Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

Enhancing the Police State in the Name of Defending Gun Rights

The Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) has been making noise about a piece of legislation that they are selling as an alternative to the bills being offered by gun control advocates. I voiced my concern based on what was said about the bill in the news. The bill, H1323, was officially unveiled yesterday and I can say it’s not the common sense legislation that was being promised, although it didn’t end up throwing the mentally ill under a bus as I feared. The legislation itself isn’t as bad as what is being pushed by the gun control advocates but it does reek of a desperate ploy to offer the gun control advocates a piece of meat in the hopes that they will relent and an attempt to appear, what Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned referred to as, tough on crime.

Most of the bill consists of amendments to currently existing statutes. The amendments, in general, either requires data be electronically entered into a searchable database, creates mandatory minimum sentences or flat out creates new crimes. From the viewpoint of being touch on crime the bill is effective. Being tough on crime, at least politically, necessarily means granting the state more power, which is never good for the general populace. Because of that fact I find the legislation, overall, troubling. Consider section one of the legislation:

Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 241.301, is amended to read:
241.301 FINGERPRINTS OF INMATES, PAROLEES, AND PROBATIONERS FROM OTHER STATES.
The commissioner of corrections shall establish procedures so that whenever this state receives an inmate, parolee, or probationer from another state under sections 241.28 to 241.30 or 243.1605, fingerprints and thumbprints of the inmate, parolee, or probationer are obtained and forwarded to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. by electronic entry into a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension-managed or federal searchable database within 24 hours of receipt. The bureau shall convert the fingerprints and thumbprints into an electronic format for entry into the appropriate searchable database within 72 hours of receipt if the data is not entered by the commissioner.

Currently Statute 2012, section 241.301 reads:

241.301 FINGERPRINTS OF INMATES, PAROLEES, AND PROBATIONERS FROM OTHER STATES.
The commissioner of corrections shall establish procedures so that whenever this state receives an inmate, parolee, or probationer from another state under sections 241.28 to 241.30 or 243.1605, fingerprints and thumbprints of the inmate, parolee, or probationer are obtained and forwarded to the bureau of criminal apprehension.

The statute, as it currently stands, has no mention of a database whereas the statute, under H1323, would mandate the taken fingerprints be converted into an electronic format and entered into a database either managed by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions or a federal agency. Databases of people in the hands of the state are never good. I won’t post every instance in the bill where information is mandated to be added to a database, I’ll leave that up to you, but much of the bill deals with exactly that and it makes for some rather Orwellian reading.

Second 11 is also worrisome as it creates new minimum sentences:

Sec. 11. Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 609.165, subdivision 1b, is amended to read:
Subd. 1b. Violent felons in possession; violation and penalty; mandatory sentences. (a) Any person who has been convicted of a crime of violence, as defined in section 624.712, subdivision 5, and who ships, transports, possesses, or receives a firearm, commits a felony and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 15 years or to payment of a fine of not more than $30,000, or both.
(b) A conviction and sentencing under this section shall be construed to bar a conviction and sentencing for a violation of section 624.713, subdivision 2.
(c) The criminal penalty in paragraph (a) does not apply to any person who has received a relief of disability under United States Code, title 18, section 925, or whose ability to possess firearms has been restored under subdivision 1d.
(d) Unless a longer mandatory minimum sentence is otherwise required by law or the sentencing guidelines provide for a longer presumptive executed sentence, a person convicted of violating paragraph (a) shall be committed to the commissioner of corrections for:
(1) 60 months;
(2) 120 months if the person has a prior conviction under this section, section 624.713, subdivision 2, paragraph (b), or a comparable law of another state or the United States; or
(3) 180 months if the person has a combination of two or more prior convictions under this section, section 624.713, subdivision 2, paragraph (b), or a comparable law of another state or the United States. Sentencing a person in a manner other than that described in this paragraph is a departure from the sentencing guidelines.
EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective August 1, 2013, and applies to crimes committed on or after that date.

I don’t like prisons, they’re a form of collective punishment as the taxed are forced to pay for the food, water, clothing, housing, and guarding of those convicted of crimes. Minimum sentences are nothing more than a forced duration of how long the taxed are forced to pay for a convicted man’s incarceration. On top of being a form of collective punishment prisons, especially as they exist in the United States, are ineffective. Norwegian’s Bastoy prison island, a novel facility that actually treats prisoners like human beings while requiring them to provide heavily for their own needs, has a recidivism rate of 16% compared to the United States rate of 67.5%. We should be focusing on alternatives to the United States prison industrial complex instead of putting more people in those ineffective cages for longer periods of time. I don’t see the justice in punishing the taxed and putting people in cages, which is why I find this section particularly offensive.

Section 12 specifically makes it illegal to falsely report lost or stolen firearms:

Sec. 12. Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 609.505, is amended by adding a subdivision to read:
Subd. 3. Lost or stolen firearms; false reporting. (a) Whoever informs a law enforcement officer that a firearm has been lost or stolen, knowing that the report is false, is guilty of a gross misdemeanor.
(b) A person is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years, or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both, if the person:
(1) is convicted a second or subsequent time of violating this subdivision; or
(2) violates paragraph (a) while knowing that the firearm has been transferred to someone who intends to use it in furtherance of a felony crime of violence, as defined in section 624.712, subdivision 5.
EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective August 1, 2013, and applies to crimes committed on or after that date.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Under the proposed “assault weapon” ban many people discussed how they would simply report their “assault weapons” as lost. Reporting firearms as lost is one possible way to avoid a gun grab. If H1323 passes, and an “assault weapon” ban later passes, the police will have grounds to kidnap and charge you with a gross misdemeanor if you claim you lost your “assault weapons.” Personally I would prefer it if the police didn’t have grounds for kidnapping me if I reported my arms as lost.

Section 15 is interesting as it would prevent a prohibited person from legally possessing ammunition as well as firearms. I’m not sure why this was added but it’s entirely unnecessary and bordering ridiculous. If a person can’t legally possess a firearm then possessing ammunition is irrelevant since ammunition is meaningless without a firearm and somebody willing to violate a prohibition against possessing a firearm is almost certainly willing to violate a prohibition against possessing ammunition. This section also includes a minor change of language that I’m baffled by:

(3) a person who is or has ever been ordered committed in Minnesota or elsewhere by a judicial determination that the person is mentally ill, developmentally disabled, or mentally ill and dangerous to the public, as defined in section 253B.02, to a treatment facility, whether or not the order was stayed, or who has ever been found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of mental illness, unless the person’s ability to possess a firearm has been restored under subdivision 4 6;

Perhaps I’m wrong about this but if a person has been ordered committed and they refuse to go aren’t they violating a court order and therefore committing a crime? Aren’t redundancy like that what gun rights advocates continuously criticize when new laws are added to the books? Is there some point to adding this language other than to appear touch on crime?

Section 16 creates more minimum sentences, this time for prohibited persons in possession of firearms or ammunition. What I stated about Section 11 is true here, minimum sentences are not going to fix anything as the entire concept of incarceration, at least as it exists in the United States, needs to be addressed. More specifically when it comes to punishing prohibited persons it’s important to point out that many prohibited persons have no violent history, they were merely charged with a nonviolent felony. While there is some ground on which to argue for a person with a violent history being prohibited from owning arms there is absolutely no ground on which to argue for a person with no violent history being prohibited from owning arms. A catchall minimum sentence will adversely effect both violent and nonviolent individuals who violate a prohibition against owning arms.

There is some good news in the bill as Section 19 does establish some mechanism for those prohibited from owning a firearm due to a mental illness to restore their ability to legally possess a firearm:

Sec. 19. Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 624.713, is amended by adding a subdivision to read:
Subd. 6. Restoration of firearms eligibility to civilly committed person; petition authorized. (a) A person who is subject to the disabilities in section 624.713, subdivision, clauses (3) and (5), or United States Code, title 18, section 922(d)(4) or 922(g)(4), because of an adjudication or commitment that occurred under the laws of this state may petition the court in which the adjudication or commitment proceedings occurred or a district court of competent jurisdiction to remove all the disabilities. A copy of the petition for relief shall be served upon the county attorney’s office of the jurisdiction in which the petition is filed. The department or office may, as it deems appropriate, represent the interests of the state in the restoration proceedings.
(b) The court shall receive and consider evidence in a closed proceeding, including evidence offered by the petitioner, concerning:
(1) the circumstances regarding the firearm disabilities from which relief is sought;
(2) the petitioner’s mental health and criminal history records, if any;
(3) the petitioner’s reputation, developed at a minimum through character witness statements, testimony, or other character evidence; and
(4) changes in the petitioner’s condition or circumstances since the original adjudication or commitment relevant to the relief sought. The court shall grant the petition for relief if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the petitioner will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest. A record shall be kept of the proceedings, but it shall remain confidential and be disclosed only to a court in the event of an appeal. The petitioner may appeal a denial of the requested relief, and review on appeal shall be de novo.
(c) The court administrator shall promptly electronically transmit information of the order granting relief to the person under this section to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or to any official issuing a permit under section 624.7131, 624.7132, or 624.714 and notify the United States Attorney General that the basis for the person’s record of firearm disabilities being made available no longer applies.
EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective August 1, 2013, and applies to crimes committed on or after that date.

Honestly this is all the bill should have been, a mechanism for those who have had their legal ability to possess a firearm because of a mental illness to seek redress. While that one nugget of good is nice to see, Section 20 continues the bad by creating a felony for being unable to read minds:

Sec. 20. Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 624.7141, subdivision 2, is amended to read:
Subd. 2. Felony. A violation of this section is a felony:
(1) if the transferee possesses or uses the weapon within one year after the transfer in furtherance of a felony crime of violence; or
(2) if the transferor knows the transferee intends to use the weapon in the furtherance of a felony crime of violence.
EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective August 1, 2013, and applies to crimes committed on or after that date.

How is somebody supposed to know if the person buying their firearm intends to use it to commit a felony? Section 22 effectively makes straw purchases more illegal, unless you’re a law enforcement officer (how else are they going to buy firearms to smuggle to Mexican drug cartels), and the remainder of the bill just demands more data be entered into government managed databases.

My only real question is this: why was a bill introduced at all? Do gun rights activists really believe that gun control advocates will back off if we offer them a sufficient compromise? Gun owners have compromised with gun control advocates numerous times and they have always come back for more. This bill implements nothing that would have prevented the Connecticut shooting, which is what sparked this insanity. The Connecticut shooter murdered his mother and stole her firearms. No amount of data in government managed databases, background checks, or mental health evaluations would have prevented that. There is nothing in this bill would have prevented that. Reading through this legislation, with the exception of Section 19, reeks of a foolhardy attempt to appear tough on crime in the hopes of satisfying statists. No bill, need to get tougher on crime, or data in government managed databases is necessary. In fact we have too many laws on the books as it is.

I leave you to make your own decision regarding this bill. As an anarchist I’m not going to meddle in the affairs of the state or spend my time begging politicians to support or reject legislation. What I will say is that this legislation isn’t good and I wouldn’t write letters or make phone calls to politicians urging them to support it. If you’re going to meddle in the state’s affairs then encourage the politicians to take no action, they’ve done enough damage already.

Another Example of Statist Environmentalism

I’ve discussed statist environmentalism at length on this blog but one of my favorite points to bring up is the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t prevent the emission of pollutants, it licenses pollution. If you want to emit pollutants into the environment you merely have to purchase a license from the EPA.

OK, the EPA doesn’t prevent the emission of pollutants, but they inspect potential sources of pollution to ensure those sources don’t emit pollutants, right? As it turns out, not so much:

Tyler County Emergency Management Coordinator Dale Freeman says just under 20,000 gallons of oil have spilled into Otter Creek off County Road 2590. Tyler County officials were alerted to the spill Saturday by residents who noticed the oil in Otter creek.

[…]

The pipeline is owned by Sunoco Logistics and the company says the leak has been patched up and oil is no longer flowing through the pipeline.

Sunoco sent a statement to 12News via email saying “We will perform a thorough investigation into the cause of the incident. Right now, our priorities are the safety of the community, our employees and contractors, and the protection and restoration of the environment.”

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are helping with the clean up. Crews have been ordered to work around the clock until it is complete.

It’s a good thing the EPA is involved in helping with the cleanup effort. After all they apparently forgot to inspect the pipeline, ensure proper oil leak detection capabilities were built into the pipeline, and ensure proper methods were in place to contain any unexpected spillage. In addition to that the EPA is likely to suffer no consequences for failing its supposed mission of protecting the environment.

A question many people may be asking is what alternatives exist to statist environmental protection. Once again I turn to my friend private law, in this case tort law. Tort laws revolve around compensating victims for damages caused by third parties. This system has been the traditionally chosen system for stateless societies such as medieval Iceland, medieval Ireland, the American Frontier, and Neutral Moresnet. In fact tort law was also traditionally used in the United States against polluters until the 1840s. Before the 1840s a person could sue a coal plant if soot emitted from the plant landed on the plaintiff’s property. After the 1840s the state, who has a monopoly on courts, started allowing polluters to emit pollution if they were also providing a “public good” (a term that was defined by the same court that oversaw the suit). Allowing property owners to sue polluters, and therefore hold polluters entirely responsible for the damages they cause, would likely lead to a reduction in polluting entities. Under the EPA polluters are generally immune from prosecution if the amount of pollutants they emit are below a certain threshold set by the EPA. If a polluter wants to emit pollutants above that threshold they must seek the EPA’s permission. Furthermore the amount of damages a polluter is responsible for paying are generally capped, which is why British Petroleum (BP) was able to get away with leaking crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico without going bankrupt.

Were the state’s protections removed from polluters the cost of polluting would increase and, therefore, the instances of emitted pollution would likely go down. If Sunoco Logistics knew they would be entirely responsible for repairing the damages caused by a spill from their pipeline do you think they would forgo effective leak detection, containment mechanisms, and other safety procedures that would reduce the likelihood and severity of a spill? Probably not, and if they did they would find themselves facing bankruptcy in rather quick order. In fact oil companies may find that running pipelines is entirely too costly and find other methods of transporting oil to refineries or they may choose to build smaller refiners at the oil fields (or even find alternatives to oil).

Under a system of private law inspections and regulations would likely be handled by competing entities that would also be held responsible if they failed to perform property inspections or create effective regulations. The EPA, being a state entity, is immune from consequences of performing a poor job or failing to fulfill its responsibilities. Therefore no recourse exists if the EPA approves something that shouldn’t have been approved. If multiple entities were performing inspections and creating regulations then those who did an effective job would likely be relied on while those who did a poor job would likely become irrelevant and therefore go bankrupt.

So long as we continue to put the state in charge of protecting the environment the environment will face constant threat. Decentralizing the power to protect the environment will give more options and offer victims of polluters easier access to compensation, which would encourage potential polluters to contain their messes.

If History Repeats Itself This is Going to Suck

A billionaire by the name of Clive Palmer has decided to build a replica of the Titanic:

Australian billionaire Clive Palmer unveiled plans Tuesday for construction of Titanic II, a cruise ship designed as a “full-scale re-creation” of the Titanic, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912.

Displaying a blueprint for the Titanic II at a press conference aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Palmer announced that the ship will be built in China and begin carrying passengers in the third quarter of 2016.

It’s obvious that the construction of the Titanic seriously pissed off a deity. Whether it was by Cthulhu’s hand or Poseidon, the ship sank on its maiden voyage. Palmer said “the Titanic was a ship of dreams,” and “the Titanic II will be the ship where dreams come true.” In reality the Titanic was a ship of nightmares. I’m fairly certain that everybody who ever sailed aboard the Titanic had an absolutely miserable time.

If history does repeat itself this is one of the dumbest ideas in a long time.

Raising Minimum Wage

One of the things Obama urged during his State of the Union address was for Congress to increase the minimum wage to $9/hour:

He urged Congress to work with states to provide “high quality” preschool to all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds, and he proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour, up from $7.25 today.

Those of us who have studied the Austrian tradition of economics duly point out that increasing minimum wage also increases unemployment. Minimum wage laws create a barrier for entry, especially for those just entering the workforce and therefore unskilled.

Let’s look at minimum wage laws another way. If raising the minimum wage actually increases the average wealth of the lowest paid workers why stop at $9/hour? Why not make it $100/hour or $1,000/hour? Isn’t it time we stopped screwing around and made everybody millionaires? Wouldn’t that put everybody above the poverty line? No, it would make almost everybody in the workforce unemployable, at least legitimately. Most people don’t produce $100/hour worth of value let alone $1,000/hour. If raising minimum wage to $100/hour sounds preposterous and unworkable why do people think raising it to $9/hour is any different?

A Proposal to Save the Australian Government Time and Money

I don’t claim myself to be a financial genius but I believe I can save the Australian government a lot of time and money:

Three American companies-Apple, Microsoft and Adobe-have been summoned by the Australian Parliament to explain why they charge higher prices Down Under than in other countries.

My proposal is to call of the hearing because I can provide the answer. The reason Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe charge what they charge is because those are the prices people are willing to pay. It’s as simple as that. If I manufacture a laptop, charge $2,000 for it, and enough people buy my laptop to turn me a profit I find acceptable then I know I’ve set the right price. Unfortunately the Australian government is unlike to find, “Because those are the prices the market will bear.” as an acceptable answer.

When do the Savings Begin

I wonder when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will begin living up to its name:

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

There must be some kind of mistake, we were told the ACA was going to reduce the costs of health insurance!

What Giffords Really Said

Gabrielle Giffords has decided to continue her push for stricter gun control. While this isn’t surprising I found here justification for more gun control rather interesting:

The Arizona Democrat, who was shot in the head in a 2011 attack that killed six people, said too many children were dying in shootings.

Giffords claims to want stronger gun control legislation to protect the children from gun violence. In order to accomplish her goal she intended to have violent people with guns threaten nonviolent people with guns. I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of gun control. How can one claim to oppose gun violence while at the same time advocate for people with guns to use violence to enforce gun control legislation? It truly is mind boggling. We’ve seen the results of prohibitions before. During the time alcohol was prohibited state and non-state organized crime increased. The current war on drugs, likewise, has lead to an increase in state and non-state organized crime. Why does anybody think a prohibition against firearms is going to be any different?

Poor Risk Assessment

Every year hundreds of thousands of people flock to the Minnesota State Fair. One of the biggest attractions of the Fair is the ocean of heart attack inducing deep fried food on sticks. Even though the food at the Fair is likely to take a few years off of your life the primary health concern of fair goers appears to be second hand smoke:

The fair’s board of managers voted to ban smoking in virtually all open-air space on the 320-acre grounds starting with the 2013 Great Minnesota Get-Together. Smoking, already prohibited in fair buildings or in entertainment seating areas such as the bandshell and grandstand, will be restricted to designated outdoor smoking areas.

Risk assessment is hard.

Lowering Standards in Public Education

This is unlikely to surprise most of you but fewer and fewer kids leave the state’s K-12 education system with, what I will call, functional literacy. In fact the problem is finally becoming prevalent enough that the state is actually looking to address it:

Fast forward to high school reading today, and you might find that a lot of high school English teachers are identifying with Holden more than their students are identifying with him. Reading scores for American students have dropped dramatically, and the solution could see their world change as well.

“So many kids, often as many as 50 percent, graduate high school … demonstrably not ready for the demands of a first-year college course or job-training program,” says David Coleman, president of the College Board, a nonprofit membership organization that administers standardized tests like the SAT.

When I say the state is moving to address the problem I don’t want to imply that it is trying to determine and address the root cause, that’s not how the state operates. Instead I mean to imply that the state has looked at how it defines functional literacy and is adjusting it, while throwing in a few destructive curriculum changes, so that the numbers appear to be higher without actually fixing the problem:

Coleman is the lead architect of the Common Core Standards Initiative, a sweeping curricula change that integrates nonfiction text into the English program. So where does it leave The Catcher in the Rye and similar literary classics?

That question is one stirring debate over how to integrate nonfiction works into English programs to improve reading scores, while not abandoning the novels that have become the gold standard of high school reading lists.

[…]

Coleman tells weekends on All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden that fiction remains at the heart of English and language arts programs under Common Core, but high-quality literary nonfiction, like the founding documents of the United States, is introduced as well.

In my opinion one of the biggest hurdles to functional literacy is the materials pushed on kids during their K-12 years. Elementary and high schools like to assign kids reading material that is considered classic but that isn’t very useful when kids have no desire to read such works. Instead of encouraging kids to read the state’s education system discourages kids to read by assigning material that most K-12 students find exceptionally boring. I remember the crap we were assigned to read in elementary and high school, none of it appealed to me. Fortunately I had a habit of doing what I wanted instead of what I was told so I read voraciously. For assignments I would, as I assume most kids today are doing, skim just enough material to complete any required test or report or I would forgo reading the material entirely so I could return to reading books I actually cared about (before high school I was reading novels like Jurassic Park and 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Focusing more on nonfiction isn’t going to solve the problem, in fact it may exacerbate it. In order to find things like the founding documents of the United States interesting one must also have enough historical knowledge to put those documents into perspective. Needless to say most state schools fail to teach much in the way of history (and what history they do teach is watered down and entirely boring) so forcing students to read historical material is an exercise in futility. Furthermore the founding documents of the United States are a rather dull read. Most people don’t want to read legal documents such as the United States Constitution. Legal documents lack a story, which requires some kind of conflict. Religions generally teach their laws and doctrines by using parables, which end up being more interesting since they contain story elements such as conflict and character interactions. This was likely done, at least in part, because the writers of religious texts understood that people were usually uninterested in reading and listening to lengthy sterile legal documents. Perhaps it is time we apply that understanding with children today and push them to read fiction instead of nonfiction.

I think the best way to improve functional literacy rates in this country is to introduce a little anarchy into the state’s schools (it’ll never happen unfortunately). Allow students to read material they’re interested in. This doesn’t mean assigning everybody in the class to read Twilight, it means allowing each student to select books they’re personally interested in. If a kid wants to read Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings let him read it an receive due credit instead of forcing To Kill a Mockingbird down their throats.

Gun Control Advocates Like to Contradict Themselves

I maintain a relatively positive outlook most of the time by finding the funny side of things. Because of this I can find the Star Tribune somewhat entertaining at times. If I were a more negative person the Star Tribune would be a constant source of anger. Both the articles written by the paper’s staff and the letter received from their readers are often headache inducing if you try to find any logic. Take the following letter sent to the Star Tribune:

In response to the Jan. 10 letter on gun violence that ended with “Never forget, the Constitution was created to protect us citizens from our government”: This libertarian myth is contrary to the full breadth of the document. According to constitutional scholar Garrett Epps (writing in the Nation, Feb. 7, 2011): “[The] document as a whole is much more concerned about what the government can do — not with what it can’t. From the beginning, it was empowered to levy taxes, to raise armies, to make war, to set the rules of commerce and to bind the nation through treaties and international agreements. … [It] was not written to weaken an overreaching Congress but to strengthen an enfeebled one.”

I actually agree with this paragraph. The Constitution was actually a federal power grab. Before it the federal government was ruled by the Articles of Confederation, which kept most power in the hands of the individual states. In fact the federal government was unable to collect taxes, instead relying on voluntary payments from the individual states, and didn’t have a Supreme Court, leaving it unable to make court rulings affecting people living in the individual states. This is why I’m not a fan of the Constitution, it centralized power and left the door open so the federal government could perpetually grab more power. Had the writer stopped there she may have been able to claim a point but she continued:

The Constitution continues to be a living, breathing document — the 27 Amendments are proof of this — and should not be considered a means to restrict our present laws based on an 18th-century, musket-toting populace.

LUANNE SPEETER, EDINA

She claims that the Constitution is a living document as attested by the 27 amendments that have been made to it. Notice that she specifically indicated the the document is living because of the amendment process, she didn’t claim that the Constitution was a living document because the interpretation of the statements found within can be change over time. She contradicted herself by saying the amendment process is how you make changes to the Constitution then claimed that the Constitution shouldn’t “be considered a means to restrict our present laws based on an 18th-century, musket-toting populace.” The second of those 27 mentioned amendments specifically protects the rights of gun owners from disarmament. On top of that the Supreme Court, which was granted the ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution, ruled in Heller v. District of Columbia and McDonald v. Chicago that the Second Amendment protected the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. You can’t claim that the amendment process is how you change the Constitution and then turn around and ignore one of those amendments.

Gun control advocates can’t help but get caught up in contradictions. Their entire philosophy is contradictory. They claim to oppose violence but demand the state use violence to disarm gun owners and they claim to oppose gun possession but demand that the state be allowed to keep guns.