Posted on 04/18/2002 8:59:28 AM PDT by Lazamataz
Why can't I own nuclear weapons? The Second Amendment guarantees it! This argument comes up from time to time during gun control arguments. An anti-gun person who intends to use it as a strawman argument usually offers it facetiously or sarcastically. A strawman is a logical fallacy in which a debater exaggerates an opponent's position, directs arguments at this exaggerated position, and claims to have defeated the opponent's real argument. The Second Amendment guarantees individual citizens the right to keep and bear arms. Even professors who can only be described as extremely left-wing have come to this conclusion. For example, the prominent law professor Laurence Tribe, has reluctantly concluded that this Amendment explicitly upholds the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The writings of our Founding Fathers reveal that there were two sociological reasons to uphold this natural right: To prevent crime, and to defend against a rogue domestic government. As example of the Founders thoughts on the crime-deterrent effect of civilian firearms possession, I give you Thomas Jefferson: "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity ... will respect the less important and arbitrary ones ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." And as an example of how the Founders felt about civilian firearms possession as regards keeping our government 'honest and upright', I give you, again, Thomas Jefferson, who warns: And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. And from John Adams: Therefore, we can reasonably suppose that the Founders intended us to have access to every manner of weapon for defense of home and of liberty. However, therein lies the rub: Does every manner of weapon mean access to nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons? Our Founders were just men, men of proportion. They drew their ideas for our constitution from the writer and philosopher John Locke. Locke believed that the state of nature implied a law of nature, which is that "no one ought to harm another in his life, heath, liberty or possessions." Ergo, there were "natural rights" to life, liberty and property.5
To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws. 4
THE RIGHT OF SELF DEFENSE
If you have the right to own, then you also have the right to assert ownership -- otherwise known as "protect" -- that which is yours. The right of self-defense flows naturally from this right, and is enshrined by our Founders as the Bill of Rights, and even is quite prevalent in the Declaration of Independence. If you have the right to self-defense, then it naturally follows you have the right to effective tools to exercise that right. In simple terms, it makes no sense to say you have the right to drive on highways, but then ban automobiles. Again, the learned Mr. Jefferson agrees:
"The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless."
6
THE RIGHT TO BE UNMOLESTED
Another right flows from John Lockes principles: You also have the right to be undisturbed. In his words, "....liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others....". You have the right of 'quiet enjoyment' of your belongings, including your body, so long as you do not molest or act aggressively or violently to another. Nor, of course, do you have the right to disturb anothers quiet enjoyment of his or her belongings by molesting, acting aggressively, or acting violently to another person.
Take these two rights together: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE (and effective tools to defend yourself), and YOU MAY NOT MOLEST OR ATTACK THOSE WHO ARE NOT ATTACKING YOU FIRST.
Therefore, it is clear that any tool of self defense you choose must be a tool you can direct to be capable of discriminating between an attacker and an innocent. Clearly, the following tools are capable, with a minimum of care, of being directed against an attacker without jeopardizing innocents:
The following tools are slightly more questionable, since they are somewhat less able to be directed with great accuracy, and thusly are less discriminating. They have a larger chance of violating an innocent persons 'quiet enjoyment' of his property during the suppression of a criminal attack:
The following tools are completely indiscriminate, and may harm innocent people decades after their use. These tools are completely inappropriate for your right of self defense, since they will certainly violate an innocent persons right of quiet enjoyment of their property.
Hopefully, this will lay to rest once and for all the straw man offered by so many antigunners. Nuclear weapons are not allowed to be used for self defense by private citizens because they are not sufficiently discriminating.
Absent your knowledge of nuclear fire controls and chains of command, I do not see how you can reasonably assert that.
Brady
Subject: Yes, 2nd amendment protects nukesPeople often ask, "well, if the second amendment to the US Constitution protects the private ownership of arms, then does that mean you have the right to own a nuclear weapon?"
Most respondents approach this issue with something to the effect that this can be resolved by interpreting "arms" as meaning "personal arms" (i.e. those which can be carried and used by an individual against another individual). Others "resolve" it by saying that this issue "obviously" shows that the Constitution must be allowed to be re-interpreted to accord with "common sense".
However, I think this misses the point. First, the writings of the people who wrote and ratified the second amendment give the clear impression that they meant *all* arms, including cannon and privateer ships. Second, it's as wrong to "creatively interpret" the second amendment in order to say that these days it should apply only to personal arms as it is to say that it now applies only to the National Guard, or even to say that it's entirely outmoded and can be totally ignored. Any of these is an arbitrary selective interpretation, and all are equally unsupportable, as would be any attempt to limit the first amendment protection of free speech only to, say, distribution methods reaching only a limited number of people.
In short, I think the proper approach is to say that yes, the second amendment was written to protect all arms, and thus nuclear weapons are indeed covered by it. Now before anyone has a heart attack, let me point out that I, too, think it is a good idea that individuals not own nuclear weapons.
So what's the solution? Why, to follow the procedure that the Constitution itself provides for modifying a provision of the Constitution to adapt to changing times -- amend it following the procedures in Article V. The people who wrote the constitution did not intend for it to be selectively interpreted in order to fit changing conditions. They planned that if conditions *did* change enough to warrant an alteration in the provisions of the Constitution, it should be done with due care and consideration, and only upon the agreement of two thirds of each house of congress, and three fourths of the legislatures of the states.
If times have indeed significantly changed since the day the second amendment was ratified to protect the right to keep and bear all arms, then it should be a simple matter to get the congress and the states to agree upon the issue of which weapons are too dangerous for individual ownership, and an amendment listing those arms exempted from the protections of the second amendment should be ratified.
*This* is the proper way to react to changing times -- not arbitrary decisions, whether they be personal, legislative, executive, or judicial.
The second amendment protects all arms. If you don't like that, try to amend it. For some arms, it will be easy to get the majority opinion required to ratify that exemption, and you will then have the blessing of the Constitution itself. For other arms, you might find it more difficult to acquire a consensus, and you'll have to live with the fact that not enough people agree with you.
The charged term "to go off the board with regard to what the law says" should be replaced with the more neutral term "interpret the law". And as to that, a gentle hint: The courts already do this. :o)
The Supreme Court of the United States is singlemindedly preoccupied with the meaning of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I think you're overestimating your skill as an artellerist. Put that in group two.
Awwww comon dad, I promise I won't shoot Joey's eye out....!
And what is this doing in three? A booby trap in my yard isn't hurting anyone that should be there. What, are we talking a claymore setup with flechettes?
Well, I understand your argument to be that, from their mere failure to expressly include in the Second Amendment protection for the one indiscriminate weapon that you believe they had (contagious diseases), we are at liberty to assume that that omission represented a conscious decision on their part to exclude from the protections of the Second Amendment any and all indiscriminate weapons that might be invented or discovered in the future. I think that I might be more comfortable with your argument if there was some historical evidence linking their probably unconscious failure to expressly include contagious diseases with a conscious design on their part to exclude all indiscriminate weapons from the amendment's protection. Moreover, I think that the most reasonable inference to draw from the absence of such evidence is that those associated with the adoption of the Second Amendment never even thought about the distinction between discriminatory and indiscriminate weapons.
I do like the idea. I think that the discriminatory/indiscriminate distinction that you're making has a lot of value, but not as a constitutional tool.
BTW, if anyone anyone charges you with being a strict constructionist, I'll be happy to defend you.
;-)
Weapon of mass destruction.
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