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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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I didn’t say anything about Reagan. If you are saying “Fuck Reagan” then we don’t disagree about anything important so far as Reagan is concerned.
As for it not being a legal right in the USA that’s a straightforward fact. It was DC vs. Heller, a 2008 case where a Washington DC law was found to be unconstitutional which is the first case where such a law restricting access to handguns was found to be unconstitutional. There were plenty such laws prior to 2008 that survived legal challenges which is what proves the legal right to own a gun didn’t exist prior. But in 2008 the Supreme Court stated the law was unconstitutional at the federal level (DC being a federal district) establishing an individualized right to guns for the first time.
And it was in 2010 that this was extended to additionally restrict the law making power of states, in addition to the federal government, since by default the constitution is understood to restrict the federal government and not the states, but the poorly defined legal doctrine of “incorporation” basically says some bits are applied to restrict states as well.
In the sense of having an individualized legal right to own a gun, prior to 2008 it didn’t exist.
As for ruby ridge types saying shall not be infringed sure, I’m sure many of them advocated the maximalist interpretation way back when that the courts later adopted in 2008, but up until at least the late 90s the idea that weapons could be regulated wasn’t even controversial and the maximalist position could then be called mostly fringe and was only just beginning to emerge as a position a suit wearing serious legal professional would advocate. Bill Clinton banned a bunch of them in 1994 and no one really blinked an eye at the constitutionality of it and the federal assault weapon ban of 1994 survived legal challenges that it definitely would not have survived after 2008 and DC vs. Heller.
The NRA became a lot more activist in the 80s and 90s and really it was their activism that pushed the once-fringe idea that the constitution required largely unrestricted access to weapons into the mainstream.
Which requires editing out an entire sentence by calling it a prefatory clause, a preamble, which flies in the face of the fundamentals of constitutional interpretation which requires the assumption that each word was written for a reason.
I think we live in very different worlds. People absolutely lost their shit over Clinton's bans.
Legal interpretation doesn't always match up to what people see as their right and how aggressively they will enforce that right until the courts catch up to where they are. You're saying it happened with guns and we all just saw it happen with the religious extremists that run this country and abortion.
Unfortunately, this the correct way to view the legal system, as a means to an end that can be lobbied or bullied into getting what you want. Even more unfortunately, liberals view it as inviolable holy scripture handed down by God that must be honored regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
Seeing it as your right, having an expectation that it should be a right, isn’t the same as being a legal right though.
You could have said you disagreed with the court but unless you’re sitting on that court you can disagree all you want and it actually just doesn’t mean anything in terms of changing the reality that it’s not up to you what legal rights are or how the constitution is interpreted because that’s what the Supreme Court is for - and it says so in the constitution.
A legal right is a constructed and formal concept. A legal right simply does not exist unless the courts say it does even if you strongly feel it should exist. That’s what I’m saying.
And since 2008 that legal right has existed but before then it simply didn’t.
And I’m not a liberal man. I’m not even anti-guns.
I am a progressive and you probably view the terms progressive and liberal as synonyms but they aren’t.
In fact youre the one who is appealing to an idealism here, and in that sense you’re more of a liberal than I am even if I’m closer to them in the sense or being a progressive. You’re pointing to a right existing in some almost metaphysical sense, ie you’re saying that because people felt it should be a right you’re saying it in some sense existed. Which is liberal idealism.
Look, we probably aren’t actually very far in terms of what we think sensible gun policy should be since I think if you’re in Montana or whatever then yeah sure a rifle makes a lot of sense and can be a lot of fun and you pointed to the more modern and moderate 2a types which probably places you actually not far from me in terms of what we would agree sensible gun laws could be.
What I said is that the legal right to own a gun was created in 2008 and that is a straightforward fact. It’s DC vs. Heller. 2008. Look it up if you want to. Going on about how some people really felt it should be a right before then doesn’t change that, and it is also a fact that if you were to ask a mainstream legal scholar in the 80s or early to mid 90s you would have to look into some pretty partisan political camps to find someone who would have advocated the current interpretation that was established recently in 2008.
But of course since the late 90s and certainly in the late 2000s you can find a lot of them. That’s also a fact.
I'm not sharing my opinions, I'm sharing the perspective of the culture I grew up in
Well I appreciate your perspective. Perhaps in your community there was activism on this issue before it reached the halls of power.