What do you call a person who opposes Roe v Wade?

[John Dule]

So your theory here is that the Framers, who otherwise labored extensively over the precise wording of our governing document, decided to add some meaningless surplusage to the Second Amendment — and only the Second Amendment? Interesting.

1. You say “your theory” as if I made this up myself. This is the law as it stands under Heller.

Appeal to authority fallacy. You should first attempt to defend your theory on its merits, not immediately fall back on whether a handful of judges agree with you.

It's not an appeal to authority to cite what the law is when arguing what the law is. Scalia is not some random judge, he (alongside the majority of The Court, of course) had the authority to determine what the law is, and what they've determined has yet to be struck down. That the Second Amendment operates in the way Dule says it does is an objective statement of fact, and citing the law to prove that is no more an appeal to authority that citing a statute prohibiting murder as an argument that murder is illegal would be. If you disagree with his interpretation, you are arguing for the law to be changed.

10,000 hours in ms paint

[SWE]

No one is arguing about "what the law is." Any moron can google that. The question here is whether the Supreme Court's reasoning in that opinion made sense, whether it was a correct interpretation of the Constitution. Saying "well the Supreme Court said it" doesn't change the merit of the argument — the Supreme Court has said a lot of things that we can recognize today were poorly reasoned. Certainly I would hope you are not about to defend the reading of the Fifth Amendment they offered up in Korematsu.

That said, I guess Dule was right that he needed to clarify that for the half-literate reading this thread.

It certainly isn't difficult to criticize a Supreme Court decision's reasoning without embarrassing yourself by misusing the phrase "appeal to authority," not sure why you didn't just do that

[John Dule]

Having some sort of function ≠ having legal effect. Your explanation is inadequate because it does not give the word legal effect; it suggests they are there as a clarification or as a redundancy. They need to be given some sort of independent effect; otherwise, why include them? As you've observed, none of the other amendments contain similar provisions setting out their purposes or providing extra layers of protection for certain rights. The words have to mean something.

I think the best interpretation is this: As our Esteemed President Brandon said, no amendment is absolute. For example, there are instances in which free speech can be abridged in some ways (time, place, and manner of speech restrictions especially, or truth in advertising). What the prefatory clause does in the Second Amendment is establish the purpose of the amendment, from which it logically follows that any congressional action constraining the "right to keep and bear arms" will be subject to particularly heightened scrutiny if it impinges upon the existence or structure of the militias.

Continuing the analogy, speech is typically only abridged in ways that do not fundamentally grapple with the First Amendment's core purposes (the protection of political speech, the ability to criticize the government publicly, etc). Limiting the location in which someone can protest does not abridge this right. Congruently, under the Second Amendment, removing the rights of felons to own firearms does not abridge the central purpose of the amendment, which is to ensure that the citizens can form militias for their defense against the government. It also serves a compelling state interest. Banning all private gun ownership, on the other hand, does impinge upon this right.

And yes, I do think you can make the Constitution say whatever you want it to say.

Ok, this is all I really needed to hear. I'm not going to discuss this any further with someone who by his own admission does not care about what the text says. It's a waste of my time, and I need to study for finals.

No one is arguing about "what the law is." Any moron can google that. The question here is whether the Supreme Court's reasoning in that opinion made sense, whether it was a correct interpretation of the Constitution. Saying "well the Supreme Court said it" doesn't change the merit of the argument — the Supreme Court has said a lot of things that we can recognize today were poorly reasoned. Certainly I would hope you are not about to defend the reading of the Fifth Amendment they offered up in Korematsu.

That said, I guess Dule was right that he needed to clarify that for the half-literate reading this thread.

Wow. Again: I was not justifying my opinion using Scalia's view. I was simply pointing out that I am not the only person who holds this perspective-- which was contrary to your comment, which implied that it was just my argument. It was a clarifying statement for anyone else who was reading the exchange.

If nothing else, you've definitely changed my mind on something. I realize now that I have seriously underestimated the degree to which otherwise intelligent people can misread basic English sentences.

[John Dule]

Fair enough. And for my part, I apologize for getting tetchy in this thread. I may have read some dismissiveness into the words "your theory" that was not meant to be implied.

But I really do need to study now.

[°Leprechaun]

You can argue until 6 AM in the morning as to which existential threat to life on earth (or at least human life) is greatest, but clearly whatever you think about abortion it is not an existential threat equal to things like global warming, nuclear war or perhaps some disease.

The truth is that the most dangerous species to life is homo sapiens:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-brain/201610/humans-are-genetically-predisposed-kill-each-other

Homo sapiens is not a "pro-life" species.

The question, however, is whether anything can be done to change this.