@CalamityJane,
CalamityJane wrote:
maporsche wrote:
You mention amending the constitution. What would need to be amended in the constitution except the individual freedom to own firearms. If you think the constitution needs to be amended for gun control measures to be implemented, I don't think it's too much of a leap to think you believe that we need to amend the constitution so that we can start to remove firearms from the citizens of the USA.
You surely aren't suggesting that we need to amend the constitution so that we can mandate trigger locks or keeping firearm unloaded at home? Are you?
Okay let's look at the exact context of the 2nd Amendment:
"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."
My interpretation "right of the people" incorporates the state, the military
and not every individual American. It does nowhere stipulate that every
individual has the right to bear arms. To "bear arms" is a military term,
and as such it was intended for military to keep and bear arms.
How would I change it? Simply to this: ".....the right to bear arms for lawful purposes only", which interprets to military, police force and individuals who
can prove that they are in need of self protection (such as owners of jewelry stores, etc.). Everyone else is exempt from the right to bear arms.
Tell me maporsche, why do you need a gun ?
Jane, in the case of US v. VERDUGO (199O) 11O S.Ct. 1O56
(at P. 1O61) the
US Supreme Court declares that:
"
The Second Amendment protects
'the right of the people to keep
and bear arms'".
THE SUPREME COURT THEN PROCEEDS TO DEFINE "
THE PEOPLE" AS BEING
THE
SAME PEOPLE WHO CAN VOTE TO ELECT THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
EVERY SECOND YEAR. (Notably, one need not join the National Guard
in order to vote for his congressman.) The Court further defined
"the people" to mean those people who have a right peaceably to assemble [1st Amendment]
and those who have the right to be free of
unreasonable searches and seizures [4th Amendment] in their persons
houses, papers and effects (
personal rights, not rights of states,
as the authoritarian-collectivists allege of the 2nd Amendment).
THE COURT HELD THAT THE TERM "THE PEOPLE"
MEANS THE SAME THING
EVERYWHERE THAT IT IS FOUND IN THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787, AND
EVERYWHERE THAT IT IS FOUND IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS.
In VERDUGO (supra), the Court indicated that the
same people are
protected by the First,
SECOND, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments;
i.e.
THE PEOPLE who can speak n worship freely are THE PEOPLE who can keep and bear arms.
David
