LAT: Man kills 2 Edison co-workers before turning gun on self

[ellisonz]

125. "distrust of all government which developed from our Revolutionary War "

1. Which meant they sent representatives of to form a Continental Congress, to a great degree from their own state governments, which in due turn formed a government under the Articles of Confederation, from which they then decided to form an even stronger government under the Constitution. I'm sorry, but the anti-Federalists lost the debate for good reason, and that they are so prevalent today is sheer proof of the enduring foolishness of such ideas as are underwriting the Tea Party, that America is founded on distrust of government. This is entirely incorrect, America is founded on the idea of good government. We revolted against the British because they imposed bad governance without consent per the social contract that underpins the universal natural rights accorded to all men. Our form of government is good and nowhere in the Constitution is the right to revolt afforded.

2. Hamilton is arguing that the Constitution offers enough significant protection without the addition of a Bill of Rights, most specifically probably in the preamble: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Prefatory statements were much more important to people in those days, and were taken with seriousness, unlike the argumentation you'll find in Heller:

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.

These far-right justices are using the fears of anti-Federalists to make a Federal decision is political interpretation, not grounded in the Constitution or the compromise which the Bill of Rights represents. It is historicism at its worst. The consistent distortion of the intent of the Founders intention in this regard is sophistry.

3. You're arguing that the wisdom of Antonin Scalia over John Paul Stevens? - you must have missed Scalia's true view of your rights to government:

"I hear Americans nowadays ... talk about dysfunctional government because there’s disagreement,” he said. If they understood the Constitution, he continued, they can “learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love gridlock, which the framers believed would be the main protection of minorities.”

Scalia discounted the importance of the Bill of Rights and its protection for freedom of speech and the press. “Every banana republic has a Bill of Rights,” he said. Those are “just words on paper.” It depends on the “structure of government,” including independent courts, to enforce the rights of individuals.

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In recent years, they have conducted their own debate over whether the justices should rely on the original meaning of the Constitution in deciding cases. Breyer said judges needed to start with the “values” set in the Constitution, but need to update them to take account of modern times.

Scalia said he wanted no part of it. “I’m hoping the living Constitution will die,” he said.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/05/news/la-pn-scalia-testifies-20111005

4. "Some who post here seriously believe that we should ban and confiscate all firearms and that would solve all of our violence problems and turn the United States into a crime free utopia. I would point out that such efforts would lead to violence on a scale that dwarfs the bloodshed we have today and would lead to an insurrection which could break our nation apart. It is debatable if such an insurrection would be successful but there is no doubt that it would occur and would disrupt our way of life for a considerable time. Banning and confiscation firearms would be a very foolish path to follow."

I do not believe in such a ban, and neither do most gun control advocates, this would be like me saying that there are Sovereign Citizen movement supporters here (Frankly I'm not so sure about some of posters in the Gungeon), but such talk is the foundation of treason. You know the Constitution was once interpreted as affording the right to slavery, and it took the 13th Amendment to state exactly that after a long and bloody insurrection against Federal government. Fuck the Confederacy.