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.
Insufficient. The human intervention must occur on the decision to detonate, since some innocent person such as a firefighter may be in the path of the weapon during the legitimate performance of his duties. You may have placed your weapons very safely in your X-Y-Z cartesian coordinate system, but the dimension of t (time) may cause the weapon to be unsafely placed.
Booby traps and land mines are wholely indiscriminate weapons, and cannot fall under the protection of the Second Amendment due to the indiscriminate nature thereof.
Thats as may be, but are you of the opinion that your rights triumph anothers rights?
To put it more succinctly: The right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.
Not at all. Since they are somewhat less discriminating, I would establish some rules as pertaining to their use: No use when your backdrop is that of a crowded area; an idiot-check to make sure you are not effing nuts, and that is about it. Kinda like Brady Bill for Machine Guns only, and the repeal of the (in my opinion unconstitutional) 1934 National Firearms Act.
All of our rights are bracketed by the existence of our fellow-citizens rights. (Free speech and yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc etc). This should be self-evident. To argue against that is to argue you have superior rights to everyone else.
Good post Laz. But I'm still in the market for a W88.
Call me I'll cut you a good deal, time is short, and I have several buyers <_/grin_>
One can reasonably conjecture that if they were interested in including indisriminate weapons, that the Second Amendment would read: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, and to keep and spread Contagious Diseases, shall not be infringed.
Morally, that's true. But it's the job of the law to determine when our rights violate the rights of others. To argue otherwise is to argue that we don't need laws at all, other than "just make sure you don't violate anyone else's rights." Sounds beautiful, yes, but I think society might run into a bit of trouble unless its laws got a little more specific than that.
And I also strenously disagree with this premise, but I am not interested in discussing that on this thread.
To put it more succinctly: The right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.
If your nose walks into my arm as I am swinging while I have taken reasonable percautions against hitting your nose then in fact that is not true. If however I have not taken any reasonable percautions then I might have indeed violated your rights to have an un-hit nose. Rights do not exist in a vacum so that is why intent, and reasonableness of behavior, and degree of responsibility must be considered.
I think we have come full circle. Since you concede that one mans rights are bracketed by the next mans rights, we need to define arms more specifically, especially since the nature of arms have changed. Thusly, my argument about the bracketing of possession rights of WMD's against the rights of others to quietly enjoy their property.
You must agree then that the sniper rifle used by Lon Horiuchi against Randy Weaver is not protected by the Second Amendment. How else can one explain how Weaver's wife was killed unless you suspect that Horiuchi intended her death.
Since you concede that the nature of arms have changed since 1791, we need to pass a new constitutional amendment in order to define arms more specifically.
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