Posted on 10/17/2012 7:11:14 AM PDT by VRWCmember
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, speaking at an event hosted by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Legal Action Project, said Monday said that having “some kind of constitutional right to a cell phone with a predialed 911 at your bedside might be better protection than a gun.”
“I’m not sure I actually have captured the entire question, but it does occur to me that one thing that I thought about from time to time is that maybe you have some kind of constitutional right to have a cell phone with a predialed 911 number at your bedside, and that might provide you with a little better protection than a gun, which you’re not used to using,” Stevens said.
Jonathan Lowy, Brady Center Legal Action Project director, read a question from the audience, saying: “The Supreme Court held that the 2nd Amendment assures our right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense as you say. This question’s asked: ‘That protects only gun owners. What about those who don’t have guns? Surely they have a right of self-defense. Instead of relying on the 2nd Amendment and dealing with gun laws, wouldn’t it be more rational to rely directly on the right we all have to self-defense. What are your thoughts on that?’
Stevens was appointed to the high court in 1975 by President Gerald Ford. He retired in 2010. He is considered the third-longest serving justice.
if only that were true. CNS is not a satire news site. and watch the video in the link. This was a question and answer session after Stevens spock at a Brady Center event.
Though very poorly stated, an argument could be made that there might be a constitutional right to “governmental emergency notification”, that is, to the *ability* to notify the government, in a timely manner, that you need help, as a form of free speech.
“The right to petition government for redress of grievances is the right to make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, one’s government, without fear of punishment or reprisals.”
And because government is, for most people, “far away”, and we now have an inexpensive and expeditious way of notifying government in emergencies, we have the “911” system, which many countries have adopted as a good idea.
So, what about a right to “emergency use only” cellphones for those who cannot afford their own telephone? (Right now, most commercial cell phones still retain a small reserve of battery power when they are depleted, which can only be used to call 911.)
While 911 operators *can* respond to ‘hang ups’, and other “no information” notifications, they much prefer, and can give a far better response, with voice information from callers. So just giving people an “emergency button” to push is far less practical than an emergency cell phone.
And those individuals who misuse the system can legitimately be denied its use as well.
Okay, a theory. Obviously one with some serious holes in it.
Importantly, this in *no* way diminishes the 2nd Amendment, and a cell phone is in no way an adequate substitute for defensive arms, for the simple reason that the *possibility* of government action, based on the right to petition the government, is not comparable to a citizens’ right to act themselves in a timely manner.
Oh come on! You can throw the phone at them!!!! Duh!!!! LOL
If there were a “Like” button, I would click it; instead I stole the comment and posted it on a Facebook post of this story.
“a cell phone with a predialed 911 at your bedside might be better protection than a gun.”
Yep, the police are minutes away when seconds count! I suppose it is true that mastermind utopians are not required to actually consider the results of their plans!
This is what senile dementia looks like.
Has he ever heard of SCOTUS Castle Rock v Gonzales which states citizens do not have a Constitutional right to police protection?
Well of course we have a RIGHT to purchase a cell phone as the Constitution does not forbid it but of course the real question is do we have the right to force others to buy it for us and the answer is NO! There should never be a debate about that question.
We have the right to own firearms but not the right to force others to buy them for us.
Ya gotta be kiddin’ me!
These people are infantilized. The number of logical errors in this piece led me to believe it was somebody’s idea of a joke. Every statement started, or at least ended ended with a false premise, or a non-sequiter.
Stevens may well be losing his mind.
It’s amusing, sort of, to note how far the left has been able to inculcate the notion of “rights” existing where the constitution is silent, however, where certain specific rights are spelled out as black letter law, they deny that, claim the intent was something else altogether, and that we mere mortals cannot possibly understand what the founding dads actually wrote and should rely on their interpretation.
While all the questions and assumptions were especially bad, the idea that the “right” to call 911 and expect “self-defense” from a third party, in this case police or sheriff, is a more direct expression of the 2nd Amendment takes a major league brand of stupid, and all the more so since SCOTUS has opined in a ruling that there is no specific right to police protection. Stevens has to know this.
In which they also ruled even if the police do show they are not required to take life saving actions. or place their lives at risk to save yours.
IOW, this “just us” believes we are to be sheep.
I believe The Federalist Papers also went over the Apple/Android thing .
One thing I learned doing dispatch work for the police .... no matter how fast you are in dispatching the officers and considering that a police car is rarely in the immediate vicinity where it would do some good (like parked in the victim's driveway) so it takes some minutes at best to get to the scene, it is up to John Q. citizen to protect himself when in a situation where time is not a luxury and where seconds make the difference between life or death. Me .... I'd rather have a gun than a cell phone for self-defense.
Yes but you need a warning label you know..
Warning: using both functions on your “cell phone” at the same time may cause hearing loss.....
Dial 911. When the cops are only minutes away; the criminal is only SECONDS away from shooting you. - Where we are; the cops are more like an hour away. I’m keeping cans of bear spray in every room and hoping that some visiting kid doesn’t decide it would be fun to spritz me!
What a dumb ass!
Thank God this doddering old fool is retired.
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