Just to clarify, obviously the 2nd Amend. protects the right to “kill people with a bullet” in the protection of life and property(paraphrase mine). My point was this: it is not a matter of bullet vs. hands, it is a matter of a gun being such a more effective tool for protecting life and property. Likewise, the car is a more effective tool in pursuing many other basic rights. Sure you can walk. But, from where I sit, a car makes it possible for me to pursue my Constitutional happiness.
Grr, must read before I post. Sorry.
I meant, the car makes it possible to MORE EFFECTIVELY pursue my Constitutional happinesses.
Lets hear it for artificially enhanced post counts.
I still don’t get it Dirt. You said:
If you are saying that driving a car is “pursuing one’s happiness”, what isn’t? I think that is stetching things a bit. Is it because you can get places faster with a car? Why then are speed limits allowed? The analogy doesn’t fit.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to take this thread off on a tangent.
PeeQueue
Oops, simulpost.
OK, more effectively maybe. But I still think it’s a stretch.
PeeQueue
At some point, any analogy becomes a stretch. (And I’m the one who should be apologizing for the tangent.) But for me this one is illustrative. We all accept some limits to our rights (speed limits are a good example). Most people agree that these accepted limits are what keep our society from going amok. The arguments all concern where to place the limits, who’s being limitted and who’s imposing the limits.
My orginal thought, and maybe nobody has a problem with this, is why not license gun users like we license car users - even to the point of carrying a photo ID? Why not? What constitutional right would that curtail, limit, or circumvent? Anyone?
Besides, I think the “more effectively” idea is more significant than you allow. Why do we need guns? Why can’t people protect their life and property with sticks, or with their hands, or with cans of Cool Whip? It’s all because guns are so much more effective. It is. Infinity.
Therefore, maybe slightly more validity to the car vs. gun comparison.
What about voting? The right to vote is a Constitutionally-protected right, but you still have to register, and certain groups of people (children, convicted felons, and others) are denied this right. Like driving, however, once you have demonstrated that you are eligible to register to vote, they have to let you register, and then they have to let you vote. Voting is a much more fundamental right (in a democratic society) than driving a car or (imo) owning a gun.
Does anyone else feel that this is a valid analogy? I left my Constitution at home, so I don’t know how the right to vote is discussed in it.
Ahh, and to bring it back to the topic…
Why, the right to bear arms (… etc.) of course. I think the point the OP is making is that there is a danger that the other rights that the Constitution stipulates may soon find themselves requiring licenses as well. Need a license to go to church, to post on this board (free speech), etc. It was pointed out that in some cases besides the gun issue, this is already happening (free assembly).
PeeQueue
Oh, and one more point. They don’t have to let you drive. They can fail you as many times as they want. I know it is not the DMV’s policy to do so, but they set up the tests and can make them as hard or easy as they want, and the grading is subjective (except for the written part). Also it is state regulated for the most part, I believe.
PeeQueue
I think the classic problem is that it’s viewed as the camel’s nose under the tent. Leave it alone, and soon the whole camel will be in there.
No one is suggesting that driving cars is a target for groups who wish to eliminate all cars, and are pushing for driver’s licenses as a first step.
But there are such groups when the issue is guns. So the gun rights folks are, quite rightly, concerned that the first step is simple licensing, and the second step is more onerous license requirements, and the third step is well-nigh impossible license requirements.
Unlikely? I’m not sure I agree. In Virginia, the law once provided that a circuit court judge “may, at his discretion, issue a concealed carry permit” when someone applied for it.
In Northern Virginia, in 1993, there were 1,181 applications for a concealed carry permit. Three were granted (Source: my own testimony before the Virginia House of Delegates panel considering concealed-carry laws). In the southwestern corner of the state, on the other hand, permits were routinely granted on request.
I was testifying in favor of amending the concealed carry law to “… SHALL grant…” assuming the applicant has no disqualifications. The law was changed.
I mention this only as an example of how these situations can change based on the discretion and intentions of the people administering them.
All that said… I would support basic registration and licensing requirements, if some reasonble method existed for assuring that that is as far as it would go.
- Rick
Yes, but HOW? I’m not talking about registering, or telling the government that I am a fellow who owns a gun. I am talking about licensing, periodically proving competence and being willing to proof you’ve proved it. No one is stopping me from bearing as many and whatever kind of arms I want. It’s not even limited, unless you really want to shoot someone right now, and you don’t have time to run downtown and renew your gun license.
Lib said:
::: stands. applauds. sits again. ::::
Um, the “right to drive a car” isn’t. At least in New York, and I believe this is nationwide, it is a privilege extended by the state to its citizens on satisfaction of a few things (testing, payment for license, etc.). This is specifically stated somewhere in the V&T Law, and reiterated in various DMV publications.
The Declaration of Independence is Title (Article?) 1 of the U.S. Code. Though this happens rarely, judges have been known to use it as grounds for interpretation of other laws, regulations, etc. One of our legal experts could give a bit more background on this.
I completely agree.
But then I think it is a mistake for gun-advocates to unequivocally scream at any mention of any kind of control. Instead, they should be lobbying for specific, defined measure that they can live with. Why they say “No license, no how!”, it just fuels the pointless debates. If they want to guarantee their protections, they should define their own conditions. If limited, driver-type licensing can be presumed to be a condition that everyone can live with, then it is a mistake for gun –advocates to automatically rail against it. (Which you are obviously not doing.)
Point taken, and I will shut up about cars. It still doesn’t sully the apparent sense in applying the afforemention limitted licensing to gun ownership.
I could live with that; I think some are afraid that the gun control people couldn’t.
But the question remains, does this set a precedent for requiring licenses for free speech, free religion, etc.?
PeeQueue
I started to type an argument against Dirt’s “the NRA should say what regulations they could live with” viewpoint. As usually happens around here, it got me thinking.
The rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press are not considered to have been significantly impaired. But there are very clear limits…statements that, certain materials, e.g., child porn, secrets essential to national security (for the moment, accept the validity of such a claim) are not entitled to the dignity of “protected speech”. (A misnomer, given that it is a right, but allow it for the nonce.) What if the right defined in the Second Amendment were recognized in law which then defined certain categories of weapon that would not be entitled to the category of “protected weapon” (analogous to protected speech). I.e., while I have the Constitutional right to own a pony nuke, my legal ability to do so is restricted for the common welfare.
To me, this makes some sense. Am I too unclear in the above for it to make sense to others?
The Bill of Rights has been beaten down and eroded for years now. I’d love to take the time to go over each Amendment thoroughly, but haven’t the time right now, so I’ll post an abreviated version:
First Amendment*“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”* The infamous Waco assault illustrates the government’s intolerance of new cults in this nation.
*"…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."*Permits to publicly assemble have been mentioned above which are in direct conflict with the right to assemble. Even the most evil of hategroups must have the right to march down the street peacefully
Second Amendment*“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”*Ha! This right is so heavily infringed we are in danger of losing it altogether. As much as I dislike how the NRA operates, I must say they need to be commended for their persistence in fighting to protect this very important Constitutional right.
Fourth Amendment*“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”*I have personally had this right violated twice. Once in my home by IRS agents and local police and once in my vehicle by State Troopers (both without warrant or probable cause). I have also been arrested without being read my rights, which apparantly isn’t illegal but should be - Kafkaesque horror! I am no lone exception to this violation.
Sixth Amendment*In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation…"*Speedy trial? I have friends rot in jail of more than 18 months before ever being given a trial.
**Tenth Amendment ***"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.*Perhaps the most abused Amendment of all. The U.S. Federal government is larger and more powerful than it ever has been. And it is growing.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Poly:
It makes sense to me as well. And it is probably the reason that we can’t own automatic weapons, bazookas, nukes, etc…
Of course, this is a slippery slope too. People are bracing themselves against the sides of the slide, as the gun control groups try to push them down (trying to limit more and more types of guns). I think in the end, we will probably end up at the bottom of the slide.
PeeQueue
Those who passionately believe in a ‘right’ will always see any attempt to govern that right as a limitation. This is true regardless of whether the right involved is free speech, free exercise of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to ‘due process’, the right to just compensation, the right to privacy, etc.
A lisence is inherently an attempt to control an action. Stop and think about it. No government ‘lisences’ an activity solely to obtain a database of information (and even if they did, the USSC has recognized that THAT would be a threat to exercise of a right; see e.g.: NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958)). A lisence is a way of restricting ability to do an action. A marriage lisence is required to keep those who we do not believe should be married from marrying (in this case, cases of prohibited consanguinity and cases of polygamy and polyandry, as well as people with syphilis in some states).
Thus, a gun lisence requirement is a way to keep some people from owning or using a gun.
To understand this, think of why you want a lisence to be required. If you think about this honestly, you realize you want it in order to keep certain people from having a gun. Violent criminals. Those who are insane. Etc.
Anytime we lisence an activity, we do so with the idea that the lisence is necessary, and that the restrictions imposed will be commensurate with the need. We lisence driving in the feeling that we need to be able to keep off the road those who shouldn’t drive, i.e. those who are incapable of driving safely. If the restriction is tailored to meet that need quite closely (pass a test before being lisenced), we rarely grumble. When the restriction gets less related to the need, we begin to think there is something unfair going on (e.g., refusing a lisence renewal to someone behind on child-support payments).
When government lisences an activity that is not a basic ‘freedom’, we have less trouble with the idea. Thus, no one gets terribly upset about lisencing professionals like attorneys or doctors, because there is no ‘right’ to be an attorney or doctor (parenthetically, Jacksonian Democrats thought there WAS a right to become what you wanted, and worked to abolish what they saw as unreasonable restrictions on this ‘right’, which is why law schools damn near died in this country for a while). Driving is not a ‘right’, it is a privilege which the state allows us to have (see way too many court cases too numerous to cite). As a result, we rarely complain about the initiation of the lisencing, and often accept some seemingly arbitrary provisions regarding such lisences.
When it comes to ‘fundamental’ rights, lisences start becoming more troublesome. I think all of us would have difficulty accepting a scheme whereby a state or the federal government ‘lisenced’ religion, requiring a ‘church’ to register as such and setting forth rules that have to be followed before such a lisence is issued. A ‘lisence’ to speak would be even more troubling (sorry, lisences on protests are not the same thing, though they get AWFULLY close and the USSC does watch them very carefully).
Which brings us to the Second Amendment.
Point 1) The amendment applies only to the federal government. The USSC has refused to ‘selectively incorporate’ the right to bear arms into the Fourteenth Amendment’s restriction on state actions that affect ‘due process’. Under our national constitution, states can restrict the hell out of gun ownership.
Point 2) Perhaps because it has been quite some time that we had to participate in armed insurrection, the majority of Americans tend to view this ‘right’ as not very important, compared to, say, freedom of speech (parenthetical comment: speech is ALWAYS a more deadly weapon than a gun). Those who view the ‘right to keep and bear arms’ as a very important part of freedom must feel like they are fighting a strong tide all the time.
Point 3) Just as the other amendments have had to deal with the passage of time and the introduction of new things, the Second Amendment has to be interpreted in light of the fact that ‘arms’ are no longer a choice of musket or blunderbuss. Part of what scares our society is the ease with which people can commit mayhem with weapons today.
Point 4) If we restrict who can own a gun, don’t we really ‘infringe’ on the ‘right to keep and bear arms’?
I don’t think I have ever done a spelling error post before, but this is driving me nuts: license. license. license. Sorry, DS. 