OK, you could make that argument about the first amendment, even though the supreme court has ruled “Child pornography, defamation and inciting crimes are just a few examples of speech that has been determined to be illegal under the U.S. Constitution.”, and there's also the "clear and present danger" exception as written in 1919 by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic … . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger.”
The decision says the First Amendment doesn’t protect false speech that is likely to cause immediate harm to others. Because the court is the legal interpreter of the constitution, it's not neglect, it's judicial interpretation. The buck stops at the Supreme Court.

But the second amendment, the topic, STARTS with "A WELL REGULATED militia...", so clearly regulations limiting/regulating firearm ownership and use was exactly what they intended from the start....no?

"The whole point of the second amendment... is so we can defend ourselves"

No, it's not. Have you even read your own constitution?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

There's nothing in there about self-defence. It's so that you can be drafted into a citizen militia to protect the state.

And every time I hear this argument, I thank my lucky stars that I don't live in a country where people are actually this paranoid.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Constitution, Daily Show, Well Regulated Militia' to 'Constitution, Daily Show, Well Regulated Militia, Jon Stewart' - edited by SlipperyPete

It's satire, man.
My grip consists of the reality that the playing-out of the knee-jerk attempts to thwart insane people's abuse of firearms through the insanity of inane laws (see Connecticut's Governor for details) will culminate in those screaming for adjustments in current laws on mags and types of weapons having their asses handed to them on platters.

It's fun to watch really, this republic-experiment may yet again create a well-regulated militia.

1. The 2nd Amendment calls for a WELL REGULATED MILITIA. Emphasis on WELL REGULATED. The majority of Americans are in favor of at least some form of gun control. The idea is to get the most dangerous weapons we have out there out of the hands of those most likely to misuse/abuse them. And personally, I think accountability should be factored in. Gun owners should be required to have background checks, inspections of homes with required gun safes, ammunition limits, mandatory certification in gun safety courses, with regular testing, marksman training, and insurance to cover any damage done by weapons they own. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if people were required to join their State Militia or National Guard in order to own more than a hunting rifle.

2. The Constitution was never intended to be sacrosanct. It's a living, breathing work in progress. Hell, the ink was barely dry before the Bill of Rights was introduced. We "amend" the Constitution as needed to address issues that were never foreseen by our forefathers.

Whenever I hear someone quote some Harvard Law prof or someone touting the idea that framers of the constitution did not mean for folks to own guns for anything but a militia, I have to simply laugh. It's obvious what they meant and if you brought back a group of school children from the Revolutionary war period and let them have look at the state of affairs of this little experiment, they'd wonder what has been put into the water supply to render seemingly intelligent people of today, hopelessly confused and gullible.

A well-regulated militia: The 18th-century equivalent to the U.S. Armed Forces perhaps??

DC v. Heller (2008)
U.S. v. Miller (1939)
U.S. v. Cruikshank (1875)

A few Supreme court rulings above to peruse and lest we forget, in order to change the document, you do so by amendment. the 18th made alcohol illegal and the 22nd made it fine for adults to drink alcohol again....a right and privilege of people since the motherfucking beginning of civilization...HELLO!!???

Yeah, they can take our guns, O' America and the dark hour (if it comes in my lifetime) everyone signs off on it is the day I move to fucking Canada Mexico, Belize, Nicaragua, COSTA RICA??....Fuck, anywhere white people aren't retarded drunk on 21st Century Kool-Aid HIstory with a government years away from buggering them!

May have to tunnel into the earth's crust to find such a place as more insane the world becomes daily.

A deep constitutional scholar such as yourself probably already knows this:

"For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.

Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”"

source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The 2nd amendment says nothing about the right of the individual to bear arms. It mentions gun ownership in the context of a well regulated militia, which was the precursor to the American military. The current prevailing anti-government definition of the 2nd amendment is a fiction that has more to do with the revisionist history of 1980s conservative think tanks than it does with the intention of the founders.

source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html

additional reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

Still waiting for the facts?, its been nothing more than arguments from authority & the gun deaths chart is pure bogus, I.E. bee stings annually kill more US citizens than terrorism thus terrorism is not as important as stopping people getting stung straw-man argument. furthermore, alcohol is regulated, cars are regulated even medical practitioners are licenced - if you went into surgery knowing that your doctor may be one of 40% of unregistered practitioners would you feel safe in that knowledge?.

Here is how easy it is to twist this logic to suit your claim: Since the war began in Iraq there has been 4488 U.S. causalities, comparing this to 11,000 annual gun death's in the U.S. PROVES that being at war is LESS DANGEROUS than merely being at home. This example is how correlation does not equal causation (& if this girl in the video is indeed a psychologist she should know this).

Maybe one aspect of the Mexican gun rate is also the fact that the U.S. with 'the 'Fast & Furious law' actually allowed the trafficing of guns from the United States into Mexico right into the hands of drug gangs in the hopes of stopping the cartels. (But did she mention that?).

What are the stats for mass homicides?, rather than suicides compared to other countries?. and in one breath the speaker said that a gun is the most effective way of killing yourself, and later that regardless of guns the person will find a way to kill themselves regardless of guns which she just stated were the most effective other than hanging or jumping from a height. (& Japan is a collectivist culture with a high population, where the individual is expected to look after their entire family & the government is expected to ensure public safety hence strict gun laws - so it may in fact be due to feelings of being ashamed culturally rather than seeking attention & fame as in individualistic cultures like America.

a gun is not a 'tool', it's a weapon - it has no other purpose than to kill. it's like saying a harpoon is a 'tool'.

No-one is saying its just about A) whether being allowed to own a gun B) or not. it's about as stated in the opening of this video as stated in the 2nd amendment 'A well REGULATED militia or marketplace of guns' and the American gun lobby is definitely not said anything about wanting to strengthen the gun-laws I.E. waiting times, background checks, sales at gun-shows etc.

This video is wrong in all these areas listed from start to finish it has been nothing but misrepresentation calling them facts.

>> ^L0cky:

>> ^bmacs27:
Like Switzerland, right?
>> ^L0cky:
That's not an idealism, that's pretty much most of Europe.


Hence why I said most.


Which is what I figured, however, if you take a look at the noise in the numbers, Switzerland is within noise of Iceland, Germany, Austria, France, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Would you still call it most?

For every enthusiast per capita the US has like this guy, Switzerland has one with half as many guns. Does it really make a difference? Is Europe really that different?

Frankly, I come from the North East. I still feel an attachment to the revolution, and if you think about, it wasn't that long ago. The minutemen weren't paranoid, they were prudent. And they were packing cannon, the nuclear arms of their day. While I think it's worth carefully considering where lines are drawn, e.g. "small" arms, I think most criticism of gun ownership is alarmist, and heavily influenced by confirmation bias and sensationalist media. Sure they're dangerous. But so are lots of things. Accepting a dangerous world is the cost of living in a free society.

I'm sympathetic to the view that "well regulated militias" should probably keep large stores of arms away from their residences, and certainly children. However, we have no strong evidence this guy has kids around. I guess we can quibble about fire, however there is not particularly much in the way of ammunition present. Remember, guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. Personally, I suspect this guy is a gun salesman. That would explain the quantity of guns, and the relative lack of ammunition. Further, it would explain the youtube video that appears to be an advertisement for a gun cabinet. I don't begrudge this guy his vocation.

Well with in their rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

There are several versions of the text of the Second Amendment, each with slight capitalization and punctuation differences, found in the official documents surrounding the adoption of the Bill of Rights.[4] One such version was passed by the Congress, which reads:[5]
“ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. ”

Another version is found in the copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, which had this capitalization and punctuation:[6]
“ A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. ”

The original hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights, approved by the House and Senate, was prepared by scribe William Lambert and resides in the National Archives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text

A militia is not, is not, the National Guard. The National guard is controlled by the Federal Government. These guys seem well spoken, but what did they think about Bush?

That wasn't a really big gun, it was what appeared to me, a modern version of the M14. Which shoots a .308 standard NATO 7.62x51mm round. No different than any other weapons issued in the modern world. Also, it appears that all of those weapons were Semi-Auto.

CAVEAT:

So I thought about this some while walking up the stairs. I stopped midway and said, "What the fuck?" There is some general Xenophobia seen in this group. The man mentioned Fort Hood. There also seems to be some general stupidity going on here too. First let me address Fort Hood. Fort Hood is a large sprawling base, where people live. Much like the Triangle in Virgina. There are tourists, and military people all over the place down there. Just because the shooter was Muslim, doesn't antiquate the fact that the shooter could have been anyone. Race means nothing in the eyes of Justice, she's blind. The man was a criminal all the same.

Secondly let's address that guy's fears of being shot in the back. I don't know how many weapons were present at the shoot, but given that there were many seen in the footage it would be safe to say that someone violated safety protocol at some point. Guns don't kill people by themselves. Negligence or intent of a person kills.

A gun by itself is an inanimate object incapable of any action. Safety is relative to the amount of training everyone has had. He doesn't want to be shot? Then put the gun down get back in the car and go home.

Just to clarify things, the second amendment reads as follows:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

This is probably the most loosely-worded amendment, aside from the 9th, and open to a TON of interpretation.

Such as... As we already have a standing army - the very definition of a "well regulated militia" - the entire amendment is virtually rendered obsolete. Since we already have a strong military, the citizenry need not arm themselves. But then the crazies will say "But what if we need to use our firearms against our own military?" This is an INSANE place to argue from, as it seems pretty un-American to even consider firing upon your own military. We should not even give any legitimacy to such arguments.

I'll cite this PDF released by the Washington, DC MPD, specifically the graph on page 6. It shows just how frequently firearms are used in homicides, compared to other weapons. I was searching for a Pie Chart that broke down the circumstances in firearm-related deaths in DC prior to the handgun ban. It showed that over half of all deaths from firearms were suicides, homicides made up over a quarter, and "legal" shootings (where the shooter was found to be within his rights to protect his own life or the life of another) made up less than 1% of all firearm related deaths. I'm having a hard time finding this chart again, but I know it exists, and it's still out there.

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It has always seemed to me that guns and gun regulation have been a nature of state regulation and not national regulation. A sawed off shotgun might not have any uses in new york city, but out in the woods is a whole different story.

The amendments were always about restoring the power to the people, the fact that guns are in there is just one other way the founders were protecting our liberties from government oppression. Being that no real problems with the understanding of this amendment happened till all the founder fathers were dead and buried is a real shame because now we are left in the hands of technocrats and people pushing their own pet agendas.

1. Gun Grabber? Are you a member of a well regulated militia? Do you have guns at home for personal home defense or recreation? Then you're fine. Is trading foreign-made assault rifles at gun shows or concealing pistols something you enjoy? Only a chance of a problem. This is a non-issue that the old conservatives use to drum up votes.

Divide and conquer. "That's right, we're only going after gun show people." (Next year) "Don't worry rifle owners/hunters, we're only going after handguns." And so on.
During Katrina, armed "good guys" arrived at less-damaged homes and confiscated all firearms from private citizens without any lawful reason. While some years are more intense than others, there will never be a time to relax vigilance on this issue.

The easiest thing, unfortunately, is to try to place restrictions on who can buy guns, who can buy ammo, what kinds of guns can be sold, etc.

All the 50.000 gun laws we have on the books now do is keep honest people honest, make it harder for them to defend themselves and, of course, squeeze a few dollars more out of them via licensing. The criminals, obviously, don't care about gun control laws.

I did look at the Barack firearms page. There's nothing there that he can do that hasn't already been tried or isn't being done. Very little of it has an impact, and even if Barack put a personalized stamp on each idea, no one could reasonably hold any single politician accountable for such vague, general measures.

2. Oh Jesus, capital gains tax... are we talking long-term capital gains? 5% is less than 20%? ... my ears are open as to how that works. Keep in mind I don't listen to O'Reilly or Limbaugh.

Lower taxes = higher government revenue, as in revenue for your government funding, etc. Whether it comes from Limbaugh or Franken, a fact is a fact. Raising taxes as a way to demonstrably "punish the rich" satisfies the so-called little guys' illusions while hurting them all the more. "You may lose a hand, but we're going to make those evil rich people lose an arm!" (No, I'm not wealthy, but I don't want to drive wealthy people away with higher taxes and more regulations).

.3. Heh, lol on this one. At least you didn't say the ex-Marine was anti-American.

Lee Harvey Oswald was also an ex-Marine. We needn't go there.

Wright remains a crank. Barack took too long to disassociate himself, and even if he hadn't, he's been aligned with Wright's political church for 20+ years.

We can agree on this: Obama's supporters are willing to overlook anything they find wrong with Wright, and to his non-supporters, there's no positive angle to the Obama/Wright association.

Not to cut this short, but our differences are philosophical about the purpose of government:

You're a scientist in a field that either earns most of its bread from government funding (or has limited opportunities in the private sector). Concurrent with that, you see government as a tool to balance natural inequities in economics and social dynamics. Were I you, I'd vote for Obama or Hillary.

Generally, I view government as a water-stream of good intentions sprayed onto an oil fire of problemos. I believe in what Patrick Moynihan called, "Benign neglect", letting natural consequences and the free market shape society. Government is at its best when enforcing the few laws that make sense, and killing barbarians at the gate. But on its best day, it's still nothing more than raw force, a good servant but terrible master.

Every time the government is given power, it's power we the people never get back again. Therefore I'm wary.

Who knows how McLame (or McShamnesty or McNasty, take your pick) might 'lead' as President, but even at his most liberal he won't be as liberal as O-bam or Hillary. That might not bring you much comfort, but odds are you'll have your funding and employment regardless of who makes it in. Although the mainstream media denies it, Bush is a liberal about everything but Iraq.

For fun: if I had to choose only between Barack and Hillary, I'd choose Barack.


In reply to this comment by bamdrew:
1. Gun Grabber? Are you a member of a well regulated militia? Do you have guns at home for personal home defense or recreation? Then you're fine. Is trading foreign-made assault rifles at gun shows or concealing pistols something you enjoy?....

Some people like the idea of a constitutional scholar as President, which makes your point about the right to bear arms more prescient.

I assume you are of the opinion that the second amendment is as clear as an unmuddied lake; I'm yet to be convinced that second amendment rights are appropriately applied when arguing against more restrictive handgun ownership.

'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'

Should this line not be tied to its 'Militia' and 'security of a free State' context? If not, why not?

And if you ask me, I'd say Article II Sect.2 defines 'Militia' almost as a civilian force conscripted into service.

'The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.'

"Hey Joe, good to see you joined up with the militia here to fight against the invasion or-what-have-you. Oh and you brought your highly concealable handgun... thats real swell."