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Quote by: tivodan I am all for an amendment to the Constitution. If you think you can get an Amendment passed repealing the 2nd, go for it. But an end run around it is just nonsense.

We've had a perfectly acceptable "end around" since the SCOTUS first ruled on the 2nd Amendment in 1939, and 8 out of the 11 Circuit Courts of Appeal subsequently affirmed and clarified that ruling. Which is that the 2nd Amendment means exactly what it says, that you have the right to keep and bear arms provided that it is necessary for the maintenance of a well-regulated volunteer civilian militia, as defined by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. That was the exact intent of the founders. If you don't believe me, read the Federalist Papers... they clearly discuss the intent and purpose of militia compared to a standing federal army.

So we don't need an Amendment because the raison d'etre for the Amendment no longer exists... It's moot... meaningless... a quaint vestige. We no longer have volunteer civilian militias because their function is now in the capable hands of our Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard, etc.

All we need is for the Supreme Court to come to it's senses and reverse DC v Heller.

Quote by: tivodan What are your "reasonable restrictions"? And why should we let anti-gun people who tremble at the very thought of people protecting themselves tell us what "reasonable restrictions" are?

Whatever the voters decide are reasonable, and the public supports more gun control, not less. And it's not the thought of people protecting themselves that sets me atremble, tivo. ONCE AGAIN, the United States has the highest gun onwership and the highest percentage of households with guns of ANY country... by far... and yet we remain among the most violent, murderous nations on earth. Not only that, but within the U.S. homicide rates are higher in states with more gun owners.

By your logic, the exact opposite should be true, since according to you, more guns make us safer.

Quote by: tivodan Which of course if you had professional-level education in criminal justice, you'd know was a good argument for my point.

No, I'm sorry, but your analogy to software made no sense whatsoever.

Quote by: tivodan Anyone else's safety? Please show me in no uncertain terms how the safety of others is harmed by lawful gun owners using them for target practice.

In the spring of 1998, two young Arkansas country boys, 13 yr-old Mitch Johnson and 11 yr-old Andrew Golden...



... went target shooting with a pair of perfectly legal firearms owned by one of the boy's grandfather, and both were well trained by the local youth gun safety program. It apparently helped, as the boys demonstrated considerable skill in hitting their targets from 200 ft away, killing four of their female fellow students, their teacher, and wounding 10 others as they rushed from their school after the two boys set off the fire alarm.

Being tough on criminals the way salt-of-the-earth Sarah Palin country folks are, Mitch Johnson and Andrew Golden were both released from jail 6 years later, in 2005. In fact, neither has any criminal record at all and can legally buy a gun if they choose.

Quote by: tivodan but gun prohibition will result in a magical panacea where we all sit around the campfire singing cum-by-ya and eating s'mores.

Well, allowing more guns certainly hasn't worked.

Quote by: tivodan Hmm I don't see any facts in there to support your argument. Probably because it's based on nothing but your own misunderstanding of the role of legal gun ownership in our society.

Oh really??? The mocking tone was a nice touch, but perhaps it's you who should demonstrate how my assessment of the history of firearms in America was wrong. "God may have made men, but Sam Colt made them lethal"

Quote by: tivodan Legal gun ownership is no threat to public safety any more than legal ownership of any other tool.

A gun is not a tool... it's a weapon, invented and designed for one purpose; to kill from a distance. Once you squeeze the trigger, a bullet cannot be recalled or held back.

"Yoshihiro Hattori was a Japanese exchange student residing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States at the time of his death (in Oct. 1992). Hattori was on his way to a Halloween party when he mistook the address and stepped onto the wrong suburban property. The property owner, Rodney Peairs, mortally wounded Hattori with gunfire, thinking he was trespassing with criminal intent. The controversial homicide, and Peairs' subsequent acquittal in the state court of Louisiana, received worldwide attention."

Here's another perfectly legal gun owner using his perfectly legal "tool"...

Allen S. Davis was sentenced last month to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty in a (2007) shooting incident on his front lawn. A jury would have had a difficult time believing he could see well enough to pull off a head shot, yet couldn’t see well enough to determine that his “attackers” were two teenaged girls trying to catch a closer look at his “spooky house”.

Quote by: tivodan Yeah... incorrect precedents should always be followed. Brown v. Board and Roe v. Wade were terrible, illegal decisions, right?

The Surpeme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, then reversed that decision a mere 3 years later. One can only hope the Court will one day reverse Scalia's idiocy and return the law to the way it stood for 70s, unchallenged by the NRA and gun lobby... EVAN AS they told their constituents that they had right the law of the land clearly declared they didn't.

Quote by: tivodan Roberts, Alito, and Scalia claim to stand for original intent. If you think the original intent of the Founding Fathers was for the citizenry to be unarmed, i'm sorry to say you're pathetically uninformed.

To the contrary, that's not at all what Scalia said. He said the original intent -- which clearly referred to the maintainence of a a well-regulated militia - was irrellevent, and that the right refers "to a pre-existing right of individuals to possess and carry personal weapons for self-defense and intrinsically for defense against tyranny,..."

In other words, "strict-constructionist" Scalia is suddenly in the business of "interpreting" the meaning based not on the writings of the time but his own beliefs. And of course, both Roberts and Alito swore up and down during their confirmations that their belief in adhering to 'stare decisis' - standing precendent - rock solid. Right.

Quote by: minorwork 'Would have' requires imagination and the application of counter factuals that. What? You couldn't do that yourself? Larry thought he was safe in a commercial air liner.

That's nice... but once again, please explain how the 2nd Amendment would have prevented Congressman McDonald's airliner from being shot down by a Soviet missile?

Quote by: minorwork Do these work for ya'?

Just fine... except in answering how they defended our freedoms. How about the two examples I included above... they defending "our freedoms" too?

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