| Tyrone Slothrop |
05-19-2004 07:32 PM |
Andrew Sullivan, about to jump ship
Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
You'll lose that one, and this comes from an anti-gun person.
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I am a pro-gun person, but I have never seen anyone argue persuasively that the framers of the Second Amendment believed that there is a right to bear firearms that is not defined in some way by the need for a well-regulated militia, or that United States v. Miller was wrongly decided. This business about individual rights and group rights is a canard. There is a right to bear arms, just as there is a right to free speech. But the right to bear arms is not unlimited, and its limits are defined by the purpose stated in the text of the Second Amendment -- the need for a well-regulated militia. Just as the right to free speech is not unlimited -- e.g., time, place and manner restrictions, and libel law. Those who want to enlarge the right to bear arms are usually engaged in an effort to ignore the plain text of the Second Amendment, not the sort of things conservative usually abide.
I like guns, but I don't pretend that the Constitution gives me a right to keep and bear them.
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