What Does the Second Amendment Really Say?

[elbe]

First Bolded: The sale and manufacture of alcohol is taxed and regulated by (in order) the Feds, the State, The County, and the City.

It's is by anyone's estimation a privilege as an individual must be licensed to manufacture or sell the item in question (with some small allowances for the manufacture of limited quantities for personal use...almost like manufacturing a non-NFA firearm for personal use w/o license or markings, which is legal under federal law)

Second Bolded: Depends entirely on the goods in question. Selling tie-dyed shirts at a garage sale, probably legal w/o a business license.

Selling tie-dyed T-shirts at a Phish concert w/ the Phish logo w/o permission, probably illegal.

Making candles at home for sale? probably need licensing and inspection by the locality in question to make sure the manufacturing was being done in accordance with safety regulations.

Transporting goods you manufacture from one place to another? probably legal. Transporting something that you're being paid to transport as a business? licensing and insurance and who knows what all applies.

We restrict rights all the time through laws. You can't necessarily buy any firearm, for example.

Wildcat said no amendment restricted a right. The 18th amendment restricted the ability to sell and transport goods (a specific class of goods, but it's still a restriction). I want to know if that's a right or just a privilege. Amazingly because it was just a restriction on the sale and transport of alcohol the fact that it was specific to alcohol is largely irrelevant to the question.

Mostly I'm trying to get him to nail down exactly his inconsistency between rights being innate, in that the government doesn't create them but can only restrict them, and his strange insistence that only certain things are rights, usually as defined by the government itself (such as the bill of rights). If rights are only rights if the government says so it is, essentially, de facto government created rights. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[WildCat]

Why would I make your argument for you? I don't claim to be an expert in any light, but your rationalizations are poor and confused.

Is the sale and transport of goods a right? You seem to be going an awful long way to argue that no amendment ever took away rights, even when the one example is known to be a mistake and overturned.

If you don't understand the difference between a core Constitutional right and the right to sell and transport goods perhaps you're not the Constitutional scholar you think you are.

 

[WildCat]

And the goal posts go that way - - - - - ->

The goalposts are firmly rooted in the same spot. Core Constitutional rights are held to a far higher level of judicial scrutiny than other rights, and you cannot talk about an enumerated Constitutional right with a non-core right without discussing the different levels of scrutiny involved.

 

[Gallstones]

Using my fancy english language skills (which isn't easy considering how poorly that sentence was written) it seems to me that the militia part is the reasoning behind the second part and that, since we no longer do the well regulated militia thing, we should probably reevaluate the necessity and/or reasons for the second part.

The courts appear to have ruled that the militia part is superfluous, so I guess that's the closest thing we'll get to a reevaluation.

So, I guess as a response to the poll options, I would say it does both. Because of the need for a militia it guarantees private gun ownership, without the militia it (the amendment as written) does not.

How do you know we don't still need a militia?

 

[Dr. Keith]

If you don't understand the difference between a core Constitutional right and the right to sell and transport goods perhaps you're not the Constitutional scholar you think you are.

By my count there are 20 uses of the word "right" in the Constitution and its Amendments. Care to guess how many of them are preceded by the word "core"?

 

[GlennB]

Mostly I'm trying to get him to nail down exactly his inconsistency between rights being innate, in that the government doesn't create them but can only restrict them, and his strange insistence that only certain things are rights, usually as defined by the government itself (such as the bill of rights). If rights are only rights if the government says so it is, essentially, de facto government created rights. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

WildCat already admitted that "Some [rights] go back to English Common Law, some were based on Enlightenment philosophy", so there's no 'innate' involved whatsoever, as we all know already.

These 'rights' were selected by a group of people sitting in a smoke-filled room, drinking beer the finest French wine, and debating the issues. They agreed on certain of them and protected those selected rights in the US Constitution.

'Innate rights' my arse. They are all all based on human decisions and relate to the particular society in which they were established for, sometimes, particular reasons.

Back to the 2A - some countries wrote constitutions long after any need to form a militia for the protection of a young country. They didn't bother with an equivalent of the 2A because they were under no plausible threat and/or already had standing armies.

It's a shame for the USA, but it's been royally shafted by the circumstances under which the 2A was written. Also the wording would get you a D- in an English class.

 

[Gallstones]

1. The 2A is couched in horrendously ambiguous English. Shame on them.

2. Invalid poll. On Planet X we grow guns from our hip-tentacles in puberty.

I disagree. I think it is very succinct and unambiguous.

 

[WildCat]

We restrict rights all the time through laws. You can't necessarily buy any firearm, for example.

Wildcat said no amendment restricted a right. The 18th amendment restricted the ability to sell and transport goods (a specific class of goods, but it's still a restriction). I want to know if that's a right or just a privilege. Amazingly because it was just a restriction on the sale and transport of alcohol the fact that it was specific to alcohol is largely irrelevant to the question.

Mostly I'm trying to get him to nail down exactly his inconsistency between rights being innate, in that the government doesn't create them but can only restrict them, and his strange insistence that only certain things are rights, usually as defined by the government itself (such as the bill of rights). If rights are only rights if the government says so it is, essentially, de facto government created rights. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Why did the poll tax get struck down elbe? Why are other taxes legal?

Why do laws requiring an ultrasound to get an abortion get struck down, while laws requiring a prescription for certain drugs stand?

Are you starting to understand the difference between a core Constitutional right (which includes all those enumerated thereof) and lesser rights and privileges?

 

[Dr. Keith]

The goalposts are firmly rooted in the same spot. Core Constitutional rights are held to a far higher level of judicial scrutiny than other rights, and you cannot talk about an enumerated Constitutional right with a non-core right without discussing the different levels of scrutiny involved.

You're using a lot more words here than you did in your original claim. Qualifiers added = goal posts moved. I'm sure there is still a good argument to be made, just not the one you started with.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I disagree. I think it is very succinct and unambiguous.

Yeah, that's why we all agree on what it means.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

The goalposts are firmly rooted in the same spot. Core Constitutional rights are held to a far higher level of judicial scrutiny than other rights, and you cannot talk about an enumerated Constitutional right with a non-core right without discussing the different levels of scrutiny involved.

So you're arguing that no core Constitutional enumerated right has been taken away, not that no right whatsoever has, which is literally what you said?

If not, then what is your rationale for deciding that drinking is not a right?

 

[Gallstones]

According to a lot of gun folks I know, that's exactly where those rights came from

I'm atheist, rights are inherent to being human.

Do you think that only government has authority to allow "rights" like the right to speak, the right to security of person and domicile, the right to a trial before conviction, the right to be free rather than slave?

 

[WildCat]

By my count there are 20 uses of the word "right" in the Constitution and its Amendments. Care to guess how many of them are preceded by the word "core"?

Oh dear, I guess the courts have been getting this all wrong for the past 230 years and there's no such thing as a core Constitutional right. You found the loophole they all missed!

 

[WildCat]

You're using a lot more words here than you did in your original claim. Qualifiers added = goal posts moved. I'm sure there is still a good argument to be made, just not the one you started with.

It's not my fault you don't understand the words I'm using.

So you're arguing that no core Constitutional enumerated right has been taken away, not that no right whatsoever has, which is literally what you said?

If not, then what is your rationale for deciding that drinking is not a right?

Since I can't prove a negative, make your case that drinking is a right. Be sure to cite any case law you deem necessary or the relevant parts of the Constitution. Who knows, if you can do what no one has done for 230 years and litigate the issue all the way up to the SCOTUS it may be one after all!

 

[theprestige]

The subject of basic (or fundamental) human rights has been discussed many times here and is off topic for this thread. However, if people want to pretend they exist and think owning a gun should be included, feel free, but if society disagree's then that right is meaningless.

Agreed.

The 2nd Amendment calls it a right, which is as far as we need to go for the purposes of this thread.

The topic here is how to interpret the right. Looking at it in the context of the militia clause, the Constitution as a whole, and the body of Constitutional law to date is probably sufficient, without getting into an extended philosophical discussion of whether it's really a right, or what rights really are.

 

[WildCat]

The amazing thing is some people are willing to throw out the entire basis of the US legal system (that people are born with certain rights) that protects the right to freedom of speech, assembly, religion, due process of law, warrantless searches and seizures, etc etc just because they don't like guns.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, many of the same people (and all of the same SCOTUS justices) were willing to gut the 1st Amendment in order to prevent a movie unflattering to Hillary Clinton from being shown.

 

[Gallstones]

Except for functionally they are barely different at all. Americans enjoy few rights that, say, British people don't.

Doesn't mean that the ones the US has that Brits don't aren't significant.
Like the First Amendment and religion.

 

[newyorkguy]

Oh dear, I guess the courts have been getting this all wrong for the past 230 years...

I think that is what some of us arguing, yes.

The SCOTUS decision in Heller laid the issue out plainly: an individual not in the prohibited class of individuals has a right to possess a firearm in the home for the purposes of self defense...

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Disclaimer: I'm not American therefore this following question.

How relevant is the second amendment in modern society? By that, I mean considering the size of the US military, how likely is it that militias would be needed to defend the country?

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights were not written with short-term or ideal-conditions in mind but very VERY long term with widely varying and unpredictable future conditions in mind. It was designed as a structure to ensure the greatest possible freedom for the greatest number of people in the greatest number of possible futures. Some of those possible futures include the US Constitution existing in situations other than the ones we see today.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Oh dear, I guess the courts have been getting this all wrong for the past 230 years and there's no such thing as a core Constitutional right. You found the loophole they all missed!

Where did I say a court got it wrong? We're talking about your usage here, your original claim.

Unless you want to admit to moving the goal posts and we can get to a more interesting conversation.