By Kevin D. Williamson
Tuesday, August 06, 2019
Beto O’Rourke has come out for “mandatory buybacks” of
firearms.
Apparently, that is the euphemism we are meant to use
now: “mandatory buybacks.”
A party cannot buy back that which it never owned, and a
transaction that is mandatory is not an exchange at all, but a seizure.
We should call things what they are. That might help us to understand why such
proposals are unconstitutional on at least two fronts.
I am also not sold on my friend David French’s “red flag
law” argument. I do not think that we can or should suspend the constitutional
rights of people who have not arrested and have not been charged with any
crime, much less convicted of one. We would not countenance such a treatment of
the First Amendment. My understanding of “prior restraint” in regard to the
First Amendment is permitted only in the case of “inevitable, direct, and
immediate danger”; a similar standard applied to the Second Amendment
(assuming, arguendo, that such a standard is appropriate for the First)
would be almost useless inasmuch as the mere possession of a firearm does not
make any violent outcome “inevitable.”
If we are to have the rule of law, then we must maintain
the rule of law and be ruled by it — even when we are terrified, frustrated, or
mourning. We should not allow ourselves to be buffaloed into giving up the Bill
of Rights.
In Chicago at last check, those arrested for illegal
possession of a firearm stand a four-out-of-five chance of escaping conviction
on the charge. Many are never tried. In much of the country, straw buyers in
firearms cases are effectively immune from federal prosecution, and often from
local prosecution. There is no effort made to collect the firearms improperly
sold because of defects in the background-check system. Etc. Acts of terrorism
such as the one perpetrated in El Paso constitute a vanishingly small part of
the criminal violence committed our country; the vast majority of the shootings
are the very ones that might be diminished by the competent enforcement of our
laws, including our firearms laws.
We should try that before abandoning the Bill of Rights.
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