We often call ourselves a “nation of laws.” What it means officially, is that we collectively agree to follow specific sets of rules for our society to function reasonably, honorably and routinely in life and through a mercantile exchange.
Under this banner, we do not say that all laws are perfect, absolute or immutable. What is right and just for one generation, may not be so for the next, or the next, for attitudes, requirements, conditions and values change.
Just yesterday in an Op-Ed for the New York Times former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens suggested the March for Our Lives movement should add repealing the Second Amendment in their demands.
I can imagine what the NRA will say about that.
The founding fathers did provide a framework wherein changes through the will of the people are to be made peacefully by a representative democracy, applying the art of compromise and compassion. We are the only nation on Earth that has made the legal process an art form and who calls that art, the practice of law.
What we might choose to do now is to simplify the understanding and the administration of law so that timely adjudication does not get bound up in a complicated bureaucratic system, and political fighting. Change always does, and that takes time and patience.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Turn the clock back 240+ years: The firearm at that time was flintlock musket; max fire rate of 5 shots/minute. The framers of our Constitution could never envision the advances years down the road that would make readily available a semi-automatic rifle that can easily be modified to a fire rate of 500+shots/minute. We need a Tom Steyer TV campaign to take the 2nd Amendment to the Supreme Court and argue it only grants the populace the right to own a musket.
Post a Comment