Should we repeal the 2nd Amendment?

[arthwollipot]

There is no need for you to be a "twat" just because you haven't asked a question clearly.

Where does the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from?

Thomas Jefferson.

 

[erwinl]

ETA:

Even to this day the Militia Act of 1903 lists militias as:

Organized militia – consisting of the National Guard and Naval Militia.

Unorganized militia – comprising the reserve militia: every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age, who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Even now, under our own laws, militia is defined as "citizen who are part of government organized part time military organization dot dot dot and everybody in your neighborhood who owns guns."

This is all a read herring because the Founding Fathers were 100% clear that they never intended their words to be sacrosanct, Jefferson WANTED the Constitution rewritten in full every, I want to say, 20 years just to keep it from becoming stagnant.

But the idea that as said in the Constitution "militia" only means organized military units is just not true.

Wouldn't that militia law mean that only people in that group are allowed to have guns?

Female -> No guns.
Male and younger than 17 -> no guns.
Male and turning 46 -> Hand in the guns you had up to that moment.

 

[Lothian]

There is no need for you to be a "twat" just because you haven't asked a question clearly.

There was no question in my text you quoted. I may be unusual but I normally use this symbol '?' to indicate a question.

 

[jt512]

Where does the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from?

Thomas Jefferson.

I doubt that Jefferson would take credit for those rights coming from him.

 

[Lothian]

Where does the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from?

I don't know. Ask someone on death row they may have a view.

I don't believe in Gods or a higher authority that grants us these things as a right.

They are, as I see it aspirations humans want but don't always get. I don't see them as a right.

Who do you think gives us those rights and what is the remedy when those rights are taken away, when people die, are incarcerated or unhappy?

 

[3point14]

I think my takeaway from all of this is that the damn thing, at the very, very least, needs rewriting, given that, between you all, you can't actually agree on what the damn thing means. Which has to be a sign of extremely poorly written legislation, surely?

 

[jt512]

I don't know. Ask someone on death row they may have a view.

I don't believe in Gods or a higher authority that grants us these things as a right.

They are, as I see it aspirations humans want but don't always get. I don't see them as a right.

Who do you think gives us those rights and what is the remedy when those rights are taken away, when people die, are incarcerated or unhappy?

My question was rhetorical. A right is inherent, axiomatic. It doesn't "come from" anywhere.

 

[Lothian]

My question was rhetorical. A right is inherent, axiomatic. It doesn't "come from" anywhere.

Which rights? The right to rape, the right to torture? The right to own a gun?

The right to disability payments comes from UK law as does the right not to be discriminated against on certain protected characteristics. There in no inherent right to these and these rights don't exist in many places. Same with guns.

 

[jt512]

Which rights? The right to rape, the right to torture? The right to own a gun?

Huh? Who has said that that there is a right to rape or torture.

 

[Lothian]

Huh? Who has said that that there is a right to rape or torture.

Err, you implied it.

My question was rhetorical. A right is inherent, axiomatic. It doesn't "come from" anywhere.

Which was why I asked which rights are inherent and axiomatic

 

[jt512]

Huh? Who has said that that there is a right to rape or torture.

Err, you implied it.

No. That was your failure to comprehend what I said. If you really want to, post what you think I said that meant there is a right to rape or torture, and I'll do what I can to correct your thinking.

Which was why I asked which rights are inherent and axiomatic

You didn't ask that in any post that I read or responded to, but since you are indirectly asking it now: In my opinion, there is no absolute right to own or bear arms. Today, I would disagree with anyone who said there is, although were I alive at the time of the writing of Bill of Rights, I might have thought differently. But that said, I think there is a right to be able to defend yourself. As I have said before, given the level of life-threatening crime that there is where I live, the right to be able to defend yourself implies the right to own and bear arms.

 

[Lothian]

No. That was your failure to comprehend what I said. If you really want to, post what you think I said that meant there is a right to rape or torture, and I'll do what I can to correct your thinking.

I posted your words not what I think you meant. You said "A right is inherent, axiomatic. It doesn't "come from" anywhere."
I asked "which rights?" in post 628 as you seem to have missed it, and gave some examples for you to think about.

Thank you for acknowledging that your initial statement was too broad, and for clarifying you don't believe there is an absolute right to bear arms. This takes us back to what I was asking 20ish posts ago. Where does that right come from? If as argued the 2nd amendment didn't create the right it only recognises it existed, where did the right first arise?

 

[Roboramma]

My question was rhetorical. A right is inherent, axiomatic. It doesn't "come from" anywhere.

You might like this view.

I don't fully endorse everything he says, but I do think there's something to the point being made.

For those lazy to click, here's a quote that gives the gist of it:

But how are we to decide? Who precisely is the arbiter of right and wrong?

Faced with this question, I’ve long given the same answer: no one is the “arbiter” of right and wrong. Individuals just have to consider the moral issue and form their best judgment. That hardly makes morality subjective. There’s no arbiter of scientific or historical truth, either.

I now realize that my answer could have been stronger all along. Yes, there’s no arbiter of scientific truth, of historical truth, of moral truth. But what truths – if any – do have an arbiter? When, if ever, is there a Decider of truth?

There is a simple answer: arbiters do indeed exist – but only for purely social truths. If your question is, “Are Jack and Mary married?,” an arbiter might exist. After all, to be married is nothing more than to be considered married by a society. If the people in a society accept the Grand Poobah as the arbiter of marriage, then whatever he decides about two people’s marital status is their true martial status.

[...]

The converse is also true: If a subject has an arbiter, that subject is fake. The fact that one person’s say-so decides an issue reveals the make-believe nature of the issue. Picture how you’d react if someone claimed to be the Arbiter of Math. Impossible, right? But why? Because math is a real subject with real answers that are right or wrong no matter what anyone thinks.

When people ask, “Who’s the arbiter of morality?,” the correct answer is indeed “No one.” But this answer, though correct, it is woefully incomplete. The critic’s insinuation – morality is subjective because it lacks an arbiter – is the opposite of the truth. If morality had an arbiter, that would be a conclusive sign of its subjectivity. The fact that morality lacks an arbiter is one sign – though hardly a conclusive one – that morality, like science, history, and math – has answers that no one’s mere say-so can undo.

 

[Aridas]

Sorry for not bringing clear. Gun rights folk often refer to the 2nd amendment as allowing them to have guns. As I understand your argument that does not give any rights, it instead says they won't be taken away. You mention codified rights and that is what I would expect. Guns seems an exception, in it does not appear to be codified. I am trying to understand where it comes from.

To poke at this a just a little -

If you're asking about where it came from - it's probably worth referring back to the situation at the time to understand things a little better and keep them in context.

In the pre-US and early days of the US, the land was far, far less tamed, there were credible enemy forces nearby, there were no police (there was law enforcement, but the functionality was not the same, police were a much later thing created to push business protection costs onto the public), and once the US actually existed, there just wasn't even the ability to maintain a standing federal army for a while. Militias were a low cost/effort substitute.

Personal gun/weapon possession and usage were normal. It was not a right in local contention at all. The more local governments' right to maintain militias/armed forces was also normal, given that there wasn't so much in the way of a more professional army that could fill the needs there. The 2nd Amendment wasn't intended to grant something meaningfully new so much as pointedly allow more local governments to maintain the right to defend themselves. While personal rights fairly certainly were part of the larger discussion behind it, for the overwhelming share of US history, that the Amendment itself dealt with government/militia rights was uncontroversial and personal rights to gun ownership with appropriate regulation allowed weren't really in meaningful question.

 

[theprestige]

I was asking where the right to bear arms comes from if the 2nd amendment doesn't give that right rather it says the right won't be removed.
Happy for you to point to where the right to bear arms is in the bill of rights. .
There is no need to be a twat just because you didn't understand my question.

The right to bear arms can be found in the 2nd Amendment: "... the right to bear arms shall not be infringed."

 

[3point14]

The right to bear arms can be found in the 2nd Amendment: "... the right to bear arms shall not be infringed."

Which seems to imply that the right already exists and shall not be infringed upon, no?

Otherwise it would say something like "The people have the right to bear arms."

 

[Delvo]

Merriam-Webster says:

...If "well-regulated" has a separate definition specifically for the context of armies and the military, then I guess that's fair enough.

It doesn't need to be a separate specialized thing. It fits within #2 in your quote box, along with the phrase "regularly scheduled".

Also, the third paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the general idea of an "army" contrasts regular and irregular forces, anything you can read anywhere about the "Minutemen" of the American Revolution will describe them as an alternative/contrast to the "regular army" or "regulars", and a famous (in America) case in which people quickly spread the word that the British army was on its way so they could prepare to face them featured the often-repeated phrase "the Regulars are coming" (although modern people unfamiliar with that usage often misquote it as "the British are coming"), because a well organized & disciplined & trained & equipped unit would be known as the "regulars" and part of the Americans' challenge during that war was the question how to regularize themselves and how to fight enemy regulars with a mix of your own regular and irregular units.

 

[Aridas]

My question was rhetorical. A right is inherent, axiomatic. It doesn't "come from" anywhere.

To poke at this for just a moment, this somewhat harks back to the natural rights and legal rights discussion.

More broadly, though -

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.[1] Rights are of essential[citation needed] importance in such disciplines as law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.

The history of social conflicts has often involved attempts to define and redefine rights. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived".[1]

 

[theprestige]

Which seems to imply that the right already exists and shall not be infringed upon, no?

Otherwise it would say something like "The people have the right to bear arms."

Exactly.

Rights, if they exist at all, exist before they're codified or recognized by any government. The 2nd Amendment simultaneously affirms this view, and recognizes the right to bear arms. I guess maybe Lothian disagrees with something here, but he's coming at it so obliquely, from my perspective, that I can't tell if he's leading up to an argument, or thinks his argument is already made.

 

[3point14]

Exactly.

Rights, if they exist at all, exist before they're codified or recognized by any government. The 2nd Amendment simultaneously affirms this view, and recognizes the right to bear arms.

Ah, well, that's a whole different discussion, isn't it? The fact remains that the wording of the second amendment supposes the right to bear arms already exists. In any discussion regarding repealing or amending that right, that fact, and the source of the supposed right prior to the second amendment, should form part of the discussion.