9 Nov 22
“We the people are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.”
Lincoln
At the heart of “Bruen,” from friends close to the issue:
It’s the heart of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights that we are talking about.
What were our Founders facing and concerned about?
What individual rights and liberties did they want to protect, in order to ensure the security of the people from episodic government rogues?
I do not for an instant believe that “Original Intent” confines our Second Amendment rights to muzzle-loaders, any more than I believe our First Amendment rights are confined to pen and quill.
It is the individual right that is enshrined, not any particular mode of exercising/expressing the right. It is not the mode that matters, as it changes/advances over time.
It is the fundamental, individual right that is inviolate!
Our First Amendment does not mean “Original Intent,” as in pen and quill, just because that was the mode the Framers used at the time it was written. Same with our Second Amendment. It protects the fundamental right and is not confined to any particular mode through which (over time) the right finds its expression.
Thus, the right to keep and bear arms does not include a “specification” of just what types of arms it applies to.
In addition, our fundamental individual rights must exist everywhere.
The NY approach of “Virtually everywhere in NY has been solemnly declared a ‘Sensitive Area,’ where no one can be armed,” which results in the disarming of citizens beyond any rational thought, obviously goes way too far in its interference with the fundamental right.
Likewise, where citizens are required by NY state law to provide a “valid reason” for wanting to exercise a Constitutionally enumerated right (and predictably, where no reason is ever good enough) in the same way represents a blatant and pernicious infringement on our Second Amendment, just as where the state thinks it has the power to throw you in prison for publishing an unflattering on-line editorial about a governor or a president, represents a clear violation of our First Amendment.
It is the job of an honest court to draw an unconditional line between where fundamental rights can be impacted by current law.
Democrats have for decades piously proselytized that our Second Amendment really doesn’t exist. They also believe as much about our Forth Amendment, and recently our First!
For one, I rejoice when SCOTUS says, “No, you can’t do that!” Isn’t that their job?
Isn’t it their job to occasionally remind all of us that our Constitution still says what it says, and that our fundamental rights as American citizens are inviolate, no matter the mode through which they are exercised/expressed?
Don’t Americans have a right to live in a country with predictable, understandable law?
Are background checks consistent with the fundamental right?
Some think so.
Are magazine capacity-limits a reasonable infringement on the fundamental right?
Clearly not, in my opinion.
… and so it goes.
“The law is not a ‘light’ for you, nor any man, to see by; the law is not an ‘instrument’ of any kind.
The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely.”
Sir Thomas More (played by Paul Scofield) in Robert Bolt’s 1966 feature film, “A Man for All Seasons”
/John