Travis In Austin

Well I can understand your desire for KFC BBQ after having to eat NC BBQ all those years.

No love for Steve Miller? I can't believe he is not in. I agree, Yes have been in long ago. They showed some credibility getting Linda Rondstat in there finally. Glen Frey gave an interview where he said they were too concerned about the television show and the ratings. They try to make a show that appeals to everyone. From the R&R HOF site: Steve Miller was a mainstay of the San Francisco music scene that upended American culture in the late 60s. With albums like Children Of The Future, Sailor and Brave New World, Miller perfected a psychedelic blues sound that drew on the deepest sources of American roots music and simultaneously articulated a compelling vision of what music – and, indeed, society – could be in the years to come.

I like it, thank you for that. From their Faq page: What's done with all the electronics and large appliances once you receive them for recycling? Best Buy works with electronics recyclers that adhere to the highest guidelines and standards. This assures customers that the products we are given for recycling do not end up in landfills and that all hazardous materials are disposed of properly. For specifics about our recycling standards, visit http://www.bestbuy.com/site/null/null/pcmcat174700050010.c?id=pcmcat174700050010.

really? I’ve never seen her at the meetings. It's supposed ti be anonymous.

That place is legendary, it has been in the news lately because they stopped line holders, people who just wait in line and have a bunch of orders for others. If I ever find myself anywhere close I would love to go, I once though about a trip planned around all the great smokehouses in Texas, it would be great. Be sure you end there. Come on down, we will get in line at 7 am and drink 11 when they open and do it up. http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/crimes-against-bbq-brisket-aaron-franklin

Because Danish chicks are better looking and they don't allow them in Denmark.

There is a taco place in Austin, they cook all their meat in Green Eggs, and it is some of the best meat I have ever had. Everyone I know who has one, even long time Texas Smoker owners, swear by em.

Ask Aaron Franklin, 4 hour wait in line, and it is well worth it. You can google him and he has videos with other bbq guys on how to do it. He uses grass fed beef.

That's a point

I agree with you, as I mentioned in the previous thread. But I am an optomist and believe that if it get to the point where we don't vote, they have won. Hopefully we can keep this thread from being locked by remaining historical and philosophical. I am familar with Bill, I met him several times growing up in Santa Cruz. I am also familar with Dr. Mills. He went to UT and his papers are at the Briscoe Center. I personally looked at some of his papers there for an article I was writing. I am a labor lawyer, and Dr. Mills wrote an excellent book on how labor leaders shifted the labor movement. As I stated in that other thread, special interests and the way they can exert influence is the problem in my view. You have come up with a great example with universal health care. Who is the most powerful lobby in Washington? The AMA. A well organized and funded special interest can defeat legislation that the minority are in favor of unfortunately. The brakes on mob rule is the Court. I believe history has shown that the non-elite can prevail over the elite when they want to. This is a serious question I have pondered, was the civil war the elite vs. the elite, or the non-elite vs. the elite? I think civil rights was a loss for the elite. The voting rights act of '65. The New Deal. Taft-Hartley. I think their were Presidents who may have been from the elite but who have vwry non-elite agendas. LBJ wasnt from the elite and pissed them off, but also courted then and knew how to make a buck. FDR, and Teddy too. Progressives.

And yet, for all of their thoughts on paper, which I do not discount lightly, they wrote the Declaration of Independence which includes this famous passage:But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." And signed by a number of the founders. I'm interested in hearing thoughts on how they could support such a passage, fight a war against the nation that inspired the passage (with muskets), Write and pass an Amendment supporting "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms..." only to have future generations hold that perhaps they never meant to "put in place [the 2nd amendment] to protect individuals from the tyranny of state or local government." There are books and law review articles on this issue. Read the majority opinion in Heller and the dissent is you are sincerely interested. After that look read up on Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Madison and GW were not too sympathetic towards armed uprisings against their new govt. It is pretty clear in Heller that there is an individual right of self-defense. You just don't get machine guns, even if they have tanks and bombers. If they have a warrant you may not have a right to self-defense. How come no one crys out for the 4th Amendment?

Democracy,meaning the popular will of the people? As you are well aware we live in a republic, so in what way more democratic? I agree with you 100% My direction on that would be campaign finance reform, curtail special interests and PACs and start becoming a country of ideas again, not a campaign money merry go round. Hard to be very democratic when you have 30% voter turnout. That means 16% are making the election decision. What if you made it a crime not to vote, or provide a tax credit of some amount as a carrot rather than a stick. Of course seniors are going to be dead set against that.

I primarily represent police officers who have been in involved in police shootings, which involve criminal investigations and other administrative proceedings. I pretty much have to defend people against the govenment on a daily basis. It is all from the prospective from where one sits as to how they view the "government." If the government is giving you a paycheck they are pretty good, if they are investigating you for homicide, not so good. If crime is down in your area, the government is great, if you are the victim of a crim, maybe not. I think every constitutional right is the same way. Freedom of religion, church and state, freedom of the press, 8th amendment and the death penalty. What do you suppose is the prespective of someone who was exonorated on death row with DNA, as opposed to the family of the victim? They talk about it in terms they can relate to, being innocent and locked up with the State wanting to kill you; or being the victim of a horrible violent crime. There are at least two sides to every issue, at least. I think there were over 50 briefs filed in Heller, all with a slightly different point of view. Of course, all of this is complicated by the fact that you have to write an opinion that gets at least 5 justices to agree with your point of view. Scalia may firmly believe that it is to protect against the govenment, but some may have been unwilling to go that far. There are compromises made all of the time to obtain a majority. Sometimes that isn't even possible and you get multiple opinions with a majority only agreeing in the result.

That's always been my thought as well. I think that may well be true. I know Jefferson would agree with that thought entirely. However, the problem with making that argument, and probably the reason Scalia avoided it in Heller, is from a constitutional law point of view the history of that Amendment points more strongly towards the protection of states, not individuals, from the federal government. James Madison wrote the 2nd Amend., along with the other Bill of Rights. He also wrote Federalist No. 46, which I think the idea of the protection of citizens from the government starts from. It states in part that: "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it. The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form, which appears altogether conclusive. Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. On the other supposition, it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people." In his time most people owned guns, and he operates from that assumption. The problem is that his "concise form" of the argument is that he was trying to diminish the fears of States of a federal standing army. He says the states can defeat a standing army of the federal government with the help of the people (who are armed). There is a mass of law review articles and entire books devoted to this subject and how it either supports an individual's right to bear arms or is instead a collective right. These relate to how a Supreme Court should construe the 2nd Amendment. From a historical perspective, history doesn't really side with the argument that Madison believed that the 2nd Amendment was put in place to protect individuals from the tyranny of state or local government. Neither did the other founders. In Shays' Rebellion in 1786, small farmers and shop owners in Massachusetts, armed with muskets forcibly closed the courts and threatened to march on Boston. In the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, farmers in Pennsylvania and Kentucky took up muskets and refused to pay taxes on whiskey. Madison called Shays' Rebellion "treason." The governor of Massachusetts raised an army to crush the rebellion -- an action endorsed by George Washington, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin and John Marshall. During the Whiskey Rebellion, George Washington said that permitting citizens to take up arms against the government would bring an "end to our Constitution and laws," and he personally led troops to crush that rebellion. Then there was this thing called the Civil Way, or the War of Northern Agression. I am pretty sure the South considered Lincoln to be a tyrant, and the invasion to be tyranny. Like I said, Scalia avoided the entire subject and used self-defense as the reason why it was an individual right..

Doubtful. There was, prior to Heller, a great deal of debate on how much of a precedent Miller was, and just what the implications were for subsequent cases. Gun rights advocates said the case allowed for the expansion of other firearms that could be owned. Opponents argued that it meant that certain guns could be banned. For example, both side used Miller to argue for and against the "assualt weapons ban." The Heller Court discussed Miller at length, and clarified what the meaning of that decision was and in doing so either explained why it didn’t mean what people were trying to say it meant, or limited its holding. Justice Scalia limited Miller as follows: "Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons. It is particularly wrongheaded to read Miller for more than what it said, because the case did not even purport to be a thorough examination of the Second Amendment." Scalia had to limit Miller because the "test" or "standard" for whether a weapon (sawed-off shotgun) could be prohibited was said to be something different then what was previously thought. Miller had a great number of advocates and judges of the opinion that the "test" on whether a gun could be banned or restricted was whether "it has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” As you correctly point out, the Miller Court did not have anything in the record on this issue. Prior to Heller, some gun rights advocates were hopeful that this language would open up the availability of fully automatic weapons, or could be used to defeat any type of "assault weapons" ban. That hope was diminished when the decision in Heller used a different standard to determine whether a particular type of weapon could be banned or restricted. The standard, to the extent there was one prior to Heller, is now not related to what the military uses, or a government militia. Scalia, addressed the amicus briefs that were filed suggesting that automatic weapons are protected under the 2nd Amendment by saying: "We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller's phrase "part of ordinary military equipment" could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Fire-arms Act's restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller's, "ordinary military equipment" language must be read in tandem with what comes after: "[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." 307 U.S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms "in common use at the time" for lawful purposes like self-defense. "In the colonial [*625] and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same." State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6-15, 252-254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment's operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment [**2816] does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right, see Part III, infra [fn25]" Thus the types of weapons protected are those "typically possessed by law-abiding citizens. He goes on to find that handguns are protected because they are commonly possessed by law abiding citizens for self-defense. He goes on to say what some of the lawful restrictions on gun ownership might be: Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e. g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152-153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e. g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489-490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students' Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession [**2817] of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing [*627] conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.[fn26] The last part of that quotation is significant, "conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." That is Brady, and any other types of registration requirements that are not unreasonable. He also addressed arguments concerning the 2nd Amendment's primary purpose was to address the possibility of tyranny. Some of the amici briefs argued that to give the 2nd Amendment practical effect citizens needed stouter weapons to defend themselves from tanks and other armored vehicles. Scalia addressed this by stating: "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modem developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause [*628] and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right." If the primary objective of the 2nd Amendment was to protect against tyranny, it was of no consequence to the majority in Heller that the guns that are protected might be of use. Heller was a mixed bag, both of the extreme sides of the issue were not happy with this decision. What is clear from Heller is that the government, federal, state, or local cannot take your legal guns away from your home. They cannot ban handguns from the home, but they can require that you register a handgun.. Machineguns and sawed-off shotguns are still out, even if means you cannot defend yourself against a tank. They can require that background checks be conducted and other qualifications that do not “unreasonably” prevent access to legal guns. Like I said before, Heller is there for the reading, along with all of the oral arguments to the Court, the amicus briefs for and against, and all of the legal commentary before and after. If this is a big issue for people they can read the decision and the dissent for themselves and decide what they agree with, what they do not. You are never going to get an accurate picture of what any SCOTUS decision says by reading what someone tells you it says, not even me, and I try to explain every opinion as fairly as I can. regardless of how I feel about a decision. I personally agree with the majority, and think it is a good decision, but that is neither here nor there.

"Best" of course depends on the design goal. It guarantees a narrow voiced rule by elites. It doesn't accommodate the small and varied dissenting voices always present in say, parliamentary systems. It's a veneer thin democracy, and getting thinner each generation. Our ruling power structure is fully homogeneous around neo liberal economics (not good for working people). So, if "man" is supposed to include the masses as well as the elites, it's not the best system ever created. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk What would that be?

I have had those, they are great amps. It is probably due to be checked out, it could easily still be above spec. They weigh a ton. Do you have a good honest and competent tech there that can check it out for yiu, replace the switch?

A 1,000 a night escort, with a manager and a publicist? Something just isn't adding up here.

Really? I wasn't aware of that. I will have to Google that in Austin area and see what we might have here.

Thank you for that. The Ivory Coast, interesting music to boot.

Respectfully, your premise is incorrect in that you seem to think government gave us the right to defend ourselves and thus they can take it away. This isn't so. The Right is inherent in every Man to defend himself. Government can no more take it from you than they can demand you cut off your arm.The 2nd Amendment will never go away, as long as our current form of government exists. And that is the key: AS LONG AS OUR CURRENT FORM OF GOVERNMENT EXISTS. The 2nd amendment is part of the fabric of the nation - part of the building block. Remove the block and we are no longer the same nation. If they assume the authority to rob you of your ability to defend yourself then why couldn't they just assume ALL power over you. And really, by extension, wouldn't that be what they are doing? This is what I believe the founders were writing about. They were telling the government that they do not have ultimate authority over us. The assumption is that in order to eliminate the 2nd amendment is would require another amendment. Think that's going to happen? Not likely. But I would argue even then, how can it be that an entity CREATED BY MAN (government) can then have the ultimate authority over man and tell them YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND YOURSELF? It cannot. It fly's in the face of the very basic maxims of law. Can you contract away your Rights? Hmm. Therein lies a very interesting rabbit hole. Give up/let them take that right, and you might as well invite a dictatorship that controls every facet of your life. In my humble opinion. I agree with you that the right to defend one's self is a right that preixsted the Bill of Rights.I don't agree that if you remove a provision of the Constitution, or one of the amendments, that it necessarily changes the country into something else. Many provisions of the constitution have changed, been amended, or completely new. The VP is completely different, the electiob of senators is entirely different. The South was convinced that sky would fall if slavery was eliminated, it didn't. They were convinced it would fall again if segragation ended, it didn't. People were utterly convinced the country was headed for ruin if women got the vote. Well I guess the jury is still out on that one. You don't have to repeal the 2nd amendment to have common sense gun cintrol. I'm not advocating for that, just stating was is clearly allowable under Heller and McDonald. The right to self defense, regardless of where it originated from doesn't mysteriously disappear with handgun regulation., Firstly, I am talking specifically about the Bill of Rights and not about the Constitution. Even more specifically the first 10. None of the first 10 amendments have ever been altered or repealed. They are our 'Natural Rights.' All of the Amendments that follow are commandments - if you will, of a government. Prohibition certainly wasn't a right yet it is an amendment in the Bill of Rights. Repealing prohibition would certainly not change the fabric of the nation. Repealing the 1st amendment, if I understand you correctly, wouldn't either? Repeal the 4th and our nation stands intact? I would argue vigorously that it would not. Do you not ascribe special status to our Natural Rights? I think we would agree that common sense gun control is a logical construct and even though, to my understanding, "well regulated" has never been fully addressed by SCOTUS, it would fall under those two words. However, as I mentioned in another thread (or perhaps earlier in this one), Miller addresses this masterfully. Who could argue that a ban on semi-automatic handguns/rifles would be constitutional because they aren't weapons in common use today? With Miller in mind and if we account for the founders' vision that should WE THE PEOPLE ever be required to overthrow an oppressive government, then logically we would require weapons 'commonly used' by the governments agents? That would include fully automatic weapons would it not? "You don't have to repeal the 2nd amendment to have common sense gun cintrol. I'm not advocating for that, just stating was is clearly allowable under Heller and McDonald." I demur to your convictions in the above statement. Can you impart the language SCOTUS used that would 'clearly allow' the 2nd Amendment to be repealed? Perhaps I am not as familiar with Heller and McDonald as I should be. "The right to self defense, regardless of where it originated from doesn't mysteriously disappear with handgun regulation.," Consider the following fictitious scenario: A deranged and very large individual is approaching you menacingly with what appears to be a very long machete. You are standing there, innocently, with your wife and kids. He looks intent on doing you and your family harm. On a table before you are three tools: A hammer, a knife, and a semi-automatic handgun. The handgun has been made illegal by government to use and consequently has had the firing pin filed down. You are left with the hammer, a knife, and a paperweight. The outcome, while not certain, looks bleak. Even worse, replace YOU with a woman. The above scenario, while made up, isn't all that far fetched. So yes, while I would have to technically agree that your right to self defense hasn't disappeared, I can confidently argue that neither you or any of your family will survive. Therefore, effectively, your Right to self defense has been taken away. Well there is a lot there, but let me address a few of the things you mention. First, the Bill of Rights are the 1st ten amendments. It started as 12 but only 10 were ratified. Every thing after that is just an amendment. Prohibition isn't in the Bill of Rights. Some of the rights, many in fact, are considered to be rights under natural law. The 9th and 10th are clearly not natural rights. Nest, the 14th amendment made, by incorporation, just about all of the Bill of Rights that were foind to be "fundamental" binding on the states. Prior to the 14th Amendment a state, county or city could ban all guns. The federal government, or states, could and did ban certain classes of citizens from owing guns. While the language of any of the first ten amendments didn't change, their force and effect were radically changed. The interpretation of any of the amendments, including the 2nd Amendment, was also radically changed by other language in the 14th amendment that space or time doesn't allow a discussion here. Scalia, in Heller, agreed with your proposition that the 2nd has an implied right to self defense with a gun. The majority held that the practice in the District of mot allowing for the registration of handguns placed an unreasonable burden on the right of self defense inder the Second Amendment.He, and the majority, found that the right of self defense contained in the the 2nd carried over from the common law of England and was part of the intent of the 2nd. He did it without mentioning natural law. Probably because while self-defense would widely be considered to be one of the rights under natural law, using a gun in self-defense wouldn't necessarily be so. Thwre was another problem with going the natural law route, he pointed oit in his history of the fight to self-defense with a gun, allowed Protestants to "bear arms" but not Catholics. That makes it difficult to assert that self-defense with a gun is a natural right for reasons we don't need ti get into here. Instead he pointed out that guns in the home, for self-defense, was generally accepted at the time of the Bill of Rights and therefor it was one of the logical purposes of the 2nd. He then found that hand guns were the guns of choice of most Americans for self-defense and a ban, in the home, would be an unreasonable interference with that right. "Well regulated." SCOTUS has squarely addressed the well regulated militia language. Scalia spent about the first 20 pages of his opinion on it and concluded that is was an explanation (preamble) that did not limit the meaning of the right to bear arms. i never said that the opinion in Heller would clearly allow the 2nd to be repealed, but I am often not clear so let me restate it. The majority clearly stated the 2nd allows for regulation and gun control that doesn't unreasonably interfere with the right of self-defense in the home. They specifically held that requiring registration was valid, as well as other things such as prohibiting concealed weapons outside the home, and regulation of gun dealers. Heller was clear that reasonable limits on guns were allowable under the 2nd. They even said you can ban certain types of guns, just not all hand guns or guns. Which brings us to Miller. I did read Miller, it was about 30 years ago in law school. It was the only case really discussing the 2nd. It was generally considered a weak opinion then, and of very little value because it wasn't really contested. No briefs were filed by the defendants, and no attorneys appeared and argued for them either. These facts were brought out in the majority and dissent in Heller. Both sides shied away from Miller and didn't give it much precidental value, other than the government can ban certain tyoes of guns, a saw offed shotgu for example. Your hypothetical is far fetched. SCOTUS addressed the issue of self-defense with a gun, said it is ine of the reasons behind the 2nd Amendment. They said banning all hand guns from the home would unreasonably interfere with that right. So the handgun woukd be fulky functional, however, having seen how ineffectual handguns can sometimes be, I would reach under the table, grab my 10 ga auto shotgun loaded with copper coated duplex 00/BB, hand the handgun to my fictitious wife, tell her to finish him off with that if he got past me. I woukd wait until he got in my property, preferably just inside the door. Unless of course I hired him to chop bushes down in my back yard and he was just coming up to ask for a glass of water, and then I would be going to jail. Wait, can I throw my fictitious wife at him and run and clise the door and let him deal with her? By the way, the Constitution didnt take a decade to produce. It took one long hot summer in Philadelphia as I recall. It would have been even quicker but Jefferson was out of the country. It was ratified less than a year later. The Bill of Rights came in the first session of congress, and 10 of the 12 proposed amendments were ratified about two years later.

Well they left many things in vague on purpose. A national bank isn't specifically mentioned, but was held valid as "necessary and proper." That is just one example. No right of "self-defense" is mentioned, but Scalia found a historical basis for one in the 2nd Amendment. There is no right of privacy listed, but depending on which aspect of that right you are talking about, it will certainly cause people to be all for it one minute, and completely against the next.In their defense, the framers knew from the beginning that they were fallible and knew that it would need to be changed. They also knew that the minority would need protection from the majority. They did build right into the document two seperate and distinct ways to change it, and it has been many, many, times. One of the fundamental concepts of the document is that it has mechanisms to prevent mob rule. The best example is how senators are elected, their terms, the number that come up for election each time. The Federalist papers pretty much explain the thought process behind it all, together with the journal kept by Maddison. The entity charged with interpreting it, SCOUTUS, is also fallible, and has made many, many mistakes. But as imperfect as it all is, I think it is the best system ever created by man. Edit: But it would be neither treacherous or unpatriotic to say that there are parts of the constitution you disagree with, or decisions you think are unsound. It would be unpatriotic if you didn't speak your conscious in one form or another. Voting, a letter to the editor, elected official, etc.

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Respectfully, your premise is incorrect in that you seem to think government gave us the right to defend ourselves and thus they can take it away. This isn't so. The Right is inherent in every Man to defend himself. Government can no more take it from you than they can demand you cut off your arm.The 2nd Amendment will never go away, as long as our current form of government exists. And that is the key: AS LONG AS OUR CURRENT FORM OF GOVERNMENT EXISTS. The 2nd amendment is part of the fabric of the nation - part of the building block. Remove the block and we are no longer the same nation. If they assume the authority to rob you of your ability to defend yourself then why couldn't they just assume ALL power over you. And really, by extension, wouldn't that be what they are doing? This is what I believe the founders were writing about. They were telling the government that they do not have ultimate authority over us. The assumption is that in order to eliminate the 2nd amendment is would require another amendment. Think that's going to happen? Not likely. But I would argue even then, how can it be that an entity CREATED BY MAN (government) can then have the ultimate authority over man and tell them YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND YOURSELF? It cannot. It fly's in the face of the very basic maxims of law. Can you contract away your Rights? Hmm. Therein lies a very interesting rabbit hole. Give up/let them take that right, and you might as well invite a dictatorship that controls every facet of your life. In my humble opinion. I agree with you that the right to defend one's self is a right that preixsted the Bill of Rights. I don't agree that if you remove a provision of the Constitution, or one of the amendments, that it necessarily changes the country into something else. Many provisions of the constitution have changed, been amended, or completely new. The VP is completely different, the electiob of senators is entirely different. The South was convinced that sky would fall if slavery was eliminated, it didn't. They were convinced it would fall again if segragation ended, it didn't. People were utterly convinced the country was headed for ruin if women got the vote. Well I guess the jury is still out on that one. You don't have to repeal the 2nd amendment to have common sense gun cintrol. I'm not advocating for that, just stating was is clearly allowable under Heller and McDonald. The right to self defense, regardless of where it originated from doesn't mysteriously disappear with handgun regulation.,