----- Original Message -----
From: Dean Forster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: 2nd Amendment
>
> --- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I'm breaking up my reply to Dean into several parts.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Dean Forster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 12:44 PM
> > Subject: Re: gun control (newbie) L3
> >
> > > ** but detracting from or taking away entirely a
> > > guaranteed freedom as a citizen of the US is not
> > > acceptable. You're certainly not going to fix
> > > everyone, but making a nice safe little womb for
> > > everyone is even less feasible.
> > >
> >
> > Why the extreme rhetoric?
>
> hey, i spout rhetoric just to have it challenged.
> thanks, Dan. =)
>
> I snipped the rest for the sake of brevity, no
> subterfuge intended.
>
> As for your interpretation of the 2nd, i have 2 for
> you out of a very large selection to argue the point.
>
>
> The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
> REPORT of the SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
> of the
> UNITED STATES SENATE
> NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
> Second Session
> February 1982
> Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
> _______________
>
> The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms
> therefore, is a right of the individual citizen to
> privately possess and carry in a peaceful manner
> firearms and similar arms. Such an "individual rights"
> interpretation is in full accord with the history of
> the right to keep and bear arms, as previously
> discussed. It is moreover in accord with
> contemporaneous statements and formulations of the
> right by such founders of this nation as Thomas
> Jefferson and Samuel Adams, and accurately reflects
> the majority of the proposals which led up to the Bill
> of Rights itself.
>
> The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history,
> concept, and wording of the second amendment to the
> Constitution of the United States, as well as its
> interpretation by every major commentator and court in
> the first half century after its ratification,
> indicates that what is protected is an individual
> right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms
> in a peaceful manner.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
> WASHINGTON: 1982
> 88-618 0
> For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,
> U. S. Government Printing Office
> Washington, D.C. 20402
> COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
>
> I think that something presented before congress has
> some merit. What were your sources?
Supreme Court decisions. Among them are
http://www.2ndlawlib.com/court/fed/sc/307us174.html
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS.
No. 696. Argued March 30, 1939.--Decided May 15, 1939.
The National Firearms Act, as applied to one indicted for transporting in
interstate commerce a 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches
long, without having registered it and without having in his possession a
stamp-affixed written order for it, as required by the Act, held:
1. Not unconstitutional as an invasion of the reserved powers of the States.
Citing Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506, and Narcotic Act cases.
P.177.
2. Not violative of the Second Amendment of the Federal Constitution. P.178.
The Court can not take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less
than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or
efficiency of a well regulated militia; and therefore can not say that the
Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a
weapon.
26 F. Supp. 1002, reversed.
http://www.2ndlawlib.com/court/fed/sc/116us252.html
And, further back:
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
Argued November 23, 24, 1885.--Decided January 4, 1886.
The doctrine that statutes, constitutional in part only, will be upheld as
to what is constitutional, if it can be separated from the unconstitutional
provisions, reasserted.
A State statute providing that all able-bodied male citizens of the State
between eighteen and forty-five, except those exempted, shall be subject to
military duty, and shall be enrolled and designated as the State militia,
and prohibiting all bodies of men other than the regularly organized
volunteer militia of the State and the troops of the United States from
associating together as military organizations, or drilling or parading with
arms in any city of the State without license from the governor, as to
(p.253)these provisions is constitutional and does not infringe the laws of
the United States: and it is sustained as to them, although the act contains
other provisions, separable from the foregoing, which it was contended
infringed upon the powers vested in the United States by the Constitution,
or upon laws enacted by Congress in pursuance thereof.
The provision in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, that "the right
of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," is a limitation
only on the power of Congress and the national government, and not of the
States. But in view of the fact that all citizens capable of bearing arms
constitute the reserved military force of the national government as well as
in view of its general powers, the States cannot prohibit the people from
keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their
rightful resource for maintaining the public security.
The provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that "no State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States," does not prevent a State from
passing such laws to regulate the privileges and immunities of its own
citizens as do not abridge their privileges and immunities as citizens of
the United States.
Unless restrained by their own Constitutions, State legislatures may enact
statutes to control and regulate all organizations, drilling, and parading
of military bodies and associations, except those which are authorized by
the militia laws of the United States.
And still further back in 1876:
http://www.2ndlawlib.com/court/fed/sc/92us542.html
6. The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it
in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second
amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and
has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government.
IMHO, the 125 years of consistant intepretations by the Supreme Court is a
firm foundation for understanding the Constitution.
>
> "Put yourself in a gun owner's shoes. While the first
> half of the second amendment is no miracle of clarity,
> the second half is about as plain as it can be. "The
> right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
> infringed."
But that phrase is not in the 2nd Ammendment. I specifically pointed that
out in my earlier post. :-)
It is only as plain as can be if it is modifed by Moses. <grin>
Dan M.
