Can an American explain this to me?
  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    KennyR
    Posts: 891 from 2003/3/4
    From: #AmigaZeux, Gu...
    Considering the following scenario:

    * ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal law enforcement agency) illegally detain a US citizen, who either is bundled off before they can show their papers, or is on a Green Card or something they didn't bother checking. Whereupon they are kept in a cell with no recourse to a lawyer until an executive order for POTUS using a 1798 law has them deported and sent to an El Salvador megaprison incorrectly labelled "an invading force".

    While there they are no longer in the US so find it incredibly difficult, if not impossible to challenge the arrest deportation after the fact (which is the preferred method in the US law system) as they have no lawyer and other ten guys in the cell are not friendly.

    (While this sounds far-fetched, it has already apparently happened. The private companies rounding up people are financially incentivised to do so, and while a federal judge did attempt to reverse the deportations of 6 people, the Whitehouse responded with "lol, too late" and claimed that since they were outside the USA now they no longer had any need to follow US law. That legal battle is still... ongoing.)

    Now consider scenario #2:

    * ICE attempt to illegally detain the US citizen, but they, or a citizen's militia, use force to prevent the arrest, declaring it illegal and as kidnap. They use the 2nd Amendment to justify this as as the right to bear arms is supposedly to protect against government tyranny, and the government here are clearly in the wrong despite all their lawyer's somewhat lame attempts to argue otherwise. As ICE are likely to respond with force, so it means lethal force has to be used.

    The US law system says that the 2nd Amendment doesn't explicitly grant the right to use lethal force, and that you absolutely cannot use the threat of force on federal agents or law enforcement as this is a serious felony. The courts hold that only by determining in court by legal suit after the fact can prove ICE's illegality - even if they potentially can't, being busy being slave labour in El Salvador with no phone or lawyer...

    Since you can't actually use the 2nd Amendment to protect yourself against clear government overreach (or at least, it hasn't been done since 1946), and zombie uprisings are unlikely, what actual use is the 2nd Amendment now?
  • »23.03.25 - 22:21
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