Guns in the U.S need to go away now (or in a few years :))

[Imran Siddiqui]

And I'm not sure how people in those professions can be rqeuired to be registered.

Because licensing and registration aren't against privacy . It is very hard to make an argument that being licensed is against your privacy. No one, to my knowledge, has tried to make the argument in court that being licensed and registered is against the right to privacy, and if they have, it has been thrown out.

So, to clarify, you believe anything that could possibly cause some sort of risk can be regulated??

Exactly... that is the whole idea behind the FDA.

Not if you accept the 14th Amendment, because the ability to restrict privacy becomes a right denied to the States. If you don't accept the 14th, it's irrelevant because in that case the 9th applies only to the federal government in terms of restrictions.

No it doesn't... even if you accept that the 9th and 10th Amendments both apply to the states, nothing in the Constitution explicitly states that privacy is a right.

9: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The 9th says that rights not enumerated in the Constitution doesn't mean that people don't have those rights.

The 10th says that powers not given to the US by the Constitution, nor taken away from the states, are given to the states.

So the states have the power to restrict the right to privacy if you believe the 9th gives you that power instead of the penumbra.

[David Floyd]

Actually the SCOTUS has already ruled to an extent on profanity.

I can't recall the citation, but during Vietnam someone wore a jacket with the words "**** the Draft" on it into a courtroom. He was held in contempt, Circuit Court affirmed, SCOTUS overturned.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I can't recall the citation, but during Vietnam someone wore a jacket with the words "**** the Draft" on it into a courtroom.

That's an amusing case but other than affirming the emotive power of speech I don't see how the case applies here unless you are going to argue that you don't have a captive audience when you let loose with a string of profanity.

PS He didn't wear the jacket into the courtroom. He took it off before going in. He wasn't charged with contempt either because that charge would have stuck.

[Lung]

Originally posted by Wraith
--"My point is, what sort of logic enables something as innocuous as driving being a privilege whilst owning a gun is a right?"

Driving a car, as far as licencing purpose goes, involves using public roads (in the US, at least, you do not need a drivers license if you don't use the public roads). Therefore, the government has a valid claim in licensing issues. Using other people's property (in this case, the roads) is never a right.
Gun ownership does not inherently make use of anyone else's property. In fact, gun ownership in and of itself does not affect anyone else, period. It's just private property.

As far as Australian gun laws, I've seen some stats that show the tougher arms controls were actually detrimental as far as overall levels of crime were concerned. May have to dig those back up for specifics.

Crime in Australia has been increasing steadily for the last 50 years or so, so unless there is a large jump in crime, i don't think you can pin it on the gun laws. Crime statistics in Australia are manipulated badly in Australia, so conclusions based on them are difficult to prove. The big problem is the rise of gun culture among minoroty groups, and the invulnerability to the law that minors have. A 17 year old boy knows he can bash and rub and stab and kill with little fear of repurcussions. That in itself relegates the gun laws to being a smaller influence on the statistics.

[David Floyd]

Because licensing and registration aren't against privacy . It is very hard to make an argument that being licensed is against your privacy. No one, to my knowledge, has tried to make the argument in court that being licensed and registered is against the right to privacy, and if they have, it has been thrown out.

There's also a difference between being a registered surgeon who is responsible for peoples' lives and being forced to register a piece of harmless private property.

Exactly... that is the whole idea behind the FDA.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because I cannot see a Constitutional justification for federal regulation of any object, unless it is on federal property or property that is substantially federally funded, or if it LEGITIMATELY affects interstate commerce.

The 9th says that rights not enumerated in the Constitution doesn't mean that people don't have those rights.

The 10th says that powers not given to the US by the Constitution, nor taken away from the states, are given to the states.

So the states have the power to restrict the right to privacy if you believe the 9th gives you that power instead of the penumbra.

No - the 9th basically means that even though every right isn't specifically named people still have these rights. By logical extension the federal government can't infringe upon these rights, and, assuming an acceptance of the 14th, neither can the States.

[David Floyd]

That's an amusing case but other than affirming the emotive power of speech I don't see how the case applies here unless you are going to argue that you don't have a captive audience when you let loose with a string of profanity.

PS He didn't wear the jacket into the courtroom. He took it off before going in. He wasn't charged with contempt either because that charge would have stuck.

Then you are more familiar with the case than I - I've run into it once in passing, and it just popped into my head. What was he charged with, out of curiosity?

My point was simply that SCOTUS has made at least one ruling dealing with profanity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There's also a difference between being a registered surgeon who is responsible for peoples' lives and being forced to register a piece of harmless private property.

Not enough difference to make it legal to licence one and not the other.

No - the 9th basically means that even though every right isn't specifically named people still have these rights. By logical extension the federal government can't infringe upon these rights, and, assuming an acceptance of the 14th, neither can the States.

Yes, that is true... but the 10th states that powers that aren't taken from the states by the Constitution can be wielded by the states.

How can you say that the 9th allows any right that the people can think of to be their own? You'll have people saying they have the right to kill for certain purposes (no where does the Constitution say that life is protected - AFAIK). The 9th is a very vague amendment, and using it to justify privacy, I think, only means that someone can use the 10th to justify taking it away.

[Ramo]

My point was simply that SCOTUS has made at least one ruling dealing with profanity.

The case was dealing with a Court judgement on a charge of contempt, not state laws on profanity.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
The case was dealing with a Court judgement on a charge of contempt, not state laws on profanity.

Damn it. You people are going to make me actually look up what the man was charged with, aren't you?

Edit: Appellant was convicted of violating that part of Cal. Penal Code § 415 which prohibits "maliciously and willfully disturb[ing] the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person . . . by . . . offensive conduct," for wearing a jacket bearing the words "**** the Draft" in a corridor of the Los Angeles Courthouse.

Cohen v. California

[Wraith]

--"And there is nothing that says licensing and registration violate privacy rights."

Doesn't mean they should be, though...

Lawyers I can kind of see the point. They've got to argue law in the courts, after all, and those are owned by the government. Same for teaching, but only as far as public schools go. I'm also not sure that the latter is a federal certification.

You're also kind of missing the point. Practicing any specific profession is not a right...

--"No one, to my knowledge, has tried to make the argument in court that being licensed and registered is against the right to privacy,"

I don't know of any current laws that require you to register to be able to exercise your rights, either. If you were required to, for instance, register with the federal government before exercising your right of free speech (say, writing a paper against a specific policy), then I think a right-to-privacy argument might just crop up somewhere.

--"Exactly... that is the whole idea behind the FDA."

You do realize that absolutely everything carries some degree of risk, right? Your logic there gives the federal government blanket authorization to regulate anything and everything.

--"nothing in the Constitution explicitly states that privacy is a right."

So what? This is why the 9th Amendment was added. More to the point, there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the government a blanket right to invade privacy. The closest is the census requirement, and that's nothing more than an enumeration of people.

--"Crime statistics in Australia are manipulated badly in Australia, so conclusions based on them are difficult to prove"

Well, this is often the case. I'd have to search out the results if I really cared to press the argument, but it's just not that big a deal.

Wraith
"I only drink because the government needs the tax revenue"

[Imran Siddiqui]

Doesn't mean they should be, though...

Your opinion. I don't think that licensing and registration violates the right to privacy.

[David Floyd]

Would you if writers had to be licensed, or reporters?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I wouldn't see how that would violate the right to privacy.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Wraith
--"Medical studies show how phony the claim that guns prevent crime is, but you'll never see them widely publicised"

Actually, you see them publicised all the time. The problem is that they're not being done by the right people. Why should doctors be expected to have the kind of criminology training necessary to performe good studies on this subject? Gary Kleck, as an example, is a criminologist, and publishes in peer-review criminology journals.
Reports done by doctors about criminology, published in medical journals (where they will not be subject to peer review on non-medical claims) are not exactly a reliable source of information. Nevertheless, most of the claims cited in the media on the gun-control side of the debate come from studies done on such a basis.

Edit:
As an example, here is a draft version of a chapter from one of Kleck's books, "Targeting Guns: Firearms and their Control".

Wraith
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Why would you need a criminologist to perform such studies? What is needed is good study design and doctors are quite able to manage that.

[David Floyd]

So, basically you have no problem with the federal government requiring people in pretty much every profession to register and give information to the government? That's truly scary.

What, to you is the right to privacy then, if its not the right to your own personal information, and the right to be secure in your person, job,roperty without the government seizing and regulating such things at will?