Has The Constitutional Right To Bear Arms Outlived Its Usefulness?

Open to Debate

News, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2013

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

Recent mass shooting tragedies have renewed the national debate over the 2nd Amendment. Gun ownership and homicide rates are higher in the U.S. than in any other developed nation, but gun violence has decreased over the last two decades even as gun ownership may be increasing. Over 200 years have passed since James Madison introduced the Bill of Rights, the country has changed, and so have its guns. Is the right to bear arms now at odds with the common good, or is it as necessary today as it was in 1789? The debaters are Alan Dershowitz, David Kopel, Sanford Levinson, and Eugene Volokh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm John Donvan, moderator of Intelligent Squared U.S.
0:04.0	Join us online at IQ2US.org to vote on the motion
0:09.0	and keep the debate going.
0:13.0	This is Intelligent Squared U.S. I'm John Donvan
0:16.0	and sometimes a regular ordinary guy gets to have his name
0:20.0	go down in history in a very big way
0:23.0	and it happened to a guy named Dick Heller
0:27.0	who happened to be working in security in a government building in Washington, D.C.
0:30.0	when he sued the government of Washington, D.C.
0:33.0	over a law that prevented him from legally owning a handgun.
0:37.0	And it went all the way to the Supreme Court and Dick Heller won.
0:40.0	It was District of Columbia versus Heller
0:43.0	and it was the landmark gun rights case of all time
0:46.0	where the Supreme Court ruled only in 2008
0:49.0	that the Constitution guaranteed to every American
0:53.0	a personal right to bear arms.
0:56.0	And if it is that obvious, then perhaps people who aren't happy with how that has turned out
1:02.0	might want to argue that perhaps that right never should have been
1:05.0	put into the Constitution in the first place.
1:07.0	And what a debate that would be as we are about to find out.
1:11.0	Yes or no to this statement.
1:14.0	The constitutional right to bear arms has outlived its usefulness.
	...

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