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Comment by Gustomaximus | Hacker News Reader

I support strict gun control, however I feel it's wrong for the politicians to be meddling in gun control how they are. The US constitution is fairly clear (I accept people will always argue specific) that citizens to have access to firearms.

From this I find it dangerous that any politician would seek to override or 'reinterpret' the constitution without the peoples mandate to do so. This seems ot be happening at an increasingly accelerated rate e.g. government eavesdropping and civil forfeiture.

Firearm ownership should be taken to the vote. If the nations decides to leave firearm availability as a citizen right that's democracy and the inevitable shooting are the price. Potentially more dangerous is a government that feels they can bend a nations constitution away from its spirit to their personal agenda.

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Should freedom of unpopular speech and the right to be free of unreasonable searches be decided by popular vote? Or is it understood that constitutional rights all have the risk of making us less safe and making the government's job harder, and that removing them is hard for a reason?

I believe he means that constitutional issues should be decided by a "constitutional convention" which is kind of a "majority" vote in such cases. And of course why wouldn't constitutional convention be able to decide on freedom of unpopular speech?

The process to amend the Constitution requires 3/4 of the states to agree on the amendment. It is not a majority vote situation, for the very good reason that the Constitution protects the basic freedoms of US citizens, including free speech (and yes, that means hate or unpopular speech as well) and right to bear arms. The founders anticipated future generations that would attempt to take away rights, and thus made it extremely difficult for any such process to be done.

Just wanted to say the United States of America is not a democracy, it is a republic. In fact many framers of the constitution warned of democracy and spoke strongly against it.

Not trying to be petty but I do think details like that are important. There is a massive difference between the two forms of government.

Agree, it's a democratic republic which is unique. It blends and contrasts the best and worst of the two, historically acceptable methods of governing and keeps the two locked in a permanent struggle; with the inevitable hope that it strengthens the country over the longest tests of time.

I would again disagree and the facts in the constitution would agree with me. The word democracy never appears in the constitution, only Republic.

The framers were strongly against democracy and the term "constitutional republic" has only recently been wrongly attributed as the form of government.

The representatives and president are chosen by votes, but that does not make it a democracy or a democratic republic.The actual legal founding document is clear, it is only a republic.

The constitution is a document that was written well over 200 years ago. And while the document has held up extremely well there's part of it that didn't. For we got rid of things like having slaves be counted as 3/5 of a person of representation.

I think the gun provisions have not. For starters it's crazy to think that a militia equipped with a stock pile of firearms can overtake a intrusive government with tanks, choppers etc. It's just not realistic.

Guns were much more important for protection back then. There were parts of the country that were the frontier with no policing ability. Nowadays places around the world when gun ownership is substantially restricted are generally safer places. Just google Australasia before and after.

Gun ownership as touted by constitutional nuts is an idea that had it's time come. Sadly, I think give the political climate a amendment that could fix this (put in wording that lets the government legislate gun ownership) is untenable.

For we got rid of things like having slaves be counted as 3/5 of a person of representation

... by amending it via formal, open process; not by selectively ignoring it.

That is precisely why the Constitution includes a specific means to change it. If that's what is deemed necessary, then there's a process to accomplish it.

Sidestepping the Constitution, or ignoring its enumerated rights and restrictions, however, is unacceptable, and should not be tolerated by We the People.

Thank you. Yes the document is old. If we feel is outdated there is a mechanism * within the law* to change it!

"For we got rid of things like having slaves be counted as 3/5 of a person of representation."

Just in case you didn't know, the "a slave is 3/5 of a person" that is so oft-decried today was an anti-slavery measure. For the purposes of Congressional representation, if a slave was counted as a full person, then the slave-owning states would get expanded numbers in Congress for all the non-voters being kept in slavery. Three-fifths, as opposed to full representation, at least kept them from gaining as much power as they would have otherwise. These things generally aren't as simple as one is often told.

I usually prefer -3/5 to emphasize this.

I wouldn't call it an anti-slavery measure but one of a long series of compromises on the issue of slavery. Considering 3/5 > ((0 + 1)/2) it seems to be a compromise tilted towards the pro slavery side.

From what I understand, the right to bear arms was inclusive of nearly any weapon. There were interesting discussions (at the time) with regards to whether the 2nd Amendment included the right to bear warship, cannon, or repeating rifles. They concluded that it did.

Furthermore, I don't understand why the ease (or lack thereof) of a militia (the present day equivalent for which may be a State Guard) to overtake or resist the (exponentially larger) Federal government has any bearing on our rights. You wouldn't use this sort of argument anywhere else.

I grew up in a county with 1 police officer on duty at night that was 50 miles by 30 miles having a gun felt like a necessity. I now live in NYC and it does not.

What I'd like to see happen is:

1. Licensing guns and their sales, including required training. I liken this to license required around cars / alcohol sales.

2. Closing background check / re-scale & licensing loopholes.

3. Requiring additional insurance from gun owners.

4. Local control over the remaining aspects (can cancel out above mandates).

I don't think you entirely get rid of guns even if all of them are illegal. And the US is a big country that encompasses many diverse areas with competing interests. This scenario accounts for the country / NYC divide. It admin that it does require more from the folks in the country (licensing / training). But that's always a bit of tit-for-tat like the folks in NYC where a big chunk of their tax dollars goes out of state / upstate NY, or utility bills in the city that have taxes for building out access out in further to reach places.

It's sad to see the level of discussion and civility of hacker news be reduced to "constitution nuts" that adds nothing to your argument and detracts from the overall quality of the discussion.

>For starters it's crazy to think that a militia equipped with a stock pile of firearms can overtake a intrusive government with tanks, choppers etc. It's just not realistic.

You mean like every single insurgent force in the middle east in the past few decades?

"I think the gun provisions have not. For starters it's crazy to think that a militia equipped with a stock pile of firearms can overtake a intrusive government with tanks, choppers etc. It's just not realistic."

I disagree. As Tolstoy pointed out, the winner of a war is usually who wants to win more.

Look no further than Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. They humiliated us. Granted, Iraq has no winner yet, but the country with choppers lost badly to a bunch of irregulars with AKs

I support strict gun control as well. I believe we should re-open the NFA registry (closed in 1986 for basically no reason at all), and add most or all handguns to it and probably semi-automatic rifles as well. The NFA proved very effective at reducing (eliminating, actually) murders committed with automatic weapons on the registry, and there is every reason to think it would enjoy the same considerable success at reducing gun violence with handguns and semi-automatic rifles. The SCOTUS has ruled already that such a registry is constitutional and I agree.

However, doing this would also re-open the production and importation of new automatic weapons for civilian use, and so is a non-starter for the gun-control crowd - in spite of the fact that that legal regime actually worked very well for around 50 years. Instead, it appears we will stick to the same ineffective bullshit we've been doing for the past twenty years, restricting ownership based on meaningless distinctions like magazine capacity, forward pistol grips, etc. etc., which accomplish little else than to piss off gun owners (which I suspect, for much of the gun control crowd, is considered a feature rather than a bug).

"The NFA proved very effective at reducing (eliminating, actually) murders committed with automatic weapons on the registry"

That might be a bit too optimistic about the NFA. The NFA likely did reduce the possession and use of machine guns, but one reason for that is that people could just buy semi-automatics instead without dealing with the NFA-related headache, which suited most people just fine. Also, a lot of the crimes committed with NFA-regulated weapons prior to passage of the NFA were related to Prohibition, weren't they?

"I believe we should re-open the NFA registry"

There has been essentially zero gun crime committed with legally-owned and possessed NFA weapons.

I know this, and even refer to that fact in my argument. It's not clear to me what you're trying to say.

Without a clear correlation with better outcomes, I don't see why you would support strict gun control. It seems like you'd be adding complexity and technicality to the system, but admitting that it's pointless.

There is clear correlation via looking at other countries control measures - Australia, UK etc.

There has been a lot of debate over the second amendment to the constitution as it relates to gun ownership. Some say it clearly defines an individual's right to own firearms while other say it clearly refers to the rights of state militias to posses guns.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller

(1939) Here's, Heller(2008)[1]: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-media.ogg/case_data/2007/...

[1] https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290

What a well-conveyed opinion, and a great dictation of it. The debate in the oral argument is a great listen as well.

District of Columbia v. Heller will be one of my sources from now on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

It's a shame that the transcripts are not great. They contain, at times, the complete opposite of what is said.

A "well regulated" militia. Many people do want strict gun control but there is presumably a fairly equal and opposite amount that do not. I think perhaps there could be some kind of universal federal background check at least required at a minimum.

AFAIK it is not a fairly equal and opposite amount that do not. Per the WP citing a recent CBS/NYT poll, it appears as if >=90% of the country is in favor of stricter gun control than we currently have, at least as far as background checks are concerned.

"A "well regulated" militia."

I've never understood this argument. It strikes me (and, apparently, every court that's ever ruled on the matter) as legalistic sophistry of the worst kind.

If the First Amendment read "A well educated legislature, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed." you would argue, what... that only the legislature had the right to read books? That only well educated people had the right to read books?

No, you would not, and neither would anyone else, because that would be a nonsensical interpretation.

You are trying to make words mean what you want them to mean, rather than what they actually do mean.

I find it fascinating that people seriously argue that the Framers spent whole amendment on essentially saying "the state army must be able to have guns, and the state can not infringe this right!". What thought process could lead to an idea that the state would want to ban its own army from having guns and to prevent this, we need a constitutional amendment? The whole concept only makes sense if we're talking about right that can be - and potentially may be - infringed by the state, so treating it as it is concerning any state function literally makes no sense to me. How is it supposed to work?

That’s precisely how the 2nd Amendment was interpreted by the courts until the 2000s. Namely, that its purpose was to prevent the Federal government from disarming and disbanding state militias.

A personal right to own weapons is a very recent interpretation, originally advocated by a small group of activists a few decades ago, and then gaining momentum with the growing power of the pro-gun movement, who claimed it as a central justification for their agenda. It was finally settled as the law of the land by the US Supreme Court 5–4 (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy in the majority) in the DC v. Heller case in 2008.

However, a shift in the Court (if e.g. Scalia or Kennedy resigned and was replaced by a Hillary Clinton appointee) could easily throw the details of this interpretation back into question.

I find it somehow hard to believe that it was universally believed to be personal right only by recent activists, as many state constitutions explicitly treat it as personal right[1].

If people writing those constitutions didn't believe such personal right exists and is important, why would they write so?

There are known examples of prominent lawyers supporting such understanding in 19th century. [2]

It is also hard to believe if you read historical reviews about various gun laws in 19th century [3], where while the public carry of guns was often restricted, nobody doubted the right of people to actually own them, and nobody referred to "collective right" as the reason.

I can appreciate the difference in approaches, but the claim that "individual rights" approach did not exist until recently - and not as a crazy idea in minds of a small bunch of "activists", but as widely recognized and adopted concept - seems to contradict all evidence. NRA was founded in 1871, not exactly "a few decades ago", but "individual rights" interpretation existed and was widely accepted way before that.

[1] http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/19thcentury.htm#N_191_ [2] http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/19thcentury.htm#St. George Tucker [2] http://fabiusmaximus.com/2013/01/24/guns-wild-west-48208/

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