[Vision2020] Gun Talk

[Art Deco]

I am afraid that Paul, Wayne price, Gary, etc have not acquired a great
deal of knowledge about the history of constitutional law in this country,
and hence are not able to appreciate the points that Joe and Sunil raise.

There are conflicts in the interpretation and meaning of the constitution.
These are due to the ambiguity of the language (a problem for many subjects
besides a, and in particular politics and religion) and conflicts between
sections of the constitution itself.

What Joe has been pointing out is that all sections of the constitution are
interpreted by the courts in with respect to their relationship to all
other sections.  These interpretations attempt to resolve conflicts as well
as clarify meanings.

With respect to many decisions of the Supreme Court in the latter part of
the 20th century the phrase "promote the general welfare" has been used to
make decisions on limitations on laws and rights.

The careful and objective debater might familiarize themselves with these
proceedings which can be discovered by Googling the subject before
continuing to appear like ignoramuses.

w.



On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 4:02 PM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>wrote:

> Paul writes: When I mentioned the superficial differences between an AR15
> and a mini 14 that makes the latter not fall under the "assault weapon"
> nomenclature, your suggestion was to ban mini 14's too.  So, I don't know
> how I ever got it into my head that you were for the banning of assault
> weapons.  Oh, and you haven't responded to my apparently invisible response
> to your "no one has the right to do wrong" idea.  That was namely that if
> you have the right in the first place, then it's up to the law to determine
> the bounds of it.  You don't have the right to libel me, but the fact that
> you libeled me can only be determined after it has happened.  Preemptively
> removing my right to post to an Internet forum because someone somewhere
> libeled someone is not anymore justified than banning a type of gun because
> someone somewhere committed a massacre with one.
>
> Two points. First, I never suggested banning anything. I said we should
> consider it. That is the difference between our positions. I think we CAN
> consider banning anything; you seem to think rights are special gifts from
> God that allow us to act like idiots while we sit back quietly unable to do
> anything. You have a radical view of rights.
>
> Look if your slippery-slope argument works, so does mine. If the two
> things are similar and we CAN ban one, then we can ban the other; if the
> two things are similar and we shouldn't ban one, then we shouldn't ban the
> other. The arguments are of equal strength. That was the point I was making.
>
> Also, the second argument you give above is VERY bad. It is like saying
> the state can't prevent people from driving drunk because, well, how the
> heck can we know whether or not their behavior is going to cause any harm?
> But of course we can prevent people from driving drunk because there is a
> potential for harm. Likewise, it is the POTENTIAL for harm that my libelous
> comments carry with them, not the actual harm, that allows the government
> to restrict my speech in that case. After all, maybe my libelous comments
> won't cause you harm? Who's to say? Thankfully the government doesn't have
> to wait around to find out before it is able to restrict one's speech.
>
> All that is relevant when it comes to considerations of restricting
> behavior is potential level of harm. Unfortunately for your radical
> position, mere gun ownership increases the possibility of harm (at least in
> small towns with low levels of violence like our town). Again, I'm offering
> this as an argument for banning guns; I'm offering it as an argument
> against your radical view of rights, aka the NRA view.
>
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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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