Pushing beyond limits on gun rights
Second Amendment rights are not absolute
8:06 PM, Feb. 17, 2012
Gun rights advocates who have made great strides in recent years are pushing to eliminate even more limits on the right to carry weapons anywhere, anytime. That would go too far, and it is time for advocates of reasonable gun regulations to defend that position.
After eliminating county sheriffs’ discretion in issuing gun permits in 2010, some Iowa legislators want to go even further. Eight bills introduced this session of the Legislature would wipe away state and local limits on possessing, carrying and using guns and ammunition.
State Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, is one pushing to remove those limits. “This is about protecting Iowans’ Second Amendment rights,” he told the Register’s Jason Clayworth. “They have a constitutional right to protect themselves, to carry weapons, to possess weapons.”
The implication is there should be no limit whatever on the right to carry a weapon in Iowa. That goes too far. Every right guaranteed by the Constitution has reasonable limits.
The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom, but the U.S. Supreme Court has said laws that apply generally can be enforced against those who object on religious grounds. In its ruling this month that Mennonite farmers can use steel lugs on county roads, the Iowa Supreme Court left the door open to reasonable regulation of the steel cleats regardless of the religious grounds.
The First Amendment protects freedom of expression, but there are all sorts of time, place and manner restrictions on speech. You cannot put up a billboard in your front yard, the cops can shut down a band that is playing music too loudly, protest groups can be kept away from certain areas, and anyone can be sued for slanderous speech.
The most significant and symbolic gun initiative would amend the Iowa Constitution to add an Iowa equivalent of a Second Amendment. Which raises an interesting question: Why does the Iowa Constitution have no Second Amendment equivalent?
Could it be that the men who wrote Iowa’s constitutions in the middle of the 19th century, who took great care to include their own, more expansive, Bill of Rights, thought a “right to bear arms” was unnecessary?
If so, that suggests the understanding at that time, just a generation removed from the founding, was that the Second Amendment was not about an individual right to bear arms but about preserving state militias. Thus, there was no need for Iowa to duplicate the federal guarantee.
The rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment are not absolute in the view of even most conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a 2008 ruling striking down Washington, D.C.’s, gun control ordinance, the court said, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” Writing for the the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
Indeed, in today’s violent world it is unimaginable that guns should be welcomed into public schools, courthouses where judges handle emotionally explosive cases or businesses that have legitimate concerns about their employees’ safety.
The expansion of gun rights in part reflects public support, demonstrated by the large number of Iowans who have taken out concealed-carry permits in recent years. It also reflects a powerful lobby that has cowed opponents into silence for fear they will be punished by voters. It is time for those who understand that to have the courage to speak up.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120218/OPINION03/302180018/Pushing-beyond-limits-on-gun-rights
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