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Just read a very interesting article from Politico on the history of second amendment interpretation and how the NRA transformed from a sportsman's organization devoted to firearms instruction and improved marksmanship to one of the most powerful right-wing lobbying organizations.

One of the most interesting parts to me was the section about the "Revolt at Cincinnati" and the massive shift in the NRA's focus that resulted from it. When I was a kid my dad -- a veteran who worked in law enforcement, and also an amateur gunsmith and collector of antique firearms -- was a card-carrying NRA member who proudly displayed his NRA membership sticker. Then around 1982 or '83 I remember very vividly him destroying his card, removing the stickers from his car, and getting into very loud, angry arguments with my uncle for not quitting (though he did end quitting after the rash of militia-related terrorism in the 90s, which scared him off of gun politics). Since I was a kid at the time, I didn't really understand what had happened (doesn't help that my dad's idea of political expression was mostly loudly yelling about how stupid some people are), but gathered it had something to do with plastic guns. The NRA lead an unsuccessful campaign against attempts to regulate plastic guns that could defeat metal detectors in the early 80's; said regulations were strongly supported by law enforcement, and terrorists were hijacking planes left and right which made the public very sensitive , so the NRA got pretty much creamed by the pro-regulation crowd. It always seemed like my dad's reaction was bit on the extreme side, but reading this article I can see that it was probably the broader shift from a sportsman organization to political lobbying group that probably drove my dad off. He tended to irrationally hate politics.

I also find it really interesting that none of the legal decision involving firearms and the second amendment invoke an individual right to bear arms until after the NRA began its lobbying efforts. I'd always understood gun control to be an aberration of 70s, a divergence from historical trends, but apparently it's the current interpretation which is the recent invention.

Politico wrote:The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun.

There was no regulation on private gun ownership in 1791 when the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution, certainly at the Federal level. And the States didn't get around to firearms legislation until the early 1800s, starting with Kentucky in 1813, I think. So this statement which leads the article is patently wrong.

You know Mattel, a toy company, makes the shoulder stock with the M16 at that time right?

 Breotan wrote:

Politico wrote:The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun.

There was no regulation on private gun ownership in 1791 when the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution, certainly at the Federal level. And the States didn't get around to firearms legislation until the early 1800s, starting with Kentucky in 1813, I think. So this statement which leads the article is patently wrong.

Indeed. The idea of such a thing was utterly inconceivable.

The right to own a weapon would have, in their minds, fallen under natural and inalienable rights. It was assumed and thus never viewed as being necessary to be further clarified. We don't see a need to legislate someones right to breath.

But we do know that the definition of "Militia" by their terms was everybody. Thus the right to own a weapon for the purposes of warfare was implicitly stated by the second amendment. It wasn't till gun grabbers tried to exploit changing definitions that we needed to reassert the true meaning behind it.

This was posted on "The truth about guns" so grains of salt and all... But I think it hits pretty well what I was going to say about Grey Templar's comment:

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/05/robert-farago/2nd-amendment-gun-permit-think/


Basically that yes, the right to bear arms was as natural as breathing and for the Feds to create laws which limited or "infringed" on that right would have been as ludicrous in those days as making a law making breathing illegal.

Politico wrote:The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun.

Right, just like the right to free speech doesnt cover anything but oral speech and old tyme hand crank letters.



The NRA was 100% right to fight bad laws, against "plastic" guns IE GLOCKS when they first came out with polymer handles.

These were RUMOURED to be able to go through metal detectors due to the press taking bad info, and using antiquated metal detectors that missed all sorts of knives and such, running with bad facts causing sensationalism, and all the emotional sensationalist hand wringers ate it up as fact.

So of course when the NRA steps in they look like the bad guy, because everyone thinks the laws will protect them from the deadly glock being carried on a plane through a detector.

Its so much easier to get people to buy into a lie that is on its face, emotionally palpable, then it is to correct them afterwards, no matter how much proof is shown.

Lots of FUDD's who think anything that isnt a wood stock rifle should be banned dont like that kind of thing, and are happy to throw AR and glock type gun owners under the bus.


Meanwhile, anyone who knows anything, knows that a glock will set off the metal detector, and that the laws banning such pistols are stupid, and exactly the kind of thing the NRA should be fighting.

The first "plastic" gun was only just recently made, and it is almost as likely to blow up as fire, and STILL uses a metal firing pin that can set of detectors...


in fact, to this DAY, the media STILL believes its own lie, and claims glocks can go through detectors, its also a common myth/misconception amongst people.




even IF, and this is a BIG if, the brand new 3d printed guns COULD be made with 100% plastic including the pin and chamber,

the AMMO is still 100% metal, and unavoidable so, and 100% detectable.

an interesting article, to be sure. but it doesn't seem to say much for one side or the other. the placement of just one word could change the context of what follows, really. 'an unfettered individual's right...'
change that to 'an individual's unfettered right...', and it could be construed as a pro-gun control article.
of course, it contradicts itself later, with 'Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own—and bring—a musket or other military weapon.' note the words 'every' and 'required'. every man is each man, and each man is an individual. and those men would keep, and bear, their arms in opposition to tyranny, ideally.
i lean against the fence on gun control, really. i am all for an individual's right to keep, and carry, a weapon for the purposes of self-defense. fortunately, i live in a place where that is allowed. look at countries with general bans on handguns. what percentage of the populace of those nations posess handguns? and for what purpose? in a country with such a ban, the only people who would seek to own such a gun for purposes other than defending themselves are, shall we say, 'active' criminals. unfortunately, this means that any civilian who who owns such a firearm for the purpose of defending themselves is also a criminal, legally speaking.
so, while you might say i am pro-gun, i am also in favor of the regulation of guns. anyone who has no intention of using a gun for criminal purposes should not be opposed to their weapons being registered.
a while back, here in the states, there was some hubbub about a law which would basically cause the fbi to be notified if an individual purchased x number of 'assault rifles' (which is a somewhat dubious term, in and of itself) in x number of days. i don't know about you, but if i bought a bunch of guns all at once, i wouldn't be offended if an authority figure showed up on my doorstep asking what i needed those guns for...

 Breotan wrote:

Politico wrote:The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun.

There was no regulation on private gun ownership in 1791 when the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution, certainly at the Federal level. And the States didn't get around to firearms legislation until the early 1800s, starting with Kentucky in 1813, I think. So this statement which leads the article is patently wrong.

I think you're misreading the statement. That there was no regulation on private gun ownership in 1791 doesn't mean that the founder's intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun. It only means that they didn't see any need to regulate guns at the time. I found the interpretation of "to bear arms" offered by the article really interesting, especially in light of the proposed conscientious objector language. Given that reading of the 2nd amendment, it seems like a lot of people could sue their way into the military.

No, it means that they would never ever conceive of why anyone would ever regulate personal firearms and that such an idea was ludicrous. insane. mentally slowed. addled. and many other colorful descriptors.

Unregulated gun ownership was the status quo and nobody saw the need to cement that.

And no, you couldn't sue your way into the military.

 friendlycommissar wrote:
I think you're misreading the statement. That there was no regulation on private gun ownership in 1791 doesn't mean that the founder's intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun. It only means that they didn't see any need to regulate guns at the time.

That is a terrible argument and you are a lesser person for making it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, it means that they would never ever conceive of why anyone would ever regulate personal firearms and that such an idea was ludicrous. insane. mentally slowed. addled. and many other colorful descriptors.

Unregulated gun ownership was the status quo and nobody saw the need to cement that.

To be fair. They lived in an age when the average rate of fire was 3 rounds a minute.

And no, you couldn't sue your way into the military.

No court is that insane... Well maybe in Italy

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, it means that they would never ever conceive of why anyone would ever regulate personal firearms and that such an idea was ludicrous. insane. mentally slowed. addled. and many other colorful descriptors.

Unregulated gun ownership was the status quo and nobody saw the need to cement that.

To be fair. They lived in an age when the average rate of fire was 3 rounds a minute.

Yeah, so?

I find it odd people keep bringing up that fact. its totally irrelevant. Especially when you consider the casualty rates for wars have gone down immensely over the years, as have bullets fired to targets hit.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, it means that they would never ever conceive of why anyone would ever regulate personal firearms and that such an idea was ludicrous. insane. mentally slowed. addled. and many other colorful descriptors.

Unregulated gun ownership was the status quo and nobody saw the need to cement that.

To be fair. They lived in an age when the average rate of fire was 3 rounds a minute.

again, you dont apply that kind of farcical argument to the right to free speech and say it only covers vocal speech but not talking on the phone, through typewriters, or through the Internets.

so put that card away. Calling that kind of argument "fair" is completely the opposite of true.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Yeah, so?

Why do we think the founding fathers intentions matter? Given that they're so removed from current weapons technology, we have no means of knowing what they'd have thought about it. I.E. What they wanted shouldn't matter in the gun debate.

Maybe the Founding Fathers thought "Rights of the people shall not be infringed" was clear enough.

 easysauce wrote:



so put that card away. Calling that kind of argument "fair" is completely the opposite of true.

I'm not. I'm asking why it matters what the Founding Father's thought. Obviously we've been forced to just pick and choose as time has gone on. So debating their intentions is a farce. A vain attempt to appeal to authority so removed from us that it can't be considered valid.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. The idea of such a thing was utterly inconceivable.

The right to own a weapon would have, in their minds, fallen under natural and inalienable rights. It was assumed and thus never viewed as being necessary to be further clarified. We don't see a need to legislate someones right to breath.

I'd say it wasn't as much taken for granted, but more that it was not even considered. It's important to realise that one individual with a musket is damn near close to irrelevant in terms of any potential military presence he can have. Asserting that a private individual should be denied a musket would be just a puzzling as asserting a private individual must not be allowed a musket. It's just a non-issue, something not addressed by that clause for the same reason that it doesn't address the right of men to own and wear wigs.

So, when times change, and rifles with the accuracy, range and rate of fire are developed so that one man really can wreak havoc, well it should come as no surprise that reading and re-reading that one clause, and endlessly debating the placement of that comma, and reading all manner of bits of bad history looking to prove one side or the other doesn't address the basic reality that that one clause says nothing about whether private individuals should be allowed to own guns.

 LordofHats wrote:

 easysauce wrote:



so put that card away. Calling that kind of argument "fair" is completely the opposite of true.

I'm not. I'm asking why it matters what the Founding Father's thought. Obviously we've been forced to just pick and choose as time has gone on. So debating their intentions is a farce. A vain attempt to appeal to authority so removed from us that it can't be considered valid.

so you are against free speech on any tech more modern then the constitution as well then? how could the founding fathers envision the internet?

you are pro seizure of property so long as its more modern tech?

the intentions of the people writing down, inalienable, timeless, human rights, dont matter when determining human rights now?

what malarky... and I do reserve that word for the times it is deserved.

You are applying such hypocritical double standards to the constitution, picking and choosing what is correct only as you see fit.

I appeal to no authority, I quote truths that are SELF EVIDENT, written down by men who were my equals, not my "lords" of hats or otherwise.

morpheuschild wrote:
an interesting article, to be sure. but it doesn't seem to say much for one side or the other. the placement of just one word could change the context of what follows, really. 'an unfettered individual's right...'
change that to 'an individual's unfettered right...', and it could be construed as a pro-gun control article.
of course, it contradicts itself later, with 'Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own—and bring—a musket or other military weapon.' note the words 'every' and 'required'. every man is each man, and each man is an individual. and those men would keep, and bear, their arms in opposition to tyranny, ideally.

The distinction would be that guns owned for the purpose of being part of a state militia could not be limited. But that guns owned for self-defence, or hunting, or just because guns are fun would not be protected under the constitution. Not saying that therefore such weapons ought to be banned, but that the constitution wouldn't have a say either way.

i lean against the fence on gun control, really. i am all for an individual's right to keep, and carry, a weapon for the purposes of self-defense. fortunately, i live in a place where that is allowed. look at countries with general bans on handguns. what percentage of the populace of those nations posess handguns? and for what purpose? in a country with such a ban, the only people who would seek to own such a gun for purposes other than defending themselves are, shall we say, 'active' criminals. unfortunately, this means that any civilian who who owns such a firearm for the purpose of defending themselves is also a criminal, legally speaking.

It's worth pointing that very, very few places have an outright ban on firearms. Australia made waves with its gun control laws in the wake of Port Arthur, but it is still legal to own many kinds of guns, either for farming purposes or just because you want one.

That said, I'd argue our laws are too restrictive, and put an unnecessary burden on legitimate gun use (needing to apply for and pay the fee for a new gun license when you simply want to dispose of an old, worn out gun and replace it with a new gun, or when you change house, for instance). But you can in fact keep a gun in your house, shoot an intruder with it and not be a criminal (provided it met the legal standard of self defence).

 easysauce wrote:
so you are against free speech on any tech more modern then the constitution as well then?

Missing the point.

how could the founding fathers envision the internet?

They couldn't. Which is why their intentions don't matter. We choose where free speech is applied, not some guys from 250 years ago. They don't live in our world and couldn't imagine it. What they wanted doesn't matter anymore.

you are pro seizure of property so long as its more modern tech?

No. I think what the founders wanted is irrelevant to us. You can assume that means all kinds of nonsense I didn't say but you're talking to a fictional person who isn't here.

the intentions of the people writing down, inalienable, timeless, human rights, dont matter when determining human rights now?

Why do you think they should matter?

what malarky... and I do reserve that word for the times it is deserved.

Really? Cause you've got about five fallacies in your post other than the basic appeals to authority that make up almost this entire thread. Talk about malarky

You are applying such hypocritical double standards to the constitution, picking and choosing what is correct only as you see fit.

I am? Please point where.

I appeal to no authority, I quote truths that are SELF EVIDENT,

Ignorance is bliss.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, so?

I find it odd people keep bringing up that fact. its totally irrelevant. Especially when you consider the casualty rates for wars have gone down immensely over the years, as have bullets fired to targets hit.

It says a lot about the combat effectiveness of one guy, or a handful of guys. The thing to realise about the modern world is that a handful of guys with modern assault rifles can rock up in a town and take effective control of that town. The firepower that handful of guys have today used to require a trained and disciplined company of men.

The idea that it would have occurred to anyone in the late 18th century that people should find important the right of one guy, acting as part of no greater organisation, needs to have right to a musket is crazy.


Oh, and trying to make some point about the bullets fired per hit today is a total nonsense, as that is due to the use of suppression fire against enemy fighters who are armed with similar weapons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Maybe the Founding Fathers thought "Rights of the people shall not be infringed" was clear enough.

Then they wouldn't have included anything else, and not mentioned militias or the security of the free state. But they did.

morpheuschild wrote:
an interesting article, to be sure. but it doesn't seem to say much for one side or the other. the placement of just one word could change the context of what follows, really. 'an unfettered individual's right...'

That's why I posted it. I thought it was fairly balanced and objective, just documenting how the NRA has shifted the narrative.

i lean against the fence on gun control, really. i am all for an individual's right to keep, and carry, a weapon for the purposes of self-defense. fortunately, i live in a place where that is allowed. look at countries with general bans on handguns. what percentage of the populace of those nations posess handguns? and for what purpose? in a country with such a ban, the only people who would seek to own such a gun for purposes other than defending themselves are, shall we say, 'active' criminals. unfortunately, this means that any civilian who who owns such a firearm for the purpose of defending themselves is also a criminal, legally speaking.
so, while you might say i am pro-gun, i am also in favor of the regulation of guns. anyone who has no intention of using a gun for criminal purposes should not be opposed to their weapons being registered.

This is pretty much how I feel. I'm a gun owner, and I don't have any issues with some degree of regulation. I find the idea of gun prohibition noxious (especially since I live more than 25 minutes from any police response), but sensible regulations like waiting periods and maybe even licensing don't bother me. But you know what does bother me? How really out there anti-gun control advocates have gotten. We have less gun control now that at any point in my life, and it's getting harder and harder to find pro-gun people who aren't making with the crazy "overthrow the tyranical government" talk, which makes me nervous. 99 times out 100, when someone (left or right) says they're ready to take up arms against the state, I find myself suddenly rooting for the state to win that fight.

And then there's this stuff, and not only do I not want to be associated with clowns like these morons, but these people are so stupid and irresponsible with their firearms that they end up making a compelling argument for licensing. I mean, even if these guys don't have a criminal record and aren't technically mentally incompetent, there really has to be some way to deal with punk teens who bring scary looking assault rifles into fraking fast food joints. Who does that? And then people defend this nonsense like the poor diners who were terrified to see Mutt and Jeff here with their fakie AKs are the ones in the wrong. Just mind-boggling.

Or the fruitcakes who think Sandy Hook was some kind of hoax created by the government to enact gun control. It disturbs me how often i hear people entertain ideas like that with no awareness that they are completely nuts. My big concern is that the NRA, who don't consider sane or rational at all (especially that Wayne LaPierre, that dude is nuts), so completely dominates the pro-gun side of the conversation and is just making it impossible to have sensible gun regulation, which only makes it more likely we'll have irrational and bad laws.

a while back, here in the states, there was some hubbub about a law which would basically cause the fbi to be notified if an individual purchased x number of 'assault rifles' (which is a somewhat dubious term, in and of itself) in x number of days. i don't know about you, but if i bought a bunch of guns all at once, i wouldn't be offended if an authority figure showed up on my doorstep asking what i needed those guns for...

Doesn't the FBI get notified if you buy a bunch of fertilizer? If we're going to check on dudes buying fertilizer, we should definitely check on the guys buying crates of semi-autos. God, can you imagine if something like the Mumbai attack occurred in America? People would lose their ****.

The so-called "plastic guns" of the 80s (the glock is the best known) weren't easily able to defeat metal detectors.

For one, most of the components were metal. the springs, bushings, barrels, slides, etc were metal (generally steel). Only the lowers were plastic - and the glock at least, had the plastic doped with barium, so it was most definitely NOT invisible to x-ray machines.

 easysauce wrote:
so you are against free speech on any tech more modern then the constitution as well then? how could the founding fathers envision the internet?

Obviously there's a process by which the literal principle enshrined at one time becomes a generalised principle as society and technology change.

But the intent must be reasonably clear in the first place. The issue is that here the clause simply isn't clear, and second guessing what the author's might have meant about one particular kind of gun ownership that is actually mentioned outright, and then extrapolating that out in to a general principle is a really flimsy process. It hasn't helped that the area has been filled with junk academia writing politicized history to let people think the founding father's agreed with their own personal viewpoint, but even if that wasn't the case, well frankly its still a stupid way to resolve the issue.

 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. The idea of such a thing was utterly inconceivable.

The right to own a weapon would have, in their minds, fallen under natural and inalienable rights. It was assumed and thus never viewed as being necessary to be further clarified. We don't see a need to legislate someones right to breath.

I'd say it wasn't as much taken for granted, but more that it was not even considered. It's important to realise that one individual with a musket is damn near close to irrelevant in terms of any potential military presence he can have. Asserting that a private individual should be denied a musket would be just a puzzling as asserting a private individual must not be allowed a musket. It's just a non-issue, something not addressed by that clause for the same reason that it doesn't address the right of men to own and wear wigs.

So, when times change, and rifles with the accuracy, range and rate of fire are developed so that one man really can wreak havoc, well it should come as no surprise that reading and re-reading that one clause, and endlessly debating the placement of that comma, and reading all manner of bits of bad history looking to prove one side or the other doesn't address the basic reality that that one clause says nothing about whether private individuals should be allowed to own guns.

The term "the people" always refers to individual citizens in the Constitution. The Revolution was sparked over the British trying to confiscate guns. Their intention was that every American be armed in case armed resistance was necessary against a foreign or domestic government. That means that the guns have to be able to compete against common military guns of the day.

The 3/5ths of a person thing was pretty clear at the time as well, but that doesn't mean we didn't change that as time went on. No reason we shouldn't be able to do the same thing on firearms, but yet...

The 3/5ths of a person thing was pretty clear at the time as well, but that doesn't mean we didn't change that as time went on. No reason we shouldn't be able to do the same thing on firearms, but yet...

Don't forget all (white land owning) men are created equal.

What's that, no land? Too bad bro.

 friendlycommissar wrote:
Or the fruitcakes who think Sandy Hook was some kind of hoax created by the government to enact gun control. It disturbs me how often i hear people entertain ideas like that with no awareness that they are completely nuts. My big concern is that the NRA, who don't consider sane or rational at all (especially that Wayne LaPierre, that dude is nuts), so completely dominates the pro-gun side of the conversation and is just making it impossible to have sensible gun regulation, which only makes it more likely we'll have irrational and bad laws.

Yeah, this is my opinion. There is nothing wrong with gun ownership, but there is something very wrong with US gun culture, and the NRA has played a significant role in driving that culture.

It should be noted, of course, that one issue in there is the failure of the pro-gun side, who remain fixated on symbolic, bad laws. When those laws do nothing to resolve gun violence while jerking around legal gun owners, well it's no wonder the blow back is more extremist gun owners.

 MWHistorian wrote:
The term "the people" always refers to individual citizens in the Constitution. The Revolution was sparked over the British trying to confiscate guns.

And this is why I post in these threads. The idiocy that exists people's mouths is the best damn entertainment this side of Team America

I consider the 2nd amendment just as important to freedom as the 1st.
If you try to take any of my rights away, I will fight for them with everything I can. I've written letters to lawmakers and politicians many times and I've donated to causes that support my beliefs.