Eris wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 9:07 pm
CDFingers wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 8:35 pm
Californians, I wouldn't hold your breath. The quote below is from a conservative justice, Scalia.
The late justice also more generally offered the belief that “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” It is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose".
The rule of law is the rule of law, not "what I want to be so."
CDFingers
Lately I've been thinking that it *should* be the right to keep and bear any weapon for any purpose. Sort of.
I'm of the firm opinion that the powers and rights of government derive from the powers and rights of the individual people. Where else would government get it's power? Thus if government, for example, has the right to nuclear weaponry then logically individual people must have the same right. (I don't believe in collective rights not shared by individuals.)
Of course, I don't actually believe that governments have a right to possess nukes, either, so there is that.
I think this is a limited argument. It's not individuals having their own nukes that scares me--construction of even a simple fissionable device is a very complicated and precise process, involving very high levels of mathematics, physics, engineering, machining, combined with incredibly difficult to obtain and handle materials, from weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, to heavy water.
However, it is much, much easier for people with basic college chemistry, or even high school chemistry, to create and contain deadly poisons from fairly common substances, like castor beans. Even virulent contagious diseases, difficult as they are, are much easier to deal with than nuclear devices. Hell, regularly some crackpot is found to have obtained (illegally) highly dangerous and deadly animals that he or she either hasn't contained correctly, or hasn't properly cared for.
And, no, I don't think my next door neighbor should be allowed to keep a large supply of Ebola in his fridge, because "I gotta right to keep 'n' bear any arms I want!"
And, while I agree that no nation SHOULD be allowed nukes and other WMDs, that genie has been out of the bottle since 1945 and can't go back in. Also, NO nation should be allowed to start a war. And dogs shouldn't bite and bees shouldn't sting...and ticks' only value is as bird food.
At least cows and pigs don't fly...
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."