racoonbeast
Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2014
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- 188
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There is a very fundamental thread that runs through a just legal system. That would be that you can not punish people (or restrict their rights) in anticipation of what they might do. It exists to punish people for things that they have actually done. If you value the rights that are granted your citizens, and you wish them to value them, it has to be very difficult for them to lose them. Of course there will always be people who will demonstrate that they are not up to the responsibility of having these rights, but they have to demonstrate it through actual deeds. Not by carrying thoughts, or by other persons thinking that they are carrying certain thoughts.
I guess we all can think of a million ways that the above is not "common sense" and quote examples where we think that it should not apply. The "common sense" argument is the same one that that libs use to support their claim that the Constitution is outdated and needs to be trashed. How often have we heard that "it is only common sense that the Founding Fathers would not approve of the citizenry running around with these horrible weapons of war". Weapons of war were exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the 2A. They sought to give the citizenry a counterbalance to governmental power. They were not hoping to further squirrel hunting.
Of course this situation is not perfect. Democracies are notoriously messy upon implementation. But, you either have to do it this way, or ignore a citizen's basic rights in situations that you think deserve it. Once you start to make exceptions where does it all end? What is important to me might not be important to you. What is important in Maine might not be important in Florida. Who would want to live in a system where you can be arrested or lose rights because someone believes that you might be thinking about breaking a law? For this very basic reason I predict that these new "Red Flag Laws" are going to go the way of the Dodo bird once they hit the Supreme Court. If not, things have really degenerated. When a system can ignore its basic building blocks in the name of "common sense", you have a system on the verge of collapse.
I guess we all can think of a million ways that the above is not "common sense" and quote examples where we think that it should not apply. The "common sense" argument is the same one that that libs use to support their claim that the Constitution is outdated and needs to be trashed. How often have we heard that "it is only common sense that the Founding Fathers would not approve of the citizenry running around with these horrible weapons of war". Weapons of war were exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the 2A. They sought to give the citizenry a counterbalance to governmental power. They were not hoping to further squirrel hunting.
Of course this situation is not perfect. Democracies are notoriously messy upon implementation. But, you either have to do it this way, or ignore a citizen's basic rights in situations that you think deserve it. Once you start to make exceptions where does it all end? What is important to me might not be important to you. What is important in Maine might not be important in Florida. Who would want to live in a system where you can be arrested or lose rights because someone believes that you might be thinking about breaking a law? For this very basic reason I predict that these new "Red Flag Laws" are going to go the way of the Dodo bird once they hit the Supreme Court. If not, things have really degenerated. When a system can ignore its basic building blocks in the name of "common sense", you have a system on the verge of collapse.
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