Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
"Limiting the Second amendment endangers the lives of the entire nation by incrementally unlimiting government."
So if the government wants to ban bump stocks,
What do you mean by "the" government.
. . . it's reasonable to assume the next step, is they will, what? Kill me and take my IRA? That's tin foil hat conspiracy theory.
From what those in the "federal" government have been doing and further trying to do for around a century, it's reasonable to assume there will be a next step. You're absurd examples of what that might be are weak, not at all persuasive in assuming there won't be a next step. Using illogic to feign logic not only lacks persuasion, it implies that the reasoning is illogical--it sounds like tin foil counter argument.
Again, the founding fathers made it clear through their actions, that the Bill Of Rights isn't absolute.
They did not. The Bill of Rights, as well as all the other inherent rights, are absolute within the Constitution's scale and meaning. Outside of that, the Constitution has no absolution, but has various influences and implications.
You're a mathematician. Does 2+2 always equal 4? No, not in nominal, ordinal, or interval scales. But in ratio scales 2+2 always equals 4.
The Founder's actions, if "interpreted" within the political scale in which they wrote the Constitution, do make those rights absolute. That has been explained several times in previous posts in other threads. You either don't understand the explanations, or just don't accept them. You counter them, not with legal arguments, but with emotional ones and irrelevant or absurd analogies.
"you don't actually believe in the purpose for which the Amendment was written. In which case, the most logical proposition would be not to tweak the Amendment, but to abolish it."
OK, so unless one thinks bump stocks should be allowed, one has zero regard for the US Constutution. Not everything ends up at one radical extreme or the other. Again, I can go on TV and call the President horrible names, the First Amendment gives me that right. But I can't threaten him or anyone else. The freedoms are not an "all or nothing" scenario, and I cannot fathom you would state that they are.
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The Constitution is not radically "extreme." It was rationally hammered out as the best way to insure equal rights and freedoms before the law. Implying that individuals are prone to error or lawlessness must therefor mean that laws have limits leaves us, and would have left the Founders, with either creating anarchic government or a system of government for which there is no end to exceptions.
Exceptions for human transgression against law in cases of extreme urgency can always, without creating laws for every possible exception, be implied. It would be absolutely reasonable to understand the existence of such a right. No law need be written to express that idea. That would be inherent in human nature. Probably part of those vast residuum of rights left to the people which are outside of the government's enumerated constitutional powers. But the threads of human nature are too vast to be defined.
Government, on the other hand, and its laws, must necessarily be defined. Loose definitions cannot suffice for law. For there to be compliance, there must be definite parameters to law, extreme exceptions to compliance notwithstanding.
So defined government has little to no room to legislate outside of the scale to which it is constitutionally bound. If there is no constitution, no scale, there is no boundary and government can do as it wishes.
It could be understood that there may arise a very extreme circumstance that a constitutionally limited government would have to act outside of the scope granted to it, usually involving some sort of an existential threat to the nation. That is why a strong executive was created by the Constitution, but such a circumstance would have to be of the utmost danger. The mass shootings, common murders, etc., are not at that level of threat to the nation. It is far more of a threat to the people of this nation if their right of defense against tyranny was limited because of criminal disturbances in various states.
As for freedoms not being an all or nothing scenario as you put it, they must be discussed in terms of the Founders understanding of freedom. That has also been described several times in various threads. In what way is the Founders view of freedom not absolute?