Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

The seriously busted up computer is an interesting part in all of this.

December 19, 2012
Is the Second Amendment Absolute?
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

Opponents of gun control—of even the most reasonable, basic safeguards like background checks or limits on the size of ammunition clips—were silent directly after the Newtown shooting. But they are starting to emerge from hiding, and most of what they’ve had to say suggests they’ve learned little, if anything, from the killings.

Take Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, who was on the Piers Morgan show last night arguing that the only reasonable response to gun violence is to arm yourself—in other words to have more guns in more places. Even schools.

There is no gun violence in the rural and other less-populous areas of the country, he said, because guns are readily available there and people are free to tote them around.

“We only have the problem in our cities and unhappily in our schools, where people like you have been able to put laws on the books that prevent people from defending themselves,” he said.

I hear that in Somalia there are no laws preventing “people from defending themselves” wherever they see fit: schools, the high seas, whatever. In the U.K. and Australia and Japan there are strict “laws on the books” and—especially in comparison with the U.S.—very little gun violence. We could go in either direction. Which seems preferable?

In addition to the all-guns-all-the-time argument, we are starting to hear opponents of gun control cite the Second Amendment as the impermeable barrier to change. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, announced that he would sign a bill that would allow people to take guns into the statehouse garage, and make it easier to carry concealed weapons.

“I think as we move forward, whatever we do, we don’t want to erode the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” he said.

This argument is not as loony as the one that Mr. Pratt made, but in some ways it is more insidious. I don’t believe there is any way to curb the epidemic of gun violence unless we to some degree “erode the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

Even if you believe the Second Amendment grants each American an individual right to own a gun, which remains a matter of some debate, it does not follow logically, legally or constitutionally that this right is absolute. No right granted by the Constitution is totally exempt from limitations.

The Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee due process. Yet many of the same politicians who champion an absolutist understanding of the Second Amendment tolerate the indefinite military detention of alleged (not proven) terrorists. Just yesterday Charlie Savage reported that lawmakers charged with merging the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act dropped a provision that would have barred the military from holding American citizens indefinitely, without trial.

Not even the right to speak is absolute. Justice Antonin Scalia explained in 2008 that “offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the First Amendment.” By my lights, “offers to provide or requests to obtain” child pornography are to the First Amendment what “offers to provide or requests to obtain” semiautomatic rifles with 100-round magazines, without so much as a background check, are to the Second Amendment. If your “freedom” threatens children’s safety, it’s reasonable to restrict it.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/is-the-second-amendment-absolute/?hp

I must admit I rely on responses here to focus.

oralloy, whether you like it or not, a serious discussion about guns is about to take place in this country because this latest slaughter of children, by gun violence, is more than most people are willing to tolerate or ignore.

You apparently think that waving the 2nd Amendment ends the discussion,

that it guarantees you some sort of inviolate right to obtain and possess any and all types of firearms and ammunition you want, and no one, including Supreme Court Justices, has the authority to tell you otherwise, or to limit your alleged "freedom" of gun ownership in any way.

You are seriously deluding yourself by ignoring the comments by Justice Scalia that I have posted

he is telling you otherwise

Continuing to chant the same manta, over, and over, and over, and simply dismissing contradictory views, or other people's legitimate concerns with the problem of gun violence in our society, displays an inability on your part to even discuss the problem--

--in fact, you seem to mainly deny the problem and just revert to babbling endlessly about your highly questionable alleged "rights" and "freedom"

It is impossible to leave those types of weapons, and how easily they can be obtained, out of any rational discussion of the problem because those are the weapons being used in these mass killings.

But, as far as I can tell, you're not even recognizing the problem, or acknowledging it, and you certainly aren't discussing it.

Other than promoting your own self-interest, and your own rather limited views of the 2nd Amendment, you're not saying much of anything.

And you seem to view other gun owners or gun enthusiasts as some kind of mindless mob who will irrationally defeat any politician who dare utter anything to do with gun control, and I think you are sadly mistaken

--even most members of the NRA think the problem must be addressed. Most responsible gun owners don't want to see guns used for the killing of innocent people and they do favor instituting some sensible controls, but you're obviously not among that group.

We can blame the H20's, the Oralllllo's, the BillRM's, etc... of the US and their slavish devotion to the NRA which results in this indirect national censorship on this loaded topic and against our much needed national discussion on the topic. Their explicit stubborness for compromise which isn't for the greater good of the country but a reactionary symptom fed by their hideous selfishness and outright paranoia based delusions.

After every major incident, there is a clamor for gun REFORM not outright banning of all guns. These conservative gun nuts twist that call for reform and claim its an outright call for a ban. No national discussion can come from this when the progun advocates refuse to acknowledge any concept of compromise.

And I mean strict, not the nonsense we had before where a ban on assault weaponry was allowed to expire after 10 years. That is not progress, it's just a temporary appeasement patch. May the Houses and the President finally push this through in meaningful fashion. Make this one permanent and make it against all past, present and future assault weapons.