I don’t see the logic
Justice John Paul Stevens Is Wrong About the Second Amendment, Again
I don’t really understand Stevens’ piece. He says all those gun controls are hunky dory, much like he did in his dissent in Heller where he acknowledged an individual right to arms, but we should repeal the second amendment because reasons.
March 27th, 2018 at 6:03 pm
Even so, the Federal government has NO enumerated delegated powers for gun control pertaining to the People. And without delegated powers, according to the 10th Amendment, it may lawfully do NOTHING.
March 27th, 2018 at 6:39 pm
@ Ron W,
Key word; “lawfully”.
The Fed Gov can do lot’s of things, lawfully or not. Who’ll stop them? They’ll pass laws in violation of the constitution, and then say they have the “legal authority”. That’s always how it happens. What makes 21st Century America significantly different from all the other societies that have fallen?
March 27th, 2018 at 7:34 pm
@Lyle, yes, “they say”, but they have not. Trouble is, there’s no teeth in the Constitution for prompt punishment of our employees who refuse to obey their delegated powers. In the real world, it’s generally immediate dismissal.
But I was just showing that the old judge wasn’t really knowledgable of the Constitution. He’s an idiot or a criminal, probably the latter because:
Anyone who wants to disarm you is your enemy and wants you dead.
March 27th, 2018 at 7:38 pm
Ron, yes, he’s both. And has been for a long time.
Not that this is at all unusual. The Constitution has been subjected to wholesale stomping and subversion from the day the ink dried. In 1803 (!) St. George Tucker wrote an excellent book describing the many examples he knew of — only a little over 10 years after the Constitution came into effect. And the people he was writing about were pikers compared to Stevens and FDF and TR and Wilson and their ilk.
March 27th, 2018 at 8:10 pm
@Paul, Thanks for they info on St. George Tucker. I recall a quote which goes, “tyranny is always better organized than Liberty.”
And you reminder of St. George Tucker helped me to recall this quote by him:
“The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
March 27th, 2018 at 8:53 pm
Hey now, don’t be running down Justice Stevens he was there when the Constitution was written…
March 27th, 2018 at 10:00 pm
I haven’t read anything as incoherent as the Stevens dissent to the Heller v DC decision. It says “individual right” then says “but you can’t exercise it” and expects that to be sensible, somehow. Now it makes sense. Stevens was willing to ignore the very words of the 2nd Amendment then, to arrive at his desired goal. Now he sees he has to remove that pesky 2nd from the Constitution to get disarmament of the citizenry. Oddly, he does not yet understand the Bill of Rights establishes limits on government infringements of pre-existing inherent rights of individuals, and enumeration in the Constitution is not the grant of such rights, nor is repeal of the Bill of Rights ever capable of removing them from the citizens.
To hell with him, to hell with that.
March 28th, 2018 at 8:09 am
Repealing the 2nd Amendment doesn’t actually do anything. That’s just the first.
1. Repeal the 2nd Amendment.
2. Enact laws to ban guns.
3. Enlist a federal army to go door-to-door confiscating guns.
And they think this will reduce gun violence.
March 28th, 2018 at 12:38 pm
@mikee, And, according to the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, we the People DECLARE our inalienable, Gid-given rights. They were added “to prevent abuses and usurpations” by the government since it is restricted to its delegated powers without which it SHALL do NOTHING according to the 10th Amendment. So even without a 2nd Amendment, the Federal Government has NO power for any gun laws pertaining to the People. Judge Stevens will search in vain to find such powers in the Constitution.
The old judge may have some schooling, but he obviously has NO education re: the Constitution and the principles upon which it is premised.