javacodeman
Member
My thoughts exactly.
Washpost: two editorials re:Parker ruling
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My thoughts exactly.
Librarian
Member
I don't see where that has been suggested. The preamble exists to justify the existence of a government in the first place - what is government for? Those things in the preamble are generally the guiding principles for the powers granted to the government in the detailed part of the Constitution. If the document suggests it is a legitimate goal of government "to insure domestic tranquility", then efforts to do that are not for that cause unconstitutional.
As usual, the Devil is in the details; DC seems to have chosen an unconstitutional method to accomplish a constitutional goal.
benEzra
Moderator Emeritus
I personally think that effectiveness is not the primary criterion. Even if civil-right-abridging measures were PROVEN to reduce crime (such as random searches of people walking down the street, warrantless wiretaps of everybody 24/7 in order to catch criminals, etc.), they would still be illegal because the BoR explicitly prohibits the government from nullifying that right.
There is the question of how much regulation is allowed before it becomes infringment, and for those cases a strict-scrutiny test is used. But a strict scrutiny test is more than an efficacy test; it is also an infringement test.
Mongo the Mutterer
Member
The Eagles said it best in their song "Get over it" ...
Librarian
Member
You're right, and I apologize for sloppy writing there.
An unconstitutional procedure that worked to accomplish a constitutional goal would still be unconstitutional.
Effectiveness ought to be one political reason do do or not do a thing, in the sense of "how do we spend the public's money wisely". I'm not having a lot of luck persuading any California politicians around to that view, which is frustrating because few seem to have any higher principles to which one could appeal.
Beatnik
Member
Librarian said:
Bit of a contradiction here. But in effect, that last bit is almost what I was trying to assert.
If wikipedia is wrong, and the preamble actually does grant powers or inhibit actions, then you can argue that words in the preamble mean something about how the constitution needs to be applied.
I am saying that I don't see a need to decide how the constitution needs to be applied. It says what it says. It says things like "excessive bail shall not be required" - completely straightforward things that only come to mean something other than what they actually say only because of how we're trying to apply them.
As it is, the preamble may as well say something like "We the people, because days are shorter in the winter, we do ordain and establish" or "We the people, in order to preserve a free fish canning market". Why the rest of the constitution says what it says, I don't really care. I only care that it says explicit things.
It also says how to change things - and they designed that process to be difficult. Every argument against RKBA pretty much boils down to ignoring the system in order to find the most direct, fastest, easiest way to attain a goal not explicitly within the power of the federal government - and the fact that those ways violate the letter of what's said should make them off limits.
Librarian
Member
Well, OK, but look at this:
"provide for the ... general Welfare" (note the echo from the Preamble) is a power granted to Congress by this section of the Constitution, but no mechanisms or techniques are specified. Congress's choice of mechanisms probably includes things that are constitutional and things that are not, but they are empowered to act with the 'general Welfare' goal. Not all constitutionally permitted things/actions are explicitly written in the text of the Constitution.
The chain of reasoning from major goal:'provide for the general welfare' --> subgoal(x):keep our citizens from being murdered' is understandable. There's not a lot of 'general welfare' associated with murders.
'keep our citizens from being murdered' --> 'no guns in DC' might be reasonable if it worked, but that's irrelevant because it's unconstitutional to attempt to reach that goal by that means.
carebear
Member
Bubbles said:
Notice also that they are comparing injuries and killings with the gun in the home solely with defensive injuries and killings, but they don't make that clear. The number does not take into account defensive incidents that do not result in an injury.
As in you hear glass breaking and go look with your pistol in hand, you point it at the burgler and he runs away with no shots fired. That is a lawful defensive gun use, of the type Kleck and others point out occurs hundreds of thousands of times a year, but it doesn't count in Kellerman's method.
He demands blood.
Also, note that it is "family members and friends". Basically, if either person had prior contact with the other they get lumped in the same as brothers. So a junkie killing his dealer in his home is a "friend or family member" as is a brutalized wife killing her husband or two gang bangers going at it. The study doesn't control for prior criminal history of either party or the nature of their previous interaction, it only cares just that a non-stranger dies or is injured by gunfire.
So the study is more or less useless. But because it is the only remotely scientific study to support the anti-gun side they keep trotting it out for apples to oranges comparisons. Both Kellerman and Brady know better and are thus maliciously lying anytime they reference it.
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