Add a Comment
Email This
Do we trade an "[sic] essential liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety (1)"?
First - What wording could be use to modify or amend the bill of rights? I can only assume by your first argument you would change it from “the right to keep and bear arms” to “the privilege to keep and bear arms”. This to me is as unacceptable as saying we could only enjoy the privilege of having a jury if we deserve one.
Second – Making legal gun owners who have a right to bear arms feel like criminals every time they purchase a new gun is a violation of the right to keep and bear arms. Let me illustrate by using the other amendments.
- How would a person who is about to make a speech feel if they had to pass a background check, take a training course and have the government edit out parts deemed too dangerous?
- Could the government take names, decide if things might get too dangerous, and perform psychological evaluations, without affecting the freedom of religion? Or even by the act of listing what religion everyone is and making it a record?
- How long would they keep “no gun” lists? Could you get off those lists if you were on one in error? Would “no gun” lists would be as useful and error free as the “no fly” lists is in present days?
I will also not argue that the sword is mightier than the pen or to say guns kill more people than ideas, religions or a gathering of people.
Third – "the solutions" so far have been proven inefficient and not worthwhile. Canada and Australia have done the proof for us. Adding restrictions to gun ownership does not improve public safety at a reasonable cost.
If someone who purchases a gun worry a tyrannical government is scrutinizing their actions? If that person has a right and not just the privilege to keep and bear arms I answer “NO”.
(1)http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
RSS
RE: Take all the privately own firearms and destroy them
If I understand you correctly, there are three reasons you think gun ownership should be "free as speech:"
I think these are valid points, but they certainly aren't unassailable.
In the first case, I agree the Bill of Rights should be protected - but I'm not willing to label it infallible. As long as the possibility exists for circumstances to arise in which it would be best to modify the Bill, we are forced to consider on some level if that time is now.
In the second case, I think the argument falls fairly easily if considered individually. Cocaine, after all, isn't taken out of the hands of criminals by being outlawed, but you wouldn't promote its legalization.
In the third case, I don't think the solution must be so inefficient as to be not worthwhile.
Overall, though, I think the effect of these arguments is greater than the sum of the parts. I agree the bearing of arms should be a right until forfeited, and I think I was hasty in describing it as a privalege. I do, however, still think there is improvement to be made in "the system" - and I'm still hopeful this could be accomplished by growing the list of what may potentially disqualify someone from the right to gun ownership in perhaps creative ways.
View Full Discussion