The Jackhole of Newtown, CT, Part Two

(Part one, which you should read first.)

This is more of a warning to the gun community: More gun control laws, in some form or another, are coming.

Constitutional rights are not absolute. For example, in the last few decades, both legislatures and the courts have been working hard to eviscerate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. You effectively surrender your 4th Amendment rights against searches and seizures as soon as you put the keys into the ignition of your car. This happens because you can't realistically drive down the street without violating some traffic ordinance. When you do, a cop can pull you over and he can arrest you for the violation instead of giving you a citation. If he arrests you, then your car is towed to a police impound lot and it is given an "inventory search". Which means that when you get into a car, you have entered a police state.

First Amendment rights are not absolute. Depending on the form of speech, government can add time, manner and place restrictions. Content restrictions are harder to enforce, but they do happen.[1] "Protecting our children" is one of the reasons why content restrictions can be legal. It is one of the underlying justifications for restrictions on purveyors of X-rated materials. There are some materials that even possession of will land you in prison for a longer term than attempting to kill someone.

Second Amendment rights are also not absolute. You can't go down to Wal-Mart and buy a M-2 machine gun, a rocket launcher, a gallon of VX or a flamethrower.[2]

One of the mistakes that the gun-control advocates make is that they declare that a certain style of weapon "have no sporting purpose". When asked what weapons do have a "sporting purpose", to essentially concede that those such weapons are legitimate, they decline to do so.[3] The gun-rights advocates have not been gullible enough, at least since the 1980s, to play that game. And because the gun-control advocates won't budge from their "no" tactic, national legislation generally goes nowhere.[4]

The smartest thing to do, now is to say: "OK, so you say that EBRs[5] have no sporting purpose. How do you define a 'sporting purpose' and what firearms fall under that criteria?" They won't do that, they'll just keep with the "these guns are bad" drumbeat. And for now, at least, there will be no national change in gun-control legislation.

Even when the gun-control advocates proclaim that this needs to be done "to protect our children", then they should be made to define what firearms are OK to possess. They won't, for they probably feel that there are millions of families looking at what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary and saying "there, but for fate/luck/grace, go I" and they'll be able to ram a ban through. I think that a blanket ban will fail, for there are enough Democrats who know that they will lose their cushy legislative jobs if such a bill goes through.

Sooner or later, though, the gun-control advocates are going to break the code and offer to discuss what is and what is not a "legitimate sporting purpose". And then the "not now, not ever" gun-rights advocates are going to be faced with the same dilemma now faced by the "no tax increase, ever" crowd: Either negotiate or have something crammed down their gullets.

(Part Three follows.)
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[1] Both sides of the political spectrum try this.
[2] I am not getting into a discussion of what weapons are legal and what are not.
[3] In this, they negotiate like the GOP on budget matters: "We want more cuts, so you tell us what more you'll cut."
[4] Expect to see a complete black-rifle ban enacted in CT, if not a few other states.
[5] "Evil black rifles".