Yesterday on “Equal Time”, a representative from the NRA asked, “What other freedoms in the Bill of Rights does government ask you to register for? Should we have to have a license to go to church?”
Good point. And frankly, I don’t think that just such a license is very many years away.
Have you ever tried to slide down a water slide just a little ways and then stop?
Whichever side of gun control you’re on, do you favor a constitutional ammendment to clarify or override the second ammendment, or do you prefer that the present ammendment continue to dumbfound us with its enigmatic comma?
I do not think it is possible to repeal the Second Amendment.
A clarification…? Maybe.
If America were to deny any of the rights it recognizes and protects in the Bill of Rights, it would lose it’s authority to be a legitamate government.
I can not quite Remember who said it but:
“You won’t need the Second Amendment until they try to take it away.”
I had resolved not to post in any of the gun control threads, but now I’m intrigued:
Why?
Is it that the particular set of rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights is the sine qua non of legitimate government? In that case, virtually no nation other than the US has a legitimate government.
Or is it that the Constitution is some kind of “package” like the Ten Commandments: you can’t cherry-pick the bits you like and the bits you don’t? In which case why is there scope to amend the Consitution? Was the whole edifice invalid during prohibition?
I think there’s a greater implication here than gun control, although I did phrase it in those terms in the OP. But I tried to broaden it with the thread title.
If you can be required to have a license from the federal government for bearing arms, what is to stop you from being required to have a license from the federal government to express yourself here, for example?
I think this thread is less about gun contol, than it is about why should the Second Amendment be treated differently than other Amendments.
The Second Amendment Law Library (web based) is now closed, but you can find the whole piece that the following is excerpted from on this thread, post #9.
Incidentally, the beginning of the following thread has the ACLU position on the Second Amendment.
A CRITICAL GUIDE TO THE
SECOND AMENDMENT
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
…Although it would be something of an oversimplification, it is probably fair to say that those who support gun control have generally tended either to ignore the Second Amendment entirely or to adopt an interpretation that leaves it essentially without effect. Those opposed to gun control, on the other hand, have naturally tended to adopt rather strong interpretations of the Second Amendment. This is not surprising; we see similar phenomena with regard to other parts of the Bill of Rights. For example, it is common to find “right wing” opponents of sexual liberty taking the position that the Ninth Amendment, often cited as the root of the right to privacy that is typically implicated in cases involving sexual freedom, means nothing. Robert Bork, for example, has described the Ninth Amendment as an “inkblot” whose meaning cannot be deciphered, and has referred to the right of privacy as a “loose canon in the law.” Supporters of such sexual rights, on the other hand, tend to take rather expansive views of what the Ninth Amendment protects. Similarly, in the field of free speech representatives of the media seem often to believe that everything that affects their interests–almost down to the availability of free parking near newspaper offices–implicates important First Amendment concerns, while those opposed to, say, sexually explicit art or flag burning tend to take a much narrower view…
TomH: It’s not that any government is not legitimate if it is not based around the Bill of Rights, it’s that since the U.S. government IS based on the Constitution/BOR, if you start messing with them, our point of reference is gone.
I don’t think you can compare going to church with owning a gun. Churches are not mechanical objects that are physically dangerous. Likewise, speech. The argument is comparing apples to oranges (or, for TomH, chalk & cheese ).
I don’t think the 2nd Amendment should be messed with…I just think we need further discussion (and a couple Supreme Court cases) to clarify it. I think, however, the most important thing right now would be to enforce the laws we already have. Possibly add a couple more…how about, if you are charged with a violent crime, the police have the right to search your house for weapons and seize them (if you’re acquitted, they can give them back). Something that is focused more on the criminals that have guns instead of blanket regulations.
I would hazard a guess that many people on this forum have not read, or maybe at least not recently, the Declaration of Independence.
Let me pick a few choice parts:
I would hold out that that the Bill of Rights is a unique part of the Constitution. It is enumerating certain rights. That is, it is recognizing things that already exist.
Yes they included a process to add a Amendments, but this does not mean we can add Amendments that take away rights.
Just to clarify, a majority decision, or even 2/3 does not define what a right is.
We could vote and legally add an Amendment to jail all people who are German. We could add an Amendment that re-institutes slavery.
Neither of those would be justified merely because they went through the “legal” process of becoming an Amendment.
About other governments, Who cares? Not me. I only want to live and work and try to live out my life with as much freedom as possible. It is the job of our country to protect that as much as possible. Let the citizens of another country decide their own legitamacy. If they feel they are oppressed, then it is their right to establish another government, but not my responsibility to get involved.
As for the prohibition thing.
If prohibition had been about abolishing religion, I would say yes. Since I do not think that drinking alchohol is a natural inalienable right, than I have to say no.
Of course there comes a time when the government infringes so much on the small parts of our lives that it does prevent us from living a free life. At this point I would say it loses it’s right to govern.
When is this point reached? Who knows? It is much easier to look at the clear rights we have. If the government forced you to register before being allowed to worship, or before you were allowed to write publicly, would recognize it’s legitamacy?
How about if the government gave the power to the police to walk in your house and search it based on a whim with no warrant?
What if once you were arrested your trial was held behind closed doors with no jury?
What if cruel and unusual punishment was allowed(torture)?
What if they took away your right to defend yourself?
The following is a reprint of a post I made a few minutes ago in the 2nd Amendment: Out of “Guns and Freedom” thread… It seems more appropriate here, and besides, resubmitting it will up my non-existent post count.
As the moistest, pinkest of newbies, I will not presume to leave my muddy footprints all over the thoughtful arguments in this thread.
But Glitch touched on a tangential question with his seatbelt remark. Why the beef with registration? I think automobiles provide a useful point of comparison. They enable several inalienable rights (the right to go to the mall, the right to cruise Main Street on Saturday night, the seldom-claimed right to visit South Dakota). They are also potentially deadly, and are often engaged in the pursuit of illegal activities (robbin’, lootin’, date rapin’, fuzzy dice danglin’, etc.). Yet, while nobody relishes a trip to the DMV, almost nobody complains about car registration and driver licensing as somehow curtailing, circumventing or limiting any basic constitutional rights. This can’t be simply because cars are not mentioned in the Constitution (which is a related grind—it seems that for the Constitution to be a viable, living document with any modern relevance, it must be primarily a document about IDEAS; in targeting specific technologies that happen to be mentioned [like guns] we must also recognize that the Constitution fails to address such things as automobiles, television, the so-called “information superhighway,” the Backstreet Boys, and other modern monoliths; does this render the document less useful now than a couple Cs ago?).
The licensing and registration process serves several worthy purposes, a few of which are:
a means for ensuring that all-important training
keeping some tabs (I know, damn peeping bureaucrats) on which people possess the potentially deadly technology in question
making for invaluable first-date ice-breaking fodder (“I’ll show you my crappy DL photo if you show me yours…”).
Now, I don’t like or own guns, but I recognize the need for gun ownership rights and am thankful for those who use them safely and in the pursuit of good. BUT…can anyone tell me why the same safeguards we accept for car use and ownership shouldn’t be applied to guns? And don’t hide behind the specific technologies mentioned in the Second Amendment, or else I’ll be tempted to toss my Constitution out with my acid-washed jeans.
(By the way, by “pink” I didn’t mean “Commie,” just “fresh-skinned.”)
I was trying to leave. I promise I was. I just couldn’t let this go…
There goes the 5th and 9th.
…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
So now if I want to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights, I have to risk giving up my 5th amendment rights.
You can’t just search somebody’s property and seize whatever you want. So now if you go to a bar and a bar fight happens you are at risk of having your house searched ond your proerty seized, before you have been convicted of ANYTHING.
Of course while the police are in your home they will be looking for evidence of any other crime you may have committed so they can charge you with that also.
I made this point in another thread, but I think Religion and propaganda (speech) has been the cause of a great number of deaths throughout history.
I think Ann Coulter said it best “If the 2nd amendment was defended as strongly as the 1st amendent is, we would all be required to keep nukes in our homes.”
With all due respect, I find that incredibly naive. Both churches and speech can be immenently dangerous. A gun is no more intrinsically dangerous than a church. But either a thug with a gun or a thug with a church is a very dangerous thing.
right, Libertarian, that’s why I carefully said a mechanical object that can cause physical harm.
I realize that speech and religion can be dangerous, but it’s a different kind of danger. Any 2 year old can pick up a gun and accidentally kill someone. I’m not anti-gun, but I do agree with the poster who likened gun laws to auto laws.
I’m not naive, I just don’t see the usefulness in comparing two things that are so different (unless, of course, it’s to further obfuscate the subject).
To bring up one point on the First Amendment, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble is something that many towns already require “permission” or a license if you will, to do so. I loosely use license, but in our city you are required to have the city approve a rally before you can assemble.
I have brought up before that my city refused the KKK (which I despise the group) but none-the-less the city leaders refused them the right to assemble. The claim was, there had been threats to harm those in the KKK if they were able to assemble.
I respect the fact, if in fact this is the case, that the city was concerned about the members of this group but I think it was an excuse to squash their right to assemble. The city could have taken measures to have police present like they did for the Gay Rights group that held a parade and half a day of activities. In this city filled with very strong religious thinking that gays are the Devil’s spawn and violence could have been a factor on the day this parade was held, it amazes me to no end.
When is it okay for the city government to approve or deny any group from holding a rally or assemble for the purpose of speech? In my eyes NEVER is it okay. Hate or love speeches, it doesn’t matter the KKK essentially had their rights taken away in this particular matter.
Licensing or granting permission (another term for licensing) when it comes to gun ownership or peacful assembly is un-Constitutional no matter how you look at it.
And yes, it could very well be possible that other Constitutional rights could be threatened by licensing…it’s already happening.
Okay, but let me draw us back to the car analogy. I acknowledge the pitfalls of registration (good for tax collection and tracing in case of theft, but also good for increasing government busibodiness).
But licensing is different. I’m not talking about applying for permission, where some authority has the ability to arbitrarily grant your permission or not (as in your KKK example). I’m talking about demonstrating (as with the drivers licensing process) that you have attained a certain level of competency with a dangerous item (cars, or guns).
If I pass the driving test, the weasel behind the DMV counter can not possibly deny me the permission, or “license,” to operate a car. Why not agree to such conditions if I want to operate a gun? Why not even agree to carrying a photo ID proving such? I am not asking for permission to buy a certain make, model or amount of guns, just demonstrating that I am qualified to own one. Does licensing eliminate danger? No, fully licensed driver kill people every day. But as I said in another thread, it does seem to be a reasonable and reasonably non-intrusive way of upping the overall level of competency (and therefore safety) among operators.
Demonstrating competency is not un-Consitutional. No right is absolute, as each must operate with regard to all others.
Should have said “being required to demonstrate competency is not un-constitutional.”
Although it appears people have lost interest in this thread. Hey! Blah blah blah! I’m not wearing pants! Does this look infected?! Ha-cha-cha and a coochie-coochie coo!
Obviously, those were just stupid ways of illustrating the right to drive a car. You don’t think that’s a right? You don’t think being able to cover large distances is a short period of time does not give car drivers tremendous advantages over non-car drivers? Are you saying it is not a right, simply because the Constitution does not mention cars? If so, you are hiding behind a technicality. The important thing is the idea behind the language. The Second Amendment specifies the right to own firearms. The idea is to be able to more effectively protect life and property—a Constitutional right. The Constitution does not (could not) mention cars, but the idea behind the car is the freedom to more effectively go where one wants (pursuing one’s happiness), which in my mind facilitates more additional freedoms than almost any other specific, itemized right.
As to the connection between guns and cars: it is not a matter of the right to drive vs. to walk, any more than the Second Amendment protects the right to kill people quickly with a bullet as opposed to slowly with one’s hands.
Cars and guns are both tools used in the pursuit of basic Constitutional rights. Both are potentially deadly. Both can be used for good or bad. Both require a certain level of expertise to operate safely. Quite similar, in my book. Only difference is nobody is calling for more car control, although when you consider pollution and the benefits of public transportation, maybe they should.
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