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To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very

To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation (Heller, 2008). It's also had disastrous consequences. It would be like expecting the ACLU to soon advocate against women's bodily rights in a few years because a new Supreme Court decision changed the long-held interpretation of the Constitution.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
javagram 4y ago
Correction: until 2008 in Heller, the Supreme Court had never clearly and definitively ruled the 2A is an individual right. It had previously referred to the 2A as an individual right in dicta (non binding opinions) that date back to the 19th century, and many courts and legislators back to the 19th century had also done so. The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers. That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.
- dionian 4y ago
  According to US Code, a large portion of the regular people of the United States are members of an "unorganized" militia. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
  - javagram 4y ago
    True, but those who say the 2A is a “collective” right for the militia would not usually say that any male aged 17 to 45 should be able to purchase an AR-15 via their membership in the unorganized militia and Selective Service card. The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense. Very well said. The utter incoherence of the concept makes it clear that the interpretation is wrong. It's like interpreting the First Amendment as protecting Congress from preventing itself from assembling and not the people's right to protest it.
- roamerz 4y ago
  I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders was to protect against an orwellian government which is why it’s more important now than ever. Most recent example: Ministry of Truth. Who’s truth? Well whoever happens to be in power. This is called the rule of man not the rule of law.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    One person's "Orwellian" is another's "Law and order". Civil asset forfeiture is pretty Orwellian, IMO, not to mention a direct violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, yet I haven't heard of anybody using their Second Amendment right to protect themselves from it.
    - delecti 4y ago
      Generally speaking, the word for people who try using their Second Amendment rights to protect their Fourth Amendment right against civil asset forfeiture is "corpse".
      - mmmpop 4y ago
        You mean after they generate a corpse of the person attempting to seize their assets? Generally that's "prison" unless they keep shooting.
        delecti 4y ago
        I thought my implication was fairly clear, but to be explicit: If you brandish guns against police who are attempting to seize your property through civil asset forfeiture, they will shoot you, and most likely kill you.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    If "Disinformation Governance Board" bothers you more than "Department of Homeland Security" did, you may be responding to what "they" want you to more than you think you are. I love how government is obviously incompetent, but only until something they do sounds conspiratorial.
- jmyeet 4y ago
  > The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers. This is Daughters of the Confederacy "states rights" levels of historical revisionism. The origins of the Second Amendment were rooted in quelling a potential slave uprising [1]: > The Virginians were slave-owners. Jefferson had inherited 175 slaves and had purchased a few more. Henry ultimately had 76 slaves. Madison had dozens of slaves. Militia was necessary because from them, “slave patrols” were formed to keep order. Virginians also wanted to avoid what had happened during the Revolutionary War: slaves were invited to join the Continental Army and thereupon became free. Henry even feared that abolitionists would find a way to use the Constitution to manumit all slaves. “In this state,” Henry emphasized, “there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in other states.” It, therefore, was of paramount importance that State rights to maintain militias unregulated by the federal government be included as an amendment, if Virginia were to ratify the Constitution. > So the Second Amendment was born. Not to protect individual rights from encroachment, but to guarantee states the right to keep armed militia free from federal interference, in order to maintain control over black slaves. Not the noble motivation one might have hoped for. But the truth about the need for a state Militia and the intent of the Second Amendment. [1]: https://rantt.com/2nd-amendment-and-slavery https://rantt.com/2nd-amendment-and-slavery
  - javagram 4y ago
    > This is Daughters of the Confederacy "states rights" levels of historical revisionism. Absolutely wrong. Explain how this text, an obvious legal precursor to the 1st and 2nd amendments, has anything to do with slavery? https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 “That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal; That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law; That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;” > So the Second Amendment was born. Not to protect individual rights from encroachment, but to guarantee states the right to keep armed militia free from federal interference, in order to maintain control over black slaves. This is completely unable to explain why Free states in the north had a similar provision in their state constitutions recognizing the right to keep and bear arms. For example, was no need for slave patrols in Massachusetts, whose 1780 constitution contained this clause “The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.”
karaterobot 4y ago
> To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation I'm sure they've heard about it, though, so that's no defense. The question raised in that article is: should they be picking and choosing which rights they defend? The admirable thing about the ACLU was that they would always defend civil liberties, because the loss of any of those is worse in the long run than the distastefulness of supporting someone you may disagree with in the short run.
- mike00632 4y ago
  >...because the loss of any of those is worse in the long run than the distastefulness of supporting someone you may disagree with in the short run. This argument doesn't hold water when we are talking about 2A though. Kids getting their heads blown off isn't the same as having an uncomfortable conversation with a Nazi.
rayiner 4y ago
It’s not a “recent interpretation.” There was a long period during the 20th century when a narrow view of the second amendment was favored, but in earlier eras it was regarded as a personal right. It was actually liberal scholars like Akhil Amar that did critical work laying the foundation for Heller: https://newrepublic.com/article/73718/second-thoughts https://newrepublic.com/article/73718/second-thoughts > The key subject-nouns were simply different ways of saying the same thing: at the Founding, the militia was the people and the people were the militia. Indeed, the earlier draft of the amendment linked the two clauses with linchpin language speaking of “a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people.” The linchpin was later pulled out as clumsy and redundant. A modern translation of the amendment might thus be: “An armed and militarily trained citizenry being conducive to freedom, the right of the electorate to organize itself militarily shall not be infringed.” Recall that the Constitution bars maintaining a standing army in peace time. The Framers obviously thought that the way to go was to round up a bunch of armed yokels (sorry, citizens) in times of war, instead of maintaining a permanent army. That is, in fact, what they did during the Revolutionary War. There's contours to that--I kind of think that the Swiss system where you're required to have guns, but there are measures for keeping them secure in peace time would be Constitutional. But random individuals need to be able to own guns without belonging to a formal "militia" because random individuals are supposed to be the militia.
WalterBright 4y ago
Personally, I don't really care about gun rights. But I care very much about trying to deny the 2nd Amendment without a Constitutional Amendment. If that right can be cast aside as being outdated or inconvenient, what about our other rights? Which one is next to be discarded? Free speech? (That's under constant assault today.)
- mike00632 4y ago
  Constitutional Rights were changed in 2008 when Heller became the law of the land, no Constitutional Amendment. We all lost our freedom from guns. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died as a result. All on the whim of the court? All because a single kid with an AR-15 that he stole from his aunt was somehow envisioned by the founders of the US?
tablespoon 4y ago
> the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation IIRC, in colonial America, the militia was understood as basically "all male citizens," and its members typically used personal weapons. That makes the text and structure of the Second Amendment make a lot of sense: if a militia is necessary for security, and an armed populace is required for a militia, then to protect the militia you have to protect the right of the populace to be armed.
- mike00632 4y ago
  When you remove the immediate context of the sentence and squint real hard you can almost read a "well regulated militia" to mean a completely unregulated individual.
throwaway2ndam 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

javagram 4y ago

Correction: until 2008 in Heller, the Supreme Court had never clearly and definitively ruled the 2A is an individual right. It had previously referred to the 2A as an individual right in dicta (non binding opinions) that date back to the 19th century, and many courts and legislators back to the 19th century had also done so. The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers. That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.

dionian 4y ago
According to US Code, a large portion of the regular people of the United States are members of an "unorganized" militia. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
- javagram 4y ago
  True, but those who say the 2A is a “collective” right for the militia would not usually say that any male aged 17 to 45 should be able to purchase an AR-15 via their membership in the unorganized militia and Selective Service card. The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense. Very well said. The utter incoherence of the concept makes it clear that the interpretation is wrong. It's like interpreting the First Amendment as protecting Congress from preventing itself from assembling and not the people's right to protest it.
roamerz 4y ago
I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders was to protect against an orwellian government which is why it’s more important now than ever. Most recent example: Ministry of Truth. Who’s truth? Well whoever happens to be in power. This is called the rule of man not the rule of law.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  One person's "Orwellian" is another's "Law and order". Civil asset forfeiture is pretty Orwellian, IMO, not to mention a direct violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, yet I haven't heard of anybody using their Second Amendment right to protect themselves from it.
  - delecti 4y ago
    Generally speaking, the word for people who try using their Second Amendment rights to protect their Fourth Amendment right against civil asset forfeiture is "corpse".
    - mmmpop 4y ago
      You mean after they generate a corpse of the person attempting to seize their assets? Generally that's "prison" unless they keep shooting.
      - delecti 4y ago
        I thought my implication was fairly clear, but to be explicit: If you brandish guns against police who are attempting to seize your property through civil asset forfeiture, they will shoot you, and most likely kill you.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  If "Disinformation Governance Board" bothers you more than "Department of Homeland Security" did, you may be responding to what "they" want you to more than you think you are. I love how government is obviously incompetent, but only until something they do sounds conspiratorial.
jmyeet 4y ago
> The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers. This is Daughters of the Confederacy "states rights" levels of historical revisionism. The origins of the Second Amendment were rooted in quelling a potential slave uprising [1]: > The Virginians were slave-owners. Jefferson had inherited 175 slaves and had purchased a few more. Henry ultimately had 76 slaves. Madison had dozens of slaves. Militia was necessary because from them, “slave patrols” were formed to keep order. Virginians also wanted to avoid what had happened during the Revolutionary War: slaves were invited to join the Continental Army and thereupon became free. Henry even feared that abolitionists would find a way to use the Constitution to manumit all slaves. “In this state,” Henry emphasized, “there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in other states.” It, therefore, was of paramount importance that State rights to maintain militias unregulated by the federal government be included as an amendment, if Virginia were to ratify the Constitution. > So the Second Amendment was born. Not to protect individual rights from encroachment, but to guarantee states the right to keep armed militia free from federal interference, in order to maintain control over black slaves. Not the noble motivation one might have hoped for. But the truth about the need for a state Militia and the intent of the Second Amendment. [1]: https://rantt.com/2nd-amendment-and-slavery https://rantt.com/2nd-amendment-and-slavery
- javagram 4y ago
  > This is Daughters of the Confederacy "states rights" levels of historical revisionism. Absolutely wrong. Explain how this text, an obvious legal precursor to the 1st and 2nd amendments, has anything to do with slavery? https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689 “That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal; That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law; That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;” > So the Second Amendment was born. Not to protect individual rights from encroachment, but to guarantee states the right to keep armed militia free from federal interference, in order to maintain control over black slaves. This is completely unable to explain why Free states in the north had a similar provision in their state constitutions recognizing the right to keep and bear arms. For example, was no need for slave patrols in Massachusetts, whose 1780 constitution contained this clause “The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.”

karaterobot 4y ago

> To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation I'm sure they've heard about it, though, so that's no defense. The question raised in that article is: should they be picking and choosing which rights they defend? The admirable thing about the ACLU was that they would always defend civil liberties, because the loss of any of those is worse in the long run than the distastefulness of supporting someone you may disagree with in the short run.

mike00632 4y ago
>...because the loss of any of those is worse in the long run than the distastefulness of supporting someone you may disagree with in the short run. This argument doesn't hold water when we are talking about 2A though. Kids getting their heads blown off isn't the same as having an uncomfortable conversation with a Nazi.

rayiner 4y ago

It’s not a “recent interpretation.” There was a long period during the 20th century when a narrow view of the second amendment was favored, but in earlier eras it was regarded as a personal right. It was actually liberal scholars like Akhil Amar that did critical work laying the foundation for Heller: https://newrepublic.com/article/73718/second-thoughts https://newrepublic.com/article/73718/second-thoughts > The key subject-nouns were simply different ways of saying the same thing: at the Founding, the militia was the people and the people were the militia. Indeed, the earlier draft of the amendment linked the two clauses with linchpin language speaking of “a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people.” The linchpin was later pulled out as clumsy and redundant. A modern translation of the amendment might thus be: “An armed and militarily trained citizenry being conducive to freedom, the right of the electorate to organize itself militarily shall not be infringed.” Recall that the Constitution bars maintaining a standing army in peace time. The Framers obviously thought that the way to go was to round up a bunch of armed yokels (sorry, citizens) in times of war, instead of maintaining a permanent army. That is, in fact, what they did during the Revolutionary War. There's contours to that--I kind of think that the Swiss system where you're required to have guns, but there are measures for keeping them secure in peace time would be Constitutional. But random individuals need to be able to own guns without belonging to a formal "militia" because random individuals are supposed to be the militia.

WalterBright 4y ago

Personally, I don't really care about gun rights. But I care very much about trying to deny the 2nd Amendment without a Constitutional Amendment. If that right can be cast aside as being outdated or inconvenient, what about our other rights? Which one is next to be discarded? Free speech? (That's under constant assault today.)

mike00632 4y ago
Constitutional Rights were changed in 2008 when Heller became the law of the land, no Constitutional Amendment. We all lost our freedom from guns. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died as a result. All on the whim of the court? All because a single kid with an AR-15 that he stole from his aunt was somehow envisioned by the founders of the US?

tablespoon 4y ago

> the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation IIRC, in colonial America, the militia was understood as basically "all male citizens," and its members typically used personal weapons. That makes the text and structure of the Second Amendment make a lot of sense: if a militia is necessary for security, and an armed populace is required for a militia, then to protect the militia you have to protect the right of the populace to be armed.

mike00632 4y ago
When you remove the immediate context of the sentence and squint real hard you can almost read a "well regulated militia" to mean a completely unregulated individual.

throwaway2ndam 4y ago