Federal Judge Upholds Massachusetts Assault-Weapons Ban - Polidicks

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" Basically, the state needs to be able to muster a militia or military force, comprised of citizens of said state. Well regulated in this case just means armed and equipped with necessary provisions. ", the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" Ownership and the right to bear arms is a right of all Americans. Full stop. No restrictions, as is stated with "shall not be infringed." With the Militia Acts, it's been verified that any able bodied male[and now females] from the ages of 17 ~ 45, is collectively part of something called "unorganized militia" while stuff like the National Guards per each state, are deemed "organized militia". The National Firearms Act of 1934 was enacted supposedly to prevent the proliferation of weapons that had no feasible use with the organized militia or military, and this was reaffirmed with United States v. Miller Current gun control legislation like the one this thread is based on, has a serious possibility of being a major violation of the 9th Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. I can go on, but the reality is this. The founding fathers were well aware that firearms technology was going to advance as time went on. By the time the Bill of Rights was being drafted, the Continental Congress had attempted too put an order in for a weapon known as a Belton Flintlock. Said weapon would of been capable of firing seven leadballs in three seconds, with one trigger pull. In otherwords, an early attempt at an automatic. This would imply that the Founding Fathers were not only aware of several weapon designs already in production, but they were attempting to procure them for civilian militia groups, as well as the Continental Army.

All of which came later and failed to understand what the second amendment was saying. The militia IS the government. It is the enforcement arm of the government. It wasn't the sister fucking rednecks of today, it was an organized (as much as any military of the day) force at a federal or local level and is the means by which the government would quash insurrection. It is literally in article one of the constitution To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; A portion of the bill of rights, which exclusively reserve rights for the people, where the government tells the government that the government can't disarm the government, is fucking stupid. It is a statement saying that BECAUSE A MILITIA IS NECESSARY, the people get guns.

Ask the Confederates how that worked out for them.

They managed to beat the Union for roughly three years, and only lost do too a lack of resources and inability to go northward after Gettysburg? As for the point in the post you were replying too, he has a point. If the US government started carrying out drone strikes in American streets, it'd almost automatically lose all good will with the American people. We saw what happened with Waco and Ruby Ridge, and that's small scale compared to some of the shit that the US Military has done in places like Afghanistan with collateral on civilian populations.

lack of resources And there it is, right there. And that was when America still didn't have a "standing army" like it does now. If you honestly think the American populace could possibly hope to match the resources of what we're currently pumping $700+ billion dollars every year into, then I don't know what else to tell you except you're massively delusional if you seriously think: 1) Y'all could win, and 2) That the actual armed forced would open fire on its own citizens in this day and age, especially given how much the Right seemingly likes to wank over how great our service men and women are. Waco and Ruby Ridge were against the FBI, not the army, so basically another "shoot-out with cops" who are becoming more and more militarized precisely because of incidents like the ones you mentioned (which Ruby Ridge sounds like a bunch of religious fundies going batshit in the woods to begin with, reading up on it, hardly what I'd call a "noble cause") The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms first became aware of Weaver in July 1986 when he was introduced to a confidential ATF informant at a meeting at the World Aryan Congress.[18] The informant portrayed himself as a weapons dealer.[20] Weaver had been invited by Frank Kumnick, who was the original target of the ATF investigation. It was Weaver's first attendance. Over the next three years, Weaver and the informant met several times.[18] In July 1989, Weaver invited the informant to his home to discuss forming a group to fight the "Zionist Organized Government", referring to the U.S. Government Yeah, definitely not crazy at all. And as for Waco, they suspected they were violating ATF regulations, and lo and behold after a siege that occurred after the Davidians (what a weird name) they found: The Branch Davidians were well armed with small arms,[106][107] possessing 305 total firearms, including numerous rifles (semi-automatic AK-47s and AR-15s), shotguns, revolvers and pistols;[61][66][108] 46 semi-automatic firearms modified to fire in full automatic mode (included on above list): 22 AR-15 (erroneously referred to as M16), 20 AK-47, 2 HK SP-89, 2 M-11/Nine[66][108] Texas Rangers reported "at least 16 AR-15 rifles,";[61] 2 AR-15 lower receivers modified to fire in full automatic mode;[108] 39 "full auto sears" devices used to convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons; parts for fully automatic AK-47 and M16 rifles; 30-round magazines and 100-round magazines for M16 and AK-47 rifles; pouches to carry large ammunition magazines; substantial quantities of ammunition of various sizes. So they broke the law and made a stand, and lost against the FBI, their only "victory" being in making the government seem too far-reaching against a family that was clearly violating the law, managing to make the whole mess end in a bloody siege that they ultimately lost. Honestly, that you almost seem to idolize these people is disturbing.

I'm not arguing whether or not they broke the law, all I'm saying is this: If the US government were to act in a similar reckless demeanor on American soil, as they have done in Iraq and Afghanistan, many citizens of this country would lose their shit. It would likely lead to further bloodshed and most likely the radicalization of those who realistically would only lean in a certain direction on the political spectrum. As for the Civil War. Many Union generals, and the respective combat units under their command, joined the Confederates because they were given standing orders to march on their homes. With that in mind, as well as the history of several other civil wars and revolutions occurring across the world, it's too be expected that some military units will infact join the rebel cause, and take their gear and equipment with them. This is how a civil war usually escalates from a small time civil disobedience/insurrection too a full scale conflict.

The National Guard.

The US military wiped the floor with the insurgencies in both countries, I'm surprised you don't know that as a veteran.

And yet they're still there, and the American public has become disenfranchised with the war.

Makes me upset to spectate all the wasted bureaucracy on this. Banned. Not banned. It's not why people are dying. You can legitimately trace America's gun death culture to our lack of social healthcare. Other countries have assault rifles in the hands of citizens, yet the only variable that separates America from the others is our absence of such care systems for our citizens. I find it an interesting anecdotal piece that despite me living in a zone with high poverty and crime, the only act of gun violence that ever came to anyone I knew- was my girlfriend's neighbor committing suicide because he didn't want to be a financial burden to his family because of his cancer. But let's get outraged at the gun. Not a government that cultivates a situation where parents have tried, but couldn't financially afford to get their troubled kid the mental healthcare he needed, or any of the other situations that can honestly be traced to similar origin. Let's not get outraged that there is a legitimate system in place to where it is financially cheaper for someone to legally purchase a handgun and take out their frustrations in a devastating act- be it suicide or mass killing, than it is to actually get help.

It is completely disingenuous to compare gun regulation to rope regulatio and you know it, Jesus.

It is not a legitimate comparison, just a stretch of point for a spectator's madness. It's funny because me saying that, drawing that kind of wild comparison would make me sound similar to the kind of caricatured gun nut that is desperately clinging to my AR15. In actuality, I don't care too much either way for the legality of gun's sake. I'm just a scared American. Not scared about guns, but it's funny; On one hand, you are completely correct to point out the ridiculousness in my claims. On the other hand, I actually feel like suicide onset by healthcare woes poses a much higher risk for death to myself than dying in a mass shooting.

So your argument that guns are needed to overthrow a tyrannical government by fighting the military is that the majority of the military, who themselves have guns (along with additional tanks and planes) would either be helping the rebels or struggling with crippling supply problems? I'm afraid I don't really understand. I actually don't disagree with the pro-gun mentality, although I do think there should be universal background checks, mandatory training (just like with driving), and other things. My issue with the gun debate is that people won't just admit that they want to have guns because they're cool and fun to use at a range - a fact with which I don't disagree. I'm glad we don't have guns in the UK, but I respect the Americans' choice in this. My issue here is literally just with the disingenuous arguments used.

I feel ya. If I had a gun, I'd have probably wound up another plot-point on the "suicides by gun" statistics by now. You never know what horrible things you think to do to yourself until you've hit a really, really low point.

They're still there because they're thousands of miles away from the US proper.

You ask a bunch of reasonable questions on which I'm going to defer to United States v. Miller (1939), because all the questions you brought up have already been raised, addressed, and settled nearly a century ago as existing legal precedent. To briefly summarize: -The 2nd Amendment protects the right of individuals to own weaponry comparable to that of a standard infantryman. Not a ballistic missile operator or a naval admiral, but a regular soldier. -Individuals can be reasonably deprived of this right if they commit a felony, are adjudicated mentally defective, or otherwise cannot be trusted with a firearm. -Firearms which are not typical of the sort protected by the 2nd Amendment are still available, but can be restricted through additional means (this is what the entire case was about, since it was a challenge to the 1934 NFA). Measuring the energy output of a firearm or getting into nitty-gritty of types of firearms is really a waste of time. We have legally owned tanks, legally owned anti-tank guns, legally owned rocket launchers, legally owned miniguns, legally owned hand grenades, and none of those are used to commit crimes. Relative lethality is a complete non-issue. Our gun crime is overwhelmingly carried out with cheap handguns and low-capacity magazines. Virginia Tech was carried out with a pair of handguns, and the Washington Navy Yard shooting was carried out with a standard pump-action shotgun. All this focus on the weapons used is a massive waste of time and effort and, frankly, a willful disregard of reality. Let me use a recent example to illustrate the point. Remember the Keystone Pipeline protests back in 2014? There was massive public outcry against the pipeline project. Massive campaigns and thousands of protesters. They rallied, they marched, they petitioned their leaders- and, ultimately, riot cops rolled in, arrested some, and subdued the rest. It was easy for the federal government to destroy the protest and render it completely ineffective, and despite some backlash nothing came of it. Simultaneously, a bunch of rednecks (the Bundy bunch) illegally occupied federal land in an act of armed but peaceful protest. And despite the fact that they had virtually zero public support and presented a much more credible threat than the pipeline protesters, the federal government did nothing. Because the protesters had guns they weren't willing to storm the place, so it settled into a long stalemate. The Bundy jerkoffs were successfully able to do what thousands upon thousands of unarmed peaceful protesters couldn't, because armed protesters can't simply be rolled over by riot police, and it looks really bad to the public if you go straight to drone strikes against protesters to solve the problem. The government couldn't employ the usual methods of crushing resistance, but couldn't stomach the costs of escalation, so they did nothing. Supposing they did escalate to drone strikes or air strikes or sending in tanks, would the Bundys have stood a chance? Absolutely not; but the fallout from such an action would be severe and far-reaching. If this were repeated every time there was direct resistance to government efforts, you'd start to see military personnel having second thoughts about killing their countrymen. And if you're talking about a potential civil war, rebellion, overthrow-the-government kind of scenario, nothing's going to kickstart it into high gear quite like the military being ordered to start bombing their own civilians. We've seen multiple times in the 20th century that a police state can easily subdue an unarmed populace, keeping the military focused on external threats and loyal to the regime. If the police can't handle the populace on their own, and have to turn to the military to restore order, then military personnel tend to start having second thoughts about killing their own people, international news is flooded with images of violent clashes between civilians and the military, and things tend to escalate from there. It's not about beating the military in a straight-up fight.

And that makes you think that the public wouldn't become disenfranchised with a conflict on their home turf? What do you think happened throughout the course of the civil war? The main notion that persevered was maintaining the unity of the country, something that existed because you had a government entity that separated itself from the federal government. Even then with two clear cut sides you had supporters and dissenters on either side.

The US military isn't going to divide on state lines like the Civil War, nor would the people. The country is far too diverse in opinion and motivation to ever do anything of the like. The US military would be playing on its home turf and would have full access to the entirety of its resources, without being locked down by distance or desire. As said before, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were major US victories marred by US politics and domestic apathy to foreign adventures. The insurgencies there were unsuccessful in beating the US military in any form, they were only effective in making the US public stop caring. The US military isn't going to be divided enough in any sort of situation that it's going to break down and revolt. The only situations it would do so are, like any sort of modern civil war scenario, nothing but fantasy best left for dystopic literature. No government is going to tell the Marines to deploy and gun down protesters. The military is going to ultimately side with the government because the government pays their checks, the military is made up mostly of patriotic conservative leaning Americans, they are so dispersed that even if their state somehow declared secession they'd most likely be too far away to do much (assuming they even wanted to revolt) and the leadership structure of the modern US military meaning unless their own leadership decided to side with some rebellion, they would most likely just sit tight. Any sort of insurgency is going to be less Gettysburg and more Waco. It'll be a group of armed ideologues declaring their dissent, the majority of the US wanting nothing to do with them, and the US government crushing it. As touched on above, there is literally no feasible scenario shocking and horrifying enough to make even a fraction of the required Americans needed for some sort of civil war angry enough to grab their guns and go attack the nearest Army base. Imagining a modern civil war is just silly.

I'm gonna try to address all of these, I do apologize if I come off as a bit militia-happy. The most likely case for a 2nd Civil War, would be the current polarization between the coastlines and America's heartland. It would not be standing army vrs. standing army. It would be more then likely militias that are loyal to either the Republicans or Democrats, and some independent fringe factions, which would evidently flip back and forth in order to secure their own holdings/influence. Think less of the American Civil War, and think more of a Spanish/Syrian type deal. You overestimate home turf advantage. Not to mention, that most US Military units would not be in their own backyards. If said Civil War was fought in the regards to current political divisions, Left-Leaning forces would mostly be urbanites, while Right-Leaning would be the types which would prefer fighting in the wilderness/rural settings. Both factions would stick to their main areas of control and influence, and because of this it is very likely that most fighting would incur in the geographic boundaries between said areas. Securing bridges which go across the Missouri and Mississippi River, having mountain roads in the Rockies and Appalachia secured, and dealing with the massive marshlands that take up great swathes of the country. As I have already mentioned, this war would most likely take the form of groups/militias that are loyal to Republicans or Democrats, with the few oddball fringes sprinkled in. These militias would more then likely be formed from locals which were raised in the areas. If outsider forces attempted too take these regions into their sphere of influence, it's very likely they'd take a lot of casualties while doing so. How do you honestly think a war on American soil, conducted by the American military, would fly over with the American people? The US Military would have to be heavy handed to deal with an insurgency, and in doing so, cause a lot of anger and rage with blue-collar folk. The public was only dissatisfied and bored by the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan... When they actually are forced to see their towns being bombed, gun battles in the streets, and sometimes watching loved ones die, they'll be rightfully pissed off. Not only that, we'd most likely see people rise in protest, if not revolt, for the simple fact that the US Military is actively committing war on it's own people. The US Military has been called on people many times since the Civil War. Please, look up the following things I'll link: Bonus Army, Battle of Blair Mountain, Colorado Labor Wars, and the numerous instances of the US National Guard being used to attack protestors. Not all soldiers find themselves only wanting pay. It is true that many members of the military are conservatives, but that begs the question of what would happen if their was a liberal government passing down the orders? What if someone told these soldiers that they were going to actively go against the US Constitution and go about seizing weapons with no due process? Many things can come into play. You gotta remember, that no one starts out as a "traitor" or "deserter"... Even Timothy McVeigh, the OKC Bomber, was a top scoring gunner for the Bradley in the 1st Gulf War, and was well decorated. If even our more decorated members of the military are willing to go rogue and lose their shit, what would stop companies, battalions, or even divisions deserting to join a rebel faction? We tend too forget context and motive, and those things are very important. And Waco enraged the American public too the point that the number of active paramilitary/militia groups in the United States went above 1000. You would have to ask yourself... How many Wacos before we have people actively seeking secession?

Especially when he's talking about dodging the draft, seems kinda rich, don't it?

I suppose "standard infantryman" is fairly reasonable, if a little bit vague - and again, weapons have improved by now. Though wouldn't that technically mean that the military is in control of what 2nd amendment allows you to own? Either way, I won't pretend I have a solution that doesn't involve stricter gun laws. But at the very least perhaps some media related laws requiring shooter identities to be hidden could help curb copycat shootings.

It means that at a minimum, it's supposed to guarantee you can bear the same arms that a standard infantryman does, which in these days should be a Baretta M9 and an M16. It's meant so that the average citizen could be armed to the same level as your standard, run of the mill soldier at any given point in time.

Don't forget body armour and grenades... Combined arms tactics have reduced the importance of an infantryman though. Back then a militia with muskets was roughly equivalent to a bunch of troops with muskets. Now a militia with m16's won't do shit against drones and tanks. Most modern asymmetric warfare is done with IED's and no way peeps should be allowed those. I therefore conclude that the 2nd amendment is no longer a realistic answer to tyrannical government - if you wanna keep it around for other reasons (like self defence where police are far away or that gun control measures won't work because there are so many guns) then maybe that'll be a more pragmatic/appealing argument.

Did you read any of the posts above mine that go into detail about this very subject? I suspect not.

Do you mean Joe skylnyx's post about civil war? I'll admit I didn't see catbarf's post, it's good. But the minute protesters carry guns is the minute the protest is painted in a bad light and violence against them is, in many peoples eyes, justified. A lil side note I thought I'd mention (sort of in reply to joe skylynx but also a more general "consider this" type post) often differences between various populations are exploited. Like in the Hong Kong protesters police were shipped from mainland china, those guys really didn't like the Hong Kong people. Anti-vietnam war student protests were broken up by police brought from less educated areas. In northern ireland the brits had "the black and tanned" from the mainland. This is done to diminish potential sympathy for protesters. It's reasonable to assume that similar things would happen in the case of a large scale civil disturbance in the USA. Peeps say the army wouldn't go along with it but what if you got a buncha people from say conservative rural texas and put them against multi-ethnic protesters from some urban liberal area on one of the coasts, painting a narrative that those protesters hate america or that they're terrorists? The US has loads of social divisions. Race is a big one so is liberal/urban vs conservative/rural so is education vs uneducated or even (if exploited correctly) north vs south. Add to that media restriction, people see stuff thru social media, if their feed was doctored to ensure they only saw stuff backing one side of the narrative then it'd be easy to inflict atrocity. This doesn't paint badly on the army people, these tactics would work on anybody, police even normal citizens. Sort of off topic but hopefully it's food for thought on civil war type of scenarios.

I've been trying to keep out of less arguments as well. I understand completely. I mean honestly, we can sit here and type until our fingers bleed trying to postulate what would happen in a civil war scenario, and the truth is that we just can't pin it down that easily, because there are way too many variables involved. We can't say for certain weather or not civilians with firearms would be a positive or negative. I was merely commenting on what the intention of the 2nd amendment was to help with a mixup the poster seemed to be having.

At the time of the American Revolution, military strategy and tactics were dominated by Warships, to control supply lines Artillery, providing the backbone of an army's firepower Heavy cavalry, to exploit breakpoints in the enemy line Disciplined, highly trained infantrymen fighting in precise formation (don't downplay this- a militia with muskets was in no way equivalent to the best-trained infantry in the world) Light skirmish infantry operating in close support of the main line The American colonists had literally none of these. They had hunters and makeshift militias, but lacked the training and materiel to fight with 'proper' combined arms doctrine of the time. What they did was pretty simple: They trained in the latter two disciplines while simultaneously using what they had to capture the first two. They used what they had to acquire what they didn't have. Combined arms isn't a new thing. You could just as easily wind the argument back a few centuries and say that ragtag volunteers won't do shit against the peerless British regulars, multi-ton cannons, and the might of the Royal Navy. But we know that these obstacles were overcome through a combination of insurgency, theft, and foreign aid, and the same dynamic has played out over and over again through modern history, from France circa 1940 to Syria today. I won't say that nothing's changed over the years, but as much as military technology has eclipsed civilian, we now live in an era where information and supplies to build serious insurgent weapons are available and widespread. When anyone with access to the Internet can make an actual thermite charge out of household components, the argument that an armed populace stands no chance against modern military technology seems a little presumptive.

That was written in the context of struggles with the local indians, according to my US government professor. People back then dealt with bandits, cowboys, indians, and the like. There are some places where it might be better to rely on the law of the gun, but the whole gas piston thing doesn't mix well with a lot of these dense municipalities. Nobody calls it lone wolf domestic terrorism, but they probably should be calling it lone wolf domestic terrorism. The best thing to do about lone wolf domestic terrorism is be vigilant and be a good neighbor. It should be pointed out that there is probably a deep seeded freudian reason why these people choose schools. They're probably going back to a place of trauma and facing it with violence. Kids can be pretty mean.