4 ms·

The plain language of the text of the 2nd amendment has always been clear. Everything else you've posted is trying to work around the text as it's written and

by jki275 7y ago

The plain language of the text of the 2nd amendment has always been clear. Everything else you've posted is trying to work around the text as it's written and interpreted by SCOTUS.

camgunz 7y ago
This is the text: > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. How do you explain "Militia" and "State"? How does 2A not refer explicitly to State militias?
- jki275 7y ago
  Read Heller. Scalia explained in detail.
  - camgunz 7y ago
    I have read Heller and found Scalia's reasoning to be... perforated at best. Here's a great excerpt (sorry, he just writes and writes and writes): > “Security of a Free State.” The phrase “security of a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security of each of the several States as the dissent below argued, see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10. Joseph Story wrote in his treatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community.” 1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference to the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause: “The militia is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” and close variations seem to have been terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a “ ‘free country’ ” or free polity. TL;DR: I don't like the "State" thing, so I'm just gonna ignore it. He does the same thing for militias too, albeit in many more paragraphs so I won't quote it here. All in all it's classic Scalia: using weird old newspapers and irrelevant centuries old laws that incidentally agree with him in order to reinterpret the constitution in a way that aligns--coincidentally--with his political beliefs. The kind of thing you'd only find convincing if you don't need convincing in the first place. And for what it's worth, the dissenters agree with me: > The opinion the Court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons. Unable to point to any such evidence, the Court stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the Amendment’s text; significantly different provisions in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and in various 19th-century State Constitutions; postenactment commentary that was available to the Court when it decided Miller; and, ultimately, a feeble attempt to distinguish Miller that places more emphasis on the Court’s decisional process than on the reasoning in the opinion itself. But importantly, this is nothing new. Justices uphold weird stuff all the time (if you want to read something particularly heinous, read Buck v. Bell, good god). And people will cite them as appeals to authority. But as someone super wise once said: > the Court is and always has been a political institution. No Justice since John Marshall has ever known what the Founders thought, because they weren't them. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to get one over on you.
    - jki275 7y ago
      It's not an appeal to authority. The Supreme Court is literally the last word on the Constitution in the United States, therefore they are the authority on it. Scalia's opinion is the law of the land, and the reasoning is sound. Unless you're a SCOTUS justice, your opinion on the matter isn't really relevant.
      - camgunz 7y ago
        I agree, which is why I actually haven't given my opinion on 2A. I know that because it involves a discussion on whether Americans have a constitutional right to own nuclear weapons. I've only summarized relevant bits of the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, law (The Militia Act of 1792) and Supreme Court precedent. I concede I'm not likely to convince you. But I implore you not to be taken in by one of the most hollow Justices in the post WWII era. Originalism/Textualism is itself an appeal to authority to the Founders, and its sole purpose is to mask a reactionary conservative agenda by mythologizing a group of people whose overarching concern was how to write a founding document that both enshrined human rights and the will of the people as the source of the American government's legitimacy, while also granting assurances to the South that they would be able to own other humans in perpetuity. It is at best misguided and ignorant to try and present this era as unusually enlightened, but when you consider how women, indigenous people, abducted and enslaved people, and immigrants of most nations were butchered, raped, subjugated, denigrated, bought and sold (yes, by Founders), it's full on repugnant. I urge you to look past Scalia's admittedly charming sophistry, which I promise you conceals a richer, more optimistic and inspired world exorcised of centuries-old ghosts in powdered wigs.
        jki275 7y ago
        You mischaracterize the founding fathers and the Constitution. First, the founding fathers did not ensure that slavery would be allowed in perpetuity. In fact, the slave trade had already been outlawed (and later the US Navy even sent ships to Africa to interdict slavers leaving the continent -- I wrote a paper years ago on the USS Constellation's involvement there), and the seeds of the civil war were sown in the 3/5ths compromise, which ensured that the south would never be able to muster the power to keep slavery legal. No one holds up pre colonial times as bastions of freedom and enlightenment. We fought a war then, and there is no question that many things that were not good happened then. But it's also not sophistry to analyze the intent of the framers of our country's original documents in ensuring that we follow the law. The Constitution is the law of the land, and it means exactly what it says -- which is that the right to keep and bear arms is a natural and individual right. It does not say that having a militia is a right, it does not say that owning handguns is for self defense. It says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. There is only one statement stronger in the Bill of Rights, and that is "Congress shall make no law" in the first. The militia clause isn't dependent on the right. The militia clause gives a reason for this right (and keep in mind that 10 USC 246 is still in effect to this day), but the right is not dependent on it. Scalia clearly lays this out, gives the proper English lesson, and explains why the amendment means precisely what it says. That's not sophistry. Oddly enough, your argument above actually is the exact definition of sophistry. If you don't like the Constitution, it has a mechanism to change it. Try it if you feel it's necessary, but don't make up stories about how it doesn't mean what it means.

by jki275 7y ago

The plain language of the text of the 2nd amendment has always been clear. Everything else you've posted is trying to work around the text as it's written and interpreted by SCOTUS.

camgunz 7y ago

This is the text: > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. How do you explain "Militia" and "State"? How does 2A not refer explicitly to State militias?

jki275 7y ago
Read Heller. Scalia explained in detail.
- camgunz 7y ago
  I have read Heller and found Scalia's reasoning to be... perforated at best. Here's a great excerpt (sorry, he just writes and writes and writes): > “Security of a Free State.” The phrase “security of a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security of each of the several States as the dissent below argued, see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10. Joseph Story wrote in his treatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community.” 1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference to the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause: “The militia is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” and close variations seem to have been terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a “ ‘free country’ ” or free polity. TL;DR: I don't like the "State" thing, so I'm just gonna ignore it. He does the same thing for militias too, albeit in many more paragraphs so I won't quote it here. All in all it's classic Scalia: using weird old newspapers and irrelevant centuries old laws that incidentally agree with him in order to reinterpret the constitution in a way that aligns--coincidentally--with his political beliefs. The kind of thing you'd only find convincing if you don't need convincing in the first place. And for what it's worth, the dissenters agree with me: > The opinion the Court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons. Unable to point to any such evidence, the Court stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the Amendment’s text; significantly different provisions in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and in various 19th-century State Constitutions; postenactment commentary that was available to the Court when it decided Miller; and, ultimately, a feeble attempt to distinguish Miller that places more emphasis on the Court’s decisional process than on the reasoning in the opinion itself. But importantly, this is nothing new. Justices uphold weird stuff all the time (if you want to read something particularly heinous, read Buck v. Bell, good god). And people will cite them as appeals to authority. But as someone super wise once said: > the Court is and always has been a political institution. No Justice since John Marshall has ever known what the Founders thought, because they weren't them. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to get one over on you.
  - jki275 7y ago
    It's not an appeal to authority. The Supreme Court is literally the last word on the Constitution in the United States, therefore they are the authority on it. Scalia's opinion is the law of the land, and the reasoning is sound. Unless you're a SCOTUS justice, your opinion on the matter isn't really relevant.
    - camgunz 7y ago
      I agree, which is why I actually haven't given my opinion on 2A. I know that because it involves a discussion on whether Americans have a constitutional right to own nuclear weapons. I've only summarized relevant bits of the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, law (The Militia Act of 1792) and Supreme Court precedent. I concede I'm not likely to convince you. But I implore you not to be taken in by one of the most hollow Justices in the post WWII era. Originalism/Textualism is itself an appeal to authority to the Founders, and its sole purpose is to mask a reactionary conservative agenda by mythologizing a group of people whose overarching concern was how to write a founding document that both enshrined human rights and the will of the people as the source of the American government's legitimacy, while also granting assurances to the South that they would be able to own other humans in perpetuity. It is at best misguided and ignorant to try and present this era as unusually enlightened, but when you consider how women, indigenous people, abducted and enslaved people, and immigrants of most nations were butchered, raped, subjugated, denigrated, bought and sold (yes, by Founders), it's full on repugnant. I urge you to look past Scalia's admittedly charming sophistry, which I promise you conceals a richer, more optimistic and inspired world exorcised of centuries-old ghosts in powdered wigs.
      - jki275 7y ago
        You mischaracterize the founding fathers and the Constitution. First, the founding fathers did not ensure that slavery would be allowed in perpetuity. In fact, the slave trade had already been outlawed (and later the US Navy even sent ships to Africa to interdict slavers leaving the continent -- I wrote a paper years ago on the USS Constellation's involvement there), and the seeds of the civil war were sown in the 3/5ths compromise, which ensured that the south would never be able to muster the power to keep slavery legal. No one holds up pre colonial times as bastions of freedom and enlightenment. We fought a war then, and there is no question that many things that were not good happened then. But it's also not sophistry to analyze the intent of the framers of our country's original documents in ensuring that we follow the law. The Constitution is the law of the land, and it means exactly what it says -- which is that the right to keep and bear arms is a natural and individual right. It does not say that having a militia is a right, it does not say that owning handguns is for self defense. It says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. There is only one statement stronger in the Bill of Rights, and that is "Congress shall make no law" in the first. The militia clause isn't dependent on the right. The militia clause gives a reason for this right (and keep in mind that 10 USC 246 is still in effect to this day), but the right is not dependent on it. Scalia clearly lays this out, gives the proper English lesson, and explains why the amendment means precisely what it says. That's not sophistry. Oddly enough, your argument above actually is the exact definition of sophistry. If you don't like the Constitution, it has a mechanism to change it. Try it if you feel it's necessary, but don't make up stories about how it doesn't mean what it means.