Okay, I’m not going to respond to everyone individually. Here’s why I think the ACLU is hypocritical. When it comes to the 2nd amendment, they basically say: “The Supreme Court has determined that the right to bear arms is not universal or unconditional. What the Supreme Court says is final and authoritative. Therefore, we agree with them and won’t fight on 2nd amendment cases.”
But, when it comes to the death penalty, they essentially say: “The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment, per se. But we think that they are wrong, and will continue fighting to eliminate the death penalty.”
You can’t have it both ways. Either the Supreme Court is the final barometer of constitutionality, or it is not. They obviously disagree that it is, as I pointed out earlier. This means that with regard to the 2nd amendment, they shouldn’t hide behind Supreme Court rulings and insist that that’s a good enough reason on which to base their opinion.
As far as the legality of the death penalty, the Supreme Court has never stated that it is cruel and unusual in and of itself. (I believe that only two of the nine justices felt this way.) It was banned for being unfairly applied. Illinois is having a moratorium because of the possibility of innocent people getting executed. However, the ACLU believes that the death penalty is unconstitutional even if it’s fairly applied and no innocent people are even executed. Thus, they clearly show themselves as defenders of the rights that they want us to have, not the rights that we already have. This is a far cry from Kimstu’s statement that:
BTW, I actually like the ACLU. As an atheist, I find that I need all the help I can get in this Christian-dominated country. If it weren’t for the ACLU, I’d probably be forced to pray in school, learn about Biblical creation in science class, and all kinds of other nonsense.
Well, does the ACLU actually say this or is this your interpretation of what they say? I would say that the ACLU says about what you said, except leaving out the 2nd sentence and the “Therefore.” That’s not hypocritical unless the ACLU claims to argue for unrestricted application of all elements of the bill of rights to everything, which they don’t. You may disagree with their agreement of the Court’s interpretation in this case (and/or you may disagree with their disagreement of the Court’s interpretation of the death penalty) but that doesn’t make them hypocritical per se.
And, once the ACLU chooses thier interpretation of the Bill of Rights, as others have pointed out, they stick to it no matter who it is who is trying to assert those rights. (Much to the dismay of even some of their supporters who get offended when they defend Nazis or Oliver North, to name 2 actually examples.) In fact, I believe they are even against some of the campaign finance reform measures on the basis of free speech considerations [the whole Buckley case stuff], which I tend to think they might be wrong on…But, I am willing to live with having them argue that side of it.
The second amaendment is quite clear, in fact it is the only amendment in the Bill of RIghts with a stated rationale. However, althoug not wirtten this way it would probably be better to read the amendment this way.
A well regulated militia, Being necessary to the security of a free state, The right of the people to keep and bear arms, Shall not be infringed by Congress
So it would seem to me to be saying that the states can do any kind of arms control they like. Well, except that the Supreme Court has ruled that the rights outlined in, for example the First Amendment extend to protection from state infringements of those rights. I beleive (and would gladly be corrected) that this is due to the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. So how does this principle extend to the second amendment…well that is the 64,000 dollar question isn’t it. Personally I am a big fan of the state’s rights interpretation.
Opus, I think that the issue is not that the ACLU is being hypocritical, but that I was wrong (as I noted before) in my original description of their modus operandi. They are not basing their actions exclusively on currently accepted interpretations of the Constitution; rather, they have their own interpretation of it (which does correspond quite closely in most cases to the current broadly accepted judicial interpretations, though) and they bring suits to defend their interpretation in court. They happen to agree with the current judicial consensus on the Second Amendment and don’t find most existing gun-control laws unconstitutional, so they don’t bring lawsuits on the subject. You may disagree with their opinions, but that doesn’t make them hypocrites.
And by the way, when a law does violate what the ACLU considers to be citizen’s rights involving guns, they are in fact quite ready to make their objections known. I was looking around for ACLU opinions on the constitutionality of random roadblocks for DWI checks in relation to the “Drinking and Driving” thread, and I came upon a 1997 press release that discussed the Virginia ACLU’s consideration of a lawsuit against the city of Richmond to protest a policy of making random stops of motorists to check for drugs and guns in reaction to a highly-publicized gun murder:
The rights issue directly involved here is the Fourth Amendment rather than the Second, but still, it should shut up some of the loose talk we’ve been seeing around here about the ACLU not caring whether gun regulation activities are constitutional or not. We may not agree with you about exactly what your rights to possess firearms are, but if somebody is trying to take your gun away in what we consider an unconstitutional fashion, we do complain about it. So there.