Posted on 03/16/2012 6:29:39 PM PDT by marktwain
I often describe my political ideology as “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” — a description that’s definitely played-out on a college campus but is nevertheless a pretty accurate characterization for me. While I’m usually firm in my beliefs about social issues, I’ve never felt strongly about gun control. That has recently changed. Last week, a federal judge declared part of this state’s gun law unconstitutional, and a few days later, a student allegedly threatened a shooting rampage on this campus. Combined, the incidents made me wonder whether “gun rights” deserve to be protected or whether they’re an oxymoronic notion that persists despite fundamental flaws.
In last week’s case, the judge determined that people applying for a permit to carry their gun in public no longer must demonstrate a “good and substantial reason” for wanting to do so. The case concerned not the Second Amendment itself, but its scope — which the judge substantially broadened by declaring: “The Court finds that the right to bear arms is not limited to the home.”
If the “good and substantial” clause had been applied to permits for gun ownership in addition to gun transport, it would have been more obviously unconstitutional. After all, the concept of a “right” entails the ability to do something without further questions asked. However, I think it’s more than reasonable to ask such a question about gun transport.
I find it counterintuitive that people shouldn’t need a reason to carry a deadly weapon. It seems problematic for the Constitution to necessitate that if I’m not a criminal, drug addict or psychiatric patient, I can tote around my gun just for shits and giggles.. Eliminating the “good and substantial” clause worries me because it shows our government gives more weight to words scribbled on some parchment more than two centuries ago than to an honest, logical evaluation of current gun policy.
Ignoring the Constitution for a moment, I think most people intuitively believe in a natural right to protect ourselves, but not in a natural right to endanger others. The judge’s interpretation last week, however, essentially gives us both by glossing over the conflict that emerges when they overlap. We must somehow distinguish between ensuring individuals can protect themselves and blindly permitting them to carry a tool used to kill people.
State law still includes other provisions — background checks and the criteria I mentioned above. But is that enough? The student accused of threatening violence would have passed the test. He had no history of violence, yet police couldn’t ignore his threats simply because they were out of character. Similarly, just because an individual has no priors, the state shouldn’t trust that person to have good intentions when carrying their gun outside their home.
Think about driving a car: Individuals must jump through several hoops to obtain both a license and a gun permit. Both provide certain freedoms. Both are lethal to others if abused. Just as Marylanders don’t need to explain why they want to drive before getting a license, one could claim they shouldn’t need to show why they want to bring their gun to the grocery store.
The difference, of course, is that it’s not our “right” to own or drive a car. There are plenty of obstacles — financial constraints, an inability to parallel park — to legally obtaining a vehicle. It can be tougher than purchasing a gun to stash in your bedside table. That seems outrageous to me and it highlights the foolishness of basing modern public safety laws on a document created for a society utterly different from ours today. This is where the gun control debate typically delves into the special circumstances of the 18th century, when the citizenry could become the militia at a minute’s notice — everyone needed a gun.
Here’s a head-scratching little nugget: If we weren’t conditioned to think we’re entitled to own a gun, would people get all up in arms if someone restricted their right to bear them? If the founding fathers had relied not on horseback but on horsepower, or understood the importance of highway systems and emergency exit routes, or lived on opposite coastlines, might they have protected the right to operate an engine, making our automobile industry radically different? And if — bear with me — one of their children had attended class on the day of a school shooting, might they have been a bit less hasty on amendment number two?
Alissa Gulin is a senior journalism major and former opinion editor. She can be reached at gulin@umdbk.com.
Exactly. She says she’s fiscally conservative. I don’t believe it for a minute.
Heh, see my response at post #17. After my first post, I just stopped freezing and thought about it a bit, and yes.
The ARE mutually exclusive.
The student is ignorant.
/johnny
Using your same logic it is not possible to be socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Yet we have Santorum.
If you had a brain you would, Alissa. Let's put it this way; if someone told you that you didn't have a right to wear clothes around men and further suggested that your clothing choices should be limited, limited to G-strings in fact, would that be OK with you? Would you have any suspicion at all as to why we wanted you naked at all times, Alissa?
Boy, you nailed it. I think it might have something to do with this (Though perhaps as much as the one below it! I wanted to post the liberal brain diagram, and the website I found it at had the conservative brain diagram, which I had never seen. Being a conservative, I said: "Yeah...that's about right. I don't think a liberal looking at their diagram would honestly say the same!)
She must have meant viscerally conservative. Either could apply. Proud of their lack of intellect aren’t they?
4.
characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect: a visceral reaction.
5.
characterized by or dealing with coarse or base emotions; earthy; crude: a visceral literary style.
LOL...now what does that say? Ya think old Calvin Coolidge might have been the last President who was a true adherent and proponent of self-reliance?
The bridge that spans your cleavage is selfishness. A person can support fiscal conservatism because they don’t want to get hurt financially and social liberalism because they want what they want baby’s lives be damned. Personal responsibility never enters into it for them.
From the article: “The case concerned not the Second Amendment itself, but its scope — which the judge substantially broadened by declaring: “The Court finds that the right to bear arms is not limited to the home.””
Therein lies the faulty logic of the writer. The notion that the judge broadened the scope of the Second Amendment by his declaration that the right is not limited to the home clearly shows this college student doesn’t know a thing about the Amendment, apart from the mental pablum he’s been fed in the government schools.
May God help us all...
True, but the deer taste better.
So who can tell me what scene from SEMI-TOUGH leaps to mind ?
My personal opinion is that the Second Amendment did make reference to citizen militias, rather than personal ownership of firearms. This is because the right to own a gun was on a par with the right to breathe, and a gun was indeed a necessity of life for many, at that time. I believe this right is more properly covered by the Ninth Amendment, concerning “other rights retained by the people”.
Painful.
Oh my - college is really educating them, isn't it? I can see why she also says "ignoring the Constitution" because I've never seen the clause that talks about criminal/drug addict/psycho when saying the right to bear arms will not be infringed. She obviously only knows what her "perfessers" told her about the Constitution.
This might be the whole point of this rant - the leftists would have us believe that the Constitution is outdated.
Of course, it is implied that they are the only ones who are enlightened enough to decide what parts are outdated. Their liberal education (isn't that an oxymoron???) obviously didn't teach them that there is a mechanism for changing the Constitution - it's not by concensus of some self-exalted group of liberals, but by agreement of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and two-thirds of the states.
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