tuna55 wrote:
I honestly feel that an open and frank discussion of what exactly gets added to the constitution for Health Care, for Gun Control (add an amendment that says arms do not include automatic weapons or nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction, for instance) etc would really make a difference. Force each side to make a three line summary of what they are really asking for. No 10,000 page pork laden crappy bill, a real live frank explanation. We vote on it, if 2/3rds of the states agree, it's in and then we make a bill based on those rights. More Ron Pauls, less Nancy Pelosis (based on the adherence to the constitution, not politics, the left has very valid points on most of these issues, ie, mentally ill people shouldn't have firearms, the current health care system DOES suck, etc) and we could get there.
I disagree. It is good that the constitution is a bit vague. The Bill of Rights lays out fundamental rights, but gives us the room to interpret just what those mean. Our understanding of them can change with the times without needing to re-write the verbiage of our basic rights.
It all comes down to, your rights end when they are liable to have a significant, negative impact on the greater right of someone else.
So, the second amendment grants us the right to bare arms, and logically to be able to defend ourselves with deadly force.
The trouble is, deadly force also has the ability to end someone's basic right to live. The right to live generally takes precedence over the right to be able to defend yourself. (Obviously, the right to defend yourself is often done in order to protect your right to live.)
We need to determine where the right to defend yourself intersects with the right to live. Are there situations where keeping a particular item and using it in a certain way are of more threat to the unconsenting people around you than they bolster your ability to defend yourself?
Obviously things like chemical weapons and explosives cross this line. Perhaps you personally would not take actions that threaten the life and safety of others, but negligence can open the door for someone else to use your property to cause injury. Like, if you own a pool, you can't leave it open where children can fall in and drown. If you have strong dangerous chemicals for work, it is your responsibility to keep them stored safely. You are responsible for keeping your firearms in such a manner that someone else can not use them to threaten the life of someone else.
The second amendment even says that the militia should be "well regulated". This implies a certain amount of public oversight.
So, where do these rights intersect? What amount of oversight is appropriate? These are important questions to ask. No, the answers are not obvious. If they were obvious, there wouldn't be this much argument about them. Yes, the right to bare arms has changed over time and is slowly constricting. This is not unusual as the population becomes more dense, and it becomes easier for your rights to interfere with someone else's.
And even if we on a society decide that the right to bare arms needs to be more regulated, the onus of proof is on the accuser. We should not have to prove that our right to defend ourselves should not be restricted. The accusers need to prove that limiting guns strengthens the fundamental rights to life and liberty of society at large.
