I am baffled by the silence here on the most important issue

the tone of that original thread and although I posted to it, I put it out of my mind.

Rob

and there are more than 300 million firearms in the US. The reference to the revered Second Amendment is obvious. I don't know the proportion of those 300 million firearms that might qualify as semi-automatic or illegally converted auto, but it doesn't really matter.

Behind all of this is the obvious point that the Founding Fathers couldn't possibly have predicted the growth of the United States, or its transition from an agrarian economy through an industrial one to a service economy with hugely rich corporations whose resources far outstrip the abilities of individuals to counter-balance them. The Supreme Court ran against more than a century of precedents according to legal scholars interviewed after the ruling.

Inherent in this question is that the Founding Fathers, not being able to predict the change in technology of armaments couldn't legislate for the changes they couldn't predict, and their being unable to predict the incredible influx of immigrants through the 19th Century and thus the pressures for new legislation to cope with pressures they couldn't foresee, and their being unable to predict the changes in the economy which since the 1970's that has strengthened the position of corporations vis a vis the individual. All of this should make you think twice about the old shibboleths of adhering to the letter of the statements of the Founding Fathers instead of to their spirit, their clear intentions. They wanted the individual to live a relatively untrammelled life. They didn't want the United States to become a Corporate Totalitarian State, which is the way it has been going.

Even Eisenhower, an intelligent man warned about Corporations. He saw the "rise of the Military Industrial Complex", but he and everybody else missed the increasing imbalance between Corporations and the interests of the individual American and the country as a whole.

Now your point about marijuana which you included as a joke is exactly the point I'm trying to make. The intent of the Founding Fathers can be judged fairly accurately, but it can't be found in the world of Conservatism. They weren't Conservatives i.e. Tories, they were a rag-tag of radicals, Libertarians (who were effectively 18th Century Anarchists and whose beliefs were quite different from today's Libertarians) and democrats. None of them were gung ho for Corporate rights.

Rob

between the number of guns owners and the ruling about corporations and campaigning? IMO, none. Now just for fun. The 2009 population estimate for the United States is 307,006,550. So there are more than 300 million people in the USA. The number of guns owned by civilians in the United States is between 238 million and 276 million, making country of 268 million people the most armed in the world, the study by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva said. But it also said the 15 European Union nations, with more than 300 million people, have a total of 84 million firearms, with Finland leading in per capita gun ownership. With nearly 200 million guns in private hands, firearms have an important impact on the quality of life in America........Although there were enough guns to have provided every U.S. adult with one, only 25 percent of adults actually owned firearms; 74 percent of gun owners possessed two or more. The proportion of American households that keep firearms appears to be declining. It would appear your more than 300 million firearms is estimated at (albeit slightly) less than 300 million. However, given the number of colonists who owned a rifle or other gun for hunting as a basic meat source, I doubt the founding fathers would have much strange about citizens owning guns. And of all the people in the rural areas I know will either have more than one gun or none as a rule. Hunters almost all have both a shotgun and a rifle, and most have a handgun too. I've never actually seen a fully automatic gun myself in person. I'm not particularly a gun supporter. But I'm not against lawful ownership either. Your inclusion of an apparent bias against gun ownership in a post aimed at a law on campaign financing perhaps is just a red herring. I don't seen the connection between the two. Unless of course you're just including it as a stance against guns as a by blow in your tirade. I'll grant you too many people that shouldn't have guns, but most of them are illegal anyway, so laws against guns don't mean very much to those folks.

forsee the changes that would occur. It is regrettable you can't see that despite the fact that I mentioned it more than once. It is also regrettable that we do not have statistics on firearm from the time of the post revolutionary period. I believe they would be enlightening. And may I remind you of the wording of the Amendment, it says nothing about the reasons for weapons ownership you quote, the frontier, food etc. It was quite specifically about protecting the newly founded Republic from attack from the outside, it wasn't about provisions or even the Indians.

307 million people versus 276 million guns is roughly a 10% difference, 20% if you use the lower figure. And usually a person who owns one own several as you mentioned. My father owned 2 shotguns, 3 rifles and 3 pistols, two of them automatic, but they were from the First World War. I enjoyed them for the glorious examples of engineering they were, and as a kid I played with them and learned to disassemble and reassemble them. But the ammunition was locked up separately. I still own the Luger and the Steyr and the .308 and the .22 rifle both with scopes. I own them, but I do not consider them a right but a privilege and a responsibility.

http://www.slate.com/id/2242208?obref=obinsite

'While Stevens is reading the portion of his concurrence about the "cautious view of corporate power" held by the framers, I see Justice Thomas chuckle softly. (Scalia takes on this argument in his concurrence.) Stevens hammers, more than once this morning from the bench on the principle that corporations "are not human beings" and "corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires." He insists that "they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."' But they get the rights anyway, and have twisted and interfered with the course of elections, even without the new carte blanche extended by the Supreme Court. That is entirely wrong and contrary to the principles evident in the documents surrounding the founding of the US.

However this begins to look altogether too political and I'm withdrawing from this discussion before it goes south.

Rob

what does guns have to do with the decision you started out to talk about. I see no connection, so I considered the gun remarks a purely gratuitous jab at a known sore subject. Or else, an implication that the US ownership of so many guns meant we were all mentally deficient and that's why the court ruling came out that way.

As for the other, of course they couldn't foresee everything, I never heard anyone claim they could, not seriously anyway.

BTW, corporations don't have votes, and this decision doesn't give it to them. It may perhaps make it easier for them to buy votes, but it doesn't give them a vote. And just because the people who belong to a corporation vote doesn't mean they all vote in interest of that particular corporation.

I don't particularly like the decision, even while being skeptical enough to wonder if it does anything than make it easier because the corporations don't have to work as hard find loopholes for contributions as they normally do now.

I objected to the linking of two different issues and trying to make one the result of the other.

Roger

You have the right to bear arms to guard against oppression. Not to shot Bambie, not to be a gun collector, not to protect yourself from bad guys, you have the right to bear arms to protect yourself from an unconstitutional government.

Amendment 2

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.

This part >>>>>>>> being necessary to the security of a free State,

Here's the catch:

http://www.answers.com/topic/militia

We haven't a militia, well not officially. let alone a well regulated one. Who would be in it? Who would pay for it?

This being said maybe laws against automatic weapons are unconstitutional. A very bad idea I might add but facts are facts, that's what it says.

The truth is, they might have been right, but .............

So now what? How do we protect the government and at the same time keep from killing each other off? This will take wise men to resolve.

Back to the courts it goes >>>>>>>>>>

that militia would be used to protect us "possibly", from our own Armies. I would not want to do that with a deer rifle. Yes, this is worse case scenario thinking but then again there was this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

...taken over and deprived of their rights based on a false concept, which continues to this day. So what? A failure does not remove rights, those are eternal.

That is the justification for the right to bear arms, in an 18th Century context. It's a subordinate clause. it doesn't say that's the only reason yo have the right.

The important part is, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That means you have the right for any reason, hunting, collecting, whatever.

- Does "people" include "possible terrorists" and "airplane passengers". Last time I was in the USA I wasn't allowed to carry a small pocket knife into the airplane because they thought it was an Arm.
- Does "Arms" include the several varieties of atomic bombs?

Or is some interpretation of this amendment necessary?

Kees

but not the right to bear arms in an airliner. The rights of the person who "owns" a place trump all other rights. If my personal rule is that you can'r carry a gun into my house, that rule stands.

Just as the First Amendment guarantees free speech, but does not prohibit a theater owner from requiring people to not talk during a performance.

You were booking passage on a privately owned vehicle (as in company owned vs publicly owned) and just as someone might have a rule that guns must be left outside their house, the airlines also have the same right. If you are in your own vehicle on a publicly owned road, the rules change.

the citizens of the United States. That doesn't give you any rights.

Obviously you feel everyone should have more rights over how they enter and exit your home than you do.

Yes, If I don't see you.

The Founders' concept was that ALL people, everywhere, even Kees have these rights. What the Constitution does with the Bill of Rights is guarantee that the government will not attempt to take away or diminish those rights in any way.

You forget the part about the slaves. That is enough to prove the "rights" were for citizens. Don't forget all the talk about "natural born" etc, especially as it relates to Obama in recent election.

The Founders' thinking is made clear in the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Constitution does not say anywhere that rights were reserved only for citizens. The Bill of Rights is there specifically to prevent the Government from impinging on rights that everyone has. The stuff about"natural born", etc. is not about citizens's rights, it's about electing a President. Two totally separate things.

of aliens. I don't know where you are getting the idea that it does. Perhaps you are thinking that the founders believed that our fundamental rights are granted by our creator. That is true. The government doesn't grant these fundamental rights, and it cannot revoke them. That also means that the rights are universal. However, the Constitution does not grant aliens all of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by American citizens.

Perhaps you should tell us where you think the Constitution protects the rights of aliens. The right to bear arms was the original focus that Kees mentioned. That would be a good starting point. I don't think that "the people" include aliens. Perhaps you do.

"Again, it is said, that aliens not being parties to the Constitution, the rights and privileges which it secures cannot be at all claimed by them.

"To this reasoning, also, it might be answered, that although aliens are not parties to the Constitution, it does not follow that the Constitution has vested in Congress an absolute power over them. The parties to the Constitution may have granted, or retained, or modified the power over aliens, without regard to that particular consideration.

"But a more direct reply is, that it does not follow, because aliens are not parties to the Constitution, as citizens are parties to it, that whilst they actually conform to it, they have no right to its protection. Aliens are not more parties to the laws, than they are parties to the Constitution; yet, it will not be disputed, that as they owe, on one hand, a temporary obedience, they are entitled in return to their protection and advantage.

"If aliens had no rights under the Constitution, they might not only be banished, but even capitally punished, without a jury or the other incidents to a fair trial. But so far has a contrary principle been carried, in every part of the United States, that except on charges of treason, an alien has, besides all the common privileges, the special one of being tried by a jury, of which one-half may be also aliens.
____________________________________

The Bill of Rights applies to everyone within the borders of the United States. I never said it applies to people living in foreign countries, if that's what you are implying.

except on charges of treason, an alien has, besides all
the common privileges, the special one of being tried by a
jury, of which one-half may be also aliens

it would make an interesting film script

,.

Amendment 2

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.

no it doesn't say:

" it doesn't say that's the only reason yo have the right."

so we can exclude it as one of your personal wishes and wants.

Nope, wrong about this >>>>>>>>>>>.

"The important part is, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That means you have the right for any reason, hunting, collecting, whatever.""

It is very clear about it's intent. Dissecting it to read the way you want it to is, manipulating it. If that is what they had intended they would not have included the militia portion.

There are other laws to use weapons in self defence, hunt, etcetera but they fall below the constitution in the hierarchy of the Law. The constitution is in effect the foundation on which all other Laws rests.

IN what way was I wrong, exactly? I did NOT "dissect it to read the way I want it to AND I did NOT manipulate it in any way. It reads as I said, and the meaning is what I said it was.

The important part IS, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You really have to understand the language. The words all have actual meanings.

"...shall not be infringed." means you have that right for ANY purpose, not only for use in a militia. It can't be taken away for any reason.

or if you prefer, justifies the reason for the statement. A well regulated militia being necessary for the defense of the nation the right of the people to keep etc etc. Its origin was the British restriction and prohibition regarding firearms because of the pre-revolutionary climate. The Brits knew a revolution was brewing.

However the Supreme Court has construed this as a broadly applicable right rather than a narrow one. In other words I'm agreeing with you, and I never meant the reference to the Second Amendment to be anything but an example of unexpected change.

Incidentally, I never suggested that the SC gave corporations the vote so that's a straw-man argument, they have just given them an even greater opportunity to influence the vote, effectively to interfere with the will of the people. The anti-healthcare lobby and the Teabaggers both of which were created by corporate interests are perfect examples of how far corporations could go before the decision from the SCOTUS.

I fear the corporations even when they claim they are bearing gifts. Homer re-imagined.

Rob