Let the lawsuits begin.

Hey, it's working so well in Iraq.

Sport, I sure hope you don't oppose this ruling. Of all the decisions this term, this was the one I was most eager to here. I have never fired a gun in my life, never even held a gun. However, I have always been a staunch proponent of the Second Amendment. Probably because one side of the family is what I'd call the Blue Dog, Huntin' Democrats!

The other side is just regular Dems, whatever that is.

Had this decision gone the other way, I'd bet a ton of money on it that it would have rallied pro-gun advocates in such a way that it would cost Obama a lot of states he might otherwise have won.

On this note, I hate to admit, guys, that this is one reason why, even though I don't see myself voting for Grandpa McCain, I'm disgusted with Obama. He has no idea where he stands on this issue. He spouts this blabber about supporting the 2nd Amendment, but then I hear him today say something stupid about how this decision is narrowly drawn--it isn't--and then I learn that while an Illinois State Senator, he voted to disallow people the same gun rights the D.C. law prohibited.

Gosh! I am so fed up with these two candidates! Every time I think I can consider Obama, he irritates me even more. I think I just might write in David Wright. He's hotter.

Crap. He's too young.

I have no idea where I stand on this issue because I just don't care. The result doesn't bother me and it wouldn't have bothered me if it had been 5-4 the other way around.

The decision was "narrowly drawn" in that the vast majority of existing gun control laws will stay on the books. It was also wholly unsurprising given the current makeup of the court.

Why disgust for Obama? He really is doing what politicians should do and walk the fence. This is a really touchy issue for many people. A lot of urban areas are suffering from crime, and to go soft on guns, which is fueling so much crime, would appear counter-productive to all the efforts by those trying to quell the violence, which, incidently is claiming a disproportionate amount of children. On the other hand, he needs to appeal to blue-collar voters, and they are resoundingly pro-gun. Obama did not come out strongly on this issues due to the fact he needs to appeal to both sides. I think he did what he needed to do, without offending anyone. I have never held a gun in my life, my mother wouldn't even allow us to have toy guns while growing up. My personal opinion is the restrictions obviously have not been working, otherwise, we would not have the shooting sprees that we do nearly every weekend in Chicago. It has gotten worse, it has not gotten better. If the goal is to eliminate violence, then totally legalize all drugs. Take the profits out of street drugs and I guarentee violence, and shooting, will drop dramatically.

My main problem is with people who are naive to think gun laws will decrease gun violence. I can't believe they don't realize that all they're doing is taking guns away from law-abiding citizens. Don't these politicians--hello, Mayor Daley!--get it? The criminals are always going to get guns. They don't go out and buy the traceable, legal guns; they get them illegally. Always have, always will. More laws will have no effect on these criminals; rather, it will make it harder for people like me to get a gun to defend myself.

And what you see as Obama straddling the fence is what I call being a hypocrite. He says one thing now but voted the other way before. Now watch him try to run to the center a bit after having a perfect liberal voting record. McCain is doing some of this himself. This is what disgusts me about too many politicians. Just be honest and upfront for a change!

I don't know whether to throw a dart at the ballot or just skip the top spot altogether this November.

Crew, not voting would be the same as casting a vote for Mc Cranky. Do your duty...vote. Look, I'm not wild about Obama, I voted for Hillary, but I cannot even fathom voting for a Republican, or even worse, my voice and/or vote not even being heard. We simply cannot afford another Rethug in office. Take one for the team, Crew. We need you now more than ever.

Enforcing gun laws decreases gun crime, and overall crime. Statistics don't lie. There is sufficient evidence in nations that have good gun laws and enforce them, throughout the world.

We no longer live in the wild west. The civilized world is facing the facts and moving in the opposite direction.

US gun laws are used as a precautionary tale about the dangers of proliferation, or a return to it, throughout the worldwide web.

And I repeat: gun proliferation hasn't worked in Iraq. Neighbors settle matters at the point of a rifle rather than in a conference room.

A great deal of money is being made through this mercantilism of death. Eventually the merchants too will pay.

I don't have any more of a problem with sportshooting than I do with spearchucking in the decathlon. Nor do I consider hunting unethical (heck, I'm an omnivore). But gun violence is cannabalism. Those species among whom that trait proliferates do not do well. We could do more to excercise our ability to self-restrain.

I live in DC and have been the victim of violent crime twice. In neither instance my being armed would have been a moot point - in most of these cases, unlike in the movies, there is no opportunity for the victim to access a weapon ,never mind use it. The "home defense" argument is, IMHO, simply a way for straight guys to compensate for their tiny penises by buying a fake phallus to hold and point. Guns, particularly handguns, are useful only for killing and maiming, and serve no purpose in a modern society.

Unfortunately, this country's love affair with guns is long-standing, and not going to go away. One would think the Vice-President shooting his friend in the face during a drunken "hunting" trip (releasing caged animals to be shot at is not hunting, it's masturbation under a disguise) would be enough to convince this country that we need to rein in the guns, but alas it is not to be.

What I see missing from the entire discussion of this decision is the complete abdication of personal responsibility, whether by the Justices themselves or by the (mainly) men who insist on obtaining and using guns. Apparently this is the one "right" in which no responsibility is ever expected. Leave a loaded gun around your house and your kid uses it to kill him/herself? Oh well, what a tragedy for you - no criminal charges. Give a gun to a "friend" who then uses it to kill 10 - 12 people? No problem, not your fault, or your liability. Want to sell guns to anyone without having to go through that annoying background check, just head for your nearest gun show and you're all set. And if you want to declare an individual right to own any gun you want, just make your ruling and run off for your safe, rich suburb, like all 5 of the Justices on the majority.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth of Virginia continues to flood the East Coast with cheap and easy-to-use handguns (responsible for something like 50% of the violent crime along the 95 corridor IIRC), straight men all over the country think nothing of blowing their wives/ex-wives/girlfriends away when they have the audacity to act independently, and the merest hint of a gay love affair in a movie is verboten while Angelina Jolie gets praise for her latest snuff film. And NO ONE proposes anything that will actually help.

When will civilization actually come to the United States? Ever?

My father kept rifles in the house. At least a few times he threatened to use them when he got very upset about something. Thank God he never did. Most family friends had handguns or rifles in the home. I have handled guns and believe people should have the right to keep them, but they should be regulated and the original purpose for the amendment is its language.

The Second Amendment's language makes this clear: "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 language, from the original version distributed to the states and ratified by them, emphasizes the necessity of STATE militias to ensure states' freedom, especially in the early federal republic. The amendment does not say, "All citizens have inalienable or untrammeled or absolute rights to guns." But the right-leaning court did construe it as such. It's yet another demonstration of the right wing court's ahistorical approach to most issues they take under consideration.

For Obama, it's a no-win situation, so whatever he says about it, I won't hold it against him.

[quote name='fantomas' date='Jun 27 2008, 10:00 PM' post='362609']
For Obama, it's a no-win situation, so whatever he says about it, I won't hold it against him.
[/quote]
So its also the same for McCain - right> "[/quote]it's a no-win situation, so whatever he says about it, I won't hold it against him."
[/quote]
I am personally for allowing people to have guns in the home, althought I don't see why most people need them- BUT I am totally against assault weapons - ( AK47- automatic machine guns - etc) being allowed by any member of the public. Military & SWAT teams, yes. Personal ownership of them - no.

Uh, no it doesn't. Perhaps if you bothered to read the opinion instead of assuming like you always do, you'd learn a lot about the amendment's history and how it was written to mirror the constitutions of many states at that time, where those states gave individuals the right to own guns.



No they didn't. Again, did you even bother to read the frickin' opinion? Of course not. You just heard about it from your usual ultra-leftist sources and ASSumed once again. Scalia even emphasized in the opinion that the Second Amendment's guarantees of the right to bear arms weren't absolute. He also emphasized that bans on certain types of weapons would not run afoul of the Amendment. I am sure you were typically too lazy to bother to learn this by [a] reading the very thorough, logical, and well-researched opinion, or [b] watching the left-leaning news networks, who also reiterated that the Court emphasized that the right wasn't absolute and that even certain types of individuals could be constitutionally barred from owning guns.



I don't know what you're smoking, but obviously you haven't read the Guantanamo decision, the immigration decision, and other similar decisions recently--all staples of a left-leaning Court.

No, of course you won't, because nothing Our Lord and Savior Barack Obama says would ever earn your disapproval. He's a frackin' hypocrite and a two-faced politician, trying to appease the extreme Left, of which he's a part, and come across to America as some centrist, which he isn't and never will be. At least his opponent is bipartisan, willing to compromise and work with the opposition, and independent at times. Obama is as extreme and partisan as they get.

Reading the actual wording of the Second Amendment, the first version as ratified by the states then the second as passed by the two houses of Congress in this article, it is clear to me at least that the writers and legislators both in the states and in the federal Congress had no intention of giving every individual the right to bear arms:Scalia and his cohorts have effectively excised the first clause "A well regulated M[m]ilitia".

Even the arguement over the capitalizations makes it clear that there was serious fear that this right would be misused by militant radical minorities to impose their will on the rest of the nation. That is still true today.

Hi, sport:

I disagree. I read the entire decision--whew!--and even though I don't agree with his thinking on some other decisions, I thought Scalia did a good job of researching the history of the amendment, including debates on its meaning, and how the Framers did, indeed, intend for individual Americans to have the right to own guns. The opinion also did explain how the Framers looked at state constitutions at the time and wanted to do something similar.

CC

I have not read the opinion by Scalia, Crew Chief, only the Second Amendment and some of the history of this country. My view of Justice Scalia is that he chooses the history that supports his opinions, as we all do to some extent.

Did he take into consideration that when the Constitution including that Second Amendment was written that only free men were considered to have the right to bear arms - a limitation which excluded much of the African-born population.

Had the African-born population had the same right to bear arms, USA history might have indeed been changed. How we will never know? Would Scalia have wanted the Africans to "liberate" themselves?

But my point is that the Constitution has to be interpreted according to the times. Does the right to bear arms include the right to harbor large quantities of ricin or anthrax in your home?

What would the war on terror look like right now if every cuckoo without an arrest record could keep as much deadly armor or substance as he likes? I disagree with Scalia's reasoning not his facts.

An interesting case of a federal employee who was apparently falsely associated with the removal of anthrax from a federal lab was recently concluded. By Scalia's reasoning, he could have had anthrax legally.

DFTT, I know, but nevertheless, just so you understand, I strongly disapprove of Obama's support of the horrid FISA bill. Obama's no more of a "hypocrite and two-faced politician" than any of the others running in the primaries, with the exception of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, and the former did not speak out at all during the 8 years of Bush-league destruction of the Constitution and this country that you have so fulsomely supported.

Obama is not a "centrist," whatever that is, but he's also not a leftist either. His record as a legislator has been mainstream liberal with some progressive approaches thrown in from time to time. As Bill W notes, he is hardly to the far left as people like you would like to claim.

But anything to the left of Cheney is "extreme and partisan" to you, so what more needs to be said? Your beloved W has set the table, that's for sure!

Speaking of the right-wing court and the right-wing judiciary, here's SCOTUS's far-right rulings and some the 5-4 liberal-leaning judges were able to cast with Kennedy's support.


And here's the actual count of GOP-appointed federal judges, many of them from the extremist Federalist Society and similar organizations, vs. Democratic-appointed judges.

Absolutely, positively NOT! This is a dangerous belief that renders the Constitution meaningless. You want it to reflect the present times? There's a way to do that. It's called the amendment process. Your ridiculous belief is just another way of saying "I want a liberal judge to make law based on what he thinks today's times are." Such judges and Justices do not deserve to be on the bench! A Justice of the Supreme Court must be dispassionate, unemotional, and free from personal bias and beliefs. He/She should simply look at the Constitution and if that great document is silent on something, leave the issue at hand to the states. Hell, even the 9th and 10th Amendments, which have pretty much been discarded altogether, say this much, so much so that they're an integral part of the Bill of Rights.



This is a rather stupid comment. I've never seen a militia of anthrax holders.

The recent decision, which should have easily been 9-0, simply said what our Founders meant: individual Americans have the right to own guns. The opinion explained this through excellent historical analysis.




Tell me: how long were you laughing when you typed that, considering you know it's complete bullshit. "Mainstream" liberal. Uh huh. Just another attempt by left-wingers to hide behind a label they know a majority of Americans do not want for their president.

Fact: Obama is the single most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. Of 100 Senators, he's dead last (or # 1 liberal, depending on how you look at it). He's even more liberal than the Senate's only Socialist Bernie Sanders! Unbelievable. Socialist Senator Sanders has to look left to see Obama, who also has one of the worst records for compromise and cooperation. Obama is not someone who reaches across the aisle, unlike his milquetoast opponent John McCain.

Fact: Obama is the most liberal nominee for president in the history of our country. Earth to McCain: if you want to win this election, make sure you hammer this fact home to the American people, because if they truly realized how liberal Obama is, how much of a danger he poses with his wacked out policies and ideology, he'd lose in an electoral landslide.

I love seeing this sentence now:

You have chosen to ignore all posts from: Veritas.

The day is so much more pleasant.

Veritas

I loved your line "I want a liberal judge to make law based on what he thinks today's times are".

Why would you ASSume that it is only liberal judges who would make decisions like that.

There are a hell of a lot of conservative justices that do that as well.

Oh, and when the Supreme Court overturned the GLBT ban, Scalia was emphatic that the law should not be overturned, because he said, we were immoral degenerates etc etc etc.

That sure doesn't sound like some one who is "dispassionate, unemotional, and free from personal bias and beliefs. "

A question to the board

Which old poster does Veritas remind you of.

MIB?

Matt?

Name your poisin!!

Hi, Lk:

I was thinking PhillyFan, believe it or not, especially since Veritas apparently lives in the Philadelphia area.

I actually met MIB once. He lives rather near to me. We had lunch together after he left the board. Fascinating individual, I must admit. However, I don't think it's him. There were personal reasons why he left the board, and based on what he explained, I don't think he'll ever be back, even under other names. I wish I could be more informative, but he asked me to keep it confidential, which I will do. I can tell you it's serious enough to keep him from ever coming back, so serious that again, I really don't think he's here under any other names.

I told him that if I found out he was bullshitting me, I'd personally beat the crap out of him.

Crew

Phillyfan was the person I was thinking of, but couldn't remember. PF always reminded me of Ann Coulter, but with a smaller dick. :-)

So maybe PF is back under an ASSumed name?

Hmmm...could be.

So you've seen PF's dick, huh? It's that small?

Nope. But couldn't resist the 3 pointer. Get 2 rethuglicans in 1 sentance, and win 3 points on you
gay card.

Wow, you're a regular Sherlock Holmes. PhillyFan actually lives in Arizona. Veritas isn't him. If you read PhillyFan's posts back when he was still allowed to post, you'd easily be able to tell that this Veritas is someone else.

But in my view, there shouldn't be such a fuss over Veritas -- this complete troll who never posts on any topics but politics, who only surfaces every few months to spew vile garbage and then eventually crawls back into his hole after everyone gets all upset. It's ridiculous, and he's not worth it. People, do what I did and put him on IGNORE status, and you'll be much happier.

Those posts are nothing like the unique style of Philly Fan. There are very few people on this board, and certainly none on this thread, myself included, who could consistently display such elan. Many of us still wish he'd return - including Cyd, who is quite friendly with PF.

Ugh! PhillyFan!!! I am so glad that douche is gone.

We rendered our Constitution meaningless when we used smallpox as a weapon after inheriting the technique through our British forebears.

You can't keep smallpox , ricin or anthrax in your medicine cabinet. Why should you have an indelible right to a gun?

Or would you rather all the gun owners turn in their AK47s for tetradotoxin.

Barack Obama renders our Constitution meaningless when he makes an exception to the death penalty for child rapists, in custody and in prison. Would he set the same standards for our soldiers during an occupation? That is what Iraq is now. Not a war, but an occupation - and soon another military base in the Middle East to protect our oil dependency, especially the Gates of Hormuz.

It is Scalia's reasoning that I disagree with, as I do with Obama's. The Ivory tower of the White House may allow Obama time to and space to think it through more. It certainly has not worked for Bush or Cheney. And Cheney's wisdom on anthrax has not helped find our domestic terrorist. Is he in that cave with Ossama?