Open Thread – You Like Us!
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Ronald Regan: actor.
Antonin Scalia: attorney.
I rather like the question posed this way: Exactly what weapons would you like to make available for serial killers and mass murderers to choose from?
Since it is an open thread
“The sentencing was part of a plea agreement in which May is cooperating with federal prosecutors as they continue to investigate the April, 2010, explosion that killed 29 coal miners at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/17/169623969/massey-mine-boss-sentenced-feds-toughen-mine-safety-rule
Am hoping the “co-operation” by Mr May includes something real which will take down Mr Blankenship- otherwise serving less than a month for each dead miner for his part in the culture of contempt for safety which led to their deaths is a slap in the face to those lost, their families, all of us.
Art. I, Sec 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to “provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”
Amendment 2 says “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.”
So Congress, in organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, can’t limit the Militia’s ability to keep and bear arms. I know the Supreme Court says otherwise, but it seems like a simple concept.
And some people say the second amendment is more important than others because it is second, after free speech. But it is only second because the first two amendments proposed during the first Congressional session weren’t ratified. If they had been, it would have been the fourth amendment. (Actually, one of them was ratified, but not until much later which is why it is now the 27th Amendment).
Even at the time the founder’s wrote the Constitution there were limits placed on firearms. While citizens were able to own muskets, they were not permitted to own cannons. Your arguement is flawed for another reason as well. The Supreme Court, as the judicial branch of our government, has the power to limit this amendment through the rule of law. The founders purposely left the amendments open for interpretation knowing that they could not foresee what the future held. Prime example: The first amendment provision for freedom of speech is limited in a variety of ways: You cannot yell fire in a crowded place, you cannot accuse someone of a crime publicly without proof, you cannot lie under oath, you cannot knowingly print lies in a newspaper. If you do any of the aforementioned, you can be held accountable under penalty of law. Gun owners like to take the words of the 2nd at face value and that is precisely why the Supreme Court interpreted it under the Heller decision. Because regardless of what you may think, it is far from “a simple concept”.
John- long but important to what led up to the amendment as worded-
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/FieldsAndHardy.html
You will hear a lot of howling by gun nuts that the .223 is just like a .22.
Go to this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO and read the end of the history section.
This is a bullet with a mussle velocity, weight and size, designed specifically to do as much damage as possible to a human body.
They are not designed for huntig caribou or moose. They are designed to kill people.
The weapons that use this kind of ammunition, are also therefore designed specifically to kill people.
I read somewhere today that it was justifyable to have 30 round magazines for these kinds of weapons because it was useful for rodent control.
I have an aunt who for 30-40 years plincked the rats who came to feed on her bird feeders with a .22
rifle that had no sights. And it was a single shot bolt action. More over, she never had to deal with ten or twenty of them at a time. They only showed up solo.
Anyone who needs a 30 round magazine to plink varmits is plainly ad very poor marksman.
We can hope that the NRA has finally betrayed themselves to everyone with the fetid and vile commecial they ran that targeted the president’s children.
It is my understanding that about 4 million people are members of the NRA., so that is about 0,3% of the whole population. So a minute minority makes it possible for millions upon millions of deadly weapons to infest our whole society.
The united states is a joke. And not a good one.