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What do you define as reasonable restrictions for the second amendment?

What do you define as reasonable restrictions for the second amendment?

  • Fire arms/weapons registrations

    Votes: 14 58.3%

  • Waiting Periods.

    Votes: 13 54.2%

  • Laws governing how firearms are to be stored.

    Votes: 9 37.5%

  • Firearms/weapon class requirement.

    Votes: 9 37.5%

  • Convicted felons and certified crazy people permanently banned from firearms/weapon ownership.

    Votes: 16 66.7%

  • Convicted felons and certified crazy people temporarily banned from firearms/weapon ownership

    Votes: 12 50.0%

  • Age minimum requirement to buy firearms/weapons(please specify)

    Votes: 20 83.3%

  • Firearm magazine size restrictions(please specify)

    Votes: 6 25.0%

  • ban on certain firearms/weapons (please specify)

    Votes: 14 58.3%

  • other(please specify)

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Total voters
    24
Morality Games said:
I went with fire arms registrations, storage laws, temporary bans for the mentally ill and felons, and prohibitions on certain firearms.



According to the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court decides.
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According to the US Constitution, rights are reserved for the People. The Courts were not constricted as much as the other branches and reached out. However, the government itself has no innate power or soveriegnty. Everything it wields, it wields at behest of the People. The People are the sovereigns and thus the final say is up to us. It is one of the reasons we instituted trial by a jury of your peers.
 
The only restrictions I support are that convicts and crazy people should be temporarily banned from arms, and age restrictions on purchase.

Convicts, banned until they are released of course; can't have them packing guns in prison. Bear in mind that I don't believe murderers, rapists, home invaders, armed robbers and such should EVER be released, as they've demonstrated they are not fit to be part of society.

Crazy people (addicts etc) banned until they are demonstrably not-crazy and notta-threat...if they can ever be so demonstrated.

Age restrictions: 18 to buy any firearm or ammo. If you can vote and join the military at 18, you can buy arms at 18. If you're 15 or 12 or whatever, and your parents want to let you possess a firearm for sporting purposes or target shooting or whatever, they can buy you one and be responsible for your possession of it and use of it. For the most part I think the parents are the best judge of whether their child is competent in this regard or not.
(I started shooting at age 5 and owned my first -gift- firearm at 12.)

Otherwise, no restrictions.

I assume, btw, that we're exercising some tiny measure of common sense, and excluding WMD's from the definition of "arms".
 
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Kandahar said:
Yes. We have an age limit for lots of other things which society has deemed dangerous, such as automobiles, cigarettes, and alcohol. Why not firearms too?
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Those other things you listed are not constitutional rights. The 26th amendment standardizes the right to vote to a citizen at least 18 years old.
 
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Goobieman said:
No. Violates the constitution, just as a license or permit to go to church does.


No. Violates the constitution, just as having to register your webblog does.


No. Assuming this is for a background check, it violates the constitution as prior restraint.


No. Violates the constitution, just as a legal requirement to have a certain education before you can be a reporter does..
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:fyi: They are not unconstitutional for the same reason that shouting "Fire!" falsely in a crowded theater is not unconstitutional.
 
jamesrage said:
Those other things you listed are not constitutional rights. The 26th amendment standardizes the right to vote to a citizen at least 18 years old.
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I'm not sure what voting has to do with anything... Our legal tradition has always been that minors are entitled to some (but not all) rights of adults. For example, if a child's parent consents to let the police search his room, the child (or his attorney) cannot successfully argue that it constituted an illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

I think one could make a similar argument for guns...they're a right for all ADULTS. Generally speaking, I think people age 12-15 should be able to own guns with parental consent and proper training, and people age 16+ should be able to own them without those things. But at some point, common sense needs to come into play. Is it really OK for a five-year-old to walk into Wal-Mart and buy a gun and ammo without anyone asking any questions?
 
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Kandahar said:
I'm not sure what voting has to do with anything...
Our legal tradition has always been that minors are entitled to some (but not all) rights of adults. For example, if a child's parent consents to let the police search his room, the child (or his attorney) cannot successfully argue that it constituted an illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

I think one could make a similar argument for guns...they're a right for all ADULTS.
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Letting the police search the child's room is at the discretion of the parents not the government.
 
Dav said:
:fyi: They are not unconstitutional for the same reason that shouting "Fire!" falsely in a crowded theater is not unconstitutional.
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So you are okay with basically asking permission from the government to exercise your rights?
 
Dav said:
Toddlers with guns... yikes! :shock:
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Okay, yuk it up. :mrgreen:

To be more specific, with my Dad standing right behind me with his hands poised to take control if I did anything ill-considered.

I started my own son at 4. :2wave:
 
jamesrage said:
Letting the police search the child's room is at the discretion of the parents not the government.
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Right, so why shouldn't gun rights work the same way? Both are in the Constitution.
 
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jamesrage said:
So you are okay with basically asking permission from the government to exercise your rights?
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What's a "right"? Does one have a "right" to own a nuclear missile?
 
Kandahar said:
Right, so why shouldn't gun rights work the same way? Both are in the Constitution.
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So you would be okay Jimmy sent his son little Johnny go down to the gun store to buy some bullets and a gun as long as that child has permission from his parents?
 
Dav said:
What's a "right"? Does one have a "right" to own a nuclear missile?
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So I take that as a yes you think citizens should have to get permission from the government in order to exercise a constitutional right.
 
jamesrage said:
So you would be okay Jimmy sent his son little Johnny go down to the gun store to buy some bullets and a gun as long as that child has permission from his parents?
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Depends how old Little Johnny is. I think anyone age 16+ should be able to buy a gun without permission from anyone (aside from the other issues we're talking about, e.g. convicted felons). I think anyone age 12-15 should be able to buy guns and ammo with parental consent and the proper training. I don't think that kids younger than 12 should be able to buy guns and ammo themselves...but I also don't think it's a horrible thing if parents buy them for their kids as long as the kids are being supervised.
 
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There should be no restrictions whatsoever, except the limits that automatically exist in natural law.


  • Age minimum requirement to buy firearms/weapons - there can be no chronological snobbery in a free society, either you are a self-owning adult or you're not. A child can become a self-owning adult through the process of legal emancipation by jury, or by default after reaching a certain age (i.e. 18). An adult can lose his self-ownership by failing to respect the rights of others (i.e. free market prisons) or demonstrating oneself incapable of functioning as a self-owning adult (i.e. mental illness). Thus children, the insane, and convicted criminals (who are yet to pay off their restitution to their victims) have limited rights, which include the right to life and to emancipation, but don't include the right to own property - their parents / guardians / caretakers own all property, including the clothes on their dependent's backs. An adult may choose to allow his dependent to buy something on his behalf, even a gun, but the adult bares the responsibility for it, and selling something to a dependent without his guardian's permission is a violation of the guardian's natural rights.


  • Convicted felons and certified crazy people temporarily banned from firearms/weapon ownership - once again, either you're a self-owning individual or you're not, and people who are "certified crazy" shouldn't be free to own guns, forks, or even shoelaces unless their guardians explicitly allow it. There shouldn't be any laws against prison guards giving their prisoners AK-47's, just as there shouldn't be any laws for making 2 + 2 add up to 4, common sense should suffice. Once you prove that you have paid your restitution for any past crimes and can be trusted to respect the rights of others in the future, you're free to own anything you like again.


  • Ban on certain firearms/weapons - this is a property rights issue. Property owners should be free to ban anything they want to ban on their property - if you don't like the rules, go somewhere else. Most neighborhood associations, local business alliances, road co-ops, and other privately-owned building blocks of a free society would have charters and other contractual standards for what is and is not allowed in their jurisdiction. Furthermore, if you may be storing potentially dangerous stuff on your property, your neighbors and anyone else who owns property that may be affected have a right to sue you, which would make nuclear proliferation utterly impossible in a government-free society.
 
Kandahar said:
Depends how old Little Johnny is. I think anyone age 16+ should be able to buy a gun without permission from anyone (aside from the other issues we're talking about, e.g. convicted felons). I think anyone age 12-15 should be able to buy guns and ammo with parental consent and the proper training. I don't think that kids younger than 12 should be able to buy guns and ammo themselves...but I also don't think it's a horrible thing if parents buy them for their kids as long as the kids are being supervised.
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Okay...who are you and what did you do with the real Kandahar?? :mrgreen:
 
jamesrage said:
So I take that as a yes you think citizens should have to get permission from the government in order to exercise a constitutional right.
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So I take that as a no you're not going to answer my questions.
 
Dav said:
So I take that as a no you're not going to answer my questions.
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I was the first one who asked a question.SO how are you going to not answer may question and come up with something absurd like nukes or biological weapons(another extreme anti-2nd amendment nuts like to use) and then criticize me for not answering your question?
 
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Redress said:
Who is the final arbiter of whether a law is constitutional or not? You and I can discuss it, but our discussions mean exactly jack...
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Except we are on a debate board. I mean, we could sit around and the cite the Supreme Court every time there was a disagreement on something but that would defeat the whole purpose of having a debate.

...as it is SCOTUS that ends up deciding. IF SCOTUS says something is constitutional, then it is, until a later SCOTUS changes it's mind. They are the final authority.
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No one is contesting the structural means of interpreting the law, as such, citing a technicality does nothing to demonstrate the merits of your argument. If you feel your interpretation of the Constitution is the correct one then make an argument using the Constitution. If I wanted to know what the SCOTUS thought I'd go to their website.
 
Dav said:
What's a "right"? Does one have a "right" to own a nuclear missile?
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Perhaps...that doesn't mean society isn't capable of over-riding that right. So long as we admit that society IS in fact over-riding that right...

Also, an individual person could never, ever acquire - or utilize - a nuclear missile, so it's not really worth discussing.
 
Kandahar said:
Depends how old Little Johnny is. I think anyone age 16+ should be able to buy a gun without permission from anyone (aside from the other issues we're talking about, e.g. convicted felons). I think anyone age 12-15 should be able to buy guns and ammo with parental consent and the proper training. I don't think that kids younger than 12 should be able to buy guns and ammo themselves...but I also don't think it's a horrible thing if parents buy them for their kids as long as the kids are being supervised.
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Whoa...holy crap. Huh?

:2razz:
 
I think it's fairly well-demonstrated that increased firearm prevalence is associated with increased violent crime, so I'd propose increased fees associated with firearm ownership that would cause the owner to face the true cost of his/her private ownership and thereby reduce that negative externality. Of course I can't see the purpose of these prohibitionist strategies that others push, particularly the minimum age restrictions, which are amusingly ironic coming from self-professed "libertarians."

jamesrage said:
It is also my belief that our founding forefathers created the second amendment as a means for individuals to protect themselves and loved ones, to to protect this country if it was ever invaded, and to over throw the government if it became too tyrannical/ corrupt.
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That's pleasantly archaic, considering the advent of military-grade technology that can blow you and your little peashooter into smithereens. :shrug:
 
Agnapostate said:
That's pleasantly archaic, considering the advent of military-grade technology that can blow you and your little peashooter into smithereens. :shrug:
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I didn't know it was that easy to defeat an insurgency. You should work for the Pentagon, as your military genius is unparalleled.
 
Ethereal said:
I didn't know it was that easy to defeat an insurgency. You should work for the Pentagon, as your military genius is unparalleled.
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I wasn't aware that there was a substantial insurgency in existence, or that they possessed military-grade weaponry. Has this been published in a mises.org blog post that I'm unaware of?
 
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