Posted on 05/20/2002 12:37:29 PM PDT by tarawa
(OH) Another call for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment Copyright 2002 The Columbus Dispatch The Columbus Dispatch
May 19, 2002 Sunday, Home Final Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL & COMMENT; Pg. 03D
LENGTH: 806 words
HEADLINE: NEITHER SIDE HAS BEEN ON TARGET OVER GUN RIGHTS
BYLINE: Andrew Oldenquist, For The Dispatch
BODY: Attorney General John Ashcroft is trying, most likely in vain, to persuade the Supreme Court to interpret the Second Amendment as the National Rifle Association interprets it. Both sides in this debate offer totally implausible interpretations of the Second Amendment:
*The anti-gun side says the amendment guarantees only a collective right: the right of a militia and today's military to be armed. But why would the Constitution bother saying a militia or army can be armed? Besides, the Second Amendment speaks of "the right of the people to bear arms," which implies an individual, not a collective, right. It doesn't say you are guaranteed a right to a gun only after you are called up; it says you may keep a gun in case you are called up. Neither is a militia a last defense against government tyranny, as some people have argued. Article I of the Constitution authorizes Congress to "provide for calling forth the militia to . . . suppress insurrections and repel invasions; to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia." The militia is a state organ, not a private organ. * The pro-gun side says the amendment guarantees the right of individuals to keep and bear arms for personal protection and other noncriminal purposes. But it says nothing of the sort. It says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This speaks only of the state's need of a militia and a militia's need of armed citizens.
What the Framers apparently meant is that citizens should bring their own guns when called up, relieving the government of supplying them. If states or Congress banned guns, there might be a shortage when a crisis arose.
This constitutional protection does not extend to persons ineligible for military service and, thus, leaves out the elderly, the sick, the handicapped and, in those days, women. It doesn't guarantee Charlton Heston a right to keep guns; he's too old for military service. These are precisely the people who might most need guns for protection. If the amendment meant to guarantee the right to own guns for personal protection, in addition to militia needs, it would say that.
If the NRA is right, one would think there is a history of Supreme Court decisions interpreting the amendment as a right to own guns for self-protection. But the court never has struck down a gun-control law on Second Amendment grounds and never has affirmed a universal Second Amendment right to guns. This interpretation is the creation of the gun lobby.
There's no way to squeeze out of the amendment a right to guns independent of militia needs. The amendment means that because a free state needs a militia, the right to guns can't be infringed.
For example, if the Constitution said, "A federal budget, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of Congress to levy taxes shall not be infringed," this wouldn't mean Congress is guaranteed a right to levy taxes to gamble with or for other purposes unrelated to funding a federal budget.
Quarreling about individual vs. collective rights avoids the deeper issue. The amendment, when seen as about guns for potential soldiers, is obsolete, because what it guarantees is the right of citizens eligible to serve in the armed forces to keep, for military use, guns that today are of llttle use to a modern army or national guard. The image of draftees showing up with various rifles, shotguns and pistols makes sense for the 18th century but is absurd now.
No one knows how many Americans are against gun control and gun registration simply because they think the Constitution prohibits it. Once the illogical interpretation of the NRA and Ashcroft is rejected and people realize the Constitution implies nothing about guns for personal protection, we will get a more informed and objective view of regulating guns.
Repealing the amendment would end the confusion and repeal, by itself, in no way would restrict anyone's right to own guns. In our democracy, we do not need to be granted a right to do anything: We are free to do whatever we want, unless forbidden by legitimate federal and state laws. This leaves gun rights in the hands of the people, via their elected representatives, with the right to make and change gun laws as they see fit. Yet, the Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, hence sacred in the eyes of nearly all Americans. Repealing one of these is not like repealing the 18th Amendment, which had established Prohibition. Perhaps we should leave the Second Amendment alone and deal as best we can with an apparently inviolable right of the physically fit of military age to have guns.
Andrew Oldenquist is professor emeritus of philosophy at Ohio State University.
oldenquist.1@osu.edu
__________________
I would agree with his suggestion Perhaps we should leave the Second Amendment alone and deal as best we can with an apparently inviolable right of the physically fit of military age to have guns. What I can't understand is why the author doesn't seem to buy into his own conclusion.
What part of this does the gun-grabbing leftist prof not understand?
Go figure. The same people who believe that this administration is horrible, corrupt and willing to kill their own citizens for a few bucks on puts and calls on the stock market are the ones that see no need to keep and bare arms.
--Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at p. 750, August 17, 1789.
No, it does not. The Second Amendment contains only a single comma.
--Boris
--Noah Webster in "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution," 1787, in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at p. 56 (New York, 1888).
"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."
--Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist No. 29.
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
--Tench Coxe in `Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1.
Andrew OLDENQUIST __________
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, Ohio State University, 350 University Hall, 230 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Oldenquist, A. 1978. Evolution and ethics. Personalist 59: 58—69. Keyword: evolutionary ethics.
Oldenquist, A. 1980. The possibility of selfishness. American Philosophical Quarterly 17: 25—33. Keyword: evolutionary ethics.
Oldenquist, A. 1990. The origins of morality: An essay in philosophical anthropology. Social Philosophy and Policy 8: 121—140. Keyword: evolutionary ethics.
This guy's specialty is evolutionary ethics, or as some might put it, "situational morality". Typical leftist nonsense used to rationalize any type of assinine behavior.
This sentence - #1 in the article body, is a lie. Olson has asked the Supreme Court to reject hearing any Second Amendment cases, specifically Emerson's and Haney's, so that they will not offer any interpretation of it.
I would agree with his suggestion Perhaps we should leave the Second Amendment alone and deal as best we can with an apparently inviolable right of the physically fit of military age to have guns. What I can't understand is why the author doesn't seem to buy into his own conclusion.
Why do you want to take guns away from the elderly or infirm?
Grandma needs her guns as much as the next guy.
If this language is so clear and unambiguous, why didn't congress use it when they wrote the 16th amendment?
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