The left always pretends to be about “Power to the People!”, but then, a major plank in their platform is to deny power to people.
We do have a constitutional right to keep and own knives, as they are “arms” for the purposes of the second. It’s just that plenty of stupid anti-knife laws go unchallenged because guns are a far more important and powerful way to defend oneself.
How is it paranoid? Many politicians and voters advocate for wholesale bans and door-to-door confiscation. It’s not paranoia to take people at their word.
What I find interesting is that people on this board often scoff at anyone who considers Democrats like Hillary Clinton to be in favor of confiscation, as though the idea that anyone would want to ban ordinary people from having guns for self-defense is insane. Yet at the same time will answer that, of course, the second amendment should be repealed, even though the only reason for such a repeal is to enable comprehensive gun bans. Which is true, exactly?
You are claiming that the ONLY REASON is to enable comprehensive gun bans. That is not what I am claiming. You are engaging in a logical fallacy of the excluded middle.
I don’t think it should be repealed, partly due to practical considerations but also because I think some people are legitimately in high risk categories that could use a handgun for personal protection.
That said, I think mandatory licensing and registration of handguns and certain long guns would have a measurable impact on violent crime, e.g. gang violence. I think that’s a reasonable burden to put on lawful gun owners, although I understand why they’d rather not go through the hassle. I don’t think that similar restrictions on shotguns and many rifles would have any measurable impact on violent crime, since they’re so rarely involved. I think that efforts to re-enact an assault weapons ban are largely misguided.
I can go on but that should probably answer the question.
Really? I must have missed the news that day.
Anyway, how about “repeal and replace” like we going to do with the ACA? Get rid of the current second amendment, but write a new one that prohibits confiscation of certain types of guns for personal defense and sport.
What laws does the second amendment actually prevent except for comprehensive bans on regular citizens owning and using guns? That’s really all that the Supreme Court has ever ruled it to prevent, so wanting to get rid of it for another purpose doesn’t really make any sense. If someone were to advocate revoking the third amendment and talked about bad it is that we have it, I would believe that they have some intention of quartering troops in people’s houses in peacetime, since the amendment doesn’t prevent doing anything else.
And if you’re going to accuse me of excluding the middle, tell me what the middle is that I’m excluding. What is it that you’d like to do but the second amendment interferes with it, so repealing it would enable you to do?
Every political group wants to deny some power to the people. We don’t let people have access to radioactive materials or plastic explosives.
A lot of us think guns should be restricted – maybe not banned wholly, but restricted – for safety reasons.
(The right wing is trying to deny abortion rights to the people. Is that hypocrisy, or a separate issue and not comparable? It doesn’t matter: the point is that outside a handful of drooling anarchists, we all want to deny certain specific rights to the people.)
Ultra liberal here, it should not be repealed, it should be enforced as conceived and written.
It is supposed to be a “well regulated militia” not an assault rifle for any loony who wants to shoot stuff.
I’m strongly in favor of gun control and restrictions, but I don’t support a blanket rescinding of he right to bear arms. I do think it’s incredibly stupid that we’ve used the ambiguous wording of the 2nd amendment to prevent any type of reasonable restrictions on firearms. I would support amending the amendment (via a new amendment) that would provide clearer language. Right now “shall not be infringed” is taken as holy writ, while “well-regulated militia” is conveniently skipped past.
You say “paranoid fantasy,” I say to-mah-to.
Look, this is far from the only issue on which reasonable people refuse to make reasonable compromises for fear of a slippery slope. Both conservatives and liberals do this all the time.
Example: I KNOW many gun owners who would say (quietly, behind closed doors, with no one else listening), “Look, I’d be okay with this or that restriction, but you KNOW if we give an inch, the fanatics will just get bolder, and push for confiscation next.”
Similarly, I KNOW many liberals would say (quietly, behind closed doors), “Look, personally, I’d be fine with this-or-that restriction on abortion, but you KNOW if we give an inch, the fanatics on the other side would just get bolder and keep pushing for a ban!”
The fear of slippery slopes, of what might happen if we give even an inch oin a minor side-issue, is legitimate. It’s NOT just a fantasy.
Huzzah! Flintlocks all around!
(As a Texan, I know plenty of people who hunt. And one who just collects fine shotguns–he gave up hunting years ago.
But the fools who think they need to arm against the US Government are deluded if they think that they won’t be outgunned. Or outdroned.)
33 say Yes,
and
77 say No.
Once again, there are simply not enough votes to pass this liberal/progressive agenda.
If we are going to repeal the second amendment then why not repeal them all?
You may have a point on this whole “both sides use the slippery slope” argument, but I don’t think abortion is the best example. I’ve not heard the slippery slope argument used here, because every little law that the pro-life crowd manages to slip under the courts’ nose, from mandated ultrasounds to requiring abortion clinics to be equipped like hospitals, has the potential to be one hurdle too many between a desperate pregnant woman and safe access to a potentially life-altering (for the better) procedure. Which is to say, I don’t think magazine size restrictions drastically affect anyone’s life, which is why the slippery slope argument ultimately comes into play (what’s the big deal, right? Well I’ll tell you why, because it’s step 1 towards…). But a single abortion clinic shutting down could mean some women carrying unwanted pregancies to term, with all of the trouble that goes along with that. Or worse, seeking unsafe alternatives.
Now, you could argue that guns save lives, and each restriction on gun rights might be one hurdle too many for someone in desperate need of self defense. But, come on. There are charities that exist to, amongst other things, pay for women to have access to abortions, because (mostly liberals) feel that safe family planning is vitally important. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I just searched and there’s no charities that give guns to people, except for one guy who made the news in 2013 with the Armed Citizen Project, but whose website, 3.5 years later, just says, “coming soon.” So I think it’s fair to say that these issues are quite different.
I don’t have any doubt a significant % of ‘liberals or progressives’ would say repeal it. But saying you want to repeal something where there’s no way, no how it’s going to happen is different than a real issue. Or alternatively it might be interesting to see who thinks there’s any chance of it. And I guess some people’s whole worldview (both sides) is that it doesn’t matter if their opinions are and always will be minority ones and never enacted. Some people like it that way, a personality type that exists on left and right both IME.
It takes 2/3’s of each House of Congress and 3/4’s of state legislatures. OK on Congress, you just have to go from slim minority of Democrats to 2/3’s majority, subtracting the ones who could never win re-election supporting a repeal. That pales in comparison to how unrealistic it is at state level. One state short of 3/4’s has a GOP majority in at least one house of its legislature, 32 states in both. You have to go all the way over to 3/4’s w/ no GOP majority in either house, solidify the Democrats behind repeal, or is the GOP going to become pro-repeal? It’s among the more never gonna happen proposals commonly discussed.
As I stated in my first response, the 2nd acts a rock-in-the-road preventing any further discussion.
A middle could include discussions of who could and could not possess a gun, and under what circumstances.
A middle could include discussions of research to make guns safer so they do not unintentionally cause harm.
A middle could include discussing of true comparative research into impacts of gun ownership on society at a micro and macro level.
However, because the 2nd exists, it is used as a weapon, as a wall, as a hurdle, as a harbor to retreat to, to prevent any movement forward on discussions of those, and many more, areas. Because TRUE BELIEVERS subscribe to the canard that any discussion automatically in all cases ever = confiscating all guns from everyone. That is why I advocate repealing, because of the continued existence of the 2nd we are unable to move in any direction.
I wish there had been an “amend/clarify” option in the poll. The amendment as written is unclear (IMHO - I know some disagree on both sides of the issues around gun control).
My impression is that relatively few people take the maximalist position on arms rights (private nukes!!!), and relatively few take the minimalist one (no weapons except for agents of the state!!!)- though there are probably more in the second group than the first. As it stands, interpretations of the 2nd Amendment seem to largely be based on justified reasoning: “I’m a 90% maximalist/minimalist, and interpret the Secind as supporting my position.” (One commenter above is an exception, apparently!)
We repealed the 18th; why not repeal them all?