01-16-2016, 05:55 PM
(01-16-2016, 02:48 PM)eppie Wrote: What I don't get is that everybody in the US (well the pro gun people) are always referring to a document that was made in a time that was so much different than our current time.
How can you use the argument of a 'right' that was written down in a document from a time the country was continuously at war on its own turf, a country that had large parts of the population who were not allowed to vote (lets say it was a kind of IS caliphate avant la lettre), when there were no cars, no functioning government (compared to now) etc.
I mean without giving an opinion about pro or con guns. How is it possible that such amendments have never been changed in the constitution?
Laws continue until they are changed, and they change when there's the political will and power to do so. Alcohol prohibition was really unpopular (the 18th amendment) and so they repealed it (the 21st amendment). Gun rights are not so unpopular, and so they stay on the books. You can't change the laws until you can convince enough senators and congresspeople to vote for it, and they're not likely to change their minds until their voters do.
To make a slightly different, Mancur Olson style argument: Some states have gun legislation not too dissimilar to Canada, which may explain why they don't lobby harder for the repeal of the 2nd amendment. They've got most of what they want, and have little incentive to push much harder. Other states basically allow you to own a private arsenal, and they're quite defensive about that, so push very hard to keep the laws on the books. Even if a majority might repeal the 2nd amendment (and I don't think that actually is the case), the minority fights harder for the rights that are important to them, than the majority fights to revoke them, because they don't care as much. This is how lobby groups function in general.
-Jester