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Why does the 2nd Amendment protect the Right to Arms?

Why does the 2nd Amendment protect the Right to Arms?

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WillRockwell said:
Sorry to disillusion you and all the others who long for an armed patriotic revolution, but our founding fathers did not write the Second Amendment to give the masses the opportunity to come shoot them if they felt the need. The Second Amendment was put in the constitution to guarantee a supply of soldiers for the army (militia). Period.
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Supprt this position.
Be sure to include primary srouce material.
 
WillRockwell said:
Sorry, it just doesn't make sense that the Founding Fathers would build in a provision to allow the masses (at the time they were quite snobby about common people) to overthrow the government using force.
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Given that they, themesleves had just exercised that right -- why not?
 
WillRockwell said:
The fact that you have not provided a link speaks volumes. If you can show in the Constitution or Bill of Rights where the Founding Fathers encouraged armed insurrection, I'll be happy to apologize in public. Either **** or get off the pot.
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"We'll find the deepest sleep in graves we've dug ourselves." - Edward Butcher
 
WillRockwell said:
Sorry to disillusion you and all the others who long for an armed patriotic revolution, but our founding fathers did not write the Second Amendment to give the masses the opportunity to come shoot them if they felt the need. The Second Amendment was put in the constitution to guarantee a supply of soldiers for the army (militia). Period.
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I believe the Supreme Court has stated that people have the rights to carry guns, also the 2nd amendment says " 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." People not just the militia can have guns.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.
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Supreme Court Shoots Down D.C. Gun Ban - CBS News
 
partier9 said:
I believe the Supreme Court has stated that people have the rights to carry guns, also the 2nd amendment says " 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." People not just the militia can have guns.
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More importantly, they ruled that this right does not in any way depend on a person's association with any militia.
 
partier9 said:
I believe the Supreme Court has stated that people have the rights to carry guns, also the 2nd amendment says " 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." People not just the militia can have guns.
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I am not arguing the second amendment. I am asking where, in the founding documents of our nation, does it give citizens the right to overthrow the government?
 
WillRockwell said:
I am not arguing the second amendment. I am asking where, in the founding documents of our nation, does it give citizens the right to overthrow the government?
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Why would it need to? You do not need a right to usurp a tyrannical government, you need common sense and some ammo.
 
WillRockwell said:
I am not arguing the second amendment. I am asking where, in the founding documents of our nation, does it give citizens the right to overthrow the government?
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Like in the Constitution? The Constitution doesn't grant rights first off, it merely lists a few of them. Secondly, the Constitution doesn't restrict the People; it restricts the government. There is no talk of revolution in the Constitution because the Constitution is talking about the restrictions and privileges of the State. It's the People installing a new government with restricted and specific powers. Some of the bigger rights were listed in the Bill of Rights. Which was argued over including because some of the founders thought that if they listed some of our rights in the Constitution, that maybe people would think that those were our only rights. But all government derives its power through the consent of the governed. It is the People who are the sovereigns, we are the source of all power and authority. If the government sins against the People for too long, it is the duty of the People to remove that government and replace it with one which does.
 
EgoffTib said:
Why would it need to? You do not need a right to usurp a tyrannical government, you need common sense and some ammo.
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You have to remember that the question was asked from the point of view that the government grants your rights, and if it isn't specidically granted, it doesnt exist.
 
WillRockwell said:
Several posts in this thread credit the second amendment with the implication that it justifies violent overthrow. The only historical document which deals with the issue at all is the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legal document, just a letter to King George. There have been strict laws throughout history regarding the personal ownership of weapons, especially high tech weapons.
The people do NOT have the right to overthrow an existing government on an individual basis. A well organized group of committed rebels has the right to TRY to overthrow the government, but that does not make them patriots. As you remember, it was tried one time in American history and, fortunately for us all, failed. And I say that as a Southerner, whose great grandfather fought at Chickamauga.
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Who the hell is talking about overthrowing the governement on an indivigual basis?

No one, that's who.

Please, please, please start paying atention.
 
Goobieman said:
You have to remember that the question was asked from the point of view that the government grants your rights, and if it isn't specidically granted, it doesnt exist.
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In this very thread it was claimed that your right to overthrow the government was guaranteed by the founding fathers. Now all of you seem to be backing away from that claim. The posters in this thread claimed
The 2nd amendment guarantees the right to bear arms because:

It's a check on the Government. Self-defense is b.s., if someone really wanted to kill you they would have no problem.

it is there to overthrow the state should it beome a tyranny.

Primary reason is for revolution.

The 2nd Amendment was created to ensure that all Americans, even criminals at the time it was written, were provided a defense against the government in the event that it went rogue.

To keep the government under the constant real threat of revolution.

to rise against an corrupt oppressive tyrannical government.

we have guns to protect ourselves and overthrow our government if it becomes tyranical.

It's one thing to pretend the second amendment guarantees the right to own any firearm, it's quite another to claim it guarantees the right to incite armed conflict. What the second amendment says, in plain language is "Because we need an armed militia, every man has the right to own a gun." This was true in 1780, it is not true today.
 
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WillRockwell said:
In this very thread it was claimed that your right to overthrow the government was guaranteed by the founding fathers. Now all of you seem to be backing away from that claim.
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When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
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To overthrow the government is our right as government derives all it holds; all power, all authority, all duty, from the People. Should it act against the People, it is the People's right to do away with it.
 
WillRockwell said:
It's one thing to pretend the second amendment guarantees the right to own any firearm, it's quite another to claim it guarantees the right to incite armed conflict.
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You don't understand. In this instance, I do not believe the failure to understand is wllfull -- in this case, you really do not get it.

The 2nd guarantees the right to armed revolution by guaranteeing that the people will always have access to the means to affect said revolution.

What the second amendment says, in plain language is "Because we need an armed militia, every man has the right to own a gun." This was true in 1780, it is not true today.
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It is every bit as necessary today as it was in 1791.
 
WillRockwell said:
It's one thing to pretend the second amendment guarantees the right to own any firearm, it's quite another to claim it guarantees the right to incite armed conflict. What the second amendment says, in plain language is "Because we need an armed militia, every man has the right to own a gun." This was true in 1780, it is not true today.
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Ah yes, you're correct. We should trust that the government will never want any more power and that they value our interests above their own.. :doh
 
WillRockwell said:
does that even mean anything?
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It means that, "I will take Valparaiso Univiversity Law Review's analysis over your opinion on this matter".

Did that help clarify it for you...
 
Goobieman said:
The 2nd guarantees the right to armed revolution by guaranteeing that the people will always have access to the means to affect said revolution.

.
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That was not the intent of the 2nd amendment, and I think you all know that.
 
The intent is so that the people can maintain a well organized militia in order to help repel invaders or to overthrow an unjust or tyrannical government.
 
WillRockwell said:
That was not the intent of the 2nd amendment, and I think you all know that.
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Well. I think it is more of a counter against the declawing of average people so that the cunning cannot take the whole of America's freedom as easy. Look at the English now.
Gun Control's Twisted Outcome: Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S. - Reason Magazine
In the two years since Dan Rather was so roundly rebuked, violence in England has gotten markedly worse. Over the course of a few days in the summer of 2001, gun-toting men burst into an English court and freed two defendants; a shooting outside a London nightclub left five women and three men wounded; and two men were machine-gunned to death in a residential neighborhood of north London. And on New Year's Day this year a 19-year-old girl walking on a main street in east London was shot in the head by a thief who wanted her mobile phone. London police are now looking to New York City police for advice.
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When you declaw your people they still do bad things. But by taking away their right to defend themselves they can't even stop the crimeys who are willing to take the chance to buy an illegal gun.

It is for personal defense on any scale. Nationwide or in your backyard. Whatever you are defending from.


I rather have my 12 gauge with slugs and have a small chance when a machine gunner comes by instead of a knife.
 
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WillRockwell said:
That was not the intent of the 2nd amendment, and I think you all know that.
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But that is the intent. It's to ensure we have tools necessary to keep a free State. Without the diligence of the People, a free Republic will quickly turn into an authoratative oligopoly. The latter must be done away with. The founders new this well, in much of their writings, especially that of Jefferson and Adams, talk about the dangers of government, and government is dangerous. The founders knew well the dangers of the government but also recognized the right of the People to control government and should it act to grievously against them for too long, their right and duty to dispose of that government. The 2nd amendment is there mostly so that the People can preserve a free State and fight for it either against external or internal enemies.
 
WillRockwell said:
That was not the intent of the 2nd amendment, and I think you all know that.
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It was -most certainly- one of the intentions of the amendment.
 
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