Should we repeal the Ninth Amendment?

Question

What it says in a nutshell is, "If we forgot any rights you can think of, you can have those too". That smacks of anarchy, and I can see where both sides could, and have, abused it. The pro-choice lobby probably take their "Abortion rights" from it, the NRA probably gets the idea that a private citizen should be able to own an M-16 from it(when a .38 would do just fine, and there are a lot of other misuses of this amendment. For the sake of the country, should we repeal it, or at least pass another amendment paring its purview down a bit?

Answer 1

No. In the first place, that is NOT the meaning of the 9th amendment. The whole Constitution is based on--and the Bill of rights especially--is based on the fact that "rights" are the property of the individual..  They are NOT the state's and the state cannot decide if we "can have those too."

You misread the text--go back and reread it. The meaning is clear: the government has ONLY those right s explicitly granted it by the constitution. The rest BELONG to the people. No one is "letting" us have anything--those rights are ours.

They are not something the government--can give or take from us, except by our consent. Nor does any petty busybody who thinks he ought to  strip people of their liberty because he doesn't like what they do have any authority to take away peoples rights.

Answer 2

What's wrong with owning a rifle?

Gotta uphold our second amendment responsibility, right?

But I myself disagree with abortion, so, if this amendment is causing trouble, we should reevaluate it.

Answer 3

I whole-heartedly recommend repealing it. When it is interpreted correctly, it means the same thing as the Tenth Amendment, which makes it unnecessarily redundant. And far too many people have misinterpreted it. So please, let's do.

But, .... the trouble is, .... all of those people who misinterpret it are going to behave like crybabies and prevent any repeal. Those people have enough political power to prevent a new amendment which would repeal the Ninth. We need a two-third vote in both chambers of Congress, and given the current makeup of Congress, there are too many members who misinterpret and would try to block.

We need to educate everyone what is the right interpretation. If they'll listen!!!!

Answer 4

it is against the US consitution to ban ownership of guns.  With guns it makes politics realize that we r not a dictatorship but a democracy

Answer 5

The amendments purpose is to restrict governments power and have the people retain more power.  The framers of the amendment realized that they did not cover everything and that there would be things that would come up in the future they had not thought of.  It is not carte blanche to do whatever you want, it restricts the government from interpreting the constitution and amendments as the only rights people have and if they are not specifically mentioned that they are unconstitutional.

Answer 6

So you believe that our rights should be limited only to those that are speciffally enumerated in the constition?  Our founding fathers believed that our rights came from God and not from the governemt.