The Fallacy of Second Amendment Absolutism

[billh58]

The names and locales and exact number of victims begin to intermingle and fade into each other over time as a wearying sequence of outrage, grief and calls to do something give way to a series of volleys that see the left and right political flanks in our country dig deeper into their respective trenches of outrage tinged with near despair on the left and dismissive, gun rights absolutism on the right.

"When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say, ‘Stop this madness!’? Too many have died. We should say to ourselves, ‘Not one more!’”

That’s Richard Martinez, father of one of the six victims left dead at only the most recent carnage last weekend at UC Santa Barbara.

“As harsh as this sounds—your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

That’s “Joe the Plumber,” a supposed American “everyman” who catapulted into the media spotlight when he took on then-candidate Obama at a 2008 campaign stop, parlaying that encounter into a subsequent book, a (losing) run for Congress in 2012, and renewed attention from media two days ago in what he dubbed an “Open Letter to the Parents of the Victims Murdered By Elliott Rodger.”

-Snip-

Today, among what can only be described as gun militants, there is insistence that even the tiniest bit of retrenchment from the National Rifle Association’s not-one-bit-of-compromise stance is out of the question, off the table, an outrageous infringement of a cherished constitutional principle that is unto a religion on much of the right.

http://andrewhidas.com/the-fallacy-of-second-amendment-absolutism/

"Gun militants." Sound familiar? They infiltrate almost all conversations about guns, and push their obnoxious right-wing "guns for everyone" interpretation of the Second Amendment loudly and often (as directed by the NRA playbook). They are a very small, but very vocal group of gun fanatics who attempt to pass off their unnatural attraction to guns as a "patriotic" act of upholding the Constitution.

The answer to this unhealthy and dangerous plague of guns on our society is to elect real Democrats at all levels of government who will not accept bribes from the right-wing gun lobby. Democrats who will reverse the outrageous "guns everywhere" legislation paid for by ALEC/NRA/ILA/GOA.

[unblock]

1. there are plenty of restrictions on free speech.

very few people are such free speech absolutists that they believe incitement to riot, slander, libel, blackmail, etc. should all be legal.

shouldn't people be able to walk into a bank and make verbal threats and ask for all the money in the vault? it's free speech, right?

much of constitutional interpretation involves finding the right balance between its various parts, not taking one part in isolation and acting as if that's the end of all discussion.

[billh58]

2. The hard core

gun fanatics claim that any restrictions, like those you cite, are an "infringement" on their rights. Absolutism at its finest.

[lastlib]

3. I wonder what these "Constitutional absolutists" say about the Seventh Amendment?

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved...

Do they really think any court today would entertain a jury trial over twenty dollars?