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Your reasoning may be correct, but not quite so obvious to courts. For instance, foreigners' right to keep and bare arms is routinely violated, even though they
by jeffdavis 7y ago
Your reasoning may be correct, but not quite so obvious to courts. For instance, foreigners' right to keep and bare arms is routinely violated, even though they are people.
- chmod775 7y ago> foreigners' right to keep and bare arms is routinely violated Their rights are violated by courts?
- vkou 7y agoMany states ban non-citizens from gun ownership. The courts have explicitly, and implicitly supported this interpretation of the second amendment. It's pretty easy to make the case that nobody knows what the U.S. Constitution actually means.
- gamblor956 7y agoQuite literally the opposite is true: https://blogs.findlaw.com/seventh_circuit/2015/09/non-citizens-have-a-right-to-bear-arms----with-1-major-catch.html https://blogs.findlaw.com/seventh_circuit/2015/09/non-citize... Court upheld the right of an illegal alien to own a firearm.
- vkou 7y ago> Applying intermediate scrutiny to the federal ban on arms possession by unauthorized aliens, the court found the law to be reasonable. Since unauthorized aliens "often live largely outside the formal system" and are "harder to trace and more likely to assume a false identity," the government may rationally limit their access to firearms. > Thus, the Seventh Circuit leaves Meza-Rodriguez with the right to bear arms, but without the ability to exorcise that right under federal law. What is the point of a theoretical right that can't be exercised in practice? Citizens of the USSR had the right to free speech, free political expression, etc.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> What is the point of a theoretical right that can't be exercised in practice? It is perhaps a more accurate description to say that Meza-Rodriquez is in the class of people to whom the right applies, but that the right allows restrictions based on conduct, including illegal presence.
- jeffdavis 7y agoDoes that same reasoning apply to free speech?
- gamblor956 7y agoThe First Amendment does not have the same restrictions as the Second Amendment. To the extent that your speech does not also constitute illegal action, there are no restrictions on speech and those protections do not depend on nationality, citizenship, etc. All that matters is the jurisdiction of the US court system (since they can't enforce First Amendment rights if they don't have jurisdiction). Some types of speech are also acts, like conspiring to commit a crime, or inciting violent action. In those cases, the content of the speech is protected, but the actions of the speech are subject to prosecution.
- jeffdavis 7y agoTheir rights are violated by others and not upheld by the courts.
- gamblor956 7y agoCourts have upheld the rights of foreigners (i.e., illegal immigrants) to bear arms. This does not mean that they get to bring them into the country.