Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
Sorry, I just get confused about exactly which civil liberties you want to keep and which you want to destroy. And how do you choose?
What's particularly amusing about all of this is, the gun banners would undoubtedly have realized far more success had they simply taken an honest approach to firearm prohibition.
Had gun banners taken an honest approach to prohibiting firearms, by first acknowledging in good faith the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution, and the constitutions of a few dozen states, indeed protect a right of private citizens to own firearms unconditional upon service in any official government armed force (be it the military, national guard, or police), then making a reason-based appeal to the public which argues that this right is no longer sound, wise, or beneficial as a matter of public policy in modern times and, therefore, the 2nd Amendment and the RKBA provisions of a few dozen state constitutions should be repealed so we can get on with the business of heavily restricting private ownership of firearms without constitutional barrier, it would not have been nearly as divisive and polarizing.
However, the approach that they chose in attempting to pervert the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment, going to great lengths to distort the historical record as well, with the goal of eliminating a palladium constitutional right by manner of shockingly wrong and erroneous judicial interpretation, resulted in two rather profound consequences:
1. It fervently invigorated gun owners and hardened to near-militant levels their opposition to gun control, motivating them to organize and toss their hats into the political arena to a degree they never would otherwise have felt the need to, many of whom may have even supported some moderate gun controls had they not been made to view with zealous suspicion even the most moderate of gun control proposals.
2. It alarmed a good number of fair-minded folks who neither owned firearms nor may even had any desire to, but found highly disturbing this attempt to distort history and the meaning of the constitution, nonetheless, many of whom may even have thrown their support behind an honest approach to gun prohibition, but could not do so in good conscience if it meant making an end-run around the constitution because it would set a dangerous precedent, paving the way for further desecration of a document that they hold in highest regard.
I have met more than several fair-minded persons who do not like firearms, believe they should be highly restricted, or at least a lot more regulated, but are honest enough to acknowledge that the 2nd Amendment indeed poses a real barrier to this because it unequivocally protects a right of individuals to own firearms.
As a gun rights supporter, I respect these individuals. I can sit down with them and engage in productive discussion because honesty is disarming and does not provoke suspicion, defensivenes, or hostility. Too bad advocates of the 'collective rights' theory don't take a lesson from their more principled colleagues. Too bad for their cause, that is.
We know the origins of the 'collective rights' theory on the 2nd Amendment. As legal scholars and historians such as David Kopel and Clayton Cramer have painstakingly documented, gun control in the early Republic was primarily aimed at disarming disenfranchised groups, particularly blacks and Indians, but also Jews, Italians, even impoverished whites were intended targets of gun control in many regions.
This was originally facilitated by excluding blacks and others from the umbrella of 'citizens', therefore the rights of the citizen did not apply to them (Dred Scott). As it became clear to the white aristocracy that courts were increasingly rejecting Dred Scott and giving those 'darkies' the rights and privileges of the citizen, they realized this would eventually erode their power to keep depriving arms to disenfranchised groups. Another approach had to be devised.
By exploiting the legal principle which held the Bill of Rights as a restraint only on the federal government but not the states, it was then reasoned they could deprive rights to whomever they wish - and deprive they did. The 14th Amendement was proposed to remedy this problem. Its principle authors expressly cited the right to keep and bear arms as being among the rights the states were depriving disenfranchised citizens, necessitating the 14th Amendment.
With the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the states saw their power to deprive certain people of their right to keep and bear arms slipping away again. Yet another approach had to be devised.
Even though courts were increasingly responsive to the grievances of minorities deprived of rights, whites still had a lock on the local power structure. If it could be successfully argued that a right to keep and bear arms was never among the constitutional rights of the citizen, the aristocracy could continue to deny arms to disenfranchised groups while effectively leaving their own free access to firearms intact.
Architects of New York's Sullivan Law certainly took lessons from the success of selective gun control in the South. By giving police officials - all white at the time - the power to decide who gets gun permits and who doesn't, 'undesirables' such as Jews, Italians, and blacks, among other disenfranchised groups, could be denied gun permits while connected whites enjoyed unfettered access to gun permits.
The Sullivan Law, and those that would be modeled after it, gave all-white police officials 100% arbitrary discretion over who gets guns and who doesn't. If a police official didn't like the way one's hair was parted, he could deny a gun permit under the pretense that the subject either was 'unfit' or failed to prove a 'need' for a gun. No substantiation to support this determination was required and no judicial review was permitted. If a person was denied a gun permit, for any reason whatsoever, there was no recourse. The police official's determination was final and absolute.
Legal challenges to the Sullivan Law were made, but courts upheld it, many justices in the North being leftists all too willing to act as accomplices in the fraud of the 'collective rights' legal theory, motivated not as much by racism as ideological contempt for the implications of the 2nd Amendment: government not having a monopoly on the means of force and violence.
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