Philip wrote: > With regard to: > As far as limitations on a right, I agree with him that "Just as free > speech has never been regarded as absolute, nor should an individual > right to bear arms be seen as precluding all government regulation."
This notion has always concerned me, and may get a fair test under Heller. In all instances I have bothered to dig into, speech "rights" have not been abridged wholesale. Endangering or malicious use of speech (where it has the effect of reducing another person's rights) is though there is no blanket preemption of speech rights, but individual and case-specific restraint of bad behavior. Parallels between endangering use of firearms seem appropriate. Heller is a gun ownership case, and any regulation that impairs the ability to "keep arms" in absence of initial bad behavior would be a denial of a right without due process and not a correction for endangering behavior. > With the issue of free speech never being regarded as absolute, isn't > the issue really prior restraint of speech. That is, no government can > gag you before you speak, but can punish you for lying to the FBI in an > investigation or charge you with a crime if you should falsely cry > "fire" in a theater, or jail you for revealing national secrets -- all > these being acts to punish after the fact. http://gunfacts.info/notes/fire.html The above is my ongoing pushback on the "yelling fire" argument (you can yell fire in a crowded theater in many circumstances), and tied to RKBA. It fits your analysis as well. > As for prohibiting ownership of guns being a reasonable way to > discourage gun violence, Chemerinsky rests his argument on the a view > that reasonable is what legislators say it is. The moment you raise > questions of effectiveness -- that is, should laws be required to be > effective to be justified -- the reasonableness of gun control falls > apart. Yet what is the definition of "reasonable?" The current president of Iran might well argue that Hitler's "final solution" was reasonable given the "stated problem." Hardy (and others) have pondered the court's restatement of the questions, and certain exclusion of words in those revised questions have led others to believe the court may skirt the "reasonable regulation" issue entirely. I'm not that hopeful. Guy Smith Author, Gun Facts [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.GunFacts.info _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
