Regardless of whether or not you understood that to be my argument, you presented arguments that I agree with as if they countered something that I said so something went wrong. In either case, it's not abuse. If you think it's abuse, then I'll dismissively advise you to do something similar to what you advised me to do: take it up with the Supreme Court.
All Right. You are on, Bucko:
Goshin: I respect your opinion on guns for protection; however, that Bushnell was primarily designed to be used for combative (military) use. The everyday citizen is not going to encounter those situations if those weapons were to be made illegal to own.
Well, since the intent of the 2nd was to ensure that the common man remained responsible for preserving liberty against tyranny... Combative use is the primary purpose of the 2nd.
Well, it isn't 1791 anymore and as RLN said, the average citizen doesn't encounter those types of situations.
Well, then, change the Constitution through amendment, and we can have the proper argument about how best to protect liberty. You don't just get to ignore it.
We don't have to change the Constitution because the founders didn't include their intent, as you described it, in it so we can interpret it within the context of our current environment.
No... It doesn't work quite that way. That is an abuse of the living document approach.
We interpret the practical implementation according to our times, not the underlying principles. Your abuse of living document jurisprudence justifiably leads to distrust of that jurisprudence... Since it can be made to say anything at all according to your approach. And indeed, justices have abused it in just the way you are recommending.
As I said, we can interpret it within the context of current environment. The principle is that the population ought to be able to protect itself, not that people need a particular sort of weapon that didn't even exist in 1791 to do so. I don't know what "abuse" you think I'm advocating, but it's all in your imagination. I agree with you that the principles SHOULD remain the same and that the practical implementation is what would change. If you were unclear about what I meant, then you should have asked instead of assuming, but assuming seems to be a pattern among people in this thread. I guess that's the MO of blind self-righteousness.
Let me clarify my point since a lot of emotional people seem to have a problem reading:
The Constitution can be (and should be) interpreted within the context of our current environment which has changed a great deal since 1789 and 1791. As Goshin helpfully pointed out, we apply the 1st Amendment to things like broadcasting and other technologies that didn't exist in the 18th century. This is one way of interpreting the Consitution within the context of our current environment. Another example is we have limited our "freedom of assembly" by requiring people to get permits for protests and hold their demonstrations in specific areas of cities that have become more busy and populated. The same can, should and often does apply to the 2nd amendment. It's 2012, not 1791.
I understood you to mean exactly this the first time... But you thought I hadn't. So, like I said this would be an abuse of the living document jurisprudence, as it has been abused in the past.
Regardless of whether or not you understood that to be my argument, you presented arguments that I agree with as if they countered something that I said so something went wrong. In either case, it's not abuse. If you think it's abuse, then I'll dismissively advise you to do something similar to what you advised me to do: take it up with the Supreme Court.
You are really getting pissy for no reason. I have not insulted you ... neither through implication nor explicitly, and I was not dismissive. My understanding of your views were correct according to what you said and its context.
Your view of taking the context of an amendment as a current affair does not allow you or anyone else to weaken that amendment's principles. You admitted that the original principle was to allow the populace to take responsibility for the prevention of tyranny, and then attempted to gut that principle by saying 'its not 1791 ... people don't encounter that situation today... etc'.
Ultimately in response I said that the proper channel for changing it was not through interpretatively gutting the principle, but instead through the Constitutional amendment process, so that we can have the proper debate about how to best preserve liberty. Apparently, you thought I was being dismissive, but that is all on you. As to abuses of the living document approach and my taking it up with the Supreme Court, people in better position to do so already do. But, you yourself as a fellow liberal, should want them to use the living document approach in a consistent and principled manner, so as to preserve its credibility, as well as your own. Leave it to the conservative side to engage in tortured logic to stuff their conservative agenda into their own approaches when they don't happen to work in their favor. At least the liberals won't be responsible for the utter humiliation of the SCOTUS.
You then, in other parts of this thread have again advocated for making 'combat weapons' illegal, and made the argument under your idea of 'present day context'. One of your more egregious moments was when you stated that
extending free speech to broadcast media and internet was contextual for the 1st amendment, so
restricting the right to bear arms from combat weapons is correct under the same principle!!! Your analogy actually speaks to the
exact opposite: The right to bear arms should definitely extend to the present day more powerful weapons as the right to free speech extends to the present day more powerful mediums of communication.
If the principle of preventing tyranny through a personal right to bear arms is outdated, that is a matter to be discussed deliberately, and in the context of proposing an amendment to the Constitution. No other way. I will oppose it, but if I eventually lose that battle, I will respect that loss far better than if it comes through interpretive fiat.
eace