Politics Paul Allen gives $500K to Washington gun initiative

I'm just used to background checks in California, so it's something I'm used to

 

Sarcasm aside, yes, all protections of individual freedoms are pretty much the same. Like engine parts, they are pretty much useless by themselves without the complete assembled set. Suppose the government banned carburetors? You could buy all the cars you wanted but...

This is pretty much why The Second Amendment came Second, and not later.

It just so happens I was there when The Bill of Rights was first conceived. The conversation went something like this...

"Let's make a bill of rights so Britain's tyranny will never be repeated."

#1 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

"Okay, wait a sec, our own government is the only entity that could interfere with these rights and most other rights we may include in this list, so what can we do to ensure #1 is not abused by force? How about this?"

#2 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.

"Cool idea. That way the government will never be our Master again, but will be even stronger as our servant."

A lot of history-ignorant buffoons like to pretend that the English language had different meanings "back then" but below is the most pertinent and famous commentary from "back then" and for those who can read makes it absolutely clear that #2 was meant to be an absolute individual right never to be altered, added to, subtracted from, or otherwise changed in any way whatsoever no matter how reasonable the changed might sound to some.


Tench Coxe

In 1792, Tench Coxe made the following point in a commentary on the Second Amendment:[121]


As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.[122][123]


Tucker/Blackstone

The earliest published commentary on the Second Amendment by a major constitutional theorist was by St. George Tucker. He annotated a five-volume edition of Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, a critical legal reference for early American attorneys published in 1803.[124] Tucker wrote:


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. Amendments to C. U. S. Art. 4. This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game : a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.

William Rawle
Tucker's commentary was soon followed, in 1825, by that of William Rawle in his landmark text, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America. Like Tucker, Rawle condemned England's "arbitrary code for the preservation of game," portraying that country as one that "boasts so much of its freedom," yet provides a right to "protestant subjects only" that it "cautiously describ[es] to be that of bearing arms for their defence" and reserves for "[a] very small proportion of the people[.]"[127] In contrast, Rawle characterizes the second clause of the Second Amendment, which he calls the corollary clause, as a general prohibition against such capricious abuse of government power, declaring bluntly:

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.

Lysander Spooner
Abolitionist Lysander Spooner, commenting on bills of rights, stated that the object of all bills of rights is to assert the rights of individuals against the government and that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was in support of the right to resist government oppression, as the only security against the tyranny of government lies in forcible resistance to injustice, for injustice will certainly be executed, unless forcibly resisted.[134] Spooner's theory provided the intellectual foundation for John Brown and other radical abolitionists who believed that arming slaves was not only morally justified, but entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.[135] An express connection between this right and the Second Amendment was drawn by Lysander Spooner who commented that a "right of resistance" is protected by both the right to trial by jury and the Second Amendment.

 

Like an oxen gets used to it's yoke.

 

Don't get me wrong... It's a pain in the ass, but I don't think its that big of a deal

 

Restrictive California gun regulations are the #1 instigator for my clients uprooting their families, careers and lives to move to Oregon.

Seriously, about 1/3 of my Real Estate income is derived from California gun owners moving here. Most others from out of state mention general invasive regulations, or coddling of illegals to destroy wages, as their reason to move here.

 

There is no evidence to that being the case. There was no language inserted saying the Amendment was anything more than a temporary law to deal with crime and poverty. It failed at it's purpose, was an obvious use of The Bill of Rights as it was not a right at all but a restriction, and it was properly neutralized.

It belonged in The Bill of Restrictions, which has tens of millions of Amendments at last count.