As one commenter says, this is a great way to cut the Gordian knot of this issue. It would take years to happen, but the debate should occur. Let the NRA and other gun supporters defend their position on the merits.
As another commenter points out: if people want to defend themselves against government tyranny, do they really think their guns would be any match for U.S. military tanks? And if the government decides to abrogate the Constitution, how will the Second Amendment help you in the first place?
the rights of people do not come from goverment.our founders beleved all people have rights because they are human.some goverments deny human rights.if you dont like the 2nd,you should also take a good look at the 9th&10.
This is one lily-livered bleeding heart that thinks repealing the 2nd amendment is a horrible idea.
As the U.S moves further away from representative democracy and toward fascism, the need for some kind of defense has never been more important.
Sure, guns won’t stand up to tanks and modern weapons, but they’ll stand up to them better than nothing at all.
I don’t own a gun, but I reserve my constitutional right to bear arms…oh my God, I think I’ve turned into Charlton Heston…
I am so tired of the handgun deaths as a result of the 2nd Amendment, and the crazies that have blinders on about it.
One figure tossed out on the news networks this week was that there exists more guns in America than people. That is a sickness that infects all geographic areas and economic classes. When we start to review what happened in Virginia we need to be mindful that each of us played a role in the disaster. Both Democrats and Republicans who take the NRA funds and do the bidding of this blood soaked lobbying organization in Congress are responsible. Each voter that accepts the malarkey from the NRA that gun control means stripping rights from hunters, and then casts a ballot based on that lie is a part of the problem. I too am responsible in that I and other Democrats do not force our candidates to take bolder gun control stands while running for election. We do not hold our elected official’s feet to the fire and demand that they pass gun legislation with teeth while in office.
P.S. by ‘crazies” I was not referring to those who have or will comment here….we all know who I mean….Bush and Company, and his conservative pals.
The military experts who think that people with small arms and homemade weapons are helpless in the face of US technology should do a little reading using the search terms “Viet Cong” and “insurgent fighters”.
So far it hasn’t happened here…..but History lasts a long, long time.
“Shapiro?”
Isn’t that a Jewish name?
Wow. My first anti-semitic blog comment!
Hi Tin Man,
He might not have meant it in an anti-semitic way. I have often read survivors of the Hollocaust say that Jews should never again allow themselves to be disarmed. The nation of Israel was founded on that.
Maybe the poster was suprised to see Shapiro advocate that.
That assumes that Shapiro is Jewish. I don’t know.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
How can a people honestly be expected to do this if they do not have access to firearms?
No one has convinced me that if people did not have access to firearms that they wouldn’t still find ways to go about killing themselves or others. Killing ourselves is one of the things our species most excels at.
I don’t understand why it’s a good idea to let the government, which has such a huge concentration of coercive force, control whether or not or how we can arm ourselves. If this were a perfect world and people were not all too often tempted by their yetzer hara to seek power and control over others, then this would not be a problem. But we are humans, not angels, and power corrupts.
I feel safer knowing that everyone has access to firearms, including homicidal psychopaths like the kid at Virginia Tech, because it means that I can have a gun too if I need one.
I really don’t understand how gun control became a part of “liberal” policy. Liberalism should be about increasing liberty, not restricting it or — even worse — restricting the people’s ability to defend it.
Daniel –
You write two consecutive sentences that directly contradict each other.
“How can a people honestly be expected to do this [overthrow the government] if they do not have access to firearms?”
“No one has convinced me that if people did not have access to firearms that they wouldn’t still find ways to go about killing themselves or others.”
Sorry, Tim, but there’s no contradiction.
If I wanted to go on a killing spress, I could use anything, really — a potato peeler, an ice cream scoop, a car, a chainsaw. If my goal was soley to kill people because I’d lost my mind like the Virginia Tech murderer, I wouldn’t need a gun. Jeffey Dahmer didn’t need a gun, neither did Timothy McVeigh or the 9/11 hijackers. If one’s goal is simply destructive — to kill and terrorize just for the sake of killing and terrorizing — then you have room to be creative.
But the goal was constructive — if this were a case of revolution or civil war where the point is not to kill but to win — how could a populace fight an effective resistance if the government is equipped with firearms — whose benefit is not only their lethalness but their range and accuracy — and they are not? Granted, the odds may still be unfairly stacked in the government’s favor but a citizenry armed with guns still has better chance that one without.
I would like to believe that grievances could be redressed non-violently, ala Gandhi, and who knows — maybe that might be possible. We don’t know, though, because we haven’t gotten to the point where such extreme measures are necessary. It depends on the ruling power. The British in India could be shamed into giving into Gandhi. Nonviolence didn’t work as well in the Third Reich.
First, it’s not Tim. :)
I don’t really see how someone would be able to kill 32 people in a classroom, let alone kill even *two* people, with an ice cream scoop. Perhaps you could explain to me how this is done. Nothing is as efficient as a gun, except a bomb, which is much harder to acquire.
As for a violent revolution in this country, which for the life of me I can’t see happening, nowhere in the Constitution is there a framework for overthrowing the government. Any overthrow of the government would have to be done extraconstitutionally, in which case the Second Amendment would be worthless.
That said, I haven’t totally made up my mind on gun control. In some situations I can see a gun being a good way for a person to defend oneself. And repealing the Second Amendment doesn’t mean all guns are banned. It merely changes the terms of the debate. It’s a hard question.
Oops. I am sooo sorry. Jeff! Now I wonder who the “Tim” I’m thinking of is? That’s bizarre.
Guns certainly do make it easier and more efficient to kill a lot of people. Given enough planning, training, and strategy, it would certainly be possible to kill 32 people with an ice-cream scoop. It just take longer and be a whole lot more difficult. The point is, though, the removal one means of killing does not elimiate the intention to kill. It just forces would-be murderers to be more creative.
I still don’t trust the government enough to allow it to have the monopoly on firearms. If assault rifles were to be banned, for example, then both the government and the citizens should not have access to assault rifles. However, the army needs the best weapons it can get to defend the nation, and the nation therefore should have access to the best weapons it can get should it be necessary to defend itself against the army.
As for the Constitutional aspect you raise, that is a very interesting question. The Declaration of Independence does not carry any legal force, but it does express the philosophy on which the independence of the nation — and thereby the legitimacy of the Constitution — is based. If a government were to become actually tyrannical and were to violate the rights of citizen’s guaranteed by the Constitution and if the Constitutional methods (impeachment, court review, protest, etc.) were unable to affect change, then it could be argued that the Constitution has been abrogated and the people have the right and obligation to restore it.
“…do they really think their guns would be any match for U.S. military tanks?”
— Yes, just ask the Iraqi insurgency’s various factions, or the Vietnamese government’s experience against both tanks, planes, and cannon. The federal government would be hard pressed to maintain any long-term control over even a loosely organized, minimally armed rebellious citizenry, be it in a NYC or a Grafton VT theater.
As Mao noted: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
The wiser, more effective solution (than repealing our Second most important Amendment) is better licensing — reliant on accurate, nationalized databaseS regulated by the Judiciary with Congressional oversight (yes, a whole entire committee!). This, in turn, would rightly foster a truly enforced, and workable, national privacy policy — an need that would quite effectively bring both Left and Right policy-wonks together to solve this reoccurring horror.
rob@egoz.org
The Bill Of Rights does not grant rights, it only delineates them. Rights cannot be repealed they can only be infringed. Citizens have rights, governments have powers. Those without rights are not citizens, but subjects. Anyone who will not exercise his rights is in danger of becoming a subject.