You might feel safer in the presence of police instead of CCW permit holders, but you would be wrong to do so. Your feeling of safety is irrational.
Statistics show that the police are significantly less accurate than citizens with CCW permits -- the police miss the target about 75% of the time! Furthermore, the police also shoot the wrong person more often than citizens, probably because they tend to come to the scene later and did not witness the criminal event.
I'd also bet money that, on average, citizens with CCW permits have more and better firearms training than police officers.
The great-grandparent post was pretty good and responsible... it recommended training and obtaining a CCW license. I don't see any problem with that.
Your problem is that you assume everyone is irresponsible. But I've noticed that in places where people are likely to be armed, society tends to be somewhat more... polite. I live in a town that probably has more firearms than residents. Is there crime here? Yes... quite a bit of crime, though the murder rate is low (1 murder last year, out of ~ 10k residents... which is above the historical average).
Many states now have "shall-issue" laws for concealed-carry permits (which means that they must issue a permit unless the applicant is disqualified by not meeting the requirements). Yet the crime rate is not higher, and may in fact be lower, in states where concealed carry is legal. I've seen many posts here decrying gun ownership, or claiming (as you did) that we'd have the "Wild West," blood running in the streets, etc... but people can and do legally carry concealed firearms in many states, and it simply hasn't caused any of the problems you anticipate.
While some of Lott's practices have been a bit suspect, I suggest you have a closer look at the Wikipedia article. There are a number of independent papers which support and confirm his results.
You are so wrong, I don't even know where to begin...
That relies on 2 things: 1) that there is a distinction between good guys and bad guys, and 2) that good guys are good shots. For the first, many (to that point) honest citizens commit "heat of the moment" crimes, which would certainly be made worse with the presence of guns. The second creates problems when well meaning laypeople start playing hero and injure bystanders.
Clearly there can be a distinction between "good guys" and "bad guys." The man who killed over 30 people today is not a "good guy."
I recall reading a study of shootings, which indicated that police were substantially less proficient at shooting than citizens. http://www.gsgi.org/wisc_SWAT.htm has some studies of police accuracy... a 25% hit rate is much worse than what is typical for citizens with concealed carry permits in similar circumstances. I also recall that police are more likely to shoot the wrong person.
I'm not one of the crazies on either side, but if we have to have licenses for cars, we need licenses for guns.
First, we don't have licenses for cars. We do need a license to drive a car on a public road, but no license is required to buy or possess a car. So it's not an analogous situation.
Second, requiring licenses to own guns opens a can of worms as to the requirements for a license. And I'm not aware of any other constitutionally-protected right which requires a license.
And I'm not interested in the BS slippery slope rhetoric. I'm OK with highly trained civillians carrying guns in public. I'm OK with idiot yokels having guns locked up at home that they use for hunting or target practice. I'm not OK with idiot yokels carrying guns in public. It's not safe.
Just because you aren't interested in the "slippery slope" argument doesn't mean that it isn't valid. And just who is to decide if someone is an "idiot yokel" or not... you? Or do you trust our idiotic, autocratic, felonious government to make such decisions?
Last I checked, in the US no one is depriving people of the means to defend themselves (a.k.a. "guns").
Then you aren't being thorough in your checks.
There is an active bill in congress, HR1022, which would ban all semi-automatic rifles (including parts for such rifles, as well as all barrel shrouds or hand guards, which are essentially safety devices).
Handguns are banned in several cities, including NYC, DC, and Chicago. In DC, you can own a long gun in your home, but only if it is kept disassembled.
In the US, people are being deprived of the right to defend themselves (i.e. guns).
So when looking from an outer point of view, I can't either understand the so-called right to defend oneself. I thought the duty to defend us from external risks was an issue concerning the Authorities, by means of Police or even the Army.
The authorities (including police) have no duty to protect anyone; this is long-established law. Note that in this event, as with the Columbine shootings, the violence ended when the shooters killed themselves; the police did not kill or otherwise stop the shooters.
The right to self-defense derives from the fundamental right to life.
If nobody had guns, some people would still need firearms for adequate protection... the elderly, or people who are small, physically weak, or disabled.
Furthermore, you are making an assumption that if guns are outlawed, nobody would have guns. That assumption is demonstrably false. Most criminal shootings occur with illegally owned firearms. Outlawing guns would simply prevent law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves.
Furthermore, you assume that these shootings are the result of the right to bear arms. I see no evidence or reason for that assumption.
Where I live (small town in NM) there weren't any Green or Libertarian candidates on the ballot in the last election. Heck, there wasn't even a democrat on the ballot for the state legislature seat... one choice only.
In the future, I'm going to try and vote 3rd party (Green and Libertarian) when possible, unless there is a mainstream candidate I really like.
Remember that the current bruhaha is over things that the Bush adninistration did after the 2006 election. Imagine all the law breaking that they must have done while there was no congressional oversight!
I don't have to imagine... we know that the Bush administration broke the law before 2006. Bush has publicly admitted to authorizing the domestic wiretapping program, which is in violation of federal statute and the 4th amendment. I believe there could be grounds for impeachment based on the authorization to torture detainees as well.
Every time I think on this, it astounds me... we have a sitting president who has openly admitted to committing felonies. (Never mind how he has broken his oath to uphold the Constitution.) And nobody is doing anything about it.
Beyond that, I'm sure there are other grounds for impeachment. For example, the (obvious at the time!) lies and propaganda during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq... WMDs, Al-Queda ties, yellowcake... that should be sufficient legal cause.
When I hear people talk about piracy, I think about one thing from long ago. Me too... an old sailing ship, the smell of salt and burned powder. A scruffy man in tattered yet oddly formal clothing, with an eye-patch and a parrot on his shoulder; and maybe a cutlass in his hand, or a muzzle-loading pistol. "Arr, ahoy matey, thar be treasure!"
Also remember that in our system the only way to challenge a law as unconstitutional is to break it.
That is not actually true. It is necessary to have suffered some kind of loss as the result of the law, but that's not the same thing.
For example, in the recent Parker v. DC case, a police officer was granted standing because the city denied him a permit to carry a firearm while he was off-duty.
I agree that the officer should have been charged with negligent homicide. However, as is common in this sort of case, he was not prosecuted and received only "administrative punishment."
Thanks for your input... I'll have to give this some thought. You raise good points, even if I don't necessarily agree. Here are my immediate reactions:
What we need is a way to not cripple legitimate things, like SWAT teams, and yet still prevent a police state.
I don't think the militarization of police is a good idea. In fact, it really is a large part of what makes a "police state." Community police should be good enough; SWAT teams which are trained and equipped as military forces, especially when taught to view the public as "the enemy," should violate the Possee Comitatus rule.
Not good enough. If the law isn't clear enough, it should be void, which means I get to keep my fully-automatic weapon until they fix the law.
That works... except then everyone will try to find some way to mis-interpret laws in order to be able to break them.
A person should be able to read everything their elected officials do. They should be able to read it in the morning newspaper, over breakfast or coffee, and understand it. The only problem is, how do we word this properly?
I don't know... heavy restrictions on the bills that may be passed would help. For example place strict restraints on the interstate commerce clause, which is often horribly abused. Or remove it entirely.
Or is there some other angle we can attack this from? Because the problem with what I just said is, anyone can bring in a retarded person and say "This person can't understand your Constitution; therefore, it's void.
That won't work, because a "reasonable" person must be able to understand the meaning of the law. I've seen this sort of thing work, but you're right - it could be subject to abuse. There must be a better way, probably involving various measures to restrict the length of laws, and the types of bills that may be passed.
Suppose the Supreme Court "interprets" the Constitution to still have the 3/5ths rule (or whatever it was) in effect, or something bizarre like that. Or suppose they simply decide that any new laws, especially laws which attempt to reform the Supreme Court, are "unconstitutional" or "illegal".
Yeah, judicial reform... I don't know how to tackle this one directly. Congress could always impeach the justices, but that hasn't ever happened. The courts don't always make the right decisions, and when they make wrong decisions they stick with them; uniformity with precedents is given priority over correctness (a bad idea IMO).
For that matter, you said "illegal" -- are you honestly saying a new law can't break any existing laws? We could never get rid of laws, then -- any new law attempting to replace them would be "illegal".
I'm saying that in the event a law is unconstitutional, it's thrown back in the face of Congress. If Congress wants to repeal an old law, they can do that directly; however, judicial review (preferably before a bill is passed) could be useful to avoid unintended consequences when laws conflict. Also, a law could be "illegal" if, for example, it violates a treaty.
I suppose one could claim that I'm trying to devise an idiot-proof Constitution, which of course would cause even greater idiots to be elected to Congress.
Regarding #6, I'm not quite sure about the rationale behind this.
It's to prevent tyranny by the government, by restricting the amount of force that can be used against the people.
Regarding #7, the declaration should be formal, and we should know about it. "War on Terror" does not count. And what about special ops?
I agree that the declaration should be formal and public. Special ops is a type of military force, and as such is prohibited without a declaration of war. Perhaps limited "declarations of war" (similar to the authorization for use of force that led to the invasion of Iraq) could be permitted, but only in certain circumstances, such as to deploy force to secure the persons of American citizens abroad. (I.e., rescue operations.)
Regarding #9: Needs better language, but yes. It might be simpler to have all bills or articles, anywhere, be limited by some arbitrary measure like a word count. In any case, any document which has the force of law should be possible to understand by any person it affects. So, for instance, I should not have to be a lawyer to understand the EULA on my software, and it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to read through it. Creative Commons has a great example of a human-readable summary -- there's legalese to back it up, but the summary is understandable.
Yes, I was thinking of adding something like this... my thought was more along the line of: in a precedent-setting case where a reasonable person might consider the law ambiguous, no criminal penalty shall be afforded to the accused beyond remedial action. In other words, if the law isn't clear to a reasonable person (and hasn't been made clear by a previous precedent-setting court case), then if you're found guilty of breaking that law you can't be punished for it, beyond corrective action (so, in an example pertinent to this topic, if the law isn't clear about owning fully-automatic weapons, and you have one, they can take it away or modify it to be semi-automatic, but they can't fine you or throw you in prison).
#10 should only apply to citizens -- and it should be possible to abridge this without convicting someone. If you're holding a suspect, obviously they should not be allowed to have a sword in their jail cell.
Why should it only apply to citizens? The 2nd amendment has been found to apply to anyone within this country who has some tie to it; and thus applies to non-citizen residents as well. And of course this won't apply to felons, since rights can be removed via due process.
#11: Careful here. The Supreme Court currently has an insane amount of power to arbitrarily interpret stuff.
Yes, but if it's their job to interpret the law, then my point is that the other branches of gov't should be able to ask them for an interpretation.
Not at all. You frequently cite cases from other circuits. Lower courts are not bound by it as precedent, but they are taken into consideration by the judge.
Then perhaps you should consider US v. Emerson, where the 5th Circuit court of appeals opined:
We have found no historical evidence that the Second Amendment was intended to convey militia power to the states, limit the federal government's power to maintain a standing army, or applies only to members of a select militia while on active duty. All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans. [...] We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment. We hold, consistent with Miller, that it protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms, such as the pistol
involved here, that are suitable as personal, individual weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller.
Furthermore, US v. Miller was decided for the government because no defense was presented - the defendant and his lawyers did not appear before the court when the case was heard. This is the only recent Supreme Court decision pertaining to the 2nd amendment being a collective vs. individual right. It regards the 1934 National Firearms Act, which licenses and taxes automatic weapons, suppressors, and places a minimum length on allowed rifle and shotgun barrels. From the Court's opinion:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense... The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. 'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.' And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.
That hardly sounds like resounding support for the collective right theory (i.e. that the 2nd amendment applies collectively to militias and not to individuals), and to my mind it strongly suggests that the Court believed the 1934 NFA to be largely unconstitutional; or, more specifically, that the 2nd amendment makes it legal to own "ordinary military equipment" that can "contribute to the common defense" despite the 1934 NFA.
The 9th circuit court of appeals held, in Silveira v. Lockyer, that the 2nd amendment does not guarantee individuals the right to bear arms (and again, certiorari denied). I can't imagine how they justified the logic to themselves. The 10th Circuit court has made at least 3 similar rulings, generally qualified as making restrictions on gun possession legal unless they interfere with the state's ability to form a well-regulated militia. Strangely, in US v. Oakes the 10th circuit ruled:
We found no evidence that the firearm in question was connected with a militia, even though the defendant was nominally a member of the Kansas militia and the "Posse Comitatus," a militia-type organization registered with the state...
I've considered submitting this as an "Ask Slashdot" article, but I may as well post it here.
Given how our country (especially the Executive branch, though Congress hasn't done well either) has been violating the laws and the constitution, and various other abuses (patent/copyrights, etc.), I've been trying to think of ways to amend the constitution that might do some good. I understand that constitutional amendments are of little use when the government ignores the constitution, but it's the best I can think of.
Here are my ideas, in very rough form. I'd love to get some feedback...
1. Clause 1: No corporation, profitable organization, or agent thereof may lobby an elected official; or contribute monetary funds, or other gifts or services beyond those which are available to the general public.
Clause 2: No elected or appointed official may accept gifts (including services), except from individuals who are friends or family, and could not gain disproportionately from the official's duties. [Badly worded, I know... intended as strict anti-bribery.]
2. Congress may pass no law to serve or benefit corporations above citizens, or to insure or support a corporate organization or business. The terms of copyrights and patents are restricted to not more than 20 years. Copyrights and patents shall be further restricted to apply only to public distribution for commercial purposes.
3. The rights of the people shall have precedence over the rights of public corporations or businesses.
Clause 1: Corporations and business are not guaranteed the same rights as people.
Clause 2: Criminal misconduct or infringement of civil rights by corporations shall result in personal criminal liability.
Clause 3: Corporate organizations have no right to avoid self-incrimination.
4. (Anti-secrecy amendment)
Clause 1. Congress shall be kept informed of all governmental programs which are classified or otherwise not disclosed to the public.
Clause 2. Briefings to congress shall include full disclosure of all program details to at least the entire congressional oversight committee. All political parties which have representation in Congress shall be allowed a member on each oversight committee.
Clause 3. No legal proceedings shall be halted by state secrets or due to classified evidence. Superior or Supreme court judges can subpoena and review any secret material in a closed court. The determination that evidence is a secret of the state shall not prevent timely justice.
Clause 4. No secret evidence may be used in any legal proceeding, nor may secret evidence be introduced without full disclosure to all parties.
5. Clause 1: The presidency is limited to one term not to exceed four years.
Clause 2: Senators are limited to not more than 2 terms in office.
Clause 3: Representatives are limited to not more than 4 terms in office.
6. Possee Comitatus: military force may not be deployed for combat, peacekeeping, policing, or any other armed or non-humanitarian duty within the borders of the United States, except for defense against a military threat from a foreign people or government. [Note: this precludes the use of military weaponry by non-military personnel, i.e. SWAT teams. Military force can be defined as the use of weaponry or equipment not legally available to civilians.]
7. No military force shall be deployed for combat duty outside the United States without a declaration of war by Congress.
8. Citizens and non-citizen residents are guaranteed the right of privacy; and own their private data and information, and may control the dissemination thereof.
9. All bills or articles introduced in Congress must address only a single subject and purpose. Riders are not allowed.
10. Clause 1: An individual's right to obtain, possess, and openly carry arms, including personal firearms, on public lands or their private property shall not be restricted, infringed, or abridged, except by due process of law for people
Normally I have a great respect for the/. moderation system, but ranking the parent as +5 insightful? Ridiculous.
What really angers me about the 'need firearms to protect us from the government' people is that they don't understand what they are really saying. "We need guns so the government doesn't take away our rights" they say.
That's saying that you don't have to comply with the will over the democratically elected government. It's saying that if you don't like the law, yu're going to become a terrorist.
Not at all. You are ignoring the fact that our "democratically elected government" (Ahem, *cough*Florida-2000*cough*) can, and often does break the law . And no law is allowed which violates the rights of the people (constitutional or inalienable).
People who argue that they need guns to protect their rights from the government are just gun nuts. The 'protect us from the government' argument is a red herring. If their RIGHTS were really what is important to them, they'd vote for people who wanted to protect their rights instead of people who wanted to protect their guns.
A politician who wants to protect the people's rights (if such a creature exists) would protect the people's firearm rights as well. You write as if the two concepts are naturally exclusive, but they aren't.
I'm generally pretty liberal, politically. I'm for gay rights (or secular humanism in general), environmentalism, against abortion in general but still pro-choice, pro-rule of law, anti-Iraq war, very anti-neocon and anti-Bush. And as a liberal, I support the individual's rights to own firearms via a liberal (i.e. broad-minded, tolerant, anti-autoritarian) interpretations of the 2nd amendment.
And I'm not a gun nut... in my 34 years on this earth, I've only owned a gun for the past week, and then only because I live in a small town with a higher violent crime rate than LA, NYC, Phoenix, or Chicago.
Guns do not turn ordinary citizens into murderers. Significantly, fewer than one gun owner in 3,000 commits homicide; and that one killer is far from a typical gun owner. Studies have found two-thirds to four-fifths of homicide offenders have prior arrest records, frequently for violent felonies.[28] A study by the pro-control Police Foundation of domestic homicides in Kansas City in 1977 revealed that in 85 percent of homicides among family members, the police had been called in before to break up violence.[29] In half the cases, the police had been called in five or more times. Thus, the average person who kills a family member is not a non-violent solid citizen who reaches for a weapon in a moment of temporary insanity. Instead, he has a past record of illegal violence and trouble with the law. Such people on the fringes of society are unlikely to be affected by gun control laws. Indeed, since many killers already had felony convictions, it was already illegal for them to own a gun, but they found one anyway.
I'd be willing to bet that the high incidence of gun crime in the USA is mostly due to inner-city gang/drug related homicide, probably due to the "war on drugs." As such, I'm not sure that you can blame US gun violence on liberal gun laws.
No, that's actually the number Congress provided in the statute.
So? It may be the law, but that doesn't make it right.
Indeed, the due process defense is interesting, and probably is a better solution to the RIAA lawsuits. In general, a defense based on Kazaa's payment to the recording industry is not a good idea IMO. After all, a paid-off bully has incentive to extort more money from you.
What clown moderated the parent a troll? The parent is exactly right, the earth is seriously overpopulated.
Certainly wasteful use of resources is... err, a waste. But regardless of how efficiently resources are used, we have a finite amount of them. By the estimates I've seen, the earth can in principle support somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 billion people, sustainably, at the starvation/poverty level. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very desirable to me.
Consider the price of housing in California. I did my graduate studies at UC Santa Barbara. When I moved away last year, the median price of a house was 1.2 million dollars - mostly due to the high price of land. Why is it so expensive? It's a very desirable location (mediterranean climate, beaches, mountains, and only a 2 hour drive from LA) with limited available land, and a lot of wealthy people want to live there. If the US population were 1/10 what it is now, the prices would be much lower because the same amount of land would be available for housing, but fewer people would be available to live there.
This is true of almost every resource. As population increases, finite resources are divided among more people and everyone becomes poorer. The one resource for which this is not true is labor (though modern automation makes this less of an issue)... therefore, there is some ideal population (which is obviously much lower than the current population, at least for many of the world's nations) where there is a balance between the availability of labor and the dilution of resources.
You mean so that the government can easily identify militant dissenters, declare them to be "ter'rists," lock them up without trial and throw away the key?
(sarcasm)
Yeah, the second amendment is looking really useful right about now...
(/sarcasm)
Slashdot Mirror
You might feel safer in the presence of police instead of CCW permit holders, but you would be wrong to do so. Your feeling of safety is irrational.
Statistics show that the police are significantly less accurate than citizens with CCW permits -- the police miss the target about 75% of the time! Furthermore, the police also shoot the wrong person more often than citizens, probably because they tend to come to the scene later and did not witness the criminal event.
I'd also bet money that, on average, citizens with CCW permits have more and better firearms training than police officers.
The great-grandparent post was pretty good and responsible... it recommended training and obtaining a CCW license. I don't see any problem with that.
Your problem is that you assume everyone is irresponsible. But I've noticed that in places where people are likely to be armed, society tends to be somewhat more... polite. I live in a town that probably has more firearms than residents. Is there crime here? Yes... quite a bit of crime, though the murder rate is low (1 murder last year, out of ~ 10k residents... which is above the historical average).
Many states now have "shall-issue" laws for concealed-carry permits (which means that they must issue a permit unless the applicant is disqualified by not meeting the requirements). Yet the crime rate is not higher, and may in fact be lower, in states where concealed carry is legal. I've seen many posts here decrying gun ownership, or claiming (as you did) that we'd have the "Wild West," blood running in the streets, etc... but people can and do legally carry concealed firearms in many states, and it simply hasn't caused any of the problems you anticipate.
While some of Lott's practices have been a bit suspect, I suggest you have a closer look at the Wikipedia article. There are a number of independent papers which support and confirm his results.
That relies on 2 things: 1) that there is a distinction between good guys and bad guys, and 2) that good guys are good shots. For the first, many (to that point) honest citizens commit "heat of the moment" crimes, which would certainly be made worse with the presence of guns. The second creates problems when well meaning laypeople start playing hero and injure bystanders.
Clearly there can be a distinction between "good guys" and "bad guys." The man who killed over 30 people today is not a "good guy."
I recall reading a study of shootings, which indicated that police were substantially less proficient at shooting than citizens. http://www.gsgi.org/wisc_SWAT.htm has some studies of police accuracy... a 25% hit rate is much worse than what is typical for citizens with concealed carry permits in similar circumstances. I also recall that police are more likely to shoot the wrong person.
I'm not one of the crazies on either side, but if we have to have licenses for cars, we need licenses for guns.
First, we don't have licenses for cars. We do need a license to drive a car on a public road, but no license is required to buy or possess a car. So it's not an analogous situation.
Second, requiring licenses to own guns opens a can of worms as to the requirements for a license. And I'm not aware of any other constitutionally-protected right which requires a license.
And I'm not interested in the BS slippery slope rhetoric. I'm OK with highly trained civillians carrying guns in public. I'm OK with idiot yokels having guns locked up at home that they use for hunting or target practice. I'm not OK with idiot yokels carrying guns in public. It's not safe.
Just because you aren't interested in the "slippery slope" argument doesn't mean that it isn't valid. And just who is to decide if someone is an "idiot yokel" or not... you? Or do you trust our idiotic, autocratic, felonious government to make such decisions?
Then you aren't being thorough in your checks. There is an active bill in congress, HR1022, which would ban all semi-automatic rifles (including parts for such rifles, as well as all barrel shrouds or hand guards, which are essentially safety devices). Handguns are banned in several cities, including NYC, DC, and Chicago. In DC, you can own a long gun in your home, but only if it is kept disassembled. In the US, people are being deprived of the right to defend themselves (i.e. guns).
The authorities (including police) have no duty to protect anyone; this is long-established law. Note that in this event, as with the Columbine shootings, the violence ended when the shooters killed themselves; the police did not kill or otherwise stop the shooters.
The right to self-defense derives from the fundamental right to life.
If nobody had guns, some people would still need firearms for adequate protection... the elderly, or people who are small, physically weak, or disabled. Furthermore, you are making an assumption that if guns are outlawed, nobody would have guns. That assumption is demonstrably false. Most criminal shootings occur with illegally owned firearms. Outlawing guns would simply prevent law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves. Furthermore, you assume that these shootings are the result of the right to bear arms. I see no evidence or reason for that assumption.
Where I live (small town in NM) there weren't any Green or Libertarian candidates on the ballot in the last election. Heck, there wasn't even a democrat on the ballot for the state legislature seat... one choice only.
In the future, I'm going to try and vote 3rd party (Green and Libertarian) when possible, unless there is a mainstream candidate I really like.
Unsurprising; both parties are in the pockets of corporate interests, anyway. I hope there is a backlash over this.
I don't have to imagine... we know that the Bush administration broke the law before 2006. Bush has publicly admitted to authorizing the domestic wiretapping program, which is in violation of federal statute and the 4th amendment. I believe there could be grounds for impeachment based on the authorization to torture detainees as well.
Every time I think on this, it astounds me... we have a sitting president who has openly admitted to committing felonies. (Never mind how he has broken his oath to uphold the Constitution.) And nobody is doing anything about it.
Beyond that, I'm sure there are other grounds for impeachment. For example, the (obvious at the time!) lies and propaganda during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq... WMDs, Al-Queda ties, yellowcake... that should be sufficient legal cause.
Also remember that in our system the only way to challenge a law as unconstitutional is to break it. That is not actually true. It is necessary to have suffered some kind of loss as the result of the law, but that's not the same thing. For example, in the recent Parker v. DC case, a police officer was granted standing because the city denied him a permit to carry a firearm while he was off-duty.
I agree that the officer should have been charged with negligent homicide. However, as is common in this sort of case, he was not prosecuted and received only "administrative punishment."
Your faith in our constitution is badly misplaced. We have no rights.
Thanks for your input... I'll have to give this some thought. You raise good points, even if I don't necessarily agree. Here are my immediate reactions:
r _2006.pdf
What we need is a way to not cripple legitimate things, like SWAT teams, and yet still prevent a police state.
Read the first couple pages of this: http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/balko_whitepape
I don't think the militarization of police is a good idea. In fact, it really is a large part of what makes a "police state." Community police should be good enough; SWAT teams which are trained and equipped as military forces, especially when taught to view the public as "the enemy," should violate the Possee Comitatus rule.
Not good enough. If the law isn't clear enough, it should be void, which means I get to keep my fully-automatic weapon until they fix the law.
That works... except then everyone will try to find some way to mis-interpret laws in order to be able to break them.
A person should be able to read everything their elected officials do. They should be able to read it in the morning newspaper, over breakfast or coffee, and understand it. The only problem is, how do we word this properly?
I don't know... heavy restrictions on the bills that may be passed would help. For example place strict restraints on the interstate commerce clause, which is often horribly abused. Or remove it entirely.
Or is there some other angle we can attack this from? Because the problem with what I just said is, anyone can bring in a retarded person and say "This person can't understand your Constitution; therefore, it's void.
That won't work, because a "reasonable" person must be able to understand the meaning of the law. I've seen this sort of thing work, but you're right - it could be subject to abuse. There must be a better way, probably involving various measures to restrict the length of laws, and the types of bills that may be passed.
Suppose the Supreme Court "interprets" the Constitution to still have the 3/5ths rule (or whatever it was) in effect, or something bizarre like that. Or suppose they simply decide that any new laws, especially laws which attempt to reform the Supreme Court, are "unconstitutional" or "illegal".
Yeah, judicial reform... I don't know how to tackle this one directly. Congress could always impeach the justices, but that hasn't ever happened. The courts don't always make the right decisions, and when they make wrong decisions they stick with them; uniformity with precedents is given priority over correctness (a bad idea IMO).
For that matter, you said "illegal" -- are you honestly saying a new law can't break any existing laws? We could never get rid of laws, then -- any new law attempting to replace them would be "illegal".
I'm saying that in the event a law is unconstitutional, it's thrown back in the face of Congress. If Congress wants to repeal an old law, they can do that directly; however, judicial review (preferably before a bill is passed) could be useful to avoid unintended consequences when laws conflict. Also, a law could be "illegal" if, for example, it violates a treaty.
I suppose one could claim that I'm trying to devise an idiot-proof Constitution, which of course would cause even greater idiots to be elected to Congress.
Regarding #6, I'm not quite sure about the rationale behind this.
It's to prevent tyranny by the government, by restricting the amount of force that can be used against the people.
Regarding #7, the declaration should be formal, and we should know about it. "War on Terror" does not count. And what about special ops?
I agree that the declaration should be formal and public. Special ops is a type of military force, and as such is prohibited without a declaration of war. Perhaps limited "declarations of war" (similar to the authorization for use of force that led to the invasion of Iraq) could be permitted, but only in certain circumstances, such as to deploy force to secure the persons of American citizens abroad. (I.e., rescue operations.)
Regarding #9: Needs better language, but yes. It might be simpler to have all bills or articles, anywhere, be limited by some arbitrary measure like a word count. In any case, any document which has the force of law should be possible to understand by any person it affects. So, for instance, I should not have to be a lawyer to understand the EULA on my software, and it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to read through it. Creative Commons has a great example of a human-readable summary -- there's legalese to back it up, but the summary is understandable.
Yes, I was thinking of adding something like this... my thought was more along the line of: in a precedent-setting case where a reasonable person might consider the law ambiguous, no criminal penalty shall be afforded to the accused beyond remedial action. In other words, if the law isn't clear to a reasonable person (and hasn't been made clear by a previous precedent-setting court case), then if you're found guilty of breaking that law you can't be punished for it, beyond corrective action (so, in an example pertinent to this topic, if the law isn't clear about owning fully-automatic weapons, and you have one, they can take it away or modify it to be semi-automatic, but they can't fine you or throw you in prison).
#10 should only apply to citizens -- and it should be possible to abridge this without convicting someone. If you're holding a suspect, obviously they should not be allowed to have a sword in their jail cell.
Why should it only apply to citizens? The 2nd amendment has been found to apply to anyone within this country who has some tie to it; and thus applies to non-citizen residents as well. And of course this won't apply to felons, since rights can be removed via due process.
#11: Careful here. The Supreme Court currently has an insane amount of power to arbitrarily interpret stuff.
Yes, but if it's their job to interpret the law, then my point is that the other branches of gov't should be able to ask them for an interpretation.
I'm with you. See here: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=210866&cid =17179204
Then perhaps you should consider US v. Emerson, where the 5th Circuit court of appeals opined:
Furthermore, US v. Miller was decided for the government because no defense was presented - the defendant and his lawyers did not appear before the court when the case was heard. This is the only recent Supreme Court decision pertaining to the 2nd amendment being a collective vs. individual right. It regards the 1934 National Firearms Act, which licenses and taxes automatic weapons, suppressors, and places a minimum length on allowed rifle and shotgun barrels. From the Court's opinion:
That hardly sounds like resounding support for the collective right theory (i.e. that the 2nd amendment applies collectively to militias and not to individuals), and to my mind it strongly suggests that the Court believed the 1934 NFA to be largely unconstitutional; or, more specifically, that the 2nd amendment makes it legal to own "ordinary military equipment" that can "contribute to the common defense" despite the 1934 NFA.
The 9th circuit court of appeals held, in Silveira v. Lockyer, that the 2nd amendment does not guarantee individuals the right to bear arms (and again, certiorari denied). I can't imagine how they justified the logic to themselves. The 10th Circuit court has made at least 3 similar rulings, generally qualified as making restrictions on gun possession legal unless they interfere with the state's ability to form a well-regulated militia. Strangely, in US v. Oakes the 10th circuit ruled:
We found no evidence that the firearm in question was connected with a militia, even though the defendant was nominally a member of the Kansas militia and the "Posse Comitatus," a militia-type organization registered with the state...
The mind boggles. Frankly, I don't under
I realize my wording is not very good; however, this is not one proposed amendment, it is eleven.
I've considered submitting this as an "Ask Slashdot" article, but I may as well post it here.
Given how our country (especially the Executive branch, though Congress hasn't done well either) has been violating the laws and the constitution, and various other abuses (patent/copyrights, etc.), I've been trying to think of ways to amend the constitution that might do some good. I understand that constitutional amendments are of little use when the government ignores the constitution, but it's the best I can think of. Here are my ideas, in very rough form. I'd love to get some feedback...
1. Clause 1: No corporation, profitable organization, or agent thereof may lobby an elected official; or contribute monetary funds, or other gifts or services beyond those which are available to the general public.
Clause 2: No elected or appointed official may accept gifts (including services), except from individuals who are friends or family, and could not gain disproportionately from the official's duties. [Badly worded, I know... intended as strict anti-bribery.]
2. Congress may pass no law to serve or benefit corporations above citizens, or to insure or support a corporate organization or business. The terms of copyrights and patents are restricted to not more than 20 years. Copyrights and patents shall be further restricted to apply only to public distribution for commercial purposes.
3. The rights of the people shall have precedence over the rights of public corporations or businesses.
Clause 1: Corporations and business are not guaranteed the same rights as people.
Clause 2: Criminal misconduct or infringement of civil rights by corporations shall result in personal criminal liability.
Clause 3: Corporate organizations have no right to avoid self-incrimination.
4. (Anti-secrecy amendment)
Clause 1. Congress shall be kept informed of all governmental programs which are classified or otherwise not disclosed to the public.
Clause 2. Briefings to congress shall include full disclosure of all program details to at least the entire congressional oversight committee. All political parties which have representation in Congress shall be allowed a member on each oversight committee.
Clause 3. No legal proceedings shall be halted by state secrets or due to classified evidence. Superior or Supreme court judges can subpoena and review any secret material in a closed court. The determination that evidence is a secret of the state shall not prevent timely justice.
Clause 4. No secret evidence may be used in any legal proceeding, nor may secret evidence be introduced without full disclosure to all parties.
5. Clause 1: The presidency is limited to one term not to exceed four years.
Clause 2: Senators are limited to not more than 2 terms in office.
Clause 3: Representatives are limited to not more than 4 terms in office.
6. Possee Comitatus: military force may not be deployed for combat, peacekeeping, policing, or any other armed or non-humanitarian duty within the borders of the United States, except for defense against a military threat from a foreign people or government.
[Note: this precludes the use of military weaponry by non-military personnel, i.e. SWAT teams. Military force can be defined as the use of weaponry or equipment not legally available to civilians.]
7. No military force shall be deployed for combat duty outside the United States without a declaration of war by Congress.
8. Citizens and non-citizen residents are guaranteed the right of privacy; and own their private data and information, and may control the dissemination thereof.
9. All bills or articles introduced in Congress must address only a single subject and purpose. Riders are not allowed.
10. Clause 1: An individual's right to obtain, possess, and openly carry arms, including personal firearms, on public lands or their private property shall not be restricted, infringed, or abridged, except by due process of law for people
What really angers me about the 'need firearms to protect us from the government' people is that they don't understand what they are really saying. "We need guns so the government doesn't take away our rights" they say. That's saying that you don't have to comply with the will over the democratically elected government. It's saying that if you don't like the law, yu're going to become a terrorist.
Not at all. You are ignoring the fact that our "democratically elected government" (Ahem, *cough*Florida-2000*cough*) can, and often does break the law . And no law is allowed which violates the rights of the people (constitutional or inalienable).
People who argue that they need guns to protect their rights from the government are just gun nuts. The 'protect us from the government' argument is a red herring. If their RIGHTS were really what is important to them, they'd vote for people who wanted to protect their rights instead of people who wanted to protect their guns.
A politician who wants to protect the people's rights (if such a creature exists) would protect the people's firearm rights as well. You write as if the two concepts are naturally exclusive, but they aren't.
I'm generally pretty liberal, politically. I'm for gay rights (or secular humanism in general), environmentalism, against abortion in general but still pro-choice, pro-rule of law, anti-Iraq war, very anti-neocon and anti-Bush. And as a liberal, I support the individual's rights to own firearms via a liberal (i.e. broad-minded, tolerant, anti-autoritarian) interpretations of the 2nd amendment.
And I'm not a gun nut... in my 34 years on this earth, I've only owned a gun for the past week, and then only because I live in a small town with a higher violent crime rate than LA, NYC, Phoenix, or Chicago.
I'd be willing to bet that the high incidence of gun crime in the USA is mostly due to inner-city gang/drug related homicide, probably due to the "war on drugs." As such, I'm not sure that you can blame US gun violence on liberal gun laws.
No, that's actually the number Congress provided in the statute.
So? It may be the law, but that doesn't make it right. Indeed, the due process defense is interesting, and probably is a better solution to the RIAA lawsuits. In general, a defense based on Kazaa's payment to the recording industry is not a good idea IMO. After all, a paid-off bully has incentive to extort more money from you.
What clown moderated the parent a troll? The parent is exactly right, the earth is seriously overpopulated.
Certainly wasteful use of resources is... err, a waste. But regardless of how efficiently resources are used, we have a finite amount of them. By the estimates I've seen, the earth can in principle support somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 billion people, sustainably, at the starvation/poverty level. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very desirable to me.
Consider the price of housing in California. I did my graduate studies at UC Santa Barbara. When I moved away last year, the median price of a house was 1.2 million dollars - mostly due to the high price of land. Why is it so expensive? It's a very desirable location (mediterranean climate, beaches, mountains, and only a 2 hour drive from LA) with limited available land, and a lot of wealthy people want to live there. If the US population were 1/10 what it is now, the prices would be much lower because the same amount of land would be available for housing, but fewer people would be available to live there.
This is true of almost every resource. As population increases, finite resources are divided among more people and everyone becomes poorer. The one resource for which this is not true is labor (though modern automation makes this less of an issue)... therefore, there is some ideal population (which is obviously much lower than the current population, at least for many of the world's nations) where there is a balance between the availability of labor and the dilution of resources.
-- David Whysong
You mean so that the government can easily identify militant dissenters, declare them to be "ter'rists," lock them up without trial and throw away the key?
(sarcasm) Yeah, the second amendment is looking really useful right about now... (/sarcasm)