Second Amendment Rights and Black Sheep

dansargis.org ^ | October 17, 2007 | Dan Sargis

[Dr.Syn]

Can you imagine being denied your Constitutional Rights because you were charged with a crime that you were quickly found innocent of?

[thebaron512]

This people are monsters and can’t be trusted with upholding our laws!

[Kevmo]

And yet liberals (including the Mainstream Media), who treat nine of the original Amendments with the same reverence they bestow on Mao’s Little Red Book, consistently treat the Second Amendment as the flawed bastard of the Bill.
***It’s not just liberals. Free Republic has its contingent of absolutists who favor property rights over the bill of rights.

[EdReform]

Bang

[TLI]

Well, this is what happens when one submits to requesting permission to exercise a constitutional right.

Obtaining a "permit" is a request to exercise the Second Amendment.

[Dr.Syn]

It gets much worse. The State Police are the ones being sued for interpreting (creating?) the CT gun laws according to their taste.

[robertpaulsen]

"Can you imagine being denied your Constitutional Rights because you were charged with a crime"

We throw citizens in jail who are charged with a crime before their case even goes to trial. Where's the outrage?

Temporarily confiscating one's property seems to pale in comparison.

[wolfpat]

And yet liberals (including the Mainstream Media), who treat nine of the original Amendments with the same reverence they bestow on Mao’s Little Red Book, consistently treat the Second Amendment as the flawed bastard of the Bill.

They may treat the 2nd amendment as a bastard, but they ignore the 9th and 10th entirely.

[Dr.Syn]

We throw citizens in jail who are charged with a crime before their case even goes to trial. Where's the outrage?

Temporarily confiscating one's property seems to pale in comparison.

But we do not deny them their voting rights or muzzle them or not allow them to write letters to the editor or not give them culturally appropriate meals, etc, etc, etc....

[DocRock]

[robertpaulsen]

"But we do not deny them their voting rights or muzzle them ..."

Nope. We just take away their freedom, that's all, and throw them in jail. Without a trial. I'll bet you even agree with that.

Yet here we have a story where the use of one's property is suspended and you go ballistic.

[TheThinker]

I don’t think it was ever in the Founders’ minds to ever deny a person’s right to self-protection. I think it was just absolutely a given considering the threats and needs pioneers and revolutionaries faced daily. It was probably foreign to a man of the sixteenth century that you would ever try to take away his means of self-protection.

[DuncanWaring]

We throw citizens in jail who are charged with a crime before their case even goes to trial.

But we don't keep them in jail for years after the charges are dropped.

[KarlInOhio]

By making Amendment XIV a “living right”, Professor Amar justifies this dichotomy by arguing, “...given that a broad reading is a policy choice rather than a clear constitutional command, it must be functionally justified. And the mere fact that, say, the First Amendment has been read expansively is not an automatic argument for equal treatment for the Second.”

If anything, the second amendment is broader than the first. The first starts out "Congress shall make no law...". The second has no such limitation on who is prohibited from restricting the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Thus while you could argue that the first had to be expanded by the Supreme Court to apply to the other two branches of government or to the states, the second is a blanket prohibition of restriction by all levels and parts of the government from its ratification.

[Dr.Syn]

We throw citizens in jail who are charged with a crime before their case even goes to trial.

But we do not deny them their VI and VIII Amendment Rights...which is essentially what was done to the INNOCENT man in this story all because a Chili's waitress was "alarmed".

[robertpaulsen]

"But we don't keep them in jail for years after the charges are dropped."

Correct. Connecticut needs to get their act together.

[robertpaulsen]

"I don’t think it was ever in the Founders’ minds to ever deny a person’s right to self-protection."

A person’s right to self-protection with a gun? That right was only protected for a certain class of citizens -- primarily white, male landowners.

Non-whites didn't have that right protected. Nor women, children, foreign visitors, illegal aliens, Indians, prisoners, the insane ... quite a few persons did not have that right protected.

Now, that's not to say they couldn't have guns. Just that their right to have them wasn't protected.

[robertpaulsen]

"I don’t think it was ever in the Founders’ minds to ever deny a person’s right to self-protection."

A person’s right to self-protection with a gun? That right was only protected for a certain class of citizens -- primarily white, male landowners.

Non-whites didn't have that right protected. Nor women, children, foreign visitors, illegal aliens, Indians, prisoners, the insane ... quite a few persons did not have that right protected.

Now, that's not to say they couldn't have guns. Just that their right to have them wasn't protected.

[robertpaulsen]

"the second is a blanket prohibition of restriction by all levels and parts of the government from its ratification."

Then why do the gun laws vary from state to state? For example, why is concealed carry allowed in some states but not others if the second amendment applies to every state?

When it comes to the first amendment, the laws in all the states are uniform.

[robertpaulsen]

"But we do not deny them their VI and VIII Amendment Rights...which is essentially what was done to the INNOCENT man in this story"

His 6th and 8th amendment rights were not denied! Get a grip.

The State of Connecticut, the governmental body which issued the license, should speed up the process. But they're not violating the U.S. Constitution by dragging their feet.