The left is still hammering the “collective rights” theory. This attorney thinks that SCOTUS got it wrong on the Heller decision.
Carrying their logic to its extreme, if there is no limitation on the right to own a gun, all 330 million citizens of the United States must be part of a “well regulated Militia.” Are you? I’m not.
Actually, you ARE a part of the militia, whether or not you know it. The militia is actually composed of two parts: The organized militia (the National Guard) and the unorganized militia, which is comprised of all male US citizens between the ages of 17 and 45. See 10USC246:
§246. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
This so-called lawyer doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about, but that doesn’t stop him. He goes on:
No one would seriously argue you have the right to own a land mine or a nuclear-armed submarine.
Who says? The Second Amendment says “shall not be infringed,” and I believe that it DOES protect the right to own a nuclear armed submarine. Now, I am equally sure that many people would agree that citizens SHOULDN’T own a submarine armed with nuclear weapons. In that case, there is a process for changing that. It should not be difficult to get three quarters of the state legislatures and a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress to agree to add an Amendment to the Constitution that reads something along the lines of “No person shall be permitted to own a nuclear warhead.” I mean, the process is outlined right there in the paperwork.
What I can’t find in that Constitution is a clause that permits the government to ignore any clause which it, in its own judgment, finds inconvenient or irrelevant. That is EXACTLY what he argues, however:
The fundamental constitutional proposition many Republicans overlook is that no right is unlimited. That there is a limitation of our rights is fundamental to being civilized. So, for instance, the Supreme Court long ago held that your right to self-expression stops at the tip of the other guy’s nose. You have the right to own a car, but you don’t have the right to drive it at 100 mph through Downtown San Diego.
Of course no right is unlimited. He is just making a poor argument. No one has a right to own a car. There are all sorts of reasons why a person’s ability to own a car may be restricted, as any decent lawyer would know. I would also agree with him that a person doesn’t have the right to drive downtown at 100 miles per hour. A person does, however, have the right to own arms, to include firearms. What a person doesn’t have is the right to stand in the middle of a crowded street and fire that gun into a crowd, and no one is saying that they should, absent a legitimate exception like self defense.
If we are to allow the government to simply ignore the parts of the Constitution that they disagree with, then we can all agree that the founding documents of this nation are no longer relevant and are null and void. In that case, we might as well admit that might makes right, and we are a dictatorship after all.
If I lived in San Diego, I would not hire this moron as an attorney. He doesn’t seem very competent or knowledgeable.