ACLU defending "gun rights"

[dross]

I'm a fan of all of them, but I recognise that states don't have rights and that the 10th vests too much power in the states, rather than in the people. I don't like governments having too much power.

Correct, states don't have rights. It's just a handy shortcut phrase.

The people have rights, however, and one of those is to be governed by their own states, where they have more influence, rather than by the federal government, except in those narrow enumerated areas where the Constitution gives power to the federal government.

The tenth doesn't vest power in the states over that of the people, all it does is say that the federal government is limited over the states and the people. It's telling the federal government to stay out of the states, not telling the individual state how to interact with that state's people.

 

[mrjarrell]

Correct, states don't have rights. It's just a handy shortcut phrase.

The people have rights, however, and one of those is to be governed by their own states, where they have more influence, rather than by the federal government, except in those narrow enumerated areas where the Constitution gives power to the federal government.

The tenth doesn't vest power in the states over that of the people, all it does is say that the federal government is limited over the states and the people. It's telling the federal government to stay out of the states, not telling the individual state how to interact with that state's people.

Unfortunately, that's not how many states see it. And supporters of "states rights" and a strong 10th are often only doing it as a way of hammering and getting around the 14th.