Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

[glow=blue,2,300]With gun control failing nationally, The New York Times reports that Michael Bloomberg is heading back to private business at Bloomberg L.P. [/glow]

This comes after he dumped $150,000 into the August 12th Milwaukee County Sheriff's race in an attempt to beat Sheriff David Clarke's "conservative pro-gun policies." Clarke won. Bloomberg lost.

It also comes after his gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety aired a video meant to justify firearm confiscation for women's safety, but which inadvertently made the case for women to own guns to protect themselves. Breitbart News reported that after a female panel reviewed the commercial on ABC's The View, three of the four panelists came away telling women to get a gun to protect themselves and their children.

Bloomberg's return to private business also comes after the most visible gun control group he supports, Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, only managed to convince five businesses--Chipotle, Jack in the Box, Chili's, Sonic, and Target--to ask law-abiding citizens to come to their stores unarmed. Moms Demand was able to get a sixth business--Starbucks--to ask customers who openly carry firearms not to be so flamboyant about it.

On the other side of the coin, Breitbart News recently reported that 57,000 businesses were fighting this push by putting a "guns welcome" sign on their front doors......continued

The important thing is to keep up the minimum of 10,000 being gunned down annually and the jails overflowing. Great advert for the land of....... ( )!

BTW: The incorporation argument for "gun rights" is superfluous.

Smiley, the important thing for him is to come up with more  reasons  excuses to bash America. The ones he has now are old and repetitive.

[Allow] the matter to simmer for a while before the heavy artillery of constitutional rightsmaking is trundled out, […] Let a state legislature or activist (but elected, and hence democratically responsive) state court adopt homosexual marriage as a policy in one state, and let the rest of the country learn from the results of its experiment. [Eventually] the public acceptability of a decision recognizing the new right [could change].

Bake me a cake, or else!

ut perhaps you have an explanation of "constitutional rightsmaking" that isn't self-serving, political and absurd? Pray-tell. I'd like to hear it!

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Amendment II

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 Second Amendment has most recently been interpreted to grant the right of gun ownership to individuals for purposes that include self-defense.  At first it was thought to apply only to the Federal government, but through the mechanism of the Fourteenth Amendment, it has been applied to the states as well.

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The Second Amendment has most recently been interpreted to grant the right of gun ownership to individuals for purposes that include self-defense.  At first it was thought to apply only to the Federal government, but through the mechanism of the Fourteenth Amendment, it has been applied to the states as well.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.

The Constitution, as originally adopted, granted to the Congress power --

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.

1. 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.

        (a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.

        (b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.

It requires no other Amendment to empower it, & the right belongs to all citizens, not a select few depending on where they live.

c. the fourteenth amendment
The need for a more solid foundation for the protection of freedmen as well as white citizens was recognized, and the result was a significant new proposal--the Fourteenth Amendment. A chief exponent of the amendment, Sen. Jacob M. Howard (R., Mich.), referred to "the personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as freedom of speech and of the press; ... the right to keep and bear arms...."[35] Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary because presently these rights were not guaranteed against state legislation. "The great object of the first section of this amendment is, therefore, to restrain the power of the States and compel them at all times to respect these great fundamental guarantees."[36]

That said, based on your interpretations 'Coony, does someone who wants to marry his pig, or another who wants to marry it's Brahma Bull, or the woman that want's to marry a chimp......I know it's silly, but what would their rights be....do they have the same protections.....equal protection under the law, etc...etc???

The point is [...] to bring to light the mechanism by which the states are unable take away rights guaranteed the constitution  and nullify a tenth amendment argument for being able to do so. A tenth amendment argument in favor of Missouri able to nullify Federal gun laws is a dangerous thing. It also means California can go on an all out gun-grab by citing the same amendment and making the argument that Federal Constitution /technically/ only applies to the Federal government. This is why a Second Amendment argument might not be legally sufficient (note the court cases that I pointed out) and the 14 amendment invoked, especially to a pro-gun control judge.

Perhaps you like Holmes' "skin of a living thought" formulation? Note how often that skin has been flayed, to get to otherwise absurd results...

“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used”

While I applaud your use of language here, I find the meaning of your words in defiance of common sense.

BTW: You didn't mean to praise my "use of language."

The debate (still on-going) between "judge-made" law (Common Law) and statutory application and interpretation -among which is Constitutional Law- continues…

Being so widely read, you would know the precise meaning of words change over time. Why is this such a hard concept?

Despite the current conservative blather, judges don't make law.

Can you cite a few words from the Constitution whose meaning has actually changed significantly?

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(from Miller)
The Constitution, as originally adopted, granted to the Congress power --

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.

Note the emphasis on the militia aspect of the decision.
Later that decision was correctly overturned and now the 2nd amendment is understood to include the individual right to bear arms.

[…] the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
No clause could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.
(A View of the Constitution…; p. 70)

Blackstone described this right as an auxiliary right [in English common-law], supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state.

Rawle made the point plainly in 1825: