Should the Second Amendment be Abolished or Defended?

[Skip Intro]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by azurnoir (a host of the General Discussion forum).

Curious...

21 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Poll closed
	Defended, not abolished.
	10 (48%)
	Modified so only certain people can have guns, despite what the Constitution says.
	2 (10%)
	Hybrid answer - grandfather in those who currently own, make illegal to own gun for new generations.
	0 (0%)
	Abolished, ASAP.
	5 (24%)
	Other.
	4 (19%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[El Supremo]

1. Other. Amended...

to reflect the power of current weapons.

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. Interesting...

I wonder what the average distance would be in today's gun homicides, and if the guns of yore could kill at those same distances.

The "Brown Bess" is said to have been lethal to a distance of about 175 yards in the right hands, and was introduced in 1722, more than a few years before the Second Amendment was a gleam in a gun nut's eye.

[RKP5637]

37. +1, n/t

[LittleBlue]

2. The 2nd Amendment should be defended at all costs

Trying to take away guns from Americans would be an even bigger disaster than trying to take their drugs or alcohol.

A lot of people would be in prison. A lot of federal officers would end up dead trying to seize weapons from 2nd Amendment militia types. The black market created by a gun ban would make drug cartels look gentle by comparison. Criminals would still be able to buy them, a fine or a little jail time would be no real deterrent to a gang member.

[Skip Intro]

3. Excellent points. n/t

[onehandle]

4. How does abolishing the 2nd Amendment mean taking away guns?

Total NRA bullshit.

[LittleBlue]

11. What would be the point of abolishing the right to bear arms

if not to take away that right?

Hell, don't bother going through the expense of amending the constitution in that case. Guns can be regulated even with the 2A.

[Puzzledtraveller]

14. Often overlooked

when people have daydreams about federal agents going door to door confiscating Mr and Mrs John Q citizen's guns is all gangs in this country who are armed and already completely unconcerned with guns laws and in most cases peoples lives. I think a lot of people who really think about confiscation see agents going to quiet middle America neighborhoods where drive by shootings never take place, crime is something that happens somewhere else and every answers their door when they hear a knock.

[RKP5637]

29. Yep, it would be a huge black market! Excellent points! n/t

[onehandle]

5. Abolished. The 2nd Amendment overpowers 'states rights' not to mention jurisdictions rights.

Of course this poll will be overwhelmed by our gungeoneers and their many, many, many sockpuppets.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. Federal supremacy. The Constitution always trumps "states' rights".

And arguing that states should have the right to, say, impose more stringent gun control laws than the prevailing interpretation of the Second Amendment allows for, opens the door for a lot of other "states' rights" laws. If states can ignore the Second Amendment, can they ignore the Fourteenth? The First? The rest of the constitution?

[Duckhunter935]

15. Oh yeah

States rights to have full auto weapons and no rules on guns, That would be awesome I assume you agree?

[NutmegYankee]

17. Do you not support incorporation of rights by the 14th Amendment?

Can a state or local jurisdiction silence you and jail you for making unpopular speech? Do you understand Federalism?

[cherokeeprogressive]

67. So few do...

Call it willful ignorance, or simple denial of truth.

The individual states came together and created the federal government. It would seem that most posters at DU think a federal government existed first, and then the land it ruled was divided into individual states.

Strange.

[Skip Intro]

20. Sorry you don't like the results of the poll so far, and must cry foul rather

than accept that reality.

[RKP5637]

35. I'm not even a gun type person, but abolishing the 2nd amendment would

IMO have horrific consequences. Plus, it would basically imply people can not be trusted. I think there are many responsible gun owners. And those that want guns for violence would still get them on the black market. ... etc., etc.

Post #1 had a good point, maybe modified to reflect the power of today's weapons, etc. I'm all for doing what is necessary to screen gun purchases.

[pipoman]

23. wishful thinking

Maybe that claim worked back on DU2 , lol, now you can see the voters. Maybe you could enlighten us as to the (looney) claim of sock puppets?

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. if they take away our guns the Communist will come in and take over anyway

[Eleanors38]

7. No, I'll have to get another. nt

[Electric Monk]

8. Only certain people can legally have guns now, despite your reading comprehension abilities. nt

[Skip Intro]

16. Personal insult aside, I should have revised that choice, but votes had already been cast.

Should have read something about only having law enforcement and the government at large to have guns.

Too late to edit after voting starts, though.

[A HERETIC I AM]

53. Law enforcement is the last place expansion of guns should occur.

Cops are not the ones that need more and newer guns.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Repealed.

The rationale for the Second Amendment is no longer applicable in the modern world; the role of the citizen militia has been supplanted by the National Guard. (NB that the Second Amendment says nothing about "self-defence" or "hunting"; the entire reason for it is contained in "well-regulated militia".)

[NutmegYankee]

18. Actually the National Guard is more like a reserve unit.

They are professionally trained and paid, unlike militias.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. And the USA has a standing army.

Which it didn't at the time of the Second Amendment. Which further renders the militia unnecessary. The point isn't that the National Guard is a militia (it's not, technically), but that there's no need of a militia with over a million active-duty and reserve troops.

[NutmegYankee]

31. The idea was to have citizens who were familiar with arms and could readily form into militias

Firearm ownership isn't tied to militias, but having citizens who know how to use firearms are key to forming good militias that don't run at the first shot like they did often in the Revolutionary War. That would be the well-regulated concern in the 2nd. The Founding fathers thought of gun ownership and familiarization as a civic duty. And since we were not supposed to have a standing army, the citizenry were it.

As for standing army size, the ability to form militias is still in law and if we were invaded, would be quite useful. While untrained militia cannot carry a battle line, they are very useful for bogging down an enemy. Napoleon learned this first hand in his occupation of Spain. That was the conflict that gave us the term - guerrilla warfare.

[Spider Jerusalem]

40. "If we were invaded"...by whom?

An invasion of the USA is extremely unlikely; any potential enemy is on the other side of an ocean. Long-distance seaborne invasions are unfeasible; the Normandy invasion required a couple of years of planning and preparation and a strong base within less than fifty miles of the coast.

And it's kind of irrelevant what the Founding Fathers may have thought; the eighteenth century is not the twenty-first, and a lot has changed since then. (The USA is no longer a fledgling nation of four million people surrounded on all sides by potentially hostile colonial empires, for a start.)

[Recursion]

43. Ask residents of Gettysburg or Antietem (or St. Alban's, VT, even...)

The history of US militia usage has always been against other Americans who have taken up arms.

(Note: St. Alban's, Vermont, was a weird Confederate raid that came in through Canada. Cool story.)

[Spider Jerusalem]

54. Battles fought by militia units in Federal service, akin to the modern National Guard?

That only proves my point.

[Recursion]

56. Or the Whiskey Rebellion

Most uses of the militia were closer to what we would think of as a "posse". Generally used against other Americans (particularly the Native kind).

[NutmegYankee]

44. It's still in law just in case.

We may not see anything right now, but that could always change.

And yes, it is relevant what the Founding Fathers thought. They wrote, voted on, and published the Bill of Rights. If you disagree with those rights, then start an amendment campaign to modify them. Until then, we still have them, including the 3rd, which is almost totally useless today.

Funny enough, but a court case to support the 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search of a cell phone by a cop hinged on what was argued about "personal effects and papers" by people who lived by candle light.

[Spider Jerusalem]

50. Actually, it isn't very relevant at all. Not unless you happen to be a strict constructionist.

A broad construction of "personal effects and papers" would include mobile phones (which didn't exist in 1791) just as a broad construction of "well regulated militia" takes that as being in a modern context the National Guard.

[NutmegYankee]

52. The intent is needed to show that while technology changed, the right still applies

Just because the amendment says papers doesn't mean it's limited to paper only. As for National Guard, you are incorrect - The national Guard is not a militia. Militia is unprofessional troops. The National Guard is professionally trained, equipped and paid. They are basically a reserve unit to the Army but can be called into service by a governor.

Like in the cell phone case, a change in technology or organization doesn't remove the right of the people.

[Spider Jerusalem]

58. Have you actually read the Constitution?

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

That sounds an awful lot like the National Guard.

[NutmegYankee]

60. Yes I have, multiple times and completely.

Tell me, who appoints the officers and trains the national guard?

The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force composed of state National Guard members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States.[37][38] Created by the Militia Act of 1903, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army and the United States Air Force. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States [37] for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States

[Spider Jerusalem]

62. The governors of the respective states appoint the officers of their state National Guards.

They're commissioned by the President, but they're not appointed by the President.

[NutmegYankee]

64. And on that we have to differ

Every National Guard officer I know has a DOD rank. The militia as it existed in 1787 is virtually unrecognizable after the 1903 law. A state governor has CIC power when not called into federal service, but the guard is highly tied to federal funding and equipment as well as falling under all federal rules. They undergo the same boot camp training as regular army. As I pointed out, they are considered the reserves. And in fact they are recognized as the reserves.

Not that any of this matters with the 2nd. Ownership was never tied to militia service.

[Spider Jerusalem]

71. You can differ if you want, it doesn't make you right:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=38.12&full=true#38.12.060

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&ttl=51&div=0&chpt=23

Every state law relating to the national guard stipulates the appointment of officers by the governor.

[oneofthe99]

10. I am going to edit because I need to research more before commenting

edit

[Chisox08]

12. It should be defended

especially the well regulated part.

[pipoman]

21. Always the same results every time

this has been polled on DU..much to the chagrin of those who generally post the question. .

[Jasana]

22. Defended.

I'm not a gungeoneer (sp?) I don't even own a gun and I'm not a sock puppet either. There are places out in the back woods of America where it would be safer to have a rifle or shotgun. I don't have to worry about that. I live in a pretty quiet spot in a major city.

There's also legitimate hunting.

There's also hobby target shooting. I've been wanting to try that but a rifle would be too much for me to handle. I'm disabled with MS so I would have to go with a handgun. I've been saying I'm going to do it for ages. It's on my bucket list. And yes, I have been treated for depression once before. That was during the years it took to diagnose the MS. Having a chronic illness is certainly a valid reason for depression but I've been out of it for awhile, yet, I take cymbalta; not for depression but for nerve pain.

Background checks to a certain extent are okay but I don't want people nosing around my medical records. No way. Of course I see no need for high capacity mags or for hollow point bullets. There needs to be some regulation but my state, Massachusetts, is lousy with regulations. Only the local police chief can finally okay you to get a regular gun permit and if he doesn't like you or your politics, you are screwed. Mass. regs are too strict. They need to be loosened in some ways and tightened in others. I wish we all could approach this conversation like adults but the NRA makes it impossible.

[Skittles]

24. needs to be rewritten so stupid people can understand it

[Electric Monk]

26. WIN

[hrmjustin]

30. .

[Puzzledtraveller]

46. nailed it

[davidpdx]

74. Agreed

It is way out dated and vague. The idea that there should be no restrictions is ridiculous, but at the same time abolishing it is not the answer. When just about anyone can walk around with a semi-automatic slung over their shoulder in public (in at least some states) that is scary.

I have a friend who lived here in Korea for many years and ended up moving back to the US. The increasing gun violence is one of the things that she said she was worried about. Here in Korea unless you are police or military there isn't a reason for you to have a gun.

[beevul]

76. "Stupid people" like Justice Stevens?

"needs to be rewritten so stupid people can understand it"


I wouldn't be putting my chips on that number. From Stevens dissent in Heller:

"The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. But a conclusion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right does not tell us anything about the scope of that right..."

[dionysus]

27. other: defended, within reason.

[Maedhros]

28. The poll excludes any number of options that are not "abolish" or "defend."

I'm in favor of modified and clarified.

[yurbud]

73. at the very least, it needs a grammar check

[Recursion]

32. The 2nd Amendment is a red herring here

It's certainly a rhetorical base for the NRA, but it has had little judicial and legislative impact. As far as I know, the only actual SCOTUS judgments on the 2nd Amendment state that

1. It is permissible to ban (or very tightly restrict) certain types of weapons like sawed-off shotguns and automatic weapons
2. It is permissible to outlaw gun ownership based on objective criteria (felons, those deemed mentally incompetent, etc.) even to the extent of requiring licensing (NB: licensing, not registration; the latter hasn't been addressed yet)
3. It is not permissible to have an outright ban on all civilian firearm ownership like DC used to (and wasn't that a stunning success...)

This is, with the exception of a few holdouts on both sides, basically the entire spectrum of US attitudes towards guns as it is. Even the VPC doesn't call for outright civilian bans anymore, and even the NRA isn't calling for a repeal of the NFA.

So, basically, the adjudication of the 2nd Amendment to date leaves us... with exactly the political goalposts we have: by default, people can purchase (some types of) guns subject to state and Federal regulations (which cannot be so burdensome as to effectively get rid of that right). Removing or "defending" the 2nd Amendment wouldn't change that and would leave us exactly where we are.

If the 2nd Amendment were to disappear tomorrow (moths got into the National Archives or something), the NRA would still oppose gun registration, "assault weapons" bans, and individual licensure; Brady would still support them; and the political situation for actually passing those laws would be exactly where it is now -- even DC has admitted that removing the official gun ban hasn't noticeably increased the number of guns in the city or gun violence in general.

[yodermon]

33. It needs to be clarified, it's grammatically ambiguous in modern english

The SC even declared that the militia clause is prefatory and "does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause." OK, well then it no longer comports with the spirit/intention of the framers, and we need a convention.

[NutmegYankee]

39. Well regulated goes back to the Revolution.

We fought that war with an unprofessional army, and militia in particular did not perform well. The Founding fathers wanted a nation without a standing army, but understood that meant relying on the citizenry for defense. It was their intention to protect civilian arms ownership because they believed it was a civic duty to learn how to use firearms and if needed, be called into militias to defend the country. Washington for instance called up the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.

While we have our professional army and our reserves (National Guard), we still have laws allowing a call up of militias in case of invasion. I think the Founders, if they could see the country today, would be shocked that a large chunk of the population has never fired a firearm in their lives. I suspect they would be equally shocked at the power of modern weapons of all types.

[Vashta Nerada]

34. It should only be defended out of fear of a zombie apocalypse.

Otherwise, I can't think of a good reason to defend it.

[rug]

36. I'd settle for it being understood.

[Skip Intro]

38. 2nd Amendment Supporters are in the majority on DU as I type this.

54% voting an unqualified, "Defended, not abolished."

A year or two ago I posted a similar poll, with similar results.

The majority of DU, active DU anyway, supports the RKBA.

It does me good to see this.

[Electric Monk]

41. The top option has 54% as I post this, for clarity. nt

[Skip Intro]

47. Top option is "Defended, not abolished." OP has not been edited n/t

[Electric Monk]

48. Your post (#38) has been, though. nt

[Skip Intro]

49. Sure has. You got a point in there somewhere?

[Skip Intro]

51. The top option (defend) has 58% as I post this, for clarity. nt

[NYC_SKP]

70. 74% if we look only at option one and "abolish"

"Other" is kind of an outlier, could mean anything.

"Modified" is pretty much what we have now, so I toss that out.

"Hybrid" is a little bit like "abolish", if we added that to abolish we'd have about 73% for "defend".

Thanks for posting this poll, Skip Intro.

[Skittles]

42. reminds me of Christie and his report

[Skip Intro]

45. Now you hate me again, don't you? n/t

[flvegan]

55. What's the argument/discussion?

Suggesting that any part of the Constitution be "abolished" should really have more of a description, don't you think?

Or is this just another of *those* polls meant to make people post things about "gun humpers" and "gun grabbers" etc?

Frankly, that shit is boring.

[Skip Intro]

57. Um, whether the 2nd Amendment be abolished or defended. Seems pretty clear to me. n/t

[flvegan]

59. You don't have one, cool.

Big shock.

[Skip Intro]

63. Hey dude - it's a poll with clear choices. That's enough for me. Sorry it isn't enough for you.

Maybe you can find a better thread?

[Oakenshield]

61. "Defend" the 2nd amendement?

I wasn't aware it was under "attack". Would the NRA trolls kindly sod off?

[friendly_iconoclast]

65. "Would the NRA trolls kindly sod off?" Name three- and show your work...

[TreasonousBastard]

66. Amended so that...

at the point of purchase the purchaser sign a pledge to shut up about guns or be required to play Russian roulette once a year.

[Hoyt]

68. Just interpret it as written. See Justice Stevens' in Heller, and other 3 sensible Justices.

Not the right wing idiots who side with the TParty bigots on just about every issue.

[beevul]

75. The same justice stevens that said this?

From Stevens dissent in Heller:

"The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. But a conclusion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right does not tell us anything about the scope of that right..."

Looks to me like Stevens was interpreting it as written.

Somehow I don't see you agreeing with what he said there.

[veganlush]

69. i don't know anybody who defends it as it is written

So it has always needed to be modified. On the day it was written it was obsolete because the "infringments" that it supposedly forbids were ALWAYS applied. On that very day there were limits to who could bear and where they could.bear. Also, back then the term "arms" was limited to a couple of primative firearms.

[doc03]

72. It should be amended or clarified as to what (well regulated) means.

Everybody doesn't deserve the right to own a gun, wouldn't you agree a person
convicted of a gun felony shouldn't be armed? Well any felon can buy a buy a firearm
from a newspaper classified ad, on the street or from a person attending a gun show. I've been to many a gun shows, you tie a price tag on a gun or just carry a gun at a gun show and you will get offers from other attendees to buy it, with no checks or anything. So don't tell me it doesn't happen. Types of arms can be regulated, surely nobody thinks you should have a nuke, a surface to air missile or a land mine. But they think a rifle designed for nothing but murdering people shouldn't be regulated. Oh I own several guns, hunt, target shoot and got a CCW permit. I also belonged to the NRA until Wayne LaPierie showed up and it just became a lobbying group for the firearms industry and a shill for the Republican party.

[mwrguy]

77. Replaced or abolished.

[Warpy]

78. In its present form, it's a complete anachronism

It was put into place not by a bunch of gun loons but by men who thought the country could best defend itself by local militias. The War of 1812 proved them wrong and a professional military was permanently adopted. The amendment should have been scrapped then, but it wasn't.

This is one area I'd like to see more local control, something that's stymied by the NRA and their lobbyists. Gun ownership is necessary in the NM boonies. It is largely counterproductive in big cities and their suburbs. Also, greater care has to be exercised to keep them out of the hands of children, felons and the insane.

[Douglas Carpenter]

79. it should be clarified so as not to be interpreted that common sense controls, regulation,

registrations and restrictions to such as is consistent with the norms of a western democracy are not allowed for the sake of public safety

[azurnoir]

80. sorry locking

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