Garrison Keillor et al re Obama and the Second Amendment. RKBA will be an issue in October

[jody]

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/article701084.ece
{ Garrison Keillor says} Same with the growling and grumbling on the left about Barack tacking to the center, adjusting positions, giving tough-love speeches to African-American audiences — what some people decry as cynical politics, some of us welcome as a sign of seriousness. Barack making overtures to evangelicals? It's about time! Barack expressing his support of the Second Amendment? Bravo. I want to see my man excited by the prospect of victory and not shrink from it as so many Democrats do.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16214.html
MS. IFILL: That’s a final question, just to – I want you to think a little bit about the stage that you’re at in your campaign. You have 26 percent of people still think you were raised a Muslim. People look at your shifts on issues, from warrantless surveillance to gun control, and they say, who is this guy? What does he believe? How do you begin to, in this stage in your campaign, tell people who you are and have it stick?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, first of all, I do think that this notion that somehow we’ve had wild shifts in my positions is simply inaccurate. You mentioned the gun position. I’ve been talking about the Second Amendment being an individual right for the last year and a half. So there wasn’t a shift there.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/why_the_race_is_tied.html
• Turning his back on a lifetime of support for gun control, he now recognizes a Second Amendment right to bear arms in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/OPINION/807160314
"He was a homophobe." He had to throw that one in, of course. After all, aren't all Republicans homophobes? Helms was "pro-gun." Well, there you have it, case closed. Only neanderthals believe in that gosh-darned Second Amendment. If you think Jose is shocked now, I'd like to see the look on his face when he discovers that Barack Obama is pro-gun, too.

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20080715/COLUMN/256387426/1061/NEWS&parentprofile=-1
Obama can cock his head as though he's taking dictation from God, drop his voice three octaves, and tell a crowd of Longshoremen that he's against late-term abortions, in favor of the death penalty, pro Second Amendment gun rights, in support of NAFTA, willing to leave the troops in Iraq (“until security has been established”), enthusiastic about faith-based federal programs, itching to end welfare, and determined to keep Jerusalem in the hands of the Jews.

Half an hour later, when speaking to Nob Hill liberals, he'll metamorphose from George Bush into George Clooney — quicker than you can say, “Bible clutchers!” — and promise to bring the troops home in 2009. The assembly will ululate, in unison, “That's right!”, and sway to the cadences of Obama's flute.

http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=626&pageid=44&pagename=Slices
Romney notes that the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment “would have been a different decision if Barack Obama had the chance to have appointed a justice or two.”

http://www.thereporter.com/opinion/ci_9869188
The first one is the Washington, D.C., case that established gun ownership as an individual right, a move lauded by the right and decried by the left. Obama himself didn't publicly disagree with the ruling because, well, he's running for president now and is trying to win key swing states that are pro Second Amendment. However, everyone knows the far left (of which Obama is a part) is anti-gun.

[gateley]

1. Is support of gun control a statement against the

Second Amendment? Is it either/or?

Thanks.

[jody]

2. Interesting question. First one should become familiar with federal law, i.e. 18 USC 922 and

26 USC 5861.
See:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000922----000-.html
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00005861----000-.html

Next one should read the Petitioners’ Brief and Respondent’s Brief for D.C. v. Heller at http://dcguncase.com/blog/case-filings/

Then read the SCOTUS decision in D.C. v. Heller, see http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

The Democratic Party 2004 platform says "We will protect Americans' Second Amendment right to own firearms" and presumptive presidential candidate Obama says "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms."

Before the Constitution and Bill of Rights, PA said:

A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OR STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 28 Sept. 1776
"That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, amongst which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."
And
"That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

VT used the same words in its constitution of 1777.

Now to your question, any law that prevents a law-abiding citizen from keeping and bearing arms for self-defense is a violation of the Second Amendment.

Note that SCOTUS says governments are not obligated to protect an individual unless she/he is in custody.

Over 800,000 sworn law enforcement officers use handguns for self-defense because they are the most effective, efficient tool for that job.

An egregious infringement is the threat by Chairman Vincent C. Gray of the Council of the District of Columbia, "I have been advised that this decision has no immediate impact on our laws prohibiting the possession and use of guns outside of the home. There is no right to carry loaded handguns in the District. That has not changed. Nor will it."

Such a law clearly violates the SCOTUS decision in Heller, "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.Pp. 2–53."

[gateley]

3. Thanks! (Putting my nose to the screen to begin reading). nt

[johnnydrama]

4. it's not

Nowhere in the 2nd amendment does it say a 5 year old can't own a gun. Why can't a 5 year old purchase own a gun.

Gun control.

[grantcart]

5. breech loading muskets lol that was their frame of reference

[jody]

6. And quill pens and manual printing presses were the frame of reference of the 1st Amendment. So? n/t

[grantcart]

7. quill pens could still write 30 words a minute

an expert musket operator could expend 2 rounds a minute while the average farmer would take more than a minute while legally owned guns bought at gun shows can expel dozens of rounds a minute and with a little effort you can expel hundreds of rounds a minute.

While they still remain 'guns' in a technical sense the change in lethality means that the words represent dramatically different realities.

The change in writing speed does not change the essential function of the writing instrument. The change of lethal capability of the gun from the musket means that it is changed from a device that can only be used for hunting and possibly expelling a couple of rounds in self defense to a device that can (and has) killed dozens of civilians in seconds. That you would make such a vacuous comparison, in my mind, points out how intellectually dishonest the discussion on the second ammendment is. I understand that people think that they have a right to bear arms - you can even build a strong case that it is implied in the same way and for the same reasons that the right of privacy is in the constitution, but the mental gymnastics used to establish that the second ammendment was designed to protect individual rights for modern weaponry is laughable.

[jody]

8. You have a gift for writing fantasy. Have a nice day. n/t

[benEzra]

9. But a speaker couldn't address 50 million people at once...

and a hand-cranked press couldn't print a hundred thousand newspapers in a single morning. And someone writing a letter couldn't post it where 2 billion people could read it. And cameras weren't invented yet.

I guess the First Amendment doesn't apply to broadcast speech, non-hand-cranked presses, the Internet, or photographs?