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Worst Decision of Judge’s Life: Gun Rights for Individual Americans

Former Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens says the worst decision of his life was the court’s DC v. Heller ruling, which recognized the individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course, Stevens voted with the minority in Heller. In a new book, he says he’s still convinced the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights meant to protect gun rights only for use in organized militias. Bill Whittle mansplains to Stevens the meaning of a simple English sentence known as the 2nd Amendment.

Former Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens says the worst decision of his life was the court’s DC v. Heller ruling, which recognized the individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course, Stevens voted with the minority in Heller. In a new book, he says he’s still convinced the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights meant to protect gun rights only for use in organized militias. Bill Whittle mansplains to Stevens the meaning of a simple English sentence known as the 2nd Amendment.

17 replies on “Worst Decision of Judge’s Life: Gun Rights for Individual Americans”

Miller was a flawed decision mostly because the defendant, nor his attorney, ever showed up before the SC to defend their position, so the decision was rendered without opposition. The case was decided as it was because none of the justices were adequately knowledgeable regarding military weaponry, deciding without proper input on the issue that short barreled shotguns and sub-machine guns were not used in the military, but of course both were regularly used.

Another point to file away in your brain Bill, is that a powder horn, the typical carrying device of the day in the Revolutionary era, typically held somewhere between 40 and 100 shots worth of powder, and I’d bet that the average gun owner of the day had at least a couple of pounds of powder on the premises. Likely the prohibition on powder quantity started around 10 pounds, which would be about the standard charge for a cannon of the day.

One final point … I do not believe that the Bill of Rights can be changed without voiding the Constitution, because the only way the Constitution could be ratified was by way of the Government making the sacred promises contained in the Bill of Rights, thus irrevocable!

My attempt to complete the statement Bill begins at 24:36:

“And to say that the commerce clause empowers the United States federal government to tell a farmer what he can and cannot grow on his own land would have caused the founders. . .”

. . . to exercise their second amendment rights against that government.

They had “stare decisis” on their side. πŸ™‚ (The decision was “read” from April 19, 1775, til September 3, 1783.)

Should we not expect that Supreme Court justices to neutrally research the facts and background of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and reflect their decisions based on that research and how it applies to each case before them? If they do not, does that mean they have broken the oath they took upon entering the office? What should the consequences be when the office holder breaks that oath? Does the Constitution provide a remedy? Are there any cases when a federal employee has broken their oath and lost their position because of it? Tell me again what the purpose of the oath is please.

My first thought re: the gunpowder law was that the Guy Fawlks incident was not that far back in history when the Brits were still running the US East Coast.

But the fire argument makes more sense.

A word is a label for a concept. The content of a concept is the existent thing the label points to. It is not a foggy miasma of ill conceived intents that have little to no connection to that existent thing. Hence, changing a definition cannot and does not change the thing pointed to, to what it is not. It becomes a conceptual error leading to a chain of thought errors which lead to false conclusions.

We have had for well over a century a concerted effort to untie definitions from reality and change it to something called “usage”. As in truth is a social construct and has no relationship to anything but the social construct construct itself.

Since truth is presumed to be a social construct we have no way of knowing what truth really is beyond something created by mutual agreement. If true, how can we know we have reached mutual agreement? We can’t because that would require the existence of something outside of the social context that could be looked at to find out what it actually is. This is directly contradictory to the original assertion that truth is nothing but a social construct.

The social construct theory of truth insists that we live and die by that unknowable and unverifiable foggy miasma of intent in what passes for the minds of the members of the social collective. How then did we achieve the state of technological civilization around us? We did it by the action of people who did not try to live based upon a collective unknowable and unverifiable foggy miasma of intent. They lived is a real world of real and knowable things and acted accordingly. Unless we return to that realty based state, our technological civilization cannot long be sustained. We will be to have as much as a Mad Max world left for us to live and die in.

If you think about it, the US constitution is the MOST prior ruling possible, and because it is the most overarching ruling, it trumps all of the future rulings by any smaller court. that’s just me though.

The Bill of Rights were all intended to limit government and protect the citizens’ natural rights. The Second Amendment would be a conspicuous outlier if it were to establish a militia. A militia was already established in the Articles of the Constitution.

What the Second Amendment was really saying is, given that a state militia is a necessary evil, and a risk to the people, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Because the need to overthrow an oppressive government by an armed uprising was still clearly visible in the founders’ rear view mirror.

β€œThe right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” – Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833

β€œWhat, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty …. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.” – Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress 750, August 17, 1789

β€œAs civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.” – Tench Coxe, Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789

β€œThe Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” – Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788

Bill and Scott, I enjoyed your latest debate, but I want to give you a bit more ammunition (pun not intended)for your future arguments.

“Well regulated” means the militia members get together and drill. It does not mean the government regulates the ownership or use of arms.

Former Justice Stevens misquoted the 1934 law. FDR wanted to ban machine guns and any concealable guns, including handguns. His AG warned him the SCOTUS would overturn a ban, so a severe tax of $200 to transfer such guns was imposed instead. Handguns (but not concealable guns made from long guns, e.g., short barrel shotguns and rifles) were removed from the legislation because there was not enough support in Congress to pass it as it was originally proposed.

Former Justice Stevens omitted several critical points regarding the Miller decision. Miller, among other things, was accused of possessing an unregistered short barrel shotgun in violation of the 1934 tax law. He was dead by the time the SCOTUS heard his case. His counsel was unable to get to Washington in time to present his arguments, but rather than delay, the Court allowed the government to present its case without rebuttal or counterargument. The government ceded to the fact that the ownership of arms suitable for militia use was constitutional, so argued instead that a short barrel shotgun was not a militia weapon and therefore was not protected by the 2nd Amendment. This statement was patently false, but the SCOTUS, apparently not well versed in the history of military arms, accepted the argument as fact. This brings up a curious point. Even the SCOTUS members must have known that machine guns were in use by the military, so what argument would the government have offered if Miller had owned such a weapon instead of a short barrel shotgun? Indeed, why not use the Miller decision today and force the SCOTUS to declare the law unconstitutional, just as any law that taxes, curtails, or denies our rights should be struck down.

Stare Decisis
“the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent.”

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