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Obama and the Second Amendment

Reason's Jacob Sullum takes Obama to task on the Second Amendment:

Under the Second Amendment, Barack Obama says, "There is an individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common-sense regulation, just like most of our rights are subject to common-sense regulation." The leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination thus seems to be on the same wavelength as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which in a decision last March said "the protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment."
[...]
Obama evidently considers that de facto prohibition a "common-sense regulation," since he recently cited Washington's law as an example of constitutionally permissible gun control. "The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gangbangers and random shootings on the street isn't borne out by our Constitution," he said.
[...]
It's not surprising that Obama sees nothing unconstitutional about this situation, since he does not acknowledge that the Second Amendment has anything to do with self-defense. "As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama understands and believes in the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms," his website claims. "He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting" (emphasis added).

This is the only substantive discussion of the Second Amendment on Obama's website. It's part of a document that lists "Protecting Gun Rights" as a subcategory of "Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Sportsmen," which is like listing "Protecting Freedom of Speech" as a subcategory of "Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Auctioneers."

I'm almost finished with my next column, which is about Barack Obama. This was an issue that I looked into and brought up. I don't see how anyone can say that the Second Amendment is an individual right and then say that a government can regulate that right out of existence.

Comments

Danger Will Robinson, Danger!!!

Regardless of political leanings, invoking "common sense" when interpreting individual rights is begging for a fascist implementation of Equal Misery.

They say history repeats itself.
Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, and every other self made demagog of the past century unarmed the people and told them their version of their rights. Our rights were spelled out over 200 years ago by a group of people who had far more wisdom than those who try to interpret what they meant today. Common sense
tells one that our Bill of Rights is constantly under attack by those who would supersede it with a