There Are No ‘Absolute’ Rights

[xchrom]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/05/there-are-no-absolute-rights.html


Attendees hold handguns in the Sig Sauer booth during the 2013 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 4, 2013 in Houston, Texas. (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

Every time I write a column on guns, the howl arises that I am talking about a right that is enshrined in the Constitution, buddy, and I better watch myself. The howl then transmutes into an extended harangue that this right is absolute, and no libtard fascist, whether me or the Satanesque Dianne Feinstein, is going to limit the right in any way. The first soldier to charge across this rhetorical veld is followed by hundreds harrumphing their assent. The only problem is that it’s an ahistorical, afactual, and barbaric argument. No right is absolute. In fact, the Second Amendment arguably has fewer restrictions on it these days than many of the other first ten, and there is and should be no guarantee that things are going to stay that way. In fact, if we’re ever going to be serious about trying to stop this mass butchery that we endure every few months, they cannot.

Let’s begin by going down the list and reviewing various limits placed on nearly all the amendments of the Bill of Rights (I thank Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center for helping me out here). The First Amendment, of course, guarantees the right to free speech and assembly, and to worship as one pleases. There haven’t been that many restrictions placed on the freedom to worship in the United States, although there is a steady stream of cases involving some local government or school board preventing someone from wearing religious clothing or facial hair or what have you. Sometimes a Christian school or church is denied a zoning permit; but more often it’s the freedom to worship of a minority (Muslim, Sikh, etc) that is threatened.

As for free speech, of course it is restricted. Over the past 50 or so years in a series of cases, courts have placed a number of “time, place, and manner” restrictions on free speech. To restrict speech in general, the government must meet four tests. But this is always being revised and negotiated. Here’s one restriction on the Bill of Rights that I’d wager most conservatives would happily approve of. In 1988, the HHS under Reagan promulgated rules prohibiting a family-planning professional at a clinic that received federal dollars from “promoting” (i.e. telling a woman about) abortion. This was challenged partially on free-speech grounds. In Rust v. Sullivan (1991), the Supreme Court held that these rules did not violate the clinicians’ free-speech rights. So far as I can see, this is still law. It’s just one example from many free-speech restrictions that have been imposed over the years, as you can see here.

Let’s skip the Second Amendment for now. The Third Amendment—my personal favorite—proscribes the private quartering of troops. Not so relevant to life today—in fact, the Supreme Court has apparently never considered a Third Amendment challenge. Onward.

[hack89]

1. An AWB is perfectly constitutional. nt

[madville]

2. Because it limits what an AW can look like

Not how it functions. I wouldn't say an AWB is constitutional because it is a "reasonable restriction", I would say it's constitutional because it's weak, ineffective and loophole ridden.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Who is the author? Last time someone pushed the Beast at me, the author turned out to be

funded by the Koch Brothers, he husband working for them, taking grants from them and she was duplicitous about reporting those facts, the time previously I read the Beast, the article was filled with absolute lies and made up crap, when corrected the editors there thought it was funny that they had printed lies.
So unnamed Daily Beast authors are even less trusted than the named ones in my book.

[xchrom]

4. in this case -- i don't know who this author is -- and the koch's are EVERYWHERE.

but just as a statement -- i would say it's a true thing -- there are no absolute rights -- we interpret things all the time.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. The piece is in the first person but without a byline.

Just saying. I have no respect for the liars and hacks at the Daily Beast.

[ileus]

6. I want to see one of the new Sig p227's

in person...I'd love to have a sig 45 for home defense and general range plinking.


Of course Ruger come out with the SR45 this year, I'll need to take a look at that one also.

[WillyT]

7. K & R !!!