Another shooting in the USA. Remind me about the reason for having guns again. - by SubJeff
DDL on 29/8/2012 at 08:28
The bill of rights does appear to be a tad anachronistic in places, dethtoll. "Protection from quartering of troops" seems unlikely to be something that still needs to be enshrined in sacrosanct terms, especially given the sheer quantity of military spending in the US.
"We spent all our money on depleted uranium and drones, so now we need to take your house. Sorry."
Plus the fact that all of the documentation was drawn up in a wholly different time means that you end up with things like genuine modern-day arguments over (of relevance to this thread) the definition and intention of "A well regulated Militia" with respect to gun ownership. One presumes, at the time of drafting, that a well regulated militia was a well-defined, universally recognisable concept, and thus the wording reflected that. Now we're left debating whether that means just "gun training" or actual membership of some sort of civil force.
The fact that there has been very little effort to update any of the ammendments to make more sense in a modern context means that we're also left arguing over whether people back in the 1700s would've been happy with everyone and his uncle carrying not muzzle-loading rifles, but semiautomatic pistols and assault rifles. It doesn't state 'right to bear firearms', just 'arms', so..say, swords would be a legitimate interpretation, as would tactical nukes.
-Though note that there ARE restrictions on the interpretation of the right to bear arms, anyway (you're not, to my knowledge, allowed to own your own tacnuke), so there are precedents for further restriction.
Then you have things like the seventh ammendment, which explicitly states "In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved".
Note: Not adjusted for inflation.
Also note: the supreme court apparently DO take inflation into account (it's now about $75000), but nobody bothered to actually change the text.
So in summary, it's like a slightly more modern "ten commandments": a highly anachronistic list that contains an awful lot of very noble greater-good stuff but that's also wholly in need of clarifying, codifying and updating, and there are already precedents for doing so in law, if not in changes to the actual text.
Though I also would note that given the US's current state of heightened paranoia and police-state leanings, right now might not be the best time to redraft it.:erg:
demagogue on 29/8/2012 at 09:43
Of course as a practical matter, I can't imagine any situation where a repeal of one of the Bill of Rights of all things is going to be politically viable in the US, so it's an academic question anyway. It may be "just" a legal document in the end, but it's always going to have that quasi-religious reverence. At least there are some benefits to that too; people take the wording seriously like you always should with all laws. And I think it would be just as wrong to ignore the text just because it was written from a different mindset than we have today.
As another practical matter, though, the court does have some latitude in interpreting open terms to use the reasonable one that fits with modern needs -- and then there's a difference between vagueness vs. ambiguity (vagueness= meaning not clear what it's trying to say at all. ambiguity= 2+ different clear meanings & you have to pick one). "Due process" and "arms" I think are in the vagueness category, so they are open ended to mean whatever the court says they mean (that makes sense of the text). As for "twenty dollars", that's ambiguity... There are at least two valid meanings & you need to pick one, does it mean $20 in today's value or in the drafting-time's value? That trick can only go so far though. It's still important the text does what it says.
june gloom on 29/8/2012 at 09:53
That's why you treat the Constitution as a "living document" -- sure, you'll run into arguments over interpretation but it allows the Constitution to be applied with a view towards modern sensibilities. There are some who consider this anathema, but I think they're short-sighted. There's no need to rewrite the Constitution at all -- it's all about how much you can stretch interpretation. I view that as a good thing, because nothing should be written in stone. We write laws with absolutes because the Constitution, in its flexibility, permits it, and we repeal those laws when necessary because they're not "hard-coded" into the Constitution.
On some level I think a few of the amendments after the Bill of Rights are unnecessary, and a misuse of the document. For example, there was no need for the 18th, and further, the 21st amendment (Prohibition and the repealing thereof.) That could just as easily have been written as federal law. It's why there's so much resistance to the idea of using the Constitution to declare marriage as between a man and a woman (well, that and it's a bunch of bigoted bullshit.)
Vivian on 29/8/2012 at 10:08
Using the right to have a handgun as evidence for the necessity of having a handgun makes zero sense though. I'm interested in this, so I'm going to read the studies listed (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime) here and get back to you.
Jason Moyer on 30/8/2012 at 11:35
[video=youtube;zBLwSR2Mxyw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBLwSR2Mxyw[/video]
jay pettitt on 30/8/2012 at 12:36
So is Penn & Teller: Bullshit supposed to be ironical?
Papy on 30/8/2012 at 13:08
[QUOTE=demagogue;2139774It may be "just" a legal document in the end, but it's always going to have that quasi-religious reverence. At least there are some benefits to that too; people take the wording seriously like you always should with all laws. And I think it would be just as wrong to ignore the text just because it was written from a different mindset than we have today.That's something I never understood with US culture. On one hand there is a distrust in governments, but on the other it seems there is a profound respect, I'd even say a blind obedience, for whatever arbitrary law a government may decide. I just don't get it.
