In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
A New Amendment
WoundedWolf
Member Posts: 1,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
What do you think?
"The Militia of the United States shall consist of all citizens at least eighteen years of age or older. The right of the Militia to obtain, keep, and bear arms shall not be infringed, denied, or abridged by the United States or by any State, without due process of law."
"The Militia of the United States shall consist of all citizens at least eighteen years of age or older. The right of the Militia to obtain, keep, and bear arms shall not be infringed, denied, or abridged by the United States or by any State, without due process of law."
Comments
I would hate to see ANY legal way for those in power to misuse the Militia...as they do the Organized Militia...
Plus..That "Due process of law"...merely opens the door for EXACTLY what they are doing...infringing us.
Otherwise..at first glance, that looks GOOD...
My reason for not using "unorganized" Militia was to disallow any attempt to divorce or supercede this amendment from the "Militia" of the 2nd Amendment. I believe these two amendments should be linked, standing shoulder to shoulder. However, I am in agreement that there should not be the sense of "obligation" of a citizen to the Militia, if as you say there is misuse. Also, I am a bit afraid this wording might reinforce the "collective" interpretation of the RTKBA. If there is another way to phrase this then by all means throw it out there.
Also, I threw the due process clause on there to account for the criminal element. I agree that "due process" is a very vague concept in modern law and is continually reinterpreted and reinvented. However I think it is fair for someone to have their RTKBA revoked for criminal activity. If there is a different way to state this then I'd appreciate the feedback.
-WW
Title Ten makes a clear distinction between "Organized"..and "Unorganized".
Perhaps others can chime in here, with their thoughts...
Criminals ? Let us execute those not fit to regain their rights, after release from prison...or hold FOR life behind walls.
Let us NOT give the Socialist pukes a ready lever to use against us, the decent citizens.
The problem with 'militia'...is the scum-bags have perverted the word to mean "National Guard"..were there a way to get back to the original meaning....
Title Ten makes a clear distinction between "Organized"..and "Unorganized".
Perhaps others can chime in here, with their thoughts...
Criminals ? Let us execute those not fit to regain their rights, after release from prison...or hold FOR life behind walls.
Let us NOT give the Socialist pukes a ready lever to use against us, the decent citizens.
The National Guard did not come into existance until l-o-n-g after the word "militia" had been used in the US Constitutional 2nd Amendment. If we ever get our case to the US supreme court, I am hoping that fact will be of great help to our case.
"The right of any free man to own or wield in any manner desired any arm of his choice shall not be infringed under any circumstances, and any agent that willfully does so is to be killed on sight."
Let's see them twist that around.
To say a 13-17 year old is unable would certainly be disputed by my ace sharpshooter 13 year old daughter, would get you on her bad side. A place I regularly take effort to avoid.
These people would be shoot at sunrise on the next day by a squad of citizens from the draw of names of we the people.[8D]
A well armed society is the best form of homeland security.
It wasn't my intention to deny the fact that there are plenty of capable marksmen (markspeople?) under the age of eighteen. Rather I was referring to the commonly accepted age of emancipation. In most legal situations, persons under the age of eighteen are not granted the full rights of adulthood. They cannot enter into legally binding contracts, they cannot legally own property, and typically their parents or guardians are ultimately responsible and liable for their actions. I don't see how you can have someone make an oath to national service when they cannot even make legally binding agreements, therefore I included the age clause.
Becase of the above reasons, I also don't believe that persons under the age of eighteen should be allowed to purchase firearms (without the sponsorship of their parent or guardian). Likewise, I believe the use or misuse of a firearm by those under eighteen should be a direct liability to their parent or guardian. This again was my intention in the wording.
quote:Criminals ? Let us execute those not fit to regain their rights, after release from prison...or hold FOR life behind walls.
Of course this would be the ideal solution to crime. But unfortunately there will always be the bleeding hearts that believe a criminal has been "rehabilitated" or has performed "good behavior". Given this fact, I do believe that it is acceptable to abridge the Constitutional rights of certain individuals that have been proven guilty of a felony by a jury in a court of law. I tend to agree that violent felons would be the more appropriate target for the abridgement of these rights.
quote:they have already basterdized the 'original' why give them another to beat us over the head with?
In another thread we spoke of the inadequacies of democracy, or mob rule. But imagine if we really could garner support for another pro-gun Constitutional amendment? Imagine if we could actually capture enough votes for 38 states to ratify this amendment within a 7 year period? One of the arguments of the gun grabbers is that the 2nd Amendment is a relic and no longer relevant to modern society. What if we were able to answer by rallying popular support for a modern day emphasis of our right to keep and bear arms? What would be the potential political implications of this? I think it could be a potentially powerful message to our legislators.
Think of it as a "warning shot" if you will. We will be telling the gun grabbers that they better not mess with our RTKBA....or else. And we will demonstrate that we have the numbers behind us to do something about it.
-WoundedWolf
point was that anyone able to bear arms should be able. This opens the door for the anti's to say "no one under the age of 18 can posess a firearm" Enough years of this and our children will no longer care enough.
Were we to add another amendment as such, the antis would look for some way of saying that they cancel each other out, or look for discrepencies to attack. They might say that the original is obsolete because of the new one, and then exploit any wording mistakes/loopholes/unclear statements.
Great thinking, though.
#1 If the present US Second Amendment (and the gun rights amendments of many states) were read and understood with a reasonable amount of fairness, then we gunners would have no problems with our gun rights.
#2 If we gunners ask/work for the creation of another pro-gun amendment, the anti-gunners might beat us to death with our own actions. They would claim that obviously we gunners don't have complete and full faith in the second amendment or why else would we be wanting a "backup" amendment.
#3 If we gunners run a risk having to divert a lot of our time, money and energy working to promote an additional amendment, or a change to an existing amendment. Such an effort might dilute our present efforts in the always ongoing gun rights war. It is possible that we would fail in promoting the new amendment as well as lose unnecessary ground in our present fight because of us being diverted towards the new amendment.
#4 Maybe this is the most important reason not to try for a new or revised amendment. Once you actually succeed in convening a constitutional convention, for the purpose of adding an amendment or changing a particular amendment, you might find yourself in for a wild ride. Once that convention is convended, there is NO GUARANTEE exactly what will or will not be changed. Once you start your efforts to convene that constitutional convention (and we assume we would not make that effort unless the political landscape favored us) it would take probably years to actually see the reps from all (or the great majority) of the states actually appearing at the constitutional convention. At that particular moment in time the political landscapae might have changed so much that you might be sorry that you even caused the convention to happen. Reason being that your opponents might then have the power and strength to not only deny you your new/improved admendment but might actually delete the present second amendment. Or even make some other unwanted changes to the constitution.
IMHO the best way for us is to continue fighting, fight as hard as we can, and recruit other gun owners to join the fight. (only the minority of gun owners are helping now). We are getting lucky in a way because of the terrorism in the world. More and more people, who used to laugh at the need for self-defense, are starting to finally understand that there are evil people out there that want to hurt/kill you and your family and there will be times when you might be the only one standing between you/your family and the evil ones.
Plus, Pres. Bush is doing pretty well by changing the US Supreme Court to a court that finally is starting to believe that their job is ONLY to reasonably interpert the constitution; their job is NOT to pass judgement on what they THINK the constitution should be. We gunners just might, when the time is right, find our lawyers arguing in front of the US Supreme Court that the US second amendment gives us the gun rights that we have claimed all along.
That is just my "man-on-the-street" opinion. Now I HOPE no one accuses me of being a "compromiser" about this.
If this makes sense, then the laws and regulations that currently stifle the Second Amendment should make sense as well. If it doesn't, then we would probably be better served by having the restrictions placed on the Second Amendment removed, and returned to it's rightful status.