Telumehtar:It's funny that you would pick the "right to vote" as the basis of your argument, because on it's face your support for such a notion is wrong if you consider the founder's interpretation of the Franchise to vote.
Specifically they did not see voting as a inalienable human Right. They in fact limited voting previleges to White Male Landowners.
You know, you're right, and I guess voting rights were not the best example to illustrate my point. Voting is participation in what is essentially an administrative governmental function. Government tells the citizens when and where they can vote, and what they can vote on. The citizens do not vote independent of government. However, even in the founders' situation, there's a huge difference between a white male landowner selling off his own vote, and taking the right to vote away from another white male landowner.
So let's get back to 2A rights. Personally, I don't see the RKBA as inalienable, per se. My right to my life is inalienable, and my right of self defense is derived from that, and my RKBA is derived from that. However, it has been before and may be again the only way to enforce my inalienable right to my life, and I consider it very important. I can easily imagine how without the RKBA my right to my life could easily be meaningless.
But we do indeed strip or deny various rights from Criminals, the mentally impaired, children, military personnel, and various other categories of people.
Right you are. Why do we do this? For the examples you list, it boils down to incapacity (for children and the impaired), self-defense (criminals), or contract (military personnel). In the case of children, our officials have decided that they don't have the capacity for firearms ownership until they reach 18 years old. There are certain weapons that are not prohibited to children, and we encourage them (at least I do) to go out under adult supervision and practice with firearms safely and responsibly in anticipation of the day when they will enjoy full 2A rights.
Our government denies gun rights to certain criminals based on the self defense rights of their fellow citizens. However, even felons have some weapons legally available to them. And as we see in the news every day, many criminals refuse to accept the prohibitions and arm themselves with guns anyway. So our denial of their RKBA is not very effective.
Then we have cases where an individual agrees to forgo some rights voluntarily. I agree 100% on this - when I enlisted in the military, I agreed to the suspension of certain individual rights. However, when I was discharged and received my DD-214, my individual rights resumed as before. The suspension of rights was only for the term of my enlistment.
...the Constitution is... a social contract between the People and the government outlining what Rights the people are suspending in order to form a government in which a more perfect Union is formed.
It might have started out close to that ideal, but now I think it is more like an adhesion contract in which a very narrow scope of "representation" is offered in return for obedience to an often arbitrary consolidated power beyond what the Founders ever even imagined.
It is a tenet of law that certain elements are required for a contract to be valid. First, the parties must be of sound mind at the time, and not under duress. Second, the parties must identify themselves, and cannot obligate another party against their will. Third, the contract must explicitly state the terms and conditions to be enforced.
Measured against that standard, the constitution as a contract has failed. None of the original parties remain, subsequent parties have had no choice whether to sign on or not, and the descendants of the party with the most horsepower (government) have so grossly distorted the terms that they have gradually forced the other party (citizens) into a very inferior position compared to the original "contract".
I attribute much of that to the fact that there is no higher power to appeal this contract to. In fact, the courts, a subset of one party (government), have been advanced as the impartial arbiters of the contract itself. How 'bout that? If you had a contract where a young member of the Kennedy family owed you money, would you appeal it to Teddy and a panel of Kennedy family patriarchs?
I have said before that I believe, with Thomas Jefferson, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. I believe also that the governed have the right to withdraw their consent as individuals. But I see that governments exercise other powers, "unjust" powers if you will, that they derive not from consent but merely from the fact that there's nobody big enough to stop them. Sometimes, but not always, they attempt to justify these powers with "representation" and equate that with consent. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny, however, because accepting that argument would make the "social contract" into an unconscionable contract, so unfair or one-sided that no mentally competent person would enter into it, and no fair and honest person would enforce it.
I guess my real worry here is that you seem to be defining rights to actually mean privileges that individuals enjoy only with the permission of the government, which claims to act in on behalf of the "collective people" majority. Even if the anti-s somehow passed gun control in the manner you consider "correct" (say, by Constitutional amendment), I for one would not accept it. I would consider it null and void on it's face, and refuse to comply in any case where I had even a slim chance of surviving it.
Something about me you should know, and perhaps it will help you understand my position. I refuse to accept collective guilt. I reject it in the religious sense, in the racial sense, and emphatically in the aspect of being disarmed for the evil deeds of criminals. I will step up to the plate every time to face the music for things I personally did. But I will not shoulder one speck of blame for the deeds of criminals. I think that viewpoint is consistent with my belief that people are individuals, and act individually.
Well, what more can I say? I'm a simple man, and I look at issues in a simple way, But then, you already saw my sig line, so you knew that...
Parker
p.s. You're right, we are discussing the nuances of liberty. Someday, though, those nuances might turn out to be very significant.
