Simply that a legitimate process exists to modify the Constitution is not a legitimate argument for the violation of the Constitution in its present form. Until 38 states ratify your proposed amendment, (and I sure would be interested in hearing how you would word it), much of the wishlist of gun control proponents is, “Taken out of our hands”.
But it is a solid, well settled principle of US ConLaw (boringly re-re-re-affirmed by SCOUTS for going on 140 years) that the right to arms is not granted, given, created or otherwise established by the 2nd Amendment thus the right does not in any manner depend upon the Constitution for its existence.
How would modifying (or removing) words that the right in no manner depends upon, allow government to restrain the right to arms?
Pro-abortion rights / anti-2nd Amendment people fascinate me. Their arguments demonstrate they have zero comprehension of the foundational rationale for the Supreme Court’s recognition and protection of the right to privacy and its derivative rights.
It would be my argument that the left’s hostility for the right to arms and the 2nd Amendment can be used to draw the Court’s recognition and protection of the right to privacy (and thus abortion / contraception and even LGBT rights) into question. I’m not saying I question it, I embrace penumbral rights theory. I’m just noting that penumbral rights theory is based entirely upon the nature of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights – including the “right to keep and bear arms”.
As Justice O’Connor said in Planned Parenthood v Casey, quoting Harlan’s dissent:
[INDENT]"Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment protects. See U. S. Const., Amend. 9. As the second Justice Harlan recognized:
[INDENT]“[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This `liberty’ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment.” Poe v. Ullman, supra, at 543 (Harlan, J., dissenting from dismissal on jurisdictional grounds).
Justice Harlan wrote these words in addressing an issue the full Court did not reach in Poe v. Ullman, but the Court adopted his position four Terms later in Griswold v. Connecticut, supra. "[/INDENT][/INDENT]
When it comes to its hostility to the rights of the citizen, the ignorant left needs to be careful what it wishes for, it just might get it . . .
The 1990’s called, they want their mindset back.
The only possibility for any meaningful (as in effective) gun control to be enacted is for democrat legislators to stop letting their hostility for the NRA frame their thinking. Instead of trying to relieve a couple decades of legislative blue-balls with gotcha / take-that-you-Neanderthals measures, someday they might actually try writing proposals that will actually impact the criminal misuse of guns.
So which is it???
Is the argument that crime is so rare and the effectiveness of firearms as defensive measures so minuscule that gun ownership and carrying is to be scorned if not restricted . . .
Or is it that crime is so out of control that the availability of guns to the law abiding and the legal process for carrying them must be restricted or eliminated?
I lose track of the thought process . . .
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/active_records_in_the_nics-index.pdf (3.4KB pdf)
The database is a joke which makes the calls for “universal background checks” a joke too . . .
You seem to be confusing yourself by introducing a lot of random nonsense into your thought process. Maybe as a suggestion, when you get to a mental ellipses, stop. Kind of like when you’re cleaning your ear with a q-tip.
How much does it cost society to leave those criminals free in society? Your side often reminds gun rights people of the “cost of gun violence”; does your figurin’ account for the costs not realized?
That’s NOT what that study says . . .
Throughout the study it avoids stating the ownership status of the “gun in the home”; it discusses deaths in homes where, “firearms were present” (emphasis added). Actual ownership status of the gun is ignored in the study except for a short mention of, “limitations [that] should be considered when interpreting the findings from this study”. There it stipulates that, “the gun in the home may not have been the gun used in the death. This possibility seems less likely with suicide, but, with homicide, it is certainly plausible that someone brought a gun into the home.”
Just like the earlier Kellerman study, this study’s fatal flaw is not asking ‘whose gun is it?’
Given that caveat and others mentioned in the study’s limitations, it is clear that whatever enhanced risk that might exist simply from gun ownership, it is not shared by all gun owners. A much better conclusion than yours to be drawn from this study is that a White gun owner who has no suicidal ideation or symptoms of depression, who lives in a decent neighborhood and is not engaged in criminal activity would not suffer any of the negative effects from gun ownership this study touts.
The people most at risk are the ones anyone who pays attention to the crime and death statistics would expect to be at risk. IOW, somebody really gave a grant to study this???
For the obtuse: I’m not really confused.
My either/or was just an inquiry about the mental gymnastics the anti-gun team performs.
The above reply is a typical sarcastic, off-topic, non-answer to that inquiry.
What - like this kind of gymnastics?
Person A: “We need gun control because guns pose a unique threat.”
Person B: “Guns aren’t special; you can kill someone with a knife or a bat or a car just as well.”
Person A: “Then you don’t need a gun to defend yourself, because you can use something else.”
Person B: “No, I need a gun because guns are special.”
Great, but it still seems like if you weren’t really confused, your post wouldn’t have had that whole second paragraph, which was really nonsensical.
Additionally, you use a ton of question marks in your posts, which also gives an impression of a great deal of confusion.
That you are obtuse there is no argument; I don’t care at this point if it is purposeful (as in simply employing diversionary logical fallacy to avoid real debate) or representative of actual intellect (perhaps it’s time to admit you do not comprehend my satire of contradictory anti-gun positions).
You sure are a one trick pony aren’t you? I note that you ignore my other posts that were not rhetorical and intended to ridicule but convey actual debate points. You instead focus on this one throw-away post.
How typical.
You haven’t offered anything that hasn’t been spewed here dozens of times. “Oh, here’s some nonsensical talking points on Kellermann I was told to say on gun blogs!” Say something unique and maybe it’ll be interesting.
You haven’t offered anything that hasn’t been spewed here dozens of times. “Oh, here’s some nonsensical talking points on Kellermann I was told to say on anti-gun blogs!” Say something unique and maybe it’ll be interesting.
See, the thing is, as a scientist I know how to read and interpret an article all on my own. The stuff they tell you guys to say is just stupid.
I will admit that the pro-gun arguments are often plain and repetitive but that is simply a product of the simpleness of the concepts that make them correct.
I replied to someone who was saying that the right to arms could be restricted by rewriting (or rescinding) the 2nd Amendment using Article V.
The simple fact that the right to arms is a pre-existing right, not granted, given, created or established by the 2nd means that this gun control supporter’s proposal fails before it takes its first step. That truth also negates and destroys any anti-gunner’s argument that the right is conditioned, qualified or restricted by the words of the 2nd Amendment (e.g., “well regulated”) or that the right is conditioned or qualified upon one’s attachment / membership in the organized [state] militia. There is no need to delve into deep textual analysis or dissect obsolete definitions in old dictionaries; the simple nature of the right extinguishes wide swaths of anti-gun argument and destroys their positions . . . No effective counter argument exists.
You, as “a scientist” probably are not interested in discussing these foundational principles and how they direct the legal effect of frustrating what you want to do. You, as “a scientist” would prefer to dwell in the intellectual products of modern man where adeptness at operating various informational meat grinders and academic sausage stuffers is rewarded with accolades. Your desire to read something new and your eagerness to ridicule the foundational means only that you will suffer permanent blindness as far as this topic goes.
But did Kellerman (or the study discussed in this thread) ask “whose gun is it?” Just like Kellerman, all that was of interest was if there was a gun (any gun, even if it wasn’t the “death gun”) in the home at the time of the [gunshot] death?"
I replied because the poster said --“One thing to consider: Gun owners have roughly twice the risk of dying from gunshot as the rest of us”-- hyperlinking to the Journal of Epidemiology study. I read the study and it did not support that statement because ownership of the gun was not a point of interest and that since ownership status of the gun was usually unknown, it was listed among the “limitations” upon drawing conclusions from the study.
The posters statement was a wild overreading at best or a downright attempt to deceive at worst. One would think, as “a scientist” you would be congratulating me for correcting such a gross misuse of empirical study . . .
I am a scientist. No need for quotation marks around it. The rest of this is just a perfect example of how the science illiterate respond when the scientific evidence goes against them.
The short description you quoted is perfectly apt, unless your quibble is about whether the fact that a gun was kept in the household equates to the “ownership” by the household resident who was shot. This complaint, if it is what you’re on about, is fatuous. You get no props from me for fatuousness.
But that is hardly an argument against requiring houses in cold-temperature areas to be built with proper insulation, or against licensing and testing cars and drivers.
Yes, but the quote that we use to prove that Feinstein wants to ban all guns is being used out of context. I have no doubt that if Feinstein was Stalin for a day but I’m going to stop referring to that particular clip.
It’s not being used out of context - it’s clear she wants to ban assault weapons which is the context. But really, it’s telling in that anyone who disputes that Feinstein et al. wants to ban guns - some or all - cannot be taken seriously either due to fundamental ignorance or willful obfuscation.
This is a listthat was compiled some years ago by Volokh, pre-Heller, of a few examples of people promoting bans.