http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/07/27/white-house-obama-wont-push-for-stricter-gun-laws-this-election-year/#.UBKsaz5ga_M.email
I so hate it when I'm right on those occasions where I wanted to be wrong. None of the national politicians who could effect a change are willing to risk any political capital reducing the likelihood of the next mass shooting similar to Aurora. And I fully understand, people, that the actions I endorse and support would not end gun violence in America. But I would rather the shooter not have easy access to automatic assault rifles and magazines with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. They just ain't "sportin'".
But Romney is totally in the NRA camp and Obama lacks the cajones.
“Multiple deaths similar to the Aurora movie house massacre are the price we pay as a society to underwrite the Second Amendment “rights” for “lawful gun owners.”
I believe, based on when it was passed, that the Second Amendment guaranteed each of us the right to single shot muzzle-loader or a small single shot pistol. That would have been "the right to bear arms" in the late 1780s.
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So, if existing laws are sufficient and tougher laws on assault rifles are not needed, exactly what laws did the Aurora shooter break prior to the day of the massacre? How could enforcement of current existing laws have prevented this?
I don't understand why either side has to be so extreme. It's ridiculous to say no guns whatsoever and perfectly reasonable to suggest that second amendment rights aren't going to be infringed upon by reasonable standards. Would a pack of a thousand deers ever attack hunters such that automatic rifle would ever be necessary.? And personally, happily owning three guns myself, I wouldnt feel my rights infringed upon with more standards.
Wanting to touch on neither comment at all, nor the overall position of the current post series, I am just offering perhaps a way to strengthen the position - in the form of a question as to your last statement.
Effectively the last statement could be argued as asserting / making an appeal to the contextual basis of the writing of the constitution, asserting the contextual level of armament sophistication was the technological level of sophistication underpinning the right in the minds of the framers of the constitution. This is to say, they framers believed the right existed only in so far as it applied to the current level of weaponry at the time.
Now, I am not sure your claim was as strong as the statement effectively came across. Even assuming the benefit of the doubt (that it was not as strong) it still seems the claim bears out as strong as saying (essentially) something like: "We have a right to bear arms only in so far as they are single/limited round devices of limited calibre, as may be consistent with our cultural and temporal context (i.e. level of development as a society)."
Now, I don't know if that is what you meant. However, on whatever side of the line one falls in the question of how contextual intent applies to current society, i think we need walk with some philosophical circumspection.
I don't think the question is one of how did what they intended then look like in a current context - the two context are entirely different (agrarian-based versus post-industrial) - but one even of how the intent (despite being relative to the context of social development) stand upon rights as immutable or relative?
To put a point on it: Sure the framers only had muskets, but so did the army of the king only have muskets, and if we are allowed to equip ourselves (in the minds of the intent of the framers) with similar weaponry for the sake of defense against tyrannical dictatorships then automatic weapons and drones and rocket launchers should be legal. Were the framers willing to say that the rights existed without regard to the potential events like in Aurora? Are the rights really "inalienable, immutable, unchanging, non-relative, written-into-absolute-reality rights?"
This seems to get into tricky ground, and rights become subject to re-evaluation, even rights to free speech, or rights to assembly, ect.
Your concerns for parity of armament afforded American citizenry by the 2nd Amendment is noted, Kev. However, regardless of what level of technology is required to provide one defensive protection, the 2nd Amendment was never intended to allow one to deprive others of their life, liberty & pursuit of happiness.
Arguably the 2nd Amendment Right does not deprive them of Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness by virtue of being a right. That is to say, arguably, every right, in order to be absolutely a right, must not infringe upon other absolute rights. Right to free speech, arguably, could be used to deprive others, with words being more persuasive over a mob than a mere machine gun might be.
It seems slippery ground to say one has a right only in so far as what that right allows or provides for is used correctly, since the usage of what the right allows then becomes the defining element for the right itself. Speech is allowed to all, only when....say... it serves a particular political agenda...so on and on and you get the picture.
I would say, however, that personally i feel we require others to get a license to drive a car - quite possibly more dangerous in a given situation that a gun - and do not infringe on the "lesser right" to drive merely because someone could drunkenly use the car as a battering ram against an ex-spouse. We outlaw the usage of the car in that manner, and the usage in a non-appropriate manner. Accidents and fatalities still happen. An interesting stat for my argument would be how many people die each year in vehicle-related deaths and how many in random mass shooting deaths. Where is the ire with negligence in enforcement there with cars?
I grant many can be killed in a single sitting from a machine gun, but, if others dying at all is the issue then clearly even driving drunk is more of an over-all issue than events like Aurora.
that came across a bit more argumentative than i meant it to, and definitely in support of a particular position, which, honestly, I didn't mean to do. It is the logic or reasoning in which i am more interested.
It may be just semantics, but driving is not a "right", merely a "privilege" granted by the state. And as you correctly note, the privilege is subject to conditions, i.e. not being impaired or unnecessarily distracted.
How to acknowledge, permit and limit the "rights" identified in the Bill of Rights when they clash with each other is and has been the main duty of the Supreme Court since its inception.
OK! Any port in a storm. Justice Scalia has admitted that shoulder fired rocket launchers and machine guns "may not be" protected by the 2nd Amendment. Hooray!
Well, just to be argumentatively picky, pops, but all I said was,
" infringe on the "lesser right" to drive "
and while i fully grant that in no way certainly delineates the idea as a State-accorded privilege, it does not equate driving with the rights derivative of the Bill of Rights.
Arguably the single shot musket deprived many a soldier of their right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (especially then with their level of medicinal ability) just as certainly as an automatic weapon does today (even with our medical advances).
Hence, again, given that fact and the fact muskets were the same sort of weapon employed by the military of the time, I am not seeing the grounding for the assertion such exclusionary thoughts existed in the minds and intents of the framers of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.
I am not making this my argument for less gun control, i am saying it is a weak point in yours.
If one wishes to assert that the intent, even vis-à-vis relative changes in society and tech. advances, is not a valid stance to take in interpreting the Constitution, well, that is another matter entirely, and outside the original frame work of your argument.
And I have yet to see an address of the question which seems to underlie this issue: what exactly was the intent of the framers, and how does one support this with both ancillary writings (by the framers) and cultural/anthropological/historical data?
Again, I am addressing the form of argumentation, not the stance you are taking. Honestly, my opinion on the matter has not been asked nor given, and it would strike terror in the hearts of man, bringing with it a sword and dividing rod, hopefully - i say, quite explicitly, we follow Christ, in answer to the issue, and i still want to buy automatic weapons while i can.
And one other point I have not seen addressed, and that is, given the destructiveness of drunken and distracted driving - a destructiveness which has claimed far more lives than any serial killer with an automatic weapon, or even all the serial killers with automatic weapons - is this gun control issue sort of an issue which detracts attention from the business of getting real political measures in place to ensure safety from ever-present dangers? Not to diminsh the gun control issue, but in terms of likely harms, there is one issue whose harms are expected to number in the how many tens of thousands, while another is dramatic but not near as certain to (re)occur?
Your last point strikes me as "bait and switch", Kev. Yes, one can always find some other social ill to cite as "more urgent". Unfortunately, it seems to me this always happens following the kind of senseless killing that occurred last week. The difference is there are local laws, local law enforcement and local courts all across the country that deal with impaired driving. But there isn't a powerful national lobby like NRA seeking the political destruction of anyone whose policies they oppose. But there is no comparable national "right to drink impaired" lobby group arguing the meaning of the U S Constitution.
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