This feeble comparison overlooks the obvious: There is no constitutional right to dress as you please, or to sell cookies at work.
My point here is not to engage in the property rights vs gun rights debate--it's to return to a point I've tried to make again and again, yet some of our "conservative" leaders just won't get it.
The Constitution was never intended to define all of our rights. Workplace dress codes and charitable solicitations on company premises have everything to do with voluntary agreements and nothing to do with government infringements of rights.
I once had a lawyer claim with his bare face hanging out, in another blog's comment thread, that the Founders didn't intend the Ninth Amendment to mean anything.
ReplyDeleteAfter the next (if only) Constitutional Convention, the Ninth would be the First, and the Second would be re-expressed in even more unambiguous terms that the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms extends to any weapon usable by individual infantrymen. Actually, I would prefer not to stop there--there were privately owned cannon among the Founders' generation. Privately owned mortars, pack howitzers, squad automatic weapons, and Stinger missiles would probably do signal service in deterring invaders and tyrants.
Inevitably, someone will come along and play the "do you want nuclear weapons in private hands?" card, but in today's world, that is unfortunately likely to happen anyway. Therefore, the argument has no bearing on whether free private citizens should be afforded the means of effective self-defense.
Personally I have no problem with nukes in private hands. Though if one of my neighmors started to build a missile silo I would buy radiation detection equipment and take a background reading before he got the nuke. Then if it increased to unsafe levels I could sue the guy back to the gutter. In fact, I would prefer that the y were in private hands since I can't sue the government for improper handling or use of nukes.
ReplyDelete"The Constitution was never intended to define all of our rights."
ReplyDeleteThe damn thing wasn't intended to define ANY of our rights. It was intended to specify, and limit, what the government was allowed to do. Full stop.