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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dougSF30 who wrote (126605)	10/20/2000 3:56:50 PM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1578660

Re: "It's actually unclear the 2nd amendment has anything to do with individual gun ownership rights... as opposed to being a states rights vs. federal gov sorta thing. (states allowed to have well-armed militias" It's only unclear to those who want to overturn 225 years of law. You should read the Federalist papers and see exactly what the framers meant when they wrote the second amendment. They'll tell you. Re: "But your point about more advanced weapons makes clear the folly of unlimited individual gun rights, even if that were the intention of the 2nd amendment: Why not allow folks to carry tactical nuclear weapons?" This is my point. If we were willing to extend certain rights, speech for example, to extend to new technologies that simply didn't exist at the time of the framing, by what principle do we not do the same for firearms? I don't think just saying it's not a good idea is any way to interpret the constitution. Why didn't we amend the constitution to extend the first amendment to TV & radio? That's how you create new rights (unless you're a liberal judge, then you just do it with your pen). Someone decided the new technology fell under the existing right to speak. I think this sets a clear precedence to say that the right to keep and bear arms should extend to more powerful weapons that have evolved, just like TV & radio. Perhaps the real point I wish to make (and them I'll stop) is that you may not like the rights granted by the constitution (I don't like the fact that some people who disagree with me have the right to speak), but they are rights nonetheless. You would put up one hell of a fight if your right to speak freely were being licensed yet if it's someone elses ox that is getting gored you don't seem to mind. I don't care about guns but I do care about rights and I am persuaded that the constitution guarantees the individual the right to keep and bear them. If you don't like this right, there is a clear prescribed method for changing it. EP