Joe65, I do recognize the difference between natural and legal rights. My contention is that the Bill of Rights is the written expression of natural rights, not a list of rights granted by a government. The Bill of Rights is a guarantee of our individual liberties (natural rights), it simply expresses and makes clear what some of our inalienable rights are; again, it restricts what government can do to the citizenry, not what citizens have the right to do. It compels and restricts the behavior of the government, not the other way around.

I do not contend that all rights are natural rights; our discussion was about the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, not about all rights. You have not addressed the arguments I have put forth in support of my position, including the very wording of the Bill of Rights, contemporary articles written by the founders, as well as quotes from Jefferson which contradict your assertions.

As to your question- " Do you really believe that God, and not government, has bestowed, for instance, the right for women to get an abortion?" - of course I don't! But that will head off yet another trail. (by the way, the Roe v Wade decision is an example of a legal right, subject to the rule of man; it was given by the government and every election season we hear from those who fear that man will take it away again- as well as those of us who hope & pray that it will.)

Why do we need a gun ban? Won't God keep you safe and out of harms way? Oh wait, we tried that and a bunch of children died. I guess we need do need a ban since there is no God.

Why are people so hell-bent on punishing or restricting the rights of responsible gun owners? Do you really think banning sales of assault weapons will stop a person that inflicting harm on others? We banned illegal drugs, that sure stopped the use of them, hasn't it? Administrations that have intentionally placed weapons in the hands of known criminals and then denying any blame when they are used against someone should not be leading the conversation on "gun control". I would start with more education on safely storing weapons and ammunition along with more emphasis on mental health treatment.

the kinds of weapons you are thinking should be regulated are not even the high powered ones. Assault rifles use a medium caliber cartridge. People want them not because they are whacky, they like them just like people like ball games. To me there is nothing more whacky than adults that watch other adults play childrens games. They get angered by the results, more fights have been started by ball games probably than anything ever.

By the way, you don't have to rely on Wikipedia...there are literally thousands of search engine returns on the historical theory of rights, and of our forefathers' reliance on this theory. All you have to do is look for them. It is a very well-known theory, and Thomas Jefferson's belief in the entire pyramid of different rights is very well documented and easy to find.

Sorry, copper, but you are still failing to distinguish between Natural and Legal rights. By your logic, there are no such things as Legal rights. You seem to think that ALL rights are Natural rights, and that is just plain wrong. Nothing that you have quoted here goes to support your idea that all rights fall into the category of Natural rights. By definition, those granted by a constitution are Legal, and not Natural, rights. Do you really believe that God, and not government, has bestowed, for instance, the right for women to get an abortion? If all rights are natural rights, and are not established but just protected, by the government, then you must believe this. There are a myriad of other examples as well. Think of any right at all that currently exists, and ask yourself if God really bestowed this right. I think you'll find that the answer is often "no."

Joe65- Sorry, have to disagree with you. Locke wrote of natural rights -life, liberty, property (rephrased by Jefferson to "pursuit of happiness"). It is the purpose of the Bill of Rights to restict the government from infringing upon the natural rights of the people and to defend those same natural rights.

"During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Several state conventions in their formal ratification of the Constitution asked for such amendments; others ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the amendments would be offered."
(archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html)
See also the article (linked from the above website) "A More Perfect Union", which describes the creation of the Constitution and the purpose of the Bill of Rights: "The anti-Federalists, demanding a more concise, unequivocal Constitution, one that laid out for all to see the right of the people and limitations of the power of government, claimed that the brevity of the document only revealed its inferior nature. Richard Henry Lee despaired at the lack of provisions to protect "those essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist." Trading the old government for the new without such a bill of rights, Lee argued, would be trading Scylla for Charybdis." The Bill of Rights is a result of the insistence of the anti-Federalists that the people's rights be secured against a too-poweful central government. Jefferson supported this in a letter to Madison "a bill of rights was "what the people are entitled to against every government on earth."
Additional Jefferson quotes:
"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." --Thomas Jefferson to M. D'Ivernois, 1795.

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.
The Bill of Rights itself does not list rights that government grants; rather it restrains government from infringing on the rights of the people. Each amendment restricts the government from specific actions against the people; again read the 9th & 10th amendments.
(I'll rely on the document over the wisdom of wiki :-).

I know that Wikipedia is not always the best source to quote, but in this instance they do a very nice job of differentiating between Natural and Legal rights. Natural rights (inalienable rights) emanate from the Creator and are bestowed upon us by Him. Legal rights are bestowed upon us by our Constitution. The rights outlined in the Bill of Rights ARE NOT Natural rights. They are LEGAL rights granted by our Constitution. Natural rights extend to all mankind. Legal rights extend to our citizens.

This from Wikipedia:
Natural and legal rights are two types of rights theoretically distinct according to philosophers and political scientists. Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. In contrast, legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by the law of a particular political and legal system, and therefore relative to specific cultures and governments.[citation needed]

Legal rights may be constitutional, statutory, regulatory, contractual, common-law, or conferred by international human rights law. Legal rights are almost always qualified, whether by implication, by the law which created the right itself or by legal rights held by others. A legal right can be enforced in courts of law against another who has infringed the right. The right may be enforced by a court order or injunction prohibiting the other person or persons from infringing a right, by the awarding of money to compensate the holder of the right. If a person's right to liberty is infringed, he or she may bring an action of habeas corpus so that a court can order his or her release. The owner of the copyright in a work may seek monetary compensation against someone who copied the work without permission. A landowner whose land is being used without his or her permission may bring an action for trespass. A worker may sue his or her employer for breach of contract if the employer refuses to pay the employee's wages.[citation needed]

The theory of natural law is closely related to the theory of natural rights. During the Age of Enlightenment, natural law theory challenged the divine right of kings, and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government — and thus legal rights — in the form of classical republicanism. Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by some anarchists to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments.[1][2]

The idea of human rights is also closely related to that of natural rights; some recognize no difference between the two and regard both as labels for the same thing, while others choose to keep the terms separate to eliminate association with some features traditionally associated with natural rights.[3] Natural rights, in particular, are considered beyond the authority of any government or international body to dismiss. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important legal instrument enshrining one conception of natural rights into international soft law. Natural rights were traditionally viewed as exclusively negative rights,[4] whereas human rights also comprise positive rights.

Sorry--meant "that he and the other...", not "they he..."

Sorry, copper, but you are absolutely wrong. I would suggest that you read Thomas Jefferson's writings concerning "Natural Rights vs. Legal Rights," and his explanation they he and the other framers followed the writings of John Locke in formulating what should be our legal rights after trying to recognize those which were Natural rights. What Jefferson writes is in direct opposition to your understanding of the theory of rights.

Joe65 "The Bill of Rights details those granted by government..."

This is entirely incorrect. Read the preamble to the Bill of Rights, as well as the background that led to it. These rights are NOT granted to us by government, they are an enummeration of the inalienable rights (which you correctly pointed out are rights granted by God). Note that the 9th and 10th amendment make it clear that the preceeding 8 amendments are not a complete list of our rights. 9th Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The 10th amendment futher clarifies this point.

I may have poorly stated that they expand upon the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration- they are not an expansion as in "adding to" the inalienable rights, rather they are a fuller explanation of inalienable rights. In any case, rights enummerated in the first 10 amendments are NOT granted by government. If we accept that notion it defeats the entire principle of inalienable rights. Furthermore, the first 10 amendments are heavily based upon the Virgina Declaration of Rights written by George Mason and passed in the Virginia Consitutional Convention 6/12/1776. Jefferson drew heavily from the Virginia document when writing the Declaration of Independance, especially in the portion which refers to inalienable rights.

What government grants, government can take away. We cannot fall prey to the idea that government grants us rights or we will cease to be citizens and become subjects.

kbp--The Constitution has been amended 27 times. Whether there are reverberations or not, the founders wanted us to be able to make adjustments to it

you cannot extend limits on one amendment without effecting the entire bill of rights.

Sigma--I am certainly not advocating a ban on guns. I'm simply stating that there is a logical limit to what is allowable. Do you want to argue that individuals should have the right to possess nuclear weapons? There are already lines drawn for the sake of common sense. Now it's time to look at limiting personal firepower a little further. The mere fact that someone WANTS to own certain types of highly destructive weapons should tell us that they are too unstable or whacky or evil to allow them to own them.

Yes, copper, some of what you say is correct. I was aware when I wrote this that there was indeed the notion of there being other inalienable rights--the three I mentioned were the three specifically explicated in the Declaration. The Bill of Rights does not expand upon the inalienable rights. The inalienable rights are those seen by the founding fathers as those granted by God. The Bill of Rights details those granted by government, an entirely different sort of rights altogether, and understood as such by the founders.

Chicago has a ban on guns... looks like its working well for them.
http://www.gazettextra.com/news/2012/dec...

Joe65- the entire phrase you quoted from the Declaration is "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The words "among these" indicate that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not the only inalienable rights we have. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights, which expands upon the "unalienable rights" referred to in the Declaration. It is clear that the 2nd amendment is not to preserve our rights to hunt, but is primarily to preserve our rights to self-defense, whether from a thug breaking into our home or from a tyrannical government. It is interesting to note that the 2nd amendment was added to the Constitution after Shay's Rebellion of 1786-1787; it remained even after the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion which was put down by a force of 13,000 militiamen led by President Washington.

kawsixer--They allowed for further amendment to the Constitution to take new circumstances into account. I have hundreds of history books here and nowhere have I ever seen any evidence of your statement that they did not want to limit our rights. They allowed for amending the Constitution to either expand or to limit them, depending on the circumstances of the time. Also, Inalienable rights are these: The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, but NOWHERE in the Constitution.

Joe65 So do you feel the same way about the other amendments? The framers never could have imagined internet or high speed printing. Should the right to free speech and press be limited because technology advanced? In their day you had to talk in the town square or a gathering to spread word. Press amnounted to something like 2 pages a minute at most. Now we can print hundreds of pages a minute, and spread our work over the airwaves to millions through satellites or the push of a button on a computer. The framers left the amendments very open and vague for a reason, they knew technolgy would advance and did not want to LIMIT the rights. They don't mention specific devices in protecting you from the goverments ability to commit a search or seizure without cause a warrant for the same reasons, they didn't know what technology would develop and din't want to limit your protection based on the tech of the day. Inalianable means given by your creator, not by another man and not by your government nor some piece of paper, and not changable, amendable or able to be infringed. What do people miss about that? They didn't specify things on purpose. They didn't say "you have the right to practice religion as long as it's one that involves christ and love, not a different diety and hate".

In some states (Florida is one that I'm aware of) the Agriculture Secretary is the one who issues gun permits. I don't know if there is any authority concerning guns vested in the Ag Secretary on the national level, but there may be some connection.
I believe in the ideas expressed in the second amendment, and I am a gun owner, but I don't believe that the Constitution's framers ever anticipated or foresaw the tremendous advancements in technology that have made many of today's weapons methods of massive death and destruction. The second amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms, but it does NOT say "any and all arms that gun manufacturers develop." I don't see anything in it which would preclude the banning of certain types of weapons when they are clearly a blight on civilization.

Maybe the one year extension that was agreed on, will give them time to find something to CUT.

howardzinnfan - clearly the current enforcement of Article 1, section 9, of the Constitution isn't working correctly in regard to the mentally ill. Since they can be violent with knives, vehicles, gasoline, etc., it makes more sense to amend that than to tamper with the 2nd Amendment, which would only restrict guns and would violate the rights of all other (i.e. sane) Americans.

We should be advocating reasonable mental health laws to restrict the right of freedom for the violent insane few instead of unreasonable gun control laws that infringe on rights of all people to self-defense from criminals and excessive government.

wtp- Where did you get the "handguns that hold 30 rounds"? This is a common misconception brought about with the recent shootings. The news media talks about use of handguns and rifles with 30 round clips. Your reference to 30 round clips has nothing to do with handguns and everything to do with the standard capacity of semi-automatic rifles such as the M-16 and AR-15. Please stop using this error to support your position.

wtp - why have a vehicle that has a gas tank that can carry more than 5 gallons? Why do women need big purses? They could be hiding explosives or illegal guns in there, lets ban purses. Why do baseball bats have to be made of hard material? Kids play with nerf ones and have fun, why not use nerf ones in pro baseball? Ban hard bats. We can have guns that hold 30 rounds because we can... if a gang of ninjas scale my castle walls... I dont have to reload as often. duh.

"long guns can be used for food"

Yes, I parboil them then bake them, delicious.

Yes you can hid them and then go kell someone.

Tell me what purpose does a hand gun that can carry 30 rounds good for other then to kell someone and that is exactly what was done. long guns can be used for food and I have no problem with that.Hand guns are just to easy to obtain and very easy to hid and go into shopping centers, schools and any other high traffic area.The world would have been much better off if hand guns would have never been manufactured in the first place.

If you listen to what he actually said in the interview it may help to understand what he was getting at. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjfS8nME3...
The front end of the interview talks about the Farm Bill not passing and the ramifications of that. The interview as a whole shed light on a few things that I had not considered before.

True, what the **** is he mouthing his drivel about gun control for? I would guess that the pseudo journalist questioned him about it to add the "news" media's "intelligence" to the program. Probably weren't smart enough to ask an agricultural related question. By the way The Second Amendment and hunting need not be spoken of in the same sentence. The 2nd has not a d*** thing to do with hunting. Nice try to add a little spin by the "news" media.

The AP's slant is clearly evident here.

What does the Ag secretary have to do with gun control? Wouldnt this be like asking a hair dresser for stock tips? His opinion is irrelevant.

The 18th amendment and the 2nd amendment are not even similar. The 18th was a violation of individual and state rights, and was seen to contradict the 4th and 5th amendments. It was also a nightmare to enforce. The 2nd amendment, on the other hand, specifies a right. Regardless, you didn't say WHY you see the 2nd as irrelevant.

The 18th amendment was deemed irrelevant. It just took 12 yrs for the states to realize it. The same should be done with the 2nd, only 224 yrs later.

Howardzinnfan - why would you see the 2nd amendment "irrelevant" if it has nothing to do with hunting? The Constitution and the Amendments are quite relevant. They are the laws of the land.

"But Vilsack said that the nation has reached “a different circumstance” in the gun control debate."

That makes absolutely no sense.

janesvillecoments - that would mean suspending habeas corpus for many Americans. How do you diagnose violently mentally ill?

Wislady - then I see the 2nd Amendment as irrelevant.

Let's start with some discussion of reasonable laws controlling the depiction of violence in Hollywood and video games. No more X-rated movie violence, No 3rd-person shooter video games for people under 21 and you have to register your identity with the state to purchase them.

That would be a beginning until Obamacare reinstates locking up, as well as treating, the violently mentally ill.

The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting.

Perhaps it's a starting point.

I have to wonder where the AG secretary gets his information, or for that matter why he would even comment on this. It is so far out of his area that it leads me to believe he is only doing it to be partisan and nothing more.