I'll admit that you really do have a feel for gun-porn, @Smokin Joe . Happiness is a warm gun!
Your words, not mine. I'm happy to never have to use any of my firearms against someone coming to injure or kill me, no matter who that might be. But that won't stop me from using them to defend self, family, home or even others in need, if that need arises.
By your very implications, police are pistol packing blood letters who get off on killing people, after all, they not only have guns, but have been (by law) given access to firearms the general public can't have. What a decidedly urban viewpoint.
[/quote]Again: We are not a tyranny, we are a Constitutional republic. We are not ruled by a king; rather, our government is led by our elected representatives. What you brand as "tyranny" is just politics. And the solution for bad politicians is to vote them out. This insistence that your right to own an arsenal is so you can be prepared to shoot peace officers is an insult to the Founders and the system of SELF-governance they created.
The 2A by its plain language is obsolete. The right of citizens to keep (that is, own and store) and bear arms is in service to the "well-regulated militia". Those are militias organized at the state or local level, and the 2A was an admonition to the federal government that those systems of common defense not be disturbed.
But the 2A doesn't address the individual right. Like many, I consider the right to protect one's self and property to be God-given (that is, a natural right of the individual), and strongly support the Heller decision's conclusion that the Constitution secures this natural right as it does others, like the rights of privacy and self-determination.
I've stated before that the individual RKBA derives from the same authority as the Constitution's protection of the right of abortion. Now before you flip out again, consider this: The law that has developed around the abortion right is instructive for what SHOULD be the courts' approach to the individual gun right. Laws regulating abortion must pass the "undue burden" test - they must not place an undue burden on a woman's free exercise of her right. A similar test should be applied to the gun right. If it were, a whole heck of a lot of gun regulation would be unconstitutional.
That's why I keep saying that the right deemed secured by Heller should be codified. Doing so would not only minimize the chance that a future SCOTUS majority will take the right away, but can also establish the statutory test for determining whether a regulation or restriction of the right is reasonable, or onerous.
[/quote]Few sane would maintain that those who had just fought off tyranny with their own weapons and who were eminently cautious about the tendency of governments to accrue power to themselves would (especially in the face of the discussion, documented) even begin to suggest that the intent of the Founders was anything but the ability to be able to (again) resist the tyrannical machinations of any government.
Your cherry picking my comments, out of context and attempting to apply meaning to them clearly not intended, along with your perfidy concerning the Second Amendment, are despicable. We all know codifying a Right is not only unnecessary, but implies that the Right can be removed by repealing the law codifying, it, in effect, making the Government the grantor of that Right. It just isn't so. Your implications that desiring to remain armed, to keep property lawfully acquired, paid for by the sweat of our brow, somehow makes us bloodthirsty killers, is beyond my ability to decry in language acceptable to this forum.
The Constitution established a few narrow and limited powers ceded to the Federal Government and specified how those few powers were to be implemented. The rest of the document is all about limiting that power, and reserving all else to the States and the People, and it even says so.
The Courts, quick to usurp, have taken on the mantle of interpreting the Constitution, of finding Rights not mentioned, and denying those specifically protected, when their purpose was to interpret the law (as written) and see if that conformed with the limitations of the original document, as amended. If any question exists, those phrases and clauses were discussed in the media of the day, in the Federalist Papers, primarily, and in communications by the writers of those phrases. There is little room for misinterpretation, unless one chooses to ignore that supporting documentation and engage in the sort of semantic gymnastics we have seen you utilize here. Utter crap.
You have been presented with enough refutation that you have reverted to name calling, from "extremist" to "paranoid" (implying someone needs to be red-flagged?) and a host of other nonsense. You have no real arguments which have not been solidly refuted yet persist in attempting to disrupt conversation rather than join in in any meaningful way. There is a word for such behaviour on the internet, and I really doubt I need to specify it (others have).
