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BREITBART.COM: "Former Justice Stevens: Change 2nd Amendment

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  bagpiper 
#1 ·
According to a Breibart.com news report (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... nstitution) today:

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has released a new book focused, in part, on 'improving' the Constitution through amending the Second Amendment--by making the rights protected therein applicable only to a militia instead of the citizenry at large....
In 2011, Dave Kopel explained (http://www.davekopel.org/2A/Mags/Collective-Right.html) how this Ford appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong, then and now.
 
#2 ·
You know, I can respect the honest call to amend the constitution to effective remove the individual rights to keep and bear arms. Obviously, I strenuously disagree with such a call. But I can respect it.

First of all, I think it is a lot more honest, constitutional, and proper approach if one desires to limit or even ban private access to firearms than the usual routine used for the last 100 years of just pretending the constitution doesn't say what it clearly does.

In that vein, such a call and approach also shows a lot more respect to the constitution and to original intent than just presuming to erase the rights via judicial fiat. If "times have changed" to the extent that individual rights to keep and bear (own and carry) firearms is no longer warranted, justified, nor wanted in society, then amending the constitution to reflect that would be the right way to go.

Most importantly, of course, is that such a call to amend the constitution is a strong concession that the 2nd amendment does actually protect individual rights to own and carry firearms.

So a triple win for our side to have proponents of victim disarmament calling for a constitutional amendment.

Frankly, I wish more people of all political persuasions would show forth as much respect for the constitution as written. We ought to demand proper amendments before allowing the feds to assume powers not previously delegated.

With the arguable exceptions of the 11th and 22nd amendments (dealing with the ability to sue a State of which you are not a citizen and term limits for POTUS, respectively) we've never repealed an established, enumerated right in this nation. That alone would argue against repealing the 2nd. And the shear political will would make it unlikely as well barring some really strange change in political sentiment among our populace.

None of this addresses whether it would be proper to infringe what many of us believe is a natural/God-given right to an effective self-defense even if done by constitutional amendment. But at that point, we'd basically be making an appeal to arms anyway.

Charles
 
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