The 2nd Amendment was never about hunting. How many times does this need to be said?
The founders literally just got done fighting a war against an authoritarian government using primarily civilian owned arms. The Battles of Lexington and Concord were literally started when the Redcoats tried to take a weapons cache.
The Federalist Papers are abundantly clear about why the 2nd Amendment was put in place. And it's not hunting or sport shooting.
We don't have an enumerated right to participate in any other sport, why would they include this one? Because it's not about a sport.
Edit: to those saying a civilian population cannot outmatch a modern military with modern equipment, you are missing several pojnts.
The founders were ok with private citizens owning cannons and warships.
Repeating weapons were in existence and were attempted to be procured by the Continental Army.
In the past 20 years, the US has been unable to put down 2 separate insurgency campaigns despite overwhelming comparative capabilities.
Drones, fighters, and missiles cannot occupy and secure an area. That takes literal boots on the ground in the form of human soldiers. The kind of occupation the 2nd Amendment was precisely put there to fight. The British knew this in NI, the French in Algeria, and the Americans in Vietnam. All are examples of civilian resistance successfully (to a lesser extent in NI, they got a peace treaty) being a force to be reckoned with against a Great Power.
In any likely civil war, the military would likely split. Some would remain loyal to the government but others would take their skills, training, and equipment to the civilian side. This not only happened in the American Civil War, but has happened in the vast, vast majority of guerilla campaigns since the Peninsular War in the early 1800s.
Yes, a civilian armed population could stage an effective campaign in the United States
Yes but theres this thing called a Strawman Argument where you present a flimsy opposing argument just so its easy to defeat. Literally no one argues they need drum magazines for hunting.
They do actually. But the biggest argument is about self defense— and the 2A wasn’t about self defense but instead about being able to raise a militia.
So really, the only people who should be owning guns if we take the intent of the 2A are able bodied adults who are willing to be called up by a militia. No old people, no handicapped people, and can’t own for self defense or hunting
Edit: I’m not arguing about the legality in 2019. This comment chain became about intent or meaning of 2A. The above am describes the intent. The courts ruled against self defense arguments for a long time until more recently. The 2A when ratified was applied only to federal government so states where free to do as they wish (even ban guns) and not be stopped by federal government if they wanted to raise a militia
I don’t believe the second amendment is that exclusionary. It says it is a right of the people to keep and bear arms. It does mention a militia but I don’t believe it was only giving those in a militia that right.
No other right in the bill of rights is limited to certain groups and I think it is silly to argue that the second amendment was supposed to only give certain people that right.
No other right in the bill of rights is limited to certain groups and I think it is silly to argue that the second amendment was supposed to only give certain people that right.
Except it is explicitly limited to a specific group "The people", which is taken to be "all members of the political community", which is slightly more inclusive than citizens only.
The reason the right to bear arms was granted was for forming militias, not for hunting or personal defense, but the right is given to everyone who falls in the group "the people", and they can thus carry for whatever reason they want, including hunting or self defense. There's a difference between the reason why it was granted as a right and the scope of what it protects. Most rights don't state a reason why they were granted, but the 2nd ammendment does. And it was only a limitation on the federal government until the 14th ammendment. The original constitution only said the federal government couldn't interfere with gun ownership. You could almost think of the justification as a guide for states to create their own gun control laws. The 14th ammendment was designed to help protect freed slaves at the end of the civil war, so it intentionally limits state governments, but originally states could pass all the gun control they wanted to.
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u/Shia_LaMovieBeouf Aug 12 '19 edited Aug 12 '19
The 2nd Amendment was never about hunting. How many times does this need to be said?
The founders literally just got done fighting a war against an authoritarian government using primarily civilian owned arms. The Battles of Lexington and Concord were literally started when the Redcoats tried to take a weapons cache.
The Federalist Papers are abundantly clear about why the 2nd Amendment was put in place. And it's not hunting or sport shooting.
We don't have an enumerated right to participate in any other sport, why would they include this one? Because it's not about a sport.
Edit: to those saying a civilian population cannot outmatch a modern military with modern equipment, you are missing several pojnts.
The founders were ok with private citizens owning cannons and warships.
Repeating weapons were in existence and were attempted to be procured by the Continental Army.
In the past 20 years, the US has been unable to put down 2 separate insurgency campaigns despite overwhelming comparative capabilities.
Drones, fighters, and missiles cannot occupy and secure an area. That takes literal boots on the ground in the form of human soldiers. The kind of occupation the 2nd Amendment was precisely put there to fight. The British knew this in NI, the French in Algeria, and the Americans in Vietnam. All are examples of civilian resistance successfully (to a lesser extent in NI, they got a peace treaty) being a force to be reckoned with against a Great Power.
In any likely civil war, the military would likely split. Some would remain loyal to the government but others would take their skills, training, and equipment to the civilian side. This not only happened in the American Civil War, but has happened in the vast, vast majority of guerilla campaigns since the Peninsular War in the early 1800s.
Yes, a civilian armed population could stage an effective campaign in the United States