The Second Amendment is not a "civil right"

It is a "civil liberty". If you or the government restrict that liberty because a person is in a protected group, ie, race, gender, age,etc, it then becomes a civil rights issue. Just as the right to a jury trial is a civil liberty and not a civil right, unless you are taking about a protected group.

http://public.findlaw.com/civil-rights/civil-rights-basics/civil-rights-vs-liberties.html

It is important to note the difference between "civil rights" and "civil liberties." The legal area known as "civil rights" has traditionally revolved around the basic right to be free from unequal treatment based on certain protected characteristics (race, gender, disability, etc.) in settings such as employment and housing. "Civil liberties" concern basic rights and freedoms that are guaranteed -- either explicitly identified in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, or interpreted through the years by courts and lawmakers.

One way to consider the difference between "civil rights" and "civil liberties" is to look at 1) what right is affected, and 2) whose right is affected. For example, as an employee, you do not have the legal right to a promotion, mainly because getting a promotion is not a guaranteed "civil liberty." But, as a female employee you do have the legal right to be free from discrimination in being considered for that promotion -- you cannot legally be denied the promotion based on your gender (or race, or disability, etc.). By choosing not to promote a female worker solely because of the employee's gender, the employer has committed a civil rights violation and has engaged in unlawful employment discrimination based on sex or gender.

The people here that get upset about non gun experts use of the term "automatic weapon" and "assault weapon", might question their own use of "civil rights" in this forum. Calling gun law a civil right is an attempt to make it sound more scary or more progressive, just as calling a weapon an assault weapon makes it seem more scary.

I can't find an un bias legal source that does not make a distinction between "right" and "liberties".

The Second merely recognizes, and codifies against the state the power to restrict, a preexisting right of humans: to provide for their defense with the tools they create. Human beings are not gifted with viscous claws, or particularly pointy teeth. Our ability to inflict blunt force is also severely limited. The great adaptation of the human is the opposable thumb and the artifice allowed by the fine motor skill thereby granted.

To deny me (or anyone capable of competent use) access to tools, when not being used to harm others, is to deny me(see previous parenthetical) by birthright as Homo sapiens.

Placing the word "civil" in the conversation creates the mistaken impression that it somehow flows from or is subject to the state. The state, rather is infringing where it has no legitimate purpose, which should be to merely prevent the infringement on the rights of individuals by the aggression of others.

This would make a very interesting conversion applied to the 1st amendment.

not civil rights. Unless it is misapplied to a protected group.

The liberty protected by the 1st amendment (The Bill of Rights creates no liberties) is often under attack due to rights that are misapplied or do not exist.

And that they are persecuted like a minority.

When do I get a 'law' that gives me some sense of 'entitlement' and special 'protection' because I own a certain consumer item?

'I'll give you my Beanie Baby when you take it from my cold, dead hands.'

could probably make the case that their dog trained to fight and kill (e.g., Presa Canario) was protected under the constitution as their right to self-protection, just as their gun.

Protecting basic gun rights is one thing, but for some there is no limit to THEIR rights over everyone else, no matter the consequences. I learned that when NRA and other gun rights advocates refused to support restrictions on gun purchases for those on the terrorist watch list...:shrug:

.. except when it applies to gunz?

People who normally decry the lack of due process involved with stripping citizens of fundamental rights suddenly endorse that which they were railing against 5 minutes ago.. when it comes to guns.

Why is that?

While there are separate lists, why do you want to arm suspected international terrorists?

Do you support any *other* special restrictions by government on individuals without due process?

Or just this one because it involves teh evil gunz?

Even in the McCarthy-haunted Fifties, the Supremes called BS on this idea: see Kent v. Dulles.

And, I have had any number of useful, respectful discussions with responsible gun owners on DU. But your resorting to your snark, sarcasm, and just plain nastiness, is not productive and I will not respond to that kind of attitude.

I cannot, however, let slide without comment advocacy here on DU for the arbitrary and unjust removal of rights of others because someone in power deems them suspicious, or holds opinions that the powers-that-be don't like.

Do not leave us wondering how sane it is. Tell us of the restrictions you will agree on.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

No, that's not hypocritical at all.

No rights should be abrogated based on a process that is without judicial review and consent.

How about randomly tossing these people's houses and cars sans warrant? How about torturing them until they give you information?

After all, they're "suspected terrorists", right?



:crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

SUSPECTED.

Can't take rights, or liberties away from someone only suspected to be bad.

Once they are tried and convicted, OK. Not until.

The "No-fly List" was created to essentially put anyone on without judicial review; you don't know how you get on, you don't know how to get off. Two recent "listees:" Ted Kennedy and an 8-year-old Cub Scout.

You say:

"...but for some there is no limit to THEIR rights over everyone else, no matter the consequences. I learned that when NRA and other gun rights advocates refused to support restrictions on gun purchases for those on the terrorist watch list..."

The problem with your argument is that you seem quite willing to cantilever a list not subject to judicial review for the FURTHER restriction of civil rights (or liberties) by merely saying: If you are on this questionably-created list, THEN you can restrict the rights of this group, or that group, or another group.... And Americans have a Constitutionally-protected RIGHT to keep and bear arms.

Putting them on the Bush-era list circumvents the 5th Amendment, as well as the 2nd.

Since the "terrorist watch list... " has ensnared such notable terrorist as the late Senator Kennedy and the wife of Senator Stevens, "Cat" Stevens and has been denounced as bilious right-wing crap and unconstitutional in its inception and application, how is it that you regard it as the most wonderful and progressive government policy as long as they apply it to people YOU HATE?

Nothing wrong with a free train ride to Poland as long as you're the engineer???????

you know why canada with similar gun laws has a fraction of the violent crime we do...

There is no right in the Constitution which protects "freedom from guns or gun owners or being shot."

You do have the right to defend yourself, and to choose your associations. Use them.

There is no Right to Not get shot...

Just as there is no right to not get run over by a drunk.

These are versions of security before liberty. The American Taliban and MADD, has been using these arguments and getting awzy with it.

It's wrong. It is illogical. It is anti-freedom.

Hey, presto... you're covered.

When the 'Constitution' is 'amended' to 'protect' your 'right' to keep and bear Beanie Babies.

If you choose not to use that right, you are free to do so. Do not disparage me because I choose to execrise it.

mark

I will only disparage your use of the term "civil right" in the context of that right, unless you are restricted of that right because you are a member of a protected group. Just like people here getting their shorts in a knot over gun terms.

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

of the early state constitutions. The individual right to carry firearms is as firm-maybe more firm-than Roe v Wade. It is as primary and fundamental a right as free speech and free assembly.
Those who talk of "repealing" the second amendment are just idiotic...


mark

a person that has a conviction expunged or set aside falls under a protected group. Or, the term is used loosely like the term automatic weapon or assault weapon. Also, "§ 921. Definitions(a) As used in this chapter—" thus restricting the definition to that chapter and not to common language use as pointed out in many other places regarding law. So, assault weapons or automatic weapons are all the same as defined by some posters, making those terms correct too? In Ohio the law defines any gun with a magazine holding 30+ rounds as an automatic weapon and is banned. Does that make it an automatic weapon because a government rule defines it as such?

all other state regs infringe on basic rights and are like the one you cited generally stupid and pointless to boot.

she/he can petition to have their civil rights restored.

If their civil rights are restored without exception, then their right to keep and bear arms is included in the restoration along with voting et al.

There is a SCOTUS case on this specific issue but I'm traveling and don't have access to my bookmarks.

Unfortunately DOJ does not have administration procedures to restore such rights and that's an egregious abuse of executive branch power.

automatically restored unless Ohio explicitly exempts RKBA from the act of restoring civil rights.

If RKBA is exempted then that statement would read something like "all civil rights are restored with the exception of the right to keep and bear firearms".

Such a statement would recognize RKBA as a civil right.

covered under 26 USC CHAPTER 53—MACHINE GUNS, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND CERTAIN OTHER FIREARMS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) (or Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act) was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law in the United States that included a prohibition on the sale to civilians of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons." There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" in the U.S. prior to the law's enactment. The ten-year ban was passed by Congress on September 13, 1994 and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment.
Assault weapon refers to firearms that had been developed from earlier fully-automatic firearms into semi-automatic civilian-legal versions. Semi-automatic firearms, when fired, automatically extract the spent cartridge casing and load the next cartridge into the chamber, ready to fire again; they do not fire automatically like a machine gun, rather, only 1 round is fired with each trigger pull.

Allowed to expire, it does define in law.

your OP used "civil liberties" and "civil rights" and in context of federal laws and federal authority/power.

If you wish to discuss a particular state's laws, please identify that state and we can focus on it.

1994 violent crime control act
, H.R. 3355, Pub.L. 103-322

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Not to be played down. The bottom line is there is a transition taking place with gun law. An elected official in NYC or Chicago does NOT have the right to deny me a CCW permit because:

1) I can not make a contribution to his re-election fund (through my attorney of course to make the bribe seem like something else to all involved)
2) I am poor and live in the "wrong" part of town.
3) I am not white.
4) I am not "qualified"

I find it repugnant that I have to have permission from some crooked little bitch to carry a weapon. And that permission is pay to play in many places.

I have a right not to have to pay cash.

your civil rights if you were denied because of being not white, poor or where you live. On the other hand, if you are denied not because of those two reasons, or any other that puts you in a restricted group, it is a violation of your civil liberties and not your civil rights. If you are denied because of a law that denies you that right and you are a rich white person, living in the best area, for example.

the fact I may be gay, latino, or have a beard could ALL be a factor. I dont have a problem with reasonable restrictions. (felony convictions, domestic violence, etc) The NFA did a fine job of classifying weapons.

I have a problem with murky processes and stupid laws that interfere with ownership.

Take qualified. Who decides. Do I need a Ranger tab and 5 whiskey cert to apply, plunk a coin on the counter and leave? Do I need a 30 minute "lesson" from a gun shop doofus?

a class and does not refer to general populations. Restoring rights to convicted felons, the author is making them a protected class in his argument.

"civil rights"?

on the no fly list? How about latinos in Arizonia? How about the history of civil rights, like separate but equal? I really don't get your point.

civil liberties, not civil rights. Those you listed are up the courts as to a violation. Unless it refers to a protected group, they are still "civil liberties".

"concluded, in Parts II–C, IV, and V, that the Four- teenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller. Pp. 10–11, 33–44.

Those are words from people whose opinions matter.. Unlike you or me they actually made the law of the land.

a liberty every body has to take THEIR WORD FOR IT. Isn't that why the MSM is kissing the tea bags butt. You know like kinda they are the Constitutional experts, Palin rules.

Difference between civil rights and civil liberties
Filed in: GLBT Issues, Politics
24
AUG 2005
by Sheila Suess Kennedy

Quick -- what's the difference between civil liberties and civil rights?

If you aren't quite certain, you have a lot of company. The distinction is lost on most of my students, and -- far more troubling -- on a good number of city and state legislators.

Civil liberties are rights that individuals have against government. Citizens of the new United States refused to ratify the Constitution unless a Bill of Rights was added, specifically protecting them against official infringements of their "inalienable rights." Among our civil liberties are the right to free expression, the right to worship (or not) as we choose, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

After the civil war, the 14th Amendment added the Equal Protection Clause, prohibiting government from treating equally situated citizens unequally. The 14th Amendment also applied the provisions of the Bill of Rights to all levels of government -- not just the federal government, as was originally the case, but also to state and local government agencies.

Only the government can violate your civil liberties.

Civil rights took a lot longer and were a lot more controversial.

http://www.svcc.edu/academics/classes/edlemap/gov163/powerpointgov163/Chapters15and16CivilLibertie

Civil Rights
nCivil Rights not in original
constitution, only in amendments
nCivil Rights did not come into being
until 1868 with the 14thamendment
nProtection from government
discrimination not individual
discrimination

the court is referring to a class of citizens, convicted felons, thus making them a protected class in this case. I don't think it proves your point. I can now say what the law has defined as "assault weapons" based on a 1994 law too.
The court has defined the difference between rights and liberties so as to change common meaning as pointed out in the articles I have posted.

"civil right".

If you refuse to accept federal law and a SCOTUS opinion as the law of the land defining "civil right" then no one on an internet forum can change your mind.

As background, DOJ's civil rights division handled restoration of right to keep and bear arms until Obama's administration moved it to a different department.

just as Corporation are now people. Same court. Yet, you deny many, many other lawyers, as I posted links on google.

as Jefferson said about the court
"It is "a thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

Plessy v. Ferguson
Bush v. Gore
Slaughter House Cases
Dread Scott

The same court that just said in another opinion that the right to a handgun only pertains to defending the home and other restrictions are legal.
The SC is in no way the final arbitrator in legal thought, if it is all rights and liberties are in deep shit. I can accept it as "law of the land" just as I accept "personhood of corporations" which is now law of the law. I'm not so sure you will defend everything "this" court says or defines with such enthusiasm, then again may be you do.

You keep asserting that because something wasn't asked of the court, and they didn't address it, they're fine with it.

From the decision


Again, this decision doesn't limit the right to one purpose, no more than the second amendment protects a right asserted by 'militias'.

between identity and intentionality.

A civil liberty protects one's right to do what they might reasonably want to do from oppression by the state. Thus, the freedom to speak, move, and associate with others are civil liberties.

A civil right is protected from oppression by the state because of one's identity. Thus, one's sexual orientation, race, gender, or individual physical abilities would be considered civil rights.

While self defense (which in the case of humans, with a tool) would be an activity rather than an inherent quality, it is an activity that is inherent in every living organism on the planet. It is an activity that is fundamental for the survival of every organism, like breathing and procreation.

I would consider the second amendment the protection of a civil right.

edited for lack of coffee

That's all.

It (the 2nd amendment) is a "civil liberty".

Wrong. The 2nd amendment isn't a right or liberty.

The 2nd amendment is a restriction on the government (just as all of the Bill of Rights is).

That restrictions PROTECTS a fundamental right, namely a right to keep and bear arms.

It's certainly not a material misrepresentation.

Referring to a semi-auto rifle as a machine gun IS a complete misrepresentation of material fact, not just getting a technical name wrong. And the name "assault weapon" is again, a material misrepresentation designed solely to cause fear among the public. An assault weapon is a completely different firearm from a semi-auto rifle. The only thing they have in common is appearance.

I say essentially the same thing to people who chastise non-gun-owners for using the term "clip" instead of "magazine." The speaker knows what he means, the listener knows what he means and the term itself is unimportant to the discussion outside a technical one. The two objects function in virtually identical ways. Honestly I think trying to say that we should be using the term civil liberty vs civil right is pretty much the same thing as the clip vs. magazine thing. It's just unimportant to the issue at hand.

We're talking items like satchel charges, bangalore torpedoes, flamethrowers and certain types of rocket launcher. A good example is the USMC's Mk153 Mod 0 Shoulder-launched Multi-purpose Assault Weapon (SMAW), pictured below:



A semi-auto-only variant of a military firearm doesn't even come close to resembling that.

without exempting RKBA open to state laws, i.e. recognizing state power under the 10th Amendment.

SCOTUS in McDonald said that individual RKBA protected by the 2nd Amendment against federal infringement also protects all citizen's RKBA under the 14th Amendment.

There will probably be cases dealing with restoration of civil rights since some states by law exempt restoring RKBA along with civil rights, other states apparently restore RKBA as part of civil rights, etc.

Net result is different approaches between states on how to restore civil rights that includes RKBA particularly when those convicted of federal crimes are effectively prevented from having RKBA restored because the executive branch will not act on applications to restore that civil right.

But convention does shift from time to time. Civil rights and liberties are not technical definitions last assault weapon or machine gun.

The first ten amendments are called the "the Bill of Rights" and not the Bill of Liberties" and even the definition of civil liberties you provided calls liberties "basic rights and freedoms".

The phrase "civil liberty" does seem to be less urgent these days -- sad really.

Are civil liberties more fundamental than civil rights?

Period.

It spells out in quite explicit terms further limits on govt power listed in the Constitution that could otherwise be easily abused by a tyrannical govt.