So, the notion that armed guards will prevent shootings.

If you can find me a bit of Magna Carta quoted every day in defence of some anachronistic bullshit, then you might have a point.
ok, i should have read further down the page. you cut to the chase quicker than i did. showoff
 
Of course. Anywhere you find a legal precedent that holds that a specific right is not absolute I believe you will find an exception where the "minority" abuse of a right is denied protection because of its danger to the "majority."

If the majority of movie goers felt they had need to yell "fire" in a perfectly safe theater, courts might be inspired to tweak the law in a different way. But as long as such behavior is restricted to a minority of demented individuals, it seems reasonable to make the utterance an exception to the general rule of free speech.

This principle of qualification is common throughout the law. One of the challenges in applying it, however, is for judges not to rely upon it where and when a formal amendment through the legislative process is more appropriate. The debate around where this switch point is to be found is often at the core of our Constitutional disagreements, even when it is not being voiced.
This is not quite the same as the "popularity contest" around guns that you mentioned before. The "fire in a theater" discussion is not one of serving the preferences of those who wish people wouldn't yell "fire," it's a matter of finding the line between speech per se and speech as something more than words.

The construct usually at work with regard to interpretations of Constitutional protections is, "The Constitution guarantees all X except in the case of Y." That's at the bottom of the "fire" instance (all speech except in the case of creating immediate public danger). All other speech, even sentences not yet dreamed of, is presumed to be protected until shown otherwise.

Voting rights work the same way (eventually). "All citizens except in the case of (for example) convicts." That means every person who meets the definition of a citizen, everywhere in the country, no matter what they think or do look like. It is not meant to protect the desires of those who wish convicts wouldn't vote. It is meant to ensure the broadest possible freedom with regard to voting rights.

And so on.

However, the second amendment is currently interpreted the opposite way: No X except in the case of Y. "No tools of war (the right explicitly granted in the Constitution) except in the single instance of guns." That's an unprecedented reversal of the manner in which our other Constitutional protections are usually conceived of. Most amendments are attached in service of broadening, rather than narrowing, the population pool afforded Constitutional protections--as, in fact, this one was. This amendment has been narrowed to relate to a single kind of weapon. Strange (to me).

That's why I find the invocation of the Second Amendment among gun advocates to be so slippery: Yes, we have an amendment dealing with possession of the tools of warfare. But we've also shown very little fealty to it over the years--in fact, we've compromised it drastically and disproportionately compared to most others. So to what extent is that amendment and your modern interpretation of the word "arms" really relevant? Aren't you really just saying, "I like my guns and want to keep them"? and then invoking the Constitution in the hopes that it will serve as some kind of conversation-ending trump card?
 
If you can find me a bit of Magna Carta quoted every day in defence of some anachronistic bullshit, then you might have a point.

What does the frequency of quoting a law, much less its mere age, have to do with its validity? Are there any legislative bodies who don't have provisions for amending or repealing anachronistic laws? The failure of a majority within a democratic republic to avail themselves of those procedures seems to suggest that they may not feel a given law has passed into the state of an anachronism.

Meanwhile, does the mere antiquity of their text argue against the legitimacy of those elements of English common law of which you happen to approve?
 
the MC supplied the basics of English liberties - forcing King John to revert to using older laws combined with new with the intention of demonstrating how the power of an ordained king could be limited by a written document in the interest of the public.

i would say brits are far more concerned with the spirit of a law than its letter; they won't allow outmoded language or interests to stand in the way of progression for the betterment of society, but will frequently challenge ancient laws when their use becomes anachronistic with time.

There is the key difference......

You guys across the pond are all about the betterment of society at any cost...

M'erikans say not at the rape of the individual, society will have to find another way to make "Progress"
hotfuzzgreatergood.jpg


Than to shit all over the individual.

At least that's how it's supposed to be....somewhere along the way though it ALL became about using the government to force/extract money from the people.
 
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There is the key difference......

You guys across the pond are all about the betterment of society at any cost...

M'erikans say not at the rape of the individual, society will have to find another way to "Progress"
for
hotfuzzgreatergood.jpg


Than to shit all over the individual.

At least that's how it's supposed to be....somewhere along the way though it ALL became about using the government to force/extract money from the people.

the general public doesn't give too much of a shit until something dreadful happens to shock the status quo and them out of their apathy - such as the Dunblane shootings. things changed swiftly afterwards due to public demand and need for our children to be able to attend school in safety.

The Dunblane school massacre occurred at Dunblane Primary School in the Scottish town of Dunblane on 13 March 1996. The gunman, 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton (b. 10 May 1952), entered the school armed with four handguns, shooting and killing sixteen children and one adult before committing suicide. Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 2010 Cumbria shootings, it remains one of the deadliest criminal acts involving firearms in the history of the United Kingdom.

Public debate subsequent to these events centred on gun control laws, including public petitions calling for a ban on private ownership of handguns and an official enquiry, the Cullen Report. In response to this debate, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 were enacted, which effectively made private ownership of handguns illegal in the United Kingdom.

when we see something needs changing to protect those we love, it tends to get changed. priorities.
 
the general public doesn't give too much of a shit until something dreadful happens to shock the status quo and them out of their apathy - such as the Dunblane shootings. things changed swiftly afterwards due to public demand and need for our children to be able to attend school in safety.

Understandable.....and your solution while acceptable to the UK, WILL NEVER HAPPEN in the US. ;) We value individual rights too much, that and it's as close to a logistic impossibility as it gets.

Your countrymen may have put face to dirt, ass in the air for the gov, and turned in all their guns.....not a snowballs fucking chance here. NEVER...not in any of our life times.

when we see something needs changing to protect those we love, it tends to get changed. priorities.

And now with a violent crime rate that blows the US out of the fucking watter, how's that working out? Hey, less gun crime though!! Good job.
 
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the best way to protect children from school shootings is to close schools.

the best way to protect children from school bus fatalities is to close schools.

the best way to protect children from being hit by a car while crossing the street to school is to close schools.

the best way to protect kids from liberalism is to close schools


if only to save one
 
Understandable.....and your solution while acceptable to the UK, WILL NEVER HAPPEN in the US. ;) We value individual rights too much, that and it's as close to a logistic impossibility as it gets.

Your countrymen may have put face to dirt, ass in the air for the gov, and turned in all their guns.....not a snowballs fucking chance here. NEVER...not in any of our life times.



And now with a violent crime rate that blows the US out of the fucking watter, how's that working out? Hey, less gun crime though!! Good job.
except we didn't - what we did was ditch an outdated, unnecessary desire by the majority to own guns in order to reduce the number of weapons available to misuse in order to protect those we care about instead of selfishly cling to a 'right' no matter how many children or adults are killed because of it.

as for all this violent crime rate, let me tell you I live in the suburbs of london and, whilst we hear about various violent crimes it's still rare enough to be shocking - property theft, fraud and negligent driving are by way the most common crimes we run into on a regular basis.

most murders are committed by someone close to the victim and another gun in the house would only have been the likely murder weapon instead of stabbing or strangulation or battery. we mostly go about our day to day lives without fear of violent crime, and that's without guns. are we very brave? very stupid? no, realists.
 
except we didn't - what we did was ditch an outdated, unnecessary desire by the majority to own guns in order to reduce the number of weapons available to misuse in order to protect those we care about instead of selfishly cling to a 'right' no matter how many children or adults are killed because of it.

as for all this violent crime rate, let me tell you I live in the suburbs of london and, whilst we hear about various violent crimes it's still rare enough to be shocking - property theft, fraud and negligent driving are by way the most common crimes we run into on a regular basis.

most murders are committed by someone close to the victim and another gun in the house would only have been the likely murder weapon instead of stabbing or strangulation or battery. we mostly go about our day to day lives without fear of violent crime, and that's without guns. are we very brave? very stupid? no, realists.

must be fabulous to live in a country with out crime and death. imagine that, no crime, no assaults, no murders, no rapes, no muggings, no robberies. wow that has to be amazing..

as soon as you find such a place let us know. the UK certainly isn't it

I don't give a shit if it is less its still there! you just have less of a chance of stopping it yourself.

I'll think of your utopia and less violent culture the next time a bomb goes off on a bus or train
 
When it comes to per capita imprisonment there really isn't any room for waggling, you are being held in prison or you are not.

When it comes to definition of crimes, process, length of sentence, parole terms or whatever there may be lots of room for comparison but jail is jail. Americans have a punitive oriented juatice system with lots of laws and enforcement capacity so a lot of people wind up in prison, simple as that.

Yes, I understand your point - prison is prison. I was referring to the difficulty of comparing per capita figures between countries. I'm guessing that the US has a lot more laws.
 
when we see something needs changing to protect those we love, it tends to get changed. priorities.

In much the same way as Australia altered gun ownership laws after Port Arthur.

The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a killing spree in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded, mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia.The Port Arthur massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings worldwide committed by a single person.

As a result, under federal government co-ordination all states and territories of Australia banned and heavily restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading and pump-action shotguns, and heavily tightened controls on their legal use. The government initiated a "buy-back" scheme with the owners paid according to a table of valuations. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in at a cost of $350 million.
 
This is not quite the same as the "popularity contest" around guns that you mentioned before. The "fire in a theater" discussion is not one of serving the preferences of those who wish people wouldn't yell "fire," it's a matter of finding the line between speech per se and speech as something more than words.

The construct usually at work with regard to interpretations of Constitutional protections is, "The Constitution guarantees all X except in the case of Y." That's at the bottom of the "fire" instance (all speech except in the case of creating immediate public danger). All other speech, even sentences not yet dreamed of, is presumed to be protected until shown otherwise.

Voting rights work the same way (eventually). "All citizens except in the case of (for example) convicts." That means every person who meets the definition of a citizen, everywhere in the country, no matter what they think or do look like. It is not meant to protect the desires of those who wish convicts wouldn't vote. It is meant to ensure the broadest possible freedom with regard to voting rights.

And so on.

However, the second amendment is currently interpreted the opposite way: No X except in the case of Y. "No tools of war (the right explicitly granted in the Constitution) except in the single instance of guns." That's an unprecedented reversal of the manner in which our other Constitutional protections are usually conceived of. Most amendments are attached in service of broadening, rather than narrowing, the population pool afforded Constitutional protections--as, in fact, this one was. This amendment has been narrowed to relate to a single kind of weapon. Strange (to me).

That's why I find the invocation of the Second Amendment among gun advocates to be so slippery: Yes, we have an amendment dealing with possession of the tools of warfare. But we've also shown very little fealty to it over the years--in fact, we've compromised it drastically and disproportionately compared to most others. So to what extent is that amendment and your modern interpretation of the word "arms" really relevant? Aren't you really just saying, "I like my guns and want to keep them"? and then invoking the Constitution in the hopes that it will serve as some kind of conversation-ending trump card?

I couldn't disagree more.

But you did get this part right: "The Constitution guarantees all X except in the case of Y."

Three points in response.

1. "Y" is hardly ever envisioned at the time of adoption of the original text. Most exceptions make themselves and their compelling need apparent much later.

2. I emphatically dispute your assertion that the Second Amendment inverts the equation. The very language of the amendment ("the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed") satisfies your expectation "in service of broadening, rather than narrowing."

For example, the first major technological advance of firearms following the adoption of the Second Amendment was the invention of the revolver by Samuel Colt. I find no groundswell of public opinion against individual ownership of this sudden and dramatic increase in lethality. Nor is there any indication that it did not immediately fit within whatever protection was afforded by the Second Amendment. The fact that many later high-tech weapons have come under rigid regulation or outright prohibition from individual ownership is a matter of circumstance as is the fact that these exceptions happen to out number those firearms remaining under Second Amendment protection.

3. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the majority opinion in Heller takes note that most of the exceptions characterized as weapons of war have not been analyzed in light of the ownership right established in Heller. Change in their legal status, theoretically at least, could be in the offing.

Together, these three observations demonstrate that there is nothing unusual about the construct of the Second amendment compared to others within the Bill of Rights.

But surely the most vacuous claim of all is that a "lack of fealty" to the Second Amendment right of individual ownership of weapons of war (including those that could truly be characterized as weapons of mass destruction) shares an equitable rationale with the prohibition of those weapons that are the least destructive by comparison.

The "drastic and disproportionate" compromise of the Second Amendment does NOT rob it of its relevance to those weapons remaining under its protection, though that may have been one of the objectives of those in opposition to individual gun ownership.

Neither does that compromise in any way invalidate or diminish the expression of a gun owner who might very well say, "I like my guns and want to keep them."

Finally, it most certainly does not invalidate the amendment's "trump card" function -- a critical feature that the Anti-Federalists understood to hardly be the sole provenance of the Second Amendment, but rather the most compelling argument for inclusion of the entire Bill of Rights into the written Constitution.
 
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Given your apparent calculus on the scope of an individual right vs. a privilege, I'm not certain I could.

Incarcerated felons have obviously forfeited the right to liberty and the "pursuit of happiness," and should they reside on death row, then their right to life hangs in the balance as well.

The fact that their cells may be searched without a warrant and contraband property seized without compensation are also well established deprived "rights" that those of us on the outside have retained.

About the only thing left is the right freeing us from self-incrimination and that any punishment to which we may be subjected is, by presumption, neither "cruel and unusual."

But I've lost the desire to argue the point with you. If your cynicism about government is so deep that few if any rights can be said to exist, that's your prerogative.

But justices writing legal opinions use words in specific ways which those engaged in legal debates understand and generally accept even when they disagree with the resulting legal finding. The law tends to be dismissive (if not worse) toward those who arrive at different interpretations based on their own rules and definitions, especially when bereft of any apparent supportive constituency.

Gosh, you're not even trying.

It is not "their cell", the cell does not belong to the incarcerated, it belongs to the government. As such the government may search it at any time. That right simply doesn't exist in or out of prison. No one has the right to possess contraband outside of prison either.

I don't see a Constitutional Amendment that guarantees liberty, nor the "pursuit of happiness", although prisoners are still free to pursue happiness.

I think you're defining rights and privileges in a different way than I am.
 
In much the same way as Australia altered gun ownership laws after Port Arthur.

The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a killing spree in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded, mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia.The Port Arthur massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings worldwide committed by a single person.

As a result, under federal government co-ordination all states and territories of Australia banned and heavily restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading and pump-action shotguns, and heavily tightened controls on their legal use. The government initiated a "buy-back" scheme with the owners paid according to a table of valuations. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in at a cost of $350 million.

gun buy back here in the US would never work. there simply isn't enough money! 643.000 firearms were handed in, that is a drop in the bucket here.

president Obama is the best firearm salesman in history...

well over 65,000,000 million have been sold since he took office.

According to cnsnews.com, since February 1, 2009 there have been over 65,000,000 background checks for gun purchases in the United States.

That number is probably a good bit lower than the actual number of guns sold though since many states allow purchasers to show their state carry permit to purchase a gun without a background check and one background check can be good for multiple guns.

To put that into perspective, that is enough guns to arm all of the of residents Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, District of Columbia*, and Wyoming.

That number is close to double the number of weapons sold in G.W. Bush’s first term as president (34,214,066).

no amount of money on the planet could buy back all the guns.
 
except we didn't - what we did was ditch an outdated, unnecessary desire by the majority to own guns in order to reduce the number of weapons available to misuse in order to protect those we care about instead of selfishly cling to a 'right' no matter how many children or adults are killed because of it.

Were you really though? Sure there is less gun crime but your assaults/rape/robbery are in most cases right on par if not more than the US, a nation with almost 6x as many people?

Hand full of gun homicides or a shit load of rape/robbery/ assault....is one really better for society at large than the other??:confused:

Not to mention while reduced...all these gun banning nations STILL have mass murderers and crazy doing crazy shit. Nerve gas on subways...school shootings...subway bombings...

In the US we didn't have anywhere NEAR the school/court/public building mass shooting problems before we took left wing suggestions (they sound great!!) and let it blow up in our face for decades now still insistent that it works.

Gun-Free+Zone.gif


Fucking brilliant!! 5x the rampage shootings nearly over night....still insisting that it was the right policy....left wing intelligence at it's finest.

as for all this violent crime rate, let me tell you I live in the suburbs of london and, whilst we hear about various violent crimes it's still rare enough to be shocking - property theft, fraud and negligent driving are by way the most common crimes we run into on a regular basis.

Same here...I lived most of my life in poor areas, da hood...never once been assaulted or robbed, only witnessed 2 assaults and one was a bar fight.

most murders are committed by someone close to the victim and another gun in the house would only have been the likely murder weapon instead of stabbing or strangulation or battery. we mostly go about our day to day lives without fear of violent crime, and that's without guns. are we very brave? very stupid? no, realists.

Mhmmm...and stabbing/strangulation/batter is MUCH better than gun crime right? even hyper inflated rates of it!!!

I go about my life without fear of violent crime too...the odds are simply staggering, I'm far more fearful of the dingbat doing 60mph texting her BFF about OMG!

And assault weapons? I'm more likely to be killed in a vending machine accident...no shit. Just because the media hypes it up to make it sound like some Somali ammo spendex going on over here doesn't make it so.

We would rather have higher gun crime but lower violent crime overall. You like higher violent crime overall and lower gun homicides and think that is the way it should be, and for you it is.

Values...you have yours and we have ours....if you look at it objectively can you really argue that one is better unilaterally for any given population/culture?

Also the UK method of gun control would be next to fucking impossible on a country the size of the US both in sheer square mileage and population even if we went all the way and shit canned the 2A 100% legally. It would take months if not over a year of extremely invasive marshal law and BILLIONS of dollars to have the slightest hope of being effective....good luck with that.
 
You should simply stick with the obvious truth:

I clearly don't understand the Constitution's purpose...

Are you saying there is a Constitutional Amendment that says we have the right to liberty & the pursuit of happiness?
 
The first day of the Constitutional Convention was Monday, May 14, 1787...

...and for the rest of that spring and just a few days short of the entire summer, the delegates debated and voted on what would be constituted to form a new system of federal government and the superior reach that government would be empowered with. Countless issues were raised during the summer of '87, and many of them had to do with "rights" of the people; all the basic issues addressed by the later Amendments to the Constitution - what we know today as the Bill of Rights - were discussed in some fashion during the Convention.

Virtually all the way to the end of the Convention delegates were trying to work one of those "rights" into the C itself - because they distrusted government so much, they weren't buying that whatever power the C didn't specifically give to government in its words, the government had no business involving itself in. Many of the delegates proclaimed they would not sign the C unless some kind of bill of rights was quickly Amended as promised. Three of the delegates, in fact, did not sign the C on Saturday, September 17, 1787 with the rest of their peers because they believed the C gave too much power to the new federal government over the States, and that the C should also include guarantees of absolute individual rights...

...so it would be clear that the new government was prohibited from even thinking about infringing upon them at all.

One of those 3 - George Mason - was one of the 3 main catalysts for the Convention being held in the first place (George Washington and James Madison being the other 2)...

...and Mason and Madison (keeping his Amendment promise of the Convention) would push hard and succeed during Virginia's ratifying convention to sell the genesis of what we know as the 2nd Amendment today.

That historical fact is, the framers believed a citizens' right to bear arms in defense of himself, his family, his property, and others...

...and in defense of individual liberty against tyrannical government, to be inherent/unalienable; ie, above the reach of any government, thus none of its business.

This was just as true of what became part of the 1st Amendment, as is plain to see just two days before the Convention adjourned...

...when, on Friday, September 15, 1787, Madison noted this occurrence:

Mr. PINKNEY & Mr. GERRY, moved to insert a declaration "that the liberty
of the Press should be inviolably observed."

Mr. SHERMAN. It is unnecessary. The power of Congress does not extend to
the Press
.

On the question, it passed in the negative

N. H. no. [*19] Mas. ay. Ct. no. N. J. no. Pa. no. Del. no. Md. ay. Va.
ay. N. C. no. S. C. ay. Geo. no.

The 1st Amendment does not grant freedom of the press, for the framers' dictated freedom of the press - like freedom of speech - to not be within the purview of the specifically limited powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution.

The 1st Amendment simply is intended to underline the intent of the framers, as they command: "Congress shall make no law..."

Similarly, the 2nd Amendment does not grant the "right" to bear arms...

...again: in the framers' eyes, that right is inherent/unalienable, above the reach of any government, and the C and the BoR directly reflect that historical fact.

The 2nd Amendment simply states, as the law of the land, that that inherent right - the right to bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Can't hardly be more clear than that...

...yet, so many still need to hopelessly (and worse: disingenuously) wrestle with the truth.

Instead, they should champion a 28th Amendment to more modernly reflect their vision of the issue...

...but that would be the Constitutional thing to do, and those who dismiss that the framers' intents apply today are hardly interested in legality anymore.

Thus the illegal infringement will continue...







...until enough individual liberty-loving Americans decide to not take such lawlessness anymore.
 
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Are you saying there is a Constitutional Amendment that says we have the right to liberty & the pursuit of happiness?

Evidently...

...you want me to post - again - that you obviously don't understand the purpose of the Constitution.

Yw.
 
Evidently...

...you want me to post - again - that you obviously don't understand the purpose of the Constitution.

Yw.

I'd be happy if you posted anything relevant to the conversation or actually answered my very simple & direct question.
 
Yes, I understand your point - prison is prison. I was referring to the difficulty of comparing per capita figures between countries. I'm guessing that the US has a lot more laws.
:) I figured that you did. I think there is a danger when you wade into issues like this of being dazzled by the confusion and you begin to think that everything is relative or arbitrary.

I think that American culture is more weighted on the punitive side that other English speaking countries and that is at least a part of the reason that their prison syatem is so loaded on a per capita basis. It certainly looks like they could have just as safe a society without the expense of their present system.
 
I couldn't disagree more.

Actually, you were mostly agreeing.


But you did get this part right: "The Constitution guarantees all X except in the case of Y."

Three points in response.

1. "Y" is hardly ever envisioned at the time of adoption of the original text. Most exceptions make themselves and their compelling need apparent much later.

2. I emphatically dispute your assertion that the Second Amendment inverts the equation. The very language of the amendment ("the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed") satisfies your expectation "in service of broadening, rather than narrowing."

For example, the first major technological advance of firearms following the adoption of the Second Amendment was the invention of the revolver by Samuel Colt. I find no groundswell of public opinion against individual ownership of this sudden and dramatic increase in lethality. Nor is there any indication that it did not immediately fit within whatever protection was afforded by the Second Amendment. The fact that many later high-tech weapons have come under rigid regulation or outright prohibition from individual ownership is a matter of circumstance as is the fact that these exceptions happen to out number those firearms remaining under Second Amendment protection.

3. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the majority opinion in Heller takes note that most of the exceptions characterized as weapons of war have not been analyzed in light of the ownership right established in Heller. Change in their legal status, theoretically at least, could be in the offing.

Together, these three observations demonstrate that there is nothing unusual about the construct of the Second amendment compared to others within the Bill of Rights.

Everything up until here was my point as well, so we're agreeing so far. I wasn't saying the second amendment was different on adoption; but rather that it has evolved differently in public discourse over time, to change from guaranteeing all X (arms) except in the case of Y (yet to be defined at the time), to now being invoked in the guarantee ONLY of Y, when we readily accept a range of restrictions on all other X.

Which brings us to...
But surely the most vacuous claim of all is that a "lack of fealty" to the Second Amendment right of individual ownership of weapons of war (including those that could truly be characterized as weapons of mass destruction) shares an equitable rationale with the prohibition of those weapons that are the least destructive by comparison.

The comparison is meaningless, I'm afraid (although see below). The the measure is not, "Which of these dangerous weapons is comparatively least destructive, let's throw the dog that bone and ban the rest so we can still say we're minding the Constitution by a technicality." It's, "Do any of these weapons represent greater public hazard than good? Whichever do, we'll ban in spite of the Constitution."

You're using 'fireams' far too generally, it seems to me. A gun is a missile delivery device. The more missiles it delivers in the shortest time, the greater its effectiveness as a tool of war. But also, the greater public hazard it represents.

More to the point, we are free with our black pens for almost all other line-item tools of warfare (X's), even those less deadly than some legal guns.

Let's take an example: Sarin gas is classified as a weapon of mass destruction. It was used as such by private citizens (non-US, in this case) hoping to perpetrate mass murder in the Tokyo subway system. Five perpetrators...13 dead. In terms of mass-murder, those aren't great odds. In fact, if those perpetrators had had any of hundreds of models of guns that are legal in the US, they not only could but almost certainly would have killed far more, as we've seen (unfortunately) too often and too recently here.

We can all agree: Sarin is bad and should be kept out of the hands of private citizens. Why can't we all agree that if a gun is (say) more potentially deadly and accurate than sarin gas, we ought to keep it out of the hands of private citizens as well?

Finally...

The "drastic and disproportionate" compromise of the Second Amendment does NOT rob it of its relevance to those weapons remaining under its protection, though that may have been one of the objectives of those in opposition to individual gun ownership.

Neither does that compromise in any way invalidate or diminish the expression of a gun owner who might very well say, "I like my guns and want to keep them."

Finally, it most certainly does not invalidate the amendment's "trump card" function -- a critical feature that the Anti-Federalists understood to hardly be the sole provenance of the Second Amendment, but rather the most compelling argument for inclusion of the entire Bill of Rights into the written Constitution.

I can quibble with parts of this, but am open to the logic of especially the bolded part. It helps me understand your position better. The dispute then is really one of where the imaginary line should be drawn--above guns, or below killing capacity. You say the former, I say the latter, and it's probably the very heart of the gun issue in general. I'm grateful to have seen the conversation get there.
 
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