there'd be a HELL of a lot less RATS in the country a week later
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Last week, author James Boice interviewed me for a Salon essay about what would happen if the Second Amendment is repealed.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Besides, "if the Second Amendment were repealed tomorrow, very little would actually change right away.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But we have never repealed one of the Bill of Rights.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."
They (BOR) cannot be repealed, they are declatory and restrictive.
The BOR simply affirms God Given rights and prohibits the government.
If they were subject to repeal, then the notion of God Given is void, ergo the whole thing goes up in smoke....no longer do we have a constitution or country.
Already done.
It was so held by this Court in the case of United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 92 U. S. 553, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, in delivering the judgment of the Court, said that the right of the people to keep and bear arms "is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes to what is called in City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102, 36 U. S. 139, the 'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was perhaps more properly called internal police,' 'not surrendered or restrained' by the Constitution of the United States."[citations omitted]
It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question [2nd amendment] out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government.
One will note that that the federal courts chronically lied about this case, falsely claiming that is stands for the proposition that states MAY prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms.
Note too, in Cruickshank, plaintiff was trying to have the constitution apply to private citizens.
Now, at rock bottom, all government is, is brute force, and the only way to contain it is by brute force. Governments are not constrained by constitutions and laws. Government use constitutions and laws to turn the people docile.
That’s right. And many lawmakers would be wise to hunker down and not show themselves.
The Supreme Court cannot repeal any part of the Constitution, they can make interpretations, but they cannot repeal any of it. There is a separate process that has nothing to do with the Supreme Court, right?
Now I see the RINO’s letting obama have his pick and I see the new leftist lineup on the SC very hard on our liberties, especially the 2nd Amendment, but the way this article approaches it is nonsensical.
Thanks for the info
I know that in order to “repeal” an amendment you would have to go through a lengthy process to create a new amendment to repeal the old one.
Bzzzzzzzzzzt!........What is...CWII Alex. (Trebek)
The lakes of America would be filled with guns that fell off people's boats. {wink}
If it doesn't say what you wish it did, it's declared indicipherable.
No affirmed right in the BOR can be repealed!!
Period!
there'd be a HELL of a lot less RATS in the country a week later
No. The Supreme Court has nothing to do with Amendments or their repeal. Article V specifies Congress does, either by a 2/3 majority in both Houses or by application of 2/3 of the legislatures of the states. If Blackman is suggesting that a series of Supreme Court decisions might convince people to take the course of action prescribed in Article V, he's speculating about a publicity campaign, nothing more. Supreme Court judgments are, after all, based on the Constitution that the Amendment is proposing to change. Should the Amendment pass, those judgments are entirely irrelevant, should it fail, they remain in force.
It will result in revolution.
The only way they’ll ever get my guns is when all my ammo is expended and I am dead.
Real simple. Keep your guns, just pay the $2/round tax and $1 ammunition identification cost fee.
Can’t outlaw cigarettes can they? Just pay the .50 per cigarette tax. If you think the Obama court (and he will get his appointment) aren’t coming for your gun rights you haven’t been paying attention for the last 50 years.
Civil War.
Next Question.
Actual formal repeal will not happen, but expect a ruling from the Supreme Court that does so in effect.
“It would definitely be Chaos to the extreme.”
They won’t outlaw them all at once.
They’ll tax them first, then they’ll require inspection/resgistration.
Many people will simply give them up to avoid the tax.
That’s how they will do it. Over time.
Blood would run in the streets
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.