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Originally Posted by balefire88
"especially those that our founders believed." Why is it so important to keep exactly what they believed? I'll support to keep it if you can prove to me that it reduces crime, and I'll support getting rid of it someone proves to me that it increases crime. I want to deal with the relevant issues of today. I'm a realist.
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Ok, so lets deal with real issues of today, like crime. Does gun control reduce crime? that answer is patently no. Look at Chicago and D.C. constanly competing each year to see who can be the murder capital of the world. Both have city wide gun bans, not just handguns, but all guns.
Now, do carry states have less crime? thats debatable. some states claim to have lower crime, some higher, and some have not changed at all. But I can tell you with all certainty that those carry states at least allow for the people to defend themselves. What should this tell us? Crime isn't going to go away because of gun control. There will always be crime. But law abiding citizens who carry can better protect themselves. But theres already a thread about that issue.
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Originally Posted by balefire88
If it would help society today to get rid of the 2nd amendment because the end result would be decreasing crime, then I'd rather do that than prepare for the possiblity that I have to fight against the US government. If people have to fight against an oppressive US government, they'll find whatever means possible. I'll choose non-violence. A gun lover can procure guns from outside sources, as the founding fathers did from France. Another, and I absolutely detest having to use this example, can use IEDs, as evidenced by Iraqi terrorists, to fight.
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study history some more, especially world history. When one side has all the guns, it's easy to commit massacres.
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Originally Posted by balefire88
"Now, I pointed this out before, but I shall do so again because I think its a strong point against what our founding fathers believed. Many of them, in fact some of the best of them, believed that slaves and women were inferior. They believed these things because in those days, it made sense to them. In the same way, owning guns made a lot of sense then, for the reasons I outlined in previous posts. Today, it might or might not make sense depending on, to me, the crime issue. If the crime issue was resolved, then yes, I don't have any objections to the 2nd amendment. So, I feel that our energies would be better devoted to arguing about crime rather than whether founding fathers meant or did not mean for us to have guns in the year 2000.
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If you'll notice, the bill of rights mentions nothing about slaves or women. It specifically refers to individual rights. As time went on and slavery came to be regarded as oppression, it was remedied with another amendment (13th). When the southern states grudgingly dealt without slavery, they still treated blacks as second/third class people, so along came the 14th amendment.
It should be also noted that only one time in our history did our nation use the amendment process to prohibit something and it turned in to a colossal failure and was soon repealed.
The US was built upon the tenets of individual liberty and freedom. Those were bought with the lives of many and attained with the use of firearms. The surest way to lose those would be to willingly deprive ourselves of that right. The founders saw this to be true from history.