[TheForge] Criminal Background Check: way OT: Corrected

Grant Marcoux gblacksmith at alamedanet.net
Sun Feb 1 02:38:48 EST 2009 

Peter:  I would respectfully disagree with Steven's assertion, as proposed
by you.  This is the classic Chicken & Egg argument.  I would submit that
the individual right is followed by the collective responsibility, rather
than the reverse.  This is why the amendment is contained in the Bill of
Rights, vs. being outlined as a clause in the 1789 Militia Act and its
subsequent amendments.

 Some have argued that the right of self-defense, as allowed in British
Common Law predating the Constitution, is what prompted the "right of the
people to keep and bear arms" wording vs. a right-of-states-to-form
militias-not-be-infringed wording.

However, I do agree with your analysis of the removal of militia connection
in the majority opinion in Heller.

I think the original intent of the founders (Madison, at least) re private
ownership of guns, and the militia, can be gleaned from Federalist #46.  His
writing is not surprising, given the spirit of the times.

As for Stevens being one of the more cogent jurists, He has pulled some
pretty unusual reasoning in his time; ie. Kelo v. New London.

The Miller case did not address the individual vs. collective rights debate,
only the relation of short barrelled shotguns to the militia.

Grant

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Peter Hirst
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 8:36 PM
To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Criminal Background Check: way OT: Corrected


Not Orwellian at all.  Stevens is one of the more cogent members of the
court.  What it means is that the individual has the right only because that
is the way the collective right to the militia is realized.  Individual
ownership of the basic weapons was the means of support of the well
regulated militia in those days.  A man was expected to report with his own
weapons.  No communiity could afforf to stockpile those weapons idly in
armories.  The armories (such as those at issue in Lexington and Concord in
1775) were for the keeping of field artillery and powder.  But the militia
could not exist without the individual providing his own weapons.  The
individual right was therefore necessary to support the collective right of
"the security of a free state".  Thus the individual right is only justified
by the collective necessity.  And since that collective necessity no longer
exists (i.e. there are no well regulated militias so they cannot be
neccesary) the individual right.   Hence, no right to a non-militia weapon
(Miller).  The only counter to this is the organic militia or posse
comitatus argument that the milita exists ab initio as every able man,
regardless of whether they have been organized into an actual force.  This
is the argument that disappears after Miller.

Miller says that it is an individual right because the militia clause is
meaningless, not because there is a militia independent of an organized
force. Important difference.

So, being a pure individual right, and not a state's right, it is subject to
the came "reasonable restrictions" that every other one of our so-called
personal rights has been battered with for 220 years.  As it stands now,
your right to keep arms is no better than the federal governments idea of
what is reasonably necessary for personal protection in the home.  That's
all Miller says. By stripping away the Militia clause, the neocons have
stripped away the last vestige of the idea that the second amendment is a
protection against tyranny. Miller gives the federal and state governments
virtually unlimited power to reduce the rights of gun ownership to the bare
minimum.  So much for conservatism.  So much for strict constructionism.  I
can't wait for the real test cases:  the right to keep full-auto assault
rifles, grenade launchers, .50s, Mark-19s, LAWS rockets, Uzis, all typical
infantry weapons.  Then the right to BEAR arms: to carry that concealed
Glock, to walk down main street locked and loaded.  Then you'll see what
these so-called conservatives are really made of.  The feds and the cops
will only ever allow civilians enough firepower to keep on killing each
other.  Nothing any civilian is allowed will ever approach what the cops and
feds will always have available.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Grant Marcoux" <gblacksmith at alamedanet.net>
To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Criminal Background Check: way OT: Corrected


> Lads & Lasses:  Peter is correct on Miller v. US....the court disagreed
> with
> appellant's 2nd Amendment claim on the grounds that there was no
> connection
> between short-barreled shotguns and a "well-regulated militia"  However,
> the
> court blithely ignored the use of short-barreled shotguns in WW1 by US
> troops.  Interestingly, in the Miller case, neither side stood before the
> court to make oral arguments.
>
> The individual rights vs. collective rights arguments are a recent trend,
> as
> Miller dealt with the aspects of a particular weapon in militia service,
> vs.
> a collective vs. individual rights argument.
>
> In Heller vs. DC, sadly, a bare majority found the 2nd Amendment to uphold
> an individual right.  In the dissenting opinion, Justice Stevens commented
> that even an individual right is a collective one, under certain
> circumstances.  Wow...kinda sounds like Orwellian double-speak to me.
>
> Stay tuned
>
> Grant
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Peter Hirst
> Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 2:39 PM
> To: adveniam at att.net; Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Criminal Background Check: way OT: Corrected
>
>
> OK:  I can't stand it any more.  have to chime in with my 2 cents.  Miller
> did NOT say any militia weapon was ok for the private citizen to possess.
> It said that one particular weapon -- a sawed off shotgun --  could NOT
> even
> arguably be protected because it is not a militia weapon.  If you don't
> believe me, try mounting a .50 or a Mark-19 on your jeep next time you go
> to
> the park and see how far the 2d amendment argument gets you.
>
> Second, the SC has NOT said repeatedly that the 2d is a personal right:
> they have said it only once but quite definitively, last year in DC v
> Heller.
>
> SCOTUS also did NOT accept the broad, organic view of what constitutes the
> militia as its justification for the individual right:  in fact they
> rejected any connection whatever between the milita and the right to keep
> and bear arms, choosing instead to treat the first clause as pure
> precatory
> language.  The only such language in the entire constitution, BTW. You can
> thank the NRA for that.   Conservatives should not take much heart in
> this.
> By reducing the that  first clause mere surplusage, Scalia reduced the
> scope
> of the amendment to personal protection in the home, stripping it of any
> meaning whatsoever with repect to securing the community or the state
> against tyranny.  If you think this was a great conservative victory, you
> just watch what happens next time the Fibbies and BATF have some holdout
> faction of  Posse  Comitatus cornered on a remote ridge in Idaho or a
> barracks in Waco.  Go ahead, shoot a burglar in Anacostia, if you think
> that's the grand concept  the framers of the federal government had in
> mind.
> Scalia has much bigger ideas than that.  He and his buddies couldn't wait
> to
> get rid of the Militia clause.  Neo conservatism is NOT about States
> rights.
> Its about preserving the illusion of individual rights while making sure
> that the substance of those rights is completely manageable by the Federal
> government and that the federal government is manageable by certain
> interests.   Sure DC now has to let you keep a 9 in your home, locked and
> loaded.  Big deal.  (Notice BTW that this case is not about the right to
> bear arms -- only to keep them:  that boot has yet to drop.  You want to
> be
> the one to sue for the right to carry on K Street?).   If the Feds -- or
> the
> cops for that matter -- want to clean out an armory in Concord, however,
> they won't have to pry that AR 15 out of your cold dead hands:  they'll
> just
> crush you under an Abrams.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "GRAF" <adveniam at att.net>
> To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 3:33 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Criminal Background Check: way OT
>
>
>> You might think that way. I might think that way, betcha even Andy V.
>> thinks that way.
>> Most of the  gang bangers around here 1. Do not believe they will get
>> caught .2. If they do they will get nothing  significant as a
>> punishment. 3. If they do get a year or two they will be super cool
>> amongst their friends.
>> They are correct on all counts.
>>
>> Mike Graf
>>
>>
>>
>> Andy Gladish wrote:
>>>  What is it that he
>>> thinks he needs so badly that he's willing to hurt others and risk his
>>> own
>>> safety and liberty?
>>> Andy
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:28:58 -0800, Bruce Freeman <freemab222 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
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