Gun Control & RKBA

jimmy the one wrote:The fantasy & sophistry are all yours, as apparent from your mental gymnastics bending over backwards to present rightwing manipulations.

Mental gymnastics . . . rightwing manipulations???? All I want to see is a single example of your claimed action of the 2nd Amendment. Your "militia centric" (I assume along the lines of Saul Cornell's "conditioned individual right&quot is only offered and only exists as a counter to the unconditioned individual right protection argument . . . You can not offer any evidence that the 2nd Amendment has ever been used to direct militia action or claimed by anyone to protect militia activity (presumably to repel federal overstepping of state militia powers, ala, US v Tot.

As I said, your theory has no presence in the legal history of militias, where one would expect the claimed action to have some effect, especially in cases where federal / state conflicts in militia powers were decided such as, Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) (1820), Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) (1827), Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1917), Perpich v. Dep't of Defense, 496 U.S. (1990).

jimmy the one wrote:Benjamin Oliver, from Right of an American Citizen, 1832

In that work he also recognizes that, "T]he right of the people to resist their rulers, when invading their liberties, forms the corner stone of American Republics. "

How can the people retain and possess the right to "resist their rulers" if their rulers claim a power to dictate who shall be allowed to possess arms and under what circumstances the citizens may use their arms?

jimmy the one wrote:Justice Joseph Story, 1833: .. among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see.
There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs10.html

Which clause was Story writing of in the last sentence? the militia clause of course. If story believed there was an individual right to keep & bear arms disconnected from militia, his above sentence would be contradictory to that belief - 'the people' then could be 'duly armed' by simply owning guns with no militia obligation. But that is what story is worried about, that 'the people' simply owning guns outside militia would NOT be duly armed without some organization/militia.

In the last sentence Story speaks to the object of the 2nd Amendment (the perpetuation of the general militia concept) . . . That principle -in and of itself- is the protection he speaks of. The focus of his comments that you quote there has nothing to do with the right to arms; it speaks only to militia regulation -the Militia Act of 1792- authorized by Art I, § 8, cl. 16.

The term "duly armed" has narrow application; it describes arms possession compelled by law. "Duly armed" is a condition that can only be assigned to citizens who are liable to perform militia service and who have complied with the Militia Act and "provide[d] themselves" with an arm that meets the minimum standards as set-out in the Militia Act.

All Story is saying is that it doesn't make much sense to compel citizens to provide themselves with a militia arm if the state's obligations in militia organization has been abdicated and disintegrated.

That in no way speaks to the right to arms (the acquisition, possession and use of personal arms by private citizens outside the militia).

jimmy the one wrote:Story cont'd: The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.
.. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

Story, in the same paragraph, praised the militia and 'the people' for essentially the same thing, defense against - 'the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers'... more evidence in context he synonymously equated militia & 'the people'. The 'people' individually armed yet unorganized, would be no match for the 'arbitrary power of rulers' with tyranny in mind.

Talk about mental gymnastics! Do the words you copy and paste register with you?

How can the right of CITIZENS to keep and bear arms offer any check to "the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers" if the rulers dictate that the "right of the citizens" really only protects a narrow band of citizens who are government approved arms bearers?

Do you recognize that you are quoting the word "usurpation" and the term "arbitrary power" to argue for usurpation and arbitrary power? Again I ask, how can the people retain and possess the right to resist their rulers if their rulers can claim an undefined power to dictate who shall be allowed to possess arms and under what circumstances the citizens may use their arms?

You are spouting nonsense.

jimmy the one wrote:Wm Rawle, 1825: In the second article, it is declared, that a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent.
The corollary, from the first position, is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed http://www.constitution.org/wr/rawle_10.htm
A corollary is of course, is derived from a higher rule or law.

So in your world a "right" is of lower stature than a law?

I wonder why you stopped quoting Rawle. Could it be that he takes your "corollary" to a place you don't want to go?

"Wm Rawle, 1825: The corollary, from the first position, is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."

So, if no clause exists in the Constitution and no legitimate rule of construction can be employed to argue Congress possesses the power to disarm the citizen, from what precisely do you derive your theory that Congress can dictate to the citizen what arms can be owned and what circumstances they may be used?

jimmy the one wrote:One wonders why you didn't include miller in your previous scotus list.

My previous list was only intended to show the longstanding consistency in SCOTUS opinion on the nature of the right to arms and how the fact that the right is not granted, given, created or established by the 2nd Amendment extinguishes any "interpretation" that the right is limited by any words in the Constitution or conditioned by or qualified upon an entity that is created by the Constitution (the organized militia).