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Originally Posted by ratbastid
But the whole point of the judicial branch is to interpret the law. How you could deem a law constitutional or not without interpreting both the law and the constitution is beyond me. Seems like that'd be the very first thing you'd have to do.
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interpret that law can be and has been done to thwart the intent of the people before. Look at the 13th and 14th amendments. With the 2nd amendment, what we have is an individual right, always assumed to be individual, yet 113 years AFTER it was ratified, a court suddenly muting an individual right by deciding that militia actually means national guard. We cannot allow a court, any court, to remove a right by redefining a term with their idea of the current times.
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Originally Posted by Daniel_
Can we all take a look at the "well regulated" element?
Because from this side of the pond, if you argue that "The People" are "The Militia" then that's fine - but who the hell is regulating them?
Most of the re-writes here simply drop the militia bit totally, which puzzles me - it's not like the founders would look on and say "hey guys just trim thole bits out - we were kidding about the well regulated militia part".
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'well regulated' originated from your side of the pond. If you were to take a rifle and scope in to a gunsmith and ask him to 'regulate' it, he would fix it so it shot straight and true, would he not? 'well regulated' wasn't written to mandate government control or it could not possible have been a right of the people.
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Originally Posted by dc_dux
My new second amendment: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be absolute, but may be subject to reasonable regulation for the protection of the people. All require Judicial interpretation....thats why the Constitution also created a federal judiciary. |
which will leave every right, and the protection thereof, up to the whims and ideology of any current majority branch of the government.
a new law could simply then be written that says 'no individual shall be allowed to manufacture, sell, possess, or trade any weapon that uses an explosive or explosive material that uses high pressure to force a projectile down a barrell of any length.'
usual exceptions of course would be the military and law enforcement. Then eventually we'd end up with exceptions for the politically connected and soon it would only be the powerful who have weapons.
rights must be absolute or they aren't rights, they are just loosely regulated privileges.