Thanks for the link, paulsen.
up your alley
bmp
This post is a mess. I suggest you have the mods pull it and start over. Please excerpt one cohesive piece of text. You have two different sections. And please save your editorializing for the Replies section of the thread.
Notice they want to 'replace' and not 'repeal' because when you repeal an amendment it stays in the constitution for future generations to see..
The average voter today can pass an 8th grade test from 1900, or read the Federalist papers, yea we are way more sophisticated.
I see the usual 'reasonable' crowd is showing up to slag you.
The right to keep and bear arms is, as a matter of historical fact, SPECIFICALLY rooted in the natural right to defend against tyranny.
You know it; I know it; even the 'reasonable' bunch know it. They just deny it - that's all.
I have every right to yell Fire in a crowded theater or any where else I deem fit..
Especially if there is a FIRE..
I then not only have a right but a responsibility..
( I would probably wait until I was near the exit, however.. )
As for the 2nd, ...
I will pry the guns from the cold, dead hands of the Jack Booted thugs that come to get MY guns..
And use them get even more..
He's correct about the Bill of Rights' not applying to the States. The First Amendment, e.g., says CONGRESS shall make no law... It was the Supreme Court that decreed that "Congress" means "your local government school" or "your local city council" is not allowed to put up a Christmas tree, etc. It is the Supreme Court that decreed that because CONGRESS is prohibited from limiting speech, your state cannot do anything about pornography, etc.
Hello all ... an anonymous emailer left me a link to this discussion. It is gratifying to see that something I wrote prompted a spirited debate. Some posters here have disparaging remarks for me, but I'll take them with a grain of salt. I wanted to address a few points made in the original post.
Regarding my "insidious" interpretation of the Constitution in a pro-statist manner ... I'm not sure I've ever heard my interpretations described as insidious, and I don't think I would ever have described myself as pro-statist ... is there a definition of that that I can see? I've always considered myself a strong federalist/nationalist, though I certainly see great benefit in the separations we have with the states.
Regarding my ignoring the Supremacy Clause: I know of this clause of which you speak ... but the Supreme Court prior to incorporation did not apply this clause to the states, as a historical look at Supreme Court decisions will show. My discussion of incorporation on by Bill of Rights page gets into detail.
Do I bash the 2nd Amendment? I guess you could say I do, but in the long run, I think my suggested replacement protects gun ownership in a way that the 2nd might not. In any case, to anyone who is afraid that my amendment would remove the text of the 2nd from the Constitution, be aware that that is just not how it is done, and I would not do it. The amendments are not only our law but are our historical context. Despite the fact that the 18th is no longer applicable, it remains in mine and all copies as a reminder of where we have been.
As to the note that I am not a friend of the Constitution, I beg to differ most strongly on this point. There are not many people who have done as much as I have to bring this wonderful document to the common person.
As to some of the other posts, I'm not exactly sure what "freeping" is, but if it involves "stuffing the ballot box," I do hope that the poll is not skewed by multiple votes by one person. That would be a shame and would reflect badly on whomever votes multiple times.
Anyway - thanks for stopping by my site and reading my content. If anyone has any questions or comments for me, I'm happy to address them.
The Bill of Rights was not originally intended to be applied to the states. The protections of the BOR have been applied to the states only by virtue of incorporation into the 14th Amendment.
(The Supremacy Clause has nothing to do with this--if the BOR was written only to apply to the FedGov then it doesn't matter if it is the supreme law of the land or not.)
In Barron v. Baltimore, decided in 1833, Chief Justice Marshall held that the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment did not apply to state and local governments.
It was only years after passage of the 14th Amendment that parts of the Bill of Rights began to be applied to the states. Even today, parts of the BOR do not apply to the states, i.e., the right to be charged by a grand jury. Today, you can be charged by prosecutor's information in some states.
This is important, because it is through this incorporation idea that we have gotten the notion that school prayer is unconsitutional. A strong argument can be made that, even after the 14th Amendment, the Constitution should not be interepreted to incorporate the 1st Amendment and apply it to the states.
I think it should take the form of two sets of rules: what the fedgov/local governments are allowed to regulate and what only local governments are allowed to regulate (with everything else held as a right of the people that cannot be infringed by any government).
There would be some risk inherent in this (what if we lost the political fight and anti-gunners got to change the Constitution?) but if we succeeded, it would have the benefit of securing near-permanently a core subset of gun rights (the most important stuff). The more controversial rights would have to be won at the ballot box, but it would be a better situation than we have today, because anti-gunners would know their limits.
I am quite willing to accept reasonable restrictions on my ownership and use of fireams.
Of course, "reasonable" means limited by my ability to afford to purchase. I do not, and will not accept any left-wing lunatic fringe definition of "reasonable".
FMCDH
The author does not seem to distinguish between actions and tools. A firearm ban is not the equivalent of preventing someone from yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre (2nd Amd. vs. 1st Amd); it is more the equivalent of cutting one's tongue out.
This proposed text is offered as a way to spark discussion of the topic
This proposed text is more like a spark in a gunpowder factory !