Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) has a point. In the latest freak-out over Cruz’s venturing off the
freshman plantation, members of the old guard are wetting their Depends
because Cruz had the audacity to pose a really good question to Diane Feinstein
(D, CA) about guns and the second amendment. If you haven’t seen the exchange, here is the question Cruz asked Feinstein:
“The question that I would pose to the senior Senator from California is: Would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment? Namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?
“Likewise, would she think that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against searches and seizures could properly apply only to the following specified individuals and not to the individuals that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?”After the question, the entire Democrat contingency went apoplectic talking out of turn to lecture Cruz about how the first and fourth amendments have limitations and are not absolute. The reason Cruz has a point is that in all limitations on the first and fourth amendments, those limitations exist because the rights of others have already been infringed.
Take
the old example of unnecessarily yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. That speech is outside the first
amendment because it denies other theatergoers their right to not be
trampled in a stampede. Similarly, the child pornography
limitation on free speech exists because children are harmed, rights
denied, by the very existence of child pornography.
Similarly, an indiscriminate roadblock, which stops all
motorists in an attempt to catch a dangerous criminal, is an exception to the
fourth amendment protection on unreasonable search and seizure because it has
been deemed reasonable in order to
catch a criminal who already has denied someone their rights.
Gun ownership is a different case. Gun ownership by itself, even if it involves
a dangerous assault weapon, denies no one else’s rights. There
is the potential that any gun can be used criminally or negligently, but until
that happens, can congress legally deny the people’s constitutional right to
keep it and bear it? This seems
like a reasonable enough question, which is why it elicited such a petulant
response from princess DiFi and her minions.
Interestingly, if the framers didn’t want the second
amendment to be an absolute right, they could have simply used the same word
they used in the fourth amendment, unreasonable. It's not like they didn't know the word existed. The second amendment
would then have read: “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not
be unreasonably infringed.” It doesn’t, and we should not pretend
it does.
The more I hear from Ted Cruz the more I respect him. Please keep it up Ted.
PS All this talk of "DC v Heller", which Cruz's critics have cited is completely besides the point. The question was to DiFi about her views on the constitution, not her opinion of the SCOTUS and the Heller decision. Her response, Leahy's response, and all the Democrats responses were disrespectful and shameful.
Here's the whole shebang in case you missed it:
