But perhaps I should expand on my thought processes there. There are two reasons for my linking “shouldn’t” and “isn’t” here, neither of which is as stupid as being unable to distinguish between them.
First: There shouldn’t be such a right, and it seems really obvious and not very controversial that there shouldn’t be such a right, and I’m pretty sure most people (gun-rights advocates included) would agree. Leaving aside what the authors of the Second Amendment might have had in mind (they obviously couldn’t have considered my specific examples), if the 2A were commonly understood to require individuals to own stockpiles of nerve gas and nuclear warheads then (if I’m right in expecting that almost everyone thinks that would be crazy) it would likely itself have been amended; but it hasn’t been. Or at least there would have been serious attempts to argue for it to be amended; but I’ve never heard of such a thing. I conclude that most likely the 2A is not widely held to grant such a right.
Second: OrphanWilde appears to be arguing the “should” side at least as much as the “is” side (“the current state of the law is getting slightly better”), and the more interesting and important question seems to me to be whether totally unrestricted weapon ownership should be permitted rather than whether it is, and if I am successful in convincing OW that it shouldn’t be then I don’t really mind that much whether OW decides that the Constitution doesn’t require it to be or that the Constitution isn’t perfect. (Or, for that matter, chooses to hold inconsistent opinions.) Similarly with the question originally at issue. Murray says that the US Constitution has been being ignored for decades and that’s terrible; rebuttals beginning “No, actually the US Constitution hasn’t been being ignored” and “There’s no particular reason why the US Constitution shouldn’t be ignored, in the ways you say it has been” are—if equally well supported by evidence and argument—about equally effective. (The latter might be more difficult to support well since there’s an obvious reason why a nation’s constitution shouldn’t be ignored. But, e.g., perhaps one might argue that in a document so old there are bound to be things that are just out of date now, and that in some cases it’s better to deal with that by a tacit agreement to ignore those bits or reinterpret them rather than going through all the bother of explicit amendments. That might in fact be a good approach if it were widely agreed that the Second Amendment was originally intended to permit ownership of absolutely any weapons, but wouldn’t have been if its authors had been able to foresee how destructive some modern weapons can be.)
[My apologies if this ends up posting twice: either HN or something else between HN’s servers and me is having some problems.]
This debate is about whether the constitution is dead paper.
If you just define the constitution as a document who obviously says the right thing and then you will never come to the conclusion that it’s broken.
[My apologies if this ends up posting twice: either HN or something else between HN’s servers and me is having some problems.]
This debate is about whether the constitution is dead paper.
Mostly. But (as I already said) what actually provoked it is a book saying not only “the constitution is a dead letter” but “and that’s a really bad thing that we should fix”—and in that context, if we find some bit of the constitution that’s allegedly being ignored, it’s then worth asking whether it’s better ignored or not ignored.
If you just define the constitution as a document who obviously says the right thing
I don’t think anyone here is doing that.
I don’t know what you mean with HN.
I mean that at the time I was writing that, attempts to view HN pages were frequently timing out for me, and my first attempt at posting that comment resulted in an endlessly spinning please-wait animation, so I tried again. I wasn’t certain whether my first attempt might belatedly succeed, leaving two copies of my comment.
and in that context, if we find some bit of the constitution that’s allegedly being ignored, it’s then worth asking whether it’s better ignored or not ignored.
Of course that’s a worthwhile question, but it’s different from the question of whether it’s ignored.
I’m glad you approve of my doing so.
But perhaps I should expand on my thought processes there. There are two reasons for my linking “shouldn’t” and “isn’t” here, neither of which is as stupid as being unable to distinguish between them.
First: There shouldn’t be such a right, and it seems really obvious and not very controversial that there shouldn’t be such a right, and I’m pretty sure most people (gun-rights advocates included) would agree. Leaving aside what the authors of the Second Amendment might have had in mind (they obviously couldn’t have considered my specific examples), if the 2A were commonly understood to require individuals to own stockpiles of nerve gas and nuclear warheads then (if I’m right in expecting that almost everyone thinks that would be crazy) it would likely itself have been amended; but it hasn’t been. Or at least there would have been serious attempts to argue for it to be amended; but I’ve never heard of such a thing. I conclude that most likely the 2A is not widely held to grant such a right.
Second: OrphanWilde appears to be arguing the “should” side at least as much as the “is” side (“the current state of the law is getting slightly better”), and the more interesting and important question seems to me to be whether totally unrestricted weapon ownership should be permitted rather than whether it is, and if I am successful in convincing OW that it shouldn’t be then I don’t really mind that much whether OW decides that the Constitution doesn’t require it to be or that the Constitution isn’t perfect. (Or, for that matter, chooses to hold inconsistent opinions.) Similarly with the question originally at issue. Murray says that the US Constitution has been being ignored for decades and that’s terrible; rebuttals beginning “No, actually the US Constitution hasn’t been being ignored” and “There’s no particular reason why the US Constitution shouldn’t be ignored, in the ways you say it has been” are—if equally well supported by evidence and argument—about equally effective. (The latter might be more difficult to support well since there’s an obvious reason why a nation’s constitution shouldn’t be ignored. But, e.g., perhaps one might argue that in a document so old there are bound to be things that are just out of date now, and that in some cases it’s better to deal with that by a tacit agreement to ignore those bits or reinterpret them rather than going through all the bother of explicit amendments. That might in fact be a good approach if it were widely agreed that the Second Amendment was originally intended to permit ownership of absolutely any weapons, but wouldn’t have been if its authors had been able to foresee how destructive some modern weapons can be.)
[My apologies if this ends up posting twice: either HN or something else between HN’s servers and me is having some problems.]
This debate is about whether the constitution is dead paper. If you just define the constitution as a document who obviously says the right thing and then you will never come to the conclusion that it’s broken.
I don’t know what you mean with HN.
Mostly. But (as I already said) what actually provoked it is a book saying not only “the constitution is a dead letter” but “and that’s a really bad thing that we should fix”—and in that context, if we find some bit of the constitution that’s allegedly being ignored, it’s then worth asking whether it’s better ignored or not ignored.
I don’t think anyone here is doing that.
I mean that at the time I was writing that, attempts to view HN pages were frequently timing out for me, and my first attempt at posting that comment resulted in an endlessly spinning please-wait animation, so I tried again. I wasn’t certain whether my first attempt might belatedly succeed, leaving two copies of my comment.
It turns out that there was some large-scale network problem in the eastern US around then.
Of course that’s a worthwhile question, but it’s different from the question of whether it’s ignored.
Good to see we’re in agreement again. (I didn’t at any point say that the two questions are the same.)