Posted on 02/26/2018 6:04:05 AM PST by Kaslin
As the Parkland, Fla., school shooting revealed yet again, when it comes to firearms, the differences between Americans has become too monumental to overcome. On one end of the political spectrum are left-wing politicians and pundits calling for the elimination of the Second Amendment and severe restrictions on virtually every kind of gun. On the other end are Americans who believe the best way to stop mass shootings is to have even more weapons available to the public, and for everyday citizens, including teachers, to be better armed so that they are capable of defending themselves and others from murderers like Nikolas Cruz.
How can this stark divide ever be reconciled? Although it may be difficult for many to accept, the answer is likely that it can’t. The United States is in desperate need of a new Second Amendment, one that recognizes the fundamentally different views people today have about guns, their role in society, and our rights as citizens.
When the Founders first wrote and passed what we know call the Second Amendment, they viewed the Constitution in an entirely different way than most people do today. Originally, the U.S. Constitution was, for the most part, only understood to govern the relationship between Americans and their federal government. The Bill of Rights was largely meant to protect the states and the people from an out-of-control centralized power in the nation’s capital. Most laws were passed at the state and local levels, and state constitutions determined the limits of those laws, including gun laws.
In 1833, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall clearly articulated this principle when writing the majority opinion in Barron v. Baltimore. “The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual States,” Marshall wrote. “Each State established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated.”
As with other important issues, the Civil War and its fallout radically transformed the scope of the Constitution. Following the passage of the 14th Amendment—which reads, in part, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”—some courts began determining that at least some of the federal Bill of Rights applies to the states as well. This extension of the Constitution, combined with the tremendous technological improvements in transportation, media, and more than a century of additional Supreme Court cases, resulted in the high-stakes national policy debates that have become so common. Instead of making decisions at the state level, uniform laws are imposed on more than 320 million people, irrespective of the nation’s many different cultural, political, religious, moral, and philosophical differences.
For most issues, Americans are willing to accept such a model. But on the issue of guns, it has become increasingly evident there is no resolution. Either left-wing states and their citizens will have to continue living in a nation in which guns are constitutionally protected, or they’ll have to change the Constitution to ban most or all types of guns from being owned.
Fortunately for those of us who support gun owners’ rights, the likelihood of an anti-gun constitutional amendment ever being ratified by three-fourths of the states—a requirement of the Constitution—is virtually nonexistent. Even under the best circumstances, it’s unlikely half the states would be willing to approve such an amendment.
Unfortunately for gun advocates, left-wingers don’t need an amendment to gut the Constitution of its firearms protections. Five Supreme Court justices who oppose the established, two-centuries-old view of the Second Amendment are all that are needed to reinterpret the meaning of the amendment’s “right to bear arms.” And although Republicans now control Congress and the White House, it seems it’s only a matter of time before the pendulum swings in liberals’ favor, opening the door for the elimination of most gun rights. After all, liberals already have four justices on the bench who would likely approve of a law creating radical restrictions on gun rights, and the Court’s swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, is 81 years old.
The United States needs a new amendment governing gun rights, and the only amendment that would likely have any chance of being approved would be one that returns the Second Amendment to the position the Founders envisioned, when it only applied to federal law. This, coupled with clarifying language that makes it more difficult for federal authorities to restrict gun rights, would permit states to issue stricter gun bans, assuming their state constitutions allow it. But it would also ensure citizens in states where guns are valued—which, by the way, is most states—are guaranteed from ever having their gun rights taken from them by a Supreme Court controlled by left-wing justices.
Such a scheme would likely result in some gun owners losing their ability to purchase or possess some or possibly all guns. But it would also protect gun owners in the clear majority of states and turn those states into safe havens for those who want greater firearms freedom. It’s not a perfect compromise, but it’s probably necessary to ensure the long-term survival of gun rights, and maybe even the country.
There is a way to abrogate the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment that requires neither a President nor a Congress nor a Supreme Court.
All it requires is gun hating judges & power hungry police chiefs enabled by state laws that say mental illness is whatever we say it is. Those adjudged by whatever authority to be mentally ill will have their firearms confiscated.
The most egregious example is California where the gun confiscation squad already has a name, a face, and a mission. It can be set in motion by anyone from a concerned relative to a personal enemy bent on revenge who goes to the police voicing their “fears” that somebody because of their mental state & their possession of guns represents a threat to all those around him.
Police goes to judge who issues warrant for confiscation, and the thing is done.
Temporary? Void after 60 days? Here’s your guns back, sorry for the inconvenience?
“Not bloody likely, mate.”
Apparently Ive put far to much thought into the process because as of late it seems that any dumbass can get paid to talk about things they dont understand.
Really?
Where does the 10th fit in, then?
I’ll play...
My new Second amendment: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Take the first clause out because liberals can’t read and understand basic English.
5.56mm
The Supreme Court has beclowned itself already.
It will not make a diff if the libs dominate.
They have proven that our law system has the morality of a Clinton and the intellect of a Dorkbama the Muslim eunuch.
We will tell them to shove it up their Obamaholes.
Period.
A person way smarter than me said; “the Constitution doesn’t need to be re-written, it needs to be re-read.”
Marko
He’s right about one thing: The Constitution means what 5 out of 9 lifetime political appointees say it means.
All of these comments, and the article, assume the existence of the rule of law, while the libs assume a gov’t that rules by mob emotion and fiat. Our first concern should be preservation of the rule of law. It’s in doubt.
While the Bill of Rights Amendments could presumably be altered or even repealed like any of the others, I fear it would be a bad precedent. The First Amendment as well as the Fourth and Fifth Amendments could easily be targets of similar meddling. In a generation or less we could be living in a police state.
This is BS.The 2Amd is absolute. It does NOT say Congress shall make no law.... It says shall not be infringed. That is absolute language. All gun laws are infringements and therefore unConstitutional. There is no wiggle room in the wording.The First Amd only restricts the federal government- Congress shall make no law...
To Preserve Gun Rights, We Must Replace the Second Amendment (What a Dumb Idea)That could be (probably would be) accomplished with a Convention of States.
Did someone say something about a dumb idea?
11,699 amendments have been proposed. 33 have been approved by congress and sent on to the states for ratification. 27 have received ratification.
I will allow the students the pleasure of doing the math.
The Constitution means what it says, the Supreme Court has been wrong MANY times.
Five Supreme Court justices who oppose the established, two-centuries-old view of the Second Amendment are all that are needed to reinterpret the meaning of the amendment’s “right to bear arms.”
I’d like to see those five Supreme Court justices try to confiscate the hundreds of millions of legally owned firearms in the United States.
Well then maybe we ought to rescind the First to prevent morons like this from vomiting up crap like this.
The Supreme Court was established to rule on the constitutionality of all laws, including states laws, where it pertains to the liberties of citizens.
I think the left would Repeal and then forget to replace
You signed up today on FreeRepublic just to spout this crap?
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