From: Sean Luke (sean_at_cs.gmu.edu)
Date: Thu May 08 2003 - 08:30:56 PDT
On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 03:51 AM, RADAR9999_at_aol.com wrote:
> The Right to keep and bear arms is in the constitution. It does not
> refer
> to an organized National Guard as there were none such in any of the
> states
> at that time. There were militias, both organized and at-large.
Well, one can make whatever claim one would like about the
constitution, but the final arbiter and interpreter of the constitution
is the court system. There, your position is directly at odds with
consistent historical precedent. Or, for the benefit of the Michigan
Militia (I love that joke): "the judges have always disagreed with your
position". All Supreme Court, federal Appeals Court, and federal
Circuit Court judgments in the history of the United States, from WAY
back into the 1700s, have come down on the side that the second
amendment does not guarantee an individual right to bear arms, but
instead guarantees a state's right to form armed militias. All but
one: two years ago a judge in Texas (of course) decided to break with
precedent set in the 1700's and rule the other away; and he was
immediately overruled on appeal. Anyway, that's a pretty impressive
record.
The reason for this is that the second amendment has a special feature
that no other bill of rights amendment has -- it has a qualifying
clause. In other words, the founding fathers were so concerned that it
would be abused as an absolute right that they actually put in a
statement of justificational bounds.
> The 1st amendment freedoms of speech would be non-existant w/o the
> iron-clad guarantee of the second amendment.
Doubtful.
> Some would say that this is outdated, that tyranny could not
> happen here.
There's this odd belief that the second amendment prevents tyranny.
This has never been a historical position -- it's an invention of the
last seventy years or so. But put simply, the household ownership of
guns and ammo in Iraq is MUCH more impressive than in the US. Helped a
lot in preventing tyranny there! :-)
> Oh I could go on... and on... and .. you get the picture, but I
> will be
> merciful. I will be happy to entertain any further discussion off-line.
Oh, no, you don't get off that easily without a little drubbing.
There is no individual right in the constitution to bear arms. There
is a state's right. But the claim to an individual right is a
historical and precedental fiction, pure and simple.
But should we be able to bear arms? This is purely a utility measure.
I think that any absolutist position must be viewed as irrational. The
question is: does the Evil resulting from not being able to buy that
Saturday Night Special outweigh the Evil resulting from being able to
do so? Back when we were an agrarian culture, a weapon was an
important part of the culture. We were also spaced far apart, had a
primarily calvinist outlook, and did not have the massive urban poor
that we have today. I think that at this point in time, the likelihood
that Gun X will do a bad thing FAR outweighs any possible current or
future good it may cause. And that utility trend is worsening. The
statistics do not look good for the NRA no matter how much it tries to
cook them.
Sean, who notes that the US has more gun deaths per person than all the
rest of the civilized countries combined. Including Canada. And
Russia!
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