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akuma587 on 17 October 2008
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Kasz216 said:
akuma587 said:
Kasz216 said:

What happens when someone passes a law... and then an unintended consequences cause a problem?

Law makers change the law.

If you've got this problem with the consitution.  Which does include missles, automatic rifles etc.  Change the constitutions.

Until then any laws should be illegal that bar such things.

What they intended is what they meant at the time.  Not what they would think currently now.

This is one of my points.  How can we reasonably say that arms then means what it does today?  To accurately interpret the Constitution you should use a 18th century dictionary and look at what arms would have included at that time.  You are saying that what they would currently think now doesn't matter but also saying that we should apply a modern definition of arms.

How can we be flexible about expanding the meaning of arms and inflexible about looking at what arms were at that time?  And it doesn't say we can't deprive them of a specific type of arms, it just says arms.  There is nothing in the Constitution that says people could not be deprived of cannons, just arms. 

And it doesn't just say arms, it says right "to bear arms."  Can you physically bear a cannon or a nuclear weapon?  What did they mean by "bear"?  Are we limited to things we can hold with our hands?

My whole point is that you can play with the language any way you want and get a ton of different meanings out of it, including modern meanings which are out-of-sync with the antiquated meaning.

In comparison, the 7th Amendment says "People" shall not be deprived of.  It doesn't make a distinction between foreign people or U.S. citizens, which the Founding Fathers easily could have done as foreign people have always been around.  People are people anyway you slice it.

Arms at that time were weapons.

The definition of arms didn't change.  Just more forms of weapons were invented.

As for the "what we can hold in are arms" arguement.

Well the easy way to judge that would be to see if Canons counted in the "right to bear arms" which i believe they did.

 

7th Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

This bolded section would actually make it unconstitutional to try any kind of personnel in the air force under military law without a separate Grand Jury as it specifically mentions land and naval forces, but not air forces.  Is it unconstitutional to try air force personnel for violations of military law without an indictment by a Grand Jury, even during war time?

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson