Eminent domain: public good or crony capitalism?

Kelo v New London is arguably the worst Supreme Court decision of my life time still in effect. Citizens United is terrible too but it mostly legimitized a system that was increasingly corrupt anyways.

 

The US Constitution permits the taking of “private property for public USE" with just compensation.This process was typically used to obtain land to build highways, bridges, parks and other things the public has access to. There have often been battles over what constitutes just compensation but the principle of what constituted “public use” was pretty clear.

 

The Kelo ruling threw this out and authorized eminent domain  to be used for the far more nebulous reason of the public benefit. This is often invoked to justify giving the land – or selling it at a pittance - to a private developer to build a private structure because of the “public benefit” of greater tax revenue.

 

In other words, it opened the door for the government to seize property and use it to further crony capitalism.

 

In this story, the city of Hartford, CT, seized land from a developer who wanted to build a mixed-use structure adjacent to where a new baseball stadium was being built. The city seized the property from one developer and gave it to another developer.

Guns, property and voting

The controversial New York gun law passed recently contained a provision whereby gun registration information (such as addresses of registrants) would cease to be accessible to the general public. This came after the contemptible publication of gun owners’ addresses by a newspaper in the downstate’s Hudson Valley.

But my question is this. You are required to register with the government if you wish to exercise these three constitutional rights: gun ownership, voting and property ownership. But while the addresses of voters and property owners are considered public domain, available for any Tom, Dick and Harry to publish on the Internet (or for any stalker to target their victim), the addresses of gun owners, at least in New York state, are now private.

I’ve asked this question of many people but I’ve still never gotten an answer: why is the privacy of registrants’ information treated differently for gun owners than it is for voters and property owners?

 

Please note: This entry is NOT intended to debate whether one should have to register to exercise any of these rights. It’s acknowledging the fact that one has to and wondering why the personal information is subsequently treated differently depending on the right being exercised. Any comments that focus on whether one should have to register for any of these will be rejected so as not to hijack the intent of the discussion.