Posted on June 08, 2022 by Tim Eagan
The first thing that comes to mind is repealing the Second Amendment. It is, after all, among the most archaic parts of the Constitution. There are no well regulated militias anymore, and weapons technology has moved far beyond the ball and musket.
So, if wanted to stop the slaughter of children and other innocents, eliminating the right to bear arms would do the trick. If there were no guns, obviously, there would be no gun violence.
What’s more, elevating the ownership of killing machines to the same level with such rights as speech, press, assembly, and religion seems wrong. Those freedoms are fundamental to our humanity and our individual roles in self-governance. They are ends in themselves. Guns, at best, are merely one possible means to those ends.
That said, there is no need to fiddle with the Constitution to stop the killing. All we need is better Supreme Court justices — enough of them to overrule District of Columbia vs. Heller. That’s the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that held, essentially, that the right to bear arms is indeed a sacred Constitutional right on a par with those other rights.
The decision was written by Antonin Scalia, author of the now-respected (though thoroughly nutty) concept of originalism as a guide to interpreting the Constitution. We won’t get into that right here, but suffice it to say it’s just another rationale for coming up with the result you had already decided on.
That doesn’t make originalism any more or less lame than any other rationale, but if its consequence is an endless parade of gun violence, then it’s time to change our legal thinking...by changing the Court. Even by packing it, if need be, to get a sufficient number of judges who care about this problem in the same way most people do.
Keep the Second Amendment, then, but reverse Heller and all the poisoned decisions that have flown from it. Get our priorities straight. Allow the Constitution to do what it was meant to do — protect us. Demote the right to bear arms to a privilege.
Let the new justices use any rationale they like. As long as they do the right thing — and we stop sacrificing innocents on the altar of this false god.
So, if wanted to stop the slaughter of children and other innocents, eliminating the right to bear arms would do the trick. If there were no guns, obviously, there would be no gun violence.
What’s more, elevating the ownership of killing machines to the same level with such rights as speech, press, assembly, and religion seems wrong. Those freedoms are fundamental to our humanity and our individual roles in self-governance. They are ends in themselves. Guns, at best, are merely one possible means to those ends.
That said, there is no need to fiddle with the Constitution to stop the killing. All we need is better Supreme Court justices — enough of them to overrule District of Columbia vs. Heller. That’s the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that held, essentially, that the right to bear arms is indeed a sacred Constitutional right on a par with those other rights.
The decision was written by Antonin Scalia, author of the now-respected (though thoroughly nutty) concept of originalism as a guide to interpreting the Constitution. We won’t get into that right here, but suffice it to say it’s just another rationale for coming up with the result you had already decided on.
That doesn’t make originalism any more or less lame than any other rationale, but if its consequence is an endless parade of gun violence, then it’s time to change our legal thinking...by changing the Court. Even by packing it, if need be, to get a sufficient number of judges who care about this problem in the same way most people do.
Keep the Second Amendment, then, but reverse Heller and all the poisoned decisions that have flown from it. Get our priorities straight. Allow the Constitution to do what it was meant to do — protect us. Demote the right to bear arms to a privilege.
Let the new justices use any rationale they like. As long as they do the right thing — and we stop sacrificing innocents on the altar of this false god.
