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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/05/there-are-no-absolute-rights.html
"…..we’re one Supreme Court justice away from getting some sanity and balance to interpretations of the Second Amendment, and the only thing I can’t decide is whether it would be more delicious for Barack Obama to appoint that judge or for Hillary Clinton to do it."
The flaw with his argument about assault weapons is, that we don't own assault weapons. The definition of an assault weapon is here:
A genuine assault weapon, as opposed to a legal definition, is a hand-held, selective fire weapon, which means it's capable of firing in either an automatic or a semiautomatic mode depending on the position of a selector switch. These kinds of weapons are heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and are further regulated in some states.
Michael Tomasky is a windbag and we shouldn't be propagating anymore of his bullshit!!
The problem with this, in my very humble opinion (and I'm not a lawyer!) is that it sort of throws out stare decisis.Quote:
Originally Posted by hatidua
And once we open that door, do we even have a civil society of laws anymore?
At that point, would we even have to recognize the elected officials who don't recognize the very documents that give them their power? Because it feels to me that "recent tradition" holds far more weight to these people than 200 years of law. $0.02
The "problem" with the statement is, it's true. From a liberal standpoint, one SCOTUS justice will turn the tide in their favor for decades to come. Remember the 2012 election? It will soon come back to bite us in the ass and a lot of people might finally figure out there really IS a difference between republicans and democrats.
Course, it'll be too late then.
The looney left hasn't paid much attention to stare decisis anyway except when they've somehow connived to be the stare. The farmer or townsman wielding a smoothbore musket in 1777 had a closer resemblance to the firearms of King George III's forces than today's modern sporting rifles do to the selective fire and other weaponry available to King Obama. This point escapes liberals because they don't want to see it -- quite simply, they are selectively blind. As long as many of them continue to say "I don't like this or that" but continue to vote Democrat, we are indeed one vote away from abrogation of a fundamental right.
I can't begin to tell you how very right you are. I'm so sick of the left saying "These weapons of war do not belong on the streets." First off, they may look alike, but I surely wouldn't use my AR in the same fashion that I would an M4 (IE: any kind of suppressing fire), even if I were inclined to, which I am not, and really never was while in the Army.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aloha_Shooter
The point to placing restrictions on a right is to prevent that right from infringing on the right of another individual. Your right ends where his nose begins, an so forth. "Yeah, there are restrictions on the first amendment," I say when I have to defend the second amendment, "you can't make up and spread lies about a person or organization (trust me, the irony is lost on them) just because you have free speech, we made laws against libel and slander to protect other individuals."
The only laws that have a constitutional pass to "infringe on a right" are the ones that prevent you from using some right to harm someone else. That's why I support laws that restrict the second amendment. E.g. a law that makes it illegal for someone to shoot someone else in a non-lethal part of their body for no reason, a law that makes it illegal to use a firearm to end someone else's life in some circumstances. In other words I support laws against assault and murder (but unlike most news agencies, I don't consider non-gun murder to be less of a crime).
If they want to make a strong argument they need to show me where, outside of the 2nd, a the right of an individual is restricted for some reason other than to protect the rights of another individual.