Why doesn't the ACLU fight for the rights of gun owners????

Opinions only please...

If you don't like guns that is fine, but please explain why you think the ACLU should support every other right, except for gun ownership.

Thanks
RGR

http://www.aclu.org/crimjustice/gen/35904res20020304.html

It disagrees with the Court's most recent holding on the subject.

Please give some examples with links of where gun owners have their Constitutional right to bear arms violated. After that, we can start a discussion of fighting for rights.

Civil Rights violations while the NRA and GOA brought the suit and won. The ACLU should, if they really cared about all of the BOR, been active in that case.

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/14793leg20020508.html

The ACLU opposes child pornography that uses real children in its depictions.

Damn. Why are they not out on the streets defending the rights of child pornographers?

First Amendment!!!!

The ACLU, unlike some people, seems to understand that the exercise of all rights is subject to justified limitation.

You and the ACLU may disagree as to what limitations are justified.

Such is life.

whether or not they believe in limitations of civil rights...I believe in limitations too. My point is that I don't understand the logic of their position that the 2nd Amendment is a collective right while all other rights enumerated in the BOR are individual rights. I find this to be a glaring contradiction. Then to continue the contradiction after a SCOTUS ruling to the contrary in favor of a 70 year old abstract ruling on a case which was only argued from one position.

BTW I support the ACLU for the rights they do defend, I am just disappointed they choose not to defend the 2nd Amendment leaving it instead to a politically partisan defender.

of when the ACLU did not do what it should, in some opinions, have done.

You offered post-Katrina. I think that it's as reasonable to think that the ACLU would have regarded that interference as being as justified as the interference in free speech embodied in prohibitions on child pornography. I'm not saying that was their position; just that it could be.

As you may know, I agree that the second amendment protects a collective right, I'm just not sure what collective right the ACLU thinks it protects. I think it plainly protects the collective right to a secure and free state. Your founders & framers thought that individual weapons possession was essential to that end and thus protected the individual right to possess weapons. I think that is nonsense in the 21st century. All reasonable people think it is nonsense.

A collective right to possess firearms makes no sense. I have never disagreed with that position. I don't know whether the ACLU has expanded on its position in this, and would be interested to see what else it may have said, if anything.

If you happen to know where the underlined bit here can be found these days (it's a dead link, as is the one for the ACLU lower down the page):

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96mar/guns/guns.htm

THE tension at the heart of the Second Amendment, which makes it so difficult to construe, is the tension between republicanism and liberal individualism. (To put it very simply, republicanism calls for the subordination of individual interests to the public good; liberalism focuses on protecting individuals against popular conceptions of the good.) A growing body of scholarly literature on the Second Amendment locates the right to bear arms in republican theories of governance. In a 1989 article in the Yale Law Journal that helped animate the Second Amendment debate, the University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson argued that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms so that, in the republican tradition, armed citizens might rise up against an oppressive state. Wendy Brown, a professor of women's studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and David C. Williams, a law professor at Cornell University, have questioned the validity of a republican right to bear arms in a society that lacks the republican virtue of being willing to put communal interests first. Pro-gun activists don't generally acknowledge the challenge posed by republicanism to the individualist culture that many gun owners inhabit. They embrace republican justifications for gun ownership, stressing the use of arms in defending the community, at the same time that they stress the importance of guns in protecting individual autonomy.

I'd be interested in reading it. I know that Levinson has been cited in this forum in the past.

That article itself seems interesting, although I have not had a chance to read it all yet. Another snippet:

DURING the two-day seminar held by Academics for the Second Amendment, we argue equanimously about nearly everything--crime control, constitutional rights, and the fairness and feasibility of gun controls--until I question whether, 200 years after the Revolution, citizens armed with rifles and handguns can effectively resist the federal government. I ask, If Nixon had staged a military coup in 1974--assuming he had military support--instead of resigning the presidency, could the NRA and the nation's unaffiliated gun owners have stopped him? For the first time in two days Don Kates flares up in anger, and the room is incandescent.

"Give me one example from history of a successful government oppression of an armed populace," he demands. The FBI raid on David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, doesn't count, he says, because Koresh's group was a small, isolated minority. The Civil War doesn't count either. (I can't remember why.) Neither do uprisings in Malaysia and the Philippines.

People like me think it is possible to oppose the government only with nuclear weapons, Kates rages, because we're stupid; we don't understand military strategy and the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare, and we underestimate the hesitancy of troops to engage their fellow citizens in armed conflict. Millions of Americans armed only with pistols and long guns could turn a bloodless coup into a prolonged civil war.

Perhaps. I am almost persuaded that Kates might have a point, until he brings up the Holocaust. ...

Goodness. Kates sounds less appealing all the time.

And:

The irony of the Second Amendment debate is that acknowledging an individual right to bear arms might facilitate gun control more than denying it ever could.

Heh.


html fixed

http://www.guncite.com/journals/embar.html

I am not tremendously impressed, but I thought we might all find this amusing, given the subject of the thread.

She -- oh, what a feminist, more feminist than all the other feminists -- got married. Everybody who claims to be a feminist and gets married has her own excuses and rationalizations. I don't know what hers were, but these were the amendments to the wedding vows read by the JP:


http://elsa.photo.net/kaminerkaplan.html

I will now proceed to what I deem the Amendments governing your marriage contract. Do each of you undertake the following obligations:

The First Amendment.
Do each of you agree to refrain from seeking to impose an establishment of formal orthodoxies in the marital household, and instead to honor the free exercise of each partner's personal philosophy of life? And to honor each other's right peaceably to assemble, but not to dissemble, and to respect the other's right to petition for redress of grievances? To exercise prior restraint of self before imposing prior restraint on the other? To run roughshod over the other only when there is a compelling, even if unstated, interest in your doing so? Yea or nay?

The Second Amendment.
Do each of you undertake, when upset, to bare souls rather than bear arms? Yea or nay?

The Third Amendment.
Do you undertake not to quarter troops, nor, more importantly, unwanted friends and relatives, in your apartment, without the consent of the other? Yea or nay?

The Fourth Amendment.
Do you undertake to protect the security and privacy of the other, except perhaps when there is probable cause to do otherwise? Yea or nay?

The Fifth Amendment.
Do you agree to grant to each other due process before administering a devastating rebuke? Do you each undertake to learn from your mistakes made during the marriage, and not put yourself and the other, nor your relationship, twice in jeopardy for the same stupid reason, nor to deprive the other of dignity or advantage without at least first giving him or her due process? And do each of you agree to accord to your partner the privilege of not having to confess and thereby incriminate himself or herself in the face of a one-time error of judgment, no matter how dumb or ill-advised the error? Yea or nay?

The Sixth Amendment.
Do you each undertake that, when you have a gripe, you will immediately bring it to the attention of the other -- give him or her a speedy trial, in other words -- and inform the other of the nature of the accusation and allow the other an opportunity to defend, before you blow your stack? Yea or nay?

The Eighth Amendment.
Do each of you agree to refrain from the imposition of cruel and unusual punishments upon the other for the inevitable transgressions that will occur from time to time? Yea or nay?

The Ninth Amendment.
Do you agree that if I have failed to enumerate during this ceremony some right or obligation of marriage, this omission shall not be construed to deny or disparage other un-enumerated rights retained, and obligations assumed, by the other partner? Yea or nay?

The Tenth Amendment.
Do each of you undertake that after you have divided up, by agreement, the various chores and responsibilities for maintaining your joint lives, and after you have delegated to each partner in the marriage the powers necessary to carry out said chores and responsibilities, all chores not delegated and divided up between you shall be reserved to the People, including the concierge at the Ritz, the doorman, the parking garage attendant, the cleaning person, and other such people? Yea or nay?

for 2nd amendment and ACLU is about the only game in town to defend the remaining civil rights....

Now, my question... (and I am really not trying to be offensive) Why is it that gun rights seem for some to be the only civil rights that get their attention and concern?

I have to guess that the question is: Why is it that gun rights seem for some to be the only civil rights that get their (the NRA's?) attention and concern?

If this is in fact the question, it seems so glaringly obvious it really isn't even deserving of response. I will humor you...NRA = National Rifle Association, not national free speech association or national religious freedom association. OTOH, ACLU stands for American Civil Liberties Union and go on to imply they fight for all civil liberties with the exclusion of the 2nd Amendment.

You interpret "why for 'some'" as meaning the NRA? Forget it. You know very well, I was referring to the original poster--his/her opinion and others who share his/her views.

the question...sorry about my confusion in my previous post.

Why is it that gun rights seem for some to be the only civil rights that get their attention and concern?

The answer is again fairly simple. Civil rights are complex issues. Each one has entire professions devoted to them, each one is a legal specialty. It is unrealistic to expect non legal professionals to be able to devote enough time to more than one or two civil rights and to be able to understand and discuss them intelligently. This is why there are strong advocates in the choice and anti choice movements, the religious freedom/establishment clause movements, and virtually every other area of civil rights discussion found right here at DU.

Now my question. Why aren't you an active advocate of the individual right to keep and bear arms?

Re: your question. Why aren't you an active advocate of the individual right to keep and bear arms?

The bombastic NRA and its minions hardly need me... I do support individual rights to keep and bear arms, but I also believe there are reasonable limits to that. While millions upon millions of $$ are singly focused on this issue, our right to privacy, the right to habeus corpus, to protest, free speech rights, etc., etc., are being eroded every day... So, that was my original question. Why do so many individuals focus only on guns and not these related inalienable rights? It seems they "wake up" only when they find they are the victim of illegal search and seizure or similar offenses by an ever encroaching government.

I contend that if the ACLU would defend this (no brainer IMHO) it would put NRA membership at bay and remove the politics from the issue. I do not agree that there are no outspoken and active advocates for the other rights you mentioned, they are just different people as are the outspoken and active proponents of free speech rights and habeus corpus rights generally different people. Because I am an outspoken supporter of an individual RKBA doesn't mean I am not also concerned about the other rights violations you mentioned, I just don't have time to devote to all of the complex ins and outs of all of them. I choose this one because I strongly believe without it the others are completely lost.

And if the Democratic Party would just do X, Y and Z, it could get a whole lot of votes away from the Republican Party (it is alleged / predicted).

The problem comes when X, Y and Z are actually contrary to the party's principles, don't it?

Out-righting the right just isn't seen as a viable strategy by many on the left.

But, I do think they have their resources overwhelmed as it is--certainly the past 8 years.

:)

Let the ACLU know when it has, and then, why don't you ask the ACLU directly? I know this may be hard for you to believe, but none of us here are actually spokespeople for the ACLU.

and instead want to misdirect their "call to arms" (I couldn't resist) to DU, I still don't see any examples of this violation of Constitutional rights. That law in D.C. was overturned, and that's the only one I can think of. Point out the other places where such injustice prevails and we can start a real discussion.....

Still waiting.

Has somebody's guns been taken away that shouldn't have?

NOLA comes immediately to mind....no ACLU involvement there...

Sorry, I don't speak firearmese.

Specifically an event that occurred during the Katrina hurricane. Police were ordered to confiscate weapons from residents that did not evacuate. 2AF, the NRA and others supported residents that sued, and, well, I have not followed the results closely, but they appear to have won. The ACLU did not assist.

But I don't think it's the kind of case the ACLU takes on for reasons already discussed in this thread. I thought that it was New Orleans but I didn't know how it related to guns. Thanks for the info.

You must be too young to remember Katrina? NOLA = New Orleans, LA

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/nra-the-untold-story-of-gun-confiscation-after-katrina/2362456633

I thought that that's what it meant, but I didn't know how it related to guns, so I assumed you were talking about something else.

"We do not, however, take a position on gun control itself. In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue."

....neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue....


They simply do not see it as a civil liberties issue. Therefore as the "civil liberties union" they do not get involved. Further, a bit earlier in the piece, they do not find an individual right in the language of the constitution. In short, they find that no individual right to possess arms exists to defend.

Personally, I agree.

they legitimized the 2nd Amendment as the right for individuals to bear arms. I'm still looking for the examples and lnks that lead one to think there is some case the ACLU should even be taking up. Otherwise, there's not much to discuss with the OP.

We're being persecuted! We're being persecuted!

Mark Steyn.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/08/BA8DVF7UT.DTL

To the relief of a campus Republican group, the 417,000 students at California State University's 23 institutions no longer face the possibility of discipline for failing to be civil to one another.

The change was part of a settlement approved by a federal magistrate in Oakland this week in a lawsuit by the San Francisco State College Republicans, whose members were subjected to a disciplinary hearing after some of them stomped on two flags bearing the name of Allah during an anti-terrorism rally in October 2006.

The flags represented the militant organizations Hamas and Hezbollah and had "Allah" written on them in Arabic. A student later complained that the College Republicans had engaged in "actions of incivility" and had tried to incite violence and create a hostile environment.

Now, why would anyone do that EXCEPT in order to be able to play the victim? Oh, right, they'd do it because they're total fucking assholes who choose to behave like assholes in public, but really, there's more to it these days.

It's well-organized and well-funded.

"Free speech" on campus. Carrying firearms in public. All part of the "someone is trying to violate my rights!" campaign, all involving doing things that no decent person would ever consider doing and then pitching a constitutional rights fit when there are objections.

It's the difference between wielding rights as a club to beat someone you don't like over the head with and using rights as a shield against interference in one's life.

The right wing uses rights to beat up women, members of religious and ethnic and racial and sexual minorities, and anybody else who gets in their way.

If their "rights" in relation to firearms aren't being violated, they gotta find some way to make that happen, or at least something they can screech about.

discusses the recent case in DC. They believe the Supreme Court made a mistake. The Dred Scott case was also a mistake by SCOTUS, they have occasionally been known to make them. The ACLU policy is for an interpretation that the second ammendment provides a collective right in the context of a "well ordered militia". Contrary to the Supreme Court, and with their recent decision considered, they still find no "civil liberty" or individual right that can be infringed upon. In short, even if presented with such a situation, they would not take the case, because they do not believe there is a case to be made. Given this, it would be unethical to take on such litigation, as they would surely prove poor counsel.

They simply, as a matter of policy, do not believe in the cause.

"Because the Supreme Court says so" will win an argument about what the law may say.

It will not win an argument about how the Constitution should be interpreted, or what the law should be.

The Supreme Court's opinion is authoritative. It is not infallibly correct, particularly since opinions are not correct or incorrect, and it is not infallibly wise.

Just out of curiousity.

when I've read them. ;) I've read snippets, just not the whole things.

I pay considerable attention to US decisions in other areas (Lawrence and Carhart recently, and particularly Ruth Bader Ginsberg's dissent in the latter, for example), because they're interesting. I also read South African decisions ... Lawrence was an example of a situation where the Court said flat out that its earlier decision had been flat wrong.

This one, well, it just wasn't of that much intrest. Seriously, that second amendment thing just doesn't do it for me. Regardless of how it's interpreted, the question still comes down to the one that is common to all constitutional rights: public policy, and justification for interfering in the exercise of rights.

All right, I should read it. I will.

Your Government is busy enough on it's own, without worrying about the minutae of your neighbors court cases. It will also require digging into State Constitutions, as several were used in forming the primary dissenting opinion, so it's a can of worms. If you have time, cool, if not, also cool. There are other much more interesting cases, honestly.

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by the Second Amendment. If the ACLU is going to defend other constitutional rights it should defend this one as well. I disagree with the Supreme Court on this issue, but as long as their decision stands, the right to bear arms is on an equal footing with all other constitutional rights.

If the ACLU is going to defend other constitutional rights it should defend this one as well.

Against what?

opposes the National ACLU.

Nevada ACLU says:
QUOTE
In light of the United States Supreme Court's decision concerning the D.C. handgun ban (District of Columbia v. Heller) the ACLU of Nevada considers it important to clearly state its position regarding the right to bear arms. The Nevada ACLU respects the individual's right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations. The ACLU of Nevada will defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights. This policy was formulated by our afilliate Board in light of both the U.S. Constitution and the clearly-stated individual right to bear arms as set out in the Nevada Constitution's Declaration of Rights.
UNQUOTE

SOURCE: http://www.aclunv.org/aclu-nevada-supports-individual%E2%80%99s-right-bear-arms

Some prominent politicians say they support the Second Amendment and will not take rifles, shotguns and handguns but at the same time advocate renewing the infamous, useless assault weapons ban. Some observers will say that is hypocrisy, i.e. "the act of preaching a certain belief, religion or way of life, but not, in fact, holding these same virtues oneself."

jody does rail on about *All* of the Bill of Rights, blah blah. And here he takes the ACLU to task for not defending his fave (against what, we still don't know).

I did a little google searchie.

site:www.democraticunderground.com jody -guns -firearms -rkba -militia

http://www.google.ca/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Awww.democraticunderground.com+jody+-guns+-firearms+-rkba+-militia&btnG=Search&meta=

I really can't find much of anything by jody that isn't about guns or the militia (a real hobbyhorse, that one), other than a persistent opposition to Obama's candidacy for the nomination, an assortment of truly weird commentary about race, objections to ensuring diversity in gifted student programs, somewhat unusual views on immigration (unusual among "liberals") and some absolutely amazingly ignorant comments about the practice of forcing girls into polygamous marriage and the effects of inbreeding in the religious cult in question. Oh, and the usual distortion of what Bill Clinton and Al Gore said about why the previous elections were lost.

It is quite an oeuvre, really. It is pretty much utterly devoid of sense, and it is certainly short on concern for the rights of anyone at all.

Did someone mention hypocrisy?

They focus on a subset of civil rights.

I stopped sending them money about 20 years ago because of their position on the Second Amendment, and they won't get another red cent from me until they come around on that one.

original bill of rights. The other 10% was a joke that got out of hand. Clearly.

:sarcasm: