Rights and Boundaries

Democratic Senator Lindsey Graham recently opined, during a press conference urging further restrictions on gun rights, that:

every right Ñ whether speech or buying a weapon or any other constitutional right Ñ has boundaries on it

Graham’s assertion was made in advocacy for a bill that would prevent people on the no-fly list from buying a gun, an idea that runs afoul not just of the Second Amendment’s protections, but of the Fifth’s due process provisions as well.

Still, Graham is not wrong in asserting that there are boundaries on our rights.

Yes, there are boundaries. They exist at one’s interactions with another. You cannot libel, you cannot slander, you cannot incite to riot or falsely scream “fire!” in a crowded theater. You cannot unjustly shoot someone, either, or unjustly menace someone with a firearm. Boundaries have to do with doing harm to others or their property. Your rights are bounded by my rights.

Graham either misses or ignores this point. A restriction of the sort he is proposing is prior restraint. It would be akin to requiring that anyone who wanted to share an opinion be vetted by the government beforehand. As I wrote many (many, MANY) years ago:

Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out because I might yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.

Take note that I am justified in yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater if there is, in fact, a fire. I am also justified in shooting someone (or using the threat of shooting) if that someone poses a real and imminent threat of deadly harm to me or a third party. Laws vary as to what constitutes justification, but the core principle is pre-legal: I have the right to defend myself.

Prior restraint of the form that Graham supports is not a justifiable boundary to impose on people’s gun rights. He is conflating the existence of boundaries consistent with the tenets of liberty and the Bill of Rights (you are violating someone else’s rights if you menace or shoot them without just cause) with a vague assertion that, since there are boundaries, he can decide to impose more boundaries. In other words, Graham mistakes the existence of boundaries for carte blanche to create whatever boundaries his whims concoct.

This is the way of most politicians. They look to do whatever they want to. It’s also the reason that our system was constructed as it was by the Founding Fathers. The Constitution is, first and foremost, a document that tells those politicians “You may do these things, you may not do anything else, and you absolutely may not infringe on individuals’ rights.”

Either Graham suffers from shallow thinking, doesn’t really understand the concept of “rights,” or subordinates everything to a combination of ideology and pandering. No matter what, he exposes an intellectual bankruptcy, and shouldn’t be trusted to defend our rights.

A post-script. Take note of this quote:

I own a AR-15. If youÕre on this list, it doesnÕt bother me one bit that you canÕt buy one right away.

It contains two nuggets.

First, it contains an appeal-to-authority: “I own an AR-15.” This suggests that he is one of “us,” one of the gun owning crowd, that he understands guns, and that he has more standing to speak on the subject of gun control than a non-owner. It’s nonsense, but it’s sneaky nonsense.

Second, he presents what we are supposed to take as a “common sense” argument: If you are on the list, there must be a reason for you being on the list, and I don’t care if that delays the exercise of your rights. The list is rooted in suspicion and accusation, not in adjudicated proof, and as I noted in a recent post, ran afoul of the Supreme Court a couple years back.

We really should expect clearer thinking from our politicians. Then again, history would show us to be starry-eyed dreamers if we did.