Anti-Smoking Rules in Belmont

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/14/BAGP7OKTN41.DTL&hw=smoking+restrictions&sn=001&sc=1000

Belmont is considering the strict rules against smoking that would include a proposal to ban lighting up in multi-unit apartments and taxicabs and within 20 feet of any public building. Belmont is the first to consider prohibiting smoking in multi-unit residential buildings.

Is this not a classic example of liberty being violated? Don't I have the right to smoke in public or in my home? The issues goes to the heart of our debates about what liberty is and how far it extends. There are other ways of course in which we don't want the state to intrude into our homes, for example, in prohibiting certain types of sexual activity. Privacy is a bar to certain types of intrusions. But isn't cigarettes different? Smoking causes harm to other people in the multi-unit dwellings. Is smoking cigarettes like sex then? How sex is conducted in the bedroom does not cause harm to others. Well, at least physical harm. Some people might argue that sodomy causes social harm. I wouldn't make that argument but the fact that some people might shows that the very issue of harm is partly in the eyes of the beholder which is the problem. But cigarette smoking causes physical harm, which is different than just "harm in the eyes of the beholder." In this sense, smoking does violate the right of others to "life, liberty, and property." It certainly impacts "life." And some writers, like John Locke, wrote that we had a right to "life, liberty, health and property." Smoking in the vicinity of others harms others health. So it is arguable that smoking is different than sex which happens in the privacy of the bedroom. One does "actual physical harm" the other does harm only in the eyes of the beholder.

But smokers should have options to risk their lives. People risk lives every day to jump with bungy cords or from planes with parachutes. Risk is somethign that people should be free to pursue as long as the consequences are not harmful to others physically. Whether one can take risks that are harmful financially to others (like we have to organize a search party to find a person lost hiking in the wilderness, is another question to come back to).

So if Belmont tightens up the rule to protect health, that seems defensible. But they should open up places where people who want to smoke can smoke. How we deal with the financial burdens of cancer is another question that should be debated as well.

Don't Let Dick Have His Gun

Interpreting the Second Amendment broadly, a federal appeals court in Washington yesterday struck down a gun control law in the District of Columbia that bars residents from keeping handguns in their in their homes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/washington/10gun.html

Should people have the right to keep guns in their homes? Is that what the second amendment means when it says "the right of thepeople to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed?" Maybe that passage simply refers to the fact that our limbs "our arms" should be protected and the government has no right to infringe on our right to our bodies. Whoever said it refers to "guns" anyway?

Didn't John Locke say,
"Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his Station willfully; so by the like reason when his own Preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of Mankind, and may not unless it be to do Justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tend sot the Preservation of Life, the Liberty, Health, Limb or Goods of another. " (2nd Treatise on Government 2:6)

Isn't that what our founders meant when they said "a right to keep and bear arms." No government has the righ to take away "our arms", that is "our limbs". And we have a right to bear arms too, not just keep arms. That must mean abortion is permitted as well. Because it doesn't say we have a right to bear children, but a right to bear arms: that is a partial child, not a whole child. Which means the government doesn't have the right to force us to bear a full child.

This is ridiculous you say. "Arms here doesn't refer to 'limbs' or a 'fetus'. It refers to guns. "And how do you know," I ask? "Because the beginning of the amendment says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep..." the context shows that the amendment is referring to guns, not limbs.

"Hmmm, good point. So you are saying that the second half of the amendment--our right to have a bear arms-- is linked to the first part of the amendment 'the need for a well regulated Militia'. Is that right?" "Yes," you say. "I see. And do you think we still need a well regulated militia?" "Well, not exactly," you say. "We need an army."

Okay, I'll grant you that. But is an army a militia? No. Indeed when the founders wrote this early amendment there was still strong sentiment against having "a standing army." Indeed, one of the fundamental rights of liberty was thought to be the right "not to have a standing army" (i.e., a permanent army). One's rights were thought to be violated if government had a standing army. That suggests that we are violating the law by having standing army today....but let's tackle that subject another time. It is clear that a militia referred to in the second amendment was not a standing army. And the presence of our army today does not mean we have a militia.

In any case, if the first half of the amendment is critical for explaining the second half, and the right to have and bear arms only becomes clear because of the first half where it mentions the militia, does that not imply that having arms, I mean guns, is related to having a militia? But how does having guns in one's home relate to having a militia? Is there a militia in DC?

"Dick Heller, a guard at the Federal Judicial Center who was permitted to carry a gun on duty and wanted to keep one at home." Is Dick Heller part of a militia? Is being a guard at the Federal Judicial Center our modern equivalent of a militia back then? Is Dick protecting us against the encroachment of government or is he protecting us from the rifraff who show up at the courts?

And even if we said that Dick's job was a modern equivalent of the militia, although that seems like a stretch to me, but then again I'm not a Federal judge, does the Amendment say people can keep them at home? They have a right "to keep and bear Arms". "Bear" means they can wear them on their person. And "keep" I guess could mean "keep them at home." But it is a right of "the people", not the right of a person. And so while the people have the right, it does not say that every individual has a right. The people have a right to keep (ie the government can't have the monopoly on arms. But there are other ways of ensuring that the people have access to arms outside of the government. I suggest that we set aside a military (militia) building, where an elected official or elected group has the key. And these people are not part of the military establishment. Lets put the guns in there and don't let the government have access to them. But don't let people take them home. After all I have a right to "life, liberty and property" too and when someone has a gun, my rights are threatened by guns in society. I have a right to bear arms, and if others have guns, I'm worried I'll get shot in the arms.

And one more thought. The idea that we have guns to protect us from centralized government power is a bit comical now. I can just see Dick carrying his gun to protect us against the government, when the government gets a nuclear bomb ready to drop on us. Maybe the amendment should now read that we can all keep nuclear bombs in our homes too. That evens out the score so that if George Bush gets really mad, we can can fight back.

If the Federal court decision yesterday is any indication of where we are going, I suggest that we need a constitutional amendment. Let's get rid of the second amendment completely. It was an afterthought anyway. And the times are different now. We have an amendment that we says that we can change our constitution. The founders knew that we might not like things they decided. If the founders saw how many people were carrying machine guns, they would not have had such a loosely worded amendment. They would have come up with some rational ways to make sure that government power can be checked. I'm more afraid of Dick and his gun than I am of the government if Dick's gun is taken away.