CLARENCE THOMAS: "The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not 'a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees'."

[berryberry]

Big victory for the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and the 2nd Amendment

BREAKING: Supreme Court votes 6-3 to STRIKE DOWN unconstitutional New York concealed carry restrictions

The Supreme Court today: "We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need....[That] is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self defense."

[Devo]

This is the death of gun control, its that large of a win, New York, Kali, and every other state that doesn't issue carry permits to the masses, is going to have to come up with a new system that allows anyone to easily get a carry permit.

Imagine, riding the subway in NYC but being able to carry a gun to protect yourself.

This is a huge day for one, gun rights freedoms, and a warning to criminals, you aren't the only ones who can carry in formerly gun free zones.

[suspiciouscouch]

Originally Posted by Devo

Imagine, riding the subway in NYC but being able to carry a gun to protect yourself.

Are you afraid to ride the NYC subway?

[Devo]

I have never been to NYC, but I have ridden the Burghs subway and train system.

Honestly, I have no desire to go to NYC, but the people who have to suffer living there, it may get better.

[Salty Again]

... Well, right-about the same time, the soft Republicans
are voting-away some of the 2nd Amendment protections.

The Supreme Court may need to step-in here also.

#### Salty

[d.bonner]

As an originalist, I find it difficult to simply ignore the well regulated militia portion of the 2nd. Clearly the amendment was intended as a defense against tyranny. Yet, it also required that we all be part of said militia (now National Guard). I can't see requiring military service as a prerequisite for carrying, and I can't simply ignore that the founders were not giving permission for anyone to own any type of arms. Personally, I think there needs to be control over citizens bearing arms. Surface to Air missiles are "arms". If every Tom, Dick, and Harry were able to buy those, it would be the end of air travel as we know it. Thoughts?

[Devo]

Originally Posted by d.bonner

As an originalist, I find it difficult to simply ignore the well regulated militia portion of the 2nd. Clearly the amendment was intended as a defense against tyranny. Yet, it also required that we all be part of said militia (now National Guard). I can't see requiring military service as a prerequisite for carrying, and I can't simply ignore that the founders were not giving permission for anyone to own any type of arms. Personally, I think there needs to be control over citizens bearing arms. Surface to Air missiles are "arms". If every Tom, Dick, and Harry were able to buy those, it would be the end of air travel as we know it. Thoughts?

The National Guard is not a militia, its a part of the standing Army, just being held in reserve.

The "Militia" is made of normal citizens who are called to serve when the standing Army and the National Guard cannot handle the jobs themselves, or, aren't present.

There was no "Army" prior to revolution, you had some professional soldiers, even Washington served the British, but no true American Army, so, the normal citizens brought themselves, their weapons, and joined the fight.

Which, is EXACTLY what you are seeing in the Ukraine, though in that case, the government is handing out rifles to those citizens, because very few people actually own firearms to bring themselves to the fight.

As for SAMS, there was an accounting after we gave them to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, and they know lots went into the civilian marketplace, whats going on in Ukraine is a hundred times worse, just by the numbers of rockets and missles we are sending.

Ukraine is every bit as corrupt as Russia, its almost guaranteed some of those arms are going to be sold to someone evil.

I have seen very good documentaries, showing that the jet shot down off of Long Island, flight 800 I believe, was done with smuggled in SAMS, three of them in fact, and, that was the cause of the crash.

WE are the militia, and able bodied male, between 18 and 65, not the National Guard.

[Devo]

Also D. Bonner, if you are an originalist, you need to spend some time reading the founding fathers thoughts on why we needed to have firearms, words change, not the meanings, "Well Regualated" means "Well trained" in todays terms, IE, you should be capable of operating your weapon and hitting someone with it.

[Smarty1]

While the right to defend oneself certainly is an inherent human right and reason enough to support the Swcond Amendment, the Founders certainly had a different take on that amendment, which is the reason for the subordinate clause preceding the main text. We take a stable government that (mostly) respects the inherent human rights and liberty of its citizens for granted. The founders did not. They were all too familiar with monarchies, nobility, and tyrannical government that abused the liberty of its citizens for its own benefit. They just finished fighting a war to free themselves from that type of government; the last thing they wanted was to find themselves living under a new government that was no better than the one they had just overthrown. Thus, the Second Amendment, giving the citizens at least a fighting chance should the new government outlined in the Constitution ever sink into tyranny.

Let me put it in an example that the lefties can understand. You are screaming to high hell about Jan 6 being a coup. It really wasn’t (and deep down you know it wasn’t), it was a demonstration that got out of hand and resulted in people trying to intimidate Congresssmen and Senators, which is certainly worthy of prosecution. But it was not a serious attempt to overthrow the government.

We can debate Trump’s role in this, but let’s suppose that instead of a riot, there had been an actual coup. Suppose Trump sent a band of goons to the Capitol with automatic weapons to gun down all the Senators and Congressmen. He also has his goons take out Biden, Harris, Pence, his entire cabinet, and anyone else who might legitimately have a claim to be POTUS on Inauguration Day. (That is what an ACTUAL coup would have looked like BTW)

What are we as citizens going to do about it? We would all recognize that Trump in this hypothetical was not a legitimate leader. We would need an armed insurrection to overthrow him and restore our representative republic. This would be difficult to do, and Trump’s hypothetical coup would likely go unchallenged if there were no arms available to the citizens. Prevention of such a horrible hypothetical situation was the real reason that the founders included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

[Smarty1]

BTW, there is a way to reduce the prevalence of gun violence to a large degree without any type of gun control. It isn’t a particularly political popular idea though, and probably has no realistic way of ever being implemented. It would not prevent the mass shootings such as Uvalde or Buffalo, but those types of crimes actually represent a very small percentage of gun homicides in the US.

I will have to express this carefully to avoid running afoul of site rules (and hopefowe are all intelligent enough to get the meaning, even the lefties ��) By far the largest cause of gun violence in the US is related to the sale and distribution of illegal ice cream. Gangs in cities often fight other gangs over the areas in which they can sell ice cream. Ice cream deals often go bad, resulting in gun violence. The consumption of ice cream leads to ancillary crime, often escalating to shootings.

So what is the answer? Make ice cream sale and consumption legal. We are already starting down that road. In a large portion of the country, the sale and consumption of one particular flavor of ice cream is now legal. All of the arguments for keeping it illegal seem to have fallen flat at this point. I haven’t heard of any great increase in consumption of this ice cream flavor in states like Colorado and Washington. There has not been an economic or societal collapse caused by legalized ice cream.

So why not just make all flavors of ice cream legal? This is an unpopular idea, but theoretically at least those on the Right should support it. If you are a believer in limited constitutional government then please show me where the Constitution grants the Federal Government the power to regulate what an adult citizen may or may not consume. Lefties are all about bodily autonomy (and choice or does that only apply to abortion?) So what is the objection?

Sure, consuming ice cream is harmful to people, but does making it illegal really stop people from doing it? Considering the site we are on, I would think we have all encountered many ice cream eaters; making it illegal did not prevent it. Further it is quite possible that many ice cream eaters are reluctant to seek help for their ice cream issue because there is a very real chance they could wind up going to jail. Simple fact: people will eat ice cream whether or not it is legal. Making it legal would likely not have a significant effect; those who don’t eat ice cream now likely are not going to start if it becomes legal.

What legalizing ice cream would do is cut the teeth out from the big organized crime syndicates who currently control ice cream distribution. Those who want ice cream no longer need to buy it from these groups, gang wars over ice cream turf would decline, and violence overall would as well. I am sure that there would still be street crime — nothing will ever stop it. There will still be shootings, but the motivation behind the majority of shootings that now occur would be eliminated.

[suspiciouscouch]

Originally Posted by Devo

Honestly, I have no desire to go to NYC, but the people who have to suffer living there, it may get better.

I'd encourage you to go to NYC sometime.

[chizzy]

Originally Posted by Smarty1

BTW, there is a way to reduce the prevalence of gun violence to a large degree without any type of gun control. It isn’t a particularly political popular idea though, and probably has no realistic way of ever being implemented. It would not prevent the mass shootings such as Uvalde or Buffalo, but those types of crimes actually represent a very small percentage of gun homicides in the US.

I will have to express this carefully to avoid running afoul of site rules (and hopefowe are all intelligent enough to get the meaning, even the lefties ��) By far the largest cause of gun violence in the US is related to the sale and distribution of illegal ice cream. Gangs in cities often fight other gangs over the areas in which they can sell ice cream. Ice cream deals often go bad, resulting in gun violence. The consumption of ice cream leads to ancillary crime, often escalating to shootings.

So what is the answer? Make ice cream sale and consumption legal. We are already starting down that road. In a large portion of the country, the sale and consumption of one particular flavor of ice cream is now legal. All of the arguments for keeping it illegal seem to have fallen flat at this point. I haven’t heard of any great increase in consumption of this ice cream flavor in states like Colorado and Washington. There has not been an economic or societal collapse caused by legalized ice cream.

So why not just make all flavors of ice cream legal? This is an unpopular idea, but theoretically at least those on the Right should support it. If you are a believer in limited constitutional government then please show me where the Constitution grants the Federal Government the power to regulate what an adult citizen may or may not consume. Lefties are all about bodily autonomy (and choice or does that only apply to abortion?) So what is the objection?

Sure, consuming ice cream is harmful to people, but does making it illegal really stop people from doing it? Considering the site we are on, I would think we have all encountered many ice cream eaters; making it illegal did not prevent it. Further it is quite possible that many ice cream eaters are reluctant to seek help for their ice cream issue because there is a very real chance they could wind up going to jail. Simple fact: people will eat ice cream whether or not it is legal. Making it legal would likely not have a significant effect; those who don’t eat ice cream now likely are not going to start if it becomes legal.

What legalizing ice cream would do is cut the teeth out from the big organized crime syndicates who currently control ice cream distribution. Those who want ice cream no longer need to buy it from these groups, gang wars over ice cream turf would decline, and violence overall would as well. I am sure that there would still be street crime — nothing will ever stop it. There will still be shootings, but the motivation behind the majority of shootings that now occur would be eliminated.

Excellent post sir

[berryberry]

Originally Posted by chizzy

Excellent post sir

While I disagree with his solution, it was indeed well reasoned. Oh and did someone say ice cream

[Devo]

Originally Posted by Smarty1

BTW, there is a way to reduce the prevalence of gun violence to a large degree without any type of gun control. It isn’t a particularly political popular idea though, and probably has no realistic way of ever being implemented. It would not prevent the mass shootings such as Uvalde or Buffalo, but those types of crimes actually represent a very small percentage of gun homicides in the US.

I will have to express this carefully to avoid running afoul of site rules (and hopefowe are all intelligent enough to get the meaning, even the lefties ��) By far the largest cause of gun violence in the US is related to the sale and distribution of illegal ice cream. Gangs in cities often fight other gangs over the areas in which they can sell ice cream. Ice cream deals often go bad, resulting in gun violence. The consumption of ice cream leads to ancillary crime, often escalating to shootings.

So what is the answer? Make ice cream sale and consumption legal. We are already starting down that road. In a large portion of the country, the sale and consumption of one particular flavor of ice cream is now legal. All of the arguments for keeping it illegal seem to have fallen flat at this point. I haven’t heard of any great increase in consumption of this ice cream flavor in states like Colorado and Washington. There has not been an economic or societal collapse caused by legalized ice cream.

So why not just make all flavors of ice cream legal? This is an unpopular idea, but theoretically at least those on the Right should support it. If you are a believer in limited constitutional government then please show me where the Constitution grants the Federal Government the power to regulate what an adult citizen may or may not consume. Lefties are all about bodily autonomy (and choice or does that only apply to abortion?) So what is the objection?

Sure, consuming ice cream is harmful to people, but does making it illegal really stop people from doing it? Considering the site we are on, I would think we have all encountered many ice cream eaters; making it illegal did not prevent it. Further it is quite possible that many ice cream eaters are reluctant to seek help for their ice cream issue because there is a very real chance they could wind up going to jail. Simple fact: people will eat ice cream whether or not it is legal. Making it legal would likely not have a significant effect; those who don’t eat ice cream now likely are not going to start if it becomes legal.

What legalizing ice cream would do is cut the teeth out from the big organized crime syndicates who currently control ice cream distribution. Those who want ice cream no longer need to buy it from these groups, gang wars over ice cream turf would decline, and violence overall would as well. I am sure that there would still be street crime — nothing will ever stop it. There will still be shootings, but the motivation behind the majority of shootings that now occur would be eliminated.

Yep, ending the prohibition against all ice cream varieties would go a long way as, 3 of 4 ice cream related deaths are in the distribution, not from fatal brain freeze among its users.

Further, you could distribute low cost, and safe varieties to limit that fatal brain freeze, assuring there is enough milkfat to be tasty, but not enough milkfat to cause fatal brain freeze.

However, its still a fact that most fatal brain freeze occurs among chocolate ice cream distributors, not vanilla, bannana, or dulce de leche distributors.

Perhaps instead of multi day background checks on ice cream aged 21 days or less, it should be applied to all chocolate ice cream varieties.

Imagine if you will, if that demographic was forced to undergo a stricter scrutiny to use their constitutional rights?

Think that would pass the senate?

No way.

[Devo]

Originally Posted by suspiciouscouch

I'd encourage you to go to NYC sometime.

For what reasons would you suggest I or anyone visit NYC?