One of the more unusual aspects of the Dred Scott decision was that blacks can't be human or they would get all the human rights, you know, including the right to keep and bear arms, and y'all know that blacks shouldn't be able to have guns.

And one of the reasons for the language in the 14th amendment was specifically to ensure that the entire bill of rights applied to all citizens, including blacks, and including the right to defend themselves and their newly un-Confederated states with arms.

You may not like the idea that guns have good purposes, but they do, the second amendment is for that, and the 14th amendment protects all the BoR, including the 2nd.

I suggest all you narrow minded doubters look up the Deacons for Defense, a group of blacks in Louisiana, 1964 - 1969, who used their second amendment right to keep and bear arms to keep the corrupt KKK-ridden white city, county, and state governments at bay. This was only 45 years ago. I certainly am old enough to remember those times.

Yes indeed. Blacks using guns to defend themselves from white KKK-infested government. Quite the story. Among other things, they patrolled MLK's night camps during at least some of his long marches. Blacks! with guns! defending against white corruption. Pretty damned scary to the narrow minded.

One of the most depressing things about the Republican Reign Of Error was how they all blindly follwed the great decider, in lockstep, like the goosestepping fascists they apparently idolized. I am so glad that at least some Democrats are able to think for themselves, even if it, at times, doesn't agree with my ideas.

We need brains in Congress, not rubber stamps.

I propose a counter scam, completely made up from scratch, to compete with these idiots. My suggestion is that the Alamo was a fraud; that the Texans who supposedly died there as their last stand actually slipped out. The proof? There were allegedly 37 Texans there holding off the entire Mexican army, something like that. Everyone knows that 37 Texans is more than enough to hold off an entire Mexican army, therefore the story must be fake, probably started by those damned Whigs to embarrass the Texans in hopes the state would not be admitted into the union with all the slavery that would come with it.

The speech that most needs protection is the vile kind. Let this get established, then gradually lower the bar for what is considered vile, and pretty soon no one will dare utter even the slightest complaint about anything.

I am amazed that anyone writing for or reading an alternative news site would think this good news.

Every time a Republican crowed about the latest Bush extralegalism, I always asked them what tune they would be singing when Hillary was elected and got the same power. Let's do that here -- what will all you happy people do when it is YOUR comments which are considered vile by some random stranger?

The shortsightedness of so many of you astounds me. I thought people here would be just a teensy bit more sensitive to the implications of losing privacy.

There are the magnetic data stripes on credit cards and drivers licenses, the magnetic platters in computer disks, and many other things that people may not think about until they have stuck this light in their pockets or on their computer cases ...

Very very few people are killed by "automatic weapons that can kill scores of people in seconds", and those are mostly gangs killing each other. Hardly an epidemic.

Then later you mention that -- horrors! -- someone was carrying an "assault rifle". Well, no he wasn't. He was carrying a bog-standard semi-automatic rifle, the only difference from other semi-auto rifles being that it is based on a military full-auto rifle, but is not full-auto any more than any other semi-auto.

So much for you knowing much about guns, Mr Sirota. Or if you do know the difference, you are intentionally conflating the two just to inflame the issue.

Now as for why someone would concel carry to a city hall meeting. The point of conceal carry is that states have decided they would rather have conceal carry than open carry as a way of upholding the right to bear arms. Perhaps the danger which the CCW holder worries about does stop at the door to the meeting, but what is the CCW holder supposed to do, take it out and no longer be concealing, and then where to store it, and how to prove it is yours when you go back outside after the meeting? Far more dangerous to everybody concerned.

And why would someone carry to a political rally? I suggest the same reason people carry picket signs -- exercising a fundamental right which has been threatened by politicians. Equating guns with penis size is pretty silly, a real cliche, and does a real disservice to women who exercise their second amendment right. Are you saying those women are really dykes and wish they had a penis? Not very politically correct, idiot.

Your hoplophobic dreams are showing. The Heller decision explicitly only concerned gun rights in the home, but the footnotes made it abundantly clear that the second amendment does not stop at the front door, and that the right is "to keep AND bear arms". Misread it if you want, or read it correctly but misreport it, either way you are hiding from reality.

Similarly with those who claim the initial clause redcues the right to keep and bear arms. Heller made it quite clear that there is another pipe dream. Anyone with any knowledge of the roots of the fundamental right listed in the bill of rights are not rights guaranteed by the constitution, but fundamental rights which rpedate the constitution.

Would you similarly argue that waving picket signs or photos of Obama with a Hitler mustache are not protected by the first amendment?