[RandomThoughts3]

The position is weird to this European.

A constitution is not a sacred text but a very practical one. The constitution of my country went trough five major rewrites and was amended approximately a dozen of times since the last rewrite and somehow we are still a liberal free country.

The idea that touching it in any way or form is a slippery slop leading to less rights is a fallacy.

[drdeca]

It isn’t that “touching it” is a slippery slope, but that ignoring part of it is a slippery slope.

If an amendment is passed to change the 2nd amendment, that’s one thing.

But not doing that, and just banning private gun ownership (or whatever law one might want to pass that goes against the second amendment) anyway, would be a rather different thing.

[WalterBright]

Is it? Having rights has historically not been a stable configuration. There are constant efforts to abrogate them.

It's amazing the US has lasted as long as it has, although I've lived long enough to see a significant erosion of rights.

For example, civil asset forfeiture.

[lupusreal]

The Constitution isn't meant to be immutable, the Constitution itself specifies a process for changing the Constitution. That process has been used numerous times before, so we know it can work. The people who want to ignore that process are people who want to change something in the Constitution but lack the requisite political support to do it properly. This is why they get told off.

The Second Ammendment could be nullified with a new Amendment that undoes the Second, but this isn't seriously entertained by gun control activists in America because it would be extremely unpopular so there's no way they could pull it off. Instead, they intend to simply ignore the law.

[RandomThoughts3]

Sure but the explanation conveniently sidesteps the issue with the senate lack of actual representativity. Even a popular law could easily be blocked by a small minority in the rural states.

Anyway I’m not American. The quality or lack thereof of the US political system doesn’t really affect me. Would appreciate the US getting its act together when it comes to GHG emission however because we share the same planet.

[tpmoney]

The senate has plenty of representativity. Is China or India any less represented at the UN because they have the same number of votes as Cuba and Micronesia? Surely there are a few "popular" items China or Russia might like to see passed that are blocked by "a small minority in the rural states" of Europe?

Beyond that, the states themselves can petition for a constitutional convention. 2/3s of the state legislatures would be all it takes to kick that process off, no senate "representativity" required (unless I suppose the senate wanted to argue that "congress shall call a convention" does not obligate congress to do so. But I suspect that's a constitutional crisis even the most obstructionist senators would be reluctant to take on in the face of 2/3s of the states actually petitioning congress.

[RandomThoughts3]

> Is China or India any less represented at the UN because they have the same number of votes as Cuba and Micronesia

Yes, very much so. That’s part of why the UN is not taken very seriously and why the security council exists.

> The senate has plenty of representativity.

Debatable. It was certainly fit for purpose when it was set in place. Is it appropriate nowadays? Probably not, especially when you consider how it impacts the electoral college.

I tend to find the USA political system a bit dubious (I think the same of the one of my own country to be clear and I generally have a poor opinion of presidential systems anyway). Still, the country has been mostly stable until now so I guess it’s fit for purpose.

[lupusreal]

> Sure but the explanation conveniently sidesteps the issue with the senate lack of actual representativity

That complaint isn't addressed by empowering political appointees from the executive to write laws the courts aren't allowed to challenge. Least of all, laws which violate he Bill of Rights!