Gun Control and Second Amendment Rights

[EdwardsTo]

Tori here! I am looking for as much information (but don't want to be too overwhelmed!) for gun control and how it violates our second amendment rights (that's my argument, the rest of the class is doing gun control and mental health issues, etc.). I'd also be open to any opinions you guys have, but please keep it as appropriate as possible as I will be putting it into a paper and would appreciate my Professor thinking I'm not a gun swinging freak

I will also need some things for counterarguments, so places or people trying to say it's not and things like that.

Thanks so much for the help in advance!

Tori

[jgalt]

Anything that prevents the ownership or the use of firearms (like ammo bans, for example) by private citizens would certainly be unconstitutional. Since the 2A originally protected specifically those arms that would of use to someone going to war, any partial weapon or ammunition ban that prevented the use of any one or more of those types of arms would also be unconstitutional.

Despite what you are likely to hear from a great many respondents here, that's pretty much it.

Just about any other type of "gun control" you can think of - like regulation (or even the banning) of where & when a person can carry outside their home or property (time & manner restrictions as they were called in the 18th century), bans on felons possessing firearms, etc, were common place when the Constitution & Bill of Rights were written & ratified and were not challenged as unconstitutional at the time. Some individual state constitutions provide greater protections against some types of "gun control" (modern term), but the first two sentences above pretty much cover the 2nd Amendment.

Now, whether or not virtually any type of so-called "gun control", especially the vast majority of the proposals put forth by Democrats / DFLers since the 1960s can be rationally justified as either effective in their purported goals (reducing "violence" or firearm injuries / deaths) or morally acceptable in a society that professes to be based on fundamental individual rights is an entirely different discussion...

And welcome to the mad house forum!

[bstrawse]

Tori here! I am looking for as much information (but don't want to be too overwhelmed!) for gun control and how it violates our second amendment rights (that's my argument, the rest of the class is doing gun control and mental health issues, etc.). I'd also be open to any opinions you guys have, but please keep it as appropriate as possible as I will be putting it into a paper and would appreciate my Professor thinking I'm not a gun swinging freak

I will also need some things for counterarguments, so places or people trying to say it's not and things like that.

Thanks so much for the help in advance!

Tori

Legal cases to read (the wikipedia entries are good) - US Supreme Court
Heller v. DC
McDonald v. Chicago

I would start there....
b

[bstrawse]

BTW - welcome.

Also - which school? I frequently wear my GOCRA T-Shirt at the U of MN (I'm in grad school at Carlson)
B

[XDM45]

I would also look into Warren v. District of Columbia for only one of many reasons why we should own firearms, which is allowed under the 2A.

[Le Pistolero]

There's been some good debateing for a month or two over here. just read back and find the stories on gun control and read the comments.

https://www.facebook.com/MPRnews

[EdwardsTo]

Anything that prevents the ownership or the use of firearms (like ammo bans, for example) by private citizens would certainly be unconstitutional. Since the 2A originally protected specifically those arms that would of use to someone going to war, any partial weapon or ammunition ban that prevented the use of any one or more of those types of arms would also be unconstitutional.

Despite what you are likely to hear from a great many respondents here, that's pretty much it.

Just about any other type of "gun control" you can think of - like regulation (or even the banning) of where & when a person can carry outside their home or property (time & manner restrictions as they were called in the 18th century), bans on felons possessing firearms, etc, were common place when the Constitution & Bill of Rights were written & ratified and were not challenged as unconstitutional at the time. Some individual state constitutions provide greater protections against some types of "gun control" (modern term), but the first two sentences above pretty much cover the 2nd Amendment.

Now, whether or not virtually any type of so-called "gun control", especially the vast majority of the proposals put forth by Democrats / DFLers since the 1960s can be rationally justified as either effective in their purported goals (reducing "violence" or firearm injuries / deaths) or morally acceptable in a society that professes to be based on fundamental individual rights is an entirely different discussion...

And welcome to the mad house forum!

So, if they started putting restrictions on how you can get a firearm, saying having to require mental health checks and such, isn't really a ban? Or is it...

[EdwardsTo]

Tori here! I am looking for as much information (but don't want to be too overwhelmed!) for gun control and how it violates our second amendment rights (that's my argument, the rest of the class is doing gun control and mental health issues, etc.). I'd also be open to any opinions you guys have, but please keep it as appropriate as possible as I will be putting it into a paper and would appreciate my Professor thinking I'm not a gun swinging freak

I will also need some things for counterarguments, so places or people trying to say it's not and things like that.

Thanks so much for the help in advance!

Tori

Legal cases to read (the wikipedia entries are good) - US Supreme Court
Heller v. DC
McDonald v. Chicago

I would start there....
b

Already looking into them! First things dad said to look into haha... and I'm at Moorhead State.

[FJ540]

Go back to the begining - the NFA. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictiona ... ct+of+1934

When you consider the $200 tax, don't think of it as a couple pairs of shoes in today's money. Think of it as more than a years wages for the common man in 1934 money.

The intent was to make them too expensive to own. Ban via economic hardship.

[jgalt]

So, if they started putting restrictions on how you can get a firearm, saying having to require mental health checks and such, isn't really a ban? Or is it...

The wording of the law implementing the restrictions matters. If it is a blanket requirement for all, then yes that would be unconstitutional because it doesn't target those who have already shown they cannot be trusted to respect the rights of others (i.e. criminals and some of the mentally ill).

If the law does target those folks, the next question needs to be about how those folks became criminals or were judged to be mentally ill. Were the laws they broke to become criminals moral & just, and even if they are, do they indicate any objective reason to think that person cannot be trusted with a firearm? How is a person judged to be "mentally ill"? Is there a way for that person to be taken off that list should it become appropriate to do so, or if they never should have been on it in the first place? And on & on...

Point is, it should be possible, but extremely difficult to take away any individual's right to own a gun, since a gun is no more or less inherently dangerous than a hammer, a car, etc. Any law that does not strictly target those who have proven they are willing to physically harm others, either purposefully or through negligence, should not pass constitutional muster.

That's not to say any given Supreme Court won't **** things up royally of course - they seem to do so all the time...

[Le Pistolero]

Many kind of bans

Ban by harassment--making it so troublsome to own a gun that it's not worth it.

Ban by financial oppression--making it too expensive.

Ban by threat and fear--making laws and restricions so complcated that you get rid of your guns for fear of making a mistake and ending up a felon.

Delayed confscation--making it imposible to give guns to children when you die (guns have to be turned in to police when you die.

[Fast351]

Most gun control legislation violates the 2nd. There are several items that are banned that should be allowed: full auto, short barreled shotguns,basically anything NFA related. Suppressors is the only thing I'm slightly fuzzy on whether it's protected under the 2nd. It's clearly not an "arm" and not necessary to make one function, but I could be convinced one way or the other.

If you really take the most direct interpretation of the 2nd, the "shall not be infringed" part also means that there shouldn't be any restrictions through the use of NICS. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with violent released felons running around with firearms, but the constitution, if taken 100% literally, is clearly OK with that.

[jgalt]

If you really take the most direct interpretation of the 2nd, the "shall not be infringed" part also means that there shouldn't be any restrictions through the use of NICS. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with violent released felons running around with firearms, but the constitution, if taken 100% literally, is clearly OK with that.

Again, there were restrictions on criminals possessing firearms when the 2A was written and ratified, and they were never challenged in the period immediately afterward. We can discuss whether or not restrictions on criminals possessing arms after they are released is a good idea or not, and the 2A doesn't prevent any government from saying it is OK for some (or all) released criminals to possess arms, but some limited, targeted restrictions are clearly constitutional...

Of course, most of the restrictions being discussed now are neither limited nor targeted, and even if they were, they're likely to be ineffective in their current form because the people behind them are defenders of the state & its power, not individuals and their liberty...

[Le Pistolero]

Good idea fer the paper might be to go back and check into when people started strongly defending the Second amemdment.

This idea of defending it has grown steadily for many years. Might hook into that when the NRA got started and how.

Bet you get an A.

good luck.

[jgalt]

Good idea fer the paper might be to go back and check into when people started strongly defending the Second amemdment.

This idea of defending it has grown steadily for many years. Might hook into that when the NRA got started and how.

Bet you get an A.

good luck.

The first academic papers supporting an individual right to bear arms that got any wide attention were in the late '70s. I've got the major ones listed somewhere - I'll post 'em if I can find 'em...