Does the Second Amendment apply to shotgun marriages and smoking guns ? ... "
Donald J. Trump
Liliputins. What the hell is that ?
http://www.stihi.ru/2012/08/18/5368
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The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791, as part of the first ten amendments contained in the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the right belongs to individuals, while also ruling that the right is not unlimited and does not prohibit all regulation of either firearms or similar devices. State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing this right per the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.
The Second Amendment was based partially on the right to keep and bear arms in English common law and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Sir William Blackstone described this right as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state.
In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that, "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence" and limited the scope of the Second Amendment's protections to the federal government.[9] In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment did not protect weapon types not having a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."
In the twenty-first century, the amendment has been subjected to renewed academic inquiry and judicial interest. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision that held the amendment protects an individual right to possess and carry firearms. In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Court clarified its earlier decisions that limited the amendment's impact to a restriction on the federal government, expressly holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment against state and local governments. In Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), the Supreme Court reiterated its earlier rulings that "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding" and that its protection is not limited to "only those weapons useful in warfare".
Despite these decisions, the debate between various organizations regarding gun control and gun rights continues.
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Shotgun wedding/
shotgun marriage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A shotgun wedding is a wedding that is arranged to avoid embarrassment due to premarital sex possibly leading to an unintended pregnancy, rather than out of the desire of the participants. The phrase is an American colloquialism, though it is also used in other parts of the world, based on a supposed scenario that the father of the bride-to-be must resort to using coercion (such as threatening with a shotgun) to ensure that the man who possibly impregnated her follows through with the wedding.
The concept of a wedding held to avoid the threat of death dates back millennia; the book of Deuteronomy lays out a law governing premarital sex where, if a man rapes a virgin who is not pledged to be married and is caught doing so, the man must pay the bride price (50 shekels), take her as his wife, and may never divorce her, or else risk being stoned to death.
The use of duress or violent coercion to marry is no longer common in the U.S., although many anecdotal stories and folk songs record instances of such coercion in 18th- and 19th-century America.[citation needed] Often a couple will arrange a shotgun wedding without explicit outside encouragement, and some religious teachings consider it a moral imperative to marry in that situation.
One purpose of such a wedding can be to get recourse from the man for the act of impregnation; another reason is to ensure that the child is raised by both parents. In some cases, as in early America and in the Middle East, a major objective was the restoring of social honor to the mother[citation needed]. The practice is also a loophole method of preventing the birth of legally illegitimate children, or if the marriage occurs early enough, to conceal that conception occurred prior to marriage. In some societies the stigma attached to pregnancy out of wedlock can be enormous, and coercive means (in spite of the legal defense of undue influence) for gaining recourse are often seen as the prospective father-in-law's "right", and an important, albeit unconventional, coming of age event for the young father-to-be.
The phenomenon has become less common (in the Western World at least) as the stigma associated with out-of-wedlock births has declined and the number of such births has increased[citation needed]. Effective birth control and legalized abortion have also resulted in fewer unplanned pregnancies carried to term. Nonetheless a marriage which occurs when the bride is pregnant, even when there is no family or social pressure involved, is still sometimes referred to as a "shotgun wedding".
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The Trump/Pence union was more awkward than a shotgun wedding. Well, they finally went ahead and did it, despite the groom’s last-minute cold feet, despite the late night calls to old flames, despite the nervousness of both families: Donald Trump and Mike Pence have finally tied the knot. But as befits a marriage of convenience between Trump’s roughneck nationalism and Pence’s more traditional conservatism, the event celebrating the union was tense and rife with intimations of an unhappy future.
Trump kept talking about himself and only got to praising Pence after a lengthy discussion of his own achievements. Pence, supposedly the star of the hour, gave a much shorter speech that was full of generic Republican talking points. And after it was all over, the candidates couldn’t even hug each other, but shook hands uneasily. Like a wedding where everyone has doubts about the match, there were awkward photos as well, with Trump’s forced smile making him look like a grimacing puppet.
Will Trump/Pence be able to unite the Republicans to defeat Hillary Clinton? Based on this event, they need to do some serious marriage counseling first.
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Smoking gun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term "smoking gun" is a reference to an object or fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act, just short of being caught in flagrante delicto. "Smoking gun" refers to the strongest kind of circumstantial evidence, as opposed to direct evidence. Direct evidence would include the entire action: pulling the trigger, firing the gun, and the victim falling. Its name originally came from the idea of finding a smoking (i.e., very recently fired) gun on the person of a suspect wanted for shooting someone, which in that situation would be nearly unshakable proof of having committed the crime. The phrase originated in the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" (1893).
In addition to this, its meaning has evolved in uses completely unrelated to criminal activity: for example, scientific evidence that is highly suggestive in favor of a particular hypothesis is sometimes called smoking gun evidence. A piece of evidence that falls just short of being conclusive is sometimes referred to as a "smoldering gun."
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The Smoking Gun Tape
Jun 23, 1972
This is the transcript and recording of a meeting between President Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, in the Oval Office on June 23, 1972.
The conversation took place from 10.04am to 11.39am. The recording subsequently became known as the Smoking Gun and led directly to Nixon’s resignation.
The release of the tape was ordered by the Supreme Court on July 24, 1974, in a case known as United States v. Nixon. The court’s decision was unanimous.
President Nixon released the tape on August 5. It was one of three conversations he had with Haldeman six days after the Watergate break-in. The tapes prove that he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate burglary. The Smoking Gun tape reveals that Nixon ordered the FBI to abandon its investigation of the break-in.
After the release of the tape, the eleven Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who voted against impeachment charges said they would change their votes. It was clear that Nixon would be impeached and convicted in the Senate. Nixon announced his resignation on August 8.