Excerpt from “Listen to Reason: The Bill of Rights Is a Package Deal”
Liberal sympathizers are unsympathetic to the argument from the Bush administration that a post-9/11 world requires expanded executive authority to suspend habeas corpus and detain individuals indefinitely, or to eavesdrop on Americans’ phone conversations, or to torture terrorist suspects. In those instances the Bush administration says the need to protect Americans from wanton violence justifies infringing on American liberties. But liberals are quite adamant that saving lives is not a sufficient rationale for abandoning principles.
Yet when the subject turns to the right of American citizens to own guns, many liberals suddenly find that the goal of saving lives justifies just that.
“Saving lives” is a canard. If they were interested in saving lives, they would ban automobiles, which cause more deaths than guns ever will.
The right to own automobiles, btw, is not protected by the Constitution....