons

The founding fathers would not have imagined something like a tank or APC, so why not allow people to own RPG's, anti tank missiles or anti aircraft missles (man portable ones of course)

Without a way to deal with tanks, APC's and aircraft a peoples militia would be slaughter vs a modern well equiped military. Personal weapons would not cut it
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in the founders time there were three classes of weapons

arms , artillery and ordnance. arms were just that-individual weapons that a regular infantryman or militia man would carry. swords, dirks, daggers, sabers, muskets, pistols and rifles. Artillery were mortars and cannon, and ordnance were bombs and rockets (remember "the rockets' red glare"?). the second dealt with the arms.

now modern weaponry often blurs the lines. a submachine gun is an arm while a crew served heavy mg is more akin to artillery. a mortar is artillery but a grenade launcher attached to a marine's M4 carbine has elements of both. same with an RPG or a SA-7 surface to air missile though I note that normally grenade launchers and missiles are issued to squads or platoons to be carried by a selected soldier while the M16 or M4 rifles are issued to just about every combatant.

so when we come to weapons capable of being deployed by one soldier even if issued at squad or platoon level (as opposed to every infantryman) there is a gray area when it comes to the second amendment. and I will concede that when it comes to RPGs, Strelas, or LAWS, MAWS or HAWS there is no quick answer.

but right now, there are clear and obvious infringements on the second amendement by the federal government that do not require an examination of the RPG issue. for example, many weapons that civilian police departments use--ie weapons that the federal and state government have conceded are useful for self defense in urban environments and clearly protected by the second-that other civilians cannot buy without all sorts of red tape and in fact are often banned

in 1986- in an attempt to derail the McClure-Volker firearms owner protection act (that would prevent Boston POlice from say arresting the Yale Skeet team as it travels through that city to the Eastern Collegiate clay target championships in Nashua NH), Dem Rep Hughes of NJ tried to poison the bill by attaching an amendment that many though was never properly ratified that banned the sale to civilians of all machine guns registered by their makers after May 19, 1986. this of course meant that the number of machine guns for non LEO ownership was cut off and the prices skyrocketed to the point that a gun police can buy for 900 dollars would cost me over 22,000 dollars

BTW to say we would need heavy weapons to deal with a tyrannical government is specious. in such a scenario, the proper response is not to go head to head with the us military (assuming that the army would attack large numbers of civilians and say carpet bomb Columbus or Dallas). rather the response would be to target those who had caused the oppression and take them out. If someone can get within a half mile of someone they can kill them and if you are a dictator and 20 million pissed off american patriots want you dead, you are pretty much toast
 
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