After not reading anything, I feel I should say that all Americans are dumb because everyone has a gun and therefore you're all going to die like the stupid bunch of idiots that you are.

Not that anyone's reading this far down, but I want to amplify what Radish said earlier. People on both sides PAY A-FARKING-TENTION

For more than the last 100 years, EVERY SINGLE APPELLATE OR SCOTUS DECISION has interpreted that the 2nd amendment does not provide an individual right. It provides a right for the community to maintain weapons for military purposes in service to the State. Right or wrong, like it or not, that's the current legal precedent.

If you read this decision, you'll see that the ninth is saying "that's the way it has been interpreted in the past and this case offers no reason to overturn current precedent". The ninth is toeing the line.

The decision goes into detail about the current interpretation of the language of the 2nd amendment. "keep" is understood in the archaic sense of "maintain", not "possess". "Bear arms" means for military use, not home protection or hunting (one does not "bear arms" against deer, for instance). So the second amendment means that "the community" has the right to "maintain" an arsenal "for military purposes".

This interpretation is over 100 years old. It is not new.

What's new is a recent Fifth Circuit decision that attempts to reverse this precedent. The Ninth says that the Fifth is out of line in their decision, and mentions that the current presidential administration is the *first* to endorse the "personal right" interpretation. All previous administrations (democrat and republican) have officially endorsed the "community right" one. It's my guess that the Ninth is trying to prompt SCOTUS to accept this case, to resolve the conflict with the recent Fifth Circuit decision.

What's ironic is that the kind of weapons outlawed in California are actually designed for military use, and are MORE appropriate to this interpretation of the 2nd amendment than deer rifles or handguns. But who's counting :)

Jjorsett
Don't most laws regarding weapons tell people what they "need" and what they don't?
Because, I mean, I NEED a tank, maybe some AAA, oh wait, I don't. Why are automatic/semi-auto/other excessively destructive weapons any different?

(Not a flame, genuine question...I like reading/participating in debates on fark but I don't like it when people get mad, unless I'm just reading...)

And perhaps nobody would have a problem if those who support ownership of these weapons gave two craps whenever a schoolyard gets shot up.

Kerouac -

That being the case. It's the GUN'S fault that it happened, right? I mean.. Come on.. WTF are you thinking?

Hey - As long as objects are held accountable for the actions of their owner, I'd like to blame the vaginas that spit out you farking idiots who can't understand that bad people do bad things.. $10 of gas from a gas station can do more damage then any assault rifle, IF THE PERSON INTENDS TO DO HARM.

Now - Show me a law that quells the criminal intent of a person who's determined to cause harm. A person hell-bent on causing damage is going to do it, regardless of the device used. Anything is a weapon, when used as one and just because something has been relegated to the status of "assault rifle" doeesn't mean it has any more of a potential to do harm than a non-assault rifle. Or does it..

Is that they way you people think? Good guns and Bad guns?

What about good people and bad people? ooops.. that's right.. It's always noone's fault.

Hey, I'm all for keeping assault weapons in a well regulated militia for the purpose of overthrowing a tyranny. That's cool, that's somewhat realistic. You don't need the weapons in your personal possession in your own home to do that, nor is that realistic. If you can't get your community behind you, you're farked anyway. What do you think you're going to accomplish whipping your full auto out from the closet to fight Big Brother all alone? It's ridiculous, and I only hope if it ever does come to the worst, people with more brains are fighting for freedom than the group who thinks having full blown military scale assault weapons in their own home is imperitive to their freedom and safety. In fact I think anyone who thinks such a stupid thing is probably too out of touch with reality to handle bearing any kind of heavy arms; I fully expect to see them flying their flags upside down in Montana or parking explosive-laden vans next to federal buildings in the near future when the paranoia overwhelms them. All that said, I don't necessarily agree with banning these weapons (I honestly haven't decided because I don't feel I know enough about the issue), but the right-wing nuts should do their cause a favor and shut the fark up. Likewise, people who want to erase firearms from existance (which frankly goes completely against liberalism) should buy a Kevlar vest and take some Paxil or something.

Notoneword --

Go read history. Identify the last time a Western military staged a major incursion into an urban area filled with armed hostiles. Study the consequences. Then, ask currently serving officers about the drawbacks of Fighting In Built-Up Areas (FIBUA), and whether or not high-tech toys such as helicopter gunships, drones, and tanks can be deployed with anything approaching maximum effectiveness in an urban environment.



Fishbowl --

The point of the Second is to make theoretically possible armed revolution against the government should it turn so undesirable that a substantial part of the population is willing to rise against it. The 0.50-cal round was originally designed for piercing light vehicle armor, and the M82A1 is capable of disabling a variety of armored personel carriers and their ilk. It is not there to safeguard hunting.

Incidentally, the Militia Act of 1792 indicated that every free able-bodied white male citizen between 18 and 45 inclusive was to be enrolled as a mlitia member, and that they were to provide and keep their OWN weapons -- which were supposed to be as good as the "regular" military weapons at the time, namely muskets/firelocks, with bayonet, et al. Even today, "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in Section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard" as per Title 10, Chapter 13, Sec 311 US Code. In other words, if you're MALE, you're quite possibly considered militia, while if you're FEMALE you're only considered such if your a member of the National Guard.

See http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html for some relevant citations and research on the history of that amendment.

DisneyOnIce --

Because that's a restriction on firearms. Don't be a dumbass.

Isn't this the same court that ruled in favor of taking out "Under God" from the pledge. The California Federal court system is notoriously left-leaning. This ruling doesn't surprise me at all. I wonder if they will take this to the federal level?

IamEvil, goes to show I don't know my types of ammunition. Fine, don't ban hollow point. But you get the idea. The point is, ban the stuff that has no reason to be in the hands of anyone but the military. Keep the stuff for hunting or sport. Keep handguns. Who the fark needs an AR-15 at home? An asshat sniper, that's who. I think opposing this sort of minimal regulation of gun ownership is what makes much of the pro-gun lobby look foolish.

Omegajosh - glad they outlawed them. Since everyone that would use them to commit a crime cares about the laws.

I don't understand why I am in such agreement with your comment yet it is such a simple observation.

12-06-02 01:33:02 PM Flibbertigibbet
...you're all going to die like the stupid bunch of idiots that you are.

No, we will fight like lions!

/Three Amigos

Guns kill far less people than cars. Why doesn't this all knowing 9th circuit ban cars?

Well, gosh IAMEVIL, I suppose because they think there's a legitimate need for people to have cars and that the benefits outweight the risks. Whereas assault rifles are completely unnecessary. If all the cars in the country vanished tomorrow we'd be screwed. People couldn't get to work- the mass transit system couldn't handle the load, things would not get done.

If all the assault rifles owned by private citizens disappeared, the only thing that would happen is a bunch of right wing lunatics would have to jack off while gazing at their their Glock instead of a modified AR-15.

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, dude. Get a grip.

i remember reading an article by G. Gordon Liddy, certainly a gun nut himself, about which weapons would be best for home defense.

First was of course is a 12 gauge short barrel shotgun. just the sound of jacking a shell into the chamber would losen the bowels of an intruder.

otherwise, he said put half-moon clips on .45 ACP rounds and use in a revolver. that's because automatics are not that reliable and involve safeties and pulling slides back.

so, he says the best home defense weapon, after all of the modern "assault rifle" technology we have, is a 19th century weapon, the revolver, loaded with a round invented almost 90 years ago.

12-06-02 01:37:06 PM Puffy999
They say rifle I believe, not weapon. ;)

"This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine..."

.
.
.

"This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun!"

As far as the gun for protections arguement goes here is a pdf file from johns hopkins explaining that you are LESS safe with a gun in the house. I am in favor of the right to bear arms, but the protection arguement is generally invalid.

VinDiesel, an AR-15 is NOT a sniper gun! That asshole in Maryland wasn't a sniper either, just some dick who was fairly accurate at shooting. Give me a Remington 700 PSS anyday of the week over an AR-15, that is a sniper rifle.

Wow, Fnorgby. You might turn this into some sort of educated discussion!

err. . . maybe.

Back when I was in school, I was and idealist. I was scared of guns of all types, calibers and designs, but thought that the Constitution clearly forbade the US Government from passing gun control laws. But I also thought that the 10th Amendment clearly allowed the individual states to pass gun control laws and didn't believe the "activist" position that the 14th Amendment protected the individual from the State Government. I would walk around and spout off conservative-sounding comments like "I don't like guns and see no reason why somebody should have one, but I would do what I could to protect your right to bear arms. Unless, of course your state passes a law outlawing them. In which case, your recourse would be to move to a state that allows them."

Now, I'm a realist and actually own a shotgun with which I mainly shoot dangerous-looking clay pigeons. And I really don't care about this issue anymore.

Good points, Geniune.

This is a correct decision. The spirit of the 2nd amendment is not that we have the right to protect ourselves against criminals, or the right to hunt. It is the right to use arms to rise up against an oppressive government.

Thank you.

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.

Only a well regulated militia is entitled to the right to keep and bear arms. A single individual whom has never once tried to unite the people of his state in order to protect their freedoms from an oppresive govermnent does not even constitute a militia, let alone a well regulated one. A well regulated militia would be the one to control these guns, which THEY should be the one's deciding what guns are truy necesary to protect the state's freedoms through regulations, not the government through laws which will hinder these ideal militias. This does not mean the gov. cannot make laws to regulate guns, as they are perfectly free to make laws governing arms for those of us not in a well regulated militia.

Funny, just yesterday my class had to do presentations in our science fiction class comparing a technology from the books we read through out the semester to the Bill of Rights. A person presenting their discussion could not find court rulings in regards to the second amendment since 1939.

I like the Libertarian view of things. Guns, you can have as many as you want just don't hurt anyone with them, prostitution is okay as long as you don't hurt anyone. Drugs, do all you want as long as you don't hurt anyone.

Libertarianism -

Do anything you want as long as it doesn't hurt other people.

Oh wait - that requires the average person to have common sense and take responsibility for their actions. This is certainly NOT the American way. It's much easier to blame Grand Theft Auto, and CNN for making me do it....

DoubleGguy
Your gun could be stolen, you may not be able to get to it in time, it could be taken away from you in a struggle and turned against you, etc. Those situations are just as likely as "DG hears someone break in, DG gets to his gun in the dark, takes aim, and blows intruder away flawlessly."

Besides, the kid argument might not apply to you, but for every "big, powerful gun" that you want legal for you, there's a household WITH kids that would have it.

Again, most guns are not bad, are necessary for hunt/sport/whatever. But can you honestly say that there isn't a line to be drawn?

DoubleGGuy
I can extrapolate it far enough to say that a semi-automatic weapon of some kind would be more effective at protecting my life than a single-shot gun. I'm not familiar enough with guns to comment on your M-60 question..but tri-pod mounting any kind of gun in my home for self-defense would be kind of silly.

Exactly. My point was that there is a line that needs to be drawn, and somebody has to draw it. Frankly I don't want that line to be drawn on a case by case basis, because frankly most people in this world scare the absolute hell out of me, and that's when they're not armed.

A calm, rational person would put a lot of thought into buying a gun for protection. they would try a cuple different kinds, and would probably end up buying the one that they felt met their needs, which in a lot of home-defense scenarios would be a handgun or possibly a shotgun.

And an M-60 is on of those big guns that they have hanging out of the sides of Hueys; also the gun that Rambo carried around when he shot up the town in First Blood (at least I think that was an M-60). Most exagerrated example I could think of.

I am all for people being able to own firearms, as I said before, but lets have some reasonable restrictions here. Nothing automatic or that can be easily modified to be automatic. I'm sorry but you really don't need that for any rational purpose. Fighting the government is not rational as your fully automatic weapon will have a hard time scratching up the tanks, if they don't just use a long range missile. People should be liscenced to own a gun, and should complete and pass training course, or at least pass an operations and safety test. We do it for cars, why not guns.

I also think we should take a zero tolerance stand towards idiots with guns. The reason many people are against guns is because people get killed on accident. If John leaves his loaded gun somwhere that his kid finds it and kills himself John should go to prison as if he had killed the kid.

Anyone in this thread actually fired an "assault rifle"? They're fun to shoot. Just like it's fun to drive a Ferrari even though I don't need that much speed or power. Anyone know how many crimes are committed by legally owned
"assault rifles"? Anyone honestly think that outlawing them will stop poeple from getting them?

Cyber- I would expect, if "liberals" were as you profess them to be, that they would support the same kind of amorphous interpretation for the 2nd amendment that they do for the 1st, 5th, etc. But the fact is they don't. Therein lies one of the chief falacies within the "liberal" faction of the Democratic party. They are inconsistent. The right is afflicted with this same malady with respect to many religious aspects of "Right wing" politics.

The problem is that "liberals" tend to occupy most of the anti-gun postions within the political spectrum using the same kind of "the constitution doens't say that" arguments that "conservatives" use to fight against their pet issues. The majority of gun control legislation comes from the Democratic side of Congress and the NRA almost never endorses a Democrat.

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right"
-Ani DiFranco

So simple, it was right in front of me all the time. We need to ban tool ownership!

If liberals interpreted the 1st amendment as narrowly as they interpret the 2nd amendment, you'd need written permission from George Bush to make a speech.

That's funny! There was a posting on fark last week about this exact thing, something about T-Shirts and Bush&Osama getting it on. But authorities said the manufacturer had to have Bush and Osama's permission first.

That's all. I'm heading back to my militia now....where the hell did I leave it again?

Fark the M-16! I'm bringing my potato gun with me.

Once again folks, I am a liberal democrat, and I support the right to bear arms. I think heston is an asshat though.... ;)

One more post then I am retreating back into my hidey hole. People, often conservative, are quick to yell that if we lose our guns we lose our ability to defend ourselves against oppressive government. Why do the same people not seem to realize that our most powerful weapon against oppression is contained in the first amendment? Where are they when freedom of speach is threatened?

good

Kraixz: "Where are they when freedom of speach is threatened?"

Cleaning their guns? Letting the air out of things?

12-06-02 01:27:49 PM Lewis
"The second ammendment is not an if-then statement."

It is and it isn't. The fact that many people no longer hold the first clause to be true is why they don't think gun bans will threaten their security. The second amendment is worded as a false argument.

The bottom line is, we gotta draw the line somewhere between water guns and nuclear bombs. I'm sure noone believes an individual's right to own a water gun should be denied, but noone would support an individual's right to own a nuclear bomb.

I believe an individual has the right to own any weapon that a small group of police officers (say..5) would be able to contain (or "isolate") in the event the owner were to go berzerk. A small group of police would not be able to contain a tank or a ground-to-air missile launcher, but they could contain an individual with some kind of automatic weapon. That's is how I would define where the line should be drawn.

When has freedom of speach been threatened?

BlueGargoyle --

With many people familiar with weapons terminology, the term "assault rifle" has been traditionally limited to burst-capable or fully-automatic single-man (non-crewed) rifled-barreled weapons meant capable of delivering suppressive firepower out to at least a few hundred meters. Examples would include the Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44, aka MP-44, perhaps the world's first assault rifle), the M16A2, and the (prototype only for now) H&K OICW, but not, say, the (crewed) MG42 machinegun. As previously noted, these are already illegal for most citizens.

An AR-15 is NOT an assault rifle in this sense as it is not capable of firing even a controlled burst, let alone fully automatic.

Absolutben
Anyone in this thread actually fired an "assault rifle"? They're fun to shoot.

I've fired many assault rifles, and they are very fun to shoot, but that doesn't mean I need to keep them in my house.

Anyone know how many crimes are committed by legally owned "assault rifles"? Anyone honestly think that outlawing them will stop poeple from getting them?

I'm going to guess lots. I'm also going to guess that a lot of assault weapons used to commit crimes were at one time legally owned, or at least acquired through legal channels.

Outlawing them won't stop people from getting them, but it will clearly identify those that have them as CRIMINALS.

Absolutben, The "Incumbent Protection Act" has silenced free speech. Where have you been, in a closet?

Oh, the technical name of that "law" is "Campaign Finance Reform".

I'm surprized noone has mentioned that the 1994 Brady law which bans said "Assault rifles" is set to sunset (expire) in 2004.

Also as was mentioned before it is legal to own fully automatic machine guns in the US provided you are a Class 3 Federal Firearms License holder (they fingerprint you, take your picture, run background checks, and have the right to 'inspect' your guns given prior notice; Also the local chief of police must sign off on it)

DoubleGGuy
The bottom line is, we gotta draw the line somewhere between water guns and nuclear bombs.,/i>

Exactly.

That's is how I would define where the line should be drawn.

And that's nice, but it's not gonna fly for some people. That's why we have things like courts and judges. These are people who are supposed to draw these lines, for our benefit and safety.

Everyone, please notice I said 'supposed to'.

DoubleGGuy --

"Man-portable, non-crewed antipersonnel weapons with military value {*}", perhaps. I don't think the 2nd or its ancestral rights in British law ever permitted field artillery, and specifying non-crewed would clearly exclude that.

{*} Stipulating a minimum length of a shotgun was justified by its proponents on the grounds that reducing barrel length has minimal legitimate military value, and is primarily used instead to conceal the weapon for criminal purposes.

12-06-02 01:48:36 PM Kraixz
One more post then I am retreating back into my hidey hole. People, often conservative, are quick to yell that if we lose our guns we lose our ability to defend ourselves against oppressive government. Why do the same people not seem to realize that our most powerful weapon against oppression is contained in the first amendment?

I agree that the pen can be mightier than the sword, but take that sword away from all but a select few and the masses without it will start losing other rights. See Nazi Germany for an example.

Where are they when freedom of speach is threatened?

Some of us do defend freedom of speech. Don't lump all so-called "conservatives" into the same group, buttmunch.

An AR-15 is NOT an assault rifle in this sense as it is not capable of firing even a controlled burst, let alone fully automatic.

Yes yes yes, so you keep saying- these are not assault rifles, fully automatics are already illegal, blah blah blah. As another fine member already pointed out, whether it is legal or not, semi autos can be modified to become fully automatic. Period.

Our right to be safe is more important than the right of enthusiasts to enjoy playing Rambo.

Damn, I'm busy. I'll have to come back and read the flamewar later.

9/10 "Some of us do defend freedom of speech. Don't lump all so-called "conservatives" into the same group, buttmunch"

I agree 100% here, seems more of it is happening to "liberals" though....

"if they run, they're VC, if they don't run, they are VC with good self-control"

12-06-02 01:24:54 PM Dogfather_jr
"I'm not sure I really got what you were trying to say. Can you clarify?"

The amendment says 'the right of the people', so per Jefferson's quote there, it means just that...'people'. Me and you are people, so we have the right to bear arms. Now as far as carting off a truckload of bazookas, I don't think the second protects that. 'Arms' is not qualified, so it leaves itself waaay open to interpretation. It can mean 'all arms', since it doesn't say 'hunting rifles', and it can mean 'hunting rifles', since it doesn't say 'any weapon invented for any use from now on'.