On 10/16/14, Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl> wrote:
This e-mail turned out huge enough that I think I'll not have to speak about the subject again any time soon. I'd still like to listen :)
2014-10-13 5:42 GMT+02:00 Jerry Leichter <leichter@lrw.com>:
The Second Amendment's bizarre language has been a problem pretty much since it was written, and while there have been changes in interpretation over the years - and there has definitely been a strong trend in recent years for scholars and judges of all political persuasions to see it as a stronger protector of an individualized right than was the case in the past - things like Miller have grown up around it and have also, for now, become settled law.
Thank you for the dissertation. It was well received :)
I think no judge can sanely claim gun regulations that restrict the right to bear arms to be constitutional. Specifically of paramount and contemporary importance is the protection against a tyranical government, and foreign attacks from geopolitical powers like China and Russia and, most Catch-22ish terrorists and murderers, in mass shootings or otherwise.
I would very much appreciate people being encouraged to take arms in the context of militia's. A single armed man is not reliable enough, nor capable enough, to contribute meaningfully to the common defense or any such thing.
I also would bid the United States' federal government to provide an interpretation of the second amendment that allows the states to prevent purchase or transfer of certain devices when not in conjunction with a militia. That militia's may be registered at the state or federal government, at no charge to them, limited only in that it requires several natural persons to create it and that these natural persons may only participate in three militia's. That militia's must in some shape or form encourage the discipline to comply with laws as they apply in their area of operation, lest they are an encouragement of criminal behavior and are indeed not militia's at all. And more such rules as provide a regulated environment in which one may justly execute his or her right to keep and bear arms
After all, a device handled by one not trained to use it can never be arms at all.
There are two types of 'registration' of militia which may be useful to consider - that by government (state or federal) and that by notice given to government (probably to state and to federal) of the body-of-people created by that body-of-people and named a "militia". Begging the elected machinery to do the bidding may be successful. Legal notice of actions on foot and of a reality "hereby established by the people of REGION and formed as a militia in the meaning of the federal constitution and in the name of NAME" gives notice of a (newly created) reality. We the people are with the right to petition our parliaments, but even further, to give notice to the parliaments. The right to act pursuant to our governing instruments, the constitution at the foundation (at least in the USA), and to give notice of the formation of body-of-people pursuant to those governing instruments, perhaps out be exercised with caution and discretion, where the power of the people is expanding, and where such exercise of such power might be seen as interesting by our governments. Legal notice, at various stages of entity-body-of-people creation, with appropriate time frames for suitable response and ongoing communication, engages those external government authorities in a way which can create entitlement for, by, and of, the people. Sanction of the force of numbers would likely also be needed to establish such right as the right to bear (any and all) arms by an established militia. Such creations would of course require united intention of many of we-the-people, over an extended period of time, along with a willingness to handle the responses from the wider public and of the various governments, at least state and federal. I do not live in the USA, so good luck and $DEITY-speed :) Zenaan -- Banned for life from Debian, for suggesting Debian's CoC is being swung in our faces a little too vigorously.