Re: OT - We're winning

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary, While Kat R Pondered, Weak and Weary,
Over Many a Quaint and Curious Forgotten Post, s/he wrote:
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Anyone up for repealing the 2nd Amendment?

Raise your hands.

John P

I've never understood that urge. And although I don't usually like
Scalia much, I have to agree: it's an individual right to /property/,
it's not a collective right or a right of the army, it's not tied to the
formal military, and it can't be banned absolutely; no property right
can be banned absolutely in a free society based on property (which ours
is), it can only be regulated; a ban is not regulation. Why would you
want to repeal property rights? It's a slippery slope.

Saying "let's repeal an individual right guaranteed to all the people
because we don't like what /some/ people might do with that right" is
completely against the concept of individual rights and the supremacy of
individuals over the collective tyranny of government. That's the basis
of our constitution: individual human rights and property. Not
collectives, not government over the people, not mob rule, and certainly
not hamstringing rights. When we've tried it in the past with the
Eighteenth Amendment for the prohibition of alcohol, and we got crime
and lawlessness and an erosion of individual rights and safety on a wide
scale. We still have the crime networks that rose as a result of that
foolishness. They aren't going away so long as we keep on trying to
hamstring property and individual rights. That's how drugs and
prostitution have become big money industries filled with misery and
violence--we keep trying to ban them so they aren't regulatable and they
become freeforalls of crime and violence. That's what bans do: they
de-regulate in the worst way and hand regulation over to criminals while
making criminals of the individuals who used to exercise a right.
That's what led to the current hoo-haw about the DC ban, which this
decision overturns, specifically. Guns were banned, but amazingly,
crime was rampant and violence was high where the ban was active.

I know: some people feel guns are such horrible things that an exception
ought to be made. But where does it stop? And please no bull***
arguments about how citizens can't own nuclear weapons, here. They
aren't banned: they're regulated. Banning property ownership is
unconstitutional because it's WRONG and STUPID. If you can't stand to
uphold a controversial right to something you don't like personally, how
can you uphold any right or expect yours to be upheld? Picking and
choosing based on your feelings is not freedom, it's tyranny. If it
were easy to remain free, we wouldn't need a Constitution that
guarantees the government or wrong-headed fools won't try to violate our
rights. It doesn't grant us rights, it says they are ours, inherently,
and for the purpose of creating fair governments among Men. You don't
get to pick and choose; you have all the rights or you have none.

What's next? Repeal the First Amendment? How 'bout the Ninth? I think
that one's particularly silly since of course who really /needs/ to have
the government bound away from snatching rights that haven't been
enumerated specifically? We all know they would /never/ do that, right...?


Touched a nerve, did I? ;)

I didn't say anything about banning guns. I merely suggested a repeal
of the 2nd Amendment. Take away the sense that we, the people, are
somehow vested at birth with the RIGHT to pack, THEN get in there with
some effective regulation.

I know you're not against gun regulation. You said that above.

John P
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