[483] in libertarians
Re: ACLU
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Travis Corcoran)
Thu Dec 8 18:58:59 1994
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 94 18:52:08 EST
From: tjic@ICD.teradyne.com (Travis Corcoran)
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <9412082217.AA19076@frumious-bandersnatch.MIT.EDU> (sethf@MIT.EDU)
> From: sethf@MIT.EDU
> Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 17:17:41 -0500
>
> One more round of the canonical ACLU flame war ... The
> ACLU-bashers are usually peddling one part utter fabrication, one part
> partisan criticism, and one part real controversy. The ACLU is on-line, at
> URL gopher://gopher.aclu.org:6601, so accurate statements can be obtained
> from that site.
I'll agree with the one part "real controversy". I'll agree with the
one part "partisan criticism", but charges of "utter fabrication"
seem to be a bit excessive. The vast majority of the previous mail
seemed to cite examples of actual ACLU positions:
(1) support for quotas
(2) implicit support for gun control at a National level, and explicit
at at least one state level
(3) cooperation with HCI, Greenpeace, etc.
(4) decrease in percent of cases dealing with 'the rights of free speech, free
press, free exercise of religion, freedom of assembly and association,
and freedom from official acts of racism.'
(5) backing federal funding of free speech/art, as opposed to backing
merely federal tolerance of privately funded speech/art
(6) The situation that was described as "Their attorneys argue that
teenage girls are competent to have an abortion without parental
consent, but a teenage boy can't choose the United States over a
totalitarian state. The only answer that makes sense is that their
decisions aren't based on civil liberties but liberal politics."
(7) The belief that "A fine should always be the preferred form of the
penalty," the ACLU says. For those who do go to jail, "probation
should be authorized by the legislature in every case, exceptions to
the principle are not favored, and any exceptions, if made, should be
limited to the most serious offenses, such as murder or treason." The
group does not mention furloughs. (Policy 242, Criminal Sentences.)
(8) The opposition to "work requirements at government-assigned tasks
as a condition of eligibility for welfare benefits or for any transfer
payments designed to compensate for insufficient income." (Policy
318, Poverty and Civil Liberties.)
(9) The opposition to private parties implementing movie rating
systems. (Policy 18, Rating Systems Sponsored by the Communications
Industries.)
> ACLU answers Issue: Gun Control
>
Notice that they label the issue "gun control" and not "The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms"...
> We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily
> a collective one
The 2nd ammend refers to "the right of the people". If we take this
to mean a Soviet Union style interpretation of "the people", then we
should apply that throughout the Bill of Rights. But in the 4th
ammend we see
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated...
So does this mean that the people of the US retain, in their
group incarnation as the government, the right to be secure with
in the US from searches and seizure only from foreign
governments? Or only from the federal government, but not from
town and state governments? This clearly does not make sense.
Proof by contradiction: the "the people" mentioned in the 2nd
ammend refers to the people individually.
In the 1st ammend we see:
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.
Another group right intended to let delegations of State and town
politicians adress the Federal government? I think not. Once
again, the phrase "the people" is used to indicate and individual
right.
In the 9th ammend we see:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I guess there are other group-rights out there that the states
possess that shouldn't be construed as denied because of other
rights granted to individuals....yeah, that makes sense...
Fianlly, in the 10th ammend we see
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to
the states respectively, or to the people.
So those powers which the neither the feds not the states have
are reserved for the groups of people known as states....er...am
I missing something?
Conclusion: one need go no further than the Bill or Rights itself
to find a contradiction of the the ACLU interpretation of the 2nd
ammend right as a group-right.
> intended mainly to protect the right of the states
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security
> against the central government.
Government bodies do not have rights, they have powers.
> In today's world, that idea is somewhat anachronistic
Why?
> and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than
> handguns or hunting rifles.
Nothing is said in the 2nd ammendment about handguns or hunting
rifles. Even if one accepts the ACLU's position that the rights being
protected are those of the state to have National Guard units and
other state military units, then one must realize that those units do
in fact have tanks, fighters, etc. So why is this relevant?
From ACLU Policy #47:
> Unless the Constitution protects the individual's right to own all kinds
> of arms, there is no principled way to oppose reasonable restrictions on
> handguns, Uzis or semi-automatic rifles.
Notice that the argument is not that "the Constitution clearly says
<X>", but "if the Constitution says <Y>, we wouldn't be able to ban
handguns, Uzis, or semi-auto rfiles, so we must assume that it says
<X>".
> If indeed the Second Amendment provides an absolute, constitutional
> protection for the right to bear arms in order to preserve the power of
> the people to resist government tyranny
Which it clearly does, if one reads either the ammendment itself, or
any of the writings of those who drafted the document or signed it.
> then it must allow individuals to possess bazookas, torpedoes, SCUD
> missiles and even nuclear warheads, for they, like handguns, rifles
> and M-16s, are arms.
One could indeed argue this. In Switzerland it has been argued and
won. Swiss milita units have RPGs, machine guns, mortars, etc.
> Moreover, it is hard to imagine any serious resistance to the
> military without such arms.
How many SCUDs and nukes did the Viet Cong have when they forced the
military of United States to withdraw?
> Yet few, if any, would argue that the Second Amendment gives
> individuals the unlimited right to own any weapons they please.
Given that I am arguing it, we can not accept the "any". It must be
"few"...;)
> But as soon as we allow governmental regulation of any weapons, we
> have broken the dam of Constitutional protection. Once that dam is
> broken, we are not talking about whether the government can
> constitutionally restrict arms, but rather what constitutes a
> reasonable restriction.
Once again the train of logic runs: "We *WILL* regulate weapons. Now
that we have done so, we can't accept the contradiction of doing so in
the face of an ammend that forbids us to do so, so we must accept that
the ammend does not say what it actually does.".
> The 1939 case U.S. v. Miller is the only modern case in which the Supreme
> Court has addressed this issue. A unanimous Court ruled that the Second
> Amendment must be interpreted as intending to guarantee the states' rights
> to maintain and train a militia. "In the absence of any evidence tending
> to show that possession or use of a shotgun having a barrel of less than
> 18 inches in length at this time has some reasonable relationship to the
> preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that
> the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an
> instrument," the Court said.
>
> In subsequent years, the Court has refused to address the issue. It
> routinely denies cert. to almost all Second Amendment cases. In 1983, for
> example, it let stand a 7th Circuit decision upholding an ordinance in
> Morton Grove, Illinois, which banned possession of handguns within its
> borders. The case, Quilici v. Morton Grove 695 F.2d 261 (7th Cir. 1982),
> cert. denied 464 U.S. 863 (1983), is considered by many to be the most
> important modern gun control case.
The ACLU here is not saying that gun ownership is not a fundmanental
right, only that the court has ruled against it being so. Yet somehow
they did not argue in the 1950's and '60's that equal access to the
law, to education, etc. was obviously not a right, as the laws
mandated against it...
FINAL OVERAL CONCLUSION ON THE ACLU/GUN ISSUE: I can see no other
interpretation of the ACLU's stand on the gun issue than that the
ACLU is fundamentally against the right of the individual
American to own guns, despite the obvious evidence in the Bill of
Rights that this was indeed the belief of the Founders.
--
TJIC (Travis J.I. Corcoran) TJIC@icd.teradyne.com
opinions(TJIC) != opinions(employer(TJIC))
"Buy a rifle, encrypt your data, and wait for the Revolution!"
