A 2nd Amendment For Our Times?

[ThomWV]

I believe that at the time of the writing of the Bill of Rights the 2nd Amendment was indeed an effective safeguard against immediate foreign invasion. More importantly it was also an effective safeguard against the excesses of domestic Government gone bad. It was private guns in the hands of citizen soldiers that won the Revolutionary War and ousted the British. It was also the threat of those private firearms in the hands of an aroused and angry citizenry that kept Government in check. It was the final right of the people, when representative government has failed or been overthrown, to defend their own freedoms and so we gave ourselves the right to keep the tools with which to do so. That is why we have the 2nd Amendment

But the times have changed.

Today no armed citizenry is going to storm the District of Columbia and retake power from a wicked and unjust Government. Take out a map and draw a circle around Washington so that it touched on Fredricksberg to the south and Fredrick to the north and call that area the annihilation zone for a feeling of what I mean.

Today we have no tool by which final control of the country could be taken from a Government gone awry. The one great failing of the Constitution, in light of today's technological advances, is that it leaves us with no effective way to take back Government.

The military swearing in oath of each branch of service includes the pledge to support and defend the Constitution and against all enemies, Foreign and Domestic but it doesn't give the people the final authority to determine who a domestic enemy is. It is the President, as Commander in Chief who makes that distinction. The Constitution provides no protection from a President using his authority as Commander in Chief to use the military against any internal insurrection which challenged his authority and that same military is sworn to comply with his order. And that is the dilemma.

It seems to me that the only good Constitutional protection we might give ourselves would be this. Remove the role of Commander in Chief from the Executive and move it to the Congress, specifically the House of Representatives. There, and by their own rules, that a plan be devised to use that authority as the majority demands but with apparatus in place to allow for the orderly day to day operation of our forces.

Discussion anyone?

[wuushew]

1. A legal right which perpetuates a culture of paranoid gun craziness

significantly detracting our standard of living compared to more peaceful industrialized countries.

[kliljedahl]

2. "A well regulated Militia" is always left out or glossed over

by the NRA & other gun nuts. Before I get flamed, I'm a hunter & gun owner. I've never needed an AK-47 or armor piercing ammo to kill a deer though. What part of "well regulated " don't they understand?


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Comandante_Subzero]

3. Horse & Buggy Constitution

Actually it was the (shudder) FRENCH who won the war for the terrorists, i mean rebels, of 1776, not the heroic Minutemen who shot Brits in the back from behind trees at Concord.

The US is the only industrialised nation that has not redone its Constitution. It's not the 1700s any more & that document just doesn't cut it.

It was written under totally different circumstances & has no means to ensure economic democracy or to curb the power of rogue corporations (or a runaway Executive branch), which did not even exist at that time. Much bigger problem than whether citizens can own assault rifles or not.

[kliljedahl]

5. Good thought, I've never heard that discussed

But with the current political climate, I say we hold off on a re-write for a while (think Patriot Act)

& BTW: Welcome to DU Comandante :toast:


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Mythsaje]

6. And how many times HAVE

these other nations redesigned their Constitutions? I think France is up to what--eighteen?

The problem isn't with the Constitution, which is a document that allows for changing times...hence the amendment option. It's with the fact that most of the people in the U.S., including many lawyers, are woefully ignorant of the Constitution and they've allowed our protections to be chipped away without saying a word about it.

When the 4th Amendment was ham-strung by the Drug War, how many people even notice?

The problem isn't with the document, it's with public complacency and ignorance.

And as far as the colonial soldiers shooting redcoats in the back from behind trees--I think fighting the war the way the British did back then would've been nothing but idiocy. They learned how to fight in guerilla actions from the Indians, and learned it well. And promptly forgot it until reminded each time a new war cropped up.

The only rule to war, as far as I'm concerned, is not to involve innocents. Other than that...WIN.

[TahitiNut]

4. It's pretty clear to me that the RKBA is coupled with national service.

That's one reason I support Universal National Service. :shrug: