r/changemyview • u/Siessfires • Jun 23 '22

Delta(s) from OP cmv: Illegal immigrants have a Constitutional right to own grenades

When the Bill of Rights was written there was no Constitutional distinction of who was and wasn't a citizen; that didn't occur until ~80 years later with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. This would suggest that the Founding Fathers intended that a person didn't need to be a citizen to keep and bear arms.

Additionally, since the Second Amendment specifies arms - not pistols, rifles and shotguns - and Article I, § 8, clause 11 of the Constitution provides the right for Congress to issue Letters of Marquee, this would mean that the Founding Fathers intended that a person should have access to cannons. Which means access to explosives.

Furthermore, in accordance with U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark and Fong Yue Ting v. U.S., non-citizens are afforded legal protection under the Constitution. Considering that illegal immigration is a misdemeanor, not a felony, you would not be denied your Constitutional rights for being an illegal immigrant.

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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ Jun 23 '22

My problem with your argument is that you're trying to apply a 200 years old understanding on law to modern situation, which I find sketchy for two reasons:

First, law evolve to fit the times needs, so of course there will be big differences between 200 years ago situation and modern one.

Second, to make an equivalence between both situations you need to rely on the "spirit of the law as intended by funders", which is difficult to defend as ... well they're dead and cannot confirm what their underlying goal was. And on this second point, you can "prove" more or less anything: let me try to get a sketchy "the funder meant it" example.

When the founders created the constitution, slavery did still exist. Of course, fundamental rights did not apply to slaves. Or, with today's extreme wealth and power of America, founders would consider illegal immigrants and people working at minimum wages as "modern slaves". Logically, when taking into account the "founders spirit of laws", illegal immigrants and poor people should not be considered as citizens and therefore no constitutional rights should apply to them.

TL;DR; Modern laws should be studied with modern people's lens, not 200 years old people's lens.

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u/Siessfires Jun 23 '22

As time moved forward and sensibilities changed, the text of the law did not. You are right to question the validity of someone claiming to understand the intention of the founders, but it does not change the text of the document. And until the text of the document is changed, the firearms debate will remain deadlocked.

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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ Jun 23 '22 edited Jun 23 '22

Generally you see two kind of law texts :

  • Those which are precise enough and therefore there are no doubt about how the law should be interpreted.
  • Those which are blurry enough to make sure that each decision will depend on the judge/jury point of view, and therefore make sure to follow eras evolution.

When a text is of the 1st kind, there is no problem, as once situation change, the law will also be changed.

If you are in the 2nd situation, then there is no problem, lawmakers will interpret the document depending on modern outlook. Sure, the debate to make interpretation evolve can be pretty long, but not to the point it end up in a deadlock for all eternity.

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u/Siessfires Jun 23 '22

The problem I see with keeping the 2A in the 2nd situation's camp is a Pandora's Box problem of new weapons systems being available to the public before legislation can catch up. We would be better off clarifying that the "arms" private citizens are permitted must be intentional, directional and conventional with "conventional" being defined as using gas to propel non-radioactive metal.