"The Second Amendment: An Irrelevant Relic"

[Gunco]

Showing his true colors, Obama supporter Joe Lauria wants to repeal the Second Amendment. Obama can try to confuse the voters, but his most ardent supporters oppose your right to keep and bear arms, and in reality, so does Obama.

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[sjohnson]

Damned bolshevik!

Even after the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment's guarantee has nothing to do with arming a standing army, this quisling has the unmitigated gall to state the Second is irrelevant because we HAVE standing armies.

[ptannjr]

Joe Lauria: The Second Amendment: An Irrelevant Relic - Politics on The Huffington Post

The Second Amendment: An Irrelevant Relic
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Posted June 27, 2008 | 04:09 AM (EST)
Read More: Arms, Britain, Handguns, Militia, Sam Adams, Second Amendment, Supreme Court, Politics News

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The Second Amendment was written after a war in which a new nation without a standing army defeated the biggest standing army on the planet. To defend itself, the new country relied on citizens arming themselves in civilian militias.

Ever since Britain had permanently garrisoned troops in Massachusetts to put down the brewing rebellion in 1768, opposition to standing armies ran deep among Americans. The Revolution was nearly lost because the Continental Congress for years refused Washington's pleading for a standing army. Sam Adams, before he and his class of merchants had won, believed a permanent force was "forever dangerous to civil liberties."

"Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a body distinct from the rest of the citizens," Adams said. "They have arms always in hand..." But, "the Militia is composed of free citizens. There is, therefore, no danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own rights..." Adams amended his position as the war dragged on, realizing the necessity of a trained, disciplined force in extreme circumstances. But once the war was over, he returned to his earlier position, saying a standing army was no longer needed.

Because of this distrust of standing armies the new republic wrote into its Constitution the Second Amendment, ensuring that citizens, and not a permanent state military, would bear arms to protect the land.

The United States today has the largest standing armed forces ever assembled. The militias are now called the standing National Guard.

The rationale for the Second Amendment is completely lost in history. It has as much relevance and moral force today as Section 2 of Article 1 that permitted slavery.

The Second Amendment means nothing unless we disband the National Guard and America's armed forces.

It is a dangerous absurdity to think it can justify the sale and possession of handguns. The Framers would surely be amazed by Thursday's Supreme Court decision and would wonder what had become of their republic.

The Second Amendment must be repealed.

[gunkgy]

From the Supreme Court decision yesterday

Page 25


3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and
Operative Clause
We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with
an operative clause that creates an individual right to
keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the
history that the founding generation knew and that we
have described above. That history showed that the way
tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the ablebodied
men was not by banning the militia but simply by
taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or
standing army to suppress political opponents. This is
what had occurred in England that prompted codification
of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.
The debate with respect to the right to keep and bear
arms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was
not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was)
but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution.
During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that
the federal government would disarm the people in order
to impose rule through a standing army or select militia
was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. See, e.g., Letters
from The Federal Farmer III (Oct. 10, 1787), in 2 The
Complete Anti-Federalist 234, 242 (H. Storing ed. 1981).
John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s
“command of the militia” could be used to create a “select
militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a separate
concern, that “[w]hen a select militia is formed; the
people in general may be disarmed.” 2 Documentary
History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508–509 (M.
Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). Federalists
responded that because Congress was given no
power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep
and bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people.
See, e.g., A Pennsylvanian III (Feb. 20, 1788), in The Origin of the Second Amendment 275, 276 (D. Young ed.,
2d ed. 2001) (hereinafter Young); White, To the Citizens of
Virginia, Feb. 22, 1788, in id., at 280, 281; A Citizen of
America, (Oct. 10, 1787) in id., at 38, 40; Remarks on the
Amendments to the federal Constitution, Nov. 7, 1788, in
id., at 556. It was understood across the political spectrum
that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen
militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive
military force if the constitutional order broke down.
It is therefore entirely sensible that the Second Amendment’s
prefatory clause announces the purpose for which
the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia.
The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving
the militia was the only reason Americans valued the
ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more
important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat
that the new Federal Government would destroy the
citizens’ militia by taking away their arms was the reason
that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified
in a written Constitution. JUSTICE BREYER’s assertion
that individual self-defense is merely a “subsidiary
interest” of the right to keep and bear arms, see post, at
36, is profoundly mistaken. He bases that assertion solely
upon the prologue—but that can only show that selfdefense
had little to do with the right’s codification; it was
the central component of the right itself.

[upgrayedd]

That guy is a real asshole! Part of me thinks that he wrote it just to "stir the shit" and get attention.

I read a few comments and the one that REALLY makes me the angriest is "..we should repeal the second amendment..."

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

here's a few options for "those people"
-move to Canada
-move to France/UK etc
-Buy a gun yourself and get familiar with one
-DEAL WITH IT.

Instead of loving America for what it is, they hate is for what it isnt and SCURRY to try and change things.BIG THINGS, like civil rights.
The 2nd is there in case they try and take the others away.
I feel like aksing them what other civil liberties that they would erase or give up...since THEY dont use them.
NEVERMIND the other almost 300millin gun owners in the US(this grows by 1$ annually)

I hate nazi's, American flag burners and the thought of gay marriage, but I HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT!!
These people need more constructive issues to deal with like...
OBESITY
CANCER
DRUNK DRIVING

leave my damn guns alone!!!!!!!!!

[moleman]

I agrees with upgrayedd in that his guy is just trying to stir the pot to get attention. If joe lauria thinks its a "dangerous absurdity" to own a gun then fine, don't buy one your problem is solved. Just because I don't agree with what he is saying, you don't see me wanting free speach taken away.