# Justice Stevens Says Gun Ownership a Threat to Our Constitutional Structure **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925 "2010-06-29T14:15:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/1 "2010-06-29T14:15:00Z")
As quoted in [CTV](http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100628/gun-control-100628/) > [@](#): > > Among the justices dissenting was John Paul Stevens, on his final day on the court after more than 34 years. Comparing Monday’s ruling to the Washington case, he said it “could prove far more destructive – quite literally – to our nation’s communities and to our constitutional structure.” When I read that, I instantly thought back to Isaac Asimov’s _I, Robot._ The problems each robot faced hinged on some form of logic trap: go toward point A, stay away from point B. If point B was too close to point A the robot would be trapped, going in a path an equal distance from both. When applied to the US Constitution, I see the same sort of logic trap forming. The freedom to own a gun is thwarting freedom in general, said another way: “You feel more free because you can own a gun.” “I feel less free because you can own a gun.” The recent [McDonald v. Chicago Discussion Thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=568683) to me says that gun rights trump _common sense_\*. A city is powerless to control gun violence, because it is powerless to control guns. And without that power it descends into lawlessness. In the end, the right to own guns will destroy communities, and undermine the rest of the Constitution. The second amendment is a threat to the constitution. \*A term used loosely to complete a phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/2 "2010-06-29T14:20:03Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > In the end, the right to own guns will destroy communities, and undermine the rest of the Constitution. The second amendment is a threat to the constitution. I suppose we then are obligated to destroy the Constitution (by pretending part of it does not exist) in order to save the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/3 "2010-06-29T14:22:33Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > A city is powerless to control gun violence, because it is powerless to control guns. And without that power it descends into lawlessness. Strawman: Both McDonald and its predecessor, Heller, contemplate reasonable restrictions on guns, and only forbid bans or overly onerous regulations. Hypothesis contrary to fact: A number of cities and states now have very little gun control, and we have not seen anything like the descent into lawlessness that this statement contemplates. Couldn’t you have thrown in an ad hominem or a dicto simpliciter, just to complete the trifecta? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/4 "2010-06-29T14:30:08Z")
Really? I have seen a couple of outtaken, snipped quotations, (similar to yours and the link you provided), that, seem to indicate that the Chicago decision or some portion of the Chicago decision was going to be a Constitutional threat. Nothing I have found, so far, has indicated that he claimed the “gun ownership” was a threat to anything. Why don’t we dig up the actual statement in context before we start having a brawl over a statement that he might not even have made? This is not to say that there can be no objection to whatever it was he did say, but let’s argue the facts, not the out-of-context abbreviated quotes. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/5 "2010-06-29T14:31:33Z")
I, for one, am glad that the SC decided to remove the rights of the states and local communities to regulate guns. Local government is just an anachronism in this day and age ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/6 "2010-06-29T14:36:55Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Really? > > I have seen a couple of outtaken, snipped quotations, (similar to yours and the link you provided), that, seem to indicate that the Chicago decision or some portion of the Chicago decision was going to be a Constitutional threat. Nothing I have found, so far, has indicated that he claimed the “gun ownership” was a threat to anything. > > Why don’t we dig up the actual statement in context before we start having a brawl over a statement that he might not even have made? > > This is not to say that there can be no objection to whatever it was he did say, but let’s argue the facts, not the out-of-context abbreviated quotes. The debate isn’t whether or not he said it, or whether or not he meant it. I find the comment, _as reported_, interesting. As **Ravenman** highlighted, we have this strange circular logic. Guns can be a threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But they are also constitutionally protected. The constitutional right to gun ownership could undermine the rest of the constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/7 "2010-06-29T14:47:40Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > The recent [McDonald v. Chicago Discussion Thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=568683) to me says that gun rights trump _common sense_\*. A city is powerless to control gun violence, because it is powerless to control guns. And without that power it descends into lawlessness. This is an absolutely preposterous assertion. Chicago has forbidden handgun ownership for 30 years. Even now, after the decision, handguns are still illegal in Chicago until the lower court throws out their law. Where’s the crime control? > [@](#): > > In the end, the right to own guns will destroy communities, and undermine the rest of the Constitution. The second amendment is a threat to the constitution. Nonsense. Very few states have what one might term “onerous restrictions”, and in fact most of them have loosened up their restrictions (especially with regard to concealed carry) over the last 25 years, and none of the doomsday scenarios that gun-control groups asserted were sure to happen came to pass. No blood on the streets, no increase in shootings by permit holders, just a whole lot of nothing. And this is a threat to the Constitution, which incidentally has that very right enshrined within it? Please spare us the melodrama. Stevens made the same assertions that the Brady Campaign has made for the last 30 years, and he will be just as wrong as they were (and still are). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/8 "2010-06-29T14:48:32Z")
[Here is the text from which Stevens’s statement is excerpted](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf): (Pages 178 - 179 in the .pdf) > [@](#): > > Cite > as: 561 U. S. \_\_\_\_ (2010) pp 56 - 57 > STEVENS, J., dissenting > > The fact that the right to keep and bear arms appears in the Constitution should not obscure the novelty of the Court’s decision to enforce that right against the States. By its terms, the Second Amendment does not apply to the States; read properly, it does not even apply to individuals outside of the militia context. The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the States from federal encroachment. And the Fourteenth Amendment has never been understood by the Court to have “incorporated” the entire Bill of Rights. There was nothing foreordained about today’s outcome. > Although the Court’s decision in this case might be seen as a mere adjunct to its decision in Heller, the consequences could prove far more destructive—quite literally—to our Nation’s communities and to our constitutional > structure. Thankfully, the Second Amendment right identified in Heller and its newly minted Fourteenth Amendment analogue are limited, at least for now, to the home. But neither the “assurances” provided by the plurality, > ante, at 40, nor the many historical sources cited in its opinion should obscure the reality that today’s ruling marks a dramatic change in our law—or that the Justices who have joined it have brought to bear an awesome amount of discretion in resolving the legal question presented > by this case. The point he is making is that the Washington decision (_Heller_) included the factor that the District of Columbia has special status under Federal law that permitted a direct ruling on its laws based on the Constitution. In the Chicago case, however, it is the opinion of Stevens that there is an intermediary level of government–that of the states–that should provide a barrier to the way that the Federal Government can enforce (or prohibit) specific laws within those states or the communities of which they are composed. His argument may or may not be utterly hogwash, but it does not address the actual right to bear arms or the aspect of gun ownership in any way. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/9 "2010-06-29T14:53:10Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > The debate isn’t whether or not he said it, or whether or not he meant it. > > I find the comment, _as reported_, interesting. As **Ravenman** highlighted, we have this strange circular logic. Guns can be a threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But they are also constitutionally protected. > > The constitutional right to gun ownership could undermine the rest of the constitution. As I have already taken the time to point out, you are misquoting Stevens, utterly. If you would like to have initiated our 3,784th gun control feud, I think it would have been better to start out with a better premise. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/10 "2010-06-29T14:58:02Z")
> [@](#): > > In the end, the right to own guns will destroy communities, and undermine the rest of the Constitution. It WILL destroy communities and undermine the rest of the Constitution?? :dubious: > [@](#): > > The second amendment is a threat to the constitution. Naw, it’s quite obvious that the First is the real threat. -XT ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/11 "2010-06-29T15:02:48Z")
So is this what we should characterize as “[conservative debate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12622517&postcount=11)?” I think the concept is interesting–that one aspect of the constitution has become a threat to our constitutional structure. I’m also unclear why he brought up the 14th amendment. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/12 "2010-06-29T15:06:39Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > So is this what we should characterize as “[conservative debate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12622517&postcount=11)?” Should I not have answered your comments directly? > [@](#): > > I think the concept is interesting–that one aspect of the constitution has become a threat to our constitutional structure. There is no evidence that it has. > [@](#): > > I’m also unclear why he brought up the 14th amendment. _McDonald_ was actually a 14th Amendment case. the 14th amendment is the mechanism that the Supreme Court uses to incorporate the Bill of Rights. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/13 "2010-06-29T15:08:33Z")
[QUOTE=emacknight] So is this what we should characterize as “conservative debate?” [/QUOTE] Well, no. Unless you are trying to be intentionally ironic, I’d say that if you can get gonzomax to post to your thread plus dis libertarian types (maybe you could call them a threat to the Constitution as well?), you will have hit most of the high points on Sam’s list. > [@](#): > > I think the concept is interesting–that one aspect of the constitution has become a threat to our constitutional structure. And you figure that by asserting this you make it true? -XT ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/14 "2010-06-29T15:19:20Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > So is this what we should characterize as “[conservative debate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12622517&postcount=11)?” > > I think the concept is interesting–that one aspect of the constitution has become a threat to our constitutional structure. > > I’m also unclear why he brought up the 14th amendment. Well, when you start out with a false premise, it tends to skew the way that the argument will go. Stevens never said that gun ownership was a threat to the Constitution. Stevens never said that the Second Amendment was a threat to the Constitution. Stevens holds that a particular reading of the Constitution that employs the Fourteenth Amendment as a way to enforce separate laws on states that are outside his view of the relationship between states and the Federal government is a threat to Constitutional structure. The Fourteenth Amendment was employed by the majority as part of their reasoning in the decision. Since he disagreed with their logic, he pretty much has to bring up the Fourteenth Amendment to dissent. His argument is specifically about the Fourteenth Amendment and not about the Second. It is not about guns. It is not about the Second Amendment, except as already interpreted on an individual level. If you cannot get that part right, then you are not going to get the debate you wanted to have. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/15 "2010-06-29T15:23:58Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > A city is powerless to control gun violence, because it is powerless to control guns. And without that power it descends into lawlessness. > > In the end, the right to own guns will destroy communities, and undermine the rest of the Constitution. The second amendment is a threat to the constitution. It’s such an insidious threat that it’s taken 230 years of mostly-unregulated guns to rear its ugly head! How devious! (This is a subspecies of the deadly flaw afflicting most liberal arguments that “X will destroy civilization!” when X is what co-existed with American civilization quite happily until about 1968). I’m not even going to get into the John Lott arguments because the anti-gunners have proven absolutely impervious to facts on the more guns/less crime debate. What I will say is – posit this fictitious “lawlessness.” Why is it impossible to imagine a society in which gangbangers are running wild, every traffic dispute ends in gunplay – and people enjoy very broad rights of free speech, and are protected from self-incrimination, and guaranteed a jury trial? In short, how is “the constitution” itself (the parts other than that oh-so-inconvenient Second Amendment) threatened by some dystopian scenario in which the Second Amendment leads to criminal chaos? Don’t hurt your brain on the thought experiment. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/16 "2010-06-29T15:32:59Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > (This is a subspecies of the deadly flaw afflicting most liberal arguments that “X will destroy civilization!” when X is what co-existed with American civilization quite happily until about 1968). Well, in fairness, that sort of argument is very popular among the Right as well as the Left. It seems to be a human problem rather than one of ideology. (The Left is not impervious to Lott’s arguments; they simply recognize the ways in which his numbers and arguments are flawed. I am not anti-gun, but I would never use Lott to defend any postion I held. Lott has done an excellent job of proving that claims of impending doom for various gun possession situations are silly; he has done little to prove that more guns actually make the world safer. (And he makes Mary Rosh’s ass look fat.)) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/17 "2010-06-29T15:33:29Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > It’s such an insidious threat that it’s taken 230 years of mostly-unregulated guns to rear its ugly head! How devious! (This is a subspecies of the deadly flaw afflicting most liberal arguments that “X will destroy civilization!” when X is what co-existed with American civilization quite happily until about 1968). While I agree with the sarcasm of the statement, I’d like some examples of those "liberal arguments that X will destroy civilization!’ " because the only such X of recent vintage whose appearance in liberal arguments I’m familiar with is global warming. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/18 "2010-06-29T15:38:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Well, in fairness, that sort of argument is very popular among the Right as well as the Left. It seems to be a human problem rather than one of ideology. > (The Left is not impervious to Lott’s arguments; they simply recognize the ways in which his numbers and arguments are flawed. I am not anti-gun, but I would never use Lott to defend any postion I held. Lott has done an excellent job of proving that claims of impending doom for various gun possession situations are silly; he has done little to prove that more guns actually make the world safer. (And he makes Mary Rosh’s ass look fat.)) I agree with you 100% on this, which is why I tend to avoid invoking Lott’s theories. However, humorously, Breyer used Kellermann as a citation in his opinion yesterday, so there is no such reticence from others about using studies with extraordinary flaws, not even from a Supreme Court Justice. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/19 "2010-06-29T15:46:44Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Well, when you start out with a false premise, it tends to skew the way that the argument will go. Exactly, when the premise is flawed, it stops being a liberal/conservative issue. Can we all agree on that? Even though we managed to have 100% agreement from the conservative members on this board, it doesn’t make it a conservative issue, it makes it a flawed premise. I could whine and cry about how conservatives are being mean, that this is liberal victimization, but it doesn’t change a flawed premise–right? I will gladly eat my crow and watch as this devolves into a mess. > [@Huerta88](#): > > ``` > It's such an insidious threat that it's taken 230 years of mostly-unregulated guns to rear its ugly head! How devious! (This is a subspecies of the deadly flaw afflicting most liberal arguments that "X will destroy civilization!" when X is what co-existed with American civilization quite happily until about 1968). > > ``` Well, to be fare, it took a few years before muskets evolved into armor piercing, high capacity, fully automatic, machine pistols–what some might call a deadly flaw. If gangs were driving around in low riders with single shot muskets fired sideways I wouldn’t worry so much about my families safety. But then again, I’m now defined as an “anti-gunner.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925/20 "2010-06-29T15:57:35Z")
Here’s how I read Stevens’ statement: The ruling by the majority (not gun ownership, per se) threatens the structure of the constitution because it incorporates a part of the constitution that clearly (in his view) was not meant to be incorporated (by the 14th amendment). So, the OP is a strawman. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-stevens-says-gun-ownership-a-threat-to-our-constitutional-structure/544925.md?page=2)