The Fallacy of Second Amendment Absolutism

[billh58]

Memo to all gun-defending, no-compromise NRA supporters, quite apart from who you vote for or where you worship: Nobody, including me, Richard Martinez, President Obama, the Newtown parents or Barney Fife, wants to confiscate your guns and hereby declare martial law and a permanent socialist police state.

Nobody.

Nobody wants to prevent your hunting and target practice and ability to protect yourself against violent criminals. So can we kindly talk about what we might reasonably hope to achieve together in addressing the resounding grief caused by gun violence in this country, which leads the world at nearly three times more deaths per 100,000 people than its nearest competitor?

We are awash in guns and gun deaths, and the more—and more lethal—guns we acquire, the higher the death toll goes. The statistics are there, in black and white. And the answer to this is: even more guns, in even more hands, at ever more lethal caliber?

Can we maybe talk about at least limiting, even if it turns out to be only a symbolic gesture, the nearly unfettered ability to legally purchase weapons of unlimited caliber and capacity for carnage? Maybe add reasonable waiting periods and background checks onto that, along with some renewed teeth in mental health services and regulations that can more readily identify and assist powder kegs such as Elliott Rodger?

According to never-compromise NRA arguments, the Second Amendment is sacrosanct and absolute, without room for nuance, interpretation or application to changing historical circumstance.

The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.

That’s so you can fight back when the federal agents come barreling onto your property to confiscate the guns you keep to “protect your family.”

http://andrewhidas.com/the-fallacy-of-second-amendment-absolutism/

And the absolutists consider themselves just as immune to change as the only 12 words of the amendment that they bother to read. As shown by their newest hero, Donald Trump, they actually believe that the holy Second gives them the "right" to use a bullet box when the ballot box (the will of the majority) inconveniences their cult-like devotion to guns.

[flamin lib]

1. The whole concept of fighting the government is so stupid as to be

grounds to deny a gun purchase.

After working so hard to hammer out the terms of a federal government I'm sure the Founding Fathers were all about letting Joe Bob destroy it, right?

Then there's Article III section three which reads, in part, "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them. . . "

There's other stuff in the Constitution besides the holy Second Amendment.

[billh58]

2. I have often wondered if,

when the time comes for these gun nuts to actually act on their fantasies of overthrowing a Liberal government, will they discuss the caliber of gun to be used, or it's barrel length, or the velocity of it's projectile?

By the time they finish lecturing each other about the specifications of the gun(s) to be used, the Predator Drones will have taken them out, and the Great American Second Amendment Absolutist Insurrection will be history.

But, then again they're so cute when they try to sound superior to us mere mortals. They sound very much like their current hero, The Donald, don't they?

[billh58]

3. As a follow up to Second Amendment absolutism:

Shaprio articulated the right’s view of gun control this way: “The basis for the second amendment is not really about self-defense and it is not about hunting. It’s about resistance to government tyranny.”

If the intent and constitutional meaning of the Second Amendment is to deter the government form overreaching and to provide a means for popular rebellion in the event that the government goes too far, what use is a semi-automatic weapon against an armada of stealth bombers?

In order to be consistent and intellectually honest, conservatives like Shapiro should stop hiding behind what they know is popular sentiment – that gun control is not only constitutional but necessary – they should instead just own their views. Believing that the citizens have the right to counterbalance the physical power of their own government is to believe that soccer moms in Katy, oil barons in River Oaks, and truck drivers in Pearland are entitled to keep and bear Javelin anti-tank weapons and the launch codes to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

That’s the debate we should be having: On one side are people like the NRA, Ben Shapiro, and, whether he likes it or not, Alex Jones, arguing that the Second Amendment assures the right of the people to maintain an equality of arms with their government.

On the other side are people who believe that the Second Amendment’s provision that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is contingent on the requirement that it be in the context of a “well-regulated militia,” as the text actually provides. Those of us on in latter camp, who make up a substantial majority of Americans, will continue to insist that things like assault weapons and clips holding more than ten bullets have no place in the hands of anyone other than the military.

http://blog.chron.com/partisangridlock/2013/01/questions-for-second-amendment-absolutists/

So which is it NRA/ILA/GOA apologists and Second Amendment absolutists: does the Second Amendment provide for an armed insurrection against the US Government, or does it provide for the common defense of the US Government? Contrary to the right-wing gun nuts, the intent of the Founders was for the common defense of the new Republic -- and not it's overthrow.

[lastlib]

4. We have invented an even more powerful new weapon against government tyranny;

This weapon was barely in its infancy at the time the Constitution, or even the second Amendment, was written. It is called "the right to vote." Wisely used, it is FAR more powerful than any firearm for controlling government "tyranny."

[billh58]

5. The "cold dead hands" crowd

believes that only they can determine the course of this country, because they are true patriots. The time is not far away, however, when our ballot box will close their collective bullet boxes.