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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
the problem that we face currently isn't trying to interpret the constitution and determine what rights it gives us, because it doesn't. The constitution grants no rights. What it DOES do is it limits the power of the government.
By letting the anti-freedom folks turn the argument in to what rights are afforded by the constitution, we've lost over half the battle. The 2nd Amendment doesn't grant me the right to bear arms, it limits the government from infringing on that right that pre-exists. In other words, the framers of the constitution determined that we already had the right to bear arms and the 2nd amendment was written to prevent the government from doing anything to take that away or discourage it. That is why I keep saying 'shall not be infringed' means exactly that. It means that government shall not infringe. Unfortunately, in todays little PC world of touchy feely 'gotta look out for peoples sensitivities' world, we get our rights legislated away.
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I see what you're saying, but even if you had an absolute right to bear arms, that doesn't mean that you necessarily have the right to bear any type arms, or that you have the right to ammunition. I mean, i think we would all be a little better off if the founders had spent a little bit more time on the 2nd.
But then again, these were folks who had a very good idea of what it was like to fight for the existence of their country. I would imagine that creating a new country through armed rebellion might be a pretty dominating force when forming an opinion on whether the populace should be armed or not. They probably thought that the meaning of the 2nd was pretty obvious.
But then again, again, they lived in a time of muskets (i think), and i imagine few, if any, of them had any accurate notions as to the scope and effectiveness of the weaponry that would eventually be available to fit in the palm of one's hand. They were men of their times, and the constitution reflects that. We are a reflection of our times, where it's been at least a half a century since any american had to fight in a war whose outcome might be directly and obviously linked with our continued existence as a country. It's been even longer since we've had to fight for our existence on our own soil (9/11 doesn't count). Nowadays, tyranny is expected from the government. I think the founding fathers failed to take into account that things earned are often more respected than things given. I imagine that if they were more astute observers of human behavior, or were aware of the inevitable invention of the television, they might not have even bothered.
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Originally Posted by Martian
You are correct, sir. While there is no analogue to the second amendment in either the charter or the constitution, we do still have the ability to purchase and own firearms. However, we have comparatively more hoops to jump through and are more restricted as to exactly what weapons we can or can't have (semi-automatic rifles, for example, are only legal with a magazine capacity of 5 cartridges or less; handguns are restricted to 10). As well, all of our firearms are currently required to be registered in a national database, which is our own Big Scary Gun Issue of the day.
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Well, it seems that the average american's ability to own guns differs from the average canadians only by degrees. Given the right circumstances we might be headed in your direction, in terms of gun laws.