The Second Amendment is not Absolute

In fact, no amendment is absolute. Let’s take a few examples.

Amendment I – free speech. Yell “fire” in a crowded theatre and you’ll soon discover that this particular form of free speech is deemed a danger to the public and there are often penalties for exercising it. Societal good trumps this particular expression WITHOUT throwing out the entire amendment. No slippery slope here.

Amendment XV and Amendment XIX – extended voting rights because the right to vote was never absolute from the get-go. Women and slaves were excluded. Yet, even now, after having those exclusions removed, voting rights are still not absolute. Ask prisoners who have been stripped of their right to vote. Permanently in some cases when they are unable to exercise that right even after they’ve paid their debt to society. This does not kill voting rights altogether. No slippery slope here, either.

But for some reason, many Americans imagine that putting restrictions on certain expressions of Amendment II (e.g. owning weapons deemed as assault or military grade) will lead to ban/confiscation of all guns. Apparently, this amendment is more prone to a slippery slope than the others.

Those who believe in an absolute interpretation of Amendment II, dig up quotes of activists who want to ban guns outright, saying that there are “enemies” of Amendment II in its entirety and therefore caution and vigilance for this amendment is particularly warranted.

In the first place, these people are not “enemies,” but fellow-citizens exercising Amendment I to petition their government. Secondly, given how many gun-owning citizens there are compared to complete-gun-ban citizens, this isn’t even a realistic concern. And even if there should come a day when there are more of the latter than the former, it will be democracy at work. Because no amendment is permanent (see Amendment XVIII).

The framers put mechanisms in-place specifically for inserting AND removing constitutional amendments. And the first ten amendments (a/k/a The Bill of Rights) are no more sacred than any of those added later. To think otherwise is to suggest that the politicians and citizens of 1789-1791 have a right to permanently control certain existential aspects of citizens ever-after.

We can show admiration and gratitude for the framers and early citizens, but they were not divine, all-wise or flawless. They, like all humans ever born, were bound by space and time and tried to make rational decisions within the circumstances and constraints that existed at that time. This is what allows us to temper hindsight criticism (e.g. re: slave-owning framers) based on the fact that they were human – flawed and prone to make imperfect choices/compromises.

To elevate them, or somehow attribute near-divinity to their spoken and written words as if they were the second coming of Mount Sinai, is absurd. We can revise their words, decisions, amendments, etc. when circumstances deem it necessary for OUR times. And we can do so without denigrating or demeaning their legacy. It’s as much our right to add, revise and remove their effects as it was their right to declare independence. After all, rights do not come from government, let alone politicians that create those governments.