I believe the authors' viewpoint is most clearly summed up by this sentence:
"The Second Amendment sought to reassure anti-Federalists rhetorically, but not substantively." In other words, the Second Amendment exists not to provide any substantive right of any sort, but solely to assuage the consciences of the Anti-Federalists. This suggestion presents a tremendous slippery slope, one where separation of church and state, the right to free political discourse, and rights to privacy and fair trial are nothing more than general declarations of principle which have no binding authority. So in that context, I don’t believe you’re being harsh in the slightest. The Bill of Rights together forms a coherent, substantive set of rights, and how the core principles of one have evolved are certainly germane – to the extent parallels can adequately be drawn – in determining how the others should apply to more advanced technology. I would give the caveat that, in some senses, I don’t think you go far enough, because it’s not just the First Amendment that’s had to take the advancement of “Science and the useful Arts” into consideration, but also (as implied) some core portions of the Constitution (i.e., how does an 18th-Century understanding of those terms apply to genetically engineered critters) as well as other provisions of the Bill of Rights (like, say, the Fourth Amendment, which has to deal with new and interesting ways that government can snoop on its citizens, including things like data privacy, drone, satellite, and GPS monitoring, and broad-spectrum surveillance tools like infrared scanning to look for hidden drug labs, etc., etc.). Best regards Aaron Clements ________________________________ From: Henry Schaffer <[email protected]> To: firearmsregprof <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, March 12, 2013 10:13:08 AM Subject: "All Guns Are Not Created Equal" By Kevin M. Sweeney and Saul Cornell Chronicle of Higher Education/Chronicle Review http://chronicle.com/article/All-Guns-Are-Not-Created-Equal/136805/ This short article tries to show that there always was a distinction between militia arms and the firearms owned by the population. It starts by mentioning that Bellesiles "revisionist thesis was soon discredited for its dishonest use of historical evidence" and then that left "the suspect counternarrative put forth by some legal scholars and the National Rifle Association." go unchallenged even though it was a "mythical history". Then it gets into the differences between the popular firearms in 1791 vs the ones in use today - and seems to argue that the 2A only applies to the firearms of 1791, not to the handgun that Dirty Harry likes. I end up feeling that the authors are spinning this - and would much preferred if they had contrasted this with the 1A and the printing press of 1791 vs the electric motor driven ones of today and the Internet. Am I being too harsh? --henry schaffer P.S. More to come: 'Sweeney is the author of "Firearms, Militias, and the Second Amendment," which will appear in August in The Second Amendment on Trial: Critical Essays on District of Columbia v. Heller, edited by Cornell and Nathan Kozuskanich (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013).' _______________________________________________ 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.
_______________________________________________ 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.
