You have a right to keep and bear arms — NOT!
by Owen Courrèges · 04/27/2007 10:17 amAs you are all well probably aware, I’ve been scanning the news looking for liberal views on gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting.
Anyway, I recently found an interesting view from Shahid Buttar, lawyer and activist, on TomPaine.com. Buttar is quite obviously pro-gun control, but acknowleges that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. In that regard, he reasons:
The Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms. Like the First Amendment, it includes both a public and private dimension. For instance, the First Amendment protects the individual’s right to speech—but in the service of a corresponding public right to the free exchange of information and perspectives. Similarly, the Second Amendment’s private “right … to keep and bear arms” serves a broader, more important function of preserving a popular check on potentially tyrannical government.
Now, from here you’re probably asking how he can be in favor of gun control after expressing this view. I think it’s clearly impossible; here’s how he reasons:
[N]o right is absolute. Even the most precious liberties are subject to judicial scrutiny, and the authorization of restrictions where justified. The Supreme Court once went so far as to allow the arbitrary detention of a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans under its strictest standard of scrutiny. While the individual right to bear a weapon may remain legitimate in the abstract, legislatures have every right to deem the public interest in preventing mass murder sufficiently compelling to enact a law narrowly tailored to address it. In Britain, for instance, regulations on gun ownership have proven largely successful in preventing gun violence.
The flaws in his argument are painfully obvious. Sure, all rights are subject to reasonable limitations. However, they are not simply subject to a standard of “what the government feels is necessary.” Can you imagine subjecting the First Amendment to this reasoning? The government could ban any speech it deemed “dangerous.”
Furthermore, if a blanket ban on gun ownership is “narrowly tailored,” then those words have ceased to have meaning. We wouldn’t have a First Amendment then, and what Buttar suggests would essentially eliminate the Second Amendment. There would, instead, be a right to keep and bear arms that the government could eliminate at any time merely by citing public safety. This is not the way other rights are treated, and it defeats the purpose of the Amendment. It is “broadly tailored” by any definition.
Buttar’s examples are also curious. He cites the Korematzu decision, which is highly controversial and widely regarded as incorrectly decided. President Reagan even went so far as issue and official apology complete with financial compensation to the victims of the Japanese internment. I doubt Mr. Buttar thinks Korematzu was justified anyway, so it’s unclear why he mentioned it.
He then writes that gun control has been successful in Britain, which simply isn’t true. According to the British Home Office, which compiles crime statistics, “the number of overall offences involving firearms has been increasing each year since 1997/98.”
So what purpose does the Second Amendment supposedly hold for Buttar? Read on:
[J]urisdictions around the country have increasingly impeded concerned citizens from raising their collective voice. During the 2004 Republican National Convention, the New York Police Department infiltrated peaceful activist groups and arrested nearly 2,000 people—many without probable cause, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and settlements. Earlier this month, reports emerged that, during a 2002 protest in Washington, a secret FBI unit illegally detained and harassed a group of anti-war activists.
But the Second Amendment guarantees a right to resistance. At the very least, these abuses should not take five years to come to light, nor should they be addressed only after-the-fact. Gestapo tactics by local police departments and federal authorities to intimidate non-violent dissidents should be struck down as unconstitutional.
[...]
It was precisely for times like these that the Second Amendment was created: to guarantee a right to citizen insurrection—not a right to impose risks on communities by forcing open the door to weapons, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit did when recently striking down the District’s public safety laws.
This is a bit off the deep end, no? He’s spun the Second Amendment to where it doesn’t protect what it purports to protect, namely the right to keep and bear arms, and instead protects the rights of extremist protest groups against law enforcement. It’s utter nonsense.
Sure, the Second Amendment does dovetail nicely with the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, as Buttar indicates. It guarantees the right of people to challenge the government. However, the Second Amendment deals with the possibility of armed insurrection, not protests. The rights of protestors are effecitvely dealt with elsewhere. The right of US citizens to arm themselves, potentially against a tyannical government, is the object of the Second Amendment. You cannot spin that away.
The “right of the people to keep and bear arms” clearly opens the door to weapons ownership. If this bothers Buttar, he should come out and say that he doesn’t support the Second Amendment. However, this tortured evaluation, if it can even be called that, is simply embarassing — particularly when coming from an attorney.
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Yes to protect us from a tyranical government. I am waiting for the libs definition of tyranical. It’s probably something like their wondering which definition of is, is. I can define tyranical for them. Guns need to be banned everytime a republican is president lol.
I prefer the right to arm bears. And if you arm them with paintball guns it can be quite hilarious.
#1 If you honestly believe that the only think that can protect us against government is guns, you are way off base. Apathy and ignorance will allow our government to turn tyrannical. As long as we have the abysmal voter turnouts that we do, as long as the average person in America doesn’t know who their legislators are, as long as american Idol can get better ratings than a presidents speech, we are heading towards trouble.
Gadboy, it’s as though my lips were moving and your words were coming out of my mouth.
gadboy
Bravo Bravo encore encore.
Whistle, yay, applause.
Take a bow
Well said.
/Wish I said that.
Owen,
An exceptionally well-thought out, well researched thread. Kudos!
Gadboy,
You nailed it, my friend.
Thank you gentleman. That is a subject that has always caused me to jump up on to my soapbox.
i know it sounds like a tired old cliche, but we are the government. I have friends who don’t read a newspaper or magazine of any kind or watch any news and it just amazes me.
Gadboy, I think if you polled all pro Second amendment folks you would find that 99% of them don’t believe that the “only think that can protect us against government is guns”, but it would most certainly be a last resort, which is why the founding fathers included it.
Arguably, history is repeating itself.
Let’s put this into the proper perspective, hamous.One of the main reasons I think the 2nd amendment was written was because at the time we didn’t have the money to maintain an effective full time army. That, though, is an argument for another day. When the constitution was written it was possible for a citizen militia to take on armed government troops, because they had access to most of the same weapons. I think that has changed a little now.
I’ll never forget listening to a combat veteran address this issue a few years back. He was a very strong believer in 2nd amendment rights and the ability to defend your family. He made the point though that most people have no concept of the brutal efficiency of modern military weapons, and that a neighborhood of men with deer rifles and handguns would not last long at all against helicopter gunships, tanks and highly trained infantry. I think if we ever get to the point where we are fighting against our own government, it will be because we have neglected our duty as citizens of a democracy.
Gadboy
#7
I’m glad I’m just “one of the boys!”
I’m sorry, Neo. I sent that reply before I saw your post. I’ve seen you in a dress. Could never , ever, mistake you for one of the boys.
gadboy
#12
We missed you last night!
gadboy, I think things like the insurgency in Iraq show that while our military may have beter weapons than the citizenry, if it came to it, the military would have their hands tied enough so that the fight would be more equalized. I have a hard time imagining the left letting the armed forces use their full armaments against American citizens.
And here in lies the ultimate truth.
Duhmoose
I would submit that should we need to use our weapons against our military, our military would not have their hands tied as in Iraq.
It is one thing to fight to preserve the power of another government, quite another when protecting your own power.
Let me see
WACO
comes to mind.
Gadboy, I agree completely. I just think we’re closer to that point, though still a long ways away, than you do. The problem I see is mainly an issue with the judicial branch of government. To use another tired old cliche, they legislate from the bench, and erode the Constitution. Those judges are appointed by politicians. And its those politicians that appoint those types of judges that bother me. With a few high profile exceptions, when I look at who those politicians are, the bulk of them fall on the left side of the aisle.
Squawk, I also think that if it came down to a fight between a tyrannical US government and freedom loving Americans, you would find many, if not most of our military siding with the freedom lovers.
gadboy, it does not take the whole of America to allow tyranny to rule. It only takes a few groups giving up their individual identity, a few groups giving in to apathy, a few groups giving in to sloth and the dole mentality, and pretty soon those of us working to preserve our nation are not in a place to help direct where it is going.
I know The Dude brings this up frequently but Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged should be required reading for all at some point in our educational system.
duhmoose
I do not know Moose. I am not paranoid, nor am I “truther”. But would they?
If it ever got to the point where the military (not FBI) was in direct armed conflict with the citizens I think there would be no United States. We did that once. It was called the War of Northern Agression
Squawk, The military men and women I know hold their oath to the ideals of our country higher than the oath their commanders and politicians. Maybe I am a bit of a romantic, but I can’t believe that anyone patriotic enough to give their life to protect the ideals of our nation would be willing to trample those same ideals to support a tyrant.
duhmoose
/Treading very lightly here.
Moose I spent many years in the military both enlisted and as a brat before becoming a piano player in a ho-house. (My Mom does not know I was a trucker don’t tell her please).
There are many forms of delusion. In fact I don’t believe we will ever be forced to give up our weapons. (That is the topic at hand). Nope I would submit that that the laws will be written such that most Americans will give up their weapons willingly. Think that won’t happen? I direct your attention to Britain and Australia where handguns are outlawed and people willingly turned in their firearms.
Houston and New York City have had “turn in your handguns day” and it just staggered me the amount out sheeple that turned in their weapons. Enough folks do that stuff and it is not hard to imagine that us 2nd Amendment folks will be placed in the minority and then guess what? Do the math.
Don’t you get the least bit uncomfortable when the National Guard is called out to lock down a city? I do. I have seen the National Guard detain folks from returning to their home. Oh but that is in a time of disaster you say? Oh really. OK. I suppose.
Squawk, I understand where you are coming from, maybe I am just naive. Maybe I want so bad to believe in the good in my fellow Americans that it is hard for me to see the bad sometimes. I recognize the slope we are tumbling down with regards to gun control. I just see personal protection as such a basic necessity of society, that it is hard for me not to have hope that good Americans will wake up and stand with the Constitution.
Don’t lose hope Moose. When hope is lost then we are surely lost.
That is precisely why I said I was treading lightly. Our personal liberties can only be protected by constant vigilance on “our” part. That is why I beat the “get involved drum” so dang much.
And it is people like you, bigjolly, Matt, Benzion, Shaker even Eric and DJ who keep my hope in our country strong. Places like LST where debate can get heated at times, but where we can continue to congregate and disagree or agree, laugh and cry, are the heart of America.
And just when you begin to think hope springs eternal:
PETA Asks News Organization to Refer to Animals as ‘He’ and ‘She’
Gadboy, we may differ on this, but there are certain people who should not be encouraged to vote.
When I looked on my 2007 Colorado elk hunting application, I did not see a box to check for “he”. It did, however, refer to bulls and cows. Man, I sure hope I draw my “he” elk tag this year. “I don’t understand them folks down there feedin’ on hog when they could be up here feedin’ on elk” - Bear Claw Chris Lappe, “Jeremiah Johnson”(magnificently played by Will Geer).
I love to see the snarkiness at the end of the article, though…
Lawrence, my favorite scene in that movie is when Jeremiah comes upon the feller buried up to his neck in sand and asks, “The Injuns put you here?”, to which the guy replies, “T’weren’t Mormons.”
We have moved the peta story to the front page so umm let’s get back on topic.
Thanx