The need to change the 2nd

[jtpur]

I would like each of you to think about this deeply. We are one very thin vote on the U.S. Supreme Court from a total loss of our 2nd Amendment rights as we know them today. Justice Stevens lamented that if he could change the American Judiciary in any way, he would make all his dissenting opinions majority opinions and he further laments that the "Court got it wrong on the Second Amendment. (See this months American Rifleman)

What we need is a new amendment to our Constitution that simply states, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms hall not be infringed." We need all reference to militias deleted from the wording......Its not what I think our current amendment means, it is how the Bryers, Sotomayors, Ginsbergs and the Stevens of the court will view it....Even then, I believe those types of justices will find a way to severely limit our ability to keep arms.....

 

[auburn2]

That is not going to happen. Changing the constitution requires a constitutional amendment we don't have nerarly the overwhelming majority needed for such.

While I dont think either is likely; I think it is more likely that the 2nd amendment would be abolished before it would be strengthened through constitutional amendment.

THe way forward is not through a stronger constitutional protection, at least not yet. It is through active engagement and getting the public on board with more guns. It's popularizing gun ownership, especially "assault weapon" and handgun ownership. It is also changing the gun culture from one of self-defense and hunting to one of fun and recreation. We shooters all have fun with our guns but most of our arguements for gun rights are centered on either self defense or hunting, not on plinking or competition or "fun". Few in the population hunt today and many are also hesitant about the need for a gun for self defense (and to be honest it probably is not the most important or effective part of any SD plan). I take my coworkers shooting regularly. They span the universe in terms of politics and opinions, but even the leftist anti-gunners among them do occasionally come and do have fun when they do.

A populaton which is well informed and broadly supportive of gun ownership because they have and use guns will eliminate any chance for widespread denial of rights, amendment or not. Further if strengthening the 2nd amendment is your goal, this is the neccessary first step.

I will say we have had a degree of success with this on the national scale. Yes there are still the uninformed masses which are the majority in places like CA, NJ and to a lessor extent the northeast. And those uninformed peoples do support bans, but nationwie guns are much more popular now than 20 years ago. Things like 3-gun and cowboy action shooting have taken off, and if you want to help you should get involved in it, and take a friend or coworker. Sales of semi-auto "assault weapons" are at an all time high. There is zero chance of the Federal government turning the AWB back on right now, and lets remember it was hugely popular when it was enacted.

If we want to focus on expanding our rights, right now I think we should start small and focus on the "sporting use" definition employed by the ATF under 922r. This was enacted in the 1980s and basically says magazine-fed semi-auto rifles and shotguns have "no sporting use" and can not be imported. The thing is with the explosion of semi-autos (like AR-15) in rifle competition, not to mention 3-gun, this is simply a false, incorrect statement today. The fact is semi-auto rifles have the widest application s a sporting ar today and we need to press that home.

Anyway sorry for the diatribe but that is my 2 cents. Despite my chagrin, if you do get a strengthened 2nd amendment on the ballot I will vote for it!

 

[Beejabbers]

Unfortunately, those that would ban or limit our gun rights, will always have a different intepretation of the meaning of "keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". To me it seems reasonable to deny dangerous felons the right to own firearms, but; what is a dangerous felon? The same argument used to ban fully automatic weapons can be used to ban high capacity magazines and/or semi-automatic firearms. To me the only way to maintain our Second Amendment Rights is to elect people that believe in our Bill of Rights and for us to oppose any laws that put limits on our gun rights or any of our Constitutional rights. Our Country must move back to the original intent of our Founders when the Constitution was written. We have strayed too far.

 

[hatt]

We need to stop blaming others for what we have done. Yeah, it nice to blame someone else but most gun owners have no problem with infringing on some other guy's gun Rights. But then get all mad when someone else does it to them. Thy mirror, look at it.

 

[hobby-gunsmith]

need to change the 2nd amendment

"A well regualted militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." To go back in history, the American Revolution was won by a collection of locally organized militia whcih had been banded together into larger groups and armies to fight the common enemy, the British. These militia were comprised of freemen from all walks of life, who were locally organized, self-armed, and who trained and drilled under locally elected leaders. This was the choice method of defense --as regular, or standing armies" were thought by many of the free populace to be instruments of tyranny--the means by which despots and kings were able to control their subjects by force, and thereby rule. Thus, the definition of "well regulated militia", was simply a well understood reference to an independent group of self-armed freemen, under self-elected leadership, who regularly or occassionally drilled, and were not under government control. A "well regulated militia" referred to the "body of people", ie: the free citizens of the land, as a whole. So, don't get thrown off track by media misinformation, A "well organized militia" historically referred to the body of the free citizens of this country. locally organized, and free of government control. While we probably don't need such active militias now, the right to have them is historic, and is guaranteed in the Constitution,

 

[jtpur]

good comments but I think some are missing the point. It does not matter a whit to me that something is not ready to be done or can not be done.. I merely pointed out that unless we re-enforce the lanugage by a Constitutional Amendment we always run the danger of a judge (just one more) judge who believes gun ownership only belongs to organized militias...or whatever other reason that judge wants to use to justify his/her ruling that guns can be banned by the State...State meaning either one of our 50 states or the Federal Governemnt itself.

While I agree with Hobby's interpertation of the 2nd and his historical analysis, unfortunately, Justices, Ginsberg, Bryer, Stevens and Sotomayor did not, and it matters not what he or I belive or understand it is what the next judge appointed to the court believes or understands or for that matter wants to alter......

And yes its nice to think that the best way to protect our rights is to vote for candidates who support those rights...but the reality is that elections have meanings and sometimes those who dont support our views and understandings get themselves elected because perhaps the populas is mad at the last guy and they want to send a message. I agree that it does not matter what the language some judge will find some way to subvert the language...I just want to make it harder for them to do so.

 

[s&wchad]

Fair warning; stay on topic and leave the politics out.

From the rules:

The following topics are BANNED on this Board:
Abortion
Religion
Racial issues
Gay rights/homosexuality
General LEO bashing
GENERAL political discussion

 

[oldRoger]

As you know, our constitution was ratified without what we now call “The Bill of Rights” though it was not referred to that way at the time. The amendments were added after ratification.

J. Madison was originally opposed to adding amendments protecting specific rights. His reasoning was that without the support of the people a stated right would not be protected and if there was support, no amendment would be needed.

It is evident that starting back with the original National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934 restrictions and limitations have been instituted by the Federal Gov which limit 2nd amendment rights. The people evidently supported their officials in this.

Only now do we seem to have enough public support to begin to chip away at some of the restrictions which started way back then. It is often said that the Justices of the SCOTUS read the election returns. Public support for RTKBA as evidenced by action in the states and congress has been noticed.

Without being partisan at all, it behooves all of us to elect people who support our right to self-defense.

 

[DustyJacket]

Once the door is opened to change the second ammendment, it could just as easily change in a direction you don't want.

 

[P&R Fan]

Once the door is opened to change the second ammendment, it could just as easily change in a direction you don't want.

Thank you. That was going to be my point too, but you beat me to it.
The Second Amendment, or as I prefer to call it Article Two of the Bill of Rights, is not rocket science. It means what it says. The anti-gunners have perverted it.
In the '90s the buzz-word in Congress was "sporting" purposes, meaning only guns that had "sporting" I.E. hunting or target shooting applications were protected by Article Two. Really? So, a Well Regulated Militia, used for DEFENSE is going to use a Ruger 10/22 or a Browning Superposed? Yeah, sure. If examined rationally, the main weapons protected by this Article would be military ones, or at least weapons commonly used in fighting. The anti-gunners would get the vapors if they were presented with those facts.
Jim

 

[walkin' trails]

The crowd that wants limit the Second Amendment also wants to change the Constitution - to eliminate it totally. I think that the wording of the Bill of Rights is pretty clear. The left has done pretty good in twisting the meaning of the other amendments too, regardless of what the words actually say. You have to go back to the essays of the founders to understand what they were thinking of, and the CNN crowd isn't going to do that... and the left elite knows that. Well regulated means that the militia, made up of the people are disciplined and training to stay sharp. In pre revolutionary days, our militia knew that they were no match standing shoulder to shoulder to a well trained Eurpean army, so they made up for their lack of maneuver training with firearms training. From what I've ready, the colonial militia was far more accurate with whatever hodgepodge of smooth bore muskets - assault rifles of the day, than their British counterpart. What we didn't have were maneuver discipline and bayonets. Anyway, a few years after the revolution, August 19, 1812 to be exact, the USS Constitution defeated the HMS Guerriere in part, because American gunners were better trained than their Brit counterparts even though American naval leadership was relatively green in ship to ship combat tactics. Well regulated today means some REMF got busy and wrote a useless manual. The First Amendment suffers from the same misinterpretation. Furthermore, there's nothing in the Constitution requiring a cop to advise a criminal of his "Miranda" rights. The only "Miranda" I am aware of whom was noteworthy during the time our Constitution was written was a Venezuelan born Spanish army officer who fought in our Revolution, had high regard for some of our founding fathers, and was eventually sold up to river to the Spanish by fellow Venezuelan freedom fighter Bolivar. Nevertheless, "Miranda" is not mentioned in the Constitution. Happy holidays to everyone.

 

[jtpur]

Great points.....I agree that once an amendment or the Constitution itself is opend up it can be re-written anyway....I would still propose an amendment that simply says, "The right of the People of the United States and the people of the several states to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It may pass or it may not pass......and if passed Im sure some judge somewhere would say that it really does not mean we have an invididual right to keep and bear arms...I guess reading 101 is not taught in law school

 

[nicky4968]

There are those, some of them even lawyers, who will dispute the meaning of each and every word, both singly and how it is used with others (maybe even a paragraph away, or just "understood").
If it were possible to make the 2nd Amendment shorter, it should have been. Would it have been better without the prefatory clause? I doubt it.
But there is no need to "clarify" anything; all you will do is impose new limitations on it.

 

[tacreload]

Leave the second amendment alone.What we need to change in this country are values,education and common sense.Common sense being the biggest thing I see as lacking.Not very many people apparently believe that laws apply to them anyhow.They always seem to think that laws and rules are for other people.God forbid you take blame for your own actions.Always someone else's fault.Little to no accountability
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

 

[AZretired]

I agree leave it alone and continue to vote for gun friendly legislators.

 

[mrs_keck10]

Since I'm in the military I shouldn't even be having these thoughts but given everything in 2011 from me sweating about my pay in April to gun control to I'm sorry abortion I think the people of the U.S. that actually want to see real change need to stand up and take it. If I'm correct we were given the right to overthrow the government if it was failing us but I may be wrong. I don't want to fight people I know but I'd rather be thrown into civil war and see something really change for the better. All I hear at work is complaining about our Commander in Chief and that's not the only place I hear it. When you cannot stand those you live with you don't stick around and wait for change you take matters into your own hands and change them usually for the better. Why don't people demand that of our "leaders".

 

[pharmer]

1) The 2nd amdmt is worded perfectly. Taken in timely context, the intent was for all men between 14 and 45 to be armed with weapons they provided and skilled in their use. Infringing means to interfere with this sacred duty to protect the country.
2) Civil war is the worst of all outcomes. We tried this 150 years ago and some of the wounds are still unhealed. Look at he "Arab Spring." They got rid of all the "tyrants" except for that stubborn little guy in Syria. Is it better? Have we heard the last of bloodshed from the region? One thing is sure: if you live between Turkey and Tripoli, you better be armed. Or else armed people come and take your stuff.
3) America is great because of AMERICANS. We seem to be temporarily ashamed of that fact. It'll come around again. My grandparents came from Italy during WW1. They were as patriotic as I am. To them anything AMERICAN was good, even if they couldn't pronounce it. Joe

 

[NKJ nut]

Leave the 2nd Amendment alone

Try changing it in any way and we'll get bit in the butt BIGTIME!!

 

[jtpur]

So the consensus is to leave it alone. So what do we do when the court says, hey hold on, Heller and McDonald were I,properly decided, we can ban hand guns at the Federal level, the RKB only. Applies to the govt.

 

[NKJ nut]

So the consensus is to leave it alone. So what do we do when the court says, hey hold on, Heller and McDonald were I,properly decided, we can ban hand guns at the Federal level, the RKB only. Applies to the govt.

I were don't no. Maybe say something like: The RKB (right to keep bears) applies only. not to the govt