Gunsplaining

The Off-Topic forum for anything non-LDS related, such as sports or politics. Rated PG through PG-13.
_subgenius
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _subgenius »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Oh. So our constitution allows for modification as the ground reality dictates? C'mon.

- Doc

:wink:
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_EAllusion
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _EAllusion »

subgenius wrote:Do you really believe they were so ignorant in the evolution of weapons? These guys being aware of slingshot, arrow, spear, cannons, and even the Monitor and Merrimac, yet you are suggesting that these guys who conceived the rather deep framework of the US Constitution looked at each other and said : "naw, it'll never be worse than a musket, let them think that's what we intend by protecting oneself from the government..." (glances at keg of gunpowder).


They were people who didn't anticipate the existence of entrenched political parties as they were arising in real time around them. Yes, it's possible they lacked foresight on weapons evolution. Predicting the future is hard.

The neat thing though is that whatever theory of Constitutional interpretation you want to adopt, it's not going to get you to the position that the second amendment was intended to cover all possible weapons regardless of danger. No the Supreme Court decision, including Heller, goes that far.
_EAllusion
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _EAllusion »

Kevin Graham wrote:Riddle me this. Why did the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Massachusetts explicitly write in their State Constitutions that their citizens had a right to bear arms for their own individual self defense? These State Constitutions were ratified well after the 2nd amendment which automatically applies to all states, so what is their reasoning unless it was understood at the time that the 2nd amendment didn't guarantee that specific right?

https://www.english.illinois.edu/-peopl ... s/guns.pdf


The answer to your riddle is that state Constitutional amendments often mirrored the intent and logic of federal ones. Until the 14th amendment and subsequent the Supreme Court interpretations of it, the Constitution wasn't incorporated against state law. The bill of rights initially just concerned what the federal government can do.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

I believe it was Jefferson who suggested the Constitution she be rewritten every 15 years because it would become a tool of oppression used by entrenched political parties.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_EAllusion
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _EAllusion »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:I believe it was Jefferson who suggested the Constitution she be rewritten every 15 years because it would become a tool of oppression used by entrenched political parties.

- Doc


It was a little longer than that if memory serves, and his reasoning was not related to political parties. It was that he thought each generation needs to ratify a government for itself. It's a consent of the governed argument.

This is a terrible idea that would almost certainly assure the collapse of the system into autocracy, so this is a good case in point of founding fathers not always having great foresight. Very hard to change legal rules that prevent despots from seizing power is one of the key elements that reduces the odds of democracies being taken over by despots. If Constitutions are re-written on a short cycle, it is basically inevitable that an authoritarian party will be ascendant when a Constitution gets written.
_EAllusion
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _EAllusion »

_EAllusion
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _EAllusion »

Can you imagine if Constitution rewriting time was right after the 2016 elections? If you were smart, you'd be planning to flee the country.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

I think the point Jefferson was making, if I'm tracing it correctly, is that the Constitution itself isn't sacrosanct and ought to be modified when the need arises. I don't have issues with amendments to the Constitution, obviously, and I certainly don't have a problem deballing an amendment when it's suicidal to keep a 'right' that's clearly problematic. Gun violence, in this instance, is incredibly cost prohibitive and we need to fix it. I can't wrap my mind around the mindset of those who're comfortable with the deaths, disabilities, and related costs to all of us just so they can own a gun. It's bizarre.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_EAllusion
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Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:39 pm

Re: Gunsplaining

Post by _EAllusion »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:I think the point Jefferson was making, if I'm tracing it correctly, is that the Constitution itself isn't sacrosanct and ought to be modified when the need arises. I don't have issues with amendments to the Constitution, obviously, and I certainly don't have a problem deballing an amendment when it's suicidal to keep a 'right' that's clearly problematic. Gun violence, in this instance, is incredibly cost prohibitive and we need to fix it. I can't wrap my mind around the mindset of those who're comfortable with the deaths, disabilities, and related costs to all of us just so they can own a gun. It's bizarre.

- Doc


The Constitution has an amendment process. The second amendment can be repealed if it was politically viable to do so (It isn't). Jefferson was coming from line of thinking that the Constitution is a contract between the government and its people and it should be updated as a generation that didn't ratify it replaces the one that did. Otherwise it becomes a tyranny of the old against the new.

He was writing at a time when the United States was the only functioning democracy in the world. We now know enough about political science to know that if Constitutions were continually scrapped and rewritten according to the mores of the day, authoritarians eventually will seize that process and end the Republic. The first time they do it is probably the last time anyone could look forward to the next time it gets written. Making it hard to change laws or norms surrounding laws that limit their power is part of what keeps them at bay.

Really, an original sin of the founding fathers' thinking was that they didn't understand how political parties would form and function. A lot of the poorly designed parts of our Constitution are a consequence of that. Jefferson understood the idea of demagogues taking over. Jefferson didn't quite grasp the idea of authoritarian political parties acting as a bloc vote to take over a system like we've had the opportunity to see multiple times in history now.
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