U.S right to bear arms being challenged
Detroit News.Net
Sunday 11th November, 2007
The U.S Supreme Court is to examine the question of whether it should hear arguments on the right to bear arms.
For the first time in seventy years, a case has been lodged to ask the Supreme Court to decide if local citizens should be able to own and carry guns.
The U.S capital of Washington has lodged a case in the Supreme Court, seeking to maintain its three-decade ban on individuals carrying handguns.
Since 1976, Washington has banned residents from carrying handguns, although they are allowed to keep a rifle or hunting gun in their homes.
The National Rifle Association has been fighting the law by saying the second amendment guarantees the right of every American citizen to own any gun, with few restrictions.
But Washington, the home to the president, has recently interpreted the amendment to mean that there is a collective right to bear arms for those who are part of a police or security force.
The court has still to decide whether to hear the case, but if it does, a ruling will probably not occur until the November 2008 presidential elections.
To date the Supreme Court has rarely considered the issue of the right to bear arms
They supreme court can say a lot and end up not really saying anything. It is all on the details of the case. In all previous rulings, they have sided with individual rights. The details will be surrounded as to whether they are considering the commerce clause or the ownership issue. Typically, the SC has given the US government the right to tax and control your fart gas because it could be potentially sold. Let us not forget how they sided with the pro-eminent domain scumbags. If they can take anything they want, they will make sure you can’t put up a fight.
On the other hand, when the SC is cornered on individual freedom issues, it tends to give a black-and-white view. Take the pornography rulings for instance. They certainly can’t claim that they were ruling on behalf of protecting the population at large on that one.
For those of you who don’t live here…DC is a pretty small city in itself. The rest of the metro area spills into MD & VA.
VA is a right to carry commonwealth. DC & MD = FU
Does it surprise anyone that night after night all of the violent crimes committed with guns are done so in DC and the MD suburbs? How can this be?!? There are no guns in DC!
I’m not saying there is no crime in VA but the ratio is amazingly disproportionate.
Criminals prey on the easy targets. VA targets aren’t as easy and the scumbags know it.
While I certainly take a more libertarian stance than many I would argue that it is probably in the public interest to deny firearms ownership to those who have demonstrated that they are a threat to the health and well-being of others. To that end, violent felons and severely psychologically unstable people should be barred from owning firearms. The laws that facilitate this aren’t good per se, just a recognition of the harsh reality that not everyone has the personal responsibility required to merit full exercise of rights.
If you read more than casually on the subject (and I’m not saying YOU don’t), the issue globally is not individual self defense. It’s the concern for the supposed right of a political regime to remain in power, without regard to how they go into power.
If the common folk do not have access to small arms ie. rifles and handguns, they stand little chance of throwing off the bondage of a repressive government.
I used to believe that, but it simply cannot be reconciled with reality. So far no society has found a way to successfully prevent recidivism to any meaningful degree. Many state that America’s problem with recidivism has to do with labelling theory, that a felon is basically sentenced to a life of failure as they cannot vote, hold business licenses, or be employed by government. This theory is congruous with the experiments that have been done on labelling theory and how it affects the labelled individual. Where it falls flat is in an examination of nations that engage in full-restoration upon release, like Japan. Japan has very similar recidivism rates to the United States.
Likewise nations that engage in indeterminate sentencing (like you are suggesting) don’t have huge differences in recidivism. Indeterminate sentencing is basically a committment, the offender is incarcerated and placed in a rehabiliation program engineered to “treat” the specific crime the offender committed. There are certain criteria that the offender must meet and then a reviewer (or board) makes a ruling on his case. It seems like a very clever concept, but it isn’t really very effective in practice.
Since the United States has a multi-leveled judicial system, there is little to no commonality between the seperate systems; however, warehousing is the rule of the day almost everywhere. Sentences have become longer, parole and work release programs are being cut back or canceled in favor of “truth in sentencing” and the result is a nation that has more people incarcerated for significantly longer average sentences than almost every other developed nation. This method doesn’t work very well, as we’ve seen lately. Our crime rate is basically flat, being tied more to the economy (ironically) than anything else.
Your supposition also doesn’t take into account the mentally ill. It’s not really fair to lock them up perpetually when medical treatment does work. But one must recognize that they may forget their meds, or have a reaction. If they do not possess a weapon it will be far more unlikely that they will be able to gain access to one should the SHTF (psychologically speaking).
In short, your idealism, while certainly commendable, isn’t grounded in reality. Once you give any real study to criminology or penology you will quickly realize just how unrealistic pure libertarian views truly are. I desperately wanted to believe them myself, but like the “as good as” Bushmaster owner, I finally had to give up and acquiesce to realism.