Hi fellow liberals.
It’s me, Mike. Can we talk for a
minute? Now you know I love each and every
one of you—although
the “nominate #Bernie or I’m gonna take my bat and ball
and go home” crowd really tests me—and I think I’ve been a staunch advocate for
gun control, but we’re going just a little bit crazy. There’s a lot of complaining about the defeat
of a bill that would have prevented people on the terrorism watch
list from buying guns. What’s not to
love, right? They’re on a TERRORISM
WATCH LIST for crying out loud!
Here’s the problem.
Those people have not been convicted, or even charged, with any
crime. At all. That’s a real problem. Our Constitution, for good or ill, prevents
the government from stripping away rights without due process. And, yes, buying a gun is a right. Sure, we could have a big argument about the
militia clause in the Second amendment. Sources
on the ratification debate sure look like the framers of the amendment envisioned
militia service in conjunction with the right to keep and bear arms (hunting
also comes up…protection against one’s own government does not). This dovetails nicely with the general fear
of standing armies, which citizen militias were supposed to make redundant.
But let me clue you in on a dirty little secret, one the
right has known for years: the Constitution means precisely what five justices
say it means. No more, no less. There is no Platonic form of the
Constitution, no absolute meaning waiting to be discovered. Since the justices have determined that the
right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, it is. Even stranger, their decision means it’s been
there all along. Until another set of
justices decides differently.
Which is the long way around saying that any action to
control access to firearms has to contend with the civil right in the
Constitution. As long as gun buying is a
right, then, it cannot be arbitrarily taken away. For instance, by some bureaucrat adding your
name to a watch list. And passing a
law? I would guess that any such law
would run afoul on the prohibition on bills of attainder right there in the
Constitution (Article One, Section Nine, Paragraph 3).
Now I don’t for a moment think that the GOP voted against
the bill for any reason other than that it’s in the pocket of the NRA. Or perhaps as a simple negative reaction to
Democratic proposals. But it’s possible to cast the right vote for the wrong
reasons. The watch list is notoriously
faulty, with thousands of names on it that shouldn’t be—remember Ted Kennedy?
And, of course, passing a law that blocks people on the
watch list from purchasing guns is an opportunity for abuse. We’re positively giddy that we might stop
suspected Islamist terrorists from purchasing guns. But, and this may be a bit of a slippery
slope argument, would it be hard to imagine a future Richard Nixon having political
opponents placed on such a list? What
other liberties might we permit to be curtailed by administrative fiat? Best to avoid the temptation altogether, and that
means stopping here, by protecting the due process and equal protection rights
of an admittedly unpopular group.
So, really, stop your squawking unless you’re just trying to
score cheap political points. Focus your
efforts on real reforms: universal background checks, waiting periods,
licensing and insurance requirements…and not on “fixes” that accomplish
nothing. Every time we take our eyes off
the prize, and try for a quick feel-good score, we lose a valuable opportunity
to engage the public on actual reform. And
that’s a tragedy.
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