15 ms·

This is the reason the founders added the second amendment. If agents of the state behave in a tyrannical manner, the people have the right to shoot them.

judge2020 7y ago
That is absolutely not what the second amendment currently stands for, nor is it what it stood for before 2008. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992#141 https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-sec...
chasing 7y ago
No. The Second Amendment does not give you the right to shoot people who work for the government.
- opwieurposiu 7y ago
  The USA was founded by shooting people who worked for a tyrannical government, they were called redcoats! It would be the height of hypocrisy for the founders to turn around and declare this activity illegal. You are, however, correct in the sense that the constitution does not "give you rights." Your rights exist a priori, the constitution merely enumerates a few of them.
  - chasing 7y ago
    Do not shoot people who work for the government and then expect the Second Amendment will get you off the hook.
  - btilly 7y ago
    Your understanding of the 2nd amendment as an individual right is because by a line of NRA propaganda that started somewhere in the 1970s, and is unfortunately now established jurisprudence. But historically your understanding is dead wrong. In the post-Heller legal interpretation, the start of the 2nd amendment is fluff with no meaning or force. But the phrase, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," was central to the intent of the amendment in an era where every able bodied white man from 20-40 was expected to participate in an organized militia organized by local government and the state. The protected right to bear arms and what arms you were to bear belonged to the militias. And the militias included so many that they really were, "the People". See https://www.nraila.org/heller/conamicusbriefs/07-290_amicus_historians.pdf https://www.nraila.org/heller/conamicusbriefs/07-290_amicus_... for a detailed verification and for references to dig further in.
    - opwieurposiu 7y ago
      Your focus on this or that interpretation of this or that legal document is missing the forest for the trees. The second amendment did not yet exist during the time founders were merrily blasting away at tyrancial redcoats. Are you claiming the founders had no right to rebel? The right of the people to free themselves from subjugation lives in the hearts of men, not on some scrap of mouldering parchment.
      - btilly 7y ago
        You are switching from the point I am arguing to the point that I am not. You are correct on our legal doctrine about the existence of rights before their enumeration in the Constitution. That doesn't affect my point.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Wait, so someone disagrees with you, therefore they're opinion is invalid because of NRA propaganda? At least give the person you're responding to the credit to make up their own damn mind.
      - btilly 7y ago
        Your reaction is a misinterpretation of what I said. The fact that a statement has been used in propaganda has no bearing on whether or not it is correct. As the saying goes, "Ideas are not responsible for the people who hold them." The statement was wrong because it is wrong, and I gave a citation written by professional historians demonstrating that fact. That the statement is popular because of NRA propaganda is a separate issue. See https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-sec... for a reasonable explanation of the history behind why that claim is true. And for documentation of the fact that, until said propaganda, that claim was widely and rightly rejected. I have no reason to doubt that he has made up his own mind based on information available to him. However I also have no doubt that if he lived in any era before the NRA propaganda took hold, he would not have come to that opinion. Because it is an opinion that basically nobody ever held.
- ScottBurson 7y ago
  In fact, there is a pretty good circumstantial case to be made that the true (but unspoken) purpose of the amendment was to guarantee the slave states the ability to forcibly suppress slave rebellions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/second-amendment-slavery-james-madison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/second-amendment-...

judge2020 7y ago

That is absolutely not what the second amendment currently stands for, nor is it what it stood for before 2008. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992#141 https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-sec...

chasing 7y ago

No. The Second Amendment does not give you the right to shoot people who work for the government.

opwieurposiu 7y ago
The USA was founded by shooting people who worked for a tyrannical government, they were called redcoats! It would be the height of hypocrisy for the founders to turn around and declare this activity illegal. You are, however, correct in the sense that the constitution does not "give you rights." Your rights exist a priori, the constitution merely enumerates a few of them.
- chasing 7y ago
  Do not shoot people who work for the government and then expect the Second Amendment will get you off the hook.
- btilly 7y ago
  Your understanding of the 2nd amendment as an individual right is because by a line of NRA propaganda that started somewhere in the 1970s, and is unfortunately now established jurisprudence. But historically your understanding is dead wrong. In the post-Heller legal interpretation, the start of the 2nd amendment is fluff with no meaning or force. But the phrase, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," was central to the intent of the amendment in an era where every able bodied white man from 20-40 was expected to participate in an organized militia organized by local government and the state. The protected right to bear arms and what arms you were to bear belonged to the militias. And the militias included so many that they really were, "the People". See https://www.nraila.org/heller/conamicusbriefs/07-290_amicus_historians.pdf https://www.nraila.org/heller/conamicusbriefs/07-290_amicus_... for a detailed verification and for references to dig further in.
  - opwieurposiu 7y ago
    Your focus on this or that interpretation of this or that legal document is missing the forest for the trees. The second amendment did not yet exist during the time founders were merrily blasting away at tyrancial redcoats. Are you claiming the founders had no right to rebel? The right of the people to free themselves from subjugation lives in the hearts of men, not on some scrap of mouldering parchment.
    - btilly 7y ago
      You are switching from the point I am arguing to the point that I am not. You are correct on our legal doctrine about the existence of rights before their enumeration in the Constitution. That doesn't affect my point.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Wait, so someone disagrees with you, therefore they're opinion is invalid because of NRA propaganda? At least give the person you're responding to the credit to make up their own damn mind.
    - btilly 7y ago
      Your reaction is a misinterpretation of what I said. The fact that a statement has been used in propaganda has no bearing on whether or not it is correct. As the saying goes, "Ideas are not responsible for the people who hold them." The statement was wrong because it is wrong, and I gave a citation written by professional historians demonstrating that fact. That the statement is popular because of NRA propaganda is a separate issue. See https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-sec... for a reasonable explanation of the history behind why that claim is true. And for documentation of the fact that, until said propaganda, that claim was widely and rightly rejected. I have no reason to doubt that he has made up his own mind based on information available to him. However I also have no doubt that if he lived in any era before the NRA propaganda took hold, he would not have come to that opinion. Because it is an opinion that basically nobody ever held.
ScottBurson 7y ago
In fact, there is a pretty good circumstantial case to be made that the true (but unspoken) purpose of the amendment was to guarantee the slave states the ability to forcibly suppress slave rebellions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/second-amendment-slavery-james-madison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/second-amendment-...