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Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment
CanHasDIY (1672858) writes "In his yet-to-be-released book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, John Paul Stevens, who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court for 35 years, believes he has the key to stopping the seeming recent spate of mass killings — amend the Constitution to exclude private citizens from armament ownership. Specifically, he recommends adding 5 words to the 2nd Amendment, so that it would read as follows: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.'
What I find interesting is how Stevens maintains that the Amendment only protects armament ownership for those actively serving in a state or federal military unit, in spite of the fact that the Amendment specifically names 'the People' as a benefactor (just like the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth) and of course, ignoring the traditional definition of the term militia. I'm personally curious about his other 5 suggested changes, but I guess we'll have to wait until the end of April to find out."
What I find interesting is how Stevens maintains that the Amendment only protects armament ownership for those actively serving in a state or federal military unit, in spite of the fact that the Amendment specifically names 'the People' as a benefactor (just like the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth) and of course, ignoring the traditional definition of the term militia. I'm personally curious about his other 5 suggested changes, but I guess we'll have to wait until the end of April to find out."
It's as if he is choosing to ignore the recent killings at Ft. Hood in 2009 and 2014 because clearly no one 'serving in the militia' could ever do anything like that. It must be just those dangerous civilians out there and couldn't possibly be related to an individual's mental health or motivations.
It's not a "re-examination". It's a butchering.
The whole point is for the citizens to be able to form a militia in order to defend themselves from their own government. Those words would effectively decimate the whole reason for the second amendment.
I for one am just grateful that a liberal jurist has finally acknowledged that it would take a constitutional amendment to do that. Most of them seem to think that the Constitution already reads that way.
Here are six amendments (not in any form of airtight legalese) that would be useful:
1: Campaign donations are forbidden. Each candidate for an elected office will get an equivalent place to state their platform. Advertising anything election related on a commercial (paid) basis will be a crime.
2: Similar to Article 9 of the Mexican Constitution: Only US citizens can influence the politics of the nation.
3: A "no confidence" vote can be done on Congress, forcing a complete re-election with no incumbents allowed in for the next term (but can run after that.)
4: Same as Article 23 of the Mexican Constitution. No double jeopardy, and after three trials, the defendant is now absolved of charges.
5: Same as Article 10 of the German Constitution, guaranteeing privacy.
6: The right to a firearm is guaranteed. However, part of school education is firearms training, from elementary school to high school. The purpose of this is to "un-Hollywoodize" firearms, and make them perceived as a tool (similar to a chainsaw or weed whacker), and no more. If packing becomes pedestrian or gauche, the gun control problem will go away by itself.
These are not perfect, but they will go a ways to address critical issues.
I'd say the mere fact that this ex-justice feels the need to add words to the Second Amendment to specifically alter and limit its context says to me he knows full well what the Founders intended. Now one can certainly debate whether the Second Amendment is still useful or desirable or however you want to frame it, but whatever side of the gun debate you sit on, to pretend that the Founders meant anything other than general gun ownership is revisionism of the most extreme kind.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
At the time there were limited arms (you took about 2 minutes to reload) vs able to empty a couple clips in that same amount of time, now.
At the time the press was literally a mechanical device that took between 1 to 3 hours to print the first sheet of paper (I'm counting from before having the letters put in place).
Based on your cretinous logic, freedom of the press today should be limited to the technological limits 200 years ago.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
Really, what were they doing?
What about Ruby Ridge? There is a reason we paid that family millions of dollars in compensation.
Not saying either were great people. But look at Nevada, a 1,000 man militia. Probably the first time a battalion size militia has been active in the U.S.
Sure you can argue Mr. Bundy was breaking the law. But one can also argue the Feds enacted unethical policies and mis-used laws, in an abusive way.
Remember EVERYTHING the British did to the colonialists was 'legal'. The point of the Second Amendment is for those times when what is legal (or what is illegal) is WRONG!!!!!
the point of the constitution is to address issues in fairness. Doesn't deal with everything, but it's the core basic point of the document.
The constitution has nothing to do with "fairness" it is about limitations on the federal government and the absolute rights of the people. The founding of the US was not about fairness but freedom. What we have today is the idea of fairness and that is why our society is messed up and why we alow our government to rape us with high taxes and expect the government to fullfill all our needs.
to pretend that the Founders meant anything other than general gun ownership is revisionism of the most extreme kind.
Absolutely. I think his misinterpretation (I won't get into whether or not I think its intentional) can be summed up in just a couple quotes from the article:
(and duty) to keep and bear arms when serving in a state militia.
First, here (emphasis mine). He has the 2nd amendment backwards. He is claiming a militia is a required piece of the Amendment. It isn't. A well-regulated militia is the goal of the amendment, and it accomplishes that by making sure the People, who would compose the militia should it be needed, have the weapons and experience using them.
But that (my) definition isn't even on his radar:
Constitutional provisions that curtail the legislative power to govern in this area unquestionably do more harm than good.
Granted he is talking specifically about Sandyhook styled shootings, but to say "unquestionably"? I question it. I think Sandyhook is an acceptable risk when it comes to gun ownership. Additionally, removing guns in this day & age is just wiping somebody's nose and claiming you cured their flu. McVeigh & Nichols filled a truck with gasoline and fertilizer. 9/11 used box-cutters & a plane. Technology improvements don't only make cell phones cheaper & more useful than the pony express, it also means explosives and other weapons (3-d printers anybody?) are cheaper & more useful than bows & arrows. So if you want to actually stop mass killings, then go after mass killings. Fund mental health research & treatment, balance wealth inequality, accept that public assistance is required in a world where technology is raising the education bar higher than most people can reach and that when public assistance is as laughable as it is today... the have-nots are going to be restless.
Incidentally, I think the 1939 Miller decision is wrong. Whether or not guns have some other lawful use is entirely irrelevant to the 2nd Amendment. Tanks, APCs, and F-16s even are relevant to a militia in today's technological world. Especially if you consider some of the original arguments behind the 2nd amendment: tyrannical governments abusing the people with the military, so you "outlaw" a standing army and rely on The People forming a militia for self-defense until a regular army can be formed. Requiring "some other lawful purpose" is putting an additional restriction, or infringement, on the right to own guns and preventing a militia from behind formed. And since it is easy enough to simply declare there is no other lawful purpose for any gun (Police fill the defense role, beef industry fills the hunting role, so, done), such logic invalidates the entire amendment. (Specifically to sawed-off shotguns, there is a place for them with today's style of house-to-house close-quarters fighting where unskilled shooters need to hit whatever baddy is directly in front of them without penetrating walls or the people behind them; there is even more of a reason as better guns are outlawed/restricted/demonized, thus severely limiting people's chances of learning to hit the broad side of a barn).
Continuing
Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands.
Whereas I say no, they remind you that you're begging the question by simply assuming the debate has already moved on to "how to get guns out of the hands of mass-killers". Like I said above, people owning guns is not the problem. Revolutions don't happen just because people have guns. Mass killings don't happen just because people hav
Which is a scary thought since the lesson of the Nevada event is that if you have good PR and enough armed people, officials who do not want bloodshed will back down and allow you to continue.
Really? Because if the government wanted the tax money bad enough (which IIRC the rancher paid to the state of Nevada instead), they could have simply put a lien against the rancher's property and taken it quietly, instead of forming a wall of heavily-armed paramilitary intimidation.
It doesn't help that the senior senator from Nevada (Harry Reid) is egging things on and swaggering the whole time about how the feds will crush anyone that gets in the way.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Officials that showed up with snipers and armored cars before any militia even was involved.
The lesson of Nevada is that there are self entitled people who don't realize that they belong to a country.
You're right, we crazy anarchists don't think people belong to a country. In fact, we're so bonkers we think that the country should belong to the people.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org