What part of "Constitutional right" is suddenly not clear to a bunch of gun
nuts enthusiasts?
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Originally Posted by zukiphile
The civilian keeping and bearing of arms is a matter of right, and a constitutionally explicit and fundamental one. The government may not curtail that right without due process. A psychiatric "check"is not due process, though a medical opinion can be an important step on the road to being adjudicated an incompetent. [My emphasis.]
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EXACTLY.
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Originally Posted by manta49
I am asking if you would be happy if someone who was known to have mental health problems. That made him a risk to himself and the public should be able to buy firearms without any checks. And would you be happy for the person to be living beside you and your family.
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My happiness isn't the issue. The issue is when it's OK to
deprive someone of a Constitutional right.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
[N]or shall any person... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...
The mechanisms for due process in these cases already exist (see "adjudicated," above), and need to be followed.
It's astonishing to me that so many people are now willing to see the Constitutional rights of others violated in the name of public or personal safety, whether it's in the form of denying them the right to own weapons, or illegal wiretapping, or the extrajudicial murder of U.S. citizens. (Note the current position of the Justice Department on the latter, which is basically that due process simply means that someone in the Govt. says it's OK; why are we not -- speaking, of course, metaphorically -- up in arms about this??? But I digress, sort of.)
Sorry if I'm shouting, but... jeez.