Amending the Constitution of the United States

[bwiese]

I don't think we want a Convention. Things go wild. Lotsa crap could go wrong.

BUT... an Amendment 'clarifying' the 2nd Amendment to its simple "shall not be infringed" primitive meaning
in modern English - and perhaps adding a fun "and no court can reinterpret this!" - addendum could be passed in a decade.

Yeah, it'd cost money. But people also like to vote for what they have ;-)

Remember where we are...

• 40+ states have pretty rational concealed carry laws.
  That's way way way up from 20 years ago.
  
• Whole buncha states have passed "don't help the Feds"
  laws, and rejected gun restrictions, AW laws, etc.
  
• Constitutional Amendments are won more by "land area" basis
  than population density. Big cities thus have far less influence.

What it takes to do an Amendment...

- 2/3 House + 2/3 Senate approve a Joint Resolution for the new Amendment

- 3/4 of state legislatures vote then to "Ratify" [in a specified time windown, each leg vote
simple majority, though maybe some state laws have control here]



After a period of anti overreach and fired up gunnies a la the 1994 AWban, we just might have that.

We have strong gun sympathies that beat all these numbers. We have huge gun blocs of CCW people
with "something to fight for".

The worry? A loss politically gives courts more leeway to track with public sentiments of antis in the news...

[Rez805]

Hey! That map looks familiar. I seem to recall them having to put a major curve on the scores just to make it look the way they want it to look. It's perfect for people who don't like thinking very hard (edit: that's not directed at the OP or people contributing to this discussion) because we all have our notions on what an "A" means. Well, 80 was the cutoff for an A.

If you're curious, they had to put a 14 point curve just to be able to fit the model of having "80" points equal an A-. The "Gun Death Rate" was taken from 2010, but I'm not seeing exactly how they measured that. The only footnote that seemed even closely related (based on the reference number)

"1 The combined expertise of the Law Center and
Brady Campaign informed our grading system . . ."

I kind of stopped reading after that.

They have their methodology posted in a table towards the end.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/default/files/SCGLM-Final10-spreads-points.pdf

[Diabl0]

Instead of a Amendment to the Constitution how about something more along the lines of the Voting Rights Act.

As I understand it there were parts of the Voting Rights Act that limited certain states from passing new laws because they were known or thought to be trying to limit certain groups ability to vote.

It was basically the federal government stepping in to protect peoples voting rights. I know parts of it were recently overturned but it may still be doable and easier than trying to pass a Amendment.

Maybe call it the Gun Rights Act.

[Wiz-of-Awd]

Instead of a Amendment to the Constitution, how about we all - as a nation united - stick to the one/s we already have?

A.W.D.

[CaliforniaLiberal]

Instead of a Amendment to the Constitution how about something more along the lines of the Voting Rights Act.

As I understand it there were parts of the Voting Rights Act that limited certain states from passing new laws because they were known or thought to be trying to limit certain groups ability to vote.

It was basically the federal government stepping in to protect peoples voting rights. I know parts of it were recently overturned but it may still be doable and easier than trying to pass a Amendment.

Maybe call it the Gun Rights Act.

The Gun Rights Act would have to be passed by both Houses of Congress and either signed by the President or Congress would have to override his Veto by a 2/3 vote.

I think what's being suggested in this thread is that it would be easier to propose a Constitutional Amendment that would be ratified by 3/4 of the States.

[barrage]

The Constitution is already full of amendments that the organization that currently calls itself the US government regularly ignores. What good would adding in another one for them to ignore (that the 2nd Amendment already covers just fine by itself) possibly do?