Second Amendment
 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

Not since the Kelo v. New London decision has a constitutional amendment been so hotly debated. Currently, there are three interpretations of this amendment. The individual right, the collective right (states right), and the limited individual right.

My opinion is that this amendment affords ALL citizens the right to keep and bear arms. This is proven by many points as listed below.

1) The many quotes from the founding fathers that were recorded during the conventions which explicitly claim an individual right to keep and bear arms.

2) In the Bill of Rights, 'the people' is mentioned 5 times. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th, and 10th. In numerous court decisions, 'the people' has always been referred to 'individual' rights when it concerns the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th, yet most circuit courts tend to interpret the 2nd as a collective right. I hardly think the founding fathers would throw a states right in the Bill of Rights that apply to individuals. The 5th and 6th amendments also refer to 'individual' rights via 'person' and 'accused' respectively.

3) The constitution was written to specifically authorize certain 'powers' to the government, both federal and state, while the 9th specifically says The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. meaning that only the people have rights, and they have ALL rights that are not specifically addressed as powers to the government.

Many arguments and debates that have centered around the second amendment have focused largely on the 1939 US v. Miller court ruling as direct adjudication of the 'collective' right, but in actuality, the 39 decision is so vague and only references the militia in regards to the short barreled shotgun of the case.

To this day, there has been no definitive case deciding that the second is indeed an individual right, but there are 35 cases where the 'right' is referred to as an individual right in the opinions citing the dicta of those cases.

The 2nd amendment is an individual right, not a collective right, since the state governments only retain 'powers, and the people retain 'rights'.

Not since... last year? Ok...

That's a pretty hard pill to swallow. Remember that many released criminals are citizens, as are the insane and children. There seems to be ample reason to deprive certain citizens of deadly weapons.

And remember that it's illegal to own machine guns, tanks (unless it won't shoot), etc. If it were truly an individual right, then that would not be the case. The second does not say anything about limitation on the power or speed of the arm you are allowed to bear.

I don't understand how someone can selectively apply "the people." Either we have individual rights in all the cases where it says "the people" or we don't. The people who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights were very precise in their wording and I find it unlikely that they made a mistake by adding "the people" to the 2nd amendment.

There's already an amendment that handles criminals. No life, liberties, or property to be deprived without due process.

dksuddeth
Dk, I am not clear about the discussion point that you are suggesting. Others have mentioned the logical restrictions that have come to pass. To my knowledge, the majority of the "people" can buy a gun. Would you clarify your intent for me?

that was poorly worded. I meant to say that the second amendment has been the most hotly debated amendment until last years kelo v. new london. so much for brevity.


but remember, in the early days after ratification, criminals were kept locked up longer OR executed and those deemed mentally unsound were looked after very closely by family members at all times.

the amendment says 'shall not be infringed'. to me, that means that the gun control laws making machine gun ownership illegal post 86 SHOULD be unconsititutional. I consider that it's because of the liberal courts at that time that made those laws stand up when a less liberal court would not have upheld them. Tanks are not 'firearms'. Nor are nuclear weapons and MOABs, nor are ICBMs.

gladly. MOST states (38 at this time) are 'shall issue', meaning that if an individual meets the current federal requirements to carry a weapon, that state MUST issue the license to carry. 10 states are 'may issue', meaning that after one meets the federal requirements, the county sheriff (of appropriate law enforcement official) MAY issue the license. This usually means a no, but could be a yes if the person is politically connected, a celebrity of sorts, or a contributer to the sheriffs election campaign. There are 2 states that do not issue carry licenses at this time. There are a several states that are open carry at this time as well. The federal requirements should be well known by now, but require a background check to ensure one is not a felon (not much problem with this throughout the pro-gun community), although some believe that if a convicted felon cannot be trusted with a firearm, that convicted felon should not be let out in the first place.

The NFA that restricts automatic weapon ownership to people as long as they pay a $200 tax is a form of infringement. It was initially meant to provide a steep price to ownership thinking that moonshine runners would not be able to afford it. It is a law that is still on the books today and should not be. The Firearms act of 86, a law that restricts automatic firearms ownership to no automatics manufactured AFTER 1986 is also infringement, especially because it does not allow the civilian 'militia' to own the same types of firearms that the standing armies currently own.

Not true; they were deliberately vague. Those documents are intended to lay out a philosophical groundwork, not a to-do list. They were built to last, with the understanding that times change and policy needs to change along with them. Hence the political and social-policy game of constitutional interpretation we've played ever since.

1) i think it would better to cut this one down the middle. In places where they were clear they were precise (1st Amendment). In places where they were unsure they vague (Commerce & Necessary and Proper Clauses). There were many unknowns at the end of the 1700s, and there was a lot of bet hedging going on.

2) Which is all a way of saying - I dont know how i feel on this Second Amendment thing. I dont think that framer had a clear view of were guns were going. There hadnt been a lot of change in the 50 years before the bill of rights and where wasnt much change for 50 years after the bill of rights (i understand this is an overstatement, but my knowledge of 18th-19th century arms is small)

i do not believe that they could of saw the major tech shifts coming and i think that the 2nd Amendment needs to be looked at in that light

that is not to say we ought to be banning guns b/c of this, it is something that needs to be kept in mind when talking about things like wait times and trigger locks.

Well, I think this argument works against gun control. Guns were the major military armament in the late 1700s. Now they're eclipsed by bombs, missiles, rockets, grenades, artillery, tanks, etc. So in terms of their comparative power, guns are much less formidable in today's world of force. They're hardly even a credible means of resisting a government like ours (on an individual basis).

I'm not saying this is my thought, I'm just following your point through...

This is from author Neal Stephenson's website. It is taken from an interview he did for Slashdot. I think this point (which Stephenson dismisses on practical grounds) is germane to this thread, particularly in terms of the question of flexibility of terminology. What exactly constitutes a protected arm? Mostly that line of reasoning goes to the absurd, like bombs and tanks. This time it goes to the more subtle methods of defense.



I link only for form - there's not anything else here that relates to our discussion.

The 2nd does not say "firearms" It says "arms" which means "weapons" Tanks, nukes, MOABs, and ICBMs are all weapons. Therefore if one is to interpret the 2nd as you want us to, I should be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

The following is my own opinion and interpretation in regards to the Second Amendment.

The heart of the matter is the ability of the people to defend themselves from tyranny, both of a foreign nature as well as from their own government should it no longer be in their service. While the First Amendment is critical to protecting the people's right to develop and implement their will upon the government, the Second ensures that the government not have the ability to trump that freedom by use of force, and that instead, the people have the ability to defend themselves and enforce adherance to the Constitution by force if necessary.

Some view the well-regulated militia part and the right of the people to keep and bear arms part as seperate concepts, but I see no real rationale to that distinction. The militia is a military force by of and for the people as opposed to the standing army which is an arm of the Federal Government. A militia is not a permanent force but one that is drawn from the people as called for. The maintenance of such militia demands that the citizenry be able to keep arms such that they be available in case of such a call.

The states' National Guard forces could qualify as such a militia, well regulated as they are, but their increasing Federalization makes this less and less credible. When cases arise such as Louisiana last year, in which case the state did not have the ability to call on its own forces to meet its own needs due to their obligation to the Federal Government, this point is made all the more clear.

The regulation of weapon ownership is an interesting issue as well. On one hand it is clearly stated that the militia is to be well regulated, but on the other hand the right to keep arms shall not be infringed. My take on it is that regulation is self-imposed, and is essentially what today we would call organization, not necessarily regulation by the Federal Government. The essence of it is that in our own community, we have the right to form organized militia, with arms available for our equipment, ready to bear those arms when called upon in the defense of a free state.

What does that mean for the regulation of specific weapons? First off, I don't see any distinction especially for firearms. The Amendment neither specifically allows nor excludes firearms, or any other specific weapon, in the matter. We all can pretty well agree that firearms are weapons, or 'arms' as stated, but what about knives, or a stick of TNT? Depends on usage, doesn't it? Thus in many states, it legal to own a working howitzer, provided you get the right permits. I guess it all comes down to how one see the idea of 'shall not be infringed'. Many see permits and registration as a form of infringement. In the strictest sense of the word, that is correct. But it is impossible to have rights without any infringement. Afterall, it doesn't state what I can or can't bear arms against, so restricting my freedom to bear arms against other citizens is, in the strictest sense, an infringement. Thus, I have to conclude that 'to infringe' does not mean 'to regulate', but instead to place undue restriction upon.

Thus I think it is reasonable that there be some regulation of firearm and other weapon ownership, manufacture, transfer, transport, storage, and usage. This is a requirement so that such weapons do not pose a greater threat than that which they are to protect us from. In the end, however, the people shall not be prevented from acquiring and keeping such weapons as necessary for the maintenance of militia.

How does this translate to various issues today?
1) People should be able to have weapons on their own property. The SF Ban goes to far by preventing this.
2) Carriage of weapons in public is not protected, thus the SF ban is within bounds to ban carriage in public. Concealed carry is not a right.
3) The well-regulated militia referred to is not limited to nor satisfied by the existance of the National Guard. Other militias may be organized by the people and may be called into action in defense of the free state.
4) Regulation is necessary to ensure that weaponry does not represent greater danger than defense. Registration, safety and operational training requirements, and verification of citizenship are all valid regulations in the interest of the people of a free state.
5) Prohibition of weapons is contrary to the Amendment, regardless of the nature of the weapon. Thus things like automatic weapons should not be arbitrarily banned, but instead, so long as the citizen operates within due regulation, they shall be permitted to keep such weapons. Yes, this means you can buy a howitzer or an anti-aircraft missile. This also means that if you are not currently incarcerated or otherwise prohibited expressly by terms of the court as the result of a criminal conviction, your right to keep arms shall not be prohibited. Yes, this means ex-felons shall be allowed to own weapons, provided that the court did not see fit to specifically prohibit such ownership as due sentence of a criminal conviction. Blanket restrictions based solely on a person's status as an ex-felon, even after all terms of a sentence have been served, are in my view an infringement of rights.

I doubt such conclusions will make wither pro-gun or anti-gun folks happy.

A note on crime: Nowhere in the Amendment does it list crime as a justification for either the right to keep nor for regulation of weaponry. Thus, any debate about the effect of gun ownership on crime rates is completely irrelevant to discussion about the Second Amendment. The only stated rationale for keeping and bearing arms is the maintenance of militia for defense of the free state. The defense of the free state demands that weapons be available for a militia, but also that said militia be regulated. It is only in the interest of the maintenance of the free state that said right and said regulation exist. Other rationale is beyond the Amedment and thus not protected by the Amendment.

I agree, as stated above. Certain regulations are appropriate for each of these, and for all should include assurances that the existance of these arms not pose danger to others. So if you want to have a nuclear weapon, you should be required to create and maintain the full infrastructure for the safe strage and maintenance of such an item. I think that is pretty well out of reach for a citizen, so the idea is purely theoretical.

It's a lot more reasonable to talk about tanks and other 'heavy weapons'. I know that it is legal in some places to own such things, fully operational. There's a club in Arizona, for example, that operate half-tracks with anti-tank guns and do shoots in the desert and such. All highly regulated by state laws, but still permitted.

You are pretty much right about firearms of that period. Yes, I'm sure an enthusiast can point out numerous technical improvements made, but in essence, if a militia formed of soldiers with weapons from 1725 were to face off against one with weapons from 1825, the weapons would be one of the more minor factors when figuring out which force would win the battle.

I think more to the point though is to discuss the nature of military forces of the period. There wan't a whole lot of difference between a professional standing army force and a raised militia force when it came to military formations of the period. The pros had an edge in training, discipline, and perhaps better understanding amongst the officers of military tactics, but they were both based on ranks of rifle-armed infantry.

The same can not be said today. Modern professional armies are highly technical with powerful weapon systems that require entire infrastructures to support and deploy, and which have fundamentally altered the nature of the battlefield. Raised militia armed with personal weapons are incapable of even meeting modern professional armies in battle, much less prevailing. Instead, they must fight their own style of war, hence the insurgencies and guerilla wars we've seen in recent times.

In the past, at least the militia could stand opposed to a professional force. They would still have the disadvantages as noted above, but may well be able to overcome them by gaining other advantages (numbers, terrain, leadership, morale, etc.) At least the balance of battle could be measured on the same scale. Today, there is no direct comparison of any value. It all comes down to what kind of war is fought.

Resistance by arms on an individual basis has never been a credible means of resisting a government, it always has required organization of a people to form credible armed resistance. But you are right, firearms alone do not give us the power to form such organization. We must have heavier arms to be able to do so. Thus, call me crazy, but I think tanks and howitzers and such should be permitted within reasonable regulation for the equipment of well-regulated militia in the interest of the defense of the free state.

Strong posts Josh. Thanks for those contributions. I'll have to sleep for a while before I can jump back in.

I simply don't understand how someone can use the argument, "This is what the original framers intended."

I understand that our laws are based on the Constitution, and that laws cannot contradict it. That's why we have amendments. There's a reason the framers were wrong about slavery, were wrong about women, and were probably wrong about atleast a few other things. It's because they lived over 200 years ago. We don't hold all the same values today, because society has progressed a lot since then, although some would say we've actually regressed. Now this does not mean owning a gun in today's society is wrong. The framers may have been right about that one, but then again, maybe not. They weren't gods, they were men; and men make mistakes.

In the revolutionary era, having just won Independance from Britain after a war, it would have seemed rather prudent to the framers that people have weapons ready so that they may be called upon to defend the fledgeling nation. Also, the first 10 amendments were added to the Constitution partly to placate the Anti-Federalists who objected to the new Constitution. The framers agreed to the Bill of Rights as a compromise to get them to ratify it. Now, the Anti-Federalists were worried that a powerful central government would become tyrannical as the British government had been. So, a right to bear arms was also a way for the people to fight the government if such fears came to pass. Why is this historical information important? It provides context. (Ref: The American Revolution -- Edward Countryman)


Personal feelings about the 2nd Amendment:
To me, the historical circumstances make the 2nd Amendment seem outdated in today's times. Protest tends to be mostly non-violent, which I believe in, so I don't feel I need a gun to protest against my government; especially in the United States. I think if there is a war against a foreign country, the government will provide enough weapons. Hopefully, there won't be any wars. I unfortunately don't have the necessary reading done to make an informed opinion on whether gun ownership increases or decreases crime rates.

Ouch. My philosophy is to depend on the government for as little as possible. The victims of Katrina would probably side with me, although some are more content to complain about the failures of government than to become self-sufficient. In any case, I don't want to find myself in the circumstances they experienced.

Every study I have seen (and I'd have to spend some time to provide them) has indicated that less restrictive gun laws decrease crime. If there is a valid study that indicates more restrictive gun laws reduce crime, I'd like to see it.

Note--I don't want to hear that "England has less crime." Their crime rate recently INCREASED with more restrictions, and no one has yet explained Switzerland's low crime rate in spite of the near universal possession of firearms. What would interest me is a reference to a US city whose crime rate was decreased by additional gun laws.

#deleted post#

Apologies etc.

The constitution speaks to "arms" not "firearms". Nukes, tanks, MIGs, laser guns - all arms.

Ooops, Shakran beat me to it.

Carry on...

And I, in turn, don't understand how we can consider these questions without at least considering intent.

Look at it this way (for a second). There are essentially two discussions that can be had here: 1) What does the Constitution (as amended by the Bill of Rights) say about this issue? (and the auxiliary point of - we know what it says, but what does that mean); and 2) Should we change what the Constitution says because we think it is time for it to say something else.

If these questions aren't the basis for consideration of rights and our relationship to government, we might as well not have a Constitution. You're right the the document isn't inviolate, but until we start talking about how to change it, the sane conversation is to consider what it means.

Hey - it's nice to see some new faces around here!

I think joshbaumgartner (post 15 in this thread) made a very credible point that crime isn't an argument that relates to understanding the 2nd amendment as it is currently written. It COULD be a consideration in a conversation about how to amend the Constitution. Do you disagree with him?

Yes, I agree. People confuse their views on the way things should be with how the amendment was written. Crime really has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment by itself.

It's as if people form their own view on the subject of guns, then read the amendment to fit accordingly.

Lets see you 'bear' that nuclear weapon or tank.

You can't. It is a ludicrous and ridiculous argument on the gun ban side to include such obvious heavy weaponry and WMD's as 'arms' and is only designed as a fear tactic to persuade the unknowing populace to the ban side.

This is incorrect. The definition of 'bear' is to carry. The US supreme court has used this definition in many of its dicta when referring to the second amendment.

This is a very excellent point. 'Crime' was not the intent of the second amendment. 'self defense' was the intent, not only against a potential governmental tyranny, but individual tyranny as well.

If you want to get that absurdly technical, then the 2nd says "keep AND bear arms" which means you have the right to a weapon only as long as you carry it on you 100% of the time. Clearly that's stupid.

Plus you're using ONE definition of "bear" when in fact there's another definition that says "to rightfully have." I.e. by that definition I bear my car. It's an antequated term, but then the constitution is over 200 years old.

Insisting that we use only one definition of "bear" is silly, and could be countered with the equally absurd argument that the definition of "arms" that I want everyone to use is the appendages that attach your hands to your body. By that definition no weapon at all is guaranteed under the 2nd. But then that argument is just as asinine as the argument redefining "bear."


Then your argument falls apart when you consider the bans on machine guns. You can certainly "bear" a machine gun. You can "bear" an RPG launcher. And I think an argument can be made that you can in fact bear larger weaponry as well.

So far in this thread you've tried to redefine the 2nd amendment to suit your purposes twice. You've tried to tell us that the 2nd only guarantees arms that you can physically carry (wrong) and you've tried to tell us that the 2nd only guarantees your right to bear FIREarms, even though the word "firearms" does not appear anywhere within the 2nd.

It would be very easy to win arguments if we could redefine terms at will and then require everyone to accept our definitions.

an argument about what is stupid and what isn't stupid is pointless when it concerns you. It's something I'm not going to get in to.

from websters.com
To hold up; support.
To carry from one place to another; transport.
To carry in the mind; harbor: bear a grudge.
To transmit at large; relate: bearing glad tidings.
To have as a visible characteristic: bore a scar on the left arm.
To have as a quality; exhibit: “A thousand different shapes it bears” (Abraham Cowley).
To carry (oneself) in a specified way; conduct: She bore herself with dignity.
To be accountable for; assume: bearing heavy responsibilities.
To have a tolerance for; endure: couldn't bear his lying.
To call for; warrant: This case bears investigation.
To give birth to: bore six children in five years.
To produce; yield: plants bearing flowers.
To offer; render: I will bear witness to the deed.
To move by or as if by steady pressure; push: “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (F. Scott Fitzgerald).
I do not see 'rightfully have', but I do see an instance of 'carry', as in from one place to another: transport. You can 'bear' the title to your car, but you cannot 'bear' your car as it would be impossible to carry, much like a tank or an ICBM.

whats asinine is to foolishly interpret 'arms' in the second amendment as 'appendage' when the convention arguments specifically state arms as firearms. Whats also equally asinine is not using the correct definition of 'bear' and trying to substitute it with one of your own that was incorrect to begin with.


Yes, you can bear an RPG launcher and you can bear a machine gun. You CANNOT bear a tank unless its small enough to strap across your back and you can aim it in your hands and shoot it.

I've defined the second amendment as the founders did, unlike you who has tried to define the second as some sort of states rights or an outdated concept that should be scrapped because we're so far advanced now that the founders couldn't have imagined things like nuclear weapons.

The founders didn't care about nuclear weapons or tanks. They only cared to protect a pre-existing right to the people as protection from tyranny.

Read the founders statements sometime if you're not afraid to be proven wrong.

I'm curious about exploring how the right to bear arms is related to a militia. Josh made some good points, including a seldom-heard argument that the arms necessary to the maintanence of a militia include items much deadlier than guns.

From the Consititution itself, I don't see any indication that the Framers intended to limit these arms to guns. Of course, military technology was a narrower field 225 years ago, but I don't see anything that would indicate that the people who wrote this document would think that citizens couldn't have canons and artillery items.

Can anyone provide information on whether private citizens owned these items? I'll look around a little.

from a historical perspective, the 'militia' as it was known back then did not own cannons, but they did know how to make small explosive devices with the gun powder that they had. Of course, the 'guerilla' type warfare that the militia ended up using against the british showed that a properly armed militia could repel enemy invaders as well as fight a tyrannical government.

As george washington had said, "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."

Back then, if a civilian had the equipment and money available to build a cannon, there would have been no law against it nor would he have received any flack about it from the government.

A well regulated militia: I *think* this means an organized militia, possible state or even nationwide, with the task of defending the country from any threats forign and domestic, without any ties to the military. The problem is that a regulated militia can't beat the US military. Only small, disconnected cells can stand a chance against a military such as ours. This means that 10,000 men with guns marching would lose, where 12 men with expolsives in trucks could win. Does this mean that we shouldn't have a militia? Not really, but don't expect to win any battles with your guns registered and your intent in the open.
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed: Here's where we run into a problem. Does this mean that the militia has the right to oppose the state, or does it mean that the individual has the right to heep a 9 mm in his house? The bottom line is that we don't know. The supreme court has stayed away from this like Thomas Jefferson stayed away from white girls. I personally think that the second amendment gives us the right to oppose an oppressive regeim in power, not unlike the 13 colonies opposing and going to war with the UK. Can I prove it? No. Can I make a case for it? Sure, but it would be no more or less of a case than dksuddeth makes for the inaliable right to carry guns.

It's a stale mate.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." -George Mason- 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426.

The 'militia' is all of us, organized and unorganized, apart from the standing military which is just a branch of the government.

Another topic for another day.

This is not exactly correct. The Supreme Court has never decided a case that directly concerned the second amendment, but there are 35 cases where the supreme court has discussed the second amendment.

The founders of the Bill of Rights, both federalist and anti-federalist, refer to the right to bear arms as an individual right for both self defense as well as state defense. I would like to believe that even the circuit courts could read and understand plain english, but apparently thats not the case. I have to wonder which constitution it is that they are reading. For those of you who choose not to acknowledge the 1982 senate report on the second amendment and would rather wait on the supreme court, I remind you that this is the same supreme court that ruled on Kelo v. new london in violation of the 5th amendment and has ruled consistently against the 4th amendment in regards to the patriot act. While those who are anti-gun are perfectly willing to wait for that decision, can we as a free people afford it?

I think I was wrong to say don't use the argument "This is what the Framers intended." I shouldn't be telling you not to consider what the Framers intended. I want you to consider what the Framers intended. I honestly believe that historical study provides us with a best estimate of their intentions. I am no by no means a historical expert, but have studied it farther than most college students except history majors. I personally believe that the historical circumstances I explained before best explain the reasoning behind the 2nd amendment, and so there is no need for it anymore. However, there is no way for me to prove this explicitly. I can just offer what I have read in history texts, and show what was likely to be their reasoning. (Further reading also tells that the army of that day was extremely poorly underfunded, and had mostly broken up once the major fighting was over. This means, under new attack, the framers were possibly afraid that the country would be vulnerable.)

I just think that the Framers intended a lot of things for the 1790s because they could not see that far into the future. No one really can accurately say what's going to happen 50 years from now. So feel free to consider their intent, I just think people are making a mistake when they use it as a basis for their argument. That's why I said I'm willing to be pro-guns if someone was to post detailed analysis of crime rates and things like that. (I'm not anti-guns either, I just don't own one, and don't mind if my neighbor owns one. I think major gun crimes are much more of a socio-economic issue. Being lucky enough to be in the upper-middle class, I think the peopel around me and I are relatively lucky to be untouched by this issue.) I see crime as the most relevant issue when it comes to guns today, especially in terms of self-defense as some have mentioned is its intent; not tyranny from domestic and foreign government. So, let's consider what fits best for our soceity today, and not stick exactly to what people 200 years ago, no matter how brilliant and forward-thinking they were, said.

Disclaimer: I don't feel very clear-headed. I just woke up, so if any of my thoughts sound downright jumbled, forgive me.

I've heard alot of people say that in todays society there is no need for the second amendment anymore, and as you've said, there is no way to predict what would be happening 50 years from now, so I don't think that we as a people should EVER give a right away because we don't feel it's needed anymore...especially those that our founders believed were god given rights (if you choose to believe in god) or for those not inclined to believe in a faith, those that pre-existed the constitution.

"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. 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.

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.

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.


study history some more, especially world history. When one side has all the guns, it's easy to commit massacres.

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.

Very interesting. I did not know this. And as I have said before, since you have shown good information that gun control does not reduce gun crime, I am now leaning toward not getting rid of the 2nd amendment. Of course, I want to see even more analysis, as I've also read facts from the other side. Something for me to look up some day and delve into deeply.


So, basically if both sides has guns, then they can both committ massacres?
I point you to the Indian struggle for independance. There were many massacres, especially in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Please read up on it. It actually proves your point, but so what? Indians could have picked up guns and fought back, but they chose not to, atleast most of them. Non-violent civil disobediance is a way of life, and has been successful against men with guns. I also point you to the conflicts going on in Africa. There both sides have guns, neither side seems morally just after all the massacres committed by both sides. Guns aren't always the answer.


So because the bill of rights mentions nothing about these two mistakes, but was written soon after the Constituion, which does allow these two mistakes the bill of rights is clearly above any possible mistakes. I'm not saying they are mistakes, I love the bill of rights, I'm just saying they're not above reconsideration and rethinking, especially after 200 years.

I wasn't referring to warfare, I was referring to things like ethnic cleansing and genocides.
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. Subsequently, from 1915 to 1917, 1.5-million
Armenians, deprived of the means to defend themselves, were rounded up and killed.
In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. Then from 1929 to 1953,
approximately 20-millon dissidents were rounded up and killed.
In 1938 Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945 over 13-million Jews,
gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill, union leaders, Catholics and others, unable to fire a
shot in protest, were rounded up and killed.
In 1935, China established gun control. Subsequently, between 1948 and 1952, over
20-million dissidents were rounded up and killed.
In 1956, Cambodia enshrined gun control. In just two years (1975-1977) over one
million "educated" people were rounded up and killed.
In 1964, Guatemala locked in gun control. From 1964 to 1981, over 100,000 Mayan
Indians were rounded up and killed as a result of their inability to defend themselves.
In 1970, Uganda got gun control. Over the next nine years over 300,000 Christians
were rounded up and killed.
Over 56-million people have died because of gun control in the last century . .



well, heres the deal about the bill of rights. They were written as the debate between the federalists and the anti-federalists grew concerning a central government. They were initially not going to be written because the federalists said it would be assumed that all rights are inherently belonging to the people. As a compromise, they were written in to the constitution with the express purpose of declaring that these rights are pre-existing, with or without a constitution, and that no government body can ever take them away. Of course with the courts siding with the government as of late, the judicial tyranny has certainly whittled away at them, but they are supposed to be pre-existing or 'natural law' rights belonging to all people. To write them away or consider them outdated seems a foolish concept to me, and I believe that it would seem that way to them as well.

All right, let's say both sides in each of these struggles had guns. Would that have reduced the 56million casualties or increased it? You can't say either way, and neither can I. Genoice occurs when deep seated problems in that society erupt, and unfortunately, I dont know how to make it stop either. The Holocaust happened because Hitler found an easy scapegoat for all of Germany's problems following WWI, and anti-Semitism had always been a strong undercurrent among the Aryan races (is that it?). I don't know about the rest of the situations, but I've got a feelign you don't either. To say that both sides having guns would have gotten rid of such seroius problems is to trivialize the reasons for which holocausts happen.



I guess I dont see it as judicial tyranny, but forget that. I appreciate the right to free speech, I appreciate the right to a free press and all the other rights. I'm glad they wrote it in. I mentioned the federalist vs anti-federalist compromise earlier. That still does not mean that every one of those rights is necessary. It's not as if when you were born, you came with certain rights inscribed in your flesh, or imprinted in your brain. We reasoned these rights out to help make a stable soceity. So, now can we not reason that one of these rights isn't actually necessary now that times has changed, or that the cumulative effect of that right is negative to the soceity? Perhaps if they became necessary again, we'll have to fight for them. Feels liek we're jsut going aroudn in circles.

Both sides having arms may have been war, or not. What did happen though, is that one side disarmed the other and then killed millions. All the incidents I posted though, are recent history. older history has many more and the founders knew this, thats one of the main reasons for the second amendment.


ok, hypothetically lets say we're now 'enlightened' as a society. we no longer need to keep and bear arms for our self defense. what happens if our government in the future decides that its too dangerous for us to have total freedom of speech or the right to privacy? We can no longer petition for redress of grievances? due process is too lengthy to proscribe justice so lets abandon the 5th and 6th amendments. When would it be time to fight and how?
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once." -- Justice Alex Kozinski, US 9th Circuit Court, 2003

All of our rights are important and not to be abandoned. the 2nd is our guarantee of all the others.

You're right. However, what you COULD probably say is that fewer INNOCENTS would have died. Whether or not the number of casualties would have been reduced is up for debate, but I just don't think the same number innocents would have been slaughtered.

I'm for gun rights, with gun control as needed. "As needed" from me, is defined pretty simply. I do NOT know what the current federal stipulations are, as I haven't done a lot of research, simply because I don't need to. If you're a convicted felon, have a violent history towards anyone for ANY reason, you don't get a gun...of any sort. I think an age limit would be a good thing...sort of. I should think that 18 or 21 would be a good age, but it's like the age for sexual behavior. While not required, I think that a gun safety course would be a VERY good thing, possibly even partially or wholly sponsored by the local or state government. Once completed, you'd get a card/certificate/ID number to say that you'd completed it.

I enjoy guns. I don't have many, but I do enjoy what I have, and do have plans to acquire a few more. I don't buy them for personal protection, either in the home, or otherwise, but for personal enjoyment, and hunting. That said, I wouldn't have a problem with personal protection use.

Honestly, I love your argument. It highlights the slippery slope of giving away rights in exchange for more security. It is one of the primary reasons I dislike the Patriot Act (let's not start a discussion on this, I'm sure there's been plenty). My feeling is that I would fight for every other right but the 2nd, and that is because I believe in non-violent protest. BUt it occured to me that I've never fought for anything. My grandfather did with non-violent protest, but I never have. Perhaps, some protest situations require an eye for an eye. I dont know, I'm not wise enough in the ways of the world. For now, my core set of beliefs is that I'm a pacifist. Perhaps being in a war zone changes you, forces you to become a fighter. If so, then I will admit I was wrong because I lived a life of peace. So, yes, I will agree that you have the right to fight for your right to bear arms. If you feel that is what we need to defend our freedoms, then you are correct. I won't fight to dismantle the 2nd amendment because no one has shown me conclusively that it hurts by increasing crime. But at the same time, being a pacifist, I wont fight for it either. That does put me on the slippery slope. But, believe me, if someone came to take away, for example, my 1st amendment rights or anyone else's, there is no chance I will ever give those up without fighting tooth and nail for them.

In conclusion, I believe in individual freedom, and am a pacifist. So you can go ahead and carry a gun, but I wont carry one. And if it turns out that guns were necessary to fight for the rest of rights and non-violence doesn't work, then I'll sincerely apologize, and pick up a gun myself.

well said.

dksuddeth - I have to take issue with one of your examples. The Soviet Union did indeed ban gun ownership in 1929, but it was not universal and didn't apply to party members. The purges that you mentioned actually started well before 1929, and there were mass arrests of Whites (monarchists) and members and supporters of the Provisional Government as early as 1919 and lasted until 1924. The various purges of 1929 to 1953 were primarily aimed at party members, who were allowed the right by the 1924 constitution. Also the 20 million "dissidents" is a misleading statement since people arrested from 1934-37 were primarily loyal party members (up to that point anyway) with an estimated 7.5M arrested during that 4 years period and also includes the 1938-39 Army purge whose victims were most certainly armed. There's also the glaring omission that gun ownership in the early Soviet period was quite uncommon, especially among the eventual victims of the various purges who tended to be middle and upper class (in Soviet standards, not pre-Revolutionary Russian it's important to note).

Glaring errors like that make me doubt the rest of your statistics (or rather Geoff Metcalf's, who seems to be the basis for that post).

I agree that we all have and should continue to have the right to bear arms, but I am all for the invokation of the "well-regulated militia" portion of the amendment. I would like to see gun owners required to take training classes every few years and prove their accuracy on a range as well. Gun safes, trigger locks and other safety devices should be required to be used in every home where children are present, and armed parents should have to undergo special training on the dangers of kids and guns. You can own all the guns you like, but let's all be sure that you know how to safely operate and maintain them all.

I also think that there should be stiffer penalties for those who facilitate straw purchases and the like, but that's another discussion.

One would think that as a loyal party member, you wouldn't be arrested.....and once arrested, you could conceivably be called a dissident? Call it a glaring error all you like, the fact still remains that 20 million dissidents were killed after gun control was established. Of course, you're free to ignore or disavow any set of numbers at your choosing.
Most of the genocide statistics were reported “Death by ‘Gun Control’: The Human Cost of Victim
Disarmament, Aaron Zelman & Richard W. Stevens, 2001

Most states that issue licenses already require this.

I completely agree with gun safes, and not the puny little 50 pound kind, but the huge 400 pound hernia inducing honkers that are bolted to the floor. Trigger locks are useless. 31 of 32 models of gun locks tested by the government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission could be opened without the key.


I agree wholeheartedly, and I also agree on that being another discussion. :thumbsup:

I don't think your logic holds up here. A "dissident" is "one who disagrees" (dictionary.com definition), and a loyal party member would by definition wouldn't disagree. In the 1930's Soviet Union (the height of the purges), the party members arrested were not aggitating for change. The accusations were for being part of various vast conspiracies linked to various higher-ups who were on their way out. To call the people arrested "dissidents" is just plain old wrong and is my basic problem with their inclusion in this list. The majority of the people arrested had the right to own guns, although they may or may not have exercised it. There are also numerous anecdotes of armed folks being arrested, General Zhukov for one. I'm sorry, but you've got a square peg and a round hole here. The folks arrested weren't dissidents (although the survivors may have been years later [and even then probably not]), and they were more likely to be armed than those not arrested.

I wish I had more to add to this thread, but others have made my arguement for me and probably said it better than I could hope to. Sorry for the threadjack, but I've spent the last 16 years studying this particular topic (as an amature). Please resume your previously scheduled debate.

I'm confused, the last 16 years studying the russian revolution or gun control and the second amendment?

No, Russian and Soviet history in general. My disertation was on the role of the 1905 revolution, WWI and WWII played in the reforms by Nicholas II and Stalin. With that came a lot of study of the 1939 Army Purge and the release of many of the officers once things got really bad in late 41 and early 42 as well as the release from the gulag of others to take part in the war effort. Yes, I know I'm a nerd.

I just dabble in gun control and the second amendment. :cool:

awesome. I may have some questions to ask then.

I don't know why you keep referencing the "founders" or "framers" intent.
First of all, our constitution was made through a lengthy process of collaberation and compromise. There was no fundamental agreement among everyone on what was ultimately penned. It simply doesn't make any sense to quote the thoughts or musings of one or three drafters and call it good or representative of what the ratifying body believed in.

Secondly, your statement that the bill of rights didn't include women and blacks misses the point. The language and thought behind the language excludes women and blacks. Any man or person mentioned should be understood literally, as it was when it was written. Person's, for the purposes of the constitution, were property owning males. Women weren't included, couldn't own property, couldn't vote (until 1920 with the 19th amendment). Blacks weren't persons either, instead defined, codified within the constitution itself, as 3/5ths a person. None of your commentary excusing the fact that the "founding fathers" didn't conceive of women and blacks as having any of the "natural rights" you claim they codified holds up to historical scrutiny.

The problem with our government regulating gun owners is that often they will regulate them out of existence. These are the very people we have the right to bear arms to protect ourselves against.

I keep referencing the founders and framers because MOST of them, not just one or three, debated and understood the natural right of a person to own and carry their own arms for defending the state as well as themselves and their family.

So in lieu of having any sort of standard of safety or compentency for licensed gun owners, you'd do away with standards altogether so that no one is regulated? Based on your reply to what I wrote, that's the best that I can paraphrase it. That seems awful irresponsible (which is my main point anyway) - did I misunderstand? Are the areas of regulation that I proposed acceptable or not?

That would all depend upon the type of regulation being imposed. For instance, Blagojevich wanted to raise the 'fee' for a firearm owners card from $5 to $500 dollars, effectively making it near impossible for anyone in the lower income brackets to own firearms. Even in Texas, I think the $140 is too much.

I don't think we should be required to take tests in order to exercise our constitutional rights, including the right to bear arms. Who knows what nonsense our current crop of polititians will come up with.

Next thing you know they will test us for language proficiency before allowing us to engage in free speech. :)

I tend to agree. Can you imagine taking a test, issued by the government, where you cannot express a free thought unless you pass it?

I agree that Blagojevich's $500 puts an undue burden on the lower income brackets to own a gun. There's a line here, but I don't know where it is. I would say that $140 is below the line and $500 is above it - that's the best that I can pinpoint it. I'm assuming that this amount would be due no more than every 5-10 years or even for a lifetime permit, to be renewed occassionally.

As far as the other items go, dksuddeth, you seemed to agree with definition of "well regulated militia" that I put forward in Post #49, and now it seems like you've flipflopped. Has something changed, or did I misread something?

As for whether or not state testing is a good thing or not, remember that you're already tested on your proficiency in driving, and I seem to recall several instances of both of you (dksuddeth and host) mentioning in previous threads that cars cause more deaths annually than guns. States test for all sort of professional proficiency, and there's the sticky point that the Amendment itself call for a "well regulated" militia. Your fears of Big Brother aside, what's the objection? There is no such provision for free speach or religion in the 1st Amendment, so I don't see how you can try to draw the two together since the Amendment says what it says. It seems to me that the framers pretty clearly wanted the states to make sure that gun owners knew one end of the gun from the other, and requiring a basic skills and safety test doesn't seem onerous to me at all.

You may have assumed that I agreed completely with you. I agree that we are all the 'militia'. I agree that we should all be 'well-regulated', in so far as we all know which end is the dangerous end, how to hit what we aim at, and when to use it properly. We should also be 'well-regulated' in that most of us have knowledge of military matters and that those who did not volunteer for military service, relegate themselves to the lower ranks in the 'militia'. I sort of agree on the licensing part but feel that it goes too far and suggests that we have to 'buy' our rights instead or having them naturally. As Barry Goldwater said, "A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.". If we start allowing the government to 'test' us to see if we are worthy enough to exercise our rights, we give them the open door to take them away.

Driving is not a right, it's a priviledge. Therefore, testing is appropriate. We are all guaranteed the right to travel freely, so if I wanted to walk or ride a horse, nobody can legally stop me. Now, in regards to the 'militia' part of the amendment, all that says is that we the people are the militia, necessary to the security of a free state and our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. We don't answer to the government in militia matters (unorganized) although we can work in concert with them. The government is our servant, not our master. Firearms proficiency and the 2nd amendment should inherently be considered a duty to all free peoples. We've let a tyrannical and oppressive government take over that duty and shirked it ourselves.

(This post is long but I hope you take your time to read this)

Yet giving the state a monopoly of violence is even worse than giving the average unsophisticated citizen weapons. Given the history of things that led to the american revolution, the founding fathers must have recognized this. Also as samcol pointed out- due process is supposed to be guaranteed before you strip away liberties and even when you do it's supposed to be on an individual basis, not the entire population.

This is perhaps an unpredictable consequence of technological advance. While weapons with more higher destructive yields like machine guns, tanks, high-explosives, mechanized weaponry, and the all mighty WMDs are incredibly destructive, they cannot and must not be used to heighten state power to a critical level, past which the state can use these newly developed weapons to keep its opponents (and that includes its own citizens) in check, to avert any shift in power. While it may be reasonable to defend from foreign invaders, it is very twisted to protect yourself from your own citizens. Effectively, gun-control is de-facto security of the state from it's citizens, meant to undermine the constitution. This of course is impossible for the average person to accept, simple reason being because the average person is still too stupid to comprehend what makes a bad deal.

If what dksuddeth says is true about the $200 fee for automatic weapons ownership, then I believe the correct classification for this act is called "extortion".

I know it's hard for some people to accept this, but even justified acts can be wrong- and it's ESPECIALLY important to make sure that people who justify an action are doing it for the right reasons and not the wrong ones, and that those 'right reasons' will actually work when applied. Given the current track record I can't say I sympathize too much with the forces behind gun-control.

The entire idea of disallowing citizens from owning automatic weapons for example is effectively to create a rift in firepower between two groups- imagine if the only thing a group had to defend itself with were slingshots and the other group had crossbows- guess who'd win? Now just add the fact that the group with crossbows is MUCH better organized, disciplined, and easily controlled by leaders than the group with slingshots.

Unfortunately it's quite possible (and not that far-fetched if you spend some time looking into it) that constitutional re-interpertation can easily be constitutional mis-interpertation, specifically designed as a part of a strategy to maintain power.

I would personally submit that the constitution and bill of rights were both intended to be vague AND precise- vague so that they can apply broadly, and precise so that there is no mistake about their intentions. However, the constitution was meant to be interperted in the same spirit as it was written- a free society built on the foundations of a government that serves its people, instead of people serving their government, or a government that serves business interests- which may not necessarily be true capitalistic ventures with the advent of public relations, perception management, and marketing industries.

Overall, the aim of the second amendment is to promote a free society in which the people have the means to resist their government if the government usurpation of power gets out of hand. An armed resistance is the last resort to a government that is out of sync with it's people, however this was the sort of contingency planning that the founding fathers apparently employed.

Although pragmatism is quite fitting in almost any endeavour, the logical conclusion of Mr. Stephenson's answer means that if I got together with a group of friends to infiltrate the government and have people in place to allow me to use hacking tools as protected under the second amendment, I have the right to do so. I don't believe this holds any water, and I don't believe saying it's a matter of pragmatism really says much.

What always strikes me as absurd about this analogy is you conclude that because you don't believe you should have a nuclear weapon, that it's okay to allow the state to have it. Do you trust yourself less than you trust the state? And if the state breaks your trust, what will you do to defend yourself after having given them all your power?

I like to call this little phenomenon as the fatal flaw of stalinism, whereby it was believed that because businesses which had an unequal degree of influence over the people of a nation, then it was okay to hand all that influence to a centralized government. Little did the people know- the government is run by other people, too, and those people are not necessarily better than you or me.

Popular views (read: corporate media approved ignorance) amongst the general population over the second amendment is another basic affirmation that language is the first and ultimate frontier to developing a totalitarian government. "Reinterpertation" is used as a means to deceive the average proletarian into believing that it is in their best interest to give up the means by which their freedoms are defended. A government does not keep it's people free- the people keep themselves free. And a government, though intended as an apparatus to entrench the freedom of all it's people, is historically used as an apparatus to bestow special rights to a privileged class.

You might think I'm an ass for quoting and disputing every single post I disagree with, but the truth is I get irritated to bits everytime I feel that someone is being cheated of their rights. You might think it's a bit pompous of me to believe that I am 100% right, but that's not actually true and I do make many mistakes, however I have thus far never ran into any conclusive and undisputable evidence that would allow me to believe that current interpertations of the second amendment and the current trajectory gun-control legislation is taking is the right way.

All that said, this is getting tiresome so I'm going to skip ahead to the last few segments of this discussion and see if I have anything more to contribute...

Now this is funny

If american society is anything like canadian society, then yes. The test is called university preperatory english class. Considering that every student hoping to enter university over here HAS to pass grade 12 university prep english, and considering that in english class (and I can attest to this from personal experience/disgust) the first things we were taught is not to question what we are given to read but rather try to prove WHY it was true (rather than if it actually was), and considering that english class is not actually english class as much as it is the study of literature, then you can see how there is already something of a "test" issued by the government where you cannot express free thought unless you pass it.

dksuddeth,

when you make replies like the one you gave me, it makes me pause and wonder whether we should continue discussing larger, abstract ideals before making sure we've got the facts/premises correct.

I know your view on how the constitution was drafted, and the values underpinning it, are popular in the mythology of our nation (and the use of "myth" doesn't necessarily imply non-factual), but let's start from point one:

how many framers do you think were involved in drafting the 2nd amendment?
how many people did it take to ratify it?

what kind of connections can you objectively make between the people who wrote a particular phrase (the "framers") and those who passed it into law (the "ratifiers")?
that is, assuming you are correct that "MOST" framers believed what you attributed to them, does that necessarily imply that the ratifiers believed it, as well.

For the record, the Bill of Rights had to pass through the same requirements as any other amendment(s) to the Constitution. Generally speaking, the States ratified the BoR at the same time as they did the Constitution. The "ratifiers" were the same folks who ratified the Constitution and did NOT include "the people" but rather their elected officials in the various state legistatures.

If the framers/founders/ratifiers/anyone else submitted that the individual man did NOT have an individual and god given right to keep and bear arms, i've not ever seen the quote or statement in any of the historical documents. Not the virginia bill of rights debates, the federalist papers, or the constitution convention. In fact, in the entire time I have studied/read/debated about the original intent of the founders concerning the constitution and the bill of rights, nowhere have I ever even heard of someone declaring that there is no individual god given right to bear arms and that it only applies to state sponsored/organized/maintained militias. If there is, it's a secret thats been very well kept.

If, as you infer, that throughout the years of debate that the second amendment was referred to as an individual right but the 'ratifiers' considered it otherwise, I've seen no proof of that either and without any proof of that specific belief, it would be beyond extremely difficult to accept that the representatives of the people played that kind of a joke upon them.

I see your response as an elaborate way of not answering my questions.
You've moved from acceptance of the premises to your argument, immediately, without positioning ourselves at a meeting point.

For example, I am going to describe to you a different framework of understanding of how the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, came to be decided upon but only after we can make sure we have the same vision of how the process itself works.

How many people do you think "framed" the Bill of Rights, or just specifically the 2nd amendment?
How many people ratified it?

What connections do you know of that explicitly link the thoughts and motivations of the "framers" to the "ratifiers"?


See, none of what I'm about to lay out is going to make much sense, or make any difference to your perspective, if you think that 2, 3, 7, or even 20 people "framed" the Bill of Rights around a table. Or that, when you read excerpts from a larger discussion, such as the "federalist papers," that you would have the entire spectrum of viewpoints or the intent of the people writing out their arguments.

In your response, and it doesn't seem like you're going to give me much more of your same argument, albeit in a slightly different worded version that you've been using this entire discussion, you melded the "founders" into the "framers" into the "ratifiers", as if they were a homogenous group of people with similar interests.

Regardless of the historical accuracy of how you view these old men sitting around talking and writing, I would still argue that you have no basis to judge their "intent." For example, while one may write of a God-given right to bear arms, where in history would one come up with such an idea? They certainly had no right in other nation-states. Yet, the heartthrob of such a sentiment would have come from Continental Europe. And I suggest that philosophers like Locke would have been the seedling of such a notion. Or, more accurately, that man had a God-given right to certain modes of interaction, and the people arguing for individual ownership of weapons would see their mode of relation as a means of securing individual liberties. But certainly not that each and every person on the planet was bestowed by a deity with a right and obligation to be armed with a weapon, despite what they wrote.

And this notion of political expediency, of saying things to constituents that make sense to them, is not a modern invention. So your idea that the ratifiers were playing a joke on their constituency or else your proposition must be held true, that they believed in the arguments layed out on Congress' floor, is flawed at its inception as an either-or logical fallacy. Other options exist, namely that the ratifiers were reacting to a particular political and social climate.

So you tell me what version of men sitting around debating you envision, and I'll state mine, and we can consult a history book, and then move from there. Only after we agree on an accurate version of the process of drafting and ratifying can we move to discussions/debates of who thought what at a precise moment (and discuss the difficulties of doing so). But perhaps this is a good opportunity to interject and remind you what was mentioned earlier, about women and slaves, and why using their notions of how the world worked as a basis for ours can be flawed and perhaps disasterous. First and foremost is the contradiction between the belief that all humans have an inalieable right to exist in a particular mode, yet the limitation of such rights to certain classes of people in society. That very question is a huge hurdle you have to address if you are to continue hinging your basis of support for our rights as a process stemming from a natural birthright, from somewhere external to society. For, as much as I respect the people who founded this nation, nothing could be further from the truth that the notions of rights and what rights humans obtain, are not socially constructed. I would suspect above all else that they would suspect such a thing and so that must be addressed as well when constructing a theory of how our rights were initially codified.

unless you missed the_jazz's post completely, he answered that question.
lets hear it.

why would that be relevant?

see above, jazz answered it. MOST of those that framed also ratified. The exceptions come to the states where there would be some more added.


[QUOTE=smooth]See, none of what I'm about to lay out is going to make much sense, or make any difference to your perspective, if you think that 2, 3, 7, or even 20 people "framed" the Bill of Rights around a table. Or that, when you read excerpts from a larger discussion, such as the "federalist papers," that you would have the entire spectrum of viewpoints or the intent of the people writing out their arguments.

In your response, and it doesn't seem like you're going to give me much more of your same argument, albeit in a slightly different worded version that you've been using this entire discussion, you melded the "founders" into the "framers" into the "ratifiers", as if they were a homogenous group of people with similar interests.[QUOTE=smooth]again, there are many references to these 'framers' discussing an individual right, but I've NEVER come across one that denies it.

Their 'intent' comes from the recordings of the debates. It's very plain in the writings. The whole idea of creating 'the US' is to make a country where 'god given' rights were protected and defended. It certainly applied to all individuals, as they saw it.

so, you're saying that they talked a good game, but like all politicians showed with one hand and gave with the other?

I envision a large group of people discussing the advantages and disadvantages of having a large central government and these same individuals trying to limit the powers of this central government while still maintaining the rights and freedoms of 'the people'. As far as women and slaves not having these 'rights', yes, thats true that at the beginning this was not conceived of. Time told a different story though and we amended the constitution accordingly. Your statement of nothing could be further from the truth that the notions of rights and what rights humans obtain, are not socially constructed. I would suspect above all else that they would suspect such a thing and so that must be addressed as well when constructing a theory of how our rights were initially codified. please explain this better. What i'm seeing is that you're saying 'rights' were constructed only as society changed, instead of them believing that rights were a divine gift.

The reason why my questions are relevant is that the quotes you have of people arguing a certain perspective, that private ownership is a God-given right, is not representative of the debate that occurred.

People often cite a few prominent people they learned in civics class and tack on an "etc." when entering these discussions as proof or evidence that the "founding fathers" or "framers" of our nation thought a paritcular way.

You haven't answered my question because, frankly, you can't.
The_Jazz didn't answer my question, and in fact, appeared to me to be pontification.
At no point did I suggest that common persons had any say in the legistlative process, a strawman he "rebutted." It's obvious that ratification of the Bill of Rights would follow the same process as other amendments, but that's not what I asked.

I asked what your view of the process was.

Not to mention, he's wrong, which is why I initiated this trajectory in the discussion. The Bill of Rights was ratified 4 years after the Constitution was completed, and 2 years after it was already in action. That's hardly the same time and a problem for those of you conflating the "framers" and the "ratifiers"

What of the "founders?" Are you referring to the people who drafted the Constitution or the people who wrote our nation's first document 10 years before (after a year and a half of debate)? So now you've got a good 15 years between the "founding" of this nation and the hallowed Bill of Rights presenting a serious problem for those of you conflating the founders with the framers with the ratifiers.

and you haven't even bothered to address the people who didn't sign any of these documents. Or even the representatives who refused to ratify them.

a problem in these kinds of debates occurs when people refer back to a homogenous group of hallowed men, fuzzy as the details surrounding their relations to one another are, and speculate as to what "they" might or might not have intended when they set out to write political documents.

without bothering to scrape the factoids or the social and political climate surrounding these various men people will continue to make broad inductive leaps of logic that fail undre scrutiny. I already brought up the poin that God didn't give anyone the right to bear arms,; in so far as God is mentioned in our nation's early documents it's not in reference to specific rights, but rather to the natural right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Where exactly in your numerous studies of this subject have you seen people arguing for a God-given right to bear arms? The Declaration of Independence, btw, has no legal bearing on anything legal or social in this nation--it's merely a polemic against the English colonialists. The debates on the inclusion of the right to bear arms centered around the importance of securing the existence of a budding nation-state, weighed against the dangers of a standing national army. Where are you deriving the notion that the people who ratified the Constitution had the standpoint that the document they were signing derived its legitimacy from God rather than themselves? In fact, you might wonder to yourself why one would need to codify "natural rights?" Surely God-given, readily apparent rights wouldn't need to be written out, debated upon, and voted into existence?

Your explanation about slaves and women not being conceived of as imbued with these same rights was appreciated, but unfortunately fell flat on the basis that they weren't, as you put it, not conceived of but rather explicitly written out from possessing such rights. If one were to be consistent in one's argument about "original intent" one would need to adhere to the original intent that slaves and women not possess the same rights as propertied men. Or one would have to acknowledge that the passage of more amendments loosens this concept of original intent and allows for changing sentiment and social values of a particular nation-state.

Let's say, oh what, 39 people signed the Constitution...how many quotes do you have that our rights are bestowed from God?

I would prefer not to double post, but I worry that my next response would become lost in the shuffle if I attach it to the above...

The statement you asked me to elaborate, and subsequently paraphrased, means that the notion of individual rights was understood and articulated within a specific social context. It's absolutely correct to claim that prior to a specific period in time and a particular branch of philosophy that the notion of individual rights in Western Europe was simply unimaginable. I don't want to go into how that relates to the discussion at hand, other than to state that any statesman was aware that his writings, debating points, and positions on a particular topic were subject to, and interpenetrated by, the social context within which he operated.

In short, I wouldn't put too much stock in the "beliefs" of politicians caught between an illiterate, rowdy bunch of farmers roaming the countryside, in need of the rule of law rather than rule of the king, and a state-sponsered religion and its adherents they just broke themselves away from as derived from what they said and wrote to the people paying attention to them.

Smooth, correct me if i'm wrong, but you seem to be attempting to make the claim that the half dozen different people I quoted as 'framers', declaring that all freemen have the natural right to bear arms, is the opposite of what those who 'ratified' the constitution and later ratified the first ten amendments specifically protecting individual rights was nothing but a sham presented to the 'rowdy farmers' making them believe they had these rights, when in fact that is not the case.

Is this what you are attempting to say?

"(T)he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..." George Washington, First Inaugural, April 30 1789

"Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God? Thomas Jefferson

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

Smooth, please reread what was posted. I answered a direct question with a direct answer. How many people ratified it? The members of the legislatures who ratified the Constitution at the same time. If you want actual numbers, I suppose that I could try to find the actual head count from all 13 state legislatures, but to call my answer a "strawman" is a little insulting, especially when it didn't come down on either side of the issue. My answer clarified a particular point of history that you didn't seem to know. How in the world is that pontification?

the intent question is a problem.
you cannot determine it. not really: generally claims about intent are nothing more than projection.
the sources of the problem are obvious enough: 1) that the constitution is written and so made up of sentences that exceed the intent of the writers--they are not unrelated to intent, but intent dissolves into that which exceeds it. a banal example--an email or this post--you can read it and speculate about my intent in writing it, but you have no way of knowing whether your speculations link to anything. you can generate an interpretation of what is written that would be informed by a project of delimiting intent, but the result is still an interpretation that would be evaluated as any other interpretation would be--as such it s a move within the interpretive game, not a meta-move that puts a stop to that game on the basis of claims presumed definitive.

second: in the particular case of the constitution, the material that you would have to have recourse to in order to make any claim about intent at all is sporadic/incomplete--and this deliberately. you would think that there would be more complete and detailed accounts of the processes of fabrication had the intent been to route interpretations of the document through the intent of the framers themselves. it would seem to me that any move rooted in the (untenable, absurd) notion of "original intent" woudl effectively raise the proceedings of the consitutional convention to the status of meta-law. that is not and was not the way in which the american system of law has functioned since 1787. it is a wholesale reworking of the tradition, passed off as an attempt to rescue it.

and since all claims concerning intent are projections at one level or another, claims about intent are nothing more than moves in the game of political power as it currently exists. as such, teh criteria for evaluating such claims are not the content of the arguments but the politics of the folk who make them. because the claims are nothing more than a device elaborated as a function of a conflict over power.

another way: legal language is an aspect of normal language and changes along with it. like it or not. you can't simply wish this away. reverting to claims concerning the "precision and vagueness" of the constitution is simply a recapitulation of the same arguments about intent at another level.

So, in regards to constitutional interpretation when you try to determine 'original intent', why can't one look at the recorded notes of the virginia convention and the federalist papers? would that not satisfy 'original intent' if there intent is plainly stated?

wow, just a spooky historical moment
 

April 19

1775 The American Revolution begins

At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town's common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins

In Warsaw, Poland, Nazi forces attempting to clear out the city's Jewish ghetto are met by gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins.

Shortly after the German occupation of Poland began, the Nazis forced the city's Jewish citizens into a "ghetto" surrounded by barbwire and armed SS guards. The Warsaw ghetto occupied an area of less than two square miles but soon held almost 500,000 Jews in deplorable conditions. Disease and starvation killed thousands every month, and beginning in July 1942, 6,000 Jews per day were transferred to the Treblinka concentration camp. Although the Nazis assured the remaining Jews that their relatives and friends were being sent to work camps, word soon reached the ghetto that deportation to the camp meant extermination. An underground resistance group was established in the ghetto--the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB)--and limited arms were acquired at great cost.

1993 Branch Davidian compound burns

At Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launches a tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound, ending a tense 51-day standoff between the federal government and an armed religious cult. By the end of the day, the compound was burned to the ground, and some 80 Branch Davidians, including 22 children, had perished in the inferno.

1995 Truck bomb explodes in Oklahoma City

Just after 9 a.m., a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast collapsed the north face of the nine-story building, instantly killing more than 100 people and trapping dozens more in the rubble. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma City from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later the death toll stood at 168 people killed, including 19 young children who were in the building's day-care center at the time of the blast.

Dksuddeth - what's the point of that post? I mean, so what? Drake sank the Spanish fleet at Harbor in 1587, the folks in Baltimore rioted in support of the Confederacy in 1861 and the Bay of Pigs invasion ended. Why not include those as well? They all involve guns (I assume that the riot was put down by the Army). What in the world does the OK City bombing and the Waco raid have to do with the 2nd Amendment?

the point was that we're here talking about the constitution and the meaning of the second amendment on the same day that the revolutionary war was started, the ghetto uprising, the waco massacre about unpaid taxes on automatic weapons. All having to do with the right to bear arms.
probably shouldn't have posted the murrah building bombing though. my bad.

I get the referrence to the Revolutionary War, and I'll even very grudgingly accept the Branch Davidians, although I think that there were a lot more issues in play than the 2nd Amendments.

Last I checked, the Polish Jews weren't afforded 2nd Amendment rights before, during or after the Uprising. How is the Ghetto Uprising any different than the Great Uprising in Palestine on the same date 7 years later except that it better fits into your scheme on what 2nd Amendment rights should be. For that matter, why not point to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War protests that started today in 1971? It has about as much relavence, and it at least involves Americans who would be afforded the right in question.

dk: no, it wouldn't.
not in the way you would prefer.

besides, if you want to play the intent game, why are there so few documents, and such incomplete documentation, concerning the constitutional convention itself if the idea was to generate a future situation in which the proceedings would be set up as THE regulative interpretive framework within which the constitutional system itself operated? my understanding is that the idea at the time was that the proceedings NOT be used in the way you propose. the idea was that what mattered was the document as frame for the unfolding/development/interpretation of law--which necessarily involves an unfolding/development/interpretation of the frame.
the partial records of the convention, the federalist papers ARE NOT LAW.
i hope that is clear enough.

your position on this is simply untenable conceptually, untenable methodologically, and what is more undesirable legally and politically.

what it seems to me you really want to do is throw out the entire american common law system and replace it with a version of the civil law tradition--but the fetishism of the constitution around which this desire seems to hinge prevents you from saying as much. so you go for a parallel type of system that you can pretend is consistent with what exists. it isnt. yours is a radical position, one that is connected to a politics that you are not particularly forthcoming about, except when it comes to guns. even then, you prefer to present your positions on guns as if they were not embedded in a wider context. this makes little sense to me, but that's fine.

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that after all of the debates concerning the constitution that the authors of said document truly didn't intend to have all individuals have the right to bear arms if someone can show me ANY, ONE SINGLE SHRED, of proof that that argument exists. I know that in politics, it's a matter of practice for the lawmakers to say one thing to the people and then write a law that is completely opposite, but there usually ends up leaving some sort of trail to show that.

Please show me how.

color me confused, I have no idea what you tried to say with this. although I do recognize that you paint an opinion that isn't in line with yours with the word 'radical'.

dk--i havent much time at the moment---

you cant determine my intent in writing this sentence.

you could rake through the piles of paper i drag around with me living space to living space, you could talk to folk who know me in 3-d world and you still coudlnt do it.
you could speculate about it.
you could use your assumptions to try to generate statements that would read as though they accounted for intent as a way of accounting for cause--but the links you would make are entirely a function of your assumptions.
and i am alive now--so far as i can tell at least.
if you cant work out intent in a messageboard post by a contemporary of yours, how can you possibly imagine that you'd be able to do it relative to the framers of the constitution, who have been dead 200 years or so?
arguments about intent are speculative.
(and they are usually uninteresting.)

more to say but no time to say it--gotta go.

addendum:

think of the sentence above as a kind of barrier--meaning can be worked out based on the sequence of words, grammatical functions, etc.: your interpretation is based on the sentence and moves out from it in time--it follows the sentence, refers back to it.

intent would obtain on the far side of the barrier, would be a question of psychological situation at the point of composition (which you cannot really even delimit for yourself as you write a response, if you do)--you could be thinking any number of things--this argument is wrong; roachboy is an asshole (this is a quasi-universal, so often goes without saying in discussion with me); the afternoon is wide open, i would like to barbeque; this chair is falling apart.....intent could be impacted by networks of associations,--it is a difficult state ot even formalize, much less know about, much less know about with any certainty, uch less use as a guide for interpretation.

statements about intent are statements about meaning.
statements about intent are a type of statement about meaning.
they are moves within a game of interpretation of meaning.
for this type of statement to operate as you would prefer it to, there would have to be some kind of agreement about the meaning of this register of statement.
everything that happened within that register would follow from this agreement, and would constitute somethng of a little genre of interpretation, if you took all such statements together.
the conceit of this genre would be that when you talk about meaning, you can somehow thereby talk about intent.
it seems to me that, if you can talk about intent at all, it is in a trivial way--the statement exists and so reflects some level of intent, simply because the fact of the statement indicates something about an intentional state that precedes it--but past that there is nowhere to go, except into the space opened by a community of interpretations that conflate meaning and intent.

sentences are formalized results of actions that exceed the actions.
sentences are like any other work in that the processes behind them tend to drop away, are replaced by the implications of the results, become a space of projection.

within a hypothetical genre of interpretations that conflate meaning and intent, what would be determinate is not the content of the interpretive statements but who controls the genre rules.
it seems to me that this is incoherent except as a political action, one that presumably is rooted mostly in anxiety about the changing meaning of terms in the second amendment.
if you cannot rely upon the existing communities that operate within the game of interpreting the constitution to not dissolve the 18th century notion of milita into something else, for example, then the counter proposal is to create a new interpretive community that would be geared around fixing such definitions in order to prevent this type of interpretation.
it is the same game as that which you oppose, except that folk like you would see their political interests as being advanced by it.
there is no difference in kind between the type of interpretation you propose (based on intent) and that which curently exists (based on meaning).

Well, to be honest, I didn't see you quote half a dozen different people on this subject. And of the quotes of yours I did read, none of them seemed to state explicitly what you interpret from them and they aren't from legislative meetings so I'm not sure what bearing they would or should have on interpreting the law as it was intended.

Aside from that, I'm not claiming that anyone necessarily thought opposite of one another. and I'm not suggesting a mere two sides to this issue. I don't even link the 2nd amendment to anything at all about the farmers I was referring to, other than to suggest that the people arguing over what to include in our early documents were thinking in a particular milliue and referenced things they felt were most salient, not necessarily what would secure one's freedom on an objective level. we don't for example see any statements about the deity granted right to read...yet we see the right to freedom of the press, and guns, to take two examples of things the people and their representatives thought had been essential to securing their right to exist as an autonomous nation-state.

I'm simply trying to point out that you are melding a lot of people into a one-mindset mentality, as if you could do so from the votes cast or various statements made and recorded. This is perhaps the best example I can give you:

you, roachboy, jazz, and I are sitting around a table. you suggest that god gave us a right and responsibility to arm ourselves. roachboy thinks perhaps it's a good idea to maintain personal weapons, but not have a standing army. he also thinks in his head, maybe even says as much, that the concept of an active god is silly and so 16th century. I'd rather we have a standing army of sorts, but I see I'm already outvoted, unless jazz is on my side and we've stalemated. rather than risk it, I suggest we word our new legislation to point to the states' responsibilities to maintain order in regards to private ownership of weapons. I don't really care how it's done, I'm agnostic on the whole god thing, but I really think we should make sure we've got some way to protect our new society. jazz doesn't like what any of us are saying for various reasons and leaves the room.

so we write our stuff up and send it over to our colleugues to all vote on. jazz actually votes with us because we agreed to help him out with his free speech thingy...


a couple hundred years roll by and some people start bunting ideas around on an internet board. one of them happens to dig up an op-ed you wrote in the new york times about god giving everyone a right to own weapons. they find a reply by me to you that sure, we all know "god" works in mysterious ways and all that, but it's our responsibility to defend ourselves. he aint going to do it, so whatever else happens, we better maintain a militia. someone notices that all four of us, you, me, roachboy, and jazz voted for the right and assumes that means we all believed in a god given right to have weapons.

3 of us didn't, one of us did. but we all agreed on the end product...what gives?
well, for starters, there isn't anything in the amendment about god giving us that right. so whatever. we can debate on who thought what at the time, but it's all just meandering ramblings. the only meat we have to go on is the stuff that was codified.

now there's lots of valid reasons to argue for private ownership of weapons
there's lots of valid reasons to argue for ownership of weapons to be understood as a defense of the state affair, as opposed to a walk about town affair or keeping a sawed off shotty, tech9, or sks for sport shooting

but there isn't much need to argue over whether the people writing the documents believed in a god-given right to such weapons. as if that makes the claim even more legitimate. it is either legit or it;s not to my mind. you either have a good argument or you don't. it's either valid or invalid, for my purposes. and arguing from tradition or an appeal to higher authority doesn't state your case for you. and as if that wasn't enough, enter all the issues roachboy was trying to lay out...and hopefully my example illuminates why we both think you run into all sorts of problems when trying to decipher meaning of legislative manuevers in the manner you are trying to do.

I know it's not the middle of the night, but I'm just popping in from my supposed studying for comps so I shouldn't even be here. hopefully this quick and dirty post clarifies what I was trying to get at when I stopped by earlier.

my opposition to your argument stemmed from the way in which you laid it out, not some fundamental disagreement I have with private gun ownership (because I don't have one, for one thing).

smooth, as round about and story telling as your post was.....I found it enlightening, informative, entertaining, and thought provoking.

I see what you were saying. thanks. great post.

remembering the lessons of history
 

Remembering the lessons of history

April 29th, 1992, a day that started out like most other days in America. The one exception to this day would start in Los Angeles where a highly publicized trial was about to receive a verdict, and a whole nation watched with anticipation. That anticipation soon turned to disbelief and then horror as the city ignited in to rioting, looting, arson, and murder.

A man named Reginald Denny was violently yanked from his vehicle then severely beaten on the street by an angry mob of youths while news helicopters hovered overhead. I watched this entire vicious assault on an innocent man, live on television. I watched as these young thugs dropped a heavy cinderblock on Mr. Dennys head as he lay on the street unable to defend himself anymore. I remember thinking, hoping, and praying that the police would get there quickly and save this guys life. I’m sure that millions across the nation were hoping and praying for the same thing, that the police would rush to the rescue and save this man, who had done nothing, and get him to a hospital before he was killed.

Reginald Denny was finally rescued from several neighbors who, having seen this brutal attempted murder on the news, ran out in to the street, risking their own lives, to save the life of a stranger. We all had to be wondering ‘where were the police?’ The police, who are supposed to protect us not only hadn’t shown up, but they had been ordered out of the area, for their own safety.

Realizing that the police weren’t coming, the citizens of Los Angeles attempted to provide for their own protection by buying a gun. Imagine the shock and dismay when they were told that there was a 15 day waiting period. Now imagine the horror they felt when they realized that they would not be able to defend themselves adequately against a huge and violent mob of thousands. I’m told that an overwhelming amount of gun control advocates living in Los Angeles changed their minds that day. They no longer believed the lie they had been told, that the police are there to protect them.

50 to 60 people were killed during that week of lawlessness and violence, several small business’ and shops were burned to the ground, yet some shops survived, mostly intact, because those shopkeepers banded together with their own personal firearms and defended themselves and their property. They were forced to provide for their own defense because the police were more concerned about their own safety than that of the citizens who paid their salaries.

What kind of elected official tells his constituents that we don’t need guns to protect ourselves, that’s what the police are for, and then when things get too dangerous for the police, we are left to fend on our own? That kind of an elected official is one that does NOT have his constituents best interests at heart but is solely intent upon exercising his/her power to disarm the people in the city, to turn them in to victims.

The L.A. riots should stand out and remind every single one of us that we alone will end up being responsible for our own lives. The police cannot and should not be relied upon to ‘protect’ you. The United States Supreme Court has even ruled that the police are not liable, nor responsible to protect an individual, but only the public at large. It should remind us all that that is why we have the right to keep and bear arms and that we should no longer stand for anyone, especially our elected officials, to continue to legislate these rights away from us.

Stand up for your safety and protection. Stand up for your second amendment rights.

Oops. You screwed up. You've been posting thread after thread advocating gun ownership, claiming to be a responsible gun owner. Yet in this thread you say we should have hundreds, possibly thousands, of people who've never owned a gun, never had any training with the gun, all buying guns on the same day and looking to shoot anything that moves. With no training. If these people HAD been allowed to buy all the guns they wanted a LOT more people would have been hurt and killed. If you want a gun for self preservation, that's fine. I don't even have a problem with that (Just because the 2nd doesn't give you the right to it, it should be pointed out that the 2nd does not TAKE AWAY that right either. I have no problem with you having a gun as long as you're trained and responsible with it). But I DO have a problem with someone who is panicking (and who wouldn't panic in the middle of a citywide riot) and who buys a gun, never having any training with it, and then runs around trying to "defend" themselves. I'm frankly surprised that you would be in favor of this happening, since you claim to be such a responsible gun owner.

how in the hell did you get that perception out of that one paragraph? I know you are not that dense.

If you would read it correctly, you would see that I'm slamming the gun control advocates who preached that nobody needed a gun, the police would be there to protect them, lets have waiting periods and background checks for people to make it harder to get a gun, and then when they found out that YES, you need a gun to protect yourself because you never know when the shit will hit the fan and the police are not always there to protect you and waiting periods are useless when you actually need the gun RIGHT THEN.

and I have to say, you have a seriously warped perception of some things, like the right to self preservation. I can assure you that 95% of the people in this country, when it came down to death/dying or shooting anything that moves and staying alive, that 95% will shoot anything that moves because people choose to live. your philosophy of all of these people causing more deaths is ludicrous considering that they wanted the gun IN THEIR HOMES, and not to take on the streets with them.

dksuddeth, we all know and understand that you are pro gun , and we're cool with that. We might debate the finer points and such, but no one is suggesting taking your gun. I think we can keep this conversation in the 3-4 active threads on gun control already open. You already brought up the LA riots in another thread, so explore the subject there. We already have too many repeat conversations in he other threads to complicate it with yet another. I'm not ssuggesting the subject isn't impoirtant, I'm only suggesting that it already has a home in another thread.

I appreaciate your dedication.

will, I understand about having too many posts on the same subject. My apologies if this becomes confusing to anyone. I just hate to see such a profound incident in history to get lost in threads nobody cares about anymore.

Please don't think I don't care. Remember, I'm a bleeding heart liberal :thumbsup:. I care about stuff that isn't even my business. The LA riots effected my life a great deal because of my family and friends who live down in LA. Ity was a horrible time for everyone and was symptomatic of a much, much larger issue with racism that reaches far outside of LA. As much as the pro gun/gun control/gun ban argument applies to the LA riots, the larger issue, and the one that really could have had a positive effect on the situation is in dealing with the social problems dealing with racism and classism (sp?). Had those issueds been addressed before the LA riots, then they could have prevented a lot of crime, injuries, and deaths.

Several times I've repeated my arguments or points in the discussion in 3 or 4 different threads. Adding another will just further the unnecessary repetition.

Well I'm not a bleeding heart liberal, but I'm getting quite tired of the same old arguments, over and over again too. DK, can we give the whole gun thing a rest please? I've had enough, and you never stick to the same point for long enough for anyone to have a proper argument with you, you're always flying off on different tangents, and getting all upset about the issue. Please, I know you're passionate, but I still wish you had that same passion for some important issues, like those that caused the LA riots in the first place. In every story you come up with, there's a definite argument against the 'guns-for-all' sort of world you seem to prefer - in this case, it's that if there were fewer guns on the streets, the police would have been better able to contain the riots, and would not have had to leave whole areas to degenerate into lawlessness.

How about you just try, for one week, to think about something other than weapons? It might do you some good to broaden your horizons a little, relax, and realise that there are far more fundamental and important things to become passionate about.

I'm going to do the same - one week - and no pro-control talk. Deal?

Dk, first off, thank you for a great thread. This topic is a bit rusty but has great relevance. As a citizen of LA I often wonder why it is so damn difficult for me, a law-abiding American has so much difficulty obtaining a "lawful" gun. Hell the kid down the street is armed to the teeth (I've seen it) with no apparent problems. I suppose I could go that route but I want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

The issue of the LA riots is pivotal. A great example is the political effect. For instance, many Korean shopowners (the ones with guns and vests) were able to protect their businesses. The others...no. And the billions in promised aid never materialized. TO this day, more than ten years later, Koreatown is still strugglin economically.

Politically, many people were jaded. Now they know that the police will only protect Beverly Hills and big business. If I remember correctly, the NRA came in there and cleaned up (meaning new members). Talk about huge missed opportunity for Democrats.

A more recent example: After Hurricane Katrina, I went to the local sporting goods store to buy water purifier and flashlights etc. The guy at the counter immediately asked me if I was buying a gun, because if I was, then too bad cause they were all sold out. Turns out, the rioting, looting in New Orleans sparked a run on home defense. I was thinking of getting a Mossberg 12-gauge but only thinking about it.

But now, I have to seriously consider it. I have a fantastic distaster kit for earthquakes, floods, fire etc in LA for both upstairs and downstairs. My roomates love me and everyone I know wants to be at my house in the event of some disaster. One BIG thing missing from my kit: home defense. Conceivably, if my house is the only one with emergency supplies, then we could become very "popular". The last thing I want is for a group of rowdies to take my kit away.

As more and more people realize that the police are NOT there to protect you, they will have to take personal responsibility for their own protection. And we have a guarantee in the constitution that says we can. (PS - I'm not knocking the police in anyshape or form).

You lost me here, were you in a local sporting goods store in Los Angeles?
Doesn't the fact that you were offered a weapon, if they hadn't been sold out contradict your statement that you have a hard time obtaining legal arms in this state?
High velocity and greater accuracy; shouldn't that be your goal if self defense is the issue?


and I echo a number of other posters, "confusing" is not a word I would use to describe all these threads on guns. Perhaps spam or annoying, but no, not confusing.

Yes, I was in a sporting goods store in Los Angeles. This was just after Hurricane Katrina and being prepared for disaster was a "hot topic" of the day. I was bit surprised as I was expecting flashlights etc to be sold out but not guns. It wasn't at the forefront of my mind.

I wasn't offered a weapon, the clerk was perempting me I guess. In the vain of "If your looking to buy a gun we're all sold out" type of thing cause there was such a run on them after the events in New Orleans.

My reference to the difficulty in obtaining a weapon is simply that there's a bunch of "hoops" to jump through - application, waiting period, background check etc. especially compared with obtaining an illegal weapon where Joe Schmoe doesn't bother with checking your background etc...but he's cash only.

As for high velocity and accuracy I don't know - I'm not a gun expert which is one of the reasons I don't own a gun yet. My intention is to get the proper training as I believe owning a gun is a huge responsiblity. But the fact remains that it is a constitutionally protected right (another issue as well we can/ have debate). I don't take firearms lightly but as a separate issue, I value the right. Does that make sense? I hope that helps clarify things a bit. Oh, yeah, I guess 12-guage shotgun would be fine in relative close quarters in home defense type situations, maybe the guys in the gun thread would know. High velocity, accuracy sounds like a sniping thing and that's not really me.

What's the confusing thing about the threads? Did you find my post to be annoying or spam? It's my first post in this thread...

jorgelito,

I don't see anything confusing in the threads or spam-ish in your replies. I just think that flooding the board with a spate of gun arguments, well really one argument, becomes tedious. tedious to read and respond to. I can't imagine a member of TFP not knowing dk's position on this subject by now and the denny incident is utilized as a mere springboard to launch into the necessities of gun ownership. ok great, so here comes another thread, which is what he pretty much alluded to when he said that people didn't care about the other threads--they were falling off the front page so now the issue is pushed back to the top.

I live down the road from you, jorgelito. The "hoops" aren't as numerous and difficult as you're making them out to be, or assuming them to be. And that's evidenced by the fact that the clerk was "offering" you a weapon and he didn't have one because they were bought up. It's not like people knew katrina was going to go off and started applying weeks before, don't you agree? the hardest difficulty is obtaining a handgun, not a rifle. you don't need a gun expert to teach you all about velocity and accuracy to realize whether you would rather them over hideability when it comes to lawful defense purposes.

it's not a sniping issue, although maybe that sounds cool to some, but rather a question of what you intend to do with the weapon. Do you intend to shoot what you're aiming at and incapacitate it, or hide the thing. and yeah, a 12ga is excellent for harming another human being, but it's not very discriminate. make sure you don't harm someone you love in the process...and don't cripple it's already limited accuracy by sawing the end off to make it more portable and hideable. other than that, you have to be closer than other types of weapons, so pick your poisen I guess is the point of that.

a few things, i'll stop creating new threads, despite any change in the substance. I don't want to confuse people and put them off. Yes, gun rights are very important to me and I realize that they aren't to others, at least as much as other issues are. I'll back off for a bit.

choice of guns - this depends on a few very important variables.
municipality(locality) restrictions is a biggie. Right now, there are places like chicago and surrounding suburbs that ban handguns, but long rifles and shotguns are ok. chicago directly bans all guns except those registered before a certain date. So you may live in morton grove Ill and can't own a handgun, but can own a shotgun. weird, but there it is.

personal preference - this is very important. With 6 years of marine corps training on all kinds of small arms I can take a .45 and put 5 shots inside the size of a nickel at 7 yards within 10 seconds or put 10 rounds of an M16 inside a 3 inch circle at 300 yards, yet I couldn't hit the surface of a pond with a shotgun if I was in a boat. go figure. Some people are good with rifles, some are good with pistols, and some are good with shotguns, it's definitely a personal issue.

Most of the posting i've done to show support for the right to guns has been personal self defense and fighting the government, but disasters weren't presented very well until just recently. Jorgelito has a very good experience, as do most Californians or New Orleans, with the lawlessness that can occur in the aftermath. Survival becomes an extremely front page picture in these events. When it comes down to it, people will just as soon slit your throat than look at you if it means being able to take your weeks worth of food or water from you. It's a moot point if you waited that long to consider a gun.

i'll be making my fourth amendment post this weekend.

Thanks dk - I didn't mean to be an ass about it - it's just well, somethings just bring out that side of me. Like I've said in other places, in the US, with so much violence around, I'd want to be armed too - in that respect, we're in agreement. I just wish that weren't the state of affairs, is all - like in other (European) countries. I look forward to your fourth amendment post :)

Benelli M3 Super 90
http://world.guns.ru/shotgun/ben_m3s90.jpg
This is a good choice for protecting your store against rioters etc.. It holds 8 shotgun shells and is selectable for pump action or semi-auto. In semi-auto mode you can probably hold off a group of intruders. My wife got this for her birthday several years ago. For home protection just chambering a round makes a threatening enough noise to scare most intruders.