From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Fri Sep 13 2002 - 08:01:02 PDT
John,
>The framers could never have envisioned Television, the
>net......radio........using your logic on the 2nd Amendment.....free
>speech will have to be regulated
You missed my point entirely. I said it can be argued more than one way,
and that is obviously true otherwise we would all be owning Stingers and
tactical nuclear weapons if we wanted to. Those who think that the 2nd
Amendment should cover anything and everything do not understand how the
Founding Fathers set up the Constitution. They set it up to be
interpreted by the standards of the day, not followed slavishly based on
the standards of the past. They knew they didn't have all the answers.
They also knew that standards change over time. The best example of
this is that the Constitution guaranteed that all "men" should live free
and as equals, while at the same time many of the guys who signed the
same piece of paper OWNED slaves. Not only that, their concept of
"unreasonable search and seizure" would be shouted down as Nazi like by
today's standards (the laws of the VERY recent past would make the
seizure of your M114 seem like a mild inconvience).
Since the Constitution was written to be a guideline, with the Supreme
Court as its guardian, the notion that there is some sort of absolute,
unchangeable, or unregulable clauses in it is pure nonsense. The
Founding Fathers were smart enough to know that they weren't perfect and
that society changes. If the Constitution was not designed to have its
details changed with the culture it was designed to protect, it would not
be going on its 3rd century of use. Any Constitutional lawyer or scholar
will tell you that, no matter what their stance on the 2nd Amendment is.
Do I want the 2nd Amendment to remain interpreted pretty much as it has
been? You bet. But I am not blind enough to see that there is more than
one way to interpret it. I just hope the courts continue to (generally)
favor my point of view instead of the gun control freak's.
Steve
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