# Hypocrites regarding guns abortion **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 25, 2022, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547 "2022-07-25T19:47:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/21 "2022-07-27T19:49:17Z")
That’s a pretty common knee jerk response from your ilk, and it’s as stupid as it ever has been. We _do_ pass regulations to reduce the harm done by cars, a necessary item in order to function at all in our world. You can get to work without a gun, you can’t get to work without a car. Yet we regulate cars, between the manufacturers making them safer for both the people inside and out, the government restricting when and where they can be operated, and the police monitoring to ensure that people are using them responsibly, and citing them when they do not. And finally they are insured, so that if harm does come from their use, at least some amount can be done to try to make the victims whole. And we acknowledge that there is room to go, and work to make them even safer still. This is while gun advocate fight to _remove_ what little regulations there _are_ around guns. If guns had half the regulations that cars do, you gun lovers would be up in arms. Your tuo quoquo was even more pathetic than your initial rejoinder. Keep digging, you’ll get that internet prize soon. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/22 "2022-07-27T19:51:14Z")
But this thread isn’t about the law its about the attitudes of individuals. It is perfectly constitutional for an individual to be consistent in their beliefs, either by choosing to support abortion rights or choosing to support constitutionally sound gun regulation. The Republican party as a whole has chosen to be inconsistent, hence this thread. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/23 "2022-07-27T19:53:07Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > The right to guns is specifically written into the Constitution. No, the right to prevent the federal government from interfering with state militias was written into the Constitution. A personal right to firearms and even a right to self defense are manufactured rights. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > please point out specifically to where the Constitution specifically gives a woman a right to an abortion. Can you cite where the constitution gives you a right to self defense? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/24 "2022-07-27T19:54:59Z")
And I’m saying not necessarily. It is consistent to support rights that are protected by the Constitution of which gun ownership is and abortion is not. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/25 "2022-07-27T19:57:07Z")
Where in the consitution does it say that abortion should be illegal. Or is you position that one should support all things written into the constitution and oppose all things not written into the constitution. The latter is a pretty darn big list. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/26 "2022-07-27T19:57:21Z")
Both of which are according to one interpretation of the constitution or another. Until a couple weeks ago, abortion _was_ protected by the Constitution, and the right who supported gun rights didn’t support it. Were they being inconsistent _then_? Until very recently, a right to personal ownership of firearms was not discovered to be in the constitution. A different SCOTUS makeup could send your “constitutional right” to personal ownership of firearms straight down the bin along with the right to bodily autonomy that this court has abandoned. If that happened, would you stop supporting gun rights, as they are no longer protected by the Constitution? If you only support rights that are Constitutional and support _all_ rights that are Constitutional, then that’s at least consistent, but I very seriously doubt that’s the case. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/27 "2022-07-27T20:05:49Z")
I am curious as to the opinion of the pro-gun, anti-choice people. Since there is no right to privacy or bodily autonomy in the Constitution, a state is free to make any laws they want about your reproduction. They can force you to get an abortion, or they could sterilize you. You _might_ win a court case preventing them from impregnating you, but that’s a bit iffy So, when the state comes to your house to abort your or your spouse’s or your daughter’s child, will you use your guns to try to stop them? How about if they show up at your neighbor’s, will you protect _them_? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/28 "2022-07-27T20:31:50Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > No, the right to prevent the federal government from interfering with state militias was written into the Constitution. Except that the states are forbidden to have their own professional state armies- the “troops” in Article One Section Ten Clause Three. In the context of A1S10, which details the sovereign powers that the states agreed to cede to the federal government, the purpose is clear: There is to be one national army and one national navy, and the federal government alone is to determine whether or not the USA is conducting a war against a foreign power. That being so, then what is the militia and what armed authority is left to the states? Well famously George Mason is quoted as saying: > I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials. And the authority left to the states is the authority to summon the citizenry to arms. And just how exactly does this differ from simply drafting citizens into a state army? Well one major difference is that the militia consists of citizens who answer a summons to arms _with their own guns_; like an Old West posse. The Second Amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to forestall any claim that the dual authority the Federal government holds over the militia with the state governments (Article One Section Eight clauses 15 & 16) could be leveraged to authorize disarming the public. Now pre-_McDonald_ it could be argued that the states have the authority to regulate the militia even to the degree of disarming the public- which is why the previous _Heller_ ruling had focused on the District of Columbia, a non-state area. In just about every other way we’d come to the conclusion that the Bill of Rights protects fundamental liberties not just by encroachment from the federal government; and _McDonald_ simply made that principle consistant. But one thing the Second Amendment is not protecting is a “state army”. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/29 "2022-07-27T20:57:59Z")
Of course now that states have state and municipal police forces, and a national guard to call on, not to mention military bases that can respond within hours if not mintues, its a bit archaic to say that in order for a state to defend itself it will need to call up a group of armed citizens as its sole line of defense, much less that such a force would be rendered ineffective if handguns were restricted within city limits. They could just as easily have written, “Beasts of burden being necessary for the plowing of fields, the ownership of horses shall not be restricted.” And then taking from that the implied right to keep a horse in your apartment in 2022. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/30 "2022-07-27T21:03:38Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Where in the consitution does it say that abortion should be illegal. Nowhere. Good thing I never claimed that. I said it was not an enumerated right unlike the 2nd Amendment. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Or is you position that one should support all things written into the constitution and oppose all things not written into the constitution. The latter is a pretty darn big list. Never said that either OR held that that was my position. I merely said that if one supported an enumerated right but not an unenumerated right (presuming that it depends on a bad SCOTUS decision) that it is not hypocrisy. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Both of which are according to one interpretation of the constitution or another. Until a couple weeks ago, abortion _was_ protected by the Constitution, and the right who supported gun rights didn’t support it. Were they being inconsistent _then_? That is a gray area > [@Robert Jackson](#): > > We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final. Was “separate but equal” protected by the Constitution? If so then how can you explain _Brown_? Or any of the other [overruled cases](https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-short-list-of-overturned-supreme-court-landmark-decisions#:~:text=The%20Library%20of%20Congress%20tracks,since%201810%2C%20says%20the%20library.)? How do you reconcile something being constitutional yesterday but unconstitutional today? > [@k9bfriender](#): > > or they could sterilize you. Yes they can. _Buck v Bell_. And contrary to what many think, _Skinner v Oklahoma_ did not make compulsory sterilization illegal. It just restricted it. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/31 "2022-07-27T21:05:32Z")
Freedom of assembly doesn’t mean that police can’t order an unruly crowd to disperse, or that municipalities can’t require parade permits for marches. But on the other hand we’d be pretty uncomfortable with a crowd control ordinance that pre-defined all unauthorized public gatherings as riots, and required the city government’s prior approval, which could be denied at will. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/32 "2022-07-27T21:10:22Z")
And how does this relate to my post? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/33 "2022-07-27T21:14:07Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Abortion rights were manufactured by interpreting the preumbras of the 9th Amendment This is disingenuous bullshit. The 9th amendment is nothing but penumbra. The entire purpose is to remind chumps like you that “specifically written into the Constitution” isn’t supposed to be used as a cudgel to deny people their rights. It’s a big sign that says: **WE HAVE RIGHTS THAT AREN’T WRITTEN IN THE CONSTITUTION, AND THEY’RE JUST AS VALID AS THE ONES WE LISTED** Nobody “interpreted” the 9th amendment to mean something it wasn’t meant to mean. It was the 9th amendment doing exactly what it was supposed to do, exactly what the founders wanted it to do, to protect someone’s rights from people like you. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/34 "2022-07-27T21:16:43Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Yes they can. _Buck v Bell_. And contrary to what many think, _Skinner v Oklahoma_ did not make compulsory sterilization illegal. It just restricted it. Just in the same way that Roe v. Wade didn’t make compulsory birth illegal it just restricted it. Now that Roe v. Wade is off the books along with any other reproductive right, why couldn’t California decide to take up China’s one child policy in order to protect the environment? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/35 "2022-07-27T21:18:53Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > And how does this relate to my post? You brought up the hypothetical of a constitutional right being upheld to ridiculous extremes. I countered with an example of a reasonable restriction on a right taken to unconstitutional extremes. Where one draws the line is controversial enough that that’s why we have judges and rulings. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/36 "2022-07-27T21:20:19Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > “You claim to care about kids being shot up at Uvalde, yet you don’t care about babies being killed in the womb?” > > Don’t get me wrong, I am pro-gun control and pro-choice myself (the critical thing is, I don’t believe an embryo is a “baby” from day 1 of pregnancy). But I don’t see a rhetorical win here. yeah, rhetorically this is an absolute dead end. I wish people would stop thinking this is some kind of “own”. Just an absolute waste of oxygen. Each side has their own internally consistent reality that appears hypocritical from the outside. Especially given that “pro-life” was never in good faith offered as a blanket defense of life, just as a tarted-up euphemism for anti-abortion. If you really want to mine for hypocrisy, go after the people who claim that this is all about the babies. It’s utter hypocrisy to insist that a baby is a sacred and holy thing until the moment it’s born, and then say “well it’s the mother’s fault if it starves from being in poverty.” ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/37 "2022-07-27T21:22:10Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Except that the states are forbidden to have their own professional state armies- the “troops” in Article One Section Ten Clause Three. Yes, and the militia is _not_ a professional army, so I’m not sure what the word “except” is doing in your post, as though it contradicts anything I said. > [@Lumpy](#): > > There is to be one national army and one national navy, and the federal government alone is to determine whether or not the USA is conducting a war against a foreign power. Yes, that is about fighting foreign powers, not relevant here. > [@Lumpy](#): > > That being so, then what is the militia and what armed authority is left to the states? The militias were needed to put down slave revolts and Native American uprisings. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Now pre-_McDonald_ it could be argued that the states have the authority to regulate the militia even to the degree of disarming the public- which is why the previous _Heller_ ruling had focused on the District of Columbia, a non-state area. Right, so pre-McDonald, decided in 2010, you didn’t have a constitutional right to a gun. > [@Lumpy](#): > > But one thing the Second Amendment is not protecting is a “state army”. No one said it ever was, why would you think such a thing? Are you somehow not able to tell the difference between an army and a militia? So, since there are claims of consistency being rumored around here, may I ask _you_ if you were supportive of the right to an abortion while it was a Constitutionally protected right? Can you please point out specifically to where the Constitution specifically gives a person a right to self defense? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/38 "2022-07-27T21:28:21Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Was “separate but equal” protected by the Constitution? If so then how can you explain _Brown_? Or any of the other [overruled cases](https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-short-list-of-overturned-supreme-court-landmark-decisions#:~:text=The%20Library%20of%20Congress%20tracks,since%201810%2C%20says%20the%20library.)? How do you reconcile something being constitutional yesterday but unconstitutional today? I’m not the one who needs to reconcile it, as I’m not the one that claimed to support a right _because_ it was constitutional, and not support another right because it was not. Unless you supported the right to an abortion up until the Dobbs ruling was announces, then it is _you_ that need to come up with a way to reconcile that with your claim. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Yes they can. _Buck v Bell_. And contrary to what many think, _Skinner v Oklahoma_ did not make compulsory sterilization illegal. It just restricted it. Right, however, if a state did make a law compelling sterilization or mandatory abortion, up until a bit ago, you could have pointed to the precedent of Roe v Wade as giving you reproductive freedom. Now that there is no right to privacy or reproductive freedom to be found in the Constitution, how will you stop the state from chopping off your balls? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/39 "2022-07-27T21:29:23Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > This is disingenuous bullshit. The 9th amendment is nothing but penumbra. Exactly > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > The entire purpose is to remind chumps like you that “specifically written into the Constitution” isn’t supposed to be used as a cudgel to deny people their rights WTF!!! All I said was people can hold that view and not be hypocrites so listen up **chump** rather than mouthing off with your fingers in your ear like a little baby before you come after me. I’m the one who said in another thread that the issue with _Roe v Wade_ was how convoluted it was involving Right to Privacy. The better solution would be (oh and I’m pro-choice and have stated so many times on this site) would be to simply state that reproductive rights are an unenumerated right (Oh look at that chump. I support the 9th Amendment.) That covers Griswold, Eisenstadt, Roe, etc. and there would be no argument about privacy re: reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547/40 "2022-07-27T21:30:48Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Unless you supported the right to an abortion up until the Dobbs ruling was announces I did and ample evidence exists on this site. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypocrites-regarding-guns-abortion/968547.md?page=3)