THE DANGER OF GUN-FREE SCHOOL ZONES

msolga wrote:

David

When was the last time any of these "citizens' militias" acted in the interests of the majority of the citizens by "bearing arms" against any elected (US) government?

To someone who doesn't live in the US these arguments make for very perplexing reading.

In the 21st century (say nothing of most of the 20th century) citizens in democracies have used the ballot box to remove unpopular governments.

I don't see what role gun ownership has has to do with it.

With an armed populace thankfully our government hasn't been stupid enough
to do anything that would require a militia to go up against our government.

I wonder if that could be true if the populace were unarmed?

Here is an interesting piece in the NYTs, which says that A2 is really about protecting the militia.

CLAUSE AND EFFECT
By ADAM FREEDMAN
Published: December 16, 2007
LAST month, the Supreme Court agreed to consider District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down Washington's strict gun ordinance as a violation of the Second Amendment's "right to keep and bear arms."

This will be the first time in nearly 70 years that the court has considered the Second Amendment. The outcome of the case is difficult to handicap, mainly because so little is known about the justices' views on the lethal device at the center of the controversy: the comma. That's right, the "small crooked point," as Richard Mulcaster described this punctuation upstart in 1582. The official version of the Second Amendment has three of the little blighters:

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.

The decision invalidating the district's gun ban, written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, cites the second comma (the one after "state") as proof that the Second Amendment does not merely protect the "collective" right of states to maintain their militias, but endows each citizen with an "individual" right to carry a gun, regardless of membership in the local militia.

How does a mere comma do that? According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one "prefatory" and the other "operative." On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don't really get down to business until they start talking about "the right of the people ... shall not be infringed."

The circuit court's opinion is only the latest volley in a long-simmering comma war. In a 2001 Fifth Circuit case, a group of anti-gun academics submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief arguing that the "unusual" commas of the Second Amendment support the collective rights interpretation. According to these amici, the founders' use of commas reveals that what they really meant to say was "a well-regulated militia ... shall not be infringed."

Now that the issue is heading to the Supreme Court, the pro-gun American Civil Rights Union is firing back with its own punctuation-packing brief. Nelson Lund, a professor of law at George Mason University, argues that everything before the second comma is an "absolute phrase" and, therefore, does not modify anything in the main clause. Professor Lund states that the Second Amendment "has exactly the same meaning that it would have if the preamble had been omitted."

Advocates of both gun rights and gun control are making a tactical mistake by focusing on the commas of the Second Amendment. After all, couldn't one just as easily obsess about the founders' odd use of capitalization? Perhaps the next amicus brief will find the true intent of the amendment by pointing out that "militia" and "state" are capitalized in the original, whereas "people" is not.

Adam Freedman, the author of "The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese," writes the Legal Lingo column for New York Law Journal Magazine.

Is the Solicitor General a traitor to our Constitution???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902231.html

I'm not sure the fuss is warranted.
How much difference would it make
to have intermediate scrutiny instead of strict scrutiny anyway?

When I was a kid, that very morning, first period after that Columbine thing went down and hit the news we were laughing our asses off about it.
Every one in my classes thought it was a joke, the only one's that weren't laughing were the social-outcast-goths that just got showed up.

We were nasty little bastards, but it added to the collective dignity of us all that kids in America could go apeshit. No one was scared -
I was scared about being crappy at volleyball, as it turns out I had a reason to be, but not about getting shot.

If someone is willing to die and indiscriminately antisocial,
the fact is we've got problems if we're in the same room as them,
whether in a nurturing society where guns are inaccessible

and we're required by law to be their buddy or otherwise,

What difference does it make to the dead.....

I will die .
But my death will not help the others


My wish is this
Gandhi was shot dead.

Your country needs some Gandhis
Rama

Please
Be human and adore Gandhi and avoid the criminals without weapons

He was shot dead by a HINDU fanatic.

Gandhi had chased out the masters who had looted India
( ask the Queen who knows better than you and me)

Violence beget violence.
We should die without violence.
( this is my verbal vomiting)

I am a die hard Athiest right from childhood and
a strong upholder of social justice beside a vehement exposer of hypocracy
To sum up I am a jew like Karl marx and a banal half naked fakir like Mahathma Gandhi.
Among the jews I had picked up Karl marx and not Jesus