Posted on 02/18/2016 4:30:47 PM PST by Elderberry
Last week, author James Boice interviewed me for a Salon essay about what would happen if the Second Amendment is repealed. With Justice Scalia gone, the vitality of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is in doubt. Here are a handful of quotes from the article.
Besides, "if the Second Amendment were repealed tomorrow, very little would actually change right away. Chicago and D.C. might try to reinstitute their handgun ban, but virtually every state constitution carries a provision upholding the right to keep guns," says Josh Blackman, a constitutional law expert at the South Texas College of Law.
Repealists respond that they understand that, but right away is not what they have in mind. Repeal would allow Americans over the ensuing decades, or even century, to write the laws we want with regard to firearms. If we want to regulate them like we do cars, we would be able to.
But we have never repealed one of the Bill of Rights. Could we even do that? Shouldn't those be left alone?
Blackman says there is nothing sacrosanct about them--like any other amendment they are subject to Article V of the Constitution. If we want to repeal one, if the criteria is met, then repeal it we will. But he warns of a slippery slope:
"Once you repeal one Amendment, society normalizes the process of repealing another," he says. "It casts our constitutional liberties as transitory."
...
In fact, I could find no data or example in which repeal of one amendment led to a feeding frenzy upon others, and professor Blackman declined to provide me one. The argument of a slippery slope is an ideological one and not based in fact.
...
Blackman says that repealists would be better off attacking the problem through legislation. Wait for a future Supreme Court that thinks more like John Paul Stevensthan Scalia to overturn Heller. But after decades of seeing the NRA exploiting the indecipherability of the Second Amendment to thwart or neuter every potentially meaningful gun control measure, repealists are all out of faith that legislation can coexist with the provision as is.
Blackman brings up another potential problem: A repeal effort could backfire. Red states would retaliate by proposing an amendment strengthening the right to bear arms--for example, upholding the right of constitutional carry--which in our red meat climate could very well see more support than repeal would.
...
Though Josh Blackman sees repeal as a nonstarter today, he says the future of the effort relies on future Supreme Court decisions. "If the Court one day holds the right to bear arms includes outside the home, that would overturn significant precedent and make repeal much more valuable."
Dead is dead, be my guest.
You know, if the founding fathers were cowards like you, we wouldn’t even have this country to be defending.
You make me sick to think you reside under the freedoms they gave you...you are not worthy.
Key board warriors always have the courage of medal of honor winners. In real life, not so much.
The people themselves also have a voice in this.
The dems forget that.
You don’t know jack about me idiot.
Don’t make the common lib mistake of projecting your cowardice upon all others.
It’s a common error you guys make, nube.
“Neither Congress nor the majority of legislators of the states will have time to do it. Governments will default, repudiate debts and shrink much under austerity programs too soon for that. There will be more important and urgent problems for political class folks, like what to do for themselves after losing their incomes.”
Exactly. Their hands will be more than abundantly full.
Did you get lost on your way from Salon to HuffPo, troll? If you are serious, and not trolling, then I repeat my earlier admonition: Don't project your own cowardice on all others. (Common mistake congenital cowards make, so it's understandable.)
.
>> “The Supreme Court has the authority to interpret law vis a vis the Constitution” <<
Well, no, they really do not.
They absconded with that “authority” unjustly in Marbury vs Madison, but nowhere is such granted to them.
When the people tire of tyranny, who knows what will happen.
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Nor do you know about me. You talk tough on the key board that is what I see. I do not call you names. You have referred to me as a coward and an idiot. You live in a dream world. Somehow, the 2nd amendment in your mind is written by the finger of god on a granite slab. It is not, it is written by men on parchment in ink. It can be change by men with paper and ink. You may not accept that fact, but it is true none the less. I am old man now, I probably will not live to see the day when that right is abrogated, but I think the day will come that what we view the 2nd amendment to mean, will not be what it will mean to future generations of our blood lines.
We’ll see Mr Sit to Pee.
Been doing it for the last 200 years, seems to work and the people have not tired of it yet.
And you took an oath to defend Tha piece of parchment....be gone.
I did do exactly that for 25 years.
Hate to pop your bubble, but in law; constitution(s) {State & Federal} are to be given equal station, i.e., one is not more superior / important, because of it’s place / location in said constitution(s).
Yup.
Just watch. Next will be talk of a “bipartisan” effort. You’ll quickly find yourself eating your asshat comments.
They’d still have to deal with the Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendment.
Fifth prevents the government from arbitrarily confiscating firearms (no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process).
Ninth would support the fact that gun ownership doesn’t have to be specifically spelled out to fall under the Constitution’s protections.
And the government has no authority under the Constitution to just confiscate lawfully owned property.
Granted, the government’s never shown much respect for the Constitution, but to outright throw out the right to due process would be a step they couldn’t take back. Even people who hate guns probably wouldn’t care for the idea that they could be thrown out of their home and lose all their property at any moment on nothing but a politician’s whim.
Trust me, folks, America will not go the way of Australia easily. It will require the government to outright become a dictatorship, and as much as they’re drooling for that, we’re not to the point where it would happen peacefully.
Yeah,
but tell that to bo.
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