Shooting at the Empire State Building

i'm in line with the belief of the framers that the power of this nation resides in the people, not the government, and the people have the right to maintain the weapons necessary to not only fend off, but overcome a tyrannical government, should that government forget who it is they work for.
--- merged: Aug 31, 2012 at 5:42 PM ---

yes, there are some groups on the far right that are indeed close to being enemies of the republic. I'll fight them also.

 

Duane, I really don't think you are contributing to the sort of discussion where peoples opinions are changed in your favor, rather than entrenched against them.

You are making the same mistake that others on this board make in the opposite direction... Arguing absolute principles rather than the details in the middle. Regardless of constitutional protections, a separate debate over the effectiveness of potential firearms laws.

If this or other threads like it are to go anywhere, then we (myself included) need to sit down, take a breath, and break down one issue at a time in a reasonable fashion and without the loaded rhetoric.

 

OK. Thanks for explaining. I may not see things in the same light, but at least I understand your position better.

 

snake eater, I hear what you're saying. the problem is that the laws that most people want to make will not interfere with the criminals ability to obtain weapons anyway. All their intended laws seem meant to do is make it harder for people to get guns in the hopes that it chokes off a point of supply. It's forcing victimhood upon a peaceable people. I fail to see how that is effective.

 

That's actually what I'd like to do. I think it would make a start in that direction and you disagree.

What do YOU think COULD help in that regard?

 

IMO, there are two things to think about concerning this. 1) If you can't be trusted without a guardian/weapon, then you can't be trusted in public at all. and 2) give up trying to prevent crime. it's a gateway to an oppressive dictatorship. Instead, we need to reteach people that THEY are responsible for their safety, not a specialized group of people with extra rights and privileges.

 

Sounds like you want to indoctrinate everyone into an extreme brand of individual libertarianism at the expense of a social contract that balances individual rights with the greater good of the community.
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Do you think all laws or public policies that hold individuals accountable for their actions are a gateway to an oppressive dictatorship? Or just laws and policies that protect the public safety?

 

NO! This is 'MERICA and it's all or nothing. You either can not own a pocket knife or you should be able to purchase a Thermos-nuclear device if you have the cash. Gez, don't you libtards know nothin?

 

DK will have to pry this keyboard out of my cold dead hands before I submit to “reteaching” at one of his reeducation camps.

 

Perhaps you haven't read some of the posts here regarding a stricter regulation of ammunition. What good is an illegal gun if you can't obtain the ammo it needs without proper licensing and/or proof of legal ownership of the weapon you need the ammo for?

 

what social contract? is there a copy around somewhere that we can read?

you don't see a difference between laws that hold people accountable and laws that prohibit actions to hopefully prevent other actions?
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how well did prohibition work? the war on drugs? you want to increase the violence, regulate ammo that way and see how bad it gets.

 

I would like to prevent someone walking into a theater with three weapons, including an AR-15 with a 100 round ammo drum, and shooting 70 people (killing 12, wounding 58) in a matter of minutes.

 

Redux, I understand your intent. Do you think a legal tweak would have prevented the Aurora shootings?

I personally don't see how, but feel free to convince me. I am of the opinion that *I* would have been able to protect myself and my family in that situation and increased regulation would primarily impede my ability to use a firearm defensively, rather than an illegal offensive use.

 

how do you propose to do that without infringing on the rights of others.
--- merged: Sep 2, 2012 at 3:32 AM ---

so other than this book by a french philosopher, there's no legal document in the US archives that delegates from the original colonies signed?

 

this absolutist stance on rights to the exclusion of all other considerations is sociopathic.

 

Stated as though the ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau were not a huge influence on the framers and drafters of the US Constitution.

It's incredibly silly to dismiss the progressive writings of the French philosophers at the time, if one is at all interested in deciphering intent.

 

and to give over to government any more power than already assigned to them via the constitution is worse.
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unless there is somewhere in the papers, debate minutes, or in the constitution itself, it means nothing.
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and yet, having read the founding documents, I can find no such reference to it. why is that?