OK, for the past week, I’ve been hearing and reading all about “terrorists are allowed to buy guns”. This is based upon the fact that the people on the classified terror watch list and no fly list are allowed to purchase firearms. Just as anyone else who hasn’t been convicted of a felony, domestic abuse, found mentally incompetent, etc by a court of law.
What we are discussing here is taking people who are administratively placed upon a watch list, out of a vague (if it isn’t vague, it’s actionable) suspicion of potential involvement with a known terrorist organization, then revoking an enumerated right.
So, let’s talk about rights vs privileges. I see so much of “we require insurance to drive a car”, with obvious confusion as to what a privilege is and what a right is.
A privilege may be administratively revoked, such as if you don’t pay for your automobile liability insurance or fail to have your care have a safety inspection that is required by the state, the registration is revoked. No court of law is required, as it’s a purely administrative action. Regardless of one’s stand on the second amendment, the courts have decided that firearm ownership is a right and that is where we must consider this as an enumerated right.
A right is far different. All rights have limitations and for very specific reasons, under codified law, rights can be revoked. An example is a convicted felon loses his or her right to freedom, thereby permitting a sentence in prison to be completed. The convicted felon also loses the right to possess a firearm for the remainder of that felon’s life.
The mentally ill that are found by a court of law to be a danger to themselves and others can have their right to freedom revoked and confinement to a mental health care facility ordered by a court of law. The right to possess a firearm is also revoked at that point. Those rights then can be restored if the mental illness is successfully treated.
Rights are very, very special and important things. That is why we have very narrow conditions where common law, enumerated and codified rights are suborned. To do otherwise turns all rights into privileges.
The enumerated rights in our Constitution were labeled by the framers of our Constitution as “The Bill of Rights”, they didn’t enumerated all rights, only those rights that, in the past, were revoked by fiat of the monarchy and a segment of the populace suffered greatly during that time. The concern was, that could potentially happen here and as Trump has shown recently in his public statements, they were right.
Once, we did revoke the right to freedom for mere suspicion and hysteria, we paid the Japanese-Americans twice for it in reparations, acknowledging we ignored our Constitution. Do we want to repeat a mistake of the past?
The argument that we are at war is nonsense, as only Congress can declare war and Congress entirely refrained from doing so, instead, Congress authorized the use of military force. That isn’t a declaration of war. Indeed, rights are curtailed only when the civil courts are incapable of being in session, per the SCOTUS during the Lincoln administration.
That is why we paid reparations to US citizens who were unconstitutionally detained during WWII.
If we now decide to revoke a right administratively, what other rights can also be administratively revoked? All are fair game, as we’ve acted out of both anger and fear, we would create a new era, where rights are only privileges. Assembly could be forbidden, the press could be controlled, only authorized faiths could be permitted and mandatory, random home and office searches could be conducted without a warrant, even summary execution could be found acceptable, as life is then a privilege.
Do you think that is far fetched? I’ll remind one and all, this nation retained slavery, when all of Europe outlawed it, it took a civil war to end the abominable practice. We’ve invaded foreign lands, just to protect fruit, sugar and other corporate interests. We used nuclear weapons twice in war and the far right has repeatedly demanded their usage.
If we withdraw a right based upon mere suspicion, be ready to be the suspect tomorrow.