Repeal of the 2nd Amendment would not Abolish any Right

I also believe that our socialist enemies have manufactured and prepared for tragedies like Sandy Hook and others so that we would focus on trying to "take away" by making illegal, our rights to own and bear arms. The 2nd Amendment means simply that we the people have the ability and authority to overthrow a tyrannical government. That's what it's for. Not hunting or target shooting even. Although those things are part of it because you can freely do those things, those are not the main purposes of the 2nd Amendment. This is why our 2nd Amendment is under heavy attack now.

 @Charles99percenter the 2nd amendment is wrote to protect the citizens from the government

 @Charles99percenter The problem is that the efficient militia you are referring to, is not to be regulated by congress. This was not intended to give MORE power to the government, rather to restrict the power of the government. If the people in power ever decided to take away your right to vote, to remove your right to speak freely, or anything else, as it is right now there would be a possible retaliation against that. Take away peoples ability to rebel against that idea, and you gladly open the door to tyranny. While I do agree that there does need to be some sort of control in place to prevent tragedies. I am opposed to any sort of control that would place all of the power into the hands of a few. A few I might add who have already done a wonderful job of screwing up the economy, who have allowed banks to get away with criminal activity and go un-punished because "they are too big to fail". A few who keep whittling away at any sort of common ground and keep pushing people to the outer edges preventing any intelligent and thoughtful discourse.  

 @Charles99percenter Typical left-wing comment. Rewrite history to fit your totalitarian agenda. No thanks! You demonstrably lack an understanding of the 2nd Amendment's origin. The term "Militia" was subservient to an individual's right to keep and bear arms. Early American slaves and indigenous populations, like the Jews of NAZI Germany, were tyrannically blocked from exercising every person's right to armed self-defence. To say the 2A was implemented to patrol slavery is not only misinformed, it's an ugly lie.

 @West Texan I would consider myself to be a bit of a progressive, and yet I agree with you about the purpose, meaning, and importance of the second amendment. Attacking someone based on the fact that they disagree with you is not going to make them understand that you have a valid and important point. The fact is that the anti-gun crowd have a knee jerk reaction to the fear they feel. They know they want something done that will prevent another child from being made a victim, from stopping a madman from walking into a theater and killing dozens. The best thing they can do is point at the weapons these people are using and say "if they didn't have that gun could they have killed so many?" and to be honest the answer is generally "No". If they did not have that gun they might have killed a few, sure, but the numbers would probably have been far fewer. What they fail to realize is that there have been many cases where a similar situation happened but one person who was armed stopped it before anyone else got hurt (happened recently here in Texas actually). The point is that the bad people having guns outweighs the good people having guns to them. I take the opposite approach in this case. I think that the good people should be armed, and that when those bad people come at them, they don't walk away. 

 @West Texan The idea of federalism rejects the idea that the federal courts are the arbiters to the extent of the individuals rights against the States. You state that it is "We the People who created the Constitution. Many founders, like Patrick Henry, in fact, had difficulty in what the language of "We the People" meant. Henry preferred the term, "We the States" to be included in the Preamble to the Constitution because it was the States who called for it. Although it was the people in the respective States, it was the people only through the States that the Constitution had its breath. Now, to address the more fundamental concern: here are some examples which irrefutably show the founding era believed the Bill of Rights only applied to the General Government. We know this first because James Madison wanted them at one point to apply to the States, and complained that there wasn't any more protections by the General Government against the States other than Article 1, Section 10.(Madison later rejected this idea of an active judiciary, as he moved more and more Jeffersonian as he aged) Furthermore, at the Constitutional Convention, there were 12 Amendments proposed. One of them read:" No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases.” This Amendment was rejected at the Convention. This shows two things: 1. Some of the founders saw a need for the General Government acting against the States, but well over a supermajority rejected it. 2. It was understood by the founders the first 10 Amendments applied only to the General Government, Otherwise, they wouldn't have proposed the aforementioned Amendment. The 1st and 7th Amendments already protected the rights of conscience, press, and trial by jury, so those very few founders who included this Amendment obviously wrote it because the 1st Ten Amendments didn't apply to the States. Second, just read the Preamble to the Bill of Rights. It reads: "Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine. THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers...." Here, it is stated plainly that the Bill of Rights are written for "it's powers"-"The Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New York." Third, even the hyper-nationalist John Marshall understood the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the States. This was why he said the Bill of Rights are so plainly understood to apply only to the General Government. The justices unanimously agreed with Marshall in Barron v. Baltimore, stating that the "amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the State governments." Pragmatically, the Incorporation doctrine may be held, and in some instances it may be beneficial, but morally we cannot use unconstitutional power in order to exert our will, and in the long run, the incorporation doctrine will diminish liberty, both through the General and State governments.  The incorporation doctrine has lead to a lazy citizenry. Instead of active participation in state and local governments, freedom lovers have said, "eh-let's just let the federal courts do our job." Furthermore, the incorporation doctrine is a lose-lose situation. As we have seen, once the courts apply the Bill of Rights to the States, the States concoct more excuses to the federal government. This in turn allows the General Government to make these excuses for themselves. Besides short term victories for individual citizens, the incorporation doctrine has done nothing to limit the General Government, and in many cases, hasn't even limited State and local government abuses.

@West Texan @West Texan I agree with your statements, except for your assertion of Heller. Actually, Heller arises out of a Progressive misconception of the 2nd Amendment. The Progressives invented the doctrine of incorporation out of nowhere. The 2nd Amendment applies only to the General Government, which is clearly evident in the Preamble to the Bill of Rights. The Incorporation doctrine has lead to a lazy citizenry, and lead liberty activists to rely too much on federal courts to do their job.

 @Incredulous1 Or we can live under the chains bound on us by our vigilante, gun owning neighbors.

Yes ! And conversely it can be shown by the US Constitution and reason / logic that the ONLY powers allowed / granted to the Federal government / Congress concerning any activity of Common Defense and / or the general Welfare  is "specifically enumerated" and "limited" to those in Art. I sec. 8 . No other powers concerning these two "general" topics / catagories belong to Congress /  the Federal government ... period ! These two topics / catagories of "general" and "common" interest are NOT powers in and of themselves ( as explained by Madison , by reason and logic , and others ... both Federalists and Anti-Federalists , in debate ) but areas / topics / catagories to be dealt with by the "specifically enumerated" powers ... otherwise what would be the point of "specifically enumerating" powers if the "general" and "common" topics are to be interpreted as "powers" of their own thereby negating the point of enumerating specific powers , which would NOT "limit" government ! ?

 @WilliamSchooler independence is a bad word because it is not free it is something we would have to actively reclaim from our current government and no one wants to find out what that would cost

 @ObliterateTyranny

 But the Constitution mentions only one thing that cannot be changed by an amendment -- no State may be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent.  By limiting the amendment power to this one issue, all else must be open to the amendment process.

 @cptbanjo These were civil liberties, mostly, guaranteed by our respective state constitutions. The 7th Amendment made it clear that this right would also be respected by the new Federal Court system. "Common Law" also pre-dated our union.

 @cptbanjo You make a good point, if we don't look at the underlying  principle. . The basis is the right to one's own property and to be secure that the society will support that inherent right, and preserve order in the process.  Of course, one could argue that the individual has no inherent rights, that the biggest bully has the right to take your stuff. It just depends on the way you look at it, the law of the jungle or the law in the civilization that the Founders were establishing for us. Personally, I don't think the right to be secure is "manufactured" by government in the context of being civilized, but without civilization or morals, you are correct, we have no inherent rights. The big fish can take whatever he wants.

All Gov't is created by the consent of  " Sovereign Individuals" , to serve the People ( Individual Sovereigns ) by "Protecting / Securing" the "Rights of  Individuals" , NEVER to take away Individual Rights except in restoration of Rights lost to the injured  .  Our "Inherent" Rights are from our Creator , based on  "Natural Law" / "Law of Nature" , Logic and Reason , and  "Common Law"  stemming from the English Bill of Rights of 1066 fought for by  William Wallace  and the Magna Carta of 1215  fought for by the English Baronage and still our Common Law to this day !  These are the "other" Rights referred to by the 9th Article of the Bil of Rights INCLUDED as original to the Constitution !The US Constitution IS  "Common Law" and superior to ALL other LAW as regards Individual Rights of Individual Sovereigns !  The Constitution ... All Constitutions are to to LIMIT Gov't to the role of serving the Individuals of society in securing their individual Sovereignty / Rights and NOT allow it to abuse that "priviledged" service !

@cptbanjo That's the point. Rights do not stem from any document or any declaration of rights. They are inherent in nature. This is why the Federalists didn't even want to include a Bill of Rights, and many anti-Federalists understood their fear. The founders repeated fears that the Bill of Rights would be seen as a listing of a persons rights.(Which is partially the reason for the 9th Amendment) The Bill of Rights is not an exhaustive list of a persons rights, it is a list of violations of certain rights the States wanted to specifically protect against the General Government. Just look at the Bill of Rights in comparison to late colonial history. The First 10 Amendments were rights that England most often violated. The founders believed that violations of the Bill of Rights would still be illegal even without a Bill of Rights.

 @cptbanjo The rights are inherent. The Bill of Rights limits government from violating them.