Posted on 04/18/2002 8:59:28 AM PDT by Lazamataz
Why can't I own nuclear weapons? The Second Amendment guarantees it! This argument comes up from time to time during gun control arguments. An anti-gun person who intends to use it as a strawman argument usually offers it facetiously or sarcastically. A strawman is a logical fallacy in which a debater exaggerates an opponent's position, directs arguments at this exaggerated position, and claims to have defeated the opponent's real argument. The Second Amendment guarantees individual citizens the right to keep and bear arms. Even professors who can only be described as extremely left-wing have come to this conclusion. For example, the prominent law professor Laurence Tribe, has reluctantly concluded that this Amendment explicitly upholds the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The writings of our Founding Fathers reveal that there were two sociological reasons to uphold this natural right: To prevent crime, and to defend against a rogue domestic government. As example of the Founders thoughts on the crime-deterrent effect of civilian firearms possession, I give you Thomas Jefferson: "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity ... will respect the less important and arbitrary ones ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." And as an example of how the Founders felt about civilian firearms possession as regards keeping our government 'honest and upright', I give you, again, Thomas Jefferson, who warns: And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. And from John Adams: Therefore, we can reasonably suppose that the Founders intended us to have access to every manner of weapon for defense of home and of liberty. However, therein lies the rub: Does every manner of weapon mean access to nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons? Our Founders were just men, men of proportion. They drew their ideas for our constitution from the writer and philosopher John Locke. Locke believed that the state of nature implied a law of nature, which is that "no one ought to harm another in his life, heath, liberty or possessions." Ergo, there were "natural rights" to life, liberty and property.5
To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws. 4
THE RIGHT OF SELF DEFENSE
If you have the right to own, then you also have the right to assert ownership -- otherwise known as "protect" -- that which is yours. The right of self-defense flows naturally from this right, and is enshrined by our Founders as the Bill of Rights, and even is quite prevalent in the Declaration of Independence. If you have the right to self-defense, then it naturally follows you have the right to effective tools to exercise that right. In simple terms, it makes no sense to say you have the right to drive on highways, but then ban automobiles. Again, the learned Mr. Jefferson agrees:
"The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless."
6
THE RIGHT TO BE UNMOLESTED
Another right flows from John Lockes principles: You also have the right to be undisturbed. In his words, "....liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others....". You have the right of 'quiet enjoyment' of your belongings, including your body, so long as you do not molest or act aggressively or violently to another. Nor, of course, do you have the right to disturb anothers quiet enjoyment of his or her belongings by molesting, acting aggressively, or acting violently to another person.
Take these two rights together: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE (and effective tools to defend yourself), and YOU MAY NOT MOLEST OR ATTACK THOSE WHO ARE NOT ATTACKING YOU FIRST.
Therefore, it is clear that any tool of self defense you choose must be a tool you can direct to be capable of discriminating between an attacker and an innocent. Clearly, the following tools are capable, with a minimum of care, of being directed against an attacker without jeopardizing innocents:
The following tools are slightly more questionable, since they are somewhat less able to be directed with great accuracy, and thusly are less discriminating. They have a larger chance of violating an innocent persons 'quiet enjoyment' of his property during the suppression of a criminal attack:
The following tools are completely indiscriminate, and may harm innocent people decades after their use. These tools are completely inappropriate for your right of self defense, since they will certainly violate an innocent persons right of quiet enjoyment of their property.
Hopefully, this will lay to rest once and for all the straw man offered by so many antigunners. Nuclear weapons are not allowed to be used for self defense by private citizens because they are not sufficiently discriminating.
His response to me is that he rejects one of the premises on which this argument is based. To quote him:
But since you make an argument based on a premise I don't accept, I need you to say something more about why I should accept that premise. [To wit, ] You're making inferences about the Framers intent based on texts which are not part of the constitution. I need you to say something more about why those inferences matter. For me, the text is all that matters.
My response to him is that we can address this premise right now. This individual (who I suspect is a disruptor, but that is an ad hominum observation and in no way detracts or supports my argument) has stated they reject the premise that one can infer meaning and intended results in the Constitution by examining the writings, speeches, and actions of the persons who wrote it. While this seems like an obvious premise to put forth, I am willing to take him through the logic process point by point, since it is a compound premise and is subject to the possible fallacy of the Complex Question. I will demonstrate it is not.
So therefore, ConsistentLibertarian:
1) Agree or disagree: A person can have a political viewpoint.
Premise 1) A person can entertain a political viewpoint. Agree or disagree.
Thank you
Rangemaster
How will a land mine or booby trap, emplaced upon my own property, "violate an innocent persons right of quiet enjoyment of their property"? Consider that I live alone and have no pets, and also that the property is prominently posted "No Tresspasing".
Human intervention is required in order for any weapon to be considered 'discriminating', since the discrimination must come from someone with the capability to make that discriminative decision. Therefore -- since these two weapons lack human intervention -- discrimination is impossible and they fall into the final catagory of weaponry.
Well, suppose the police or fire rescue had to come help you, and accidentally got blowed up real good?
Good point, but it is a subset of the requirement that human intervention is needed for a weapon to be considered 'discriminating'.
Your opponent's wife probably rejects the premise of the law of gravity. That still doesn't keep her breasts from sagging to the floor ...
Is there any evidence that this distinction was relevant to or considered by any of the persons involved in the adoption of the Second Amendment?
Oh, have you invented a new nuclear weapon that causes people who are aggressing against you to be vaporized, while only gently nudging people who are innocent and happen to be in the blast radius?
Because otherwise, I am seeing you assert that your right of self-protection triumphs other people's right of self-protection. I see you asserting that you are 'more equal' than others.
Human intervention was performed during the siting and emplacement. The person who chose the sites for the mines and traps (presumably) made decisions on where to emplace them with an eye towards self-defense, and didn't just randomly scatter them over the landscaping.
Well, we can rely on the text to a reasonably large degree. There was at least one weapon of mass destruction (e.g., an indiscriminate weapon) in existence in the time of the founders; the introduction of biological agents against a populace. I am not seeing mention of the keeping and bearing of smallpox in the Second Amendment anywhere.
1. The powers of the federal government are limited to only what is positively given to it. Hence, the second amendment is largely unnecessary (which is why it wasn't part of the original Constitution - not because the Founders didn't think that people had a right to arm themselves). So the feds may not even regulate nuclear weapons ownership, because they were never given that power to begin with.
2. Your arguments regarding the discriminatory capabilities of various weapons make plenty of sense, but they have little or no bearing on what the second amendment says (see my #14). If we want the law to make such distinctions (which weren't a concern in 1791), then we'd have to pass another constitutional amendment.
3. The fact that the feds don't have the direct power to regulate nuclear weapons doesn't mean that they can't be regulated: the states still retain that power. Some might object that the "privileges and immunities" clause of the 14th amendment extends the protections of the Bill of Rights against state governments. I realize that the federal courts have ruled that it does, as they're much more comfortable with restricting the states than restricting the feds, but it should be noted that they didn't start ruling that way until several decades after the amendment was passed. Privileges and immunities don't seem to be the same thing as rights.
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