Published Voting Lists (by gun ownership)...Follow

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Yes. By itself via the vote of the people. Which means that it can also, through the consent of the people, change the scope of those limits. And the people are generally more concerned about items of social impact (houses, cars, guns, etc) than with pink fuzzy bunny slippers. Therefore, since "the government" isn't some scary monster who might suddenly become obsessed with your footwear, the fact that the government doesn't track such things is more a function of what the people care about than any intrinsic privacy protections.

And? Did we change the 4th amendment recently? The problem is that you talk about how these changes can occur via a vote of the people, but then support changes that don't involve a vote of the people, because it's something you agree with. That's foolish and dangerous.



And? As I said earlier, guns were deadly weapons when the 2nd amendment was written. Just saying "guns should not be as protected because they're deadly weapons" is not a good argument. The founders clearly intended for guns to be not just as protected, but more protected than other things, perhaps precisely because they are deadly.



Who are "the people" though? If "the people" think that ownership of guns should no longer be a protected right, then "the people" can do exactly what you spoke about and amend the constitution. But since some of the people want the laws to change, but clearly not enough to amend the constitution, you just ignore that restriction and pretend that "the people" care more about gun ownership, so it's ok to ignore the protections.

Amend the constitution if you really think "the people" agree with you. If you can't, then stop pretending that this is what "the people" want. We have a process in place for this Joph. You even mentioned it earlier. So why not use it instead of just claiming you have support for whatever you want to do?

That's dancing around the issue though. "Enough people" is defined quite clearly within the amendment process outlined in our constitution. So what you're really saying is that if people you agree with (presumably the "right people" you're speaking of) want to change the meaning of a part of the constitution, it should be allowed. Which, as I've said already, is foolish and dangerous.



No. But those were never considered to be expressions of "free speech" in the first place. Similarly, we didn't have to change the 2nd amendment to make killing someone with a firearm illegal either. All are abuses of the right in question, and do not require abridging the right as a whole. You don't have a right to use speech in a way designed to harm another, and you don't have a right to use a firearm in a way designed to harm another. But some of the restrictions on gun ownership would be considered far too onerous if they were applied to speech. We don't require that people file a request with the government to be able to speak out of fear that they might speak in a harmful way, do we? Yet you seem perfectly ok with requiring that people file a similar request to own a gun, clearly based solely on the grounds that they might use the gun in a harmful way.

Would you accept not being able to speak in public without getting some kind of license first? No? Yet you have no problem with a similar restriction on guns. The restrictions we're talking about go well beyond simply applying rational boundaries to the right itself. It appears as though the objective here is to use fear of people using guns in ways that are already illegal to push for restrictions on gun ownership in general. How does that make sense? Again, we don't restrict speech because some people might use speech in harmful ways. We punish those who do so. That's how we should be approaching these sorts of things. But for some reason, in the case of guns, people's normally sensible understanding of things gets tossed out the window out of some irrational fear of violence.


At the risk of repeating myself, bending the rules of constitutionality in this case is foolish and dangerous. Because if you allow it in this case, you've given "the right people" the power to make other changes which aren't supported by "enough people". Is that really a good idea? I don't think so.

Edited, Feb 26th 2013 7:54pm by gbaji

Not at all. We have a whole branch of government which is tasked with (among other things) deciding on what's constitutional and what isn't. We have a whole bundle of laws which, in simple terms, infringe upon our constitutional rights. Does the Second Amendment include language saying "unless you're a felon"? But we violate the Second Amendment rights of felons all the time, don't we? Did we amend the Constitution to do this or was it otherwise decided that it was in the country's best interests and we went with that?


And it says that where in the language of the First Amendment? What? Nowhere? Oh, okay then. My copy of the First Amendment simply says Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of the press. The government forbidding me from running off a thousand copies of the latest best seller is unmistakeably a violation of my rights per any sane reading of the First Amendment. Tell where the Amendment is that made it legal for the government to do this.

Edited, Feb 26th 2013 10:10pm by Jophiel

Do you not believe that sentiment is neutral on any position and from any person, regardless of political or personal preferences?

****, I didn't know buying a house was a crime.

Don't forget car ownership. But neither are specifically mentioned in the constitution, so it's okay to spy on those.

Just a bit more fodder. This article in daily local paper is about a company (Down East Energy) that lost an employee to a workplace shooting. Following the event they had crafted company policy to disallow any employee owned firearms on the grounds (building and property). However a bill passed shorty after, by our then fully republican government, over-ruled the companies right to carry out this weapon ban. It allowed for anyone with a concealed weapon permit to be able to leave their gun in a locked car regardless of where the locked car is parked - I believe schools are exempt but not other city or state buildings. So, by law, one can bring a gun to the parking lot of the courthouses, prisons, the little nuthouse I work at and most any other place, regardless of the will of the property owner (talk about rights infringement...).

Anyway, this company, following the new law about guns in cars in parking lots, sought to find out which of their employees had a concealed weapons. They were unable to dredge up the info, but only because they're not a savvy media company that knows the ins and outs of accessing public records.



Nothing new here, just that for some there may be a tangible reason to ask the question about who's possibly carrying concealed weapons. Also, there's a strong possibility that Maine will end up making the information private.

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 6:13pm by Elinda

That example kinda makes my case for me though Elinda. What would the company do with that information? Can we assume it might affect the employment of those who have concealed carry permits in this case? You don't think this might result in intimidation of those who might otherwise exercise their 2nd amendment rights?

I imagine they'd politely ask them not to bring guns to work. It's Maine, no one's terrified of gun owners, trust me on this. It's an almost uniform population of poor and lower middle class white people, there's no boogeyman for them to be afraid of. Well, Cannucks, I guess.


Edited, Mar 2nd 2013 11:50am by Smasharoo

They don't need a list of people with gun permits to do this though. Just make a company policy and move on. The only reason for the company to actually know who has or doesn't have a CC permit is if they might want to use that information to make hiring/firing decisions (unofficially, of course). Even if that's not the intent directly, the fact that they have that information can influence future choices. Assuming we agree that an individuals choice to own or not own a firearm should not be an employment consideration, then the best way to make sure this remains true is to keep that information private.

Is there any legitimate reason an employer would need to know this information? I don't think so, but I'm open to someone providing one that doesn't create the potential for discrimination based on the choice to exercise a constitutional right.

The last time you gave such a proposition, you ignored the response.