Well indeed, the Constitution does not create any rights at all. The Constitution does recognize certain rights, but explicitly recognizes that there are other rights that people have which are not spelled out in its text. Balancing the natural right of rebellion with a stable government's need to be able to put down illegitimate insurrections is one of those hard tasks of governance that isn't reducible to a simple rule. "Insurrection is a right" or "insurrection is never right" are both immoral principles because they would lead either to chaos or tyranny.
The Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, explicitly recognizes the right -- and the duty -- to revolution under specific circumstances. There is no way to disentangle the American project from the Declaration of Independence, nor from the insurrection and revolution that gave rise to America and its subsequent legal forms, including the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the Center has it backwards: an attempt to violate the natural right to arms would, by itself, justify a revolution. It is a basic violation of natural rights to disarm a population in order to render them subjects.
Fortunately the Center is as wrong pragmatically as it is theoretically; the estimates of AR-15s in American hands alone runs to one-in-twenty households, or perhaps 44 million spread across this vast nation. The resources do not exist to strip even that one rifle out of American hands, not if every police agency in the country turned their hands to the project at the expense of all else. If you called up the whole of the US military and put them to doing it, each servicemember would need to collect 22 rifles apiece. If you drafted the whole population of age for it, they'd still each need to bring in three -- and that's assuming that the whole population was willing to be drafted into such a program.
Give it up. The ship has sailed. You live in an armed society, and also one of the most peaceful on earth: much of the United States has a murder rate of zero.
11 comments:
...yet another of the endless calls for gun control....
In that regard, my own endless call for gun control is a tight group with full awareness of the target surround. The Center for Gun Violations Solutions can follow Dick Cavett's advice on folding and sticking their call.
If you called up the whole of the US military and put them to doing it, each servicemember would need to collect 22 rifles apiece.
But, but. No less a light than Eric Swalwell has pointed out that in any contest between the Federal government and us ordinary Americans, the Feds have nuclear weapons. And our Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has said that we'd need F-15s to take on the Federal government. Although I also interpret that last as Biden's acknowledgment of our 2nd Amendment right to own and fly F-15s, should we be able to afford one.
My own view of the relationship between our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution is that the former, which acknowledged some inalienable rights (not claimed to be an exhaustive list) along with certain duties, is our principles statement, and our Constitution is our blueprint for bringing those principles to action. And together, they form our two founding documents.
Eric Hines
“…Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has said that we'd need F-15s to take on the Federal government…”
They do say these brain-dead things, but the opposite is true. The US military is optimized for fighting countries with F-15s or similar: these weapons systems require intricate and easily broken supply chains.
Where American armies have trouble is with popular resistance by lightly armed irregular forces. The USAF could easily whip Greece in spite of its 153 F-15s; but the whole military together lost Afghanistan after twenty years of effort.
I'm not sure our military lost Afghanistan, your valid point regarding what our military is optimized for notwithstanding, so much as our politicians lost that war, first through mission creep and subsequently through their micromanaging how our military would be allowed to fight.
That latter is reminiscent of how we lost the Vietnam War.
Our military does well in most kinds of fights, albeit it needs time to (re)learn lessons it ought not need to. It's our politicians who don't know how to fight any sort of war.
Eric Hines
I would have said something similar at one time. Especially after the military “planning” on display during the withdrawal, though, I think the brass has to own a big share of the loss in Afghanistan. It explains why they never adapted their strategy to one that might win, and demonstrates how badly the military art has been lost at the highest levels.
Indeed, just the fact that they held no one responsible for the disastrous withdrawal shows me that it’s not just the politicians screwing up our victories.
I guess I've always considered that brass--the flags in the Pentagon--to be politicians first and foremost, along with the civilian managers (hardly leaders) comprised primarily of SecDef, his staff, and the civilian service secretaries and their staffs.
Eric Hines
You know that phrase about the Living Constitution? It just occurred to me that the really mean the Dying Constitution.
A significant insight, AVI.
* An error of memory on my part -- Greece has 153 F-16s, not F-15s.
* An error of memory on my part....
True enough as far as it goes, but it doesn't invalidate your point. I say you were speaking metaphorically, anyway.
AVI, my claim is that our Constitution is dying only in the hands of activist judges who insist that the Constitution lives on the judicial bench, refusing to accept that it's alive and well and vibrant in the hands of We the People through Article V.
Eric Hines
“…in the hands of We the People through Article V.”
Or, failing that, to bring this around full circle, the hands with rifles in them.
They’re beginning to become aware of what they’re courting; they still believe that a legislative maneuver might save them. It already can’t; if peace is wanted, there’s only one road.
"I guess I've always considered that brass--the flags in the Pentagon--to be politicians first and foremost"
Careful Mr. Hinds, apparently many flag officers take umbrage at statements like that (though to my mind it's of necessity as much as anything else). Mark Hertling blocked me on twitter for daring to say such a thing.
apparently many flag officers take umbrage at statements like that
Let them. They'll find out how much of a rat's patootie I give about their...umbrage.
Aside: Blogger's spell checker just rang my irony bell. It thinks rat's "patootie" should be rat's "patriotic...."
Eric Hines
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