Ensuring A New American Century

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Can you give me a link to the FindLaw? I would still defend the Constitution and the 2nd amendment because I do think that a fundamental right of states. States Rights is another topic though I think. I know the original NFA got watered down because of some clause in that law was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. However the NFA does define certain weapons as assault weapons and does restrict the manufacture and sale of them. New Jersey bans these weapons and so far the New Jersey gun law as not been declared unconstitutional. New Jersey is by no means a leftist state so I am sure someone would have tried to get it banned if possible. Here is a link to the Wikipedia summary of the New Jersey gun law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_New_Jersey

Since the Sandy Hook shooting there are a slew of gun laws being passed by the NJ Assembly. Whether those will be constitutional or not I have no idea at this time but so far based on research I have done states appear to have the right to regulate and define the usage of weapons and who may possess them.

By the way the except you cited states 'in the home'. I may disagree with the Supreme Court but without actually reading a more comprehensive explanation of what they said I do not know if I agree with them or not. Depends on what type of gun they are talking about and what other restrictions or non-restrictions are allowed.

Probably totally off topic but states do still have rights. I remember crossing from Arizona to California or vice versa and being stopped questioned and occasionally even searched for fruits or vegtables that could not be transported from one state to the other. This was to halt the importation of infested items. As BTA has pointed out the government does regulate cars. It regulates a lot of our life and sometimes fails to regulate things it should.

 

The FindLaw site referenced is hot-linked in my post above in the word "here," but I'll post it again as well. See: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment2/amendment.html

Therein you'll find a link to the entire Supreme Court opinion, but I'll link it separately here also: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=07-290

Be forewarned, it's extremely lengthy.

Understood, but disagreement or no, it is the law of the land. As such, should you disagree, your statement that you love and defend the constitution is inaccurate, if you don't also defend the parts you disagree with. You might better describe yourself as a conscientious objector or something along those lines. Or, a lover and defender of the constitution, with the exception of parts a, b, c ... etc. You're giving the wrong impression by saying that you love and defend the constitution while attacking a certain part of it (which position I surmise from your other recent writings discussing how the Second Amendment could possibly be altered, limited, or eliminated).

 

Not sure I agree with you and that could be a matter of semantics. People do not always agree with the findings of the Supreme Court. That does not mean that they do not love and support the Constitution just that they do not agree with the finds of the Supreme Court. However the Supreme Court is the branch of our government that decides what is constitutional and what isn't. We have to live with their decisions or figure out how to change the law by amending the Constitution.

Thank you for the link I missed the 'here'.

Added: I have read through the FindLaw Article. As far as I can tell the Supreme Court is addressing handguns and not the guns which have been defined as Assault weapons or Automatic weapons. No where do I see a case cited that say that we have the right to bear those types of weapons under wither the Second Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment. the Second Amendment does refer to a well regulated militia. The article also refers to books and articles on the subject. However I am not advocating a ban on lawful ownership of handguns so my statement still stands until I am convinced I am wrong.

I will check out the actual verdict of the Supreme Court but probably won't understand it. I will be looking for words such as assault weapons, automatic weapons, semi[automatic weapons.

 

This is nothing more than a semantic point you're making. It is certainly possible to love and defend the Constitution while disagreeing with the interpretation of certain aspects of it. I love and will defend gaming against people who think that kids who play FPS turn into mass murderers, even though I myself fail to see the allure of such games. The truth is there are very few things most people will love and defend unconditionally outside of members of their immediate family.

Heck, I don't need an outside example - just look at the Constitution itself. The founding fathers of our nation developed the Constitution through a series of compromises. By your definition, even the authors of the document itself were not able to love and defend it.

 

The constitution has been amended 27 times. If it was perfect and always met the needs of The People it would not need to be amended. In fact Article the First is still pending and has never been ratified.
Quote from the Wikipedia:

As Aldeth said it is a document of compromise.

If I love someone I do not qualify a statement of love by saying "except for your habit of picking your teeth after meals".

Anyway I support the Second amendment but I do not support the right of someone to pick up a gun and go out and shoot twenty-six people, twenty children and six adults.

 

Not really. Nakia has stated that

1. she loves and will defend the constitution;

2. she dislikes and will not defend (and will indeed attack) parts of the constitution.

The two positions are plainly contradictory, much as if I said I love the Yankees and I hate A-Rod. A-Rod = Yankee. I can't love the Yankees in toto and hate A-Rod. Saying so, at least, is contradictory.

The reason this is an issue for me is that I see her saying one thing and meaning another, and in the case of something so important as our country's constitution (as opposed to baseball, lol), it's offensive to me. She can disagree or debate the particulars all she likes, but she can't be a proud supporter of the thing itself while advocating the dismantling of parts of it. She can state anything she wants, and I'll even defend her against anyone who says otherwise, but I won't take her position seriously when it's so plainly contradictory, and may even take exception to it.

Nonsense. The Founders, even in their disagreements, respected the constitution as a whole when it was ratified and as far as I know did not try to dismantle it.

Where does the constitution enumerate the right to murder innocents? The 2nd Amendment plainly doesn't support that 'right' either, so saying it does is either uninformed or dishonest. For what it's worth, I suspect the former.

Nakia, you seem to be randomly interjecting subjects that are superfluous to the question at hand - distinctions between assault rifles and handguns, amendements, etc. All I'm really interested in knowing is if you actually support the second amendment as held by the Supreme Court in the 2008 decision, as you claim in your statement "I love our Constitution and will defend it." Specifically the part about how it's not tied to militia service, which is what you have stated you believe it is.

Do you, specifically, support that statement? ^

 

Ridiculous. As Aldeth and Nakia said, you can love something as a whole while not loving certain aspects of it. Just because there's one or two aspects of something you don't like doesn't mean you can't like the whole thing overall. They both gave perfectly good examples of this. Hell, you've acknowleged as much yourself when you said:

Bolding mine. They disagreed over parts of it, but as a whole, they could live with the parts they didn't like in order to have it ratified.

 

Yes, and they didn't try to dismantle it.

I appreciate your input Splunge, but at this point I'm more interested in what Nakia has to say than you.

 

I love my dad. I hate when he shoots off an old-schooler racist comment though..... see the point Gaear? Love and hate go hand in hand in a lot of cases. Both can exist. You are stating a Black n White scenario as the only option here. That is nonsense. Which is quite unusual for you my friend.

 

lol Blades - that, in turn, is nonsense. Finding fault with saying "I like x" while demonstrating that you dislike x is not nonsensical. It would be more akin to your father making an old-schoole racist comment and then claiming it wasn't a racist comment, and you being okay with that. I'm not questioning Nakia's love for her country (e.g. your love for your dad), only her truthfulness or clarity in stating she loves the constitution while seemingly hating parts of it. Not seeing that smacks of willful delusion.

 

Then go back to your baseball analogy then. I love the Phillies as they have always been my team. I hate their salary distribution. They have 60 million tied up in 3 starting pitchers. IMO it weakens the team as a whole. But I still love the Phils and will root for them for the rest of my days. I just don't like what management has done with salary distribution.

I also love America. I don't love all of it's laws and completely disagree with some of them, especially language. But disagreeing with some of our laws has nothing to do with my feelings for the country as a whole. Nakia is no different. I'm sorry but I don't see the willful delusion you mention.

 

Holy crap, Gaear, are you being serious? If I say “I love my wife, but she has a small mole on her shoulder that I’m not crazy about”**, does that mean I don’t love my wife? Because if things are that absolute to you, you must lead a pretty miserable existence. I must say I agree with Blades – this is quite out of character for you.

Luckily for me what you want is inconsequential to what I am able to do.

**She doesn’t have a mole, BTW. I’m just giving an example. If she did have such a mole, I'd have to get rid of her.

 

But surely with that definition people who loved the constitution would hate amendments made to it?

Thematically hate and love are similarly connected emotions - and to go back to prior examples of personification it is very easy to hate certain aspects of a person but still love them as a whole being and part of that loving is desire and willing to help them improve themselves and overcome adversity when they're ready for it.

 

I keeed, I keeed.

Dear Jay-Z,

Thank you for formally submitting the declaration that you are currently experiencing a total of ninety-nine problems, which has been duly submitted for the public record. Upon further review, however, it is our (okay, my) determination that the addition of the caveat that "a b!tch" is not included in said declared collection of problems is contradictory to the previous statement, rendering said formal declaration null and void. My office has taken the liberty of adjusting the public record to reflect the upward revision in your total number of problems to one-hundred, and have removed the superfluous and contradictory language from said statement to read, simply, "I got a hundred problems." Please begin the process of amending any and all intellectual property featuring the aforementioned paradoxical statement at your earliest convenience.

Respectfully,

Geaer
Agent-at-Large (self-appointed)
Department of Ham-fisted Semantics

 

And thus you have illustrated that simply saying "I love the Phillies" is inadequate, as there are things about the Phillies you don't love, much as there are (or so I surmise) things about the US constitution that Nakia doesn't love. Now, I get that love of a baseball team is less an intellectual affair, and so as I stated above, declaring a benign love for your country might be more in line with something like your love of the Phillies. Most everyone loves their country, despite whatever disagreements they have with it. Stating a love for the constitution - a specific document with numerous articles, amendments, et al - might be more in line with saying you love the Phillies' front office policies ... which I gather would be inaccurate in your case.

The constitution is not a concept, like love of country. (Maybe it could be construed as such if you wanted to demonstrate your love for our form of government or something like that, dunno.) It's a document that states certain things as the law of the land. Agreement or disagreement with the specifics of such statements, as it were, is crucial to defining your 'like' or 'dislike' of the declarations held forth in that document. Pretty elementary.

Anyway, this is going nowhere, so I will formally let Nakia off the hook if she doesn't care to answer, and I have no particular interest in anyone else's thoughts on the matter, frankly, since it was only Nakia who made the statement.

@Nakia, if you do want to discuss this further, please PM me.

@Splunge, no need for hyperbole. If you don't get it by now, you likely never will.

[ed.]
@DR, funny ... but please don't bother.

 

Yes, let's do move on. The lengths you are going to to avoid having to concede a remarkably benign point are breaktakingly...NOGian.

 

Where did I say that. I believe that I said or tried to say that
1) People have a right to disagree with the Constitution and to get it changed by the means stated in the Constitution itself. The Founding Fathers were well aware that it would need changing and actually tried to change and did change it from the beginning. The Bill of rights are amendments they are not part of the original document.

2) I might disagree with the finding of the Supreme Court. I have to obey the law I do not have to agree with it in order to do that.

The second amendment is used by gun lobbyists to justify the possession of semiautomatic weapons by the general population. I can't speak for the Founding Fathers but I suspect that they advocate responsible gun possession. That is what the words "A well regulated militia" mean to me. One that is controlled and regulated.

The cases cited all were specifically aimed at the right of people to own a hand gun for protection in their home.

I well know the difference between a hand gun and an assault rifle or for that matter an assault weapon, a semi-automatic weapon and an automatic weapon. I am familiar with shotguns and hunting rifles, long guns.

Here is a statement by the Connecticut State Police

Here is a link to the article that quotes that statement.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/20...ims_adam_lanza_didn_t_use_an_ar_15_style.html

The Bushmaster is a semiautomatic weapons very easy to assemble. Even if the mother had kept the gun disassembled it would take less than a minute to reassemble it. Even I with my impaired eyesight could do it. It is my opinion that is not responsible gun ownership.

Maybe my slightly sarcastic remarks are confusing people and thus they are reading into what I am saying things that I do not intend.

I will repeat it once again. I am strongly opposed to the availability to the general population of assault rifles. assault weapons, and automatic weapons. Do I make myself clear?

 

And of course you are, as expected, unable to actually let it go. Seriously DR, if you want to take it up without your audience or any backup, PM me and we'll go mano-a-mano.

ed. that ^ was @DR, sorry.

 

Whoah - where the hell did that come from? Since when do I need either? Calm down, Francis.

Look – this is exceedingly simple. You stated that "The two positions are plainly contradictory, much as if I said I love the Yankees and I hate A-Rod. A-Rod = Yankee. I can't love the Yankees in toto and hate A-Rod. Saying so, at least, is contradictory," a position you'll notice no one is coming with you on. Then proceeded to lecture multiple people here on what is and is not elementary. I hate to break it to you, but A Yankee is not the same thing as THE Yankees. The whole is not equal to it's individual parts in much of anything, but especially not in the context of a document founded with the very dictum that the founders knew they would make mistakes and therefore built ways to correct the document into the document itself. Your argument on this point flat-out holds no water, and undermines the larger (and more respectable) point you appear to be trying to make here, along with your credibility. You CAN love the Yankee's AND hate A-rod, even though he is a Yankee, and it defies basic logic to state otherwise, leading to several members here who normally respect and enjoy your arguments – myself included – scratching their heads. Even when Splunge politely quibbled with you on this unbelievably inconsequential point, he was dismissed, and rudely so.

And when I tease you a little bit over it, you pull the message board equivilent of "do you want to step outside?" Really?

EDIT: Lastly, don't drop an obviously personal jab like the one above and then expect that I send YOU a PM, crikey. You've got it backwards.

 

You're overreacting. ... PM? (And who is Francis? )