Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed


This amendment suggests that the right to bear arms existed and nothing can infringe that right. This amendment did not CREATE the right to bear arms.

I support this 100%.

1. Does the historical evidence support the conclusion that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to possess firearms?
2. If the Second Amendment does create an individual right, how broad is the right? Does it include the right to possess arms that would be useful to a militia today--hand grenades, rocket launchers, etc.? Or does it create only a right to possess arms that would have been used by a militia in 1791--muskets? Or is the right answer somewhere between these extremes?
3. The Second Amendment speaks of the right to bear arms. Does this suggest, for example, that there is no right to possess weapons that could not be carried, such as cannons?
4. If the underlying concern that inspired the Second Amendment--fear of an abusive federal government oppressing states and their citizens--no longer exists, should that affect how we interpret the Amendment?
5. What is the argument for choosing what provisions of the Bill of Rights we will give full effect?
6. If the test for whether a provision of the Bill of Rights is incorporated into the 14th Amendment is whether the right in question is "fundamental to the American scheme of justice" what conclusion should we come to with respect to the right to keep and bear arms?
7. Which of the following regulations of firearms is constitutional?: (1) an age restriction, (2) a four-day waiting period for purchase of a firearm, (3) a ban on the carrying of concealed weapons.

Again, the 2nd Amendment does NOT create the right to bear arms.

It states that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

As to item #7, only the first is constitutional. You must be 18 to vote and legally own a gun. You can hunt whenever you're big enough to carry the thing, but it's still you're parent's gun.

I am not anti gun and agree that people have the right to bear arms...but.....as important than free speech? A stretch I think.

Important only to the extent that if we overturn any one of the "Bill of Rights", the rest would certainly follow.

Condi Rice speaking up for guns is hardly gonna sway anyone who's for any kind of gun control.

Talk about preaching to the converted...

inevitable without MAJOR changes in government IMO.

Something I've seen posted on FR a couple of times:


There are four basic reasons for the second ammendment.

Every one of the founding fathers is on record to the effect that private ownership of firearms, the 2'nd ammendment, is there as a final bulwark against the possibility of government going out of control. That is the most major reason for it.

At the time of the revolution and for years afterwards, there were private armies, private ownership of cannons and warships. . . The term "letters of marque, and reprisal" which you read in the constitution indicates the notion of the government issuing a sort of a hunting license to the owner of a private warship to take English or other foreign national ships on the high seas, i.e. to either capture or sink them. The idea of you or me owning a Vepr or FAL rifle with a 30-round magazine is not likely to have bothered any of those people.

The problem with drug-dealers owning AKs is a drug problem and not a gun problem. Fix the drug-problem, i.e. get rid of the insane war on drugs and pass a rational set of drug laws, and both problems will simply go away. A rational set of drug laws would:

1. Legalize marijuana and all its derivatives and anything else demonstrably no
more harmful than booze on the same basis as booze.
2. Declare that heroine, crack cocaine, and other highly addictive substances would never be legally sold on the streets, but that those addicted could shoot up at overnment centers for the fifty-cent cost of producing the stuff, i.e. take every dime out of that business for criminals.
3. Provide a lifetime in prison for selling LSD, PCP, and other Jeckyl/Hyde formulas.
4. Same for anybody selling any kind of drugs to kids.

Do all of that, and the drug problem, the gun problem, and 70% of all urban crime will vanish within two years.

But I digress. The 2'nd ammendment is there as a final bulwark against our own
government going out of control. It is also there as a bulwark against any foreign invasion which our own military might not be able to stop.

Admiral Yamamoto, when asked by the Japanese general staff about the possibility
of invading the American homeland, replied that there were fifty million lunatics in this country who owned military style weaponry, and that there would be "a rifle behind every blade of grass". This apparently bothered him a great deal more than the 200,000 or so guys in uniform prior to the war.

A third obvious reason for private ownership of firearms is to protect yourself and your family from criminals and wild animals. In particular, there is no real reason for people to have to surrender that right when they go outdoors, hence concealed carry laws.

And there's a fourth reason for the 2'nd ammendment, which is to provide the people with food during bad economic times. When you listen to people from New York and from Texas talk about the depression of the 30's, you hear two totally different stories. The people in New York will tell you about people starving and eating garbage, and running around naked. The Texans (and others from more rural areas and places in which laws and customs had remained closer to those which the founding fathers envisioned) will tell you that while money was scarce, they always had 22 and 30 calibre ammunition, and that they always had some damnd thing to eat, even if it was just some jackrabbit.

One thing which never ceases to amaze me are the things I keep reading about tens of thousands of people being killed by snakes every year in India. That basically tells me that India needs the 2nd ammendment at least as much as we do.

Um, I think they need some nice sharp axes or perhaps a Hoe or two.

Shooting a snake with a gun=hard

Cycloptichorn

Citizens of NY starving and running around naked during the Depression?

Funny, my parents lived there then and never told me about that. Guess they were shielding me from their grim past...

Not with the right kind of gun. They make a revolver which shoots small guage (20 or 410) shotshells and, at close range, that thing is death on snakes. Everybody in India should have one.

pretty much agree with all of that, but ought to change 4. to long jail time for anyone selling or providing drugs or booze to kids. anyway, a lot of suburban and rural crime would be eradicated as well. of course, it won't happen--for one thing, too many alcohol & tobacco companies would lose money.

FWIW, i don't think we agree on too many other things, so it's good that there's some common ground.

I'm sure it is death on snakes. But the two factors that stick out to me are,

1. Guns and ammo are expensive.

2. Guns take safety courses to handle properly.

Snakes are not a harmful part of nature when handled properly and in fact are instrumental in keeping the rat population down in India, which is immense to begin with.

I appreciate the sentiment of wanting to help the Indian people but I think this may be one of those rare cases where guns aren't the solution.

Cycloptichorn

ps many Hindus believe it is wrong to kill anything, so I'm not sure it would go over too well with them, the whole gun thing

I think the idea of the people in a densely populated nation blasting away at snakes makes perfect sense...in Gunga's alternative universe. No sense at all, however, in the universe most of us inhabit.

It would be damn fun to watch though.

She makes a lot of sense. Both Amendments have a purpose to them. Free speech as well as being valuable of itself has a use. Similarly with the Second Amendment.

I firmly believe that gun control is one of those domestic issues that has to be seen in its domestic context. Where I live we have effective gun control and it works. It would be anathema to someone from the NRA but it works here. The same sort of gun control approach in the US wouldn't work for many reasons.