Armed people are free... a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.

Today the Supreme Court hears a challenge to DC's gun control laws, which amount to a total ban on gun ownership by law abiding citizens. The crux of the matter is whether the Second Amendment grants an individual right to "keep and bear arms." If it does, DC's laws certainly violate that right by preventing the vast majority of people from owning guns. If it does not grant an individual right the DC ban is ok, because people will have no right to own guns (even in their own homes, even for self defense).

I don't know about you, but I'm sure hoping that the Supreme Court considers this case seriously and acknowledges that the Second Amendment grants an individual right. I know it's not politically correct to own guns these days, but the Supreme Court shouldn't be influenced by that. The job of the Justices is to find what the Constitution really means, and to suggest that the Second Amendment doesn't grant an individual right (when it's placed second in a list of individual rights, in a document that is expressly concerned with individual rights) is ridiculous.

I'm not going to get into whether guns or good or bad, or whether disarming the populace and leaving criminals and police as the only people with guns is a wise move. Those questions are for different posts. The really important question, which must be addressed no matter what your personal beliefs about guns are, is whether the Supreme Court should take away a right that was expressly granted by the Bill of Rights.

If the Court somehow finds that the Second Amendment does not grant an individual right, what's to stop them from finding that the First Amendment doesn't either? Or the Fourth, or the Fifth? If the Court starts down that road, I'm afraid to think where it will lead- and you should be too. Don't be fooled into thinking that the Second Amendment is different: it's not. If the Court is swayed this year by the vocal minority of people who believe law-abiding citizens shoudn't have guns, there's no reason why the Supreme Court of 50 years from now will not also be swayed by a vocal minority who believes due process is no longer necessary.

This decision is going to make waves, no matter what it is. Let's just hope it's a move towards reclaiming one of our forgotten rights, not towards more government tyranny.

The title of today's post is a quote by L. Neil Smith (from The Probability Broach).

P.S. Did you know that the American Revolution was brought on by the British confiscation of Massachusetts colonists's arms?

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

Apparently, the Supreme Court may take up the issue of what constitutes an "indecent broadcast" again, since it's been about 30 years since they last considered it. What the Court is being asked to address now is the "problem" of "fleeting expletives" - when Bono and Cher curse on live TV when they're accepting awards, for example. In the cases of both Bono and Cher, the FCC was inundated with calls from viewers and organizations who felt very offended that they, or perhaps their children, were subjected to expletives.

Who are these people? Problem one: they watch award shows. Don't they have anything better to do with their time? Problem two: they call and complain to the FCC. Who does that? Problem three: have they, or their children, never heard anyone say "fuck" before? Or do they just feel that if it's on The Sopranos or on their kid's video game it's fine, but on regular TV it's a problem? It perplexes me.

I feel the same way about the Superbowl halftime show that was a big deal a few years ago- the one with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. If I understand correctly, it's ok for their kids to be up till 10 or 11 watching guys hit eachother, and it's ok for them to watch the two performers grind against eachother in a very sexual way... but it's not ok to see a nipple plate and part of a breast? It's puzzling. I don't agree with Europeans about much, but you wouldn't see people getting (hypocritically) bent out of shape about something so ridiculous over there.

And now, because people don't feel like facing reality and/or because they want TV to raise their kids for them, we're asking the government to erode our First Amendment rights some more. After all, we can't have our precious children hearing expletives while they watch their four unsupervised hours of TV a day. How wonderful. It's always enlightening to see how much our freedoms are worth to these people.

Here's the link to the article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/03/03/court_may_consider_broadcast_decency_rules/
The title of today's post is a quote by H.L. Mencken.