1. Kids shoot up schools. Why schools? Why not shopping malls before Christmas or movie theaters during blockbuster premiers?
1) Kids are in school 30%-40% of their waking lives. It's normal that a disproportionate amount of everything that happens to them happens at school.
2) They don't really shoot up schools. Statistically a kid is much more likely to be shot outside of school than in school. It's just that "school shootings" have become a thing for the media, so the threshold at which one will become a national news story is much lower than, say, a bunch of gang members shooting each other in a drive-by shooting, or a bunch of teens being killed in a car accident. Despite the impression you get from the media, if you want your kids to be safe from shootings, you're better off sending them to school. Normalize for the time they spend in school (#1 above) and statistically they're even safer.
3) When a shooting happens at a school, the vast majority of victims are other kids simply because of the demographics of the people in the area. So it gets classified as kids shooting kids. When a shooting happens outside of a school, the majority of victims are adults. So it gets classified as a "regular" shooting incident even if a significant number of kids were victims
The rights protected by the 2nd amendment are rights retained by the people and, in my opinion, are not subject to regulation by states under their powers.
In your opinion. I clearly disagree, finding more agreement with Breyer's dissent in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) that incorporation under the 14th was inappropriate because it is not a fundamental, individual right.
The Second is the only Amendment in the Bill of Rights that explicitly explains the intent behind the right enumerated there -- that the ownership of firearms is intended for the establishment of well functioning militias. That means the right is limited and not fundamental, and the government should have a free hand to regulate so long as that purpose is not thwarted. To hold otherwise is to regulate the militia clause meaningless. I do not think any phrase in the Constitution should be treated so.
If you're implying that the 2nd amendment grants a power to the states then I'd like to understand what structure in the Constitution would give you the impression that anything in the Bill of Rights grants any power to a state.
Well, if you're going to completely disregard the Second, then you must at least look to the Tenth, which held that powers not reserved by the federal government belong to the States or to the people. Note that "the States" is capitalized as a formal term in the same way that "State" is in the Second and in the rest of the Constitution. Once again, this points to the explicit, focused intent of the Amendment to address state and local concerns.
Furthermore, its very clear from the rest of the Constitution that the founders intended the States to still have a large role in the life of their citizens. The structure of the Senate is the clearest expression of that intent, giving an entire house of the legislature over to (originally) state-appointed representatives, balanced between the states.
I submit this could be an improvement over the helicopter kids.
I say that is a completely different topic and I'm not sure why you brought it up other than to try to be a smart-ass. What you mentioned is not undermining the constitution, and as such, is completely off-topic.
Yes, it is. Any misinterpretation of the constitution is an undermining of its intent and effect, regardless of whether that results in a situation you like or not, and the pure individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment undermines states' rights.
A militia was a force of the proletariat. Every man that was able to take up arms was expected to do so. Therefor, the common man was considered militia and did *not* need to join the army nor any other organization to be considered such.
Yes, it was made up of the people, but the whole phrase "well-regulated" is not mere puffery. It means a militia in proper and working order, and it explicitly referenced as "being necessary to the security of a free State." The governments of the states have long been held to have the right to regulate arms within that context, and the federal government has the right to regulate firearms that do not have a purpose in a militia. (See US v. Miller (1939) on regulation of sawed-off shotguns.)
Anything not specifically outlawed by the constitution or the state is defaulted to being a right. Therefor, yes, you would have the right to own a gun even if the 2nd amendment didn't exist.
Unless a state passed a law saying that you didn't, by your own statement.
You want to use the phrase "well-regulated militia" as a way of allowing the national government to regulate firearms.
Actually, I view the Second Amendment as a state's right and support the right of the states to regulate arms, seeing at the concept of a militia is directly tied to the state power and not individual power. If a state wants to ban handguns and keep only a professional militia (e.g. the National Guard), that should be their right.
Larger "ordnance" is not illegal to own or use in the US. One may privately own fighter jets, tanks, cannons, rocket launchers, etc. While there are some restirtions they are hardly banned, and never have been. So what is your point?
Title II weapons are heavily regulated in ways that handguns cannot be, under current standards. The federal government as the power to regulate them -- even the power to outright ban them. The fact that they have not exercised that power is no proof that they don't. Even DC v. Heller (2008), the case that nailed down the notion that firearm ownership was an individual right, upheld the notion that it only applies to certain types of weapons (referring to US v. Miller (1939).
And that's my point. A strict reading of the Second Amendment in no way forbids the government from preventing private citizens from having ordnance. It only guarantees the right to bear arms, not ordnance.
So the five extra words of the proposed amendment can't hurt, now can they?
If you can get the amendment passed, then it is by definition constitutional. I'm not a big fan of either the 16th or 17th Amendments, but the federal income tax and direct election of senators are both absolutely constitutional to even the most hard-line strict constructionists.
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein