ID, please

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

There are two identification issues being bandied about in the national discourse, which, when placed adjacent to each other, provide some interesting considerations.

These are the issues of voter ID at polling places and gun owner registration.

They are really the same issue, for they both seek to prove who you are and determine if you are qualified to do a certain activity (vote or own a gun).

The liberal viewpoint is that we do not need voter ID, but we do need some sort of gun control/registration. The conservative viewpoint is exactly opposite.

During last fall’s presidential election, the liberals said that voter ID was a conservative issue trying to disenfranchise people from voting.

Further, they opined, this really isn’t a big issue anyway. Recent revelations, focused in Ohio (and even more recently, Florida), have proved them wrong.

Now, we find that at least one person may have voted up to six times in Ohio and, further, sees nothing wrong with this. Where there is smoke, there is fire.

For a conservative, this is encouraging on another level. For instead of assuming a majority of the voting population has lost their minds and is now in favor of an ever-expansive federal government, we can now extrapolate that the national election was deciding by a minority (about 8.6 percent) stretched to a perceived majority via replicative illegal voting (6 x 8.6 percent for those of you struggling with math).

Interestingly, liberals use all the same arguments for gun control that the conservatives use for voter ID.

However, in at least one case, the Constitution goes against liberals.

We’ll start with the 15th Amendment. It states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Obviously, Congress has the power to see that this is carried out by any means they see as appropriate.

Amendment 19 is similar (the right for women to vote). Same with Amendment 24, which contains similar language. Likewise, Amendment 26 (allowing 18 year olds the right to vote in national elections).

Now, the liberals may have a point on one technicality – I can’t find anywhere in the Constitution where it spells out only one vote per person per election.

So, perhaps the conservatives have just been stupid, thinking voting is limited to one vote per person per election (obviously, in theory or practice, some liberals don’t seem to be worried about this).

When it comes to gun control and the Second Amendment, however, it appears to be unambiguous.

It ends with “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

What part of “shall not be infringed” could possibly be confusing to any reader?

So, our lesson today is simple. There are absolutely no constitutional limits on gun ownership. And, if you have not been voting twice or more in each election, you should start – (apparently) it is not prohibited.

Jim Thompson is a columnist for The Highland County Press.