Can I play too??? This is too much like shooting fish in a barrel to pass up...
1. If you believe the 2nd Amendment should be subject to no regulation at all, do you therefore believe all laws prohibiting convicted violent repeat criminals from having guns are unconstitutional? Should all such laws be repealed?
You've confused the issue. Laws against felons owning guns are laws placed specifically on individuals who have lost protection of the social contract, and the Constitution, by violating their rights and responsibilities under the contract.
A man in prison for murder does not have the freedom to leave prison and assemble as he pleases. That does not mean the Constitutional freedom of assembly has been violated. If the law is applied to those who are still, through the social contract, afforded its protections, THEN we have violated the contract (Constitution).
Stripping an individual of his specific rights based on his actions against the community is not in the same sphere of philosophy as stripping those who have done no wrong of a right by reducing the scope of that right for all.
Otherwise prisons are unconstitutional, which is silly. This is a non argument that shows a lack of clear thinking about how the Rights of Man are derived and lost. It was established from the outset that the many states reserved the right to decide which rights may be revoked and for how long for an act of criminality, the Founders took it as a given such action could be taken but ONLY against those guilty of crimes.
2. Do you also believe all laws establishing concealed-carry licenses are unconstitutional?
It's open for debate for certain. It's completely clear there should be no license for carrying a gun in any fashion on one's own property. The only question for concealed carry is its public nature, but it's not clear there should be restrictions on this for law abiding citizens.
The offsetting public interest is simply safety, that fools aren't carrying guns in unsafe manner and ideally that they understand the law of deadly force.
The "shall issue" process seems to be a reasonable compromise that does not infringe the Constitution in the outcome. You have to jump through a hoop or two but you cannot be denied the right for capricious or arbitrary reasons.
3. Do you have a concealed-carry license anyway?
4. Are you thereby violating the Constitution yourself?
This is where you show a lack of understanding of the Constitution and the Social Contract of our nation.
I as an individual cannot possibly violate the Constitution. No one can b/c the Constitution isn't a document binding The People, it is a document meant to bind the State. Constitutional rights do not define the relationship between two members of our society, they define the relationship between each individual and their government.
There's not a single word in the entire Bill of Rights spelling out what individuals can and cannot do to each other. It singularly spells out what government can and cannot do to The People. If I beat you up to keep you from speaking your mind I am guilty of assault, not violating your First Amendment rights.
So I cannot "violate the Constitution". Only government can do that as only government is constrained by it.
Your argument seems to be that if I accept and operate within a law I consider unconstitutional I somehow am an accomplice in that law an by extension part of the violation.
The first problem with that view is that the violation is the existence of the law itself, regardless of whether I participate. My permit doesn't expand the law, my ignoring it doesn't reduce it's scope. How did I further the law or expand it's unconstitutionality by getting a permit? Who else is prevented from carrying if I get a permit?
I suppose we could make some Thoreau civil disobedience obligation of morality to oppose laws we find unjust even to the point of prison, the idea that complying with a law you find unjust is immoral and must be opposed, as Thoreau refused to pay taxes to finance any part of the Mexican War, which he considered immoral and unjustified.
I don't support the actions of the NSA, I think they are violating our constitutional rights, but I continue to pay my taxes. Is your argument that I must refuse to pay taxes and go to prison else I am as a co-conspirator of some sort actually violating everyone's civil rights?
Fairly extreme position on your part, but the only position I see in your comment that makes any sense.
I would hope this discussion could continue.
--Dick Metcalf
That depends. You're going to need to think through your position better if these are to be your analogies of Constitutional balance of the rights of the individual. This set is deeply flawed.
I suspect the first thing we need to do is back up to the critical first assumption that all these rights are derived from Nature, not from the government, and the BIll of Rights is simply a document that tries to make it clear these rights a) exist, and b) are to be respected by the State.
The Founders didnt' get together and write down what rights we were to have, they were trying to describe the rights we were born with and how to protect them from the necessarily evil of government, whose job it would be to then see that we didn't deprive each other of them.
