this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
319 points (98.2% liked)

News

23367 readers
3151 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Meant something different back then.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Evidently. If this is what people call "well-regulated" these days....

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

It's why they push so hard to have that ignored

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Back in the day "well regulated" meant "well armed and equipped".

So, in order to form a proper defense of the country, any able bodied man could be called up (the militia), and it was necessary this body of men be well armed and equipped.

Well, that's the TEXTUAL reason. There's a SUB-TEXTUAL reason as well:

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment

"It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And ... James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. ... The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings."

[–] doubletwist@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you go with that reading, then one could argue that the 2nd amendment doesn't require the allowance of privately owned/held firearms at all, but would be satisfied by state, and/or local governments organizing their own "militias", with arms purchased, stored and controlled in much the same way as our national military does, but managed by said militia organization. In such a reading, banning the private ownership and use of firearms could conceivably be enacted without running afoul of the second amendment.

I'm not saying that I propose this or that I think it's a good idea, just that one could make the case.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

That's where the current Supreme Court comes in:

2008: "Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/

2010: "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states, at least for traditional, lawful purposes such as self-defense."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/

2016: "The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as "bearable arms," even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/14-10078/

2022: "New York's requirement that an applicant for an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed pistol or revolver must prove "a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community” is unconstitutional."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think the biggest difference between then and now in that regard isn't the meaning of "well regulated". It's "being necessary to the security of a free State". The expectation at the time was that we wouldn't have a standing professional army to defend the nation in times of war, and we'd have to conscript militias. This was the norm at the time, and the US being a new, and therefore poor, nation, that is what the plan was. However, that isn't the case anymore. The whole second amendment hinges on militias being necessary, and since it isn't its moot.

I'm fine with "gun rights" and ownership of firearms, with reasonable expectations. I think they're fun to use, and they have a purpose. A certain level of training and competency should be required though (training paid by taxes so poor people can also own them), and should include proper storage lessons.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Oh, it's way deeper and messier than that...

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment

"It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And ... James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. ... The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings."