The New Republic

Of course, the key to the solution to the crisis in gun violence is the same as the key to the solution to the crisis in health care spending: attitudes. Unfortunately, I don't expect a change in attitudes, on either subject, any time soon. What Sher misses is that the focus on assault weapons is less about the particular gun than attitudes about guns generally: if guns are associated with deranged killers and terrorists rather than self-protection (or John Wayne and masculinity), then it's much more likely that we will adopt effective gun control on the guns that are used in most killings.

- rayward

January 16, 2013 at 8:06am

Assault weapons are symbolic of a culture which idolizes Rambo, and men who believe that they need such weapons to be real men, to be the protectors of our way of life, and so forth. Whether banning them will lead to societal efforts to alter those conceptions remains to be seen, but it is clear that no change can be expected unless they are banned. Once that is accomplished and the weapons are removed from our society, we can then begin the hard project of changing hearts and minds and finding more constructive outlets for (mostly male) aggression. New York's new ban does not go far enough, though it is a good start. It should have prohibited ownership and created a buy-back program. Those weapons need to disappear. Period.

- rjayrobins

January 16, 2013 at 11:26am

I think the best argument I've seen for not banning assault weapons is that Arianna Huffington wants to ban them.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 12:13pm

A possible solution might be to restrict the legal definition of “arms” to those arms that the framers incontestably had in mind when they were writing the very document; single-shot, smooth-bore, flint-lock muskets and pistols. No canons, though, unless you can actually “bear” one. Perhaps, the definition of “arms” could be modernized to allow breech loaded bolt-actions, (and barrel rifling) but, still, they must remain single-shot arms…just as the authors of the Constitution envisioned when they wrote the 2nd Amendment.

- Qev_n_NY

January 16, 2013 at 12:31pm

@ wildboy "I think the best argument I've seen for not banning assault weapons is that Arianna Huffington wants to ban them." Yeah but even a broken squirrel finds blind nuts twice per day. Or something. Much as I can't stand She Who Must Not Be Named either, the fact remains we desperately need to repeal the ridiculous, antiquated 2nd amendment. This insanity has to stop.

- Tristan

January 16, 2013 at 12:57pm

Qev writes: "A possible solution might be to restrict the legal definition of “arms” to those arms that the framers incontestably had in mind when they were writing the very document;" The framers were prolific inventors. They were men that had a deep understanding of technology. But more importantly, they had a deep understanding of the evolution of weapons, which means during their lifetimes alone they had seen enormous improvements to guns. Thus, these guys had no problem understanding what was on the horizon. And less than a hundred years after the bill of rights, we saw the invention of the modern brass cartridge and the gattling gun. Tristan writes: "the fact remains we desperately need to repeal the ridiculous, antiquated 2nd amendment. This insanity has to stop." The bill of rights could not be any clearer about gun ownership. And you want to remove it. But something like abortion rights, which requires a twisted reading of the constitution, you feel is a rock solid. Got it. Tell me, if someone can just come along and remove something like the second amendment, what stops a anti-Tristan from wanting to remove the first amendment? Or at least outlawing abortions? Always ask yourself: "These tactics which I suggest be used to circumvent the constitution....how would they work in the hands of a religious nut that might be elected president?" If you don't like the answer, then don't recommend the tactic.

- seattleeng

January 16, 2013 at 1:14pm

Funny how everyone, left and right, has read the "well-regulated militia" language out of the Second Amendment. And yet, if you know much about 18th-century America, that language is the capstone of what the Second Amendment meant to the Founders. For state and local militia companies were an essential part of Colonial American (and, before that, English) military establishments going back to the Tudor period. These were groups of local citizens, usually landowning gentry or the urban merchant class, organized by local authorities and armed either from municipal arsenals or at their own expense for the purpose of providing a reservoir of trained manpower for local defense against foreign attack or internal security in an age before modern policing. Their "arms" were the requisite small-arms of a combat infantryman of the age -- arquebus, longbow and bill in Tudor and early Stuart times, matchlock musket in the 17th century and flintlock musket in the 18th century. Some localities or states could maintain arsenals from which the militia would be equipped, but many could not for reasons of expense or (especially in Colonial America) distance from muster points, so the militia member was required to obtain and maintain (i.e., "keep") the arms. These militia armies could be supplemented in case of invasion with foreign or domestic mercenaries, cavalry manned by the higher nobility (at their own expense) and "specialist" soldiers such as artillery masters paid by the central state and equipped from state arsenals with a monopoly on the truly lethal firepower of cannons. During the 17th century, the old militia system crumbled in England as threat of foreign invasion receded (deterred by a cannon-armed, modern navy) and as the organization of local militias fractured during the English Civil War. Given the poor performance of such militias during that conflict, Oliver Cromwell and the victorious Parliament discarded the English militia system for a permanent, standing army equipped with standard-caliber arms from state arsenals (the so-called "New Model Army"). The standing army survived the Stuart Restoration and became the backbone of English military defense at home and in the Colonies. However, the limited number of soldiers and the expense of transporting and maintaining them across oceans required the Empire to supplement their numbers with Colonial militias raised and maintained by states and localities on the old English system. Of course, the attendant cost of the English standing army in America and Parliament's attempt to stick the Colonies with the bill (without the right to vote on it) was the main reason for the American Revolution. The Colonial Congress and the states did raise and equip a standing army during the Revolutionary War, though its ranks were made up first of local embodied militia groups and later of state-organized militia regiments as well as independent volunteer units. However, the suspicion of standing armies -- both for their cost and for their social estrangement -- was almost universal in post-Revolutionary War America. The Federalists, however, clearly saw the inadequacy of the militia system in sufficiently protecting America's borders from foreign enemies and Indian tribes (much less in expanding America's territories by conquest), and pushed for a meaning professional standing army to be supplemented by militias in wartime. The Federalist-drafted Constitution reflected this view, by giving Congress the right to raise armies in times of war and to fund a peace-time military and the President the title of commander-in-chief of these forces at all times. Despite the Federalists' victory, the Anti-Federalist spirit on the issue of standing armies and militia was strong enough (as it was on many other issues) to include an amendment with the Bill of Rights to address the potential tyranny that might arise from a standing army funded by a Federalist Congress and commanded by a Federalist President that could abuse the rest of the populace. Thus, the Second Amendment made the old militia system a Constitutional requirement to the extent that "The People" wanted it to be one. Thus, states and other local governments could continue to organize and "keep" local militia companies in the old English and Colonial manner, whose members had the right to "bear" their arms in the course of their militia service. The Second Amendment also contemplated that other, non-governmental groups (such as pioneer settlers or merchants) could form militias of the English and Colonial type, and preserved this right by extending it to "The People" rather than to "The States". However, all such militias had to be "Well-Regulated" -- they could not be individuals or groups of individuals independent of any organization, or simply aggrieved individuals. In the theory of the Second Amendment, citizen militia groups -- state, local or associational -- would be a check against the potential misuse of a standing army by Congress and the President. And those groups could not be disbanded and disarmed by Presidential or Congressional fiat. But the "Well-Regulated" aspect of the Second Amendment was crucial, and was quickly tested after the passage of the Bill of Rights by the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. During the Rebellion, armed farmers angered by Federal excise taxes on home-made spirits attacked Federal revenue agents and Federal property in the area. In response, President Washington and Congress ordered the standing army into action and also mobilized state militias to the Federal colors to suppress the rebellion. There was absolutely no argument from any Drafter that what was happening in Western Pennsyvlania was somehow protected by the Second Amendment, or that the armed groups of Whiskey Rebels represented "The People" whose rights to "Keep and Bear Arms" could not be infringed. The Whiskey Rebels might have thought themselves a militia, but they were not "Well-Regulated" in the view of the Drafters and were treated as the insurrectionists they were. It would be wise to remember this history in today's debates about the Second Amendment. The goal, as seen from the history, was to have organized militias at the state, local and associational levels as a check on a Federal standing army. But it was never the intent for individuals to own any sort of weapon for any use outside the context of well-regulated militia service. The demise of state-sponsored militias in America since 1787 does not somehow morph the language and intent of the Second Amendment, any more than the demise of the practice of quartering troops morphs the language and intent of the Third Amendment or inflation morphs the $20 minimum requirement for jury trials in civil suits under the Seventh Amendment.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 1:18pm

"The framers were prolific inventors. They were men that had a deep understanding of technology. But more importantly, they had a deep understanding of the evolution of weapons, which means during their lifetimes alone they had seen enormous improvements to guns. Thus, these guys had no problem understanding what was on the horizon. And less than a hundred years after the bill of rights, we saw the invention of the modern brass cartridge and the gattling gun." By your logic, the Second Amendment protects the Gatling Gun (correct spelling) and its modern descendants, the heavy squad machine guns of the Army and Marines. Or doesn't it? Why were weapons like this illegal in private hands by Federal statute since 1936, without a peep from the NRA or anyone else? Why weren't howitzers and similar ordinance in private hands legal in 1787, when they were universally the property of state militias and the US Army and kept locked up in arsenals? Try learning a little bit about Anglo-American military history and the history of the enactment of the Constitution and Bill of Rights before spouting off on how "clear" the Second Amendment really is.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 1:24pm

@ Seattle: please share your thoughts on the following statement "My constitution specifically says the rights of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. I should therefore be allowed to posess a thermonuclear weapon."

- Tristan

January 16, 2013 at 1:30pm

Oh, and as to your dippy example of the first Amendment: Regardless of the 1st amendment language, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press", you notice the country hasn't beenvdestroyed by laws against things like libel and slander, against the unauthorized sharing of classified information, against the CEO who "speaks freely" to his financial advisor about the upcoming merger the public doesn't know about. And allow me to be the one billionth person to point out to you that you can't should "fire" in a crowded theater. Personally, I'm sick to death of the weak argument "If we do (x) what's to stop them from doing (y), if we "let" them take away this right, what's to stop them from taking that right." It's the lazy tool of a paranoid mind. Do you really think in today's day and age the act of instituting gun control identical to that in, say Great Britain is going to result in you not being allowed to worship as you please or post your ideas (odd though they may be) on the web? No one is suggesting outlawing anything and everything that fires a bullet, seattle. But a constitutional amendment written in the time of muskets that allows unfettered access to machine guns is insanity. You really can't see this? Oh, and as to the framers' foresight: These were brilliant men, but they were just that. Just men. You want to claim they had the incredible foresight to see the current-day consequence of their actions on the 2nd amendment and it should therefore not be changed, please explain allowing slavery to be written into our original set of laws, not allowing women the vote, and why they were just too damn lazy to come up with a decent set of rules for air traffic control.

- Tristan

January 16, 2013 at 1:48pm

@ wildboy: that comment at 1:18 is some of your best posting yet, IMHO. And that's saying something. Props, my friend.

- Tristan

January 16, 2013 at 1:52pm

Tristan writes: ""My constitution specifically says the rights of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. I should therefore be allowed to posess a thermonuclear weapon."" If you look at the other words spoken and written by the founding fathers, you can better understand their intent. John Adams spoke the following while serving as defense attorney for the British Soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre: "Here every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offence." He didn't note they were authorized as part of a militia. He noted they were allowed to arm themselves, as long as it was for defensive purposes. And this is a very important point: Over and over this is about the right of a person to DEFEND themselves. It might be surprising, but defending yourself is not a right in every country. If some places, if an intruder enters your bedroom, and you have a choice of hitting him on the head with a pipe or jumping out of a window, then you are obligated to jump out of the window. Hitting the would-be rapist on the head and killing him would be a crime. Thus, with that important point made.... An thermonuclear weapon is an OFFENSIVE weapon. A gun that can hold 20 bullets is a DEFENSIVE weapon. See the difference? Crazy you say? Who needs 20 bullets? In a shootout, 70-80% of bullets miss even when fired by trained police officers in a gunfight. To stop an attacker, it seems reasonable that an attacker needs to be shot by 2 bullets. And so, it's reasonable to need up to 10 shots to stop an attacker, as 7 or 8 of them will miss if police shootout statistics are any help here. So, if there are 2 people that have entered your home at 2 AM, then you might want a gun that can hold 20 shots. Round numbers. Now, I am thankful that I don't worry about 2 AM attackers. But I can see a 90 pound woman being stalked by an ex-boyfriend living in a scary part of town being very worried. I can see a restaurant manager that must leave the store every night with $4000 being very worried. I can understand a lot of people being concerned with their ability to defend themselves. Do these folks have a right to defend themselves in your eyes? How else would a 90 pound woman defend herself? Gain 200 pounds of muscle?

- seattleeng

January 16, 2013 at 1:59pm

Wildboy writes: "By your logic, the Second Amendment protects the Gatling Gun (correct spelling) and its modern descendants, the heavy squad machine guns of the Army and Marines. Or doesn't it? Why were weapons like this illegal in private hands by Federal statute since 1936, without a peep from the NRA or anyone else? Why weren't howitzers and similar ordinance in private hands legal in 1787, when they were universally the property of state militias and the US Army and kept locked up in arsenals?" See my previous post about offensive versus defensive weapons. You really need to understand the distinction. Tristan writes: "Personally, I'm sick to death of the weak argument "If we do (x) what's to stop them from doing (y), if we "let" them take away this right, what's to stop them from taking that right." It's the lazy tool of a paranoid mind." Paranoid? We watched in this country a hundred years ago the government pass the sedition law, which barred anyone from expressing an unfavorable opinion about the government. And hundreds were put in jail for it. The press didn't even blink. We watched in this country 70 years ago as citizens were rounded up by a progressive president and thrown into internment camps. The press didn't even blink. We watched in this country in the last decade a moderate republican and a progressive president sign into a law the right for the government to monitor any private communications among private citizens without a warrant. The press didn't even blink. History thinks you are a fool. A hallmark of paranoia is the absence of proof. Unfortunately, our history is full of proof: a progressive government stepping all over the bill of rights. While the progressive press watched without comment. Sad. So, I ask you again. If we delete the second amendment, what stops a religious nut elected as president from making abortion illegal? Or shutting down free speech? Or putting those in jail that scare him?

- seattleeng

January 16, 2013 at 2:19pm

Oy, how many times have I gotten caught in the Second amendment trap/weeds. I swore I'd never do it again. It's a sinkhole, useless. Like talking to a wall and just as edifying. Bottom line, all of these recommendations are simple common sense and supported by the majority of the public, including NRA members. No one needs cop killer bullets unless they intend to kill cops, etc. There's no argument anymore, that part is over over. Let the house kill each of these things one by one if they need that hate fix and they always do, showing quite clearly that they are completely captured by one small group of people interested in profit over people's lives. All of these may not all pass right now, but a tipping point has clearly been met and it's only a matter of time. It's over. Thank you President Obama for your courage and leadership. Don't even take the 2nd amendment bait, it's not even relevant. It has nothing to do with this conversation.

- WandreyCer

January 16, 2013 at 2:19pm

Seattle, I'm glad that you are quoting John Adams's speech to the Boston Massacre jury as proof of what the Second Amendment means there is a Constitutionally protected righ to self-defense. That same John Adams, when he participated in the drafting of the Constitution, didn't even see fit to mention the right to bear arms at all in the document. And when he participated in the debates over the Bill of Rights, he didn't mention how the Second Amendment proposed by Madison should have been modified so that no one could think that militias had anything to do with the right to bear arms. Was he too busy to pay attention to such things? As for your amazing distinction about offensive and defensive weapons, what part of the Second Amendment is that in again? For someone who thinks that the Supreme Court's finding a right to private inherent in the First Amendment was such an outrage, your views on the hidden meaning of the Second Amendment are a bit odd. Just so you know, the right to keep weapons for self-defense may well be a fundamental human right, or just something that the government cannot ban the same way the government cannot impose a blanket ban on interstate travel -- perhaps under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, or perhaps because it's just bad policy and us voters shouldn't have our elected representatives making such bad policy. But it ain't in the Second Amendment, especially not if you think that the text of the Constitution means what it says and not what it doesn't say.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 2:21pm

Also, seattle, your distinction about "offensive" and "defensive" weapons makes no sense at all on a practical level. An assault rifle is a "defensive" weapon in the hands of someone defending a home, but it's an "offensive" weapon in the hands of someone attacking a group of schoolkids or threatening the guy who cut him off in traffic or his wife and her lover. A fighter/intereceptor jet is a "defensive" weapon, because it's designed to attack and bring down a bomber, and a naval destroyer is "defensive" weapon because it's designed to sink a submarine. But you don't suggest the general public should own those, right? Heck, the best individual-level defensive weapons are landmines and their DIY cousins, roadside bombs, as well as RPG's and shoulder-fired missiles. My guess is that you are A-OK with a law that bans the private ownership and use of shoulder-fired missiles, though I could be mistaken.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 2:25pm

Oh, and lest you think I'm through with every dumb thing you write Seattle -- your examples of the Alien & Sedition Acts (signed into law by your Favorite Founder, John Adams!), the Japanese internment and the USA Patriot Act and related post 9/11 surveillance practices are all interesting, but you should note that none of them was deterred by an armed populace or an armed militia. I would also be curious if you think that it was adviseable for those harmed by these acts to wage armed insurrection against the US government's enforcement of them on the basis of the Second Amendment, instead of doing what the opponents of the Alien & Sedition Acts did in 1801 and getting a new Congress and President to repeal them.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 2:36pm

Wildboy writes: "A fighter/intereceptor jet is a "defensive" weapon, because it's designed to attack and bring down a bomber, and a naval destroyer is "defensive" weapon because it's designed to sink a submarine. But you don't suggest the general public should own those, right?" The offsensive/defensive is in the context of a person. This is one of the oldest human rights contemplated. See Hobbes, and prior to that, the bible and the Romans. This is well covered ground. To show up at this late hour and wonder what it really means is to be obtuse in the worst way. A person would not defend themselves with a cannon. Or a destroyer. Or a jet. Those are all useful for defending a country. And yes, a hammer can be used to kill someone else and take their money. Or it can be used to hammer a nail. Or if I am being beaten by an intruder, I can pick it up and kill him and defend myself. I'm sure you will puzzle over the many uses. Just like you have with gun. And yes, in a pinch, you can hammer a nail with a gun. So, don't be so pedantic. You really should be able to figure these corner cases out by yourself.

- seattleeng

January 16, 2013 at 2:44pm

Wildboy, the sedition act I'm referencing was signed by eugenicist KKK progressive president Woodrow Wilson 1918. You remember him don't you? He was the man that was so enamored with the KKK recruiting film Birth of a Nation that he held a private screening at the white house. It carried a penalty of 5 to 20 years for uttering a phrase that caused someone to view the American government with contempt. Quite a difference between the Alien and Sedition act. To his credit, it was repealed in 1920.

- seattleeng

January 16, 2013 at 2:55pm

The AWB is there as a negotiating tool. Reid does not want a vote, for obvious reasons. The issue will be left to the states. Obama understands the politics and the gun violence statistics well enough to avoid self-inflicted political damage on this.

- nehocm002

January 16, 2013 at 3:01pm

Seattle, you just proved my point about what Americans can do about bad laws like the 1917 Sedition Acts. They were peacefully repealed by a Congress and President of a different party three years later, without any need to resort to armed insurrection. Kind of like many other bad laws that have been enacted in the US since 1787. Oh, and thanks for your Louie Gohmert-approved argument about how hammers are offensive weapons and are protected by the Second Amendment or something like that. For someone who respects the language of the Constitution so much that he is appalled by what liberal judges read into it, you are really fond of bringing up all sorts of stuff that's in the Second Amendment.

- wildboy

January 16, 2013 at 3:06pm

@wildboy -- wow!

- Wonderland

January 16, 2013 at 3:07pm

@ Seattle: "The bill of rights could not be any clearer about gun ownership. And you want to remove it. But something like abortion rights, which requires a twisted reading of the constitution, you feel is a rock solid." You wrote that earlier today. And them proceeded to launch a series of arguments (very sensible ones, I might add, though they don't go nearly far enough) about how the framers', particularly Adams, has a very specific intent that does not translate into "anything that can be called 'arms' is allowed to be privatly owned" I've seldom seen so obvious a case of someone swinging the blunt tool of the-constutution-says-it-and-that's-that, and then proceeding to dismantle their own argument. You do realize you're drawing conclusions on the 2nd amendment that require a twisting of language, nuance of implication, reading of framers' intent, and modern interpretation based on the world we live in that makes Roe v Wade and "right to privacy" pale by comparison?

- Tristan

January 16, 2013 at 3:17pm

An earlier commenter made a fairly common error. Federal law does not prohibit the private ownership of machine guns, grenade launchers, silencers, sawed-off shotguns, etc. These are categorized as "machine guns," "destructive devices," and so forth and to legally possess them one is required to obtain a federal tax stamp - at present, costing $200.00. Once the stamp is purchased it is good for that weapon and that owner. The depression-era Supreme Court decision - dealing with a sawed-off shotgun in possession of a bootlegger - validated the government's ability to prosecute those who possess those particular types of weapons without first obtaining the stamp. Such weapons are referred to as Title 3 devices. To be sure, many individual states have laws prohibiting the private ownership of machine guns, silencers, or destructive devices.

- Rochefort

January 16, 2013 at 4:09pm

Seems to me that in our post-Heller world, the debate about what the 2nd Amendment means, what the framers intended, etc. is legally irrelevant. The Supreme Court focused on the individual defense aspect, so in terms of what's constitutional going forward, there ought to be quite a lot of room for restrictions. One of those reasonable restrictions, by the way, ought to be prohibiting people on the terrorist watch list from buying guns. How is this anything other than a no-brainer? How can people who run around claiming to be deeply patriotic be okay with suspected terrorists buying guns? (Given the cultural/racial/ethnic issues involved, my hunch is that if a Muslim terrorist legally bought several guns, and massacred a bunch of school kids, mall shoppers, movie-goers, etc., there would be an immediate outcry to fix this gaping hole in our regulations, much as the NRA is loudly shouting for a national registry of mentally ill who may act out violently. How is it that people with mental illness are now more suspicious than people on the terrorist watch list? Can someone explain that to me -- please?) Also, question for this knowledgeable group -- how did the NRA and other gun-owners' rights groups view the 2nd Amendment back in the 1960s, when any threat to the federal government was more likely to come from radical leftists? And what would they be saying now, if, for example, a New Black Panther party wanted to stockpile heavy weaponry?

- shellski

January 16, 2013 at 8:13pm

Tristan writes: "I've seldom seen so obvious a case of someone swinging the blunt tool of the-constutution-says-it-and-that's-that, and then proceeding to dismantle their own argument. You do realize you're drawing conclusions on the 2nd amendment that require a twisting of language, nuance of implication, reading of framers' intent, and modern interpretation based on the world we live in that makes Roe v Wade and "right to privacy" pale by comparison?" The right of self defense isn't a concept I've dreamed up. This is an idea that people have wondered about for thousands and thousands of years. And as the supreme court has decided: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." So there you go. And in that decision, scotus asserts that the interpretation of the 2nd amendment by scholars, courts, legislators, has ALWAYS held this to be true. From the day the ink was drying forward. Now, they admit there are limits, as I have. They were very clear on the notion of self defense. Your knowledge on the topic is severely deficient. I know you FEEL a certain way about it. But you FEEL doesn't have much to do about this. Read more. You'll be better for it in the end. Wildboy writes: "Oh, and thanks for your Louie Gohmert-approved argument about how hammers are offensive weapons and are protected by the Second Amendment or something like that. " My noting that a hammer can be used as an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon (as well as hammer) was to clear up your confusion on how a gun could be used offensively or defensively, as it appears you've never contemplated such a duality.

- seattleeng

January 16, 2013 at 9:14pm

"The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." So there you go. Yep, that answers that. The Supreme Court also decided in 1966 that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments recoginze a right to privacy which prohibits states from banning contraception for married couples, and in 1973 decided that the same right to privacy prohibits states from banning abortion and 2003 decided that the same right prohibits states from banning consensual sodomy between adults. Those decisions are all unassailable on legal or moral grounds, and none of them has ever caused any consternation on the part of American conservatives. Once the Supreme Court speaks to an issue, that's the end of that for people on the right. Seattle, you should read the Heller decision in full, it's quite a piece of work -- a construction of an individual right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment which is cobbled together from references to language in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, stray legal codies of the 17th and 18th centuries, contemporary state constitutions that preserved the personal right to bear arms but with language that expressly made the right applicable to self-defense and/or hunting and various 19th century speeches, treatises and stray case law -- truly a wondrous bit of "living Constitutionalism" and creative legal thinking from Antonin Scalia and his fellow conservatives who otherwise pledge eternal fidelity to the plain Constitutional text and a rigorous interpretation of original intent. But, interestingly enough, the Supreme Court took pains in Heller to clarify that the Second Amendment was not an absolute right to bear any sort of weapon anywhere at any time, or indeed that it could be interpreted in any manner as to permit individuals to carry military-style weapons where Federal law was to the contrary. And the Court made none of your curious distinctions about "offensive" and "defensive" weapons. Which still make no sense in real life in any manner.

- wildboy

January 17, 2013 at 10:23am

Wildboy, you are setting a strawman that even Sarah Palin wouldn't go after. At least make sure your strawman can stand on its own. The country overwhelming accepts a woman's right to have a first trimester abortion and to use birth control. If she has the money for it. That last sentence is the source of ALL the contention. Wildboy writes: " But, interestingly enough, the Supreme Court took pains in Heller to clarify that the Second Amendment was not an absolute right to bear any sort of weapon anywhere at any time, or indeed that it could be interpreted in any manner as to permit individuals to carry military-style weapons where Federal law was to the contrary. And the Court made none of your curious distinctions about "offensive" and "defensive" weapons. Which still make no sense in real life in any manner." I use those offensive/defensive examples to help YOU understand the distinction so we can put the 6th grade argument of "Oh, so you want nuclear weapons and tanks, huh???!" to bed. You seem to not really understand why a pistol, shotgun and "assault rifle" might be desirable in different defensive situations. And you seem particularly perplexed that something that is very useful in a defensive situation might also be useful offensively. But I'm pretty certain the based on your 6th grade "nuclear bombs" question that indeed this did help you better understand the other side of the argument.

- seattleeng

January 17, 2013 at 12:46pm

Seattle, lather, rinse, repeat. The fact of the matter is that I know probably much more about military hardware (including small arms) than you do, so your goofy "offensive/defensive" distinction isn't necessary in my case. It's also not a particularly meaningful way to defend a Second Amendment right to bear "arms", since there are many things that are effective for personal self-defense that are currently prohibited by law with nary a peep from the NRA. And not just the silly nuclear bombs and tanks argument -- a fully automatic assault rifle or squad machine gun, or an RPG, or a shoulder-fired missile are all much more effective for self-defense than an AR-15 or a Glock, at least if the self-defense in question is against "government tyranny" in the form of heavily armed soldiers, paramilitaries or police. And yet the NRA and like-minded groups bray about guns and deterring tyranny, but then concede the point that private citizens can't have really effective weapons against the modern military or police but only need enough firepower to deter an armed criminal gang (who, according to the NRA's logic, can get all sorts of prohibited weapons on the black market anyway, thus outgunning the armed individual). How all this squares with the history or intent of the Second Amendment is anyone's guess, but the Supreme Court doesn't seem eager to visit this particular issue -- although there is a good chance that some of the new laws banning assault weapons will end up at least in the Federal appellate courts. In those cases, my guess is that there will be nary a peep regarding government tyranny but lots of arguments about the ability of individuals to outgun criminals.

- wildboy

January 17, 2013 at 3:59pm

Wildboy writes: "a fully automatic assault rifle or squad machine gun, or an RPG, or a shoulder-fired missile are all much more effective for self-defense than an AR-15 or a Glock, at least if the self-defense in question is against "government tyranny" in the form of heavily armed soldiers, paramilitaries or police. " More strawmen. I've not mentioned government tyranny. It's all about home defense. And an AR15 is at the limits of what is useful in a home. In fact, I'd argue inside the home with others inside (or neighbors on either side) an AR15 isn't even suitable. You seriously think an RPG makes sense in your house? The AR15 would be suitable for a person living in the sticks that might worry about a truck of 3 or 4 un-friendly folks driving up some day 3 days after a 7.5 earthquake has hit.

- seattleeng

January 17, 2013 at 9:27pm

Hiyo

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January 25, 2013 at 8:43am