Well.... When You Put It That Way...

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Incorrect. You keep making summary statements about a book you’ve admitted you haven’t read.

You’re really getting out of hand here. Seriously, bud.[/quote]

Nope, I’ve been through parts of it, and it is exactly as I thought. But I am flagging the “staright history” parts for review and comment, like the dispassionate and objective treatment of that “terrible law”, the National Firearms Act of 1934 (p. 31) and the dimwitted legal exchange argument betwee Judge Ragon and the counsel on the constitutionality of the federal statute.

No wonder you have no idea what the hell you are talking about on this stuff, if this is your vaunted source.

There were also procedural irregularities that prevented him from traveling. Not sure what those were.

Well, I told you what one of them was - he didn’t have the money to get to DC and asked the USSC to proceed without him.

Understood.

Well, no, apparently you don’t - that means the USSC basically had a “defense brief” in front of them, since the trial court found in favor of the defendant and issued an opinion.

WITHOUT any argument from the defense. How common could it be that a case of great magnitude has been decided at the USSC level without both parties arguing their cases?

Not that common, but not all that controversial, either. And, frankly, this really wasn’t a case of “great magnitude”, and it was a pretty easy one for the justices apparently, whose liberal members joined one the most conservative blocs (some even say libertarian, because of their rulings on economic liberty) on the USSC in history for a unanimous opinion (one justice didn’t participate).

So you can have a better understanding of the makeup of the bench that ruled in favor of upholding the National Firearms Act of 1934 (because you won’t get that from Unintended Consequences), some additional reading for you:

Four Horsemen (Supreme Court)

I said “what amounts to a technicality.” If you want to argue the semantics of that you may. When a party fails to appear in court to prosecute or defend a case it is customary for the court to rule against that party. The court oftentimes has no alternative.

Not necessarily so in appellate proceedings, Einstein, which is what this was. And, in any event, defense counsel instructed the USSC to proceed on the record and the government’s briefing.

In other words, wrong again.

A bold statement with no followup.

That’s because I have other things to do other than wade through an 800 page comic book and cite references. But my looking into it has confirmed exactly what I expected.

[quote]I’m searching for an appropriate response…searching…searching…I’m getting warmer…ahh, I think I have it…STRAW MAN!

I NEVER claimed the antebellum laws were unconstitutional. I specifically stated that post War of Northern Aggression (like that? LOL) laws prohibiting blacks from owning guns were unconstitutional. Get with the program, Elmo. If you need coffee or Spike or some other cognitive assistance then do it but don’t stumble-bumble around in stupor here. Keep up.[/quote]

Sigh. You said “ole T-bolt ain’t never supplied any evidence that guns were regulated!”. To which I provided you a list of examples, including the Test Acts and Boston laws from 1786. In that same paragraph, I also referenced laws prohibiting blacks from having guns. I then said after you were done reading that, find yourself the concealed weapons laws in the early to mid 1800s.

Quite obviously - well, obvious to anyone who can read - I was referring to laws prohibiting blacks from owning guns prior to the Civil War (it’s in the paragraph with the 1786 laws, etc.).

So, why in the world, in response to my list, would you start referencing laws prohibiting blacks from owning guns after the Civil War, which anyone knows would be unconstitutional? What does that have to do with the point that, yes, in fact, I provided evidence of gun control laws in early America despite your whine that “ole T-bolt ain’t never shown any gun laws!”?

But, something is amiss - you say I NEVER claimed the antebellum laws were unconstitutional - no? But you insist that the 2nd Amendment applied to the states prior to the enactment of the 14th Amendment? They would have to be unconstitutional, right, in violation of the universal application of the 2nd Amendment?

Uh oh. Push is speaking out of two mouths. More on this below.

If they passed or kept laws on the books after 1868 that prohibited blacks from owning guns those laws WERE unconstitutional no matter how you slice and dice it. Look at the aforementioned Missouri law that existed into the 1920’s.

So? Who said that these laws weren’t unconstitutional after 1868? That wasn’t the point, and I didn’t argue it. Work on reading comprehension.

Yep, and Sir Push the Lionhearted stated just that. You went to the straw man factory and bought you a new model and shoved into this debate.

It’s always like hearing nails on a chalkboard when you try to be clever, but at any rate, I am now confused - you have taken the position throughout that the Second Amendment applied to the states prior to the Civil War (you just said so again above)…

…so how are you now claiming that laws restricting blacks from gun ownership were unconstitutional after 1868, but were constitutional prior to 1868, during such time that you believe that the Second Amendement always, always, always applied to the states, even prior to the 14th Amendment?

Why, Push isn’t making sense.

Sure thing. The question is why did it take you so long to get it?

See above - you got some 'splaining to do. The 14th Amendment didn’t do anything to affect the constitutionality of gun laws if you’re right that the Second Amendment always applied to the states.

So, which is it, Push? Did the 2nd Amendment always make these laws unconstitutional (per your original theory), or did they only become unconstitutional after the enactment of the 14th Amendment (your new theory)?

Bonus: two Pushes in one!!! I look forward to seeing which one prevails.

You have now reached the pinnacle of hypocrisy with that statement after claiming over and over and over and over again to “know” the UC book without reading it.

Oh, I am looking at it, but I was correct about it even before I started looking at it. It’s atrocious. It’s revisionist pablum designed to appeal to anti-government types with a “wouldn’t it be cool if it really happened this way?” theme. But more on that later.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

So what’s the score now?[/quote]

Who knows, but whatever the actual score is wouldn’t matter - Postmodern Push would simply make up new numbers as he sees fit, or perhaps even make up new symbols for numbers he doesn’t like the shape of.

[thunderbolt23]

After rummaging through Unintened Consequences, and, you know, its “straight history”, more info from United States v. Miller: turns out the district judge’s written opinion didn’t bother providing any reasoning why the National Firearms Act violated the Second Amendment, just that it did:

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_case?case=14696530636352836447&q=United+States+v.+Miller,+26+F.+Supp.+1002+(W.D.+Ark.+1939)&hl=en&as_sdt=2,5

And, it turns out, the district judge got two bites at the apple (the indictment was brought twice) and the second time, he issued the exact same opinion with no explanation as to his ruling why the statute violated the 2nd Amendment. Compare the first memo at Memorandum Opinion, United States v. Miller, 26 F. Supp. 1002 (W.D. Ark. 1938), with United States v. Miller, 26 F. Supp. 1002 (W.D. Ark.), revâ??d, 307 U.S. 174 (1939).

Oddly, in a facial challenge to a statute under the Constitution, an opinion without an explanation is unheard of, because a facial challenge is purely a question of law.

The record below was submitted to the Supreme Court.

A few years earlier, though, a federal district court in Florida already held the statute didn’t violate the 2nd Amendment. See United States v. Adams, 11 F. Supp. 216, 218-19 (S.D. Fla. 1935) (“The Constitution does not grant the privilege to racketeers and desperadoes to carry weapons of the character dealt with in the act. It refers to the militia, a protective force of government; to the collective body and not individual rights.” (holding Second Amendment “has no application” to NFA)).

Oddly, part two, the real Judge Ragon appeared to be a gun control advocate (he spent some time in Congress as a New Dealer, and demonstrated he was no fan of guns), despite the “straight history” of Unintended Consquences portrating him to be a 2nd Amendment true believer that chewed up the government lawyer and spit him out ‘cause he didn’t know nothin’ about guns.

Straight history.

[Alpha_F]

My understanding is that slaves were not free people.

In terms of morality and the Constitution being based in the Bible, were they not acting in accordance with the biblical principle that slaves ( and not all slaves were black, thought the vast majority were ) were property and therefore did not share the same rights as a free citizen?

So, looking at it exclusively rationally/objectively, it is not that it was that black people were not even considered as people, they simply did not enjoy the same rights as free people, not because they were not people but because legally they were not free, they were property?

[thunderbolt23]

So, here we have Judge Ragon - who, historically, appeared to be a New Dealer and somewhat of a gun control advocate (and whom the law article commentator actually thinks wanted to tee up a test case to uphold the NFA)- portrayed by Unintended Consequences as someone who dressed down the “gummint” on all sorts of issues in stalwart defense of the 2nd Amendment:

Judge Heartsill Ragon paused a moment to reflect on the men in the Federal legislature who had created this piece of legal garbage. What kind of person would propose that a man be put in prison for five years based on the length of the weapon he carried to protect himself? What kind of person would expect the man to pay twenty times the value of the weapon to the Treasury for each such weapon he owned to avoid going to prison, and then pay the $200 again when he sold the gun? What kind of legislature had agreed to this insanity?

P. 30.

There’s lots more revisionist nonsense in the exchange between Ragon and counsel, but it’s too much to paste here.

More:

Finally, no one had pointed out, as had District Court Judge Heartsill Ragon, that militia weapons were, by definition, the personal arms of the private citizenry, and therefore whether or not a particular weapon was issued to army troops was completely irrelevant.

P. 37.

How about that? Push’s favoritest “historical fiction” is, in fact, revisionist garbage. Why else would someone try to pretend like the facial challenge of the NFA under the 2nd Amendment went down in flames at the trial level with a straight-talkin’ federal judge who couldn’t believe someone would be stupid and un-American enough to pass a law to restrict the absolute individual right? And that the Supreme Court was disadvantaged because it didn’t have the benefit of Ragon’s firey takedown of the US Attorney on the facts about military-grade weapons and private citizens? When none of this happened? And there is ample reason to believe that Ragon was, in fact, in favor of gun control?

Want to understand what really happened? Read the straight history.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Real busy, Mr. Bolt, but I’ll get back to you. About to hit the road on a business trip. Part of it will include another personal visit with Doc and I promise not to talk bad 'bout you behind your back.[/quote]

Y’all have fun, and tell Doc I said hello and that I still haven’t given up on the idea of the Junta.

You read that book in its entirety while I’m gone and I’ll give you an Attaboy.

No time between work and trap shooting and reading other books over the next week.

However, I have a feeling your preordained antipathy toward it would cause your dislike even if you got into it and realized it was actually Moby Dick and had a $100 bill and a Playboy centerfold between each page. Nonetheless it might educate you a bit on the mindset of those type folks you despise so much and that’ll surely make you a more effective crusader against the American gun culture in the future.

If it was Moby Dick with the bonus inserts, it wouldn’t be out of print, so I’m not exactly worried about the opportunity cost of not reading in its entirety.

As for my “mindset” on “folks I despise”, it’s not gun culture (of which I am a part, ask my Browning Citori Feather Lightning) or guns - it’s ideologues who like results-based history and are full of many, many stupid and bad ideas.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Yes.

I can’t figure out why he can’t comprehend this. Gun rights, just like the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as the rights guaranteed in the 1st - 8th Amendments, were recognized for free men. Blacks (and others) were reprehensibly denied those rights before the Civil War and 14th Amendment. I never claimed otherwise.

Technically, it was constitutional to deny a black person any of those rights before 1868 and yet it was still DEAD wrong. After 1868 it was unconstitutional but STILL legal in some parts of the US and still dead wrong. Yes, the point can be made that if they were unconstitutional they were illegal but you get my point – there were laws on the books even into the 20th century that were wrong, unconstitutional and downright vile. And there state versions of the modern day ATF that enforced those wrong, unconstitutional and vile laws.

Now yes, one could learn this from straight history but “who cares, really” where you learn it from as long as you learn it? I bet Sir Bolt the Mighty didn’t know that (blacks were statutorily denied weapons post 1868)…til now.[/quote]

But Push declared that the BOR didn’t invent rights, they simply secured natural ones, and surely slavery (status of people being property and deprived of other rights) violates Due Process in the BOR on a natural rights basis?

So, I’m still confused - Push thinks the BOR secures natural rights (as opposed to granting rights)(see the Costas thread). Slavery is in defiance of natural rights, presumably. Push is certain (!) the BOR applied to the states. So, does Push believe slavery prior to the adoption of the 14th Amendment was unconstitutional, since the BOR no doubt applied?

Push now says “of course those pre-Civil Wars were constitutional!” - but that doesn’t square with his previous arguments re: the BOR.

Whether there were laws post-1868 that restricted blacks from owning guns is irrelevant - because no one disputes the constitutional infirmity of such a law. And I have no idea why Push brought them up, since I was discussing pre-Civil War gun control laws, and he has yet to explain why he did, though I asked.

I’m not sure much of this matters - but clarity always helps any debate.

[Tiribulus]

[quote]Alpha F wrote:
My understanding is that slaves were not free people.

In terms of morality and the Constitution being based in the Bible, were they not acting in accordance with the biblical principle that slaves ( and not all slaves were black, thought the vast majority were ) were property and therefore did not share the same rights as a free citizen?

So, looking at it exclusively rationally/objectively, it is not that it was that black people were not even considered as people, they simply did not enjoy the same rights as free people, not because they were not people but because legally they were not free, they were property?[/quote]I honestly don’t want to sidetrack this discussion and I really was going to let it go. However, I suppose you have no particular reason to do so, but please trust me when I say that slavery in the bible is among the most consistently misrepresented issues from people who have no idea what they’re talking about. No jab against you. Honest.
There IS slavery in the bible, but it does not even broadly support anything like what was practiced on this continent in this nation’s earlier history despite the wholly erroneous assertions at the time by even some who REALLY should have known better.