On superficial consideration many a utilitarian pragmatist may find this $62 million jury award good news, utilitarianism: greatest benefit for the greatest portion of the population.
But does this award conflict with the principle of Article II in our Bill of Rights?
B.O. R. ARTICLE #2: Ratified December 15, 1791
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Noble principles may be eternal, even if the means to achieve them are not.
In the 18th Century citizens had practical reason to be armed, obvious example, those living on the frontier.
But it's a new millennium. Our territory is secure coast to coast, and our president has already proposed expanding it greatly, adding to it Canada, Iceland, and Panama.
This Constitutional right enshrined in the 18th Century, in equal need in our new millennium?
There is precedent for updating our Constitution.
United States Constitution's Article 1 Section 2: "... three fifths of all other Persons."
This provision was updated in section 2 of the fourteenth amendment.
Is our 2nd Amendment "shall not be infringed" overdue for update?
"Ghost guns," made from build-it-yourself kits, are virtually untraceable." #166
And therefore police / government homicide investigators prefer individually serial numbered firearms. It may make their job easier in tracing a specific murder weapon.
Is making government employee's work easier legitimate reason to infringe or usurp a Constitutionally enumerated right?
The Second Amendment doesn't require serial numbers, nor does it prohibit homemade weapons.
Does #166 report the latest increment in Constitutional elitism? Those that can afford commercially manufactured serial numbered firearms can apply to purchase one.
Those that cannot afford it must do without?
Does imposing penalty for non-serial numbered firearms constitute an infringement of our Second Amendment?
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." Thomas Paine 1737 - 1809
There's no disgrace in championing noble principle.
And as the centuries elapse, and our technology and society progress, should we settle for hypocrisy, enshrining "shall not be infringed" in our supreme law of the land, the United States Constitution, while progressively eroding it in practice?
Is that not what we have done?
Is that not what we continue to do?
ref:
James Madison:
Federalist No. 46
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