[extropy-chat] Guns--generalized

[Damien Broderick]

Spike reckons:

> In this country, gun ownership is our
> right, so the fed cannot legally challenge it in any
> case.  Were the fed to attempt to do so, we would be
> forced to conclude that our legal constitutional
> government had been overthrown, and would be obligated
> to take up arms against it

I don't know how this legal constitution caper works (being a benighted
Aussie), but a few questions spring to mind. Suppose slavery had been
enshrined from the outset in the Constitution, or suppose that women had
been forbidden suffrage. Would it not be permitted to change these rights
and exclusions? Suppose enough citizens wanted to forbid the sale and
consumption of alcoholic beverages, even though that had been implicitly a
right until then? And if the ban were legally inserted into the legal
constitution, would there be a legal constitutional way to get rid of it on
second thoughts? And then to reimpose it on third thoughts?

(I could ask the lawyer downstairs, but she's very busy...)

Damien Broderick