Second Amendment

[Craigt]

I need your help.

Somehow we are not getting our message out.

Two items in my local paper have me quite upset.  An article on the expiration of the assault weapons ban included quotes from several local law enforcement personnel such as…
      “Those types of weapons are not meant for  
               hunting.”, Police Chief

The other item is a political cartoon that shows a couple of hunters cutting a deer into pieces with “assault rifles”.  First one saying “Thanks to congress, we can once again hunt the way our founding fathers intended.” Second one says “With assault weapons!”

Not only do our fellow citizens not know what the second amendment is all about put apparently neither do our lawmen and politicians!

Or maybe I am all wrong.  I have come to understand that the right to keep and bear arms, in its most basic form means that the citizens have the means to fight governments that have gone bad.  Am I wrong?  The founding fathers were not protecting the right to hunt food, just oppressive governments.  Or have I gotten it all wrong?

Please help me.  You folks are the about the most informed people I know.  Of course I don’t really know any of you except through this forum but by reading most of the thread I have come to appreciate the knowledge and insights you all provide.

Craig T.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."  Thomas Jefferson

[justin2992]

Craig, I couldn’t agree with you more. I wish more of America respected the intent of the 2nd Amendment. It was Thomas Jefferson who said, "the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
By the Second Amendment, all ordinary citizens are legally guaranteed the right to maintain technological parity with modern military small arms, regardless of their rate of fire, lethality, power or physical appearances. Otherwise, the Second Amendment loses its effectiveness as a pragmatic check on civil authority turning tyrannical.

[BillinPittsburgh]

The Second Amendment was intended for:

1)  Self-defense.

2)  National defense.

3)  Ensuring that we are in fact governed only by our consent.

Hunting is often cited as a reason for the amendment, but hunting must really be viewed as a distractionary side issue.  The preservation of game for the nobility was one of the original reasons for restrictions on weapons in England.  Today, the "sporting purposes" argument has been used to oppose weapons that are most well-suited to self-defense, and to frame the argument as sport v. safety instead of being safe v. feeling safe.

Any reading of the 14th Amendment that makes any sense would result in the Second Amendment being applicable to the states as well as the federal gov't.  However, the Supreme Court originally tried to un-do the 14th Amendment by holding that it applies only to rights created by the federal government, not to rights that exist above and beyond it, as the Bill of Rights are viewed to be.  The Supreme Court has been slowly backing away from this position but hasn't totally abandoned it.