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> The typical cry is "We should do the same". Well, we can't. Government did not grant, nor does it own that right. No, we can do that. The government can mere

> The typical cry is "We should do the same". Well, we can't. Government did not grant, nor does it own that right. No, we can do that. The government can merely assume the power, as governments so often do. Paper is not a defense. A "Bill of Rights" containing only a single right would be of zero value. What is a defense is the bundling of recognized rights, as in the Bill of Rights. It's like an alliance: an assault on any one right is an assault on them all. If a large majority of people would rally behind a single right (maybe freedom of speech?), then the right is not seriously in danger (for now). The rights which are in danger need to be bundled so that the whims of a particular time and place do not permanently sacrifice a right. When a particular right is borderline unpopular -- perhaps the right to keep and bear arms -- that provides a lever to pry away all of our rights, and we must prevent that. When you look at the wave of gun laws being proposed and passed, you'll see how obvious it is that they are an assault on the entire Bill of Rights (for instance "red flag" laws are a clear violation of due process). The Gun Safety movement is a rerun of the Drug War. A bunch of reasonable-sounding people concerned about their community used as pawns to push a very different agenda. In the case of the Drug War, it was violating the 4th, 5th, 9th and 10th Amendments to oppress political enemies (hippies and blacks). In the case of the Gun Safety movement, it's violating the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Amendments to oppress political enemies (rural/Christian/whatever). The reason we end up with ridiculous laws -- like harsher punishments for crack than powder; or laws restricting foldable stocks on rifles[1] -- is because those laws are not ridiculous when you understand the real agenda. [1] If the goal is to reduce murders, then rifles are an absurd place to start. Knives are a much more common murder weapon. So are "Hands, fists, feet, etc.". Even in Texas, where there are few rifle laws. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/table-20 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

robomartin 7y ago
No argument there. I never understood the obsession with AR-15's when their contribution to crime, over, say, the last 20 years, is basically a rounding error. The only answer is: politics taking advantage of emotion for political gains. The best example of just how stupid the whole "assault ban gun" idea is found in Chicago, where the weekly carnage has not relented in years and the weapon of choice is nearly 100% handguns. The problem politician have with these issues is that they can't actually get behind the reality of the problems because reality goes against their political power and invalidates all of their vote-gathering tools. If the fear-mongering about "assault rifles" was honestly matched to crime data in the public square they would, at a minimum, look like fools and if portrayed honestly, as liars and manipulators. We humans are really funny species. Imagine what we could do if we could bring more reason, common sense and honesty into our affairs.
- graycat 7y ago
  AR-15's? They don't look like your grand father's deer rifle or duck hunting shot gun and instead look like a military weapon, e.g., the Russian AK-47. With the usual technical and US legal description, the AR-15 is just a "semi-automatic rifle". But due to looks, they get called "assault weapons" like the fully automatic AK-47. Sooo, some people get headlines talking about "assault rifles".
- ptcampbell 7y ago
  Yes I agree. To focus on the AR-15 is peculiar. All semi-automatics should be banned.
  - jeffdavis 7y ago
    Given that rifles are involved in such a small number of murders, why go to all the effort of including rifles in the ban? Seems like a big logistical challenge and you'd make a lot of your fellow citizens unhappy. If your proposal is to ban all semi-auto pistols (including from police) but allow all semi-auto rifles (without allowing state/local restrictions), you might get some traction. Such a plan would be better supported by numbers, better supported by the Constitution (which is talking about militia weapons), and more politically palatable (nobody will say "over my dead body" because they have to change their little gun for a big gun).
    - ptcampbell 7y ago
      I'm not naive enough to think any ban would be easy, but the logistics aren't insurmountable. There has been a ban on assault weapons before. Eventually, there must be legislation to reduce access to military-style assault rifles such as those used in mass shootings.
      - jeffdavis 7y ago
        Why must there be? We are talking about small numbers of deaths and a large number of people who want (and/or currently own) rifles. Sometimes you just need to be practical and look at the numbers. Just because you don't want a rifle doesn't mean a ban has zero cost or that the cost is somehow not a valid one. Many of our fellow citizens want the freedom to own rifles and you should have some respect for that. The better case for gun control in every possible way is pistols. But nobody will ever budge on pistols if they sense that it's just a "first step" to confiscating rifles as well. The only way to get any kind of gun control is to earn trust by showing respect for ordinary citizens owning rifles, and from that point of respect you can make reasonable suggestions on pistols.
esoterica 7y ago
> The rights which are in danger need to be bundled so that the whims of a particular time and place do not permanently sacrifice a right. If the people who wrote the constitution had such a good grasp of what the correct fundamental rights were, why did they allow slavery to happen? Why did they only allow land-owning white males to vote? If they were not morally infallible, and we accept that their opinions on those issues were justifiably superceded by future generations, then why are we not allowed to critically examine the rights enumerated in the constitution and question which of them are no longer tenable today, instead of a priori dismissing any possible challenge to the constitution as a stupid "whim of a particular time and place".
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  My argument was that, if you want to keep a right protected from government, bundling it into a list (like the Bill of Rights) is a good approach. I never said that the Bill of Rights covers all possible rights or that the founders were infallible. Your question about slavery is misguided. The founders were forming a union out of pre-existing states. It was not the founders' intent to interfere with states much at all. Only certain parts of the Constitution prohibit powers to the states, and before the 14th Amendment, the states were not as tightly bound even by the Bill of Rights (e.g. the 1st Amendment starts "Congress shall pass no law..."). The idea that you can form a union of 13 colonies and also make demands of them at the same time goes against the whole idea of the Constitution. The Constitution is a framework, and it only protects rights that were already widely regarded as rights before the union (for instance, the right to bear arms wasn't just made up for the Constitution, similar things existed in many state constitutions already). The Constituion is amazing not because it was perfect from day one. It is amazing because it expressly limited the power of the government that it was creating (the federal government), and because it turned out to be a surprisingly resilient framework. The Bill of Rights is amazing because it got a surprising number of things right. Going back to the original article, the 1st and 4th Amendments are still radical after 200+ years. We can re-examine the 1st, 2nd, 4th, or whatever Amendment you want. But they seem like a good list to me, and once one is lost it is unlikely to be regained peacefully (because losing a right grants power to the government, amd governments don't like to give up power). Majority opinions do fluctuate a lot and if a simple majority could give up the rights of everyone, the entire Bill of Rights would be long gone. Murder rates have declined dramatically since the founding and still seem to be declining or steady. So I don't want to give up the 2nd Amendment just because we have more media noise about guns, nor the 1st/4th Amendment because police have a harder time decrypting messages now. I find it weird to call rights "untenable" when everything is getting better, not worse. Like, what exactly is the big problem with freedom that it was somehow "tenable" before but now it's not?

robomartin 7y ago

No argument there. I never understood the obsession with AR-15's when their contribution to crime, over, say, the last 20 years, is basically a rounding error. The only answer is: politics taking advantage of emotion for political gains. The best example of just how stupid the whole "assault ban gun" idea is found in Chicago, where the weekly carnage has not relented in years and the weapon of choice is nearly 100% handguns. The problem politician have with these issues is that they can't actually get behind the reality of the problems because reality goes against their political power and invalidates all of their vote-gathering tools. If the fear-mongering about "assault rifles" was honestly matched to crime data in the public square they would, at a minimum, look like fools and if portrayed honestly, as liars and manipulators. We humans are really funny species. Imagine what we could do if we could bring more reason, common sense and honesty into our affairs.

graycat 7y ago
AR-15's? They don't look like your grand father's deer rifle or duck hunting shot gun and instead look like a military weapon, e.g., the Russian AK-47. With the usual technical and US legal description, the AR-15 is just a "semi-automatic rifle". But due to looks, they get called "assault weapons" like the fully automatic AK-47. Sooo, some people get headlines talking about "assault rifles".
ptcampbell 7y ago
Yes I agree. To focus on the AR-15 is peculiar. All semi-automatics should be banned.
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  Given that rifles are involved in such a small number of murders, why go to all the effort of including rifles in the ban? Seems like a big logistical challenge and you'd make a lot of your fellow citizens unhappy. If your proposal is to ban all semi-auto pistols (including from police) but allow all semi-auto rifles (without allowing state/local restrictions), you might get some traction. Such a plan would be better supported by numbers, better supported by the Constitution (which is talking about militia weapons), and more politically palatable (nobody will say "over my dead body" because they have to change their little gun for a big gun).
  - ptcampbell 7y ago
    I'm not naive enough to think any ban would be easy, but the logistics aren't insurmountable. There has been a ban on assault weapons before. Eventually, there must be legislation to reduce access to military-style assault rifles such as those used in mass shootings.
    - jeffdavis 7y ago
      Why must there be? We are talking about small numbers of deaths and a large number of people who want (and/or currently own) rifles. Sometimes you just need to be practical and look at the numbers. Just because you don't want a rifle doesn't mean a ban has zero cost or that the cost is somehow not a valid one. Many of our fellow citizens want the freedom to own rifles and you should have some respect for that. The better case for gun control in every possible way is pistols. But nobody will ever budge on pistols if they sense that it's just a "first step" to confiscating rifles as well. The only way to get any kind of gun control is to earn trust by showing respect for ordinary citizens owning rifles, and from that point of respect you can make reasonable suggestions on pistols.

esoterica 7y ago

> The rights which are in danger need to be bundled so that the whims of a particular time and place do not permanently sacrifice a right. If the people who wrote the constitution had such a good grasp of what the correct fundamental rights were, why did they allow slavery to happen? Why did they only allow land-owning white males to vote? If they were not morally infallible, and we accept that their opinions on those issues were justifiably superceded by future generations, then why are we not allowed to critically examine the rights enumerated in the constitution and question which of them are no longer tenable today, instead of a priori dismissing any possible challenge to the constitution as a stupid "whim of a particular time and place".

jeffdavis 7y ago
My argument was that, if you want to keep a right protected from government, bundling it into a list (like the Bill of Rights) is a good approach. I never said that the Bill of Rights covers all possible rights or that the founders were infallible. Your question about slavery is misguided. The founders were forming a union out of pre-existing states. It was not the founders' intent to interfere with states much at all. Only certain parts of the Constitution prohibit powers to the states, and before the 14th Amendment, the states were not as tightly bound even by the Bill of Rights (e.g. the 1st Amendment starts "Congress shall pass no law..."). The idea that you can form a union of 13 colonies and also make demands of them at the same time goes against the whole idea of the Constitution. The Constitution is a framework, and it only protects rights that were already widely regarded as rights before the union (for instance, the right to bear arms wasn't just made up for the Constitution, similar things existed in many state constitutions already). The Constituion is amazing not because it was perfect from day one. It is amazing because it expressly limited the power of the government that it was creating (the federal government), and because it turned out to be a surprisingly resilient framework. The Bill of Rights is amazing because it got a surprising number of things right. Going back to the original article, the 1st and 4th Amendments are still radical after 200+ years. We can re-examine the 1st, 2nd, 4th, or whatever Amendment you want. But they seem like a good list to me, and once one is lost it is unlikely to be regained peacefully (because losing a right grants power to the government, amd governments don't like to give up power). Majority opinions do fluctuate a lot and if a simple majority could give up the rights of everyone, the entire Bill of Rights would be long gone. Murder rates have declined dramatically since the founding and still seem to be declining or steady. So I don't want to give up the 2nd Amendment just because we have more media noise about guns, nor the 1st/4th Amendment because police have a harder time decrypting messages now. I find it weird to call rights "untenable" when everything is getting better, not worse. Like, what exactly is the big problem with freedom that it was somehow "tenable" before but now it's not?