Bob Costas and the 2nd Amendment

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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I think it would be useful and fun to take stock. Here we have Push and DD who take the “libb-uh-turr-ee-un” view, and wind up as follows:

  1. They don’t care about original intent.

  2. They don’t care about states’ rights that were clearly recognized at the birth of the republic

  3. Their idea of “constitutional” is “stuff I like” and “unconstitutional” means “it restricts stuff I like”, and they can’t be bothered with what actually occurred in history at ratification or understanding among courts and legislatures for hundreds of years.

  4. They reject the Founders’ opinions on the matter, as they must have “gotten it wrong” on their own documents by allowing states to continue regulating arms.

Great. Read through that list again. History? Flush. Historical meaning? Flush. Respect for federalism? Flush. These are the interpretive philosophies of left-liberals.

Well done, gents.

EDIT: oh, one other…

  1. Thinking a court, in the absence of logic, intent, or language in the Constitution, to simply compel the BOR to apply to the states in its authority as a court because it is “the right thing to do”.
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[quote]pushharder wrote:

Bullshit. You’re so far off the reservation it’s not even funny.

Don’t ever tell me I have much to learn. Good grief.

If a government can “grant” rights, a government can take them away.

You toasted yourself, Bolt. You don’t have your fundamentals right. So what you’ve built on top of that foundation is likely to fail as well.[/quote]

You should know by now I don’t buy your bluster, especially when it’s clear you don’t know this stuff, which you don’t (BOR applied to the states…I am still chuckling about that).

The BOR most certainly did grant those rights in the context of the Constitution, which meant that you had no recourse if this “right” was ifringed at the state level. That’s a fact. Did the Founders get that part wrong, by letting states have the power to “deny” or “infringe” upon that “natural right”? If so, say so. But that is what occurred, whether you like it or not.

Look, this is fun for a while, but just like with the nullification debate, we reach a point where we realize you’ve run out of gas and have to concede that you’re bluffing on having a historical understanding of this stuff.

Which is fine - make the argument that there is an unalloyed natural right to own an F-16, I don’t care - just don’t try and pretend the Founders and constitutional history support your claim. Ain’t so.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

You confuse intent with practice.[/quote]

No, I don’t - because why would the Founders, who could draft any Constitution they wanted, not practice what they intended?

Really? “The Founders really did intend for something to be a certain way, they just decided not to put anything they intended into practice. No, really.”

This might be the most laughable post of all.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

But you have missed the most basic fundamental of all. It is laughable to suggest 18th century state and federal government “granted” natural, inalienable rights. You shouldn’t even be allowed into the batter’s box.[/quote]

I didn’t say they granted natural rights - your problem is that you think there is some consensus that there is a natural right to own any arm of your choosing at any time, any place, etc.

No such consensus existed at the Founding, and the Founders certainly didn’t think so - see, for the thousandth time, states had some restrictions on this natural law you claim existed at the time of the Founding which met no resistance from the Founders.

So, you may believe that, but the Founders didn’t. So, admit that, and move on.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

What’s laughable is your incessant ignoring of a point I made repeatedly, in that the Founders were a myriad group. The Founders included hundreds of legislators and 13+ governors plus the federal legislature, judiciary and executives along with a whole host of people who never entered office.

There was a general original intent and there were “practices” inconsistent with that intent.

You accuse me of picking and choosing but yet that is precisely what you’ve done repeatedly.[/quote]

Nope, because I have the best collective evidence of the Founders’ collective opinion and “practice” on this - the United States Constitution, which declined to interfere with any…any…of the states’ regulation of arms at the Founding.

They were drafting a constitution - they could have made the Second Amendment universally applicable - they chose not to. That is the evidence of their practice, Push. Any of the states, state legislators, congressmen, anyone - could have urged that the Constitution apply the Second Amendment universally. They didn’t. They left the states alone on the matter.

I don’t have to pick and choose. I’ve the document itself, and I always have. You’ve got…Push’s opinion.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

That’s implicitly what you said. The Bill of Rights is a list of recognized natural rights that some - including Madison, the author of the Constitution - thought downright tautological, superfluous and redundant to even bother listing.

You specifically said the rights in the BOR were granted. Great day in the morning, do you want me to scroll back up and copy and paste your words?[/quote]

Yeah, they are granted in the legal sense, in that you couldn’t claim your Second Amendment rights were violated in the 1800s if the state you lived in infringed upon your “right” to own or carry an arm.

You’d only have a claim if state law recognized that right (could be common law, statute or state constitution), so, yes, the Constitution granted the right insofar as it limited a citizen’s recourse to it - the “right” only applied to the federal government, exactly as the Founders intended and, heh, practiced.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

Fine - make the argument that state and federal governments limited natural rights in some fashion or another, I don’t care - just don’t try and pretend the Founders and constitutional history placed definable limits on the common man in regards to weapons so that he could not effectively revolt against a tyrannical government. Ain’t so.[/quote]

Yes it is, because a state could infringe on this right and the Constitution gave you no recourse to challenge that law, and the Founders made it so, so they are the ones who placed “definable” limits on your right.

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In any event, I’m done. Got too much work to do. It’s been fun.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
Let me ask you something, smh, do YOU believe original intent allowed for state and federal governments to be able to dictate how many cartridges could be loaded into a personal weapon of self defense? Do you?[/quote]

The Second Amendment, as written, is agnostic with respect to legal restrictions on certain weapons. It protects the liberty of the citizenry to keep and bear arms but it makes no mention of laws that might deem certain arms unfit for civilian ownership–neither to condemn them nor to condone them.

You have produced exactly no evidence in contradiction of this claim and you’ve produced exactly no evidence in support of the claim that the Second Amendment or the intent with which it was written leaves literally no room for the restriction of any extant of conceivable weapon.

Brandenburg v. Ohio makes it painfully clear that restrictive boundaries may be constructed around a Constitutionally-protected right under certain circumstances (e.g., public safety concerns) and that the Bill of Rights can withstand such an affront.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

I discount them for the reason I’ve already mentioned. You want to play with it because you feel it enables you to work backwards and “protect the folks” from James Holmes. You think, If I can get Push to concede that da peeplz shouldn’t own ICBM’s then I have him boxed into banning high capacity magazines in AR-15’s so innocents don’t die in picture show houses. Ha! I am so clever! Not only that but I’m so freakin’ reasonable too. Push, however, has gone off the deep end.
[/quote]

Ridiculous cop-out. This isn’t about AR-15’s anymore.

Do you or do you not believe that, pursuant to the Second Amendment, the right to own literally any weapon is a Constitutionally protected liberty?

This is a matter of establishing your basic position: of stating your interpretation of the Second Amendment, which, you’ll agree, is probably a good thing to do in an argument about the Second Amendment. The discussion really can’t move forward until this simple, fundamental point has been established.[/quote]

The simple fundamental point starts back yonder and not up here in 2012.

YOU need to tell me, since your the one doing all the insisting that you have things figured out, what the Second meant in the 1780’s and why it doesn’t mean that anymore. Then go on to tell me why the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth should no longer be bound by original intent. While we’re at it, tell me why the Ninth and Tenth are practically irrelevant in your political view which they certainly are if you’re being honest with yourself.[/quote]

Now that I’ve answered your question (see above), should answer mine:

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know where the red line should be.”

Is that or is that not an admission that you do in fact believe that certain weapons should be unavailable to the citizenry?

It is extremely obvious that your intransigent insistence on dodging this question, despite the fact that you all but answered it in a moment of uncharacteristic indiscretion, is born of the fact that its answer will force you to take a position with which you’re not comfortable.

If I’m wrong about this, answer it and we’ll go from there.

Again: it’s an overwhelmingly logical question to ask of someone who seems to believe that no weapon can be banned from the public market without setting fire to the Bill of Rights. I hope that you’ve thought this question through and that you have an answer–because if you don’t, you shouldn’t be taking a rigid stance in a discussion whose implications you don’t understand.

Edit: just saw your last post. Thanks for the conversation (I too have done nothing work-related in about 24 hours and would prefer not to be fired). Of course, if you really want to answer this last question, I wouldn’t hold it against you.