I’ve encountered no comments from Senator McCain in response to Exxon Mobil’s quarterly earnings statement last week, so I’ll find something to praise about a McCain policy.
I haven’t thought too deeply on the Second Amendment and all the implications. It just isn’t an issue I’m inclined to obsess over as a personal interest. Emotionally, I’m inclined to take a hard anti-libertarian position but that would be based outside of the fact pattern, as well as a dismissal of common sense and personal responsibility. I also understand more now about how a citizenry defends itself against tyranny from government or fellow men. The property right to one’s life is enough. So, I generally respect McCain’s position on the Second Amendment.
For example:
Gun Manufacturer Liability
John McCain opposes backdoor attempts to restrict Second Amendment rights by holding gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed by third parties using a firearm, and has voted to protect gun manufacturers from such inappropriate liability aimed at bankrupting the entire gun industry.
I don’t know enough about the legal details to have a position on how he proposes to achieve this. Still, when a business sells a legal, constitutionally-protected product in accordance that works correctly, what the buyer does with that product is the sole point for discussion. Gun manufacturers don’t kill people any more than Volkswagen kills someone when a drunk Passat owner gets behind the wheel and drives on the sidewalk. The product works as intended. End of discussion.
Also, this:
DC Personal Protection
As part of John McCain’s defense of Second Amendment rights, he cosponsored legislation to lift a ban on the law abiding citizens of the District of Columbia from exercising their Constitutional right to bear arms.
Once again, the legal questions are beyond my scope. But unlike D.C. voting rights, I can find no distinction within the Constitution that denies the protection of Second Amendment rights to residents of D.C. Any such argument essentially says that D.C. residents lose all Constitutional protection of their natural rights. That can’t be right.
On D.C voting rights: one of the arguments advocates of full House representation for D.C make is the fact that D.C. is already treated as a “state” for purposes of diversity jurisdiction (i.e., in flagrant disregard of the plain text of Article III).
Perhaps — but granting D.C. diversity status does not dilute the diversity status of bona fide states. Full House representation does. So the argument that “we’re already violating the Constitution over D.C. status” is not particularly robust.
Same with guns. Expanding Second Amendment rights to D.C. residents does not dilute the Second Amendment rights of residents of bona fide states. So it is not, without more, an affront to the Bill of Rights.
(IMHO.)
P.S. Your last point has been used as a reductio argument in the context of the First Amendment: Congress’ supposedly “plenary control” over the District mentioned in Article I cannot possibly mean that Congress could, e.g., establish an official religion within it.