The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-18-2020, 09:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...It will be a good idea to rewrite the Second Amendment.

Agreed.  It just won't be easy.  Pretend for a moment you need Classic's vote.  The slavery compromises making it very hard to change the constitution are a formidable barrier.

(08-18-2020, 09:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I interpret the Second Amendment largely to give the States the right to keep militias responsible to elected State governments intact as an alternative to a large standing army, militias regulated by State legislatures.

I agree that the militias can and should be well regulated.  There should be rules for how actively called up militiamen can store weapons, maneuver effectively, report to their commanders, report for training, etc...  They may just not prevent the members of the militia or anyone else from owning and carrying a weapon.  The state legislatures may not write a law which violates a right of United States citizens.

(Exceptions can and should be made for felons, the insane, etc...  Even then some sort of due process is required.  You cannot remove a basic right on a whim.  Some nameless bureaucrat putting a name on some no fly list will not do it.)

The constitution does not give the states powers.  States are sovereign.  But the states cannot violate the rights of United States citizens, and the Bill of Rights enumerates a lot of them.  As soon as a sufficient number of states ratified the Second Amendment they were eliminating their own power to regulate the ownership and carrying of weapons.  Ratifying other amendments killed their powers to censor speech, establish a state religion, evade due process, etc...