June 27, 2008
If it goes ‘bang’, ban it - the right approach to gun control
The US Supreme Court - that most intensely partisan-political and utterly unaccountable branch of the US Federal government - has overturned the District of Columbia’s 32-year ban on handguns, declaring it to be unconstitutional. The decision and opinions can be found here. By a 5 to 4 vote (the usual lunatic fringe - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - plus the swing voter Anthony Kennedy, who this time joined the Dark Side) the Supreme Court decided that the the Second Amendment to the US Constitution: “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.” implies that “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” Apparently it also implies (in the words of Justice Scalia who wrote the majority opinion) that the Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”
I don’t now what Justice Scalia and the other members of the majority were smoking when they wrote the majority opinion, but I would really like some of it. The statement “There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms” is no more than an assertion, supported not even by the selective reading of history cited in support of this view, or by the apparent mind-reading abilities of the Justices when it comes to the original intent of the framers of the Amendment. In truth, their opion is supported only by the simple arithmetic of a 5 against 4 headcount.
The Supreme Court also struck down requirements imposed by the District of Columbia that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled. This too is apparently implied by the Second Amendment protection of the right to arm bears, as long as they serve in the armed (bear) forces. Rather surprisingly, the Court left intact the licensing of guns - an oversight no doubt, to be corrected soon.
The D.C. case was the first time the US Supreme Court examined the Second Amendment in depth since its adoption in 1791. If ever there was an example of an activist Supreme Court making law, indeed making policy, driven by the personal views, opions, biases, prejudices, phobias and instincts of its members, this is it.
What was the response of the two leading candidates for the US presidency to this assault on the right not to be shot by your unfriendly neighbour?
Barack Obama is sitting so firmly on the fence when it comes to gun control, that the family jewels must be at risk. Read his full statement here and weep. Just a few nuggets of ambivalence: “I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures.” Yes, Senator Obama, but it really isn’t possible to be a little bit pregnant on this issue. “As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen.”
How could I possibly vote for a timid, weasely waffler like that? Isn’t it time for the Democratic candidate for the US presidency to overcome his fear of the National Rifle Association (an organisation that has damaged America more than the Mafia has), put on a clear pair of diapers and argue for stringent Federal gun control legislation, including a Federal ban on handguns? With a bit of luck the next Democratic President will be able to appoint at least one Supreme Court Justice. With a further bit of luck the next vacancy on the Supreme Court will result from the departure of one of the four right-wing loonies. When the new Federal gun control law ends up at the Supreme Court, the new Court can put the District of Columbia et. al. v. Heller ruling in the dustbin of history where it belongs. You must fight politics with politics.
John McCain proved himself to be a bear of very little brain by stating that the ruling was “a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom.” It’s an even more disastrous position than Obama’s; the only redeeming feature is that McCain, however misguided, may actually believe his public statements on gun control. It would not lead me to vote for him, but it does lead me to respect his integrity more.
Second Amendment freedom - my foot. The Second Amendment states that the armed forces ought to be armed. I fully agree. The decision of the Supreme Court is not just wrong, it is evil. It will contribute to the ongoing dilution of the rule of law in the US, the growth of vigilantism, fenced, gated and caged communities, and ultimately the complete breakdown of any sense of community and society.
Fear and suspicion by all towards all will become the norm in a country with 200 million individual self-defence forces. Only I myself can secure my safety against the imminent threat of violence/oppression from my fellow citizens and from the state. Therefore I must be armed to the teeth. Every gun in private ownership infringes on the rights and liberties of others.
The Supreme Court decision is a triumph of American infantilism - a monument to the country’s determination not to grow up. A nation that cannot get itself motivated and organised to ban the use of silly boys’ toys that kill, main and wound countless thousands every year is clearly not ready for self-government. Perhaps another century or so under benevolent colonial rule might help. The Brits had a go at it and failed. I suggest the Danes.
How can you possibly make such an attack on the Rights of Americans [TM].
Good Lord, man, next you’ll be arguing against the inalienable Right of America [TM] to invade oil producing countries and install their own Vice-Regents.
Or perhaps you’ll oppose their right to detain “Terrorists” without charge or trial. (The word “Terrorist” has the meaning as defined by the 2008 Presidential Finding and includes such enemy groups as “People who criticise the President” and “People whose skin colour is darker than George Hamilton’s”.)
And then we’d be in a fine mess, neh?
Posted by: Mark Harrison | June 27th, 2008 at 3:28 pm | Report this comment“How could I possibly vote for a timid, weasely waffler like that?”
Have you listened to McCain talk about fiscal policy?
Ceteris senseo that Willem Buiter owes us an article explaining how McCain’s fiscal proposals make any sense. (Hey, I think I’ll end all my comments with that tag.)
Posted by: Carlomagno | June 27th, 2008 at 3:47 pm | Report this comment“How could I possibly vote for a timid, weasely waffler like that?”
Have you listened to McCain talk about fiscal policy recently?
Ceteris senseo that Willem Buiter owes us an article explaining how McCain’s fiscal proposals make any sense. (Hey, I think I’ll end all my comments with that tag.)
Posted by: Carlomagno | June 27th, 2008 at 3:47 pm | Report this commentAn interesting letter in today’s Washington Post interprets the phrase at the beginning of the 2nd amendment concerning the necessity of a “well regulated militia” as equivalent to a Latin ablative absolute, a construction well known to the founders of the American republic. According to the letter (as I have forgotten most of the little Latin I once knew myself) an ablative absolute controls the meaning of the the entire sentence.
This would require that the entire Second Amendment be interpreted from the standpoint of the needs of a militia, the opposite of what a supposedly “originalist” conservative majority actually did. This is just one more example of how fraudulent the far right wing notion of “original construction” of the Constitution really is.
The only thing “originalist” about this decision, or the conservative opinion in the Exxon - Valdez oil spill decision and dissent in the Guantanamo detainee habeas corpus case is that Justices “Scalito” et all are “originating” the law as they go along to suit their authoritarian, big business political ideology.
Another interesting question is what the word “people” means in the Second amendement. I do not pretend to be enough of a scholar to answer this question, but it is worth looking into. It is reasonable to assume that “people” is based on the Roman “populus Romanus”, “Roman people” implying a collective noun, nor a collection of individuals. This would also imply that the Second Amendment upholds a group right to bear arms, not an individual one.
But, admittedly, this could create a number of problems. Hegel, for example, regarded the “Roman People” as nothing more than a mob, which seems inconsisitent with the idea of a collective body. Also, there have been attempts to interpret the First Amendment guaranteeing the freedom of religion as upholding the authority of church organizations, as opposed to the right of conscience of individuals.
Therefore, one has to be careful in making statements about which Constitutional rights are individual and which are collective. The main point is that the conservative block on the Court is not really interested in consistency or logic at all in interpreting the Constitution, but only in imposing its extreme right wing ideology on the nation.
Posted by: algasema | June 27th, 2008 at 5:01 pm | Report this commentThe Fed reaction to the SocGen stop loss was a complete over reaction. They allowed themselves to be influenced by sensationalist comment by many economists on the Street (including a certain bank that WB consults for!) about H1 growth prospects. These forecasts were more about talking their books than a sensible analysis of what was going on.
Posted by: You can fool all the people some of the time | June 27th, 2008 at 5:05 pm | Report this commentalgasema,
Interesting comments. As a reinforcement of your argument regarding the meaningless of ‘originalist’ interpretation, I would like to suggest the following link from an article in the Times, in which a linguist dwells on the changing meaning of words:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article386335.ece
Posted by: RCS | June 27th, 2008 at 7:35 pm | Report this commentErratum
‘meaninglessness’ not ‘meaningless’
‘meanings’ not ‘meaning’
Posted by: RCS | June 27th, 2008 at 8:22 pm | Report this commentErrata
‘errata’ not ‘erratum’
Posted by: RCS | June 27th, 2008 at 8:23 pm | Report this commentDear Prof.,
Don’t you think that ad hominem rants reflect most accurately on…the writer? Is it good to be remembered, from Princeton seminars decades ago, for your acerbic ad hominem comments?
You have a truly exemplary column when you focus on economics; could you please try to do so?
Posted by: DWL | June 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am | Report this commentProf Buiter writes: “The Supreme Court also struck down requirements imposed by the District of Columbia that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled. This too is apparently implied by the Second Amendment protection of the right to arm bears, as long as they serve in the armed (bear) forces. ”
Maybe the justices mixed up the spelling: it seems the requirement to equip firearms with trigger locks would contravene the right to BARE arms.
Posted by: RCS | June 28th, 2008 at 12:40 pm | Report this commentNow that, after many interruptions, I have finished reading it, I can comment: excellent article with apposite ad hominem attacks.
Posted by: RCS | June 28th, 2008 at 12:53 pm | Report this commentWhat a fascinating Times article about language precision in marriage vows, RCS. I will show it to my wife, though she may find it a little confusing because her native language (Japanese) doesn’t have a distinct future tense at all. Generally, the Japanese present tense can be used with a future meaning. For example “so shimasu” could mean “I am doing so”, “I intend to do so”, “I will do so”, or “I will try to do so”.
“So shimasho”, on the other hand, could mean “I will do so”, “maybe I will do so”, or, more commonly, “let’s do so”. Perhaps it is no wonder that it is often difficult to tell what the Bank of Japan will do next, let alone who its head will be.
As far as traditional Japanese marriage vows are concerned, they are not done verbally (perhaps for the above linguistic reasons, since neither party would know what the other really meant) but by exchanging sake cups, with each party drinking three times (or at least I think it is three times - I lost count after the second cup).
Whether one is expressing a wish or making a prediction verbally may be hard to tell in many languages, as in the Times article. But it is easy to see whether someone is drinking sake or not. In vino veritas?
By the way, I also notice that I misspelled “inconsistent” in my previous post. Unfortunately, making typos seems to be something about which I am consistent enough (in the sense in which Barack Obama once said to Hillary Clinton during a presidential debate that she was “likable enough”).
Posted by: algasema | June 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm | Report this commentLest anyone think that my comments re the Times article mentioned by RCS have strayed too far from the topic of the Supreme Court decision, it might be pertinent to discuss the issue of whether marriage vows are predictive or volitional when made in the course of shotgun weddings. These arguably, may now be allowed to take place with less anxiety over possible legal ramifications.
Posted by: algasema | June 28th, 2008 at 2:47 pm | Report this commentI apologize for leaving out the comma after “These” in my last sentence above.
Posted by: algasema | June 28th, 2008 at 2:53 pm | Report this commentalgasema,
Since you found the Times article interesting, here is another article by the same Dr Guy Deutscher, a fellow Israeli of mine and a master expositor of linguistics (I highly recommend reading his book ‘The Unfolding of Language’):
http://website.leidenuniv.nl/~deutscherg/NYT.html
Linguistics and language change should certainly come to the fore when confronting a group of justices claiming originalist inspiration.
Posted by: RCS | June 28th, 2008 at 4:50 pm | Report this commentI am not an expert on the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. But here are a few comments for the fun of it:
First, the text is badly punctuated: I would be happier without the first and third comma. So it would read: “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.”
Second, I do not agree with the Supreme Court majority in saying, as quoted by Professor Buiter: “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
However, third, I feel that Professor Buiter goes too far in restricting the Second Amendment to stating “that the armed forces ought to be armed”. For one thing, I see a militia as an armed force of non-professional soldiers that does not necessarily exist at the present time, but may be formed to deal with a security emergency.
I read the Second Amendment as saying that, in order to be able to serve in a well regulated militia, people have the right to keep and bear arms. But that does not mean that the Amendment protects the right of individuals to use those arms for other purposes, such as self-defence within the home.
On the contrary, I would argue that, given the opening reference to a “well regulated militia”, the Amendment should be read as meaning that the free state has the right to regulate which arms are kept and borne, and how this is done.
In other words, the state can say: Since you have chosen to exercise your constitutional right to keep and bear arms to serve in a well regulated militia, we are saying that the arms you may keep for that purpose only do not include handguns, etc, which happen to be banned in our jurisdication. And the state will ensure that the arms you do keep are properly maintained and that from time to time you practice how to use them properly.
Posted by: Edward S | June 28th, 2008 at 6:10 pm | Report this commentThe Purpose of the Second Amendment.
The law should be interpreted with reference to its purpose, ie the aim for which it was construed, so claims the great Israeli legal scholar and former President of Israel’s Supreme Court, Prof Aharon Barak.
What was the aim of the second amendment? To uphold STATE’S rights, not individual liberties. State militias were meant as a counterweight to the power of the federal government which, it was feared, might metamorphose into a surrogate of the former colonial power, Great Britian. More specifically, the southern states were suspicious of the power of the more dynamic Yankee North, and feared that these might usurp the federal government and thereby dominate them — as indeed ultimately did happen. The second amendment was meant to prevent this by means of allowing for a Swiss-style quickly deployable non-professional militia, provided by the privately armed citizens of each state.
Obviously today this is an anachronism. The United States is no longer a de jure federal, de facto confederate, union of free states. The second amendment is simply no longer relevant for its intended original purpose. It is ‘legal junk’ from a bygone age, a constitutional appendix, and the US is suffering constitutional appendicitis for it. An appendectomy is in order.
Ron Cohen-Seban
Posted by: RCS | June 28th, 2008 at 8:18 pm | Report this commentIt doesn’t matter that if second amendment was instituted to uphold state’s rights. It is NOW important as an INDIVIDUAL’S rights issue.
Armed home invasions and burglaries are on the rise in these hard economic times, and likely to get worse. If I wake up in the middle of the night to hear thieves in my house, as friends of mine have recently experienced, do you think the police are going to arrive in time to save me? No. Will a knife or a taser do me any good? No. (If I have to get that close to the perpetrator, I’m a goner.) My best chance for defense of my family is a good gun or rifle.
I think comments against second amendment rights must be coming from well-protected rich people who live in gated communities or guarded condominiums. The wealthy handle self-protection concerns by paying others to bear arms. I can’t afford that. So what’s left for the average citizen? The answer is obvious. My right to self-preservation is directly tied to my right to keep and bear arms. And my right to self-preservation is NOT open to debate.
Posted by: Bonnie Z | June 28th, 2008 at 10:45 pm | Report this commentOne more point in my argument that my right to self-preservation is directly tied to my right to bear arms. You cannot argue that gun bans will take guns out of the hands of criminals. It never has and it never will.
The US experiment in prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the early 1900’s is a case in point. American’s have a more rebellious nature than Europeans or Asians. A gun ban will create a black market in manufactured weapons and an underground home-made weapons industry….and criminals will be their best customers.
Posted by: Bonnie Z | June 28th, 2008 at 11:07 pm | Report this commentProfessor Buiter: Great rant. Please keep it up. Ad-hominemize all you want.
Hilarious and of course accurate comment by Mark Harrison. More correctly the trademark is “world-wide war against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism”, a catch-phrase that even the dimmest of the American electorate is tiring of.
I would much prefer that we direct out attention to the brainless and wholly anti-human Christian fundamentalists in our midst in the USA. They are the true “enemy” and so close at hand!
Posted by: Wendell Murray | June 29th, 2008 at 1:48 am | Report this commentFine, Bonnie Z. If you want a constitutional amendment to give you the right to protect yourself as an individual by owning your own gun, please contact your representative and ask him or her to introduce a constitutional amendment to that effect, since none exists at the moment, except in the minds of five Supreme Court justices who are only to happy to look to the original meaning of the constitution when it supports their political agenda, and to ignore it when it does not.
Some people may also remember that, a number of years ago, a reporter went to the Washington home of then Chief Justice Warren Burger, and was greeted by that very suspicious jurist pointing a gun straight at him. Fortunately, no one was shot in that particular demonstration of judicial recognition of (alleged) second amendment rights.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 7:13 am | Report this commentWith all due respect, Dr. Buiter, I disagree. I’m an American and I do not own a fire arm. The constitution guarantees the right to bear arms (bladed or fire arm) as a way to protect the people against an overzealous government. The primary purpose of founding the United States, and the Articles of Confederation before it, were to have a limited government that could not conquer the constituency like the British Empire did to its people. What I’m trying to get at, the constitution limits the power of the state (nation) not the people. Furthermore, what’s not stated in the constitution is left up to the people and their respective states, guaranteed by the 10th Amendment. Most states have constitutional clauses stating that no person, in that state, will be barred from owning a fire arm (aside from convicted felons). Dr. Buiter, much of the United States is still in the “frontier” and a large portion of the population lives in the rural areas where police officers are far and few between. In Texas, rural State Troopers can literally be the only law enforcement officer for 20 square miles. The nearest “backup” is 20 to 45 minutes away. The vast area the United States covers requires that fire arms be available to the people for protection.
The US nor my state, Texas, should be so lucky to not become the welfare/nanny state that is the UK and other strong central government nations. It may work for you guys, great, but not for us. We fought a war over it once, I think most Americans would die for the right to remain free today.
Posted by: Andrew W | June 29th, 2008 at 7:29 pm | Report this commentI meant “only too happy”, not “only to happy”.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 8:13 pm | Report this commentAndrew W., would you be able to tell us exactly where in rural Texas we can find the city of Washington DC, whose gun control ordinance was at issue in this case?
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 8:24 pm | Report this commentAndrew W., would you be able to tell us exactly where in rural Texas we can find the city of Washington DC, whose gun control ordinance was at issue in this case?
Does it really matter? The judgment affects federal law, which supersedes all state and local laws (even DC’s). Furthermore, the argument was against banishing guns entirely from the US, so I was giving very valid reasons for owning fire arms in the United States.
But, let’s focus on the UK; last year the world’s leading arms exporter. Typical. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4161341.ece
I respect Dr. Buiter immensely, I just disagree on this point. He’s a great central bank economist.
Posted by: Andrew W | June 29th, 2008 at 10:20 pm | Report this commentMr. Wendell Murray, fortunately I don’t have to ask for an new constitutional right to keep and bear arms. It is expressly stated in the current 2nd Amendment as recently acknowledged by the Supreme Court of the land and supported by a majority of this country’s citizens.
The poster “algasema” also makes valid points with the following: “The primary purpose of founding the United States, and the Articles of Confederation before it, were to have a limited government that could not conquer the constituency like the British Empire did to its people.” Therefore…”the constitution limits the power of the state (nation) not the people. Furthermore, what’s not stated in the constitution is left up to the people and their respective states, guaranteed by the 10th Amendment. Most states have constitutional clauses stating that no person, in that state, will be barred from owning a fire arm (aside from convicted felons).”
Apparently, Chief Justice Warren Burger understood that the gun in his hand was his only defense if the person at his door meant him harm.
When all you people against personal gun ownership find a way to wish-away the criminals, please let me know. I’ll be happy to join your side.
Posted by: Bonnie Z | June 29th, 2008 at 11:52 pm | Report this commentThe Second Amendment, as passed by the House and Senate, reads:
“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.”
The original and copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, had different capitalization and punctuation:
“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.”
The first version of the phrase is not only ungrammatical in today’s usage (although apparently not when written), but ambiguous. The second is clearer, but the right to bear arms presumably rests with the militia which no longer exists in the USA according to the phrase and any commonsensical interpretation of it.
Bonnie Z.: your comments are so ludicrous, outlandish and lacking any commonsense it is hard to even respond, so I won’t. Please just reread Professor Buiter’s fulminations. He is correct on every point.
Andrew W.’s comments about the supposed fact that much of the USA is still a frontier, ergo the need for gun-toting citizens is just as ludicrous. The need for a militia - that was composed of citizen-soldiers - to have the right to keep arms where they lived made sense at its time and social situation. One could assume that era might have lasted until the War of 1812 at the latest. The militia was effectively the only military force at the time, so it made sense only for militia-members to keep weapons, not the average citizen. Where else but in their homes would they keep them anyway?
Any resemblance of that time and situation to today’s society is completely lacking. It is also the ultimate in non-commonsensical thinking to somehow infer from that original ungrammatical phrase that any and every citizen has the right to keep arms. There is zero basis for that inference. Also if one follows the logic of such nutcases as Bonnie Z. the right presumably includes the right to keep and use nuclear weaponry or chemical weapons or any other modern-day weapon.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | June 30th, 2008 at 2:16 am | Report this commentThis is an erudite and entirely correct article highlighting the madness of not putting toothpaste back in the tube. Of course it would make sense from every perspective but one: it’s not possible. Like it or not there are millions of guns out there in US citizens’ hands, and the most tyrannical prohibition imaginable is not going to get rid of them. How would such a prohibition work? House to house searches? Metal detectors passed across every backyard in the US? As long as it’s remotely possible for a local thug to get a gun, Mr Average in the US is simply not going to give up his gun. There’s no point in talking about the logic of these rulings or the semantics of the constitution; politics is the art of the possible not the logical - especially in election year.
Posted by: Techmeister | June 30th, 2008 at 11:57 am | Report this commentI appreciate that Bonnie Z. gives me credit for a point that I did not make. I did mention an incident relating, as I recall, to a gun-toting Chief Justice Burger. Or was it Renquist? My memory is getting hazy on this point. The other comments she mentions are not mine.
As I have discussed at length in my posts today on Clive Crook’s blog, the majority argument that the right to bear arms was intended to be an individual one, not merely collective, is very convincing. But, as Wendell Murray eloquently states, even this individual right was dependent on the needs of a militia, something that now no longer exiats.
Justice Scalia, Andrew W. and Bonnie Z. would like us to interpret freedom to join a militia as a metaphor for all self-defense in general. Concededly, Justice Scalia has a better historical rational for this argument that does Bonnie Z. with her passionate desire to own a gun at all costs, or Andrew Z. with his irrelevant musings about rural Texas, an area, I have heard (since I have never been there) that has nothing in common with highly urban Washington DC and its urgent need to control guns to stop people from being killed.
But equating the right to join a militia with the right to self defense in general is simply not what the clear words of the Second Amendment say. Is this the “strict construction” that right wingers love to talk about? It looks more like the essence of the judicial activism and overrreaching that liberal judges are so often accused of.
Posted by: algasema | June 30th, 2008 at 6:06 pm | Report this commentSorry for two misspellings: “exists” and “rationale”.
Posted by: algasema | June 30th, 2008 at 6:09 pm | Report this commentAndrew W writes: “Most [US] states have constitutional clauses stating that no person, in that state, will be barred from owning a firearm (aside from convicted felons).”
Though that may well be the case, the point is that the US Constitution does not contain such a clause. Those who wrote the Second Amendment could have included such a clause, but they chose not to. So the Amendment should not be reinterpreted as if they had.
As I said before, the Second Amendment seems to mean that in order to be able to serve in an authorised militia, people have the right to keep and bear arms, as regulated by a free state.
Such regulation can be more or less restrictive. Does the right include ammunition? What is meant be keep and bear arms? It could mean that a person is allowed to keep a rifle at a gun club, and bear it by shooting at that club.
An obvious point that seems to have been forgotten in this debate is that a constitutional right is not a pre-requisite for being allowed to own a gun. The matter is normally regulated by ordinary legislation.
Bonnie Z, in some countries self-defence is considered a valid reason to own a gun; in others not.
Posted by: Edward S | June 30th, 2008 at 6:11 pm | Report this commentTo put it much more simply, the only thing that the actual language of the Second Amendment guarantees is the right of each individual to join a militia, because it was, in all likelihood, difficult or impossible do this in the 18th century without owning one’s own gun.
Posted by: algasema | June 30th, 2008 at 6:48 pm | Report this commentEdward S.
Actually, you’re wrong. The highest court in the land, the Supreme Court makes rulings of fact, they found that the 2nd Amendment does protect gun ownership. Furthermore, you need to keep reading. Just because the rights are not expressly written in the constitution does not mean that the rights are restricted from the population. I mean, come on, that’s the basic argument between the Federalists and Non-Federalists.
Posted by: Andrew W | July 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 am | Report this commentAndrew W writes: The highest court in the land, the Supreme Court makes rulings of fact, they found that the 2nd Amendment does protect gun ownership.
Yes, but I happen to disagree with the recent ruling of the Supreme Court. One day, the Court may change its mind. Meanwhile, the Court’s ruling is in force.
Andrew W also writes: Just because the rights are not expressly written in the constitution does not mean that the rights are restricted from the population.
One can argue that whatever is not forbidden by the law is permitted. But in the District of Columbia, the law banned handgun ownership.
It is better to settle gun ownership and gun control by ordinary legislation, because that is the more democratic method. A majority in any given jurisdiction decides, and that majority cannot be reversed by a minority or an individual referring to a constitutional right.
But many Americans disagree. They feel that gun ownership is a human right, like free speech, the right to a fair trial, etc.
Posted by: Edward S | July 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm | Report this commentYou are missing the entire point of the constitution. The spirit of it was to make the rules interpretable, changed, and modified. It’s not the end all be all to laws. The founders were right in asserting that the laws restrict the government, not the people.
The right to own a firearm was settled through legislation, specifically in D.C. However, that legislation was challenged and brought up before the court system where the SCOTUS made their final decision. If there were to be a constitutional convention to try to amend the constitution to ban all arms then go for it. However, the proponents know that such a convention would fail miserably. So, they take their chances by legislating the ban of arms in state and local jurisdictions and hope that no person will challenge the law.
Constitutional law and street law are two very different types of applications. Even a constitutional attorney that argued several cases before the SCOTUS and state supreme courts acknowledged the discrepancy.
As to your comment about the human right to own a fire arm, that’s facetious. There is an inalienable right to protect oneself, family, and property. If you disagree, then you need to have a word with
Why do you suggest a government conquer a constituency? That idea flies in the face of the spirit of the constitution. The government only operates by the consent of the governed, not in reverse. Furthermore, the constitution’s spirit is to protect the rights of the minority and not just cater to the voice of the majority. I thought that was clear in the arguments of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the anti-federalist papers.
The following is from the anti-federalist paper, December 12, 1787, “That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up: and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil powers.”
It is painfully clear that the spirit of the law was to restrict the government, not to relieve power of the people and simply hand it to the government. You need to remember, the architects of the constitution deemed standing militias/armies during peacetime a direct threat to the spirit of the constitution and the independence of the constituency.
I urge you to read the writings of the architects.
Posted by: Andrew W | July 4th, 2008 at 8:18 pm | Report this commentAndrew W writes: “You need to remember, the architects of the constitution deemed standing militias/armies during peacetime a direct threat to the spirit of the constitution and the independence of the constituency.”
So, why not be faithful to the architects of the constitution by launching a petition to abolish the US army? An initiative to abolish the Swiss army failed in a popular vote some time ago, but by a much narrower margin than expected.
And it is sometimes said that Costa Rica has been the only continuously democratic country in Central America because the army was abolished there. A quick lesson in nation-building.
Yes, Andrew, reading is good, but understanding is even better.
George Bernard Shaw: “Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.”
Posted by: Edward S | July 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm | Report this commentEdward S,
I fully understand what I’ve read and studied in the federalist and anti-federalist debates. I even understand what compromises were made and the intentions of the constitution.
I like quotes:
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin\
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants…” Thomas Jefferson
“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” Alexander Hamilton
“The constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation….Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust their people with arms.” James Madison
“That the said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience or to prevent the people of the united states, who are peaceable Citizens, from keeping their own arms.” Samuel Adams
Posted by: Andrew W | July 9th, 2008 at 2:41 am | Report this commentWe have an almost total gun ban in the UK, yet 15 year olds seem able to get hold of semi-automatic pistols with no difficulty.
Gangsters, blaggers and the police all have relatively unrestricted access to firearms, it is only the law abiding who are preventing from owning them.
What a triumph for common sense.
Thank God we are not like those silly Americans with their funny notions of individual freedom and responsibility, much better to live with knife, gun and religious war in the certain knowledge that government agencies will come to our rescue. Right?
Posted by: tired and emotional | July 9th, 2008 at 10:44 am | Report this comment[…] Evidence that the opinion of Willem Buiter is:There should be more measures restricting the right to own and carry a firearm. “if it goes ‘bang’, ban it - the right approach to gun control”From his column at FT.com […]
Posted by: Willem Buiter - What is your view on gun control laws? | July 9th, 2008 at 8:31 pm | Report this commentSorry, but the clause “the right of the people” in the context of a document listing individual rights (such as speech, religion, association, petition, search and seizure, fair trial, etc.) is not likely to refer to the state owned military. Why exactly would it need to be codified into law that the army could not be banned from owning guns? Is that really likely? If so, perhaps the Bill of Rights should be amended to protect the rights of the Air Force to own airplanes.
For better or worse, guns are an individual right according to the US Bill of Rights. If we decide we can repeal amendments to the bill of rights when we determine them to be inconvenient, then why not move on to speech, association, religion, fair trial, etc.
I’ll take my chances in the ghettos of America rather than moving to a state where individual rights are not the basis of law, for example China. Even if the 2nd amendment is an artifact of an earlier time, it’s safest to not set the precedent of collectivizing individual rights.
Posted by: Chris B | July 10th, 2008 at 1:36 am | Report this comment[…] Times. He is also renowned for both his keen wit and his blunt no-nonsense maverick style. His reaction to the recent US Supreme Court on gun control will probably not garner too much respect in this […]
Posted by: Buiter on Gun Control « Vox Nova | July 16th, 2008 at 5:19 pm | Report this comment“Another interesting question is what the word ‘people’ means in the Second amendement. I do not pretend to be enough of a scholar to answer this question, but it is worth looking into. It is reasonable to assume that ‘people’ is based on the Roman ‘populus Romanus’, ‘Roman people’ implying a collective noun, nor a collection of individuals. This would also imply that the Second Amendment upholds a group right to bear arms, not an individual one.”
Not merely bad, but quite simply embarrassing. By this logic, the rights of “the people” in the First, Fourth and Tenth Amendments are similarly circumscribed. Single protesters could be swept off the streets, only undefined collectives would be secure from unreasonable search and seizure and the like. I’d hate to be the government attorney who tried to advance *those* arguments.
Resorting to Latin hypotheticals merely demonstrates that one can’t abide the actual English on the page.
Posted by: Dale Price | July 16th, 2008 at 10:14 pm | Report this commentYou should not comment on things you do not understand.
Counter to your belief, places with the totalitarian control you desire tend toward the criminal and repressive.
Posted by: Max | July 20th, 2008 at 9:36 pm | Report this comment“The Second Amendment states that the armed forces ought to be armed. I fully agree.”
1) The U.S. Constitution mentions the armed forces and militia differently. A casual reading of it would show that the constitution references three different institutions separately: militia, army and navy. It does not conflate them.
2) The militia is legally defined as all able-bodied, citizen men in the United States. In other words, militia is, by definition, not the standing military force mustered by Congress for the defense of the United States.
3) The second half of the second amendment simply states “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It does not grant a right at all, but rather states a legal limitation on the economic regulatory powers of the United States government.
Posted by: MikeT | July 21st, 2008 at 5:48 pm | Report this comment