On Thu, 14 Jun 2001, Dean Forster wrote:
> I'm aware of the federalist vs anti debate, and that
> had a great effect on the framing. However, you
> cannot discount that the wording of the constitution
> and the bill of rights reflects that the framers were
> trying to create a government that was allowing the
> maximum of freedoms to the individual that could be
> countenanced in a real world society.
Yes and no. I see the framers less as trying to grant freedoms and more
as trying to prevent abuse. The people who negotiated the Constitution
were representing their state governments, and generally the ruling
classes of their own states. (You'll recall, of course, that the
constitution originally assumed that the majority of citizens would be
incompetent to vote.) The compromises in the Bill of Rights, I think,
represent a negotiated agreement over which powers should reside with the
Fed and which with the states, not a concerted effort to guarantee
personal freedoms.
I'm not totally cynical--I do think that they were also trying to protect
the rights of individuals, but think it was *more* important to
the negotiators to establish which rights would be regulated by the states
vs. the Fed. The Federalists assumed that issues regarding individual
rights would be handled by Congress--the Bill of Rights was drafted to
make sure that Congress couldn't override the interests of states in a few
key areas.
So it's my opinion that the 2nd amendment does not represent an idealistic
desire on the part of the founders to ensure the means of self-defense for
the individual. Rather, it represents the genuine ambivalence towards
federal union that lingered in many states until finally exploding in the
Civil War. The whole point of the 2nd amendment was to insure that the
states would be in a position to rapidly mobilize militia to resist the
federal government in case, just in case, it started to lean into tyranny,
(e.g. by slowing the expansion of slave-holding states in relation with
free ones, making the abolition of slavery by act of Congress a long-term
inevitability). It's my opinion that in the Civil War the 2nd amendment
served exactly the purpose intended by those states that insisted upon it.
The 2nd Amendment, in other words, is the Constitution's de facto escape
clause. But it's an escape clause addressing the state:fed relationship,
not the individual:state relationship.
I can't see
> that being the 2nd of 10 it was only put in there to
> placate the anti-feds. It's not the best in wording,
> but it's not the worst and it's certainly not an
> abomination. Taken in context as it was meant, it's
> pretty clear.
But not so clear that we're not still wondering about it 200+ years later,
even after a string of Supreme Court cases to clarify the issue. It's
prominence reflects the importance of balancing state vs. federal power in
the rawest sense of the word.
> You only underline the reason for my trepidation for
> being associated with the gun lobby at large- it's
> obviously a way for large corporations to assure their
> profits. However the gun industry certainly isn't
> raking in the money that tobacco was(still is) or
> alcohol.
True, but that doesn't mean it won't employ all the tactics it can to make
every buck it can. To do otherwise would be unAmerican!
> And the reason for it's strength is largely
> because people who aren't as discerning as I jump on
> board- they're not out to help gun manufacturers, they
> want to prevent the erosion of personal freedoms in
> this country as I do. Which was my original argument,
> that personal gun ownership is in the net a good
> thing.
Honestly I can't see how gun ownership can be linked to any aspect of
American life that's fundamentally superior to the lives of people living
in democratic societies with much tighter gun laws. Aside from the
general yee-haw-ness of owning a cool weapon, that is, which I agree is
pretty cool emotionally...but does that really count?
> Further addition to the already copious
> regulations on the books can only start nibbling away
> at the freedoms of law abiding citizens.
As others have said, certain kinds of freedom need to be balanced by
increased responsibility. One of the ironies of law is that it's possible
to make a law outlawing irresponsible or criminal gun use, and yet still
not make a law granting sufficient enforcement power to effectively police
the first law.
I mean, when someone stands up and says we don't need gun control,
but we just need better to enforce the laws that already exist, and then
refuses to vote for measures that would make it *possible* to enforce the
laws that already exist, I get confused.
> You are absolutely correct, the 2nd isn't going to be
> repealed because there are more basic issues to be
> settled. BTW- I didn't include that as a tactic, i
> was trying to bring the debate to it's logical
> conclusion. When the issues of violence in a free
> society are settled we will have matured to the point
> that perhaps no one will need to fear harm from
> another anymore. That's a long way off unfortunately.
I think I was unclear. I don't mean solving the problem of violence in
total. That's involves unravelling human nature. I mean resolving issues
that fester in our national psyche, such as whether it's proper and
productive to cling to the promise of armed resistance to our own elected
government, or whether it's proper for the state to offer violence in
return for acts of private "criminality" (imprisoning pot smokers, for
instance).
(Is it just me, or is it insane to insist that guns are essential to
freedom but that pot-smoking should result in arrest? How can I be free
if I'm not allowed to roll a joint in my own home?)
America still has some issues to work out. :-)
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
