So while it might be rational for men to fear other men, one also might ask how rational men really are if they are that murderous and violent. (It always cracks me up when men accuse women of being “too emotional.”) Although I have no objections to your owning a gun for protection, I do think the near-hysterical reaction some conservatives have to any suggestions of even moderate gun control laws indicates pretty substantial (and neurotic) fear.

And as for your liberal friends, the Left has been howling about “how we’re going to leave a worse world for our children” type fears for much of the past century in a lineage of worry-warting that goes back as far as Malthus. The Catastrophe has been decidedly relunctant to arrive, but the worrying goes on. I don’t know that the second sort of fear is any more rational than the first.

In fact, irrational fear is the first principle of “movement conservatism.” We liberals are brave and bold creatures compared to conservatives.

Regarding worry — son, if you ain’t worried, you ain’t payin’ attention.

The discussion regarding ammunition is now over.

If you accept at face value that men are more likely to suffer deadly harm then why the diatribe on male fear? I’m tempted to be a little skeptical of your informal survey on fear too simply because context is so important about such things. I would imagine your neighbors are afraid of terrorists cutting off their heads because it acts as a circumspection on the kind of choices they can make in the world without a sense that something horrid will happen to them. It’s a bit like fear of a plane crash; irrational compared to car crashes and heart attacks on a statistical level, but plane crashes and terrorist attacks feel like something “done to us” on an existential level. I’m not defending the fear I just don’t think it’s evidence of human irrationality out of the ordinary. And as for your liberal friends, the Left has been howling about “how we’re going to leave a worse world for our children” type fears for much of the past century in a lineage of worry-warting that goes back as far as Malthus. The Catastrophe has been decidedly relunctant to arrive, but the worrying goes on. I don’t know that the second sort of fear is any more rational than the first.

As for my calling you silly that had specifically to do with your suggestion to ban handgun ammo and I stand by it. It shouldn’t be a decathlon level feat in common sense to grasp that you have a right to private gun ownership because there are circumstances you get to use them for the purpose for which they are made: putting a projectile on, into, or through a target, vegetable, animal, or mineral. You can’t do that without ammunition.

So the “need” for individual to own guns isn’t gone.

Regarding the militia that is enumerated in the U.S. constitution, that militia was rendered into the National Guard by a series of acts passed in the early 20th century. So the National Guard is the militia. Any state militias that might exist other than the National Guard are extra-constitutional — not the militia discussed in the Constitution under Article I, Section 8 — and have no formal role in national defense.

Clue: If you want to preserve the individual right to bear arms you want to keep it separate from militia membership. If the right to bear arms is a collective one given to members of the militia, then Congress (which has regulatory power over the militia) can order it to disarm.

I’m gong to repeat what I said earlier:

The “federalists” of the time (e.g., Washington and Hamilton) preferred a standing army to militia, but as you say, most others were leery of it. (I discussed this here, in the context of Bush’s “war powers” claims.) The compromise was that the bulk of the nation’s defense would be the responsibility of the militia, which was regulated by Congress but under the command of governors unless federalized. And there was a little bit of a professional military; at the time Washington was inaugurated, as I remember, the entire U.S. army was made up of fewer than 600 officers and men.

Then, to keep some future despot in Washington from preventing the states from mustering their militia, the Bill of Rights protected an individual right to own firearms. Congress might have ordered the militia to disarm, since it has regulatory powers over the militia — Constitution, Article I, Section 8, paragraphs 15 and 16 — but they can’t order citizens to disarm.

That’s how I understand it, anyway.

Secondly, the US Code defines militia as all able bodied males from 17-54, and all females who are on the rolls of the National Guard, so the individual’s right to bear arms as part of that militia is also present..

That’s basically about who is eligible to be drafted. It doesn’t mean that a bunch of able-bodied males from 17-54 can get together and call themselves the militia. Well, they could, but it wouldn’t be recognized as the militia of the Constitution

If I were to restrict the materials from which a quarterstaff could be made to nothing but open-cel styrofoam, would it be an arm?

Or if the Gov’t were to say, You may have a driver’s license, and a buy a car, but gasoline is forbidden…?

The banning of all handgun ammunition is, in effect, a ban on handguns, because they cease to function as firearms.

Matt Connolly: The odds of the SCOTUS taking the case are slim. The only reason for them to do so is that five of them want to make a political point by establishing precedent at the national level.

It’s been a long time since the Supremes weighed in on this issue (other than passively; by letting lower court decisions stand).

VJB: The National Guard is a strange beast (and having been in it for going on 15 years, I know a lot about it). The feds pick up the majority of the tab, in exchange for this they get to tell us how to train, what jobs each state gets, the ranks of all the members, and a host of other details.

The actual Militia of the state is usually a very small group of, mostly unpaid, personell, who are sneered at by the Army, and the Feds, have no equipment of their own (because the stuff the guard has is, basically, on loan from the feds).

So the “need” for individual to own guns isn’t gone.

Secondly, the US Code defines militia as all able bodied males from 17-54, and all females who are on the rolls of the National Guard, so the individual’s right to bear arms as part of that militia is also present.

TK

It does, but that’s not the point. If the Second Amendment is understood to protect an individual right, then it protects that individual right until the Amendment is formally revoked.

I explain it a little better in this comment.

If the right were a collective right tied to militia service then of course the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to anybody any more. But as I said in the post I don’t think that’s what was intended.

Technically, it isn’t, but it’s also not reversing it.

Jeralyn Merritt should learn to count, one away from the Fourth Amendment is the Third Amendment.

No, the third amendment is next to the second amendment. The fourth is one away.

On the gun issue, the DC Circuit is absolutely right and the Supreme Court will take the case.

The might, they might not. I wouldn’t be surprised if they declined to hear the case. That would mean the appeals decision stands, but it might in effect pass the buck on the constitutional issues to a future SCOTUS.

On the gun issue, the DC Circuit is absolutely right and the Supreme Court will take the case. The latter part reads, “the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

This Amendment is a follow up to the Declaration of Independence’s statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, . . . .”

You can’t do much about a bad government unless you can fight fire with fire. That’s what the founders thought. That’s why they gave the people the right to keep arms so that if the government took away our rights then we could resist. Imagine if the Iraqi people did not have the Second Amendment. They never would have been able to put up the fight they are doing against the Invaders.

As for banning handgun ammo that’s just silly. If there is any kind of right to keep and BEAR arms that includes handguns then a blanket ban on handgun ammo would be unconstitutional. You can’t bear a small arm that you can’t fire.