<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>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.<br>
<br></div>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.<br>
<br></div>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.<br>
<br></div>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.<br>
<br></div>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.<br><br>w.<br><div><div><div><div>
<br></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 4:02 PM, Joe Campbell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:philosopher.joe@gmail.com" target="_blank">philosopher.joe@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">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.<br><br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
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