Thread: Supreme Court finds individual right to own guns

Originally Posted by Pudu

When you start tossing any individual's rights out the window without some very very serious consideration, you cheapen those rights and make them that much more difficult for everyone else to lay claim.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Originally Posted by Nickelking

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Ya, he's always copying me.

Holy Jesus this is a long thread! I want to touch on automatics and armor piercing rounds real quick. What exactly is wrong with owning automatics? Personally, I would not use one for home protection. That is dumb and a waste of bullets. I don't know anyone who would think otherwise either. If I have an automatic, it is for two things: fun (c'mon, it's a ton of fun) and as a SHTF gun. If you can pay the money, afford the bullets, and show the aptitude, then why not? After all, semi-automatics shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger. As for armor piercing, that goes in the SHTF pile. Take Katrina for instance. There were police not only looting but also killing people for the hell of it. There were snipers shooting at the people helping with relief efforts. That is EXACTLY when I would have an automatic and something with AP rounds. Police and the military are only human too.

Anyone from the England area should be able to tell us exactly what happens when weapons are taken away. I should hope that everyone here has been keeping up on all the stabbings that are going on. England took away guns, now they're taking away knives. Someone in this thread said that deadly items should be regulated. I guess we'll need new pen and pencil laws, flashlight laws, glass laws, walking stick laws, plumbing laws, tool laws, string laws, etc. I'm nothing special and I could kill someone with each of those. Why are we so eager to legislate our problems away for weapons that show to not be a problem, when there are massive weapons that EVERYONE owns killing people all the time?

Cars guys. These are the weapons I'm worried about. It's easier to get a car than a gun and driving tests are a joke here. The number one and number two best selling vehicles in the US in 2006 were the Ford F-series truck and the Chevy Silverado. Those two alone are over 4500 pounds! Number three on the list is the Camry, weighing in at 3400 pounds. Traffic fatalities have been holding pretty steady around 42,000 per year.

This isn't to thread jack, I'm just trying to illustrate that maybe we shouldn't be so worried about gun control. According to the Brady people, in 2004 11,624 murders were by gun. I question that number since they don't differentiate between "make my day" deaths and actual murder. We have an easily accessible weapon that everyone just has to have, including felons and mentally ill people, and it's killing people left and right. It seems to me that guns are just a sensational item. They're loud and they're easy for suburbanite do-gooders to hate because the only gun training they've gotten is the ridiculous portrayals on TV. Taking a page from civil rights, it's easy to hate that which you don't understand.

Indeed I am a little disappointed in this decision as I thought that it was the Executive Branch that was responsible for interpreting the constitution (signing statements et all)... I thought the main job of the Supreme court was to decide elections...

OK all jokes aside I think it was a reasonable decision In a country where guns have been legal since its conceptions it makes little sense to reverse these rights / privelages.

I wonder what people think about this -

Is owning a firearm a right or a privilege?

the difference between a right and privilege as I see it are -
I have the right to free speech, but
I do not have the right to a drivers license unless I pass certain criteria which makes it a privilege

A privileged right It is your right to have one, but if you screw up, you lose the privilege.

Originally Posted by Amyn

Indeed I am a little disappointed in this decision as I thought that it was the Executive Branch that was responsible for interpreting the constitution (signing statements et all)... I thought the main job of the Supreme court was to decide elections...

Originally Posted by Amyn

...I have the right to free speech, but
I do not have the right to a drivers license unless I pass certain criteria which makes it a privilege

Keep in mind that there are limits on how you can use your free speech as well.

This is getting to be a pretty interesting chat since it started out with gun control and has since moved into the rights of the gitmo detainees. I still find it hard to believe that there is actually a significant push to have these detainees tried and released. If you do not believe that the Iraqis were involved in terrorism you should start to look at the money trail and see where the terrorists are funded from and where they are permitted to hide and train. I am sure that there are some detainees that might be falsely accused but I do not believe that during a time of war, and YES we are at war even if congress does not want to officially declare war because they are spineless and have a fear of the repercussions of offending someone who would think that we would actually go to war. The Nazis were not given due process until well after the WWII and for the most part they didn’t even get the opportunity to become prisoners of war as they were shot on-site. Now in an effort to better protect our nation and the innocent people who enjoy our freedoms everyday we have detained suspected terrorists with the intent of gathering information and potentially preventing future terrorist attacks. I am not sure how anyone, liberal or conservative, can argue with this, it seems like common sense to me. However, I do respect everyone’s opinions and it is apparent that the supreme court wants to give these people a fair tiral, something that is specifically reserved for U.S. citizens but that’s another argument, and if there is no smoking gun let them go. I just hope it does not come back to haunt us in the same way that letting Bin Laden get away in 1997 came back to us. Just my 2 cents.

Jess

The Nuremburg trials began in the last months of 1945.

Originally Posted by Pudu

The Nuremburg trials began in the last months of 1945.

Yes but the war was over before the trials started. The Germans had surrendered and the bombs dropped on Japay by August of 1945. So I am not sure how this ties into letting the detainees have their trials during a time of war.

Originally Posted by Amyn

Is owning a firearm a right or a privilege?

It has always been a right.

It really doesn't matter if it's a literal 2nd Amendment right or not -- we've always had the right to own firearms, within certain usually-reasonable limits (depending upon locality). Case law to date suggests that the right to own arms may be limited, but not denied, except under unusual circumstances (like insanity or criminal record) -- again, with some localities more "reasonable" than others.

This week's decision reaffirmed that it's a right that may be denied, but not without cause.

Personally, I think that it's a more of a common-law right -- one that was so assumed by the framers that they didn't feel the need to mention it.

Obviously, I'm not a lawyer.

j