Gun-control groups fear top activist was NRA spy

Well....that was the intent. Unfortunately, this type of government requires constant participation and supervision by the people. Since American's don't actually care about government anymore, this idea is, sadly, almost dead.

 

John McCain strongly supports the 2nd amendment.

 

But we don't like McCain tho.

 

Have to agree, Stox is totally wrong, plus his butchered attempt at trying to change the meaning should with all logic laugh him out of even taking part in such a discussion.

 

The constitution wasn't written using the language we commonly use today. A right to "bear arms" would have been used in specifically a military context. The term "bear arms", at the time, was only ever used to describe those who join a military (or militia) and fight as part of that military.

To think the framers would be concerned with toy soldiers shooting tin cans off an old car and the protection of their right to own a gun is laughable.

 

Same here. May be the only thing we ever agree on. Reading your comments here, could not agree more.

I keep a loaded 9mm Kahr pistol. Also have a CCW permit. Never had a use for either, and hope I never do, but glad I have that right.

 

The NRA is not pro-second amendment. It has been overrun with moderates.

Gun Owners of America are truly for a strict constitutional interpretation of the 2nd Amendment without compromise. As are JFPO.

 

See, we ain't so different.

 

I agree, I actually do not 'love' the NRA even though I am about as pro 2nd as they come.

They have flopped to a weak stance of 'for hunting guns' when the 2nd is not for the protection of hunting guns, even though hunting guns would of course also be protected.

 

I got sick of getting phone calls that seemed more about touting NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre than about the gun rights I cared about. Seriously every call would say his name like 20 times and nothing about Gun rights. It felt more like the Wayne LaPierre fan club than the NRA.

 

Just curious, did you get the calls because you were a member?

 

At that time I was a recent member whose membership lapsed and they were trying to get me to re-up or donate to keep Bush in office I don't recall.

I don't donate to any group over the phone, so that pretty much kills every solicitation call I get now. I ask them to send me material and I will review it on my time. Most don't because they use outside paid solicitation companies to try and raise money.

 

stox wants the U.S. government to hold the monopoly on owning firearms, because the U.S. Government is so awesome!

 

I'm not saying people should be prevented from owning guns, I'm saying the right of individuals to own guns is not protected by the constitution.

 

Stox, you are wrong on this one. Really. Here's some info from court rulings on the 2nd Amendment:

"There is no evidence in the text of the Second Amendment, or any other part of the Constitution, that the words 'the people' have a different connotation within the Second Amendment than when employed elsewhere in the Constitution," the appeals panel wrote. "In fact, the text of the Constitution, as a whole, strongly suggests that the words 'the people' have precisely the same meaning within the Second Amendment as without."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24952

U.S. v. Cruikshank involved members of the Ku Klux Klan depriving black victims of their basic rights such as freedom of assembly and to bear arms. The court decided that neither the First nor Second Amendments applied to the states, but were limitations on Congress. Thus the federal government had no power to correct these violations, rather the citizens had to rely on the police power of the states for their protection from private individuals.

Presser v. Illinois ruled that the states had the right to strictly regulate private military groups and associations. It also reaffirmed the Cruikshank decision that the Second Amendment acts as a limitation upon the federal government and not the states. However Presser also stated that setting the Second Amendment aside, the states could not prohibit the "people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security..."
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndsup.html

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)

"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)
http://www.constitution.org/mil/rkba1982.htm

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for
traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
http://www.guncite.com/Heller.pdf

That last one is from the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Washington DC handgun ban. The right of the individual to bear arms is most certainly protected by the constitution, and has been consistently upheld by the court system despite strenuous objections from (usually) the left.

 

"the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Yeah, that is so unclear who gets the right. Maybe we should ask a foreigner what he thinks it means.

 

At the time the Constitution was written "Keep" was used to mean "upkeep", i.e clean, maintain and repair and "bear arms" was used to mean "join a military". At the time the Constitution was written "bear arms" was never used to mean anything other than fight as part of an organised military, or in the case of the Constitution, Specifically a "well regulated militia".

The trouble comes from people not understanding how language works. They think that some how the framers knew how we would use language now and wrote the constitution using modern language. The contitution was written using the language of the 1800s, and during the 1800s "keep and bear arms" did not mean "own a gun".

 

Stox you can keep twisting all you want, what's funny is that constitutional scholars by and large totally disagree with you, so does the US supreme court......

 

Argument from authority. fallacy. You fail.

The FACT remains; The Constitution, when read using the language of the 1800s, does in no way protect an individuals right to own a gun. it protects the individuals right to join an armed militia.

No amount of facile assurances that you are right will change that grim. Go away, read a book and come back when you have developed something that remotely resembles the capacity to form an argument.