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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.

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ORIGINAL: Fellow
The second amendment of the Constitution is not about hunting. How many people hunt these days? Use of AR 15 is legal everywhere, including in the city under the circumstances that justify its use. I do not prescribe into the ideology that separates the society into to groups: helpless civilian slaves and people with authority [police state apparatus].

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Sutherland found that 174,272 Alaska residents went hunting between 2003 and 2007, about 25 percent of the total population. Overall, he found the number of hunters is stable.

The number of Alaska hunters isn’t defined simply by the number of hunting licenses sold to Alaska residents in a given year. Sutherland found that many hunters don’t hunt every single year. But license sales do offer some clues. In 2006, there were 90,675 Alaska resident hunting licenses sold. In 2001, there were 86,155 Alaska resident hunting licenses sold. That would indicate an increase of about four percent.

The number of unique resident hunters who have obtained at least one harvest ticket in a year is another trend indicator. State records indicate that consistently between 56,000 and 66,000 resident individuals (age 16 and older) participated in big game hunting. There is no evidence to indicate a significant drop in participation in big game hunting by Alaska residents during this period.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that the number of hunters 16 and older declined by 10 percent between 1996 and 2006 - from 14 million to about 12.5 million.

That is the latest information I can find on hunters and it was from a cbs site.

In some states the number has gone up, in others, the numbers have gone down considerably.

As for the second amendment, I will ask one simple question, Who rose up to fight the British in the Revolutionary War? The only army in the Colonies was British.

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ORIGINAL: LadyPact
Jeff, thank you for starting this thread. This is very much why I asked another poster about hunting in his country. It will be interesting to read the responses.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: LadyPact
Jeff, thank you for starting this thread. This is very much why I asked another poster about hunting in his country. It will be interesting to read the responses.

Hunting, here in the UK, is wrapped up in social class, LP. Foxhunting - the type of hunting that (was once) so (in)famous - was seen as an upper class sport. The Scottish Highlands have become known as the hunting-playgrounds of the upper class - mainly for deer and 'game birds' (I don't know if that last term is familiar your side of the pond).

Clearly, hunting isn't an 'upper class sport' your side of the pond. Do I consider it intrinsically unethical? No, of course not. I'd hunt if I needed to - say, if that were my only way of getting meat. But not as a sport. Killing is ugly to me, just as guns are ugly to me, however necessary each might be on any given occasion.

If I were to point to one thing that sticks out most, for me, about the difference in cultures between here and the USA, re guns, it'd be this: the threads that have started up *after* so many people have talked about gun control in the USA. I loathe them. People appear to marvel lovingly about this or that piece of hardware and what it'll do. Pictures are posted. There is a *love* there, of firearms, that makes me shudder. Natch, since I'm male and heterosexual, I feel it in a way most sharply if I see a woman here who I've found attractive post fondly about her guns and how she's used them. To me, that really (no exaggeration) has the same effect on me as if she'd talked about how loudly she can fart. It isn't glamorous to me. It's ugly. I do not have the sense of aesthetics about guns that's required to relate to such feelings. I don't think I'm unusual here in the UK in that way: that's what it's like to be brought up in a non-gun-culture.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961
As for the second amendment, I will ask one simple question, Who rose up to fight the British in the Revolutionary War? The only army in the Colonies was British.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961
As for the second amendment, I will ask one simple question, Who rose up to fight the British in the Revolutionary War? The only army in the Colonies was British.

Nonsense. The colonists had set up seperate colonial governments from the crown's. Those legislatures did fund standing army's in some colonies. The war started when British troops marched from Boston to the town of Concord to seize military arms and supplies stockpiled by the mass. army there.

As to finding common ground:
Americans broadly agree, by about 90%, that no firearm should be transfered without a background check.
Polling also shows Americans, by smaller majorities, support universal firearmregistration and high capacity magazine bans.

Why not implement these things and repeal the various laws hamstringing the BATF from enforcing the laws we already have.

quote:

The US Constitution is nothing more than a pact among the States and the Citizens, that creates the Federal Government. This pact is, essentially, the basics of what powers the Federal Government is allowed to have, based on what it is being given. It's a "bottom up" sort of structure. In the absence of any government, people have the authority to do whatever they want, as long as they don't infringe on someone else's rights to do whatever they want. Individuals give up some of their authority to the lowest level of Government to more efficiently protect those rights. But, all the authorities at that level originate from the governed. The next governmental level up gets it's authorities from the levels below it.

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ORIGINAL: imdoingitagain

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

Not surprisingly that when issues and policy concern society at large (say Obamacare) a court interpretation results from the debate about what are our collective rights, if any and just what 'our founding fathers were really thinking' in any interpretation of how the constitution really reads.

Accordingly, and how the constitution reads, you do not have an individual right to healthcare but when it comes to guns.....

...the courts circumscribe the 2nd amendment to disregard the militia condition and thus we create an individual right to guns in a total disregard of how the constitution really reads.

It has nothing to do with (as you say) disregarding the militia "condition." The wording is pretty clear.
The statement about the militia is not a "condition," but a statement. While the wording of the rest of the Amendment is pretty clear: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." How do you possibly see that as anything else besides outright stating the people have a right to arms and the government shall not infringe on that right?

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

Not surprisingly that when issues and policy concern society at large (say Obamacare) a court interpretation results from the debate about what are our collective rights, if any and just what 'our founding fathers were really thinking' in any interpretation of how the constitution really reads.

Accordingly, and how the constitution reads, you do not have an individual right to healthcare but when it comes to guns.....

...the courts circumscribe the 2nd amendment to disregard the militia condition and thus we create an individual right to guns in a total disregard of how the constitution really reads.

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Sutherland found that 174,272 Alaska residents went hunting between 2003 and 2007, about 25 percent of the total population. Overall, he found the number of hunters is stable.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The US Constitution is nothing more than a pact among the States and the Citizens, that creates the Federal Government. This pact is, essentially, the basics of what powers the Federal Government is allowed to have, based on what it is being given. It's a "bottom up" sort of structure. In the absence of any government, people have the authority to do whatever they want, as long as they don't infringe on someone else's rights to do whatever they want. Individuals give up some of their authority to the lowest level of Government to more efficiently protect those rights. But, all the authorities at that level originate from the governed. The next governmental level up gets it's authorities from the levels below it.

I wonder if it is as simple as you make it out, DS. The compact was broken by the secession of the slave states. A new compact was formed by imposition from the top down when most of the traitorous states resisted the passage of the 14th Amendment to guarantee equal justice to blacks as to all citizens. A new Union was formed based upon the victory of the North and the reluctant return of the Sessionist states. This nation became the United States with a strong Federal Government instead of the states united as in the earlier compact. That conflict is still not settled imo.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The US Constitution is nothing more than a pact among the States and the Citizens, that creates the Federal Government. This pact is, essentially, the basics of what powers the Federal Government is allowed to have, based on what it is being given. It's a "bottom up" sort of structure. In the absence of any government, people have the authority to do whatever they want, as long as they don't infringe on someone else's rights to do whatever they want. Individuals give up some of their authority to the lowest level of Government to more efficiently protect those rights. But, all the authorities at that level originate from the governed. The next governmental level up gets it's authorities from the levels below it.

I wonder if it is as simple as you make it out, DS. The compact was broken by the secession of the slave states. A new compact was formed by imposition from the top down when most of the traitorous states resisted the passage of the 14th Amendment to guarantee equal justice to blacks as to all citizens. A new Union was formed based upon the victory of the North and the reluctant return of the Sessionist states. This nation became the United States with a strong Federal Government instead of the states united as in the earlier compact. That conflict is still not settled imo.

Interesting point, Vincent. I understand what you are saying and what has occurred, but I still disagree that the Federal Government isn't a pact among the States. You can also look at the Civil War as the Northern States not letting the pact be broken, keeping it intact with the "victory." The Constitution wasn't rewritten or otherwise replaced. Had England been successful during the Revolutionary War, the only governance changes would have been that sent down by the Crown. It likely would have been stricter and punitive in nature, but it still would have the same basics as before.

I am very glad it isn't easy to secede or end the pact. Those things require significant support and backing, and would resist transient fads.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961
You might be surprised the the NRA agrees with taking the reins off the ATF.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The US Constitution is nothing more than a pact among the States and the Citizens, that creates the Federal Government. This pact is, essentially, the basics of what powers the Federal Government is allowed to have, based on what it is being given. It's a "bottom up" sort of structure. In the absence of any government, people have the authority to do whatever they want, as long as they don't infringe on someone else's rights to do whatever they want. Individuals give up some of their authority to the lowest level of Government to more efficiently protect those rights. But, all the authorities at that level originate from the governed. The next governmental level up gets it's authorities from the levels below it.

I wonder if it is as simple as you make it out, DS. The compact was broken by the secession of the slave states. A new compact was formed by imposition from the top down when most of the traitorous states resisted the passage of the 14th Amendment to guarantee equal justice to blacks as to all citizens. A new Union was formed based upon the victory of the North and the reluctant return of the Sessionist states. This nation became the United States with a strong Federal Government instead of the states united as in the earlier compact. That conflict is still not settled imo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The US Constitution is nothing more than a pact among the States and the Citizens, that creates the Federal Government. This pact is, essentially, the basics of what powers the Federal Government is allowed to have, based on what it is being given. It's a "bottom up" sort of structure. In the absence of any government, people have the authority to do whatever they want, as long as they don't infringe on someone else's rights to do whatever they want. Individuals give up some of their authority to the lowest level of Government to more efficiently protect those rights. But, all the authorities at that level originate from the governed. The next governmental level up gets it's authorities from the levels below it.

I wonder if it is as simple as you make it out, DS. The compact was broken by the secession of the slave states. A new compact was formed by imposition from the top down when most of the traitorous states resisted the passage of the 14th Amendment to guarantee equal justice to blacks as to all citizens. A new Union was formed based upon the victory of the North and the reluctant return of the Sessionist states. This nation became the United States with a strong Federal Government instead of the states united as in the earlier compact. That conflict is still not settled imo.

Interesting point, Vincent. I understand what you are saying and what has occurred, but I still disagree that the Federal Government isn't a pact among the States. You can also look at the Civil War as the Northern States not letting the pact be broken, keeping it intact with the "victory." The Constitution wasn't rewritten or otherwise replaced. Had England been successful during the Revolutionary War, the only governance changes would have been that sent down by the Crown. It likely would have been stricter and punitive in nature, but it still would have the same basics as before.

I am very glad it isn't easy to secede or end the pact. Those things require significant support and backing, and would resist transient fads.