So some people are blaming “political correctness” for the San Bernardino attacks because people weren’t reporting suspicious activity for fear of “appearing racist”. So does that mean we should be reporting “pro-lifers” like Robert Lewis Dear or neo-Confederates like Dylann Roof, or does this just apply to Muslim Americans?
It is not uncommon to see people argue that the right to bear arms is actually more guaranteed than the basic human right of freedom of movement, as there is an amendment protecting the right to bear arms but no specific text protecting the freedom of movement.
But the fact is that the freedom of movement was considered so fundamental that it wasn’t explicitly enumerated but has nevertheless been held up by the courts as guaranteed by the main text of the Constitution.
Freedom of movement under United States law • Wikipedia
And 49 U.S. Code § 40103(a)(2) guarantees the right of freedom of movement by air:
A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace.
This is based on the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 § 104
There is hereby recognized and declared to exist in behalf of any citizen of the United States a public right of freedom of transit through the navigable airspace of the United States.
…which in turn uses similar language as the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 § 3:
There is hereby recognized and declared to exist in behalf of any citizen of the United States a public right of freedom of transit in air commerce through the navigable air space of the United States
I will concede that it might not be a great idea to base who should be denied constitutional rights based solely on the “no-fly” list and other sources that designate “potential terrorists” but that’s only because of the error-prone and due-process-free nature of those lists.
It should go without saying that anyone who is justifiably denied the right of freedom of movement should also be denied the right to bear arms.
Even this SCOTUS does not think the Second Amendment is totally unlimited. You do not have a constitutionally-protected right to bear assault rifles.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge to Assault Weapons Ban in Chicago Suburb • 2015 Dec 7 • Adam Liptak • New York Times
Supreme Court lets local ban on assault weapons stand • 2015 Dec 7 • David G. Savage • Los Angeles Times
The court’s decision, while not a formal ruling, strongly suggests the justices do not see the 2nd Amendment as protecting a right to own or carry powerful weapons in public.
One of the more disingenuous arguments against gun regulation is that laws don’t prevent crime, therefore they are useless.
As Jim Wright points out, the purpose of law is not necessarily to prevent crime, but to give victims and society explicit recourse against transgressors.
One form this argument also takes it the idea that we “cannot legislate morality”. This is true, but MLK, Jr. also says:
Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there’s half‐truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963 Western Michigan University speech
What better way for a tyrannical government and its autocratic oligarchs to keep its citizens under control, by allowing some of its citizens to keep the rest of the populace under constant fear of extrajudicial arbitrary killing, and letting citizens slaughter each other without due process, all the while as these citizens believe that they are upholding freedom.
And the autocratic oligarchs get richer and richer as they sell you ever more powerful weapons that will allow you to kill even more and more of your fellow citizens at a faster and faster rate, yet which will still be woefully inadequate against government forces.
You Are Not Going to Resist the Government With Your Guns • 2015 Dec 7 • Marc Randazza • Popehat