Is the Founding Fathers' ideal of each person governing himself or herself outmoded?
Charles Schumer wants the government to collect even more information on free citizens, others want to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens...
All kinds of stupid ideas are washing up on shore in the wake of the Arizona shootings. Senator Schumer wants the military to report civilians who fail drug tests at the enlistment station. Their names would go to the FBI and they would be banned from buying guns. I don't want doped up people carrying weapons, but his idea would remove someone's constitutional right with no legal adjudication.
One government agency (DoD) reports your name to another (FBI) and your rights are gone. Sounds like something out of an Orwell novel. Would the FBI also raid the person's home looking for weapons?
Others are simply, and repetitively, calling for gun control of some flavor or other. Limit the ammo, or magazine size, licensing... You can put all the controls in the world in place, but people will find ways around them.
Locks are for Honest People
This is what John Adams meant by our constitution being made for "a moral and religious people." Religious arguments aside, what he meant is that ours is not a top-down rules-based society, but one where each person governs himself or herself. The constitution does not dictate morality; it protects the God-given rights of all.
Such a system requires self-discipline. As anyone in the military can tell you, imposed discipline only goes so far, and the military employs it chiefly to instill self-discipline.
An irresponsible person in one kitchen can cause an entire apartment block to burn down or explode. An automobile is a dangerous weapon and kills thousands every year. Life is fraught with dangers and randomness.
It's a balancing act, and I think enduring conservative principles, as outlined by Russell Kirk in his Ten Conservative Principles are a much better guide than reactionary thinking on the left. Caution! It's full of archaic concepts like customs and prudence.
A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be. (Russell Kirk - 10 Conservative Principles)
