re: #20 Daniel Ballard

Mandate to buy guns? LOL!
Okay so everyone who is for this medical insurance mandate would be perfectly comfortable with that coming back right? /// Just kidding. But that illustrates how our feelings on mandates will vary by the mandate itself. But that’s not a constitution issue. It’s a personal political beliefs issue.

Sure. If we actually had a functioning militia in which all able-bodied adults were required to serve, I would consider a mandate to maintain appropriate equipment reasonable. They do it in Switzerland…as wingnuts who hate the healthcare mandate never tire of pointing out, because the idea of everyone having to own a Sig makes them horny. (I believe, however, that you don’t have to buy the guns yourself in Switzerland, they let you keep your goverment-issued ones from military service for militia use. But that would just be socialism.)

But the question here is not our ‘feelings’ on mandates. As you say, they will vary, according to other beliefs. The point here is that we have an example of perhaps the greatest of the Founders being quite comfortable signing into law something that some people have insisted is entirely unConstitutional and an abomination. That doesn’t settle our present discussion, but it is quite interesting.