Zackey Rahimi, the Texas criminal defendant challenging a federal gun law before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, said this summer that he no longer wanted to own firearms and expressed remorse for his actions that got him in trouble with the law.
“I will make sure for sure this time that when I finish my time being incarcerated to stay the faithful, righteous person I am this day, to stay away from all drugs at all times, do probation & parole rightfully, to go to school & have a great career, have a great manufacturing engineering job, to never break any law again, to stay away from the wrong circle, to stay away from all firearms & weapons, & to never be away from my family again,” Rahimi, who is being held at a Fort Worth jail, said in a handwritten letter dated July 25.
He continued: “I had firearms for the right reason in our place to be able to protect my family at all times especially for what we’ve went through in the past but I’ll make sure to do whatever it takes to be able to do everything the right pathway & to be able to come home fast as I can to take care of my family at all times.”
for the purposes of a well regulated militia
Yeah we don’t have those anymore chief. We have this thing called a military instead and I already saw your “everyone is a part of the militia” opinion, that’s some straight up bullshit.
Their constitution says the US isn’t even supposed to keep a standing army. There’s lots of discussion about that by the people who wrote it and decided on the specific language.
Also, you’re right about the 2nd amendment. The part about the well regulated militia is part of the right, a qualifier, not subsequent.
But, people in the US, both government and citizens, clearly don’t follow their constitution very well. It’s used to justify whatever they want to do when they can and freely ignored when inconvenient.
Sounds like the Bible.
Tell me about it, I get to suffer living here listening to all of the creative interpretations of the constitution. My favorites are when someone clearly hasn’t read it says a quote is in it and says it to me who used to read and carry a copy of the constitution.
It doesn’t fucking matter. The right is not for a militia. The right is for all the people to bear arms.
And well regulated meant well supplied. The militia has plenty of guns when the militia is the people and the people have plenty of guns.
Please tell me more about what people you’ve never met defined something to be. Or preferably tell us that’s your interpretation
There are other, primary sources, that back up this interpretation. The Federalist Papers is a good starting point.
I don’t know the real answer, but it seems that defining a collective right as the second in a list of nine other individual rights doesn’t seem logical. I, personally, believe the individual right is what was intended. I also believe that over 200 years have passed and it needs to be updated. Arguing the semantics isn’t going to help anyone and simply attempting to re-interpret what’s supposed to be a living document is absurd. That being said, it would take a lot more people being a lot more rational to ever have a hope of making those changes.
Yeah, quoting the federalist papers to me is about as good as me quoting some other source that as equally invalidates that opinion.
Sure it’s a source and sure you can based an opinion on it but it’s not definitive by any means no matter how much conservatives would like to suggest otherwise.
Let me get this straight, you don’t believe that the words mean something and claim we can’t know their intent, then when offered additional context provided by some of the people who wrote the words you disagree with you dismiss it out of hand?
What would be a proper source to you then? Or do you prefer to revel in willful ignorance? Because that sounds like a pretty conservative view to me.
And I’ll point out my exact issue “written by some people who wrote them”
What if I quoted Thomas Jefferson, who did the actual writing of the constitution, about separation of church and state? Would you then agree that it’s needed as he so strongly agreed for?
What I’m telling you is I disagree with the writers of the federalist papers as did quite a few of the other founders.
I was not arguing one way or the other, I was providing historical context. You’re arguing against points I never made. I’m glad you disagree with the writers of the federalist papers, but that is irrelevant.
I do agree with Thomas Jefferson on the need for a separation of church and state. You seem to have read me entirely incorrectly and made some weird assumptions.
You are correct that I made incorrect assumptions and for what it’s worth I apologize. Thank you for the historical context and have a lovely evening.
Read the first sentence again.
The right is solely because the founders meant for the US to rely on the militia for defense. That changed very fucking quick because the state militias were uncoordinated garbage so the federal government recognized the need for a large standing army. Militias being our main defense has not been a thing since the mid 1790s. You are a couple hundred years behind.
That’s funny, because it looks to me like the PEOPLE were guaranteed a right.
Because they thought the militia was necessary for the defense of the state. They found out that idea was wrong pretty quickly.
“(a)The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246#:~:text=(a)The,the National Guard
Sooo really sounds like only men between 17 and 45 or women in the national guard get the right to a firearm per the writing of the constitution.
Militia is to conscripted military member as jury pool is to petit jury.
Yeah, which is sexist as fuck so tbh I don’t prefer that interpretation, and do 17yos really need to be able to pass NICs checks? Like, rn they can have one if a parent buys it for them, but to expand that seems…iffy at best…
I think I mentioned my favorite part but to reiterate, once you hit 45 you just lose the right to own a gun. Really doesn’t sound like freedom to arms to me.
Yeah also there’s no gay marriage in there so we should ban that, abortion, medical transitioning…
Yeah I’m not the biggest fan of the literalist interpretation. Seems like playing with fire. Furthermore as you’ve pointed out quite succinctly, the literalist interpretation is silly as fuck.