As a liberal, I have some concerns with the idea they should be barred from exercising any constitutional rights.
My concern starts with the "no fly list" itself. How has it been created? What sorts of checks and balances are there regarding people who get listed? Are there any due process protections? Say, a right to know the evidence on which the listing is based? (Those charged with crimes have the right to "be confronted with the witnesses against him;" should those on the no-fly list have lesser rights?)
Let's look at the use of the no-fly list when it comes to other constitutionally protected rights*
Let's say 'you' somehow end up on the no fly list. Should your right to free speech be negated? Your rights against unreasonable searches and seizures? Your right to peaceably assemble with others? Your right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
= = = =
* Note, I personally don't think the constitution confers an individual right to own arms, but the Supreme Court has declared otherwise.
And I recognize a certain absurdity with not allowing some folks to fly because they are potentially dangerous but letting them buy whatever firearms they want.
As 'they' say, "hard cases make bad law."
Perhaps this is an example?
Good analysis. One comment on your note: The Constitution does not "confer" rights of any kind. It simply recognizes and secures against government infringement those unalienable rights endowed to every person by "their Creator (T. Jefferson, Declaration of Independence)," and those political "rights" (actually "privileges and immunities") granted by a supermajority of the States through the Amendment process in Article V (an example being the "right" to vote).
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the supreme Court cannot "declare" what out rights are; it simply recognizes what the Creator/Founders/Authors meant when THEY declared and defined our rights. I assure you, the majority of the justices went through countless writings and documents to confirm that the Founders recognized the right to keep and bear arms was an inalienable endowment from the Creator upon the people at large (the same "people" mentioned in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments - clearly depicting individuals) against any and all FEDERAL infringement. I discovered that irrefutable truth in my own meager research, and the Court's investigation was far more thorough than mine.
As far as State and local infringements on arms ownership, I find the application of the Second Amendment more problematic (putting aside for now the "incorporation" process supposedly induced by the Fourteenth Amendment). I lean toward State sovereignty on that issue, that States can establish their own restrictions in their own Constitutions. After all, the Second Amendment was designed to guarantee an armed citizenry available to empower States to resist federal tyranny (literally, secure State freedom over it own affairs). So each State should be able to regulate its own armed citizenry to that effect. But the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago overruled State sovereignty in that area, leading to the disastrous necessity of "reasonable regulations" by the federal government, which are clearly "infringements" in direct violation of the Second Amendment's prohibition.
I've talked too much. Again, good article!
- Arnie