Barak Obama Wants to Ban Your Guns

# Ban cheap guns; require safety locks; for gun show checks. (Aug 1999)
# Supports ban on certain assault weapons. (Aug 1999

I should clarify my position, I will vote for the lesser of evils in each election, democrat or republican.

SCOTUS appointments right Cyclops?

Who do you think is more likely to appoint SCOTUS judges that would uphold my view of the 2A?

I don't know how you arrived to this conclusion, or what Obama has said that would make you think he'd send judges who would overturn handgun bans to the SCOTUS.

First, you know about the US Constitution, and the rights enumerated in it a lot less than I do.

So telling me that I want to infringe on your right to bear arms is prima fascia evidence that you are not right in the head.

There is nothing unconstitutional about a ban on assault weapons.

DC v Heller does not offer carte’ blanche on them, as Scalia said.

So you can not to use that line of argument to defend your demand that you have a constitutional right to use an Uzi, M15 or AK-47 to protect yourself from a burglar invading your home.

Even Justice Scalia noted in his decision that if the handgun ban fell on the basis of an individual right to self-defense, the District’s ban on machine guns would need not also be overturned.

The Court's ruling does not affect the District's ban on "machine guns," which under DC law includes any gun "which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily converted or restored to shoot semi-automatically, more than 12 shots without manual reloading."

This definition includes virtually all semiautomatic handguns. As a result, the District's ban can remain in force for those types of handguns. In essence, the Court's ruling for the most part will only affect revolvers and derringers.

If you castigate Obama for trying to restrict assault weapons then you ought to do so to Scalia who claims in DC v Heller that the individual right to bear arms does not include "M-16 rifles and the like" because it covers only those weapons "in common use at the time" of the amendment's adoption in the 18th century and not "dangerous and unusual weapons."

But here is the critical part relevant to the topic at hand.

Quote:

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful
in military service"M-16 rifles and the like"may be
banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely
detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said,
the conception of the militia at the time of the Second
Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens
capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of
lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia
duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as
effective as militias in the 18th century, would require
sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at
large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

We turn finally to the law at issue here. As we have
said, the law totally bans handgun possession in the home.
It also requires that any lawful firearm in the home be
disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times, rendering
it inoperable.

As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate,
the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the
Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a
prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly
chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.
The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the
need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.
Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied
to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,”

Do you understand this?

Because from your argument that you possess an inherent constitutional right to have assault weapons, apparently, you don’t.

It means that while

Quote:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It does not preclude that the government can not regulate weapons in the home that would be of a nature used by a militia if such weapons are “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

Home protection and self preservation has relied upon handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles historically

and it is these weapons which fall under protection by the DC v Heller decision, and not those of an inherently military nature like assault weapons.

Again, the SCOTUS decision in Heller did not overturn the District of Columbia’s ban on machine guns. Aka “assault weapons,”

So stating that I want to infringe upon your inherent constitutional right to possess them is wrong, because you have no inherent constitutional right to possess them, according to Scalia. Not me.

The gun lobby effectively thwarted efforts to pass many sensible gun laws by arguing that even modest gun control would lead down the path to a complete ban on gun ownership. It is the classic "slippery slope" argument, and it has served the gun lobby well politically.

That "slippery slope," however, is now gone. The U.S. Supreme Court took it off the table in their D.C. v. Heller opinion. Government is now barred from "taking away" the guns of law-abiding Americans.

Because of this Court decision, proposals such as Brady background checks on all gun sales, limiting bulk sales of handguns, restricting access to military-style assault weapons, and strengthening the power of law enforcement to shut down corrupt gun dealers can now be debated on their merits without them being seen as a "first step on the road to gun confiscation."

While the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the District's ban on handguns, they also made it clear that the Constitution allows for reasonable restrictions on access to firearms.

Elected officials will no longer be able to use a mistaken, absolutist misreading of the Second Amendment as an excuse to do nothing about gun violence in our country. Politicians can't hide behind the Second Amendment anymore.

As to your unsubstantiated remark that you are not arguing the NRA’s talking point about Obama you certainly are doing it, even if inadvertently.

The NRA continues to suggest that even tepid gun-control advocates like Sen. Obama favor confiscation. This is from Politico:

Quote:

"A recent mailing from the president of the National Rifle Association to its members says that Barack Obama wants to ban the possession of handguns, and that 'never in NRA's history have we faced a presidential candidate " and hundreds of candidates running for other offices " with such a deep-rooted hatred of firearm freedoms.'"

To put it briefly, all constitutional rights can be infringed if the state's interest in doing so is "compelling" enough in the Court's eyes. There have been some judges, who have been "absolutist" on certain constitutional rights, meaning that they believe that under no circumstances can the state infringe a particular right.

But the Court's long-standing consensus has been that all rights can theoretically be infringed if the reason is good enough. Deciding that the Second Amendment confers an individual as opposed to a collective right to gun ownership is, in effect, to decide only what level of "scrutiny" with which to assess laws that infringe the Second Amendment.

Had the Court come down in favor of the collective rights position, it would have applied moderate scrutiny to the D.C. law, and asked only whether the law had a "rational basis." Under this level of scrutiny, the D.C. law probably would have stood. But by deciding that the Second Amendment confers an individual right, the Court had to apply the level of scrutiny that it applies to all constitutionally protected individual rights: "strict scrutiny." Under this scrutiny, the D.C. law was bound to fall. Breyer suggested it might not have to, because he considers the state interest in safety to be very, very compelling, but inevitably, strict scrutiny = no more handgun ban.

Now, as for the assault weapons and machine gun bans:

Yes, those bans would likely survive strict scrutiny, as even Justice Scalia noted.

And yes, that's a judgment call that the Court has to make.

Their judgment would likely be based upon the argument that assault weapons and machine guns serve no purpose except to make violence more efficient and successful.

The state interest in reducing violence is more compelling than the individual's right to keep an assault rifle, because there's no good reason to have an assault rifle in the first place, they would say.

There is a good reason to have a handgun--- protection. Since you can protect yourself as well with a handgun (or shotgun, or hunting rifle) as easily as you can with an assault rifle,

Obama favored the D.C. ban and a similar Illinois ban, but there's no indication he would seek a national policy along those lines.

I hope you also won't vote for any Republican that supports gun control either since that is your main issue.

McCain on guns

Quote:

# Ban cheap guns; require safety locks; for gun show checks. (Aug 1999)
# Supports ban on certain assault weapons. (Aug 1999

http://www.ontheissues.org/Gun_Control.htm

I also think that there is enough precedent with the recent Heller decision, that it is unlikely we will be seeing 2A questions in front of the SC anytime soon.

Their judgment would likely be based upon the argument that assault weapons and machine guns serve no purpose except to make violence more efficient and successful.

(B) a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--
(i) a folding or telescoping stock;
(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;
(iii) a bayonet mount;
(iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and
(v) a grenade launcher;

(C) a semiautomatic pistol that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--
(i) an ammunition magazine that attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip;
(ii) a threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer;
(iii) a shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel and that permits the shooter to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned;
(iv) a manufactured weight of 50 ounces or more when the pistol is unloaded; and
(v) a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm; and

(D) a semiautomatic shotgun that has at least 2 of--
(i) a folding or telescoping stock;
(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;
(iii) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of 5 rounds; and
(iv) an ability to accept a detachable magazine.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c103:1:./temp/~c103KEhQfm:e643945:

What is a logical fallacy?
All arguments have the same basic structure: A therefore B. They begin with one or more premises (A), which is a fact or assumption upon which the argument is based. They then apply a logical principle (therefore) to arrive at a conclusion (B). An example of a logical principle is that of equivalence. For example, if you begin with the premises that A=B and B=C, you can apply the logical principle of equivalence to conclude that A=C. A logical fallacy is a false or incorrect logical principle. An argument that is based upon a logical fallacy is therefore not valid. It is important to note that if the logic of an argument is valid then the conclusion must also be valid, which means that if the premises are all true then the conclusion must also be true. Valid logic applied to one or more false premises, however, leads to an invalid argument.
“The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Presents our Top 20 Logical Fallacies,” http://www.theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp

We also recognize another important limitation on the
right to keep and carry arms.[/B] Miller said, as we have
explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those
“in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think
that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual
weapons.”

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful
in military service"M-16 rifles and the like"may be
banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely
detached from the prefatory clause