More Than a Quarter-Million Refugees on Food Stamps - 74.2 percent in 2013

[Xavier_Onassis]

Because before you were even born, you read their minds.

All the Founding Fathers were NRA members before they were even born.

[sirs]

actually, after I was born, I read the Constitution.  No mind reading necessary.  Here's a hint....there's NOTHING in there that references, or even infers that either settlers or slaves as the rationale to the 2nd amendment.  There IS however direct reference to inhibiting an over-zealous Government from over-stepping its power/authority, as a foundation to the entire Bill of Rights, the 1st and 2nd, particular

[Xavier_Onassis]

The reality of the nature of the United States was known to the Founding Fathers, and they were writing a Constitution for that country. Not Belarus or Turkmenistan, Tannu Tuva or Outer Mongolia.

The Constitution was not written by God. God did not even dictate it.

[sirs]

Cudos on the misdirection, but the point still stands.....the Constitution, was put in place, with specific and clearly written references in limiting what the Federal Government could do to the people of the United States.  The Bill of Rights, in particular.  THEN AS WELL AS NOW

NO WHERE, DOES IT REFERENCE THAT THE 2ND AMENDMENT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH SETTLERS OR SLAVES

[Xavier_Onassis]

It did not need to refer to settlers or slaves. That was a given.

It does not mention food in the Constitution, or pavement or that rivers have water in them.

[sirs]

It did not need to refer to settlers or slaves. That was a given.

Yes it did.  There was no "given", merely happenstance.  You can't just make up some bogus connection, and claim its just there, thereby supposedly justifying how out of date the 2nd amendment really is.  The 2nd amendment, as the rest of the Bill of rights, can't be made any clearer.....and they have NOTHING to do with settlers or slaves.  They ALL have a direct connection to limiting the power the Federal Government 

Now, once you get past the Bill of Rights, the 14th amendment DOES have a direct connection to slaves

It does not mention food in the Constitution, or pavement or that rivers have water in them.

You're right.....and......you have some point to make??     You have no "right" to food, or pavement, or water in rivers.  You have every right to enjoy any and all of them, wherever you can get them

[Plane]

It did not need to refer to settlers or slaves. That was a given.

I don't think that it is a given.

The Second Amendment mentions that a Militia is needed , then states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.

I take this in the context of the objectionable behavior of the King a few years before, denying to the people their right to form militia and arm themselves against the threats that they perceived .


The different threats might be given more or less weight as you please, that is just opinion.

   But what the Second amendment specifically forbids is behavior like the king had indulged in just a few years before.

Who is it forbidding this behavior?

The government is forbidden this behavior.

All of the first ten amendments are limits on government power.

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

Yet we have no militia as we did until the Mexican American War. After the Civil War, local militias vanished. In the South, the Whites hated the Union and did not want to defend it. They preferred to join the Invisible Nation of the KKK. In the North, people were sick of war. Originally, the local militias only required members to sign up for a year or less. During the war, a lot of militia members were dragooned into the armies of the USA and the CSA and not permitted to go home after their militia obligations were fulfilled.

The militia is no longer a valid excuse for unrestricted hoarding of firearms.

[Plane]

   There is just as much risk as ever there was that the government might become irredeemably oppressive.

     The Militias were never really abolished , they have just become much less common.

   Perhaps we should have them back?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Militias as formed by communities before the Mexican American War are not rare, they are totally nonexistent. There are some buffoons who dress up in camo and pretend to be militias, but they are not authorized by any local government.  Militias as mentioned in thr 2nd Amendment are extinct.

[Plane]

  Not having them does not prove that we do not need them.

    What are those "buffoons" failing to do?

       If they do the same as Abraham Lincoln did when he became a militia captain what makes them different?

[sirs]

What our anti-gun Professor fails to accept, in which it has been presented multiple times before is that there are 2 forms of "militia".  One is the "organized" version, that would be an arm of the Government, such as the National Guard, so is immediately NOT the militia that the Founders were referring to in the 2nd amendment.  The other is the "unorganized" version which is defined as all able bodied males NOT part of the organized militia

In other words, its we the people......which is 100% consistent with the context of the rest of the Bill of Rights.  Its ludicrous to think that the Founders wrote the Constitution, and specifically, the Bill of Rights, referencing all Americans......except the 2nd most important amendment, (only behind freedom of speech/press/religion), which would only pertain to some specific subset of America.  That makes as much sense as the pulling out of the air notion that the 2nd amendment was about slaves & settlers.

The 2nd amendment to the United States of America, just like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was/is:
- Specific limitations placed on the Federal Government
- Inclusive to every American, that could be legally applied to

Period

[Xavier_Onassis]

There are "two kinds of militia"?  That is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.

The concept that the collective body of gun nuts, firearm collectors and  obsessed wackos does not constitute any sort of militia.

[sirs]

Yea, there are.  The organized version, which would be at the control of the Government, such as the National Guard, and the unorganized version, that would be everyone else.  As noted before, the concept & context is consistent with the rest of the Bill of Rights, which applies to "everyone else"

[Xavier_Onassis]

The idea that any fool with a gun is officially a defender of the country is idiotic.
The National Guard is not at all what the Founders had in mind as any sort of militia, which was something organized by towns and counties.

The militia as mentioned in the Constitution has been extinct for well over a century.