[seanw444]

This country recognizes state-affiliated militias, and independent militias, both in law and court precedent. The state-affiliated militia would effectively be the national guard in modern times. That is not what I am talking about. Nor is it explicitly the kind mentioned in the 2A, which was clearly intentional.

The fall of nearly all great nations of this magnitude in history have been due to internal corruption and decay of the institutions. You don't protect against that with state-affiliated paramilitary organizations. You end up being the one protecting the decayed institutions and corruption. And if you refuse, and join a group of people trying to fight against it, then what? Oh interesting, an independent militia.

Your side's arguments really make the founders sound like idiots. They were not. They considered all of this. And they made a pretty simple and clear statement about it: it's a right of the people, to keep and bear arms. And it shall not be infringed.

If you don't like it, then amend the Constitution. That's how this place was supposed to work. But I guess society has decided we can forgo that step entirely.

[toss1]

Um, no.

"all 50 states have some provision in their state law, whether it's their state constitution or their state statutes, that prohibits private militia, private paramilitary activity. " [0]

"In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in a major gun rights case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that citizens had a right to own a firearm for purposes other than being in a militia, namely for self-defense. The ruling affirmed the right of states to restrict militia-like activity." [1]

So, it is pretty much decided that independent militias, unaccountable to the state(s), can be illegal under the constitution, and are in fact illegal in all 50 states.

So, either the founders were either not actually interested in unregulated militias (hint: they did say "well regulated", not "unregulated, independent"), or SCOTUS has gotten it wrong — very possible, but it is very unlikely that a different SCOTUS would help, as this is the most right-wing SCOTUS in a century and it still upheld outlawing independent militias.

And again, there is nothing that says that independent militias would not, or could not have qualification standards. In fact, they'd be idiots not to.

Again, I do not see any right to buy arms & ammo as easily as a bunch of bananas, or that the right is enshrined for insane, incompetent, or irresponsible people. Being required to pass a background check, not have demonstrated inability to control your own violence, and demonstrate basic safety and skill with firearms is not infringement.

I live in Massachusetts, with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. It is a minor inconvenience, certainly nothing resembling infringement. We need to attend a 2-3 hour safety session and iirc get the cert signed off by the Chief Of Police in the town[2].

The results are clear [3]. While the nation has hundreds of mass shootings every year, there have been only 2 in MA in this century (the only one in the last two decades being in the Boston Marathon Bombing, an international terrorist act), and only 4 in the last 33 years.

Yet, if I want to, I can go get qualified and get a firearm next week.

Seriously, where is the infringement?

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/08/30/907720068/are-citizen-militia...

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-09-2...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Massachusetts

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings_in_Mas...

[seanw444]

You can have a private militia, so long as you don't take your operations to the public realm. And if it gets to the point where your militia is useful, then I don't think that law matters anyways.

Also, I still find SCOTUS too milquetoast to represent me. They still ruled in favor of permitting, which is blatantly unconstitutional, and to argue otherwise is totally disingenuous.

I don't think you're worth my time, nor am I yours.

[toss1]

>>You can have a private militia, so long as you don't take your operations to the public realm. And if it gets to the point where your militia is useful, then I don't think that law matters anyways.

That sounds kind of self-contradictory. If your 'militia in the private realm' is doing nothing, it seems to be a meaningless organization, or at best a proto-organization, and if it is a useful militia, as in threatening the power of the state or federal govt, that's clearly illegal.

And if you believe that requiring a basic firearms permit to be unconstitutional, it seems that that standard might only apply to 18th-century weapons. An AR or even a good hunting rifle is more deadly than a cannon of those times (and also required more fiddly knowledge & skill to shoot effectively).

I've seen no law or proposal that is anything more than a modest inconvenience for any sane, competent, and responsible person. I don't see how any of the founders would be objecting to that at any level. And this society is both much more complex and the weapons orders of magnitudes more powerful.

And yeah, I agree SCOTUS has enough problems for everyone, about which we could commiserate until the cows come home, and then some.