And you have followed Haymarket's red herring and now the discussion is back right where he wants it, where the right is dependent upon the words chosen to secure it.
When the debate is focused on the words and what they allow the citizen to do, the true debate on the actual action of the Constitution (what it allows the government to do) has been lost . . .
Always remember the philosophical climate that the Bill of Rights was debated in and shove that down the throats of anyone who wants to use the words of the 2nd to condition, qualify, limit or restrict the right to arms . . . The best exposition is
Madison's introduction of the proposed amendments, especially
Section 10.
The second best is
Federalist 84 (paragraph breaks added).
"I . . . affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Why, for instance, should it be said that [a fundamental right] shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, . . .
This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights."
The rights enumerated already existed and the government was already forbidden to infinge on them simply by the structure of the Constitution being a charter of conferred powers.
All not conferred is retained and that includes the right to keep and bear arms. SCOTUS has been clear on this for going on 140 years; why do we even allow these usurpers to speak on anything but rebutting that I'll never understand. And make no mistake, "usurper" is the correct word to use, ask Haymarket to define
that because going by Federalist 84 above, which warns us specifically of his actions and argument for constructive powers, he is the epitome of, "men disposed to usurp".
Haymarket was foundering when discussing the
ONLY topic that we should allow him and other statist communitarians to comment on. The
only discussion allowed coming from gun control supporters, the
only challenge to him should be to provide the clause of the Constitution that grants any power to government to allow it to have any interest whatsoever in the personal arms of the private citizen.
To confine him to that will exhaust him as he spins his wheels in the mud and he will soon abandon his jalopy of an argument in the ditch where it belongs. . .
Be sure, he is happy that he got the discussion back to the definition of "infringed" and ecstatic that he got
you to ask for his opinion on the meaning of the word.
Our only argument to usurpers like Haymarket should be the longstanding holding of SCOTUS . . . That the right to arms is not granted, given, created or otherwise established by the 2nd Amendment thus it is not in any manner dependent upon the words of the Constitution for its existence.
