The 2nd Amendment was written for a different time.

[El Supremo]

&ab_channel=WIRED

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/02/22/what-the-second-amendment-really-meant-to-the-founders/

[qazplm135]

1. unfortunately

we are stuck with the interpretation we have now.

[Aristus]

2. Ask any one of these dipshit 'militia' types if they think we should disband the U.S Armed Forces.

They'll look at you as if you're the crazy one.

But it was originally intended that armed defense would be through a citizen militias, as standing armies were distrusted and believed to be the enforcement arm of monarchies.

[bluestarone]

3. EXACTLY!

They were talking like muskets. THEY had no idea of what we would have in 2021!!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. Correct, sir, on all counts! (nt)

[OldCicero]

4. Weren't they all?

The entire Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights were written for a different time.

We do have some archaic rules and laws.

[El Supremo]

6. I don't think so. But...

the 2nd Amendment was not very foresighted.

[Blue_true]

17. The whole concept of amending the Constitution was so that it would

conform to changing times and be an instrument for dealing with the issues of that time. That is a key element that the so-called strict constructionists gloss over, or simply ignore.

[OldCicero]

24. Frankly, an amendment is what it will take. Like repealing prohibition

Nothing of any real lasting consequence will be accomplished regarding firearms without a constitutional amendment. Everything else will just be nibbling around the edges.

[Blue_true]

32. Yes. I agree.

If we want lasting change, we simply need to make voting by our side a religion. Then we take control of legislatures and governor’s mansions and can quickly approve sane changes to the Constitution.

[MichMan]

44. Prohibition was also an amendment

As it turned out, a really dumb one. It was not part of the Constitution as written.

[Hoyt]

5. Although they are full of rube chit, the gunners will say that back then there were quill pens, yet

the 1st Amendment applies to internet posts, radio, tv transmissions, etc.

But the phrase "well regulated militia," still applies.

Interestingly, some former members of the DU Gungeon -- who disappeared once pro-gun trump was elected -- used to claim the federal law defines the militia as "all people," or some junk like that. Actually it doesn't, but the quote they often provided does say something about men under 45 years of age. To me, that means all the old MFers who are into gunz, don't qualify, even under their rube interpretation.

[EX500rider]

25. See the dick act of 1903

It does indeed say the unorganized militia is males between I think the ages of 17 and 45

[Hoyt]

28. Makes you and most here too old to own gunz, even under gunners'

misinterpretation of 2nd Amendment.

[EX500rider]

30. Of course that's not true either

Since being in a militia is not a requirement

[Hoyt]

31. Nope, it clearly is. Do Gungeoneers have an emergency signal that

calls them all back now that pro-gun trump is gone?

[EX500rider]

35. Feel free to point even one time in US history when you had to be in a militia to own firearms.

Of course you can't so you will go right past that with some other nonsense.

[Hoyt]

36. Racism has always existed, but it ain't right. Gunz and racism are highly correlated.

That opinion got me banned on the Gungeon, but it’s a fact.

[EX500rider]

38. "Gunz and racism are highly correlated." In your mind I suppose they are.

?

[Hoyt]

39. If only you gunners could be happy with that. GOPers used to post that photo on Discussionist

as if it proved something.

[EX500rider]

56. And there is the nonsense, thank you.

Are all gun owners racist? No
Do all racists people own guns? No
Are some gun owner racist? No doubt

[Hoyt]

57. Most of them are. Most racists do own guns.

[EX500rider]

58. That just a feeling you get or do you have any studies to produce? Let me guess...

[Deuxcents]

7. Yes..

That’s why we have amendments...the basic premise is what drives us. JMO...

[hack89]

9. So change it. The constitution explains how. Nt

[Hoyt]

11. We can stop gunners without going to that extreme. People are tired of coddling selfish gun owners.

[hack89]

13. I agree the 2A allows strict gun control

But after hearing your refrain about gun control is just around the corner for 16 years, I am not convinced you have a grasp on the political reality of gun control in America.

16 years you have been singing that song of yours - are things better or worse in your opinion?

[Hoyt]

14. What I don't have a grasp on is why you gunners fight so hard to protect gunz

while innocent people die.

[hack89]

18. But I don't fight you. That's what you refuse to understand

I live by choice in a blue state with strict gun control. All my elected reps support gun control yet I continue to vote for them.

I just don’t see you as a threat to my guns. After 16 years surely you can understand why that is the case? I don’t need to fight you.

[Blue_true]

21. The poster didn't seem to be trying to protect guns.

The Constitution does in fact provide a means for repealing the Second Amendment and replacing it with an amendment that reflects the modern reality of guns.

But because that process requires that 3/4 of state legislatures approve the changes, we are stuck with a second amendment that defines a time when guns were top loaded muskets or pistols that required many seconds to prepare to fire one projectile and were used by people for harvesting wildlife and protection, given the remote nature of their homes from other people, in many cases.
Many modern guns can fire dozens of projectiles in a single minute, a concept that the Founders never considered, but were wise enough to allow future generations to amend the Constitution to conform to the modern realities of those generations.

Herein is the rub. Under current realities, there is no way that the Constitution will be amended to have a gun ownership component that matches the current reality of guns. Now why is that? It happens because the people that want sane gun regulation that matches constitutional wording simply are not as passionate about their goal is the people that are ok with people owning guns that have no purpose outside of war. I often read breathless OPs here on DU about the large number of people that show up to a gun reform protest, or to a BLM protest, but if only 30% of those people vote, nothing at all changes. So the issue isn’t whether the majority of us want sane gun laws or police that pay with their jobs and freedom for targeting certain citizens, the issue is whether we collectively have the determination to vote 100% in ALL elections. A case before the House now about whether to seat a republican I believe illustrates the problem that we have as progressives. I can promise you that the republican maxes out every vote that she could get, but there were most likely hundreds or thousands of people who would have voted for the Democrat that didn’t bother to vote. A similar situation occurred in Virginia in 2017, where a Democrat lost a House of Delegate seat via a game of chance (a blind drawing) after a deadlocked election - when progressives there learned their lesson and made it a habit to vote, Democrats took control of all of state government, and this week, Virginia became the first southern state to ban the death penalty through policy change.

It is not the gunners that are stopping us from enacting sane gun laws that reflect the modern nature of guns, it is us that are holding us back from that because we don’t in mass vote like voting is religion.

[sop]

10. That's why muzzleloaders are the only firearms not subject to federal gun control laws.

Because they use antiquated firing mechanisms, without modern ammunition. Muzzleloaders are still quite accurate at long range, and can be used to kill most large game.

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

12. I read that 2nd amendment sometime ago and it also

mentioned that women should not have guns. So if Boebert wants to spew out the 2nd amendment she needs to get rid of all her guns.

[former9thward]

26. Why don't you show us your copy of the 2nd amendment.

Mine does not say women should not have guns.

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

33. I do not have one and it was quite awhile back.

I thought it had said that but it sounds like I read it wrong. I stand corrected.

[EX500rider]

27. Actually it says no such thing. Nt

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

34. I thought it did. I stand corrected.

[multigraincracker]

42. If you want to go by the actual Constitution,

how come we pay no attention to the 7th Amendment at all. Appeals courts are always throwing out jury awards.

[multigraincracker]

15. The second does not mention guns, pistols or rifles.

Only arms are mentioned. Yet they don’t scream about swords, bayonets, grenades or Stinger missiles.
Gun control doesn’t matter, only arms control.

[Hoyt]

37. In many red states, you can't carry a sword. But gunz are fine.

[multigraincracker]

41. Or knife with a 3 inch blade, brass knuckles,

Hand Grenada or even a shoulder launch ground to air middle. Now those are “arms”.
Not one word about guns.

[multigraincracker]

16. The second does not mention guns, pistols or rifles.

Only arms are mentioned. Yet they don’t scream about swords, bayonets, grenades or Stinger missiles.
Gun control doesn’t matter, only arms control.

Sorry for the double post.

[moondust]

19. British intended to seize colonists' guns

~
The first battle of the Revolution was fought over gun control. The British government wanted to seize the lawfully owned firearms of the colonists. If British troops could disarm the militia, there would be less of a threat to their control.

This is one of the reasons the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution.
~
https://www.mcall.com/opinion/readers-react/mc-american-revolution-gun-control-schuon-20150418-story.html

The colonists didn't have a standing army. Back then they needed their muskets to defend themselves, their property, and their emergent country. Particularly out on the frontier moving West there wasn't much law enforcement to protect them so they needed their muskets to protect themselves and hunt for food. And slave patrols apparently found muskets effective at stopping runaway slaves.

The 2nd Amendment reassured the colonists who depended on their muskets that nobody was going to take them away like the British wanted to do and leave them defenseless. It's in the Constitution!

Things are different now. We have an enormous standing military for national defense, law enforcement is common everywhere, there are no slave patrols, and gun technology is much more deadly. If somebody still has a legitimate need for a gun then let them present their case for approval.

In Australia a person must have a firearm licence to possess or use a firearm. Licence holders must demonstrate a "genuine reason" (which does not include self-defence) for holding a firearm licence[2] and must not be a "prohibited person". All firearms must be registered by serial number to the owner, who must also hold a firearms licence.

[Dial H For Hero]

20. Repeal it, then.

[HUAJIAO]

22. "The United States still seems willing to tolerate a significant degree of instability and violence

on the part of white American men, the demographic group responsible for the majority of mass shootings. The United States also seems willing to tolerate daily rates of gun violence that surpass all but the worst mass shootings, in large part because most homicide victims are people of color.

Again, this level of carnage could not have been foreseen by the men who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As Americans, though, we still live our lives and write our laws within the framework that those men left us, including the Second Amendment. At its best, the Second Amendment was a commitment to citizen participation in public life and a way to keep military power under civil control. At its worst, it was a way for whites to maintain their social domination.

In today’s America, the echoes of 18th-century racial politics still weigh down our society, while the new republic’s commitment to citizen participation is nowhere to be found."

[MichMan]

45. Yet,the majority of single homicides, which far outweigh mass shootings, is perpetrated by black men

With the vast majority of victims also being black. Gun violence impacts the black community substantually more, but it isn't caused by whites.

While all the attention is placed on the recent Boulder and Atlanta shootings, there are that many victims killed every day in cities like Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Washington DC, Chicago, and others.


[link:https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls|

[Elessar Zappa]

47. Mass shootings are random, therefore more concerning.

Most gun crime involving black men is one to one arguments. Still a tragedy but not on the level of randomly shooting ten people in a grocery store or 60 people at a concert. And white men are easily the number one perpetrators of mass shootings.

[MichMan]

48. I doubt the families of the victims feel differently in either type

[hunter]

23. No, not really. White people wanted guns so they could terrify everyone else.

Especially Black people and Native Americans.

[Hoyt]

29. Exactly. And that's why they still want/need them.

[multigraincracker]

43. Governor Reagan was the first to ban

assault rifles. Only because the Black Panthers stood on the capital steps armed with them.

[HUAJIAO]

53. Exactly.... This seems to be one of the forgotten reasons for the 2nd Amendment...

[jmowreader]

40. Read the first ten amendments closely and you'll see a theme emerge

They were written specifically to stop the abuses of the British Crown from happening here.

The First Amendment was to stop two things: people getting locked up or beheaded because the king didn’t like what they said, and to prevent the establishment of an official church.

The Third Amendment was to keep the army from turning people’s homes into barracks.

All the judicial amendments were to prevent the abuses of the Star Chamber from happening here.

The ninth amendment is there to say “everything we haven’t made a law for, you can do.”

And the 10th amendment basically says “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” - it allows the states to write laws governing conduct within their borders.

Now for the dread Second. It is there because Thomas Jefferson hated professional armies and didn’t want one here...which goes to prove he had a memory about as long as his nose, because the militias formed of men grabbing their deer rifles to fight the British damn near lost the Revolution. The only reason we won that war is George Washington bailed Baron von Steuben out of jail (where, in case you were unaware, he was about to be executed for being gay) and put him in charge of the army. We tried that shit again in the Mexican-American War and, once again, had to professionalize the Army.

So...the “well regulated militia” Jefferson envisioned didn’t work and won’t work. We can safely get rid of the useless assault rifles.

And best of all, because there has already been one uncompensated gun grab in the last five years, when the hard right’s hero told people to just hand over their bump stocks or destroy them, getting rid of these guns won’t cost us anything.

[hack89]

46. The 2A comes directly from the British Bill of Rights of 1689

As did much of our Bill of Rights.

[Dem4Life1102]

50. Thomas Jefferson wasn't involved in writing the constitution

He was in France at the time. The reason for the second amendment was to arm white people to put down slave rebellions.

[Midwestern Democrat]

52. He did let Madison know that he would oppose the ratification of the constitution if a Bill of

Rights was not included. Madison was initially reluctant to include the Bill of Rights, thinking that it was unnecessary - i.e. if the constitution did not explicitly grant the government a power to restrict rights, it could be assumed they did not have that power; but Jefferson thought that was leaving too much to chance and that there had to be a list of key individual rights that were explicitly protected.

[Dem4Life1102]

55. Very true

But Jefferson still was not directly involved, he was ambassador to France at the time.

[HUAJIAO]

54. THANK YOU for that... seems to be a forgotten part of history

[Maxheader]

49. imho, the constitution is a living document.

NOT set in stone. But revising it, for any reason will

be tough...Pity , something like these slaughters shouldn't

need a fucking law to fix. All levels of americus government

should restrict the automatics..take it on themselves,

Have some guts...

[Tommy Carcetti]

51. Founders were not in a huge rush to start up a standing peacetime army...

...and so they figured they would just outsource the duty to "well regulated" civilian militias.

That's it. That's the 2nd Amendment in its entirety.