Ban pistols and limit city dwellers to long guns? Can DC residents even possess a deer rifle? March 4, 2008 OPINION DOW JONES REPRINTS Sanity and the Second Amendment By LAURENCE H. TRIBE March 4, 2008; Page A16 The Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument later this month in a politically charged gun-control case from the District of Columbia. The case involves a city resident who contends that the District is violating his rights under the Second Amendment with a citywide ban on handguns. Gun enthusiasts on the right are all but daring justices who protect a woman's right to choose, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, to trash the "right of the people to keep and bear arms," enshrined in the text of the Second Amendment. If the Supreme Court does what they fear and reduces the gun right to a relic of the days when all "able-bodied men" constituted each state's "militia," they will use that defeat to suggest that we need a president who will bring us a truly "conservative" Supreme Court. Those on the left have at the same time challenged a court that they see as already leaning hard right to live up to its conservative principles, follow precedent, and limit the Second Amendment -- as the text of its preamble seems to invite -- to the preservation of each state's "well-regulated militia," ending once and for all the idea that the Constitution enshrines a personal right to wield firearms. The court would be foolhardy to accept either side's invitation that it plunge headlong into the culture wars by accepting these extreme ways of framing the issue. It is true that some liberal scholars like me, having studied the text and history closely, have concluded, against our political instincts, that the Second Amendment protects more than a collective right to own and use guns in the service of state militias and national guard units. Opponents of the District's flat ban on handgun possession have cited my words to the court and in newspaper editorials in their support. But nothing I have discovered or written supports an absolute right to possess the weapons of one's choice. The lower court's decision in this case -- the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found the District's ban on concealable handguns in a densely populated area to be unconstitutional -- went overboard. Under any plausible standard of review, a legislature's choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence need not, and should not, be viewed as an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of the people to keep or bear arms. For the Supreme Court to go any further than this in overturning the lower court's decision -- for it to hold, for instance, that no firearms ban could violate the Second Amendment unless it were to prevent states from organizing militias in their collective self-defense, as the District appears to urge -- would gratuitously fan the flames of doubt about the court's commitment to core constitutional principles, and would save no lives in the process. Equally foolish would be a decision tilting to the other extreme and upholding the lower court's decision simply because the right to bear arms is, judicial precedent to the contrary notwithstanding, a right that belongs to citizens as individuals. Such a holding would confuse the right to bear arms with a right to own and brandish the firearms of one's choosing. Worse than that, it would transform a constitutional provision clearly intended and designed to protect the people of the several states from an all-powerful national government into a restriction on the national government's uniquely powerful role as governor of the nation's capital, over which Congress, acting through municipal authorities of the District, exercises the same kind of plenary authority that it exercises over Fort Knox. Using a case about national legislative power over gun-toting in the capital city as a vehicle for deciding how far Congress or the state of California can go in regulating guns in Los Angeles would be a silly stretch. Chief Justice John Roberts, ever since his days as a judge on the court of appeals, has virtually defined judicial modesty by opining that if it is not necessary for the court to decide an issue, then it is necessary for the court not to decide that issue. For this reason, and for the further reason that the scholarship on the reach of the Second Amendment and its implementation is still in its infancy, the court should take the smallest feasible step in resolving the case before it. Issuing a narrow decision would disappoint partisans on both sides and leave many questions unresolved. But to do anything else would ill-suit a court that flies the flag of judicial restraint. Mr. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, is the author of the forthcoming book "The Invisible Constitution" (Oxford Press).
What a load. Go read the Founders WORDS about the 2nd. They did not parse words as to what "militia" and "the right of the people" meant. No Sir. Judges are there to interpret Law. Not redefine it. A seperate process exists to alter and amend the Constitution. And the Judiciary is absolutely forbid from that.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Er... think about adapting to such policies by investing in the defense capabilities of the mind. If you rely on the gun, you will weaken your minds abillity to protect you. It can only protect you as you invest in the truth about its invulnerability. If this sounds 'foreign' to you, its because there has been a long-standing reliance on the gun. In such an environment, the truth will be virtually unheard of. Jesus
No one suggested the exchange of one for the other. At its most basic level, the 2nd is there as a last line of defense against a tyrannical Government. Ironically, the right to keep and bear arms was instituted after deep and thoughtful consideration by some of 18th centuries foremost thinkers.
I propose that you see a choice between strength and weakness, such that whether you have a gun or not, it does not matter. Know that if you 'live by the gun" - rely on it - you will "die" because you will weaken the awareness of strength so much that your mind will not save you either from an early death, or a "normal" death. A gun might buy you a few extra hours, days, or years of "life". But in the end, the grim reaper will call unless you have strength of mind. Conversely, a gun could literally shorten your life by an equal amount, if ever you pulled it on someone with a quicker draw. But with strength of mind, you might never find yourself in a position in which you think you need to draw. Or if you did, you could defuse the situation in a way that allows everyone to keep breathing. I prefer forward thinkers from between the first century AD and the first century BC. I recall only one during that period. As I recall, everytime the Jews used weapons as a last line of defense against the Romans, they were wiped out, dispersed, or both. Believe it or not, but the issuance of guns to the people for defense will always backfire on the people. So whoever these 18th century thinkers were, you'll have to question their motives, whether this was deliberate, or whether it was just another mistake in human logic. Such a policy guarantees that within time, the people will have a big government taking away their guns. They will be lucky to keep their squirt guns. The very idea that you need a gun says, "I am weak. I need protection". This is the very idea that opens a hungry void that politicians gladly fill with promises to protect you. Before you know it, a Department of Defense arises with a budget bigger than the GNP...always buying bigger guns...more guns...to protect you from ________. (fill in the blank). At no point in this process does the individual or the nation ever grow stronger except in appearances. Rome always falls. On the other hand, the idea that you do not need a gun reinforces the truth about power. Power is indigenous to the mind. Mind literally makes the world out of nothing, and maintains nothing by the power of faith. Never underestimate the power of the mind. Resolve to learn of its power, and you resolve to restore your freedom. Give the mind freedom to be itself. But when you force it to spend its power on ways to make the body free, you dissapate your awareness of its strength. Since the mind sustains the body, the body must also weaken, even as you endeavor to strengthen it, and make it free. Jesus
I can see your point. Allow me to explain. The factors that drive the death wish, I find them unacceptable. They affect every other facet of existence. If you question death, you question all of existence...you question everything you think you know. This is required if you have any intention of getting off the birth-death cycle called "life", or, the "life cycle". I don't call that life. I do call it a cycle. More like a rut actually. Death derives from a psychological illness. The driving factors run deep, hidden in repressed layers of mind. If you can address these factors, you can "resurrect" the mind to a pre-death constant I call Life. There are few things more shrouded in mystery than the death experience. It represents a nearly unsolvable puzzle; an enigma within an enigma...a Rubric's Cube in the hands of a drunkard. Resolve to choose Life. Only then do you stand a chance to solve this riddle. For death is indecision! Choose Life, and you cure the ills of the mind which make existence a living hell. There's a fatal attraction about death. It's like a moth to the flames. It is feared consciously but wished for unconsciously. This sets up a conflict in which "there is no rest for the wicked". Both the fear and the wish must be looked at as obstacles to peace. Remember, the mind is the only thing in need of salvation, and peace is the only way to save it. A mind in conflict with itself requires a resolute decision to cure what indecision ravages. The "chosen people" are simply those who have made a resolute decision for Life as a constant, accepting no substitutes, accepting no death in any form...as there are many forms of death. Death is a symbol of an idea, played out in many forms. Believe it or not, fear of death is subordinate only to the fear of God. I did not fear either death or God, did not wish for death, and did not believe in guilt, which drives all of these mad factors. There are some things you must understand before you can make such resolutions. That was the basis of my teaching, which for the most part, has been lost in translation. The death-resurrection sequence was simply a demonstrative thesis, that what I taught is true: The Son of God cannot be destroyed. If you can understand what is meant by 'Son of God', and manage to identify with this as your reality...you will accept the constancy of Life which is his. Otherwise, yer a dead duck. Jesus
The problem, is the scant evidence banning any variety of firearm reduces illegal deaths. It just hasnt happened, anywhere, so why even contemplate such a half assed punitive measure, which wont work.
Because it's not about measurable results. It's about doing something, creating hope from change and that hope leads to more change, taking a stand, making a difference, coming together as a welcoming community of caring individuals and empowerment. Somebody get me a shovel. It's important to stand up and be counted, then take action. Institutionalize change so that hope flows outwards and empowers individuals to care deeply about their community. This will give us the caring, even loving society that grows our children to be lights of compassion and a new hope for the new world. Peeeew! That's ripe, right there. I'm almost ready to run for public office.