Despise Guns? Change Begins At Ballot Box

IBD Editorials ^ | June 28, 2010 | The great THOMAS SOWELL

[Kaslin]

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the Second Amendment to the Constitution means that individual Americans have a right to bear arms, what can we expect?

Those who have no confidence in ordinary Americans may expect a bloodbath, as the benighted masses start shooting each other, now that they can no longer be denied guns by their betters. People who think we shouldn't be allowed to make our own medical decisions, or decisions about which schools our children attend, certainly are not likely to be happy with the idea that we can make our own decisions about how to defend ourselves.

When you stop and think about it, there is no obvious reason why issues such as gun control should be ideological issues in the first place. It is ultimately an empirical question whether allowing ordinary citizens to have firearms will increase or decrease the amount of violence.

Many people who are opposed to gun laws that place severe restrictions on ordinary citizens owning firearms have based them on the Second Amendment to the Constitution. But, while the Supreme Court must make the Second Amendment the basis of its rulings on gun control laws, there is no reason why the Second Amendment should be the last word for the voting public.

If the end of gun control leads to a bloodbath of runaway shootings, then the Second Amendment can be repealed, just as other constitutional amendments have been repealed. Laws exist for people, not people for laws.

[smokingfrog]

BTTT

[Lurker]

A Sowell BTT. He is, as usual, straight to the point.

He may be straight to the point, but he's also wrong.

Let's be clear about this. The Bill of Rights doesn't 'grant' anything. The BOR 'enumerates certain rights' that we have by virtue of being Human. There could be a 99% vote in favor of repealing the 2nd and it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference.

I have the inherent, inalienable right to defend my life, the lives of those I love, AND the property I've spent my life acquiring by the most modern means of the day.

Were Congress to repeal the 2nd it would be no more moral for them to pass laws forbidding me form acquiring modern arms than it would be for them to pass laws permitting the Government to torture me or deprive me of the right to a Trial by a Jury of my peers.

I'm incredibly disappointed by this piece by Dr. Sowell. I can't believe that he just doesn't get it.

[sig226]

It is truly a mark against us that it took this long to reach this decision. It’s not possible to imagine what black America would look like if, in 1875, Senator Pomeroy’s wish had been granted the full authority of law.

“...And if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open and the intruder enters for purposes as vile as were known to slavery, then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant to send the polluted wretch to another world, where his wretched-ness will forever remain complete.” (quoted in Justice Alito’s opinion, pg. 34)

It is possible to compare the effects of an enforced culture of helplessness to the the effects of a culture of self determination. We don’t even need to use black vs. white comparisons. We can look a the standards of life in overregulated cities in nanny states with unlimited power to regulate everything. They all suck.

It is certain that this country would be a very different place if there had never been an era when butchers could loose bands of thugs on their enemimes and hide behind a pen.

On this subject, I will do something I never thought I would do. I apologize to all black men and women who suffered under the insidious stupidity of gun bans. Our government robbed you of the ability to defend yourselves and speak force to tyrants. It was disgusting and I regret that it ever happened.

On this same subject, I offer absolutely no apology to the various autocrats who believe they can persecute with law, destroy with regulation, and steal with impunity. The Supreme Court has made clear the relationship between you and your victims.

[higgmeister]

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the Second Amendment to the Constitution means that individual Americans have a right to bear arms, what can we expect?

A much more genteel and polite day-to-day social interaction in America.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The media, like Breyer, might do well to reflect on what is their job and what is the voting public's job. The media's job should be to give us the information to make up our own minds, not slant and filter the news to fit the media's vision.

To the contrary, there should no such identifiable entity as "the media." The press should be free. If the press were free (as it was in the founding era, and up to the Civil War), newspapers would contend over what was true and what was important.

But as it is, there is a taboo within journalism against questioning the objectivity of other journalists. That taboo is the natural result of expensive membership in a newswire service, since the value of such membership is only as great as the credence the public gives to the newswire's reports. We should always have taken warning from the title, the Associated Press - an associated press is not a free press. Certainly not a competitive one.

Claims of objectivity are self-negating - belief in one's own objectivity is the essence of subjectivity and the very opposite of actual objectivity. Any effort toward actual objectivity inevitably begins with an examination of the known reasons why you might not be objective. And since journalism is selling - selling the idea that its reports are important to the Republic, and essential reading for each individual member of the public - reasons why journalism might not be objective are not especially subtle. If one has the willingness to see them, which a massive propaganda campaign seeks to prevent us from having.

[jurroppi1]

I’m right with you on this one! Jason Lewis was talking about this yesterday on his show and he said basically the same thing that you are saying here. I believe the anti federalists wanted the enumeration and the federalists believed that it was redundant because these were God-given rights (unalienable and given as a birthright).