(05-02-2021 07:45 AM)Rice93 Wrote:  You guys seem to say that the 2nd Amendment gives every American the God-given right to own (and carry?) any gun that is "in common use" (however that is defined).

That's kind of what the 2nd Amendment says, pretty directly. If you're going to play the guilt-by-association game, I will too, and say that "you guys" seem to think that NO American should have a right to own or carry a gun that looks scary and shoots a lot of bullets, or ultimately to carry any gun that shoots any bullets, because bullets can kill people.

Quote:It's like the "well-regulated militia" part of the 2nd Amendment is to be completely ignored. I'm no Constitutional attorney, but from what I can tell when I read opinions on this the situation is much less cut-and-dry than one might think when reading the Quad. It seems that the court struggles with this issue mightily.

Remember junior high English? Remember dependent and independent clauses? An independent clause stands on its own, while a dependent clause (or technically phrase in this case) does not. "[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," is the independent clause. It stands on its own. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," is the dependent clause. Grammatically, it's fluff, with no independent force. The reason why the courts have struggled so mightily is that there have always been lawmakers and judges intent on infringing that very right, but they run hard up against the wording of the amendment, so they have resorted to refuting the rules of English grammar and syntax.

Since you're not a Constitutional attorney (neither was Barack Obama, by the way) I will fill you in on a bit of the legal structure. The right to bear arms is derived from the common law right to self-defense, not from any need to form a militia. If a weapon is in common use, then you may have to defend yourself against someone else using that weapon, so you must have a right to weapons in common use to have a valid self-defense right. That right cannot be infringed, without impairing the right to self-defense, but abusers of the right can be punished in order to prevent or deter such abuse.

Europe does not have similar protections in most cases because for centuries Europe was under the rule of absolute monarchs, and only the King's (or Queen's) officers and henchmen carried weapons to enforce the law, and there was no right to oppose the King/Queen. People were expected to be loyal subjects, not free citizens. That's not how the USA started. We started by resisting the King and his henchmen. The independent clause, standing alone, is most consistent with our legal and geopolitical history. The fluff was added to secure the votes of some delegates who still held more the monarchist position on this issue.