Once again, it's time to consider repealing the 2nd Amendment.

[Girard442]

Let's face it, the gun lobby will fight us tooth and nail if we try to put in place even the most superficial restrictions, like, say, "limiting" high capacity clips to 40 rounds. Why not pick a cause that people can really rally around instead of the weak-tea proposals we usually hear about?

[Sherman A1]

1. You believe that the gun lobby would not

fight tooth and nail to push back against a repeal of the 2nd Amendment? I am no fan of guns, but I understand that this is fairly unlikely to come to pass. One must also consider if there is a push to repeal the 2nd just what other parts of the Bill of Rights are therefore open to similar efforts?

I believe that we are far better served by doing work that is perhaps very difficult to accomplish but stands a far better chance of occurring such as enhanced background checks, closing the gun shows, eliminating high capacity magazines and alike.

[Girard442]

6. JFK:

We choose to go to the Moon! ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ...

[Sherman A1]

18. Nice quote and I recall when he

gave the speech.

Good luck with your dream.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Have you looked up the procedures for amending the Constitution in any way?

They deliberately made it very, very difficult. There are 27 amendments to the Constitution even though approximately 11,699 amendments have been proposed from 1789 through January 3, 2017. Only one amendment, the 18th (Prohibition) has ever been repealed, by the 21st. The likelihood of repealing the 2nd is vanishingly small.

[elleng]

7. Thanks, Ocelot. Not just 'vanishingly small,'

but seriously dangerous to open that Pandora's box.

[yallerdawg]

14. Yes, but...

both Prohibition and the repeal were astonishingly simple.

So was changing how Senators are elected, and how slaves were counted.

A couple sentences, and it's done.

The 2nd, the 3rd, the Electoral College - when we're ready, it will be easy.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Dream on. There's a reason there have been only 27 amendments

out of more than a thousand proposed. It is not easy, and that's on purpose. And the one thing we do NOT want is a new constitutional convention.

[LonePirate]

3. We are way overdue for repealing it. The sooner, the better.

[samir.g]

4. We are way overdue repealing the 2nd

[elleng]

5. Foolish suggestion,

as opening the door to amending the Constitution likely results in more chaos than what we're enduring now.

[Girard442]

8. Twenty years ago I would have agreed with you.

But the Bush Administration made such easy mincemeat out of the 4th and 5th Amendments that they're not the bulwarks they once were.

[MicaelS]

9. The Right will push back by calling for a ...

Constitutional Convention. You want to open THAT can of worms?

[farmbo]

10. Dont repeal it... just restore the first 13 words...

Last edited Wed Feb 21, 2018, 09:17 PM - Edit history (1)

... that Scalia struck out in 2008.
“A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state...”

Scalia, who bragged incessantly about supporting “origional intent”, just scrapped this language and somehow found a personal right— outside of a well regulated militia— for gun nuts to buy an arsenal for their own entertainment.

Restore the origional language and ENFORCE it!!

[erronis]

13. Yes - that's the way. The definition of "arms" needs to be amended since the days of muskets.

[hack89]

20. It was never enforced before. Nt

[farmbo]

33. To the contrary, there was No Personal Right...

... to bear arms in this country prior to the SCOTUS decision in the Heller case in 2008.

That was Justice Scalia’s little valentine to America’s school students.

[hack89]

37. Really?

So you can show me in American history where states passed laws outlawing gun ownership outside of the militia?

Hasn't individual ownership of guns outside of militia service been the norm for all of American history?

[Hav]

11. It would need a tremendous shift to achieve something like that

But before something like that is possible, one might have to come to an understanding what is meant by a well regulated militia which is something that has puzzled me often.
Either way, common sense gun control measures seem to have a way higher support in the population than repealing the 2nd Amendment.

[johnpowdy]

12. YES! Ban and confiscate all guns. Only the police should have guns.

I see no reason for allowing citizens to own guns. This is madness.

[kimbutgar]

16. Until we have the fairness doctrine back and less concentrated media ownership

The 2nd amendment is here to stay. Fox and those 1000’s of radio stations spewing hate, division and adoration of guns nothing will change. A whole generation of uneducated racists need to be deprogrammed.

[jazzcat23]

23. So true!

That amendment is going nowhere...ever. That's what blows my mind about this hysteria over the "gubmint is coming to take your guns" It will never happen and so how do these morons run to believe it so quickly? The fear factor that has been cultivated over these last decades, is now so out of control, will we ever get our sanity back in this country? Well, not in my lifetime, I'm sure!

[kimbutgar]

25. This gun issue could split the country up in a civil war.

I remember reading an article how the country was divided up into zones. The west zone no guns, science based, the two middle zones, one religious and the other not religious but a white zone and The east zone similar to the west zone. The two middle zones are controlled by Putin and the rethugs. Walls will be built on the east and west zones to keep the middle zones out. I wish I could find the article again.

[guillaumeb]

17. Or consider actually reading it as it was intended to be read.

Scalia, and his so-called originalists, needed to literally dismiss 1/2 of the Amendment as merely prefatory to arrive at his distorted version of original intent.

There is a reason that the Second Amendment is linked to a well-regulated militia, and that reason is not to facilitate the ability of a very few to terrorize the country in service to their own fears and fantasies.

[madinmaryland]

19. Not repealing it, but getting a Supreme Court that will interpret it stressing the

"well regulated" part of the amendment. The Constitution is whatever the SCOTUS says it is. We need a progressive court, not one that is beholden to corporate money, but one that will stand up for the American People.

[hack89]

21. There is absolutely nothing preventing strict gun control

Read Heller.

[madinmaryland]

24. Other than the makeup of the SCOTUS. They can interpret it anyway they want.

It can be progressive and for the American People or bought and paid for by the gun industry.

[hack89]

26. States have AWBs and registration

Both of which the SC refused to strike down. What else do you want?

[struggle4progress]

22. +

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

28. But even this conservative Supreme Court has held

that there can be reasonable restrictions on the ownership of guns, something that a lot of legislators, not to mention the NRA, seems to have forgotten. Justice Scalia, of all people, said this in District of Columbia v. Heller:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. ... For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. ... Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment , nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html

[shenmue]

27. I would like to

[sfwriter]

29. With you.

Fuck 'em.

[KG]

30. works for me.

[GreenEyedLefty]

31. My 18 year old put it best.

She said humanity has reached the end of its useful life on earth.

Yeah that's kind of cynical, but I can't argue with her.

[PatrickforO]

32. Not a good idea.

We are much better off beefing up the background checks, closing the gun show loopholes and insisting people take gun safety classes before being allowed to buy.

Start talking repeal and the people who overwhelmingly support better controls will switch sides away from you.

[X_Digger]

34. What do you think it would do? Make the right go away?

Please, I'm curious.

[randr]

35. All we need do is follow it

Regulate weapons well as stated.

[Xolodno]

36. Nope. Just need to enforce it.

...just don't need a right wing hack Supreme Court ignore the part about a "well regulated militia". Of which we have, the National Guard.

All dumb arguments fall apart after that point, such as "it was way to overthrow a tyrannical government"...yeah, that's the National Guard, some nuts in the desert or local woods playing GIJOE isn't going to bring down a government that's so well equipped and trained there are only a handful of countries that can go toe to toe.. The Confederacy was well with in legal right to mobilize troops under the state jurisdiction...when they attacked Federal Troops...they screwed themselves cactus. But beyond that, guns can be outlawed, but unlikely completely, some still count on the hunting season to supplement their diet...of which many will tell you, you don't a freaking military grade weapon to take down elk, bird, etc.