Me! Sounds like fun. I'll grab my guns 

Seriously though, in regards to the 2nd in particular and all other amendments in general, to properly understand what was meant by the phrasing we have to understand how the words were used at a given time.  You can't possible expect that the founders were able to predict how our language would evolve and then they wrote the amendments in that regard. 

The idea of a well regulated militia for example, means exactly what Psychoak has said repeatedly.  Regulated meant regular, or practiced.  In order for citizens to form a practiced militia they must be allowed to own guns.  The well regulated militia portion is the reason for the right, not a restriction on the right.  

That's why the idea of a "living constitution" is such crap.  The document does not change just because our language and our perspective changes.  The framers foresaw a need to make changes to the document when circumstances changed.  That's the reason the amendment process exists.  Don't think people should be allowed to own guns?  Change the constitution.  Don't pretend that the framers somehow meant the words to have meanings that they didn't actually have 250 ago years. 

I would recommend a carrier.  We all know bombers are overpowered.

The Constitution is a fairly simple read.  But the legislative process, that's confusing.  Filibuster, cloture votes, all that stuff is very confusing.

Although my class's Mock Congress was fun.  Also, note that the Elasticity Clause allows Congress to give itself powers that it thinks are needed.  The last clause is the one of which I speak of.

I've seen his prepper posts.  I'm sure he knows a guy.

As for getting sunk, well that's my problem. 

As a practical matter, the founders would have been appalled at the idea of the federal government making the purchase or acquisition of anything illegal.  Even Hamilton would wonder what business it is of the the government what I purchase with my money.

And yet today, we have mayors trying to outlaw soda for our own good. 

Most people seem to have no idea just how well armed Americans can still get. To say I'm well armed would be a massive understatement and it's all legal. I occasionally get some Internet tough guy threatening to come to my house "teach me a lesson". Talk about a potentially fatal mistake.

Yet we have these ignoramuses in government who try to pass these symbolic laws to appease the ignoramuses they represent.

Despite what some people may believe, I'm no Randian libertarian. I do believe strongly in regulation when it comes to "the commons" (as in, finite resources that we all commonly benefit from).  That's something the founders wouldn't have agreed with me on.  But I think we could/should have passed a lot of these things via a constitutional amendment.

For example...

• Social Security is arguably unconstitutional. It should have been made an amendment. I'd support it.
• Same with Medicare.
• Same with Medicaid or any federal charity program.  
• I'm pro-choice on abortion but Roe vs. Wade is an abominable ruling and really speaks the argument that today, the constitution is whatever the politically charged supreme court says it is.

It is true that history is replete with examples of the government defying the constitution and getting away with it. That doesn't mean that those exceptions were the rule.  The Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional. The Central Bank is probably unconstitutional (the federal reserve almost certainly is).

But by and large, even today, on the day to day business of the supreme court, the rules of the constitution are upheld. That means the United States has a number of unusual elements to its code of law. 

For example...

• There is no federal law against murder (murder is a state issue)
• Same with rape
• Same with burglary
• Same with many many other types of felonies and misdemeanors

The feds usually only get involved if the matter involves civil rights or crosses a state line.

Similarly, as I stated earlier, most gun laws are state laws. Yes, there is some federal meddling just like there is federal meddling in zoning, education, and pretty much everything else but overwhelmingly, those things are handled at the state level.

I'm not against the federal government. I just know how incompetent big corporations are and the federal government is the biggest corporation of them all and it's allowed to have guns.

Several founding fathers wanted to outlaw the purchase of people (slavery).  How evil of them!  And incorrect of you.

Wow. There is so much fail those 3 responses I don't know what to say.

I do like he part where the word evil is quoted, implying that I had actually said or implied thst the federal government was evil. Then there's the strawman about slavery.

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The Incorporation Doctrine was a series of legal rulings that restrictions specifically on the Federal Government, imposed by the Bill of Rights, applied equally to state legislatures.  This started in 1925.

This isn't complicated.

Strawman?  So slavery didn't actually exist?  Or Lincoln and the abolitionists at the federal level weren't trying to push over state's rights which was exactly what you said started in the 1940s?

Where in the U.S. did you go to school where they taught slavery didn't actually exist?

When was the last time a bunch of idiots drove planes into buildings?

Just because it has not happened does not mean it never will.

This thread could live on for another 10 years and this point will still be its high water mark. 

+1 to you sir. 

This is the entire reason they added a formal process to change the document as times warranted.  That they made the process difficult was because they didn't trust the whims of majority.

The founding fathers knew that the document would need to change.  That's the reason for the amendment process in the first place.  

If the words in the document don't have concrete meaning, which the theory of a "living" constitution says they do not, then the document is useless. It's just another vehicle to impose the ruling class's will on the people and it has in fact been subverted entirely from it's original place in our society. 

That's not what a living constitution means though.  Living constitution has nothing to do with case law per se.  As a concept it is saying that the meaning of the phrases within the document should be interpreted through current context in order to keep the document relevant with modern society.  Simplified somewhat it is saying that the meaning of each clause changes as society changes.  

Which defeats the purpose of a constitution.  It is no longer an explicit set of rules to govern ourselves with.  It is something fungible based upon "modern interpretation".  

The founders knew the document would need to be changed and updated.  That's why the amendment process exists.  The entire doctrine of "living constitution" is just a method to replace the meaning of clauses that a particular group doesn't like with a meaning that they prefer  while avoiding the debate around amendments all together.  It's a way to underhandedly avoid the checks on amendments that the framers purposefully wrote into the system.