Former Supreme Court justice: ‘Repeal the Second Amendment’

[txradioguy]

No one is confiscating your guns.  What is proposed is registration, so that a gun can be linked with the owner who is responsible for its custody and care.

And yet again you make a proposal that every single times it's been enacted has led to gun confiscation.  And you either can't...or won't...list an instance in history where registration has NOT led to confiscation down the road.

You keep dodging the question related to this...I wonder why?

WE...the legal gun owners in America are already responsible for our weapons.  You continue to advocate for laying the groundwork for tyranny.

[txradioguy]

I trust that you're not surprised re: that.  He has been showing his true colors for quite some time now.

@XenaLee nope not surprised in the least.  I had him figured out shortly after he arrived.

[Sanguine]

No one is confiscating your guns.  What is proposed is registration, so that a gun can be linked with the owner who is responsible for its custody and care.   

For that, you and others here threaten a bloodbath?  Are you nucking futs?   

You may have a "God-given" right to defend your person and property,  but you don't have a right to keep a secret arsenal.   If the peoples' elected representatives of the nation of which you are a citizen decides that gun owners like yourself need to be responsible for the guns they own,  you may indeed decide to shoot peace officers dead,  but don't give me this crap that you have a "God-given" right to do so.  You will simply be a common murderer.   For that, as @jmyrlefuller  points out,  check the Ten Commandments.

No one here is "threatening a bloodbath".  Quit hyperventilating and read what they are saying.

[thackney]

You may have a "God-given" right to defend your person and property,  but you don't have a right to keep a secret arsenal.

While you can have that opinion, the framers of the Constitution, the people that rose up and fired upon the lawful government when they came to take their guns, have a different opinion.  As do I.

The second amendment wasn't written solely for hunting, or for defense of the home.  It was the reason the predicate clause was included.  It was to be a check in the power of the federal government, as was the rest of the Bill of Rights.

[Cyber Liberty]

No one is confiscating your guns.  What is proposed is registration, so that a gun can be linked with the owner who is responsible for its custody and care.   

For that, you and others here threaten a bloodbath?  Are you nucking futs?   

You may have a "God-given" right to defend your person and property,  but you don't have a right to keep a secret arsenal.   If the peoples' elected representatives of the nation of which you are a citizen decides that gun owners like yourself need to be responsible for the guns they own,  you may indeed decide to shoot peace officers dead,  but don't give me this crap that you have a "God-given" right to do so.  You will simply be a common murderer.   For that, as @jmyrlefuller  points out,  check the Ten Commandments.

You must have missed the slew of times you were told we don't trust the government that killed Lavoy Finicum, Randy Weaver's wife and son, and all those children at Waco.

Now you think you have a brand new pop cycle with somebody's mistranslation on the Bible. 

[INVAR]

Actually,  the concept of the Court acknowledging unalienable natural rights not explicitly found in the Constitution itself is of rather recent vintage.

Screw your willfully blind and corrupt Courts filled with despots who have no business sitting on a bench to arbitrate justice, and NO - IT'S NOT a recent vintage:

Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

“[A]ll men are born equally free," and possess "certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity.” - George Mason

“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.” - Samuel Adams

No one is confiscating your guns. 

Your despotic harebrained advocacy of registration and insurance is the precursor to confiscation, no matter what stupid assurances to the contrary you make.  We will treat it the same way as we would those imbeciles sent by power-mad morons to take them by force.  We will not comply.  We will resist.

What is proposed is registration, so that a gun can be linked with the owner who is responsible for its custody and care.   

EFF your proposal.  It is a declaration of war.

For that, you and others here threaten a bloodbath?  Are you nucking futs? 

Call it whatever you like.  You have been warned.  We will not comply with your 'proposal' and you will have to empower government to impose it by force - and then, you will have a bloodbath on your hands.

You may have a "God-given" right to defend your person and property,  but you don't have a right to keep a secret arsenal. 

Yes we do.  Funny how tyrants like you can assert a person has a right to keep secret his sexual practices and a woman her right to slaughter her unborn baby, but a person has no right to keep secret what kinds of tools of defense he possesses.

If the peoples' elected representatives of the nation of which you are a citizen decides that gun owners like yourself need to be responsible for the guns they own,  you may indeed decide to shoot peace officers dead,  but don't give me this crap that you have a "God-given" right to do so.

The Colonists thought they did - and God granted them the victory over the lawful, legal authority of the Crown that was sent to secure their weapons.  The Colonists KILLED the 'peace officers' of the King sent to secure their 'arsenals' by shooting them dead.

You will simply be a common murderer.   

And the Colonists were rebels, traitors, rabble, murderers and criminals according to the Crown.  So, we will let history decide what to call us upon the moment idiots like you make that last mistake and try to impose your 'proposal'.

[Jazzhead]

No one here is "threatening a bloodbath".  Quit hyperventilating and read what they are saying.

I am reading what they are saying.  <NOPE>  Not the will of King George.   The will of the People.

Registration is not confiscation.   It is what it is, and nothing more - registration, just like we all do with our cars.   Cars and guns are both dangerous.  What is wrong with a requirement that a firearm be linked with its responsible owner.     

@Jazzhead, do not accuse other posters of threatening to shoot anyone.  You have been warned about this before.  Consider this a warning.

MOD3

[Smokin Joe]

Actually,  the concept of the Court acknowledging unalienable natural rights not explicitly found in the Constitution itself is of rather recent vintage.   You know, that "living Constitution" thing you tend to disparage.    The right of privacy was first acknowledged as protected by the Federal Constitution in a case from the fifties or sixties, I believe (it may have been Griswold),  to invalidate a Connecticut law that prohibited the sale of contraceptives.  Later, that natural right (and its corollary, the natural right of self-determination) was held to invalidate state laws that banned abortion.

And so it is with the natural right to self-defense, unconnected with the militia.    State laws that would deny that right are now subject to invalidation on the basis of Heller's holding that the 2A protects the natural right as well as the states' rights to provide for service in the militias.   

That, sir, is the product of a "living Constitution" that is more expansive in its protection than the words of the document explicitly provide.   The problem, of course,  is that the gun right is subject to intense political debate,  and a significant minority of the Court believes that the Heller decision was wrongly decided.   Unless codified, it risks being gone with the political winds.     

Actually, these aren't rights found by any court but which were rights so obvious they did not need adjudication. The right to self defense is not based on any court finding, and Heller is not an affirmation of some heretofore nonexistent Right, but an admonition to the Government in the Federal District to not infringe on that Right. So no new Right has been found, the government has been slapped back into line.

As for Abortion, living constitution, etc. there is no right to murder the helpless, (see the Ten Commandments, esp the part about Thou Shalt not Murder), so I'd say the court is exhibiting stellar governmental overreach to assert that anyone has a right to murder their own Child, unborn or fully gestated and produced, especially not an unalienable (God-given) Right to do so.

The Government does not grant unalienable Rights, by definition (of unalienable)--it can't. Nor can it remove them. It can only be responsible for actions which have led to the murder of over 50 million human beings and for infringements on existing Rights. In Heller, the court found (as it should have) against the infringement of a Right. It did not 'discover' that pre-existing Right, it did not create that Right, it only found that the Government was infringing on a Right the People already had.

[Jazzhead]

The second amendment wasn't written solely for hunting, or for defense of the home.  It was the reason the predicate clause was included.  It was to be a check in the power of the federal government, as was the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Until Heller, the 2A addressed only the states' authority to maintain and regulate their militias.    Until Heller, the 2A offered no protection of the right to individual self-defense.   

I urge you to read Prof. Epstein's piece regarding the 2A, linked nearby.  It makes sense to me.   You can't just ignore the predicate clause, as well as (as Prof. Epstein argues)  the several other provisions of the Constitution that address the militia.    The 2A has nothing to do with securing individual rights.   It has everything to do with preserving the States' sovereignty,  vis a vis the federal government,  to maintain and regulate their militias.   That is the context of the predicate clause, not securing your "God given" rights as in individual.

It takes a living Constitution to secure natural rights not explicitly protected by the document itself.   Hence - state laws against contraception and abortion are invalid because the SCOTUS expanded the Constitution's protection to include the natural rights of privacy and self-determination.   Just as the SCOTUS in Heller expanded the Constitution's protection to include the individual RKBA. 

Thank Justice Scalia, not the Founders.    The Founders were concerned only with protecting the States' sovereignty vis a vis the new federal government.   The 2A never imposed any restrictions on the States from "infringing" on individual gun rights, and is silent regarding the federal government's ability to do so.     

[Cyber Liberty]

What is wrong with a requirement that a firearm be linked with its responsible owner.     

Because you have ignored hundreds of posts by dozens of posters answering that very question in living color, I refuse to answer it now.  I have a wall I'd rather talk to.

[XenaLee]

I am reading what they are saying.  They are threatening a bloodbath against peace officers tasked with enforcing the will of the peoples' elected representatives that firearms be duly registered.  Not the will of King George.   The will of the People.

Registration is not confiscation.   It is what it is, and nothing more - registration, just like we all do with our cars.   Cars and guns are both dangerous.  What is wrong with a requirement that a firearm be linked with its responsible owner.     

Uh... no.  Your reading comprehension is MIA, per usual (a well-known leftie trait, come to think of it).   The non-compliance, resistance and resultant "bloodbath".... will occur if or when government decides to go door to door to confiscate our legally owned weapons.   

[Jazzhead]

Actually, these aren't rights found by any court but which were rights so obvious they did not need adjudication.

You keep making the same mistake.   Natural rights may exist, but the issue is the Constitution's promise to protect and secure them.   The individual "natural" right to use arms for self-defense was never been recognized as protected by the Constitution until Heller, just as the natural rights to privacy and self-determination were never recognized as protected by the Constitution until the 20th century. 

Better thank God for our living Constitution.   

[XenaLee]

Because you have ignored hundreds of posts by dozens of posters answering that very question in living color, I refuse to answer it now.  I have a wall I'd rather talk to.

Arguing with a leftie is like arguing with a brick wall.  Hence, the "thick as a brick" term....lolol.

[Jazzhead]

Uh... no.  Your reading comprehension is MIA, per usual (a well-known leftie trait, come to think of it).   The non-compliance, resistance and resultant "bloodbath".... will occur if or when government decides to go door to door to confiscate our legally owned weapons.

Liar.  The threat of violence has been leveled at mere attempts to enforce registration:

 

EFF your proposal.  It is a declaration of war.

 
 

[Smokin Joe]

I am reading what they are saying.  They are threatening a bloodbath against peace officers tasked with enforcing the will of the peoples' elected representatives that firearms be duly registered.  Not the will of King George.   The will of the People.

Registration is not confiscation.   It is what it is, and nothing more - registration, just like we all do with our cars.   Cars and guns are both dangerous.  What is wrong with a requirement that a firearm be linked with its responsible owner.     

As has been asked of you before, name one instance in which the widespread registration of weapons has not led to their confiscation. I am not alone in waiting for that response.

In a legitimate police investigation, the serial number of the firearm can be tracked from the manufacturer to the dealer, and through the Form 4473 data, again with just cause, the purchaser of the firearm can be located. That does not mean that that firearm was not stolen, nor sold from there, but it is a start to locate the person who owned it. If the firearm is known to be stolen the NCIC should register a 'hit' on the serial number, make, and model of the firearm as stolen.

In the event a firearm is stolen, and thieves will go to some extraordinary efforts at times to do so (NO security system is unbeatable, there are just some which have not been thwarted yet), the legal purchaser isn't the one responsible--I'm sure they would rather have kept their property.

As for straw buyers, large or frequent purchases are supposed to be reported to the BATFE as things stand. (Ask Eric Holder about this, I'm sure he knows something about it. The BATFE and DOJ ordered enough straw purchases and volume buys to be concluded for the purpose of tracing guns during Operation "Fast and Furious" .

But, back to the original question: Name one instance where registration of firearms has not led to confiscation. I eagerly await your reply.

[Jazzhead]

Because you have ignored hundreds of posts by dozens of posters answering that very question in living color, I refuse to answer it now.  I have a wall I'd rather talk to.

And the answer is idiotic.   Registration is not confiscation.   

[Jazzhead]

As has been asked of you before, name one instance in which the widespread registration of weapons has not led to their confiscation. I am not alone in waiting for that response.

Switzerland. 

[Sanguine]

And the answer is idiotic.   Registration is not confiscation.

You are correct; registration is a prelude to confiscation.

[Smokin Joe]

Switzerland.

Those are military arms. Machine guns: REAL assault rifles. and no one has to pay a tax on them or a transfer fee. They are government issue. Try again.

Firearms legislation in Switzerland comes from a long tradition of shooting (tirs) as a formative element of national identity in the post-Napoleonic Restoration of the Confederacy,[1] and the long-standing practice of a militia organization of the Swiss Army in which soldiers' service rifles are stored privately at home. In addition to this, many cantons (notably the alpine cantons of Grisons and Valais) have strong traditions of hunting, accounting for a large but unknown number of privately held hunting rifles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Switzerland

If those privately held arms were registered somewhere, they'd know how many there were.

[thackney]

Registration is not confiscation.   It is what it is, and nothing more - registration, just like we all do with our cars.   Cars and guns are both dangerous.  What is wrong with a requirement that a firearm be linked with its responsible owner. 

I will, once again, point out you make a false analogy.  We are not required to register cars because we own them.  We are only required to register them to use on public funded roads.

[txradioguy]

And the answer is idiotic.

What is idiotic is your belief that it won't lead to confiscation.

Registration is not confiscation.

Until...you know...it actually is...

Gun registration -- what Obama, Biden and Bloomberg euphemistically call "a national database" -- is also a perfect tool for the later confiscation of guns.


New York City has experience in this arena. In the mid-1960s, street crime was rising rapidly there as in most of the rest of the nation. The people who were perpetrating muggings in Central Park and robbing liquor stores in Queens were not the decent, law-abiding gun owners of New York City. Nevertheless, the New York City Council and anti-gun Mayor John Lindsay enacted long gun registration. The per-gun fee was just a few dollars. The politicians promised that gun registration could help solve crimes and, even if it didn't, registration was harmless. After all, it was just registering guns, not confiscating them.

As registration did nothing to solve crime or stop criminal use of guns, crime continued to get worse in the city. So in 1991, with the city becoming increasingly unlivable, Mayor David Dinkins attempted to make himself think he was tough on crime, this time by pressuring the City Council to enact a ban on so-called "assault weapons" (such as the M1 carbine).

After that, the New York state police used registration lists to conduct home inspections of every individual whose registered gun had been outlawed. The police were ensuring that the registered guns had been moved out of the city or already surrendered to the government.

http://jpfo.org/articles-assd03/kopel-catastrophic-consequences.htm

<snip>

California, too, has used its gun registration records to seize firearms. Under the Armed Prohibited Persons System, teams of state agents confiscate thousands of guns from Californians who have been disqualified after the fact from ownership because of "maybe a felony conviction, mental health commitment, they received a restraining order, domestic violence restraining order — some type of a misdemeanor conviction that prohibits them from possessing firearms," according to Special Agent Kisu Yo of the California Department of Justice.

A fair number of the people receiving visits from Yo and company might well be less than ideal gun owners. But those categories for disqualification are broad enough to lead many people to wonder if they might wander into them with little effort. "Some type of a misdemeanor conviction" is not hard to come by in modern America. Civil rights attorney C.D. Michel cautions, "For example, you can get in a fight, and plead guilty to being in a fight, and wind up having a statutory prohibition on possessing firearms get triggered for a 10-year period. But the courts haven't told them that."

https://reason.com/archives/2013/12/11/how-government-officials-sealed-the-doom

Imagine if your boss was anti-gun and via the registration database available to his companies HR department was able to ascertain you were a gun owner? 

There is a myriad of unintended consequences to registration beyond gun confiscation...only a fool thinks any kind of registry won't be abused.

[INVAR]

Until Heller, the 2A addressed only the states' authority to maintain and regulate their militias.

Because the Constitution is not a document directed to The People, it is a document directed to government for the express purpose of limiting and setting the absolute constraints it is permitted to operate within.  The ONLY aspect of arms that concerns the government, is in relation to the whole body of armed and able-bodied men equipped to defend the country and our liberties; the militia.  It has no authority to touch the natural and inalienable and immutable right to arms, defense and the possession of such.

The 2A has nothing to do with securing individual rights. It has everything to do with preserving the States' sovereignty,  vis a vis the federal government,  to maintain and regulate their militias.   That is the context of the predicate clause, not securing your "God given" rights as in individual.

A government that will not protect the inalienable and immutable individual liberties of the People, is not a government owed any allegiance, respect or obedience.  Government only earns our obedience and respect when it acts to preserve the liberties you have repeatedly said can be *reasonably regulated*; *registered* and *insured* before we are permitted by said government to be able to exercise those natural inalienable rights.  Which, as I have said - transforms inalienable rights into government-granted privileges.  Which nullifies the authority of the government that does such.

It takes a living Constitution to secure natural rights not explicitly protected by the document itself.   

Wrong.  As you will learn if any imbecile in government tries to enact your 'proposal' - our natural rights are secured by our guns and our willingness to use them on those who attempt to enforce your 'proposal'.

The 2A never imposed any restrictions on the States from "infringing" on individual gun rights, and is silent regarding the federal government's ability to do so.     

It has no authority to do so.  The moment it does, said government will have discarded it's legitimate authority, and declared war on liberty and the people who retain it.

And the answer is idiotic.   Registration is not confiscation.   

We say it is, and will regard any 'registration' the same exact way we would agents showing up on our doorstep to take them.   We will not comply - and you will have to empower your government to send armed agents to force compliance.

And then, it is time to water the tree of liberty.

Liar.  The threat of violence has been leveled at mere attempts to enforce registration:

Exactly.  Glad you understand the consequences of what your stupid proposal will cause.

Attempt to enforce registration - and we will treat the agents of the state the exact same way the Colonists treated the agents of the Crown at Lexington and Concord Green.

[thackney]

I urge you to read Prof. Epstein's piece regarding the 2A, linked nearby.  It makes sense to me.   You can't just ignore the predicate clause, as well as (as Prof. Epstein argues)  the several other provisions of the Constitution that address the militia.    The 2A has nothing to do with securing individual rights.   It has everything to do with preserving the States' sovereignty,  vis a vis the federal government,  to maintain and regulate their militias.   That is the context of the predicate clause, not securing your "God given" rights as in individual.

I have read it.  As well I have read about McDonald v. City of Chicago.  Also I have read about Caetano v. Massachusetts.  The later interesting in that it was Justice Alito with Justice Thomas about the individual right to a modern weapon.

From that Judgement:

It is settled that the Second Amendment protects an
individual right to keep and bear arms that applies
against both the Federal Government and the States.

also:

A State’s most basic responsibility is to keep its people
safe. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was either
unable or unwilling to do what was necessary to protect
Jaime Caetano, so she was forced to protect herself. To
make matters worse, the Commonwealth chose to deploy
its prosecutorial resources to prosecute and convict her of
a criminal offense for arming herself....

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-10078_aplc.pdf
 

[txradioguy]

Until Heller, the 2A addressed only the states' authority to maintain and regulate their militias.

I'm beginning to believe that our resident Liberal Jurist is counting on the fact none of us will read even a summary of Heller and just post knee jerk reactions to what he is telling us in the complete D.C. v. Heller decision.

His standard retort is only a half truth.  And it's actually a very small part of the ruling he's hanging his hat on.

What is purposely leaving out is crucial and actually lends credence to what the rest of us have been saying about our right to keep and bear arms.

To wit:

The Supreme Court held:

(1) The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.

  (a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.

  (b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.

  (c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.

  (d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.

  (e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century   also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.

  (f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes.

The core holding in D.C. v. Heller is that the Second Amendment is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense.

[Suppressed]

Democide --  "the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder" -- was the leading cause of non-natural death in the 20^th Century.   

You might trust the government, @Jazzhead, but you should also recognize that even a benevolent government may change at any moment.  Registrations conducted now may be used by evil in the future.  It is prudent to act prudently.  ^-^