[NYT] John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

If it depends on them, you might as well just push for it now. I doubt "gun nuts" will ever just randomly decide to surrender their civil rights, as such you either have to come down on the side of civil rights, or push for stripping the people of their civil rights.

If you are anti-civil rights at heart, don't stay in the closet about it. Live out loud....even if it's political suicide.

 

it's not a black and white world, but whatever

 

Well, when you consider repealing amendments guaranteeing civil rights a legitimate option....I mean that's pretty black and white. Either you think that is completely ridiculous and an awful idea, or you think it is a legitimate tactic if people don't agree to renounce their civil rights on their own.

You'd be better off suggesting that you'd never support a repeal while pushing for a de facto repeal via legislation over a long period of time like many others within the anti-civil rights movement.

 

You're coming off as if the 2A is the barrier to effective gun legislation. But we know that is not true. As I stated, its only an excuse.

Do you agree that the Constitution supersedes all Federal and States rights? If you agree, as you should, then explain to me why New Jersey, New York, Illinois and California have some of the most stringent gun laws on the books? In New Jersey, you are not allowed to own any type of firearm w/out a permit. Yes, there have been attempts to over turn these laws, but yet they still exists, despite the 2A Constitutional right. Felons are not allowed to own firearms even if its a non violent conviction ... something as silly as software piracy. Its very evident we trample over these alleged Constitutional rights. Its very evident the 2A is not preventing us from meaningful legislation.

Yes, America has a gun culture problem. This is absolutely the root of the issue. And yes, there are a few people who believe that owning a gun is a manifestation of American values, as you have put it. However the vast majority of people in the US want gun control in some form or fashion. Very very few people believe in the wild wild west fantasy of 'anything goes' when it comes to guns. This is why we have a very restrictive policy on fully automatic weapons and ordinances.

The expansion of gun rights is a direct result of not getting meaningful legislation passed and enforcing/strictly defining the rules we already
have on the books. People feel unsafe because both parties are too scared to attack this issue. This is the classic party/power over people mentality. The mentality of the pro-gun crowd is if the government can't keep the guns out of the criminals hands, then at least allow them to defend themselves.

The anti-gun crowd has to move on from this mantra of banning the weapon of the latest mass shooting. Its an idiotic position to take and it only further alienates the pro-gun crowd. The general population is not stupid, despite how each party's egotistical loyalist want to paint the picture of the average American. People understand bump stocks are not going to stop the next mass shooting ... or stop the dozens of deaths a day resulting of firearms. People understand banning semi-automatic rifles will not stop mass shootings or the dozens of deaths a day resulting from handguns. And since we only want to talk about gun control during mass shootings, people also understand that getting these potential shooters psychiatric help is just as important as keeping these guns out of their hands.

What we need is to find the commonality agreements of whats wrong with the system and start from there. After that, we can move onto discussing whether we need a federal permit system. Many other countries use the permit system and they have a fraction of the problems we do. Because bans w/ grandfather clauses is pretty pointless considering the inventory of weapons already out there.

 

You're a "gun nut" bruh

 

Not really, but I guess I could seem that way to people who are anti-civil rights.

 

So the purpose was for every person to have an automatic weap

The 2nd Amendment is an anachronism that seems as modern as interpreting the Constitution as counting African Americans as 3/5 of a human or whatever. Guns should be treated as just another exceedingly dangerous manufactured item and regulated intensively. Time to abolish the 2nd Amendment and quit privileging the gun industry over other dangerous products.

The gun industry and its lobby and lawyers have done good work in promoting guns as some sort of quasi religious I.e Constittuinal right and as a protection from violent crime. Guns are also seen as a badge of rural and also Confederate life. You may not have a very good job or education but your gun is at least as big as that of the Ivy League graduate.

 

You're closer to a "gun nut" than a "civil rights activist" broski

 

@Bobbythegreat You ain't even on her level of activist




Step your game up!

 

Sadly it is the Bobbies of the world who are stripping away our rights as they cede all power to the militarists and the corporate elite, thinking their little personal weapons will protect them from the few billionaires who control the government.

 

Sometimes I wonder if you even bother to read and comprehend peoples thoughts.

Gun in New Jersey (and other states) are heavily restricted. In New Jersey, you are required to have a permit to own a gun. This is the same legislation found in many other countries.

So explain to me how the 2A, an unalienable right, did not stop this type of legislation?

If other countries use registration and permits as a requirement and its much more effective there, if the USA has a handful of states that require registration and permits, why are you rambling on about the 2A being the reason for our gun violence? The 2A is obviously not stopping gun legislation.

Your solution is to insult and ridicule anyone who wants to own a gun and throw your hands up in defeat, blame the 2A because the other 70-80% of the states will not institute bans/permits/restrictions. People like you are the a strong factor why the pro-gun crowd refuses to budge an inch.

 

The explicit affirmation from the USSC of the individual right to guns was affirmed only in 2008. That decision also re-affirmed that it was permissible to regulate guns. But, in my view, the line between permissible and impermissible regulation is ambiguous and capricious, so it'll move as the ideology of guns-as-a-civil-right matures. So that would be why I think such tight states exist today and may not exist tomorrow -- because what had once been seen by the courts as rational and measured regulation may be interpreted in the future as an infringement on civil rights by conservatives in power who increasingly see expanded unfettered gun ownership as a public virtue.

 

Judges change. If 2 Supreme Court Justices die in the next couple of years, the 2A will be interpreted differently and probably closer to as intended even if that intent no longer makes sense.

 

Neither is right to a jury trial. That doesn't mean we should toss out the 6th Amendment. Alito addresses this in McDonald v. City of Chicago.


The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen has no provision guaranteeing the rights of assembly or private firearms ownership, but many drafts were written, as the Third Estate demanded those rights. Ultimately, the factions wouldn't agree on it (especially the nobility that were dead set against allowing peasants to be armed), because the war was still on, and they were suspicious about what would come after. Promising to honor the rights of their political rivals to assemble and bear arms wasn't politically expedient, and perhaps if they had, the Girondists might have kept their heads.

Prime Minster Laval's later 1935 decree severely limited none other than demonstrations on public streets, and the commerce, import and possession of arms -- simply as a cabinet decree, without legislative approval, since those rights weren't guaranteed by the law. It certainly made things easier for Laval, when just a few years later, Vichy authorities (including Laval himself) raised the penalties for these crimes to death on the spot in support of German occupation.

And while it is a footnote to the discussion and not terribly germaine, the earliest and most famous breaker of this law was before the occupation. The perp in question I suspect you might recognize, which begat what historians recognize as the beginning of the Holocaust, though to be fair, it was not French law the Germans used to justify the response.

It would be bold to claim these legal guarantees would have prevented the Reign of Terror or the Nazi occupation of France, or even the rise and Fall of the First French Empire, but it's not at all reasonable to think that if the Third Estate had the rights guaranteed that it demanded in 1789, that these sorts of things would have been far more difficult to carry out.

 

How are these judges relevant? These super restrictive states have gone through non partisan judges and partisan judges on both sides of the aisle.

No judge is over turning these state restrictions for violation of the 2A...unless we somehow go super conservative. I don't see that happening.

And 'closer to as intended' is an ambiguous statement. The 2A is intentionally vague. I am not sure how anyone can say for certain what was intended in the first place.

Biological weapons have been used for centuries. You can't argue that the founders were not aware of WMD's or they they could not imagine more powerful weapons. They were not complete idiots with no foresight. That is why the ability to amend the constitution was built in the first place.

 

Again, I could see how an anti-civil rights crusader might think that, but the opinion of fringe extremists won't determine reality.

 

You don't live in reality, you live in your small bubble you lived your entire life. You should travel more and see more of the world. I prefer to live in the real world where the majority of the planet views people like you as the stereotypical American gun nut.

 

That's a hilariously ignorant comment.