Founding Fathers Would Have Allowed Restrictions on Guns

[CenterOfMass]

Justice Breyer's position on this issue is a perfect example of "revisionist thinking". His decisions are generally about what he would like the constitutional documents to say, versus what they actually do say!

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Greg Foster]

Without individuals owning firearms you would be at the mercy of a tyrannical government.

Agreed.

[Cornelius]

Breyer is a Supreme Court justice, not a historian- the only SC judges with history degrees are Scalia and Sotomeyer- and even then, just bachelor degrees. They may have read all of the Federalist Papers (I hope) and personal correspondences of the Founding Fathers, but they're not historical experts. If I wanted a legal opinion, I'd ask a SC Justice (if I could). If wanted a history lesson, I'd ask someone else.

I couldn't care less what the guy thinks about what James Madison may or may not have felt at the time. In any case, Madison wasn't the only one who drafted the Constitution- it was debated and hammered out in conventions and committes.

Oddly enough, the US Bill of Rights was inspired by the British Bill of Rights (from 1689), that allowed citizens to keep and bear arms in defense against tyranny of the government and others. Sadly, this fact is completely lost on Breyer, who thinks "there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

This, my friends, is elitism.

[Buckj]

to Justice Breyer: "Just because you are edjumacated does not mean you have any brain cells"

[mlr1m]

Originally Posted by Der Alte
Without individuals owning firearms you would be at the mercy of a tyrannical government.

I have talked to many in government who honestly believe that this cannot be true. They told me that a government elected by the people can't be tyrannical. That the legally elected government is the people. After the OKC bombing when some said they loved their country but feared their government it caused a major uproar here in Okla. When I talked to a number of government employees about it they said it was impossible to hate your government and love your country. They claimed that the two were the same. That the government is the country.

Michael

[Pistology]

Government is not the country. The country is a collection of the rightful homes and private property of individuals and their tax donations to public lands. The only legitimate government is one that derives its power from the free (democratically represented) individual.

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

[ccw9mm]

I think Justice Breyer would do well to read some of Les Adams works such as The Second Amendment Primer to better understand what the founding fathers really ment and not what he would like to think they ment colored by his liberal bias.

Breyer states what he means: the citizens of this country are beneath his recognition, when it comes to protection of their very lives. He would deny that to citizens, even if it kills them.

The Founders states what they meant in the 2A: shall not be infringed. They put it in there simply as could be, specifically due to the threats being combated ... then and in future, so that it wouldn't kill them.

Breyer should find the first sinkhole and jump in, head first. He should then be pummeled by copies of the Constitution, until he gets it.

[peckman28]

Breyer willfully ignores obvious written text in a legal document. There is no authority granted to the federal government to ban firearms or restrict them. The second amendment is quite clear and is not a "confusing" sentence as some might contend. The Constitution DOES expressly grant the federal government the authority to suppress insurrection, but NOT to disarm the people. The 10th amendment explicity states that powers not expressly granted the federal government are DENIED. The 14th amendment, as originally intended, applied the entire bill of rights to the states, no matter how much the SC chooses to ignore that obvious historical fact. The legal foundation for gun control laws and other federal actions not expressly authorized in the Constitution is just non-existant.

[HotGuns]

shall not be infringed

Lets talk about that little phrase that highly educated idiots,liberals,socialists,politicians and lawyers and dumb people constantly argue about and insist that it doesn't mean what it really means.

SHALL NOT leaves little to the imagination.

I get schooled on this quite often when I do my yearly recertification for my job at the local nuclear plant. They pay me good money to sit in class and make sure that I understand what "shall not" means.
If I am working on a component at the plant using a procedure (everything has a procedure) and the language includes SHALL or SHALL NOT, that means that I can not deviate from said instruction. If I do, I am civilly liable and can face some hefty fines and imprisonment for failure to follow procedure. This is strictly enforced by the NRC and over the years, several people have been fired, fined and jailed for it.

If shall not is included in a phrase, there is no supposition, imagination,intuition, there is no changing anything about it. I simply CAN NOT mess with it. I fail to see why the SHALL NOT included in the Second Amendment is not held to the same standard that SHALL NOT means in Nuclear Plants or other sensitive industries that use that phrase in their daily endeavors.

When the authors got together, they were brilliant and educated men that were men of honor. To them, in their minds, there was no question as to the meaning of the phrase. At that period of time, owning a gun was no different than owning any other property. Registration of weapons was a concept that was used throughout history for only one purpose...so that the ruling elite could know where they were so that they could be seized when they thought rebellion was imminent. There is was no other purpose for registration and that is just as true today as it was then. They knew that and the fight with the British for Independence was still fresh on their minds.

Every single law, registration scheme, licensing scheme, waiting period, LEO sign off that says you can or cant have one, any one that must have a firearm owners I.D. card,a background check that proves your innocence,fingerprints cards that do the same, each and every one of these in an INFRINGEMENT on a right that clearly states that right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

Sure, the lawyer and judges will say that it doesn't mean what it really means. Thats because Judges and Lawyers spend their lives complicating and subverting the English language and their goal in life is to make a written word mean to mean whatever fits their particular agenda at the moment. Politicians and tyrants do the same and they get away with it because this great nation of ours has been dumbed down to the point that not many people question the masters anymore. Since no one is actually learning real history these days, many people simply have no idea of what the Constitution even says or what it means and they don't know any better than to believe whatever they hear.

When some liberal punk in a black robe tells me that the English language doesn't really mean what it says, it infuriates me to the point of rebellion. Of course he is entitled to his opinion same as anyone else, but when he expects me to abide by it, to my way of thinking he is insisting that I believe a lie. I can tell you up front that I will not do so.

The whole point of the Constitution is about rights and the freedoms that we enjoy as citizens. The founding fathers also knew that at some point in time, the day would come when Government refused to respond to the wishes of the people and that the private ownership of arms was necessary to enact change, by blood shed and force if it came down to it so they wrote the Second Amendment specifically for that reason, using English that is as clear as it gets.

Yes, many people are appalled or even scared that it is there. Perhaps they should be if they aren't smart enough to figure it out. As for the tyrants that rule, they will continue to do their best to eliminate the right to bear arms entirely, because as long as the common man owns them, there is only so much abuse that one will take before they have had enough. They know that and they work around the clock to eliminate it while we sleep, wake up, go to work, come home and repeat the process over and over.

One of the ways that they do this, is to insist that SHALL NOT be infringed, doesn't really mean what it means.

[Hopyard]

Oddly enough, the US Bill of Rights was inspired by the British Bill of Rights (from 1689), that allowed citizens to keep and bear arms in defense against tyranny of the government and others.

Seems like highly speculative if not totally revisionist view of whatever the Brits did in that year. Remember, they were literally ruled by a monarch and his powers were only barely limited by both The Great Charter and The Parliament.

On the surface, without further solid evidence, it seems pretty unlikely the monarch of the day in 1689 concerned himself much with the rights of the governed to protect themselves from his tyranny.

[Pistology]

Breyer is a Supreme Court justice, not a historian- the only SC judges with history degrees are Scalia and Sotomeyer- and even then, just bachelor degrees. They may have read all of the Federalist Papers (I hope) and personal correspondences of the Founding Fathers, but they're not historical experts. If I wanted a legal opinion, I'd ask a SC Justice (if I could). If wanted a history lesson, I'd ask someone else.

But legal scholars are trained to base their decisions on legal precedence (history).

I couldn't care less what the guy thinks about what James Madison may or may not have felt at the time. In any case, Madison wasn't the only one who drafted the Constitution- it was debated and hammered out in conventions and committes.

Oddly enough, the US Bill of Rights was inspired by the British Bill of Rights (from 1689), that allowed citizens to keep and bear arms in defense against tyranny of the government and others. Sadly, this fact is completely lost on Breyer, who thinks "there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

This, my friends, is elitism.

Seems like highly speculative if not totally revisionist view of whatever the Brits did in that year. Remember, they were literally ruled by a monarch and his powers were only barely limited by both The Great Charter and The Parliament.

On the surface, without further solid evidence, it seems pretty unlikely the monarch of the day in 1689 concerned himself much with the rights of the governed to protect themselves from his tyranny.

In McDonald, the majority opinion is:

Heller makes it clear that this right [for defense of self, family, and property] is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’ Heller explored the right’s origins, noting that the 1689 English Bill of Rights explicitly protected a right to keep arms for self-defense … and that by 1765, Blackstone was able to assert that the right to keep and bear arms was ‘one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen….’
In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty....
It cannot be doubted that the right to bear arms was regarded as a substantive guarantee....

The majority of the SC McDonald decision (that Breyer claims are historically invalid) are associating the intent of the arms provision of the 1689 English Bill of Rights with what became our 2A and its incorporation in 14A.

[dukalmighty]

They can have my gunss when somebody from another planet lands in my yard and gifts me a handheld death ray device

[QKShooter]

Check out the date of the ratification of the original Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Constitution.
I think the intent is pretty doggone clear.

Constitution of Pennsylvania - ratified September 28, 1776

XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

[oneshot]

A common argument claims that "the authors of the Bill of Rights could not have predicted the power of modern weapons, therefore the Second Amendment cannot have been designed to protect ownership of them." By that analogy, free speech as protected by the First Amendment, would have to be limited to quill pens and unamplified voice. Obviously, the Internet, television and radio could not have been envisioned by the Founding Fathers. That way of thinking has been much favored by Communist dictators who either prohibited typewriters and radios or imposed a strict control over them.
.
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Some organizations would strongly support some Constitutional rights and ignore the others. ACLU is one such group: they pick and choose which parts of the Bill of Rights they deem worthwhile. But the idea behind the Constitution was that the enumerated rights were mutually reinforcing. Losing some of the rights would cause the loss of all in a short order.


Taken from,,, Your local news: Mintruth?


Why is it, that so many say they don't understand EXACTLY what the Founding Fathers intended when speaking of the 2A, but when it comes to the 1ST, the liberals rarely squawk??

The Founding Fathers were masters of the English language, far more than any Scholar, Historian, College Professor, Lawyer, or Supreme court justice of our day and age.
It DOES NOT take a Philadelphia Lawyer to figure out what they meant.
How even a High school graduate of today, could misconstrue what wast meant, is way beyond me.

[DaRedneck]

I dig Texas history. I studied it in college. To know Texas history you have to know Mexican history. Read up on what happens when a despot ignores the constitution and decides to disarm his people. I think the rule was that only 1 out of every 400 or 500 were allowed to own arms. That didn't sit to well with the Mexican citizens.

I love my Texas "Come And Take It" flag.