On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 7:38 AM, Razer <g2s@riseup.net> wrote:
>
> On 02/23/2017 05:37 AM, jim bell wrote:
>
> Court rules assault weapons are not protected under Constitution
> http://dailym.ai/2mmUuqG via
>
>
> They aren't. You know why? When the Second Amendment was written, at 50
> yards or so, you could literally outrun a musketball. If it didn't bounce
> off your coat.

You do know that black powder muskets and rifles are *still* used to hunt deer and black bear, and elk, right? And that at least the latter two usually weigh more than adult humans?

More to the point, the Second Amendment is all about military weapons. Consider that much of the cannon used by the revolutionaries was privately owned.

Get a grip, son - your struggle against reality is showing.

> Besides, "Your puny AK-47 is useless. So, we need to have at
> least some of our volunteer resistance show up with Stinger missiles, some
> anti-aircraft batteries, maybe a submarine or two?" I hear Soros has a fleet
> of A-10 Warthogs he might call into service too if you talk to him purty.

You have truly gone off the deep end. Don't think that American revolutionaries can't whip up, or don't have, effective weapons beyond simple firearms? You might want to think again.

And, if Soros *does* own some Warthogs, well, more power to him. I wish I were rich enough to do so. It's my favorite military aircraft.

I'll not bother with rebutting the rest of the strawman arguments from popehat, but will provide a few quotes from the period before and during the ratification of the Constitution:

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
         ---Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
         ---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
         ---Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals...[I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
         ---Albert Gallatin to Alexander Addison, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2.

[C]onceived it to be the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made. The particular states, like private citizens, have a right to be armed, and to defend, by force of arms, their rights, when invaded.
         14 Debates in the House of Representatives, ed. Linda Grand De Pauw. (Balt., Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), 92-3.