The US constitution belongs in the history books. We should start from scratch and write a brand new constitution from scratch based on the needs of today's world. And in the next constitution we should put an expiry date no more than 50 years and possibly less because the world changes too fast.
Freedom means the freedom to make your own laws and that should include the power to write your own constitution, at least once in 50 years!
I find it insane that the right to bear arms is considered as sacred as the right to free speech. If it is in the constitution it must be something good. The constitution that never expires keeps the stupid laws much longer than it should because people stop to think and simply believe that if it is in the constitution it must be good. The doctor prescribed it so it must be good.
It is unpatriotic to question the greatness of our constitution and the greatness of our founders. The flaws of the constitution are never discussed and do not get exposed as a result and bad laws continue. If constitution expired today, is there a chance that the new constitution will have right to bear arms?
" I believe in the second amendment" say all the gun owners. As long as there is no one saying the opposite :" I do not believe in the second amendment", nothing of consequence will be done.
In our divided government only those things can be done that make everyone unhappy and not making half the people happy and the other half unhappy.
How many people really want guns for the original reason for which the original intent of the second amendment which was to let the public have guns to fight a renegade government? So why do we still need the second amendment?
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and now Syria , did not need the second amendment to get rid of their dictators. When the US Government cannot control the flow of drugs, you think they can stop the flow of arms into the country if a dictator took control of the country.
The second amendment is only an excuse for gun owners to own guns for fun, a stupidity with a big price tag.
It is time to rewrite the constitution.
You won't believe but this is the exact thought I have been having for a few months. Why do we HAVE TO somehow make beleive that constitution is infalible. But then the creativity of human being is such that they re-construe and re-invent everything and so have they done with every written word. So I won't be surprised that someday it will be clear to all that original intent of founders was to put in a good gun control law (I have already heard that). So just wait... we just need creative people to debate in a way that helps. Also as the demography of US changes probably in another 15 years gun control will be as popular as gun weilding is popular now.
ReplyDeleteThe constitution has been treated like the scriptures that can not be changed but reinterpreted to mean what you want. Rewriting the consitution is a pipe dream but reinterpreting is not. That is what the activist judges do often and are opposed by literalists like justice Scalia. If there was an automatic expiry date on the whole constitution this creative manipulation won't be necessary. The scripture like status of the constitution makes it sacred and not to be criticized and this is what bothers me the most. No one has ever said that the Second amendment is stupid which it is.
ReplyDeleteGun laws should be treated as ordinary laws and not a fundamental right like free speech. The guns laws are like everyone having a nuclear shelter under their houses because of the fear of nuclear war, or people wearing gas masks every day to work for fear of a chemical attack.
The second amendment was put in by the paranoid of the founders who had made it difficult to make any laws at all. First it has to be approved by the House and then the Senate and then by the President and then be approved by the supreme court for being compliant with the constitution and as if that was not enough they put in the second amendment to get rid of a tyrannical government with the use of force.
Try the democratic way first and if you still cannot get what you want then try the law of the jungle, which ironically is the most sacred of laws for the lovers of democracy!
If we have not seen the tyrannical government in 200 years, is it not enough evidence that our system is quiet sound just with dispersion of power into 4 different institutions, the house, the senate, the presidency and the supreme court? We do not need to be paranoid about tyranny.
In engineering terms if you have 5 back up generators and someone wants to get rid of the fifth generator which has not been used in that last 200 years. The fifth generator would only be used if all 4 generators fail and how likely is that when it has not happened in 200 years it would happen in the next 200 years. There is time to take some risk to save the 34000 lives every year because of gun violence just to get rid of the risk of a tyrannical government.
The second amendment is stupidity beyond belief but that is what religion does to us and patriotism is a religion.