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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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If you were making this argument about the right to protest no one would have a problem agreeing with you which indicates they are downvoting you because they don't want what you are saying to be true. There is nothing wrong with logic of your statement. People too often let what they want to be true color their interpretation of what actually is true.
In this case the truth is that you're absolutely correct, explicitly enumerated constitutional rights should not be infringed by anything other than a constitutional amendment. If someone is bothered by the 2nd amendment they should be advocating for an amendment to change it.
I understand that passing something like that is a practical impossibility and therefore quite frustrating for advocates of stricter gun control, but trying to bypass that process can only open the door for much more insidious restrictions. In other words, if we allow the 2nd amendment to have additional terms and conditions added to it what is stopping a second term Donald Trump presidency from using that precedent to limit free speech or the rights of a free press? We have enough to be concerned about with a second Trump presidency without giving him a clear legal path to bypassing constitutional amendments.
It's also quite possible that many of the people downvoting me are Europeans or Canadians or something. Keep in mind that the US remains to this day somewhat of a novelty in its approach to rights. In most other democracies, rights are not considered inherent, but are rather granted to citizens by the government. In the US, rights are considered inherent, and the Bill of Rights actually limits the Government rather than grants said rights to the people.
Found one.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The second amendment has been "infringed upon" for roughly a century because it isn't as straight forward as second amendment advocates claim.
That doesn't say:
Which is what a lot of second amendment advocates wish it says.
If you read the sentence:
it's pretty clear the meteor is a factor.
The United States did not have a standing army when the second amendment was ratified. So this could be interpreted more as "the people have a right to security from threats to their freedoms foreign and domestic."
Now that said, it's true (to my knowledge) that the founding fathers were not opposed to violent revolution in the face of a tyrannical government. So the "militia" portion of that really just muddies the waters.