I look on it as a public health issue, and think the legal aspects are less important. I’ve posted here a lot about why people should voluntarily choose not to arm themselves for personal defense. While I don’t have a tremendous moral objection to the government taking guns away from owners, it is impractical and would generate more violent rage than it is worth. (I have, however, in past threads, supported making guns non-inheritable – something I know is a political non-starter.)
Since most US gun deaths are suicide, why should it be?
I’m interested in your use of the word “apparent” here. Since I didn’t say it, and didn’t imply it, how did it become apparent?
While gun ownership rate are strongly correlated with gun deaths, both internationally and state-by-state, there are many other factors, ranging from the population age structure, to advances in trauma surgery, to advances in mental health treatment, to culture. What hasn’t changed is that guns make gunowners, and those they love, less safe. Here’s a summary of the evidence:
I’ll have to let my British daughter know, via Skype, how subjugated she is.
You really need to step back and explain what your views are. Because you’re making a lot of sweeping statements and half of them seem to contradict the other half.
For example, how can rights be “a uniquely Constitution of the USA doctrine” when you’ve also said “fundamental rights exist without reference to the Constitution”?
Did you read the post you were responding to? If the people amended the constitution, eliminated the 2nd amendment, and enacted a new amendment that said all personal firearms were illegal, that would be consistent with the country’s constitutional principals. One of those principals is that the constitution can be changed. Doing so doesn’t mean the fall of the republic. Your assertion is ludicrous.
I’m specifically referring to your use of the term “illegitimate”. If SCOTUS or other courts places conditions on the 2nd amendment, in what way is that illegitimate and what is the consequence for such action? Declaring something illegitimate is wonderful rhetoric, but it carries no weight. What is the remedy for illegitimate action? What does illegitimate even mean to you in this context? As it stands it’s a worthless fluff statement.
[QUOTE=From Heller]
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose…
Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
[/quote]
(my bold)
Dangerous and unusual weapons do not fall under the protection of the 2nd amendment. Are you asserting that is not a condition on the 2nd amendment? Sure seems like it to me - ‘Shall not be infringed…unless it is both dangerous and unusual, then infringe away’.
On a side note, I really wish gun rights advocates would stick to winning arguments. I am a staunch gun rights advocate. We are winning both in the courts, in the legislature, and with the general public. We can continue this by arguing the merits and sticking to the facts. Extremist rhetoric unsupported by anything outside the echo chamber hurts the cause IMO.
I’ve never understood the confidence some have that possession of weapons can be restricted to an elite corp of enforcers who will never, ever abuse their power.
Those restrictions on gun possession and use by certain people, are not violations of the principle grounding the restrictive clause of the 2nd Amendment.
In an ordered society no right is absolute and upon a person violating the rules of society, society has enforced penalties (according to accepted practices of due process). Among the penalties is the disabling of rights for those who have demonstrated a lack of social responsibility. The term infringement, as used in the 2ndA assumes that the people being protected have no disablements – thus felon dispossession laws are not “infringing” on the felons right . . . the right is disabled for a person in his particular situation.
These legal disablements, again, after due process, (for gun possession and other rights) have been challenged and examined and sustained by hundreds of courts and a dozen seatings of the Supreme Court.
That these dispossessions of rights exist for criminals and the insane and those who are not full members of society, does not mean that the rights of non-criminals, the sane and full members of society are diminished or subject to diminishment just because some people think it a worthwhile policy goal, that would be an infringement.
Well then, the 1st Amendment must be lying right next to the 2ndA in your personal rights scrap-pile.
That there is funny.
The framers of the Constitution assumed that those people who would be governed by it would remain cognizant of the principles of of its establishment. Reading and understanding the doctrines the framers endorsed, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, Harrington, Machiavelli, Cato’s Letters, the English Whigs, Rousseau, Burgh, Montesquieu, Beccaria and many others. These writings Jefferson called, “the elementary books of public right.” which is why he mandated them being read at the University of Virgina.
Just as important as reading and understanding the works the framers endorsed is reading and understanding the doctrines of those the framers denigrated, discarded and dismissed as being instructional for founding our government. When I see my fellow Americans expressing positions on arms that are indistinguishable from those of Jean Bodin or Sir Robert Filmer I KNOW they are not arguing from a position that supports the Constitution LOL. When they aregue that the Constitution’s ambiguity allows them to take such “liberties” with the Constitution I just laugh. and hope that ddn’t pay much for their civics instruction.
Sigh . . .
What is the end game of your argument?
I have seen this tack taken before (I have enjoyed the gun rights debate on-line for over 22 years) and it always seems to be directed to the point that since criminals and the insane can be forbidden arms the “right” isn’t this pure thing that we need to revere, it has been polluted and stomped on which means that this so called right for ordinary non-criminal / non-insane citizens no longer deserves respect nor does it provide any serious impediment to enacting wide-ranging gun control laws.
That is a castle in the sky erected with bricks of ignorance and held together with mortar of wishful thinking.
Has an established democracy ever been overthrown by an elite corp of enforcers? A democracy that is mature enough to legislate against guns (by popular demand) is mature enough to handle it without concern of the government using it against the citizens.
But in this issue the two are meshed together and those who have bought into gun control from the public health side just become another gear in the anti-gun legal machine . . . Whether the people involved appreciate the legal aspects or not.
The research groups at these institutions are bought and paid for arms of the Joyce Foundation, paid to craft papers that move the gun control agenda forward. 20 years ago they used to fund criminology and statistical fellowships, now their focus is public health based, James Hopkins, Harvard, UCDavis, Univ of Penn have been doing the “research” but now the floodgates will be opened with the CDC now authorized to commission gun violence research.
These and many more incubators of public policy will be cashing in on the instant credibility a pair of scrubs bring to the discussion.
Just as long as logical persuasion does not become a law compelling people I support you sharing your opinion.
And while I disagree strongly with it, I’ll just let your opinion stand without comment for it is as valid as any rebuttal I could offer.
But all “gun deaths” are lumped together when the policy advocates are crafting measures . . . 30,000 “gun deaths” has more effect when emotions need to be tugged to garner support than 10,000 “gun homicides” when the demographics of the majority of gun homicide show gun control will never help.
I assumed that you were, it is a rare thing indeed when one reads a reference to “body count” as a statement that stipulates that actual murders with guns have drastically fallen . . . Sorry.
I agree, there are many factors that impact gun violence which is why blanket measures that impact people who are not part of the problem are so useless.
To actually impact the problem of gun violence you need a targeted approach BUT, targeting those who are the problem presents civil liberty / privacy conflicts with equal protection and due process thrown in for good measure. Which brings us back to doing the easy things like just say no to everybody which brings up larger constitutional issues.
And there is one of those policy pushing Joyce Foundation bought and paid for pieces.
The US Constitution establishes the rules for US government action and according to that contract the government is bound to consider the original fundamental rights of the people as having an origin separate from the Constitution.
The powers that government possesses first resided in the people and government only has those limited powers the people conferred to it.
The powers not conferred to government are retained by the people and are then more commonly deemed to be our “rights”. There are a myriad of rights retained by the people, only a few are listed in the Bill of Rights and those are considered, “exceptions of powers not granted”.
The Federalists argued against adding a bill of rights because of these truths; they believed it to be unnecessary and dangerous to try to list rights under our Constitution. They acquiesced but the 9th and 10th Amendment’s are testaments to the correctness of their arguments.
[INDENT][INDENT]Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
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.[/INDENT][/INDENT]
The government established by the US Constitution is confined by that document. It can only act when allowed, it can only do what is expressed. That strict enumeration of powers is what first protects rights; if Congress could restrain its lawmaking to just what the Constitution allows, our rights would be safe.
So, the US government is forced to treat rights in certain ways, governments of other nations, not controlled by the US Constitution, are not compelled to respect and protect rights . . .
While it can be argued under Lockean principles, **all **humans possess these inherent rights, only those who have taken the steps to throw off an illegitimate government and erect one to protect their rights, realize the protections of that form of social compact.
I’ll admit I’m still not certain what you’re saying. I think you’re arguing that all people have certain fundamental rights (including gun ownership) but not all countries recognize these rights. So an American citizen and a Japanese citizen both have the same right to own a gun but the American government recognizes the existence of this right while the Japanese government denies this right exists. Is this a correct summation of your views?
For the record, I am at least as concerned about gun suicide as gun homicide. And the rate of both kinds of US gun deaths taken together, per 100,000 of population, has been fairly steady:
An objective outsider could see the above chart as providing evidence against some of the more reckless statements from people on both sides of the debate. But, as shown in my earlier links, regardless of the rate in any particular year, the rate is far higher for gun-owning households.
Also, the large number of high-quality guns sold in the US over the past few years, if properly maintained, will continue to kill people for centuries. In as much as the people killed by guns are not usually the original owner (don’t have statistics, but sounds plausible), one would expect a lag between years when guns are sold and years when gun deaths go up.
If they ever do, they’re not going to be afraid of any armed civilians or private militias. What keeps the American military from playing the role of an independent political force like some countries’ militaries is and always has been a matter of culture, military and political.
I disagree but I think that is a different thread.
Yes the Constitution can be amended but the fundamental principles can not be altered without trashing the entire compact. The foundational principles are untouchable and unalterable:
[INDENT][INDENT]"The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognise certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it.
That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it nor ought it to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent.
This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It may either stop here; or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.
The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. . . . "
MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)[/INDENT][/INDENT]
This needs repeating and footnoting:
“The principles, therefore, so established are deemed fundamental[1]. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme[2], and can seldom act[3], they are designed to be permanent.[4]”
[1]The principles are decided upon first and the compact is set upon those principles.
[2]There are no greater powers [authority) established by the Constitution.
[3] Those supreme powers are strictly bound by the Constitution (no power exists to revisit and alter the principles). So . . .
[4] Those principles are designed to be permanent.
I align my use of “legitimate” and “illegitimate” in describing government action, with Locke’s useage.
But SCOTUS has never placed conditions on the right because of a simple reading of the 2ndA. That was what I said; “Reading any conditioning of the right into the 2nd Amendment is illegitimate.” I was talking about anti-gun people who read the 2ndA without any knowledge or understanding of, or ignoring constitutional principles to declare that there is no individual right because, you know, it says “militia” right there . . . see it? . . . can’t you see it? . . .
Illegitimate means government action that is either extra-constitutional or outright unconstitutional.
But SCOTUS did not arrive at that determination from a superficial examination of the 2nd Amendment’s text so again, my admonishment (“Reading any conditioning of the right into the 2nd Amendment is illegitimate.”) really doesn’t apply here.
“Dangerous and Unusual” is conclusion that is arrived at after all the protection criteria is applied to a type of arm. “In common use” is one of the protection criteria along with if the arm is of a type that constitute the ordinary military equipment and/or that can be employed advantageously in the common defense of the citizens.
Only when a type of arm fails all those tests can it be deemed “dangerous and unusual” which would then mean government would be allowed to argue that a power should be extended to restrict that weapon’s possession and use by citizens.
To understand these criteria you should read Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. (2 Hump.) 154 (1840) which is where SCOTUS derived it from, using and citing it (at pg 158) in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) and affirming and using the criteria in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).
It certainly is a condition on the right to arms but one that is legitimate so it does not injure the restrictive clause of the 2nd Amendment.
Arguing the Constitution is always a winning argument. That some don’t understand what I write is a statement on civics instruction in this nation, not any indictment of my posts.
There’s the distressing precedent of the Roman Republic falling into civil war after the Punic Wars and eventually devolving into the Empire. Which all started when the Militia of Roman citizens was replaced by the professional Legions. Also, I’m not sure what you count as an “established” or “mature” democracy, but plenty of fledgling democracies have been strangled in the cradle by military coups or by perpetually “reelected” presidents backed by their country’s military.
And on the American civil front it’s noteworthy that the cities that traditionally have had the strongest gun control laws, like New York and Chicago, are cities that traditionally have been run by political machines where the police started out as the machine’s thugs. Exhibit 1: Daley’s Chicago and the “Police Riot” of 1968.
There’s just something about setting up a group as a privileged elite, above the mere rabble, that seems to inevitably go to their heads. And having a monopoly on weapons is the ultimate privilege.
So what’s your take on the 17 other amendments to the constitution (excepting the BoR)? I’m thinking you are not the one that gets to decide whether or not an amendment affects the fundamental principles that apparently can not be altered without endangering the republic. Maybe there’s a Scotsman in there somewhere too.
Which is what, exactly?
Oh. So when SCOTUS acts, do you get to decide if their actions are legitimate or illegitimate? I’m going to say no. The people can act, the constitution can be amended to say whatever people want it to say, and SCOTUS can bless it, and it would be legitimate (using the standard definition of the word). Your use of that phrase is nonsensical unless you believe yourself or some other body gets to determine the legality or constitutionality of such an action.
Read these statements in sequence:
Not sure how you reconcile these in your mind, but they are in conflict with each other. If you walk back the 1st statement or add some nuance, you’d be fine, but as it stands, this rationale can not be taken seriously.
This is just digging further. If the people you are engaging, and one who is arguably aligned with your ideology, don’t understand what you write, the burden lies with the speaker to make themselves clear.
First, the Roman Republic would not count as a mature democracy because only a minority of the people in the republic has the authority to vote. Second, the republic did not fall because the citizens were not allowed to be armed. Third, if the best example you have is 2000 years ago I’m not impressed.
Then why haven’t other westernized democracies, some with strict gun laws, fallen into totalitarianism? The best protection we have is not guns but common citizenship. No small cadre could take and hold power in the US, even if guns were outlawed, because nobody would follow them.