Chicago Tribune: Repeal 2nd Amendment

I suppose that this is what desperation sounds like.

Even the writer states that the 2nd Amendment won't be repealed and even that gun control measures don't work, but he wants to open the debate.

Well, let's debate.

The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor.
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We can argue about the effectiveness of municipal handgun bans such as those in Washington and Chicago. They have, at best, had limited impact. People don't have to go far beyond the city borders to buy a weapon that's prohibited within the city.
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Repeal the 2nd Amendment? Yes, it's an anachronism.

We won't repeal the amendment, but at least we can have that debate.

/5rn74q

The writer worries that the right of the citizens to have the government protect them has been taken out of their hands.

Having the government protect us is exactly the problem.

People, most people anyway, don't trust the city or the municipality to come to their aid in a timely manner. Indeed the courts ruled that the police have no obligation to protect any one citizen and if that's going to be the case, then every citizen should be allowed to protect himself--anywhere.

In the especially gruesome landmark case the “no-duty” rule got ugly. Just before dawn on March 16, 1975, two men broke down the back door of a three-story home in Washington, D.C., shared by three women and a child. On the second floor one woman was sexually attacked. Her housemates on the third floor heard her screams and called the police.
The women’s first call to D.C. police got assigned a low priority, so the responding officers arrived at the house, got no answer to their knocks on the door, did a quick check around, and left. When the women frantically called the police a second time, the dispatcher promised help would come—but no officers were even dispatched.

The attackers kidnapped, robbed, raped, and beat all three women over 14 hours. When these women later sued the city and its police for negligently failing to protect them or even to answer their second call, the court held that government had no duty to respond to their call or to protect them. Case dismissed.

psacake.com...

The author insists that the people of Wash., D.C. already had the right to protect themselves with long guns, but have you ever tried to wield a long gun in a cramped apartment or hold one steady while trying to call the cops?

The editorial states that the Second Amendment is an anachronism. That would only be true if liberty is an anachronism.

The one who opines says that the Second Amendment is ambiguous, but that is only so if you are completely ignorant of history. It is only true if you've never read the individual writings of the founders.

In a historical perspective, in the context of the other rights guaranteed by the Constitution and in the context of the collective writings of the founders, in the language of the day, the Second Amendment can mean only one thing--that the Amendment guarantees the right of the individual to keep and bear arms for the collective good and that that right shall not be infringed.

I learned that in the fifth grade. I had wonderful teacher who made that point to us explicitly. She was right then and she's right now. It was true in the eighteenth century and it's true in the twenty-first.

Metaphorically speaking, the Second Amendment is the cornerstone of liberty. It is the keystone for all the other rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

This comes as no surprise. The SFGate also called for the repeal of the Second Amendment.

The Bill of Rights is as close to a sacred document that I can think of. The very thought of repealing it or neutering it by distorting language is anathema to me.

These calls for repeals have been rumbling around for quite awhile, but it seems that now they are reaching a crescendo.

But I also believe that if the Constitution says yes, you can't just blithely pretend it says no. Thursday's decision appears to leave room for laws that place some restrictions on gun ownership but still observe the Second Amendment's guarantee. If not, then the way to fix the Constitution is to amend it - not ignore it.

/4dkp7n

[edit on 2008/6/30 by GradyPhilpott]

I'm not sure why people insist upon wanting the government, any government, to protect them. When again, and again, the government, any government, proves incapable of doing this.

I'll protect me, thank you. I'm an adult, capable of doing my own protecting...if only by getting the hell out of the way of whatever is heading my way.

Thanks for the information posted. I am in agreement with the points you have made and the importance of the 2nd amendment.

I feel those on the fence, so to speak, about the 2nd and firearms should read the material linked and give those points some thought.

Between the Tribune and Mayor Daley, Chicago seems to be becoming a real hotbed of idiocy...

Bring on the debate

I am not losing much sleep over it, an attempt to repeal any of the Bill of Rights would go over like a lead balloon.