The motive for putting this Constitutional allowance in to restrict weapons (such as fire arms) for people under the age of 50 is that it seemed to me that I would not be successful in proposing the right to be armed for everyone (except children). Hence I have thought of a brokered middle ground, that hopefully both groups can live with.
With this you may want to keep in mind that I am Dutch. This principle would be a great change of legal principle on this issue here. Since chapter 2 of the proposed Constitution has the personal rights, and the Americans have their Bill of Rights, I propose that the Americans exchange chapter 2 with their version of individual rights. (There is such a combined version of the two somewhere on my website.) My point was not to make up individual rights all over again, it was more about economics and the State. Since the model needs to be complete however, I put something in there.
Notice that I have not proposed to restrict fire arms ownership for people under 50. The proposal only says that above 50 your rights are guaranteed. Below that age the law maker can make new law. The law maker could for example allow even mortars and heavy mines, besides all fire arms, to be legal for everyone without any age restriction. That would be possible without altering the Constitution proposal.
Why 50 and why an age restriction. Age restriction is easy to enforce, and it is easy to claim your rights under it. You only need to turn 50. I feel this is a strong right. A weaker right would be: everyone can be armed, who has qualified some “civil behavior” course. There is no saying where that will lead once the wrong people get control of that. I have put in a principle that convicts cannot arm themselves anyway even after 50, but have then restricted the total amount of such criminals that may be listed. A future tyrant will naturally put 99% of the population on such a list. That is another attempt to get the measure through, without damaging “our” ability to overthrow the State by popular uprising.
Then there are some positive reasons for this. While I acknowledge the right to self defense for anybody, and hence the need to be armed for anybody, if we are going to look at arms for the reason of civil war and Revolution, the idea that this kind of force is sided with those older seems generally a wise idea. Older people are a little less hysterical, and generally less violent because their bodies are becoming less strong. People aged 50 are soon 60, all of which is above military age (max 45). This implies that older people essentially end up with the job of handing out their weapons to people they trust. This in turn implies a level of democratic process taking place, it is a social process.
All in all, it seemed this would be a decent idea to propose. I chose 50 pretty much because it gave me the right feeling. It is double the age of the voting age in this system, which is 25. There is some sort of harmony with that I guess. 25 years before you may participate with your word and vote, another 25 years until you gain the right to overthrow the State with the rest of the population. Generally the age of 50 is regarded as the age where one knows a few things about life, at least this is the case in the Netherlands.
Another option would be to adopt the Swiss system, which has proven itself in practice. I think with them it has to do with being trained in the army, and then you are supposed to have a weapon, and keep it concealed in such a way that the central Swiss Government cannot find it (but don’t take my word for it.) These days the would be tyrants are making a big show of gun violence, for example in schools, and other gun violence by young people. With this age 50 principle in place, perhaps we can defend the right to an armed population a little more effectively, by disassociating it with violence done by people under age 50. As mentioned above, most violent criminals are below age 50, and the really violent ones tend to be dead before 30 or in jail for life. Let me know what you think.
Notice that you would be set if you have a grandpa who wants to keep your stash of weapons for you, right ? š
ā½Ā¹ā¾ http://www.socialism.nl/law-extended.html#armed.people
http://www.socialism.nl/law-extended.html#common.militia
First posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments
/e2sskb/help_monopoly_on_violence/f92wmgz/
