XPost: can.talk.guns, alt.guns, alt.rec.guns   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: heekster@iwxt.net   
      
   On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:50:50 -0700, Leif    
   wrote:   
      
   >On Sep 15, 10:10 pm, oldpink  wrote:   
   >> Leif wrote:   
   >>   
   >> [...]   
   >>   
   >> >>However, failing to do so doesn't prove your point since guns are still   
   >> >>effects and thus protected.- Hide quoted text -   
   >>   
   >> >>- Show quoted text -   
   >>   
   >> > Leif speaking:  If personal guns are protected as "effects" under the   
   >> > 4th Amendment, then there is really no need to give them protection   
   >> > again under the 2nd Amendment  -- and of course the the Framers   
   >> > didn't.  The 2nd Amendment protects the people as a well regulated   
   >> > militia.   
   >>   
   >> Bzzt!   
   >> The Founders explicitly mentioned arms in the SA because of their   
   >> previous bad experience with the British attempting to disarm them.   
   >> Since there were so many colonists in the New World who were so   
   >> proficient with small arms, they were able to defeat the largest and   
   >> most powerful standing army in the world at that time.   
   >> Recognizing that the ability to defend oneself against tyrannical   
   >> invaders, common felons, and other hostiles is part and parcel of true   
   >> freedom, they made the right to keep and bear arms explicit in the SA.   
   >> Further, to claim that the milita is the National Guard, and that ONLY   
   >> Guardsmen while on duty can carry arms is pure obfuscation.   
   >> There WAS no NG at that point in time.   
   >> The militia at that time was drawn from all able bodied men, using their   
   >> own weapons when mustered to do battle against the British regulars.   
   >> The militiamen were not a part of a formal army at all.   
   >> They came completely voluntarily, under no obligation save their own   
   >> promises, and they used their OWN arms, stored in their OWN homes, period.   
   >> Yes, the Founders at that point in time were primarily concerned with   
   >> being able to repel a foreign invader, but they also well knew the more   
   >> common everyday threats faced by colonists, particularly those in   
   >> isolated locations, with no assistance from either neighbors or a police   
   >> force.   
   >> To claim otherwise is either naivete or outright dishonesty.   
   >> --   
   >> And what exactly is a joke?   
   >   
   >Leif speaking:  The American forces that took on the British were made   
   >up of organized militia units and units of regular forces.   
      
   Are you on drugs?  There were no regular forces, only militia.  The   
   regulars were formed from the existing militia, later.   
      
   > The war   
   >was not won by  freelance gunners each going out individually against   
   >the enemy.   
      
   No, but that was how it started. You might want to peruse the battles   
   of Lexington and Concord.   
      
   >  When the Second Amendment was written in 1789,   
      
   Nice dodge of 6 centuries of english common law.  You also might want   
   to peruse the state constitutions of circa 1776.   
      
   > militia duty was obligatory under state militia laws.   
      
   It was obligatory before that, under colonial law and before that,   
   under English common law, and before that, the fyrd.   
      
   > Those who most   
   >vigorously advocated the need for a bill of rights, such as Thomas   
   >Jefferson, were worried about the perceived dangers to a republic of a   
   >peacetime standing army.  They wanted assurance that the federal   
   >government would not replace the militia with such an army, oppressing   
   >the states.  That assurance was the purpose of the Second Amendment.   
   >Jefferson referred to the Second Amendment as "the substitution of   
   >militia for a standing army."   
   >   
   And that is but half of that amendment.  In the same way that congress   
   combined freedom of religion and freedom of the press, etc, in what   
   became the first amendment, they combined the RKBA with the militia as   
   the proper defense of a free state in the second.  The conscientious   
   objector clause was almost part of the amendment that became the   
   second.   
      
   >It's true that there was nothing called a "National Guard" at the time   
   >the Second Amendment was written.  Neither were there any of the rapid-   
   >fire arms that are in use today.   
      
   Thanks for the news flash.  I'm sure this is news to everyone here.   
      
   >  Does that mean that only arms in   
   >existence in 1789 should be legal today?   
   >   
   No, it means that there was no National Guard in the 18th century, and   
   there were no "rapid fire" weapons at that time, either.  Establishing   
   a logical causality does not seem to be your forte.  It also seems to   
   baffle you that many militia laws have been passed since the second   
   amendment was ratified, as well as advancements in firearms   
   technologies.   
      
   You don't even seem to understand your own words, without drawing some   
   outrageously absurd conclusion.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)