• halfempty
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    -31 year ago

    So second amendment extreme absolutists are saying that any effort to make guns safer violates our right to have guns. Not to mention that the second amendment has been historically interpreted to apply to “well regulated militia” until fairly recently in supreme court rulings.

    • @FireTower
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      71 year ago

      The Bruen decision touched on that topic of historical interpretation. It stated that post 1860s historical interpretations of the 2A were not reliable indicators of the meaning of the text because the of the pro slavery revisionism of the Constitution, which among other things redefined that amendment to not apply to ‘the people’ as a means of insuring the Black Americans couldn’t be armed.

      As for the historical context of ‘well regulated milita’ at the time it was written it was interpreted as to mean a militia (a force comprised of the regular people) held to a standard of preparedness. Able bodied men were expected to maintain a musket or rifle should there be a need to defend the land. Militia organizers were tasked with the duty of ensuring these firearms were functional if they were to be needed. If an individual was to say have a rustied musket they’d be expected to clean it to bring it into a serviceable state.

    • ThrowawayOP
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      21 year ago

      Its not about safety. There isnt a gun out there with microstamping, its a ban with a different name.

      • halfempty
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        1 year ago

        At first, militia were formed in response to war. There were no standing army until well after the US was formed. The closest we have to a well regulated armed militia as envisioned by the second amendment are our state national guards. The second amendment was created before the concept of a US standing army.

        • @FireTower
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          41 year ago

          Funnily the Founding Fathers explicitly didn’t trust the concept of a standing national army because it might create an American army that was constantly engaged in foreign conflict as a means of justifying it’s continued existence ensuring an eternal cycle of needless warfare.

      • halfempty
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        21 year ago

        The point is that a mob or gang of armed vigilantes pushing an extreme political agenda is NOT a well regulated militia. But those are the people holding up the second amendment. Ordinary citizens outside of the context of a well regulated militia have been outside of the scope of the second amendment until the rise of the NRA in the middle of the 20th century.

        • @sudo22
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          1 year ago

          Yeah thats just completely false. The second amendment does not say arms are a right of the militia.

          “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

          “the right of the people”. This was not an accident. The founding father’s rejected different drafts that made arms a right of the militia, instead realizing the government would use that wording to restrict people’s rights with the argument they aren’t part of a malitia. Considering the conversion we’re having, their foresight was incredible.