If the IV Amendment Can Be Suspended

[The Whiskey Priest]

Because we lost 3000 in the attack on the twin towers, then why not suspend the II Amendment because the same year, 2001, we lost 29573 to death by firearms?

[proud2BlibKansan]

The constitution is just a god damn piece of paper

Don't you know that?

[pinkpops]

1. guns dont kill people. Airplanes kill people.

[Talismom]

2. No, the cable guy says, "Guns dont kill people, husbands who come

home early do!"

[pinkpops]

3. dats a good one

[benEzra]

4. The Constitution CAN'T be "suspended"...

that's a neocon myth.

The Constitution CREATED the office of the President, and Congress, and grants them their authority.

If the President or Congress "suspend the Constitution," they've just suspended the document that grants them their authority. With the Constitution suspended, the President does not have absolute power; he has NO power. He becomes just another citizen of the (former) United States, who happens to live in a big house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

That's sort of like imagining that I as a husband can "suspend my marriage license," thereby giving me dictatorial powers over my wife, when in fact suspending my marriage license would make me no longer a husband. Or a corporate CEO imagining he can dissolve his company's charter of incorporation, thereby making him a SuperCEO with unlimited power over his employees and no accountability to the stockholders, when actually dissolving the charter would dissolve the company.

To quote Alexander Hamilton (who I believe had a thing or two to do with the creation and adoption of the Constitution )... :)

The Federalist #78

The Judiciary Department
Independent Journal
Saturday, June 14, 1788
(Alexander Hamilton)

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed78.htm

FWIW, in 2001, we lost ~100,000 lives to alcohol. Many/most of those firearms deaths were also alcohol related (most were suicides, and a large percentage of homicides are also alcohol related). Should we bring back the 18th Amendment and ban alcohol? No, because banning alcohol didn't work...