Dump the Second Amendment for the Privacy Amendment
Following the reaction to last weeks’ column, I thought I’d put forth some ideas on how to replace the Second Amendment. So, President Obama and Congress take note.
“The carrying of firearms is a barbarous custom, and it’s time the practice was broken up,” so opined The Dodge City Times in 1882. A photograph from 1878 shows a large sign on Front Street in Dodge City proclaiming, “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Forbidden.”
And down in Tombstone, Arizona, Ordinance No. 9 took effect in 1881, “To Provide against Carrying of Deadly Weapons”. It read in part, “It is hereby declared to be unlawful for any person to carry deadly weapons, concealed or otherwise [except the same be carried openly in sight, and in the hand] within the limits of the City of Tombstone.”
So much for wildness of the Wild West. While shoot-outs was great film entertainment, there is a crucial distinction between entertainment and reality. Actors such as John Wayne are icons of manliness, because they acted.
Those who lived through hardscrabble times appreciated the difference, and William Manchester underscored the difference in his magnificent essay, The Bloodiest Battle of All. He relayed how during a screening of the ”Sands of Iwo Jima”, staring John Wayne as Sergeant Stryker, Manchester and another ex-Marine were asked to leave the theater because they couldn’t stop laughing.
He adds, “Each evening, Navy corpsmen would carry litters down to the hospital theater so the men could watch a movie. One night they had a surprise for us. Before the film the curtains parted and out stepped John Wayne, wearing a cowboy outfit – 10-gallon hat, bandanna, checkered shirt, two pistols, chaps, boots and spurs. He grinned his aw-shucks grin, passed a hand over his face and said, ‘Hi ya, guys!’ He was greeted by a stony silence. Then somebody booed. Suddenly everyone was booing.
“This man was a symbol of the fake machismo we had come to hate, and we weren’t going to listen to him. He tried and tried to make himself heard, but we drowned him out, and eventually he quit and left. If you liked ‘Sands of Iwo Jima,’ I suggest you be careful. Don’t tell it to the Marines.”
Cinematic fairy tale notions of protection dominate the gun debate. NRA executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, proclaimed last year, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.” The idea of protection with a gun is delusional, and sadly illustrated by the brutal murder that same year of Kaufman, TX, District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia in their home. They never had a chance, watching television. McLelland had taken to carrying a .38 snub-nose for protection after the brutal slaying of one of his assistants, Mark Hasse, two months earlier.
Despite its claims of populism, the NRA is primarily a lobbying arm of the multi-billion dollar gun industry. That said, full-time armed guards there are necessary. This not about individuals reaching for guns a.k.a. OK Corral, but hired professionals trained to guard against menace or threat.
When Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated at the Washington Hilton in 1981, extraordinarily brave Secret Service agents put his life over theirs and blocked incoming fire with their own bodies. One took a bullet to the stomach. The notion that President Reagan would have had an opportunity to reach for a gun after pistol fire commenced is pathetic.
And the notion that somehow guns protect us from tyranny is preposterous. There is nothing democratic about assassinating an elected official. One lone gunman overriding the will of the majority at the ballot box is the ultimate act of despotism.
The most overused and silly meme in history is comparing any politician or political program one doesn’t like to Hitler or the Nazis. Following in that rickety tradition is attributing gun control quotes to Hitler. All claims have been debunked. Clayton Cramer, a pro-2nd Amendment supporter, has done credible research into this fiction. He points out most of the gun control laws during Nazi Germany were already in place during the Weimer Republic. Whereas the Nazis passed further weapons bans in 1938, toward Jews and other “non-citizens,” guns were a point of control, not the defining factor. The Nazis controlled everything.
All recent successful revolutions have been non-violent or achieved with strategic use of international force. The Bosnian War (1992–1995) was halted by a NATO bombing campaign against the Army of the Serbian Republic. Guns in Bosnian homes didn’t prevent Serbian atrocities. In South Africa, Apartheid was stopped with the non-violent protestations of the African National Congress (ANC) and Nelson Mandela. When the ANC initiated protests decades earlier with terrorist attacks, the tactic backfired on many levels. All of the successes in the Arab Spring were non-violent.
By contrast, Syria has degraded to disaster and ruin, not because the opposition was not armed or citizens didn’t have guns, but because Syria has become a staging ground for many simultaneous conflicts. Russian and Iran value an Arab ally in Bashar al Assad and are pumping billions of dollars in armaments into the region. Islamic militants are flooding Syria to promote their own agenda.
The remaining rebels and international community are hampered to defeat the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad or find a peaceful settlement in the din of this confusion.
Most importantly, the gun has become an anachronism of political expression. As Manchester noted, “As late as the spring of 1945, it was possible for one man, with a rifle, to make a difference, however infinitesimal, in the struggle to defeat an enemy who had attacked us and threatened our West Coast. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima made that man ludicrous, even pitiful. Soldiering has been relegated to Sartre’s theater of the absurd. The image of the man as protector and defender of the home has been destroyed.”
Contemporary interpretations of the 2nd Amendment lean toward individual liberties, belying the actual reason for its creation, to protect slave militias, to rein in slaves and secure the state. The opening clause of the 2nd Amendment, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” states the purpose precisely. But in reality, a missile exiting a tube killing or injuring a target does not promote democracy. Words and ideas are more powerful than guns.
As I considered improvements to the 2nd Amendment, I pondered what is the prime benefit of the Amendment? The main value is the spirit of freedom and liberty it embraces. Unlike the 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th Amendment outright, the 2nd Amendment should be changed. Other Amendments in the Bill of Rights specify individual rights, such as freedom of speech, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the right not to self-incriminate, and no torture, the 9th Amendment expands individual rights not enumerated in the Constitution (abortion and Roe vs. Wade is the most notable example). But privacy isn’t specified.
Yes the 4th Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, but the specific right to privacy isn’t listed. We have begun to take for granted our digital footprint is common property, but why, because we carry smartphones on us? Should the government know our day to day actions and movements? This level of surveillance seems innately perilous to individual freedom.
If an individual chooses to share every thought and movement publically on Facebook, that is a choice, but if a person just lives in today’s world and sends a text or makes a cell phone call, should the government necessarily know? Just because the NSA can crack every encryption doesn’t mean it should.
Perhaps the 2nd Amendment should be replaced with an amendment protecting privacy and embracing individuality, dignity and freedom in an information age. The 1st, 4th and 8th Amendments don’t explicitly protect privacy. As there are Ten Commandments, there are 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Ten is the magic number! Just for tradition’s sake, we can’t have 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights.
Perhaps the replacement amendment should read, “Privacy, a keystone of freedom and liberty, shall not be abridged or compromised by the state.”
Douglas Christian is a multimedia Capitol Hill reporter. He has covered the 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions as a photographer and has produced numerous audio and video reports for Talk Media News. He has written scores of articles and op-ed pieces for the Baltimore Post Examiner, touching on politics to the arts and to hi-tech.
Douglas has worked as a photographer for decades. He has produced a few books on Oriental rugs; one was on Armenian Oriental rugs and the other was published by Rizzoli and co-authored by his uncle entitled, ‘Oriental Rugs of the Silk Route’. Douglas attended the Putney School in Vermont, a tiny progressive school in Vermont, where he became enthralled with photography and rebuilt a 4×5 camera. Later during college, he attended the Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite, where he determined to pursue photography. He transferred to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and received a BFA from Tufts. He has photographed an array of people including politicos such as William F. Buckley, Jr., George McGovern, Edward Teller and Cesar Chavez. His photography URL is www.photographystudio.com. His twitter feed is @xiwix. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.
Douglas Christian is an idiot, plain and simple. The NRA is NOT a lobbying arm of the Manufacturers; they are MY lobbying arm and those who believe in Individual liberty and the purpose of the 2A, which is to overthrow tyranny! I see he was raised in Massachusetts, and so like most there (me, being an exception) is a far-let loon who willingly submits to statism. He is a weak coward in my view as is anyone who will not take responsibility for their own safety and freedom.
Also, his writing make clear he believes we get our rights from government–so John Locke has escaped him somehow–but they don’t teach Locke in public schools. Our inalienable rights are natural rights, and pre-existing. The Bill of Rights (BOR) ASSUMES the rights. The purpose of the BOR is not to GRANT rights-it doesn’t; its purpose is to limit government authority, which is stated in the preamble to the BOR.
Let me make this clear NONE of the rights, whether enumerated or not, come from the BOR, or government–they are ALWAYS ours. Repealing the Second Amendment, or in fact any of them does not remove the natural rights we all possess; it would simply mean the government was openly hostile toward our natural rights and that would justify open and armed rebellion against such a tyrannical government. I say this not only as a citizen but a member of the US military.
By law, such a rebellion would be no more legal than it was for the founders, but I remind each person reading this of the following words by our founders:
“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,…”
It is not just a right, but a DUTY!!!
Why was the right carefully enumerated in the BOR?
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” –Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
How can I be assured, that the right of the people is really the right of the people?
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? …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.
I’ll repeat:
“Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American..”
“T]he unlimited power of the sword (used as a metaphor here, for the ignorant) 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. “
One last thing: While individuals may exercise rights and powers, governments exercise ONLY powers; powers we can strip them of. And we’d better start doing that soon at the ballot box, or it’s going to take the cartridge box to put their throats under our feet where they belong!
v/r
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
go to bed grandpa, you’re drunk again
Seriously? THAT sophomoric reply is your retort?
No argument to the quotes of what the founders said? No response to the assessment. Nothing? Just the vacuous comment: “go to bed grandpa, you’re drunk again”
Not surprised, really. Typical of the leftist with no argument. Just insults. Sad, really!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
haha, the crybaby who called Douglas an “idiot”, “loon” and “coward” is sad because I insulted him :,(
you don’t deserve a thoughtful response you clown
another one. I did not insult him, it was an assessment of character based on fact. And all leftists are loons—that is not an insult, but factual assessment.. And when have I ever seen a thoughtful response (actually, He sent one below–but it was like pulling teeth)
“Crybaby” is an insult and typical of a leftist loon, Look, all the mass murderers in the US have been democrats—leftists—go get a gun illegally and do what your kind does, Don’t really do that–don’t want MORE people dead at the hands of a leftist
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars ervitutis esset.
lol i didn’t read any of that
are you wearing a sam adams costume right now?
Come on Sam. I believe in the Constitution and the Second Amendment, I’m a proud lifelong member of the NRA, and I think Carl is totally wrong on this, but you’re being dishonest.
It’s childish to complain about insults while you’re throwing around insults left and right. And it’s just petty to claim the moral high ground by playing the “I’m allowed to insult people because I’m RIGHT” card.
I don’t care about Carl but when you pull this kind of nonsense you make US look bad and hurt OUR cause. I know you think it’s fun to “tell off” liberals but if you can’t be an adult about it people aren’t going to take you seriously.
From Business Insider:
“While that is still part of the organization’s core function, today less than half of the NRA’s revenues come from program fees and membership dues.
The bulk of the group’s money now comes in the form of contributions, grants, royalty income, and advertising, much of it originating from gun industry sources.
Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala’s, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.
The NRA also made $20.9 million — about 10 percent of its revenue — from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-industry-funds-nra-2013-1#ixzz2t35qlNDv
Ooops Grandpa, I guess you’re in error!
Still insulting, but at least you provided an argument before that–but getting funds from multiple sources, and that includes the arms industry, does not make them their lobbyist per se—they (the arms industry) are looking out for an important fundamental right as is the NRA–though they have compromised in the past. I prefer GOA, SAF, and JPFO, though I also lend support to the distaff side as well: The Liberty belles and Armed Females of America. These people are take no prisoners where the 2A rights are concerned. They are ALL my lobbying firms.
Don’t care if they raise money from other sources, whether advertising of from the Arms industry.
You people have a strange fear of the NRA. The NRA tried to stop the Heller case. It was the SAF that pushed that through. The SAF is primarily the ones rolling back in small steps (we learned from you leftists–small steps) the unconstitutional laws and ordinances.
Look. This is in one way a mute issue. The country is in real trouble with a 222 Trillion dollar debt. The government is printing $100 billion in funny money every month and generating now an annual deficit of more than 1 Trillion.
The system is GOING to collapse. and with 46% of the people now to some degree or another dependent upon government to survive (amazing), when there is no more food, law and order will collapse and so will the government. There is a reason why the DHS purchased 2717 MRAPS (illegally on a US Marine contract–this is commingling of funds–highly illegal) and distributed them around the country. There is a reason why 1.6 billion rounds of HOLLOW POINT ammunition was purchased.
I have in my possession a newer version (2010) of an FM manual–one of the few not available for general distribution that covers internment camps, both foreign and domestic camps. The previous version (2007) did not cover domestic internment camps)
It was laying around (I am military) and I took it.
In any event, assuming an ART 5 convention does NOT happen or happen in time to halt the collapse (by stripping the federal government of some of the onerous powers it has assumed unconstitutionally, and assuming armed revolution does not take place, then if it by an economic collapse that violence occurs, it will cull the population down from more than 300 million to about 1/10th that value. As bad as such a thing will be, it will wipe out the moochers completely, though a lot of good producers will unfortunately lose their lives as well.
I don’t really care if you think a collapse is not possible. You’re blind to the existing tyranny, so why would you not also be blind to the obvious problems a $ 222 Trillion debt poses–especially with no chance of change. Collapse is inevitable
Many of the military I serve with are aware of it. We talk about that and what we will do and not do, if the government orders us to take steps against the American people. Those that I have spoken with about it all have stocks of water, food, some fuel, lots and lots of guns and ammunition, and a place to go, not to mention other supplies and some have wisely removed portions of their cash and moved it into gold and silver.
I have good friend, in SF, who has gone all out.
I am not talking about a couple of people. I am talking about a large number. They know. They see. They are prepared or are preparing.
So, as Daniel Jackson waved bye to Goa’uld just before Oma Desala killed them all, I wave bye to you. There is no point to the conversation. I cannot change a liberal and the only former liberal I know is Mike Vanderboegh. He is the only former liberal I have ever met who turned. This he did years before we ever met.
Excuse me now, but I gotta go now and buy some more bullets and some more guns. Bye Kiddo!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
.
Post WW1 , the liberal Weimar republic of Germany created their gun control law….it was VERY
restrictive but, the Allies had no problem with seeing German Civilians
disarmed. It stayed in place until the Nazis took power in 1933 . Hitler kept it in place and used it as a tool against anyone who dared to speak out against them . Nazis conducted widespread searches/ seizures of firearms
from anyone they considered a political opponent or enemy of the State . The
German Police were put under the control of the SS and the Police State dug in.
After five years of cleaning up the dissidents, Dachau was full of ”Political
Prisoners” – Hitler had a firm “grasp” on the German Population. Now that Germany was “safer” –Hitler signed a new gun control law in 1938, which lifted some of the Weimar restrictions but
really benefitted Nazi party members and members of State run groups (like the
SA/HJ/DJ/DAF-KDF) (do you even know what the DAF-KDF was ?). It denied
firearm ownership to ANYONE the Nazis considered enemies of the state …which included Jews and Gypsies.
Handgun Permits were strictly regulated , but they were easier to get if you were a member of the Party or Politically connected –(here are 2 from my collection) http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u529/NYGunOwner/DSC09372.jpg (similar to getting a carry permit in NYC today) . When the War broke out and Germany overran Europe …Gun Control was again used as a “tool” against civilians but
now against the occupied populations. The difference , this time Death was included as a possible penalty. Of course, the Nazis claimed they were Liberators and the first thing they did was work with the new
Puppet Governments to establish order. Immediately Posters like this http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u529/NYGunOwner/002.jpg went up in every Occupied City and Village across Europe …mandatory Gun Control –Confiscation or risk execution.
The example I’m posting was used in Holland and is from
my personal Collection. Citizens had 24 hours to surrender all firearms to the
Nazis or , could face the death penalty.
It came from a WW2 Veteran who felt it was worth saving.
I’m glad he did.
Even when confronted with Historic artifacts ..the Anti Gun Fanatics refuse to
believe they have anything in common with the Nazis. And they completely lose
it when you compare a Liberal Politician to Hitler. I already had one lady take
me on claiming that I was wrong about Nazi Gun Control and accused me of
Photoshopping this Poster. The vocal anti-gun people don’t know the History and have no way to counter the facts other than complaining about “Nazis” being used in today’s Gun Control Debates. They watch TV –do a few searches on Google , and suddenly they’re all experts and posting opinions ?
They’ll dissect it/analyze it/hang on a phrase or
search desperately for some way to dismiss it.
Twisting History to fit an agenda only works with
the uninformed …do your Homework next time.
Pure liberal drivel. To change the law you need majority of the American citizens, not the majority of the biased media. They constantly say they have majority support but that is a lie. If that were so it would have been passed.
The gun control laws did not even pass the democratically controlled Senate let alone the House. The truth of the matter is you have a small group of progressive liberal politicians pushing this agenda with the media in their pocket.
So go ahead and try to amend the Constitution and see where you get. The American people will not stand for it.
If they want to ban guns, the path is well defined…
1) Repeal the 2nd Amendment, Process is laid out in Article 5
2) Pass the needed laws
3) Raise taxes on all non-gun owners to incredible highs in order to raise the approximate $1.5 Trillion needed to buy all the legally owned guns… that pesky 4th Amendment you know.
4) Enjoy the Utopia.. Wait! Criminals still have guns?! Oh &^(&*%9659!!!!!
Nope. That would be true only if we received our rights from government. We don’t. Certain of the rights understood by the founders to be natural, fundamental, and pre-exisitng were enumerated in the BOR (they had to add the 9th to cover the un-enumerated ones, but the rights exist even without the Second Amendment.
Repealing the Second Amendment (if you could get 38 states to do it), or any right, enumerated or not in the Constitution, would simply herald an overt hostility to all our rights and justify armed revolution.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Well aware of the probable outcome from those who actually believe in America. Likely #3 would cause a massive run on cosmoline!
My point was that banning guns only effects the legal guns and in no way removes the illegal guns (and the real issue) from society.
Another clueless liberal.
He’s not really a liberal, in the classic sense. Liberal means “a free mind”, willing to accept new ideas.
He’s actually a “leftist” as he hasn’t searched for data or history to form his point of view. He just goes along with the hate propagated by his handlers or he has let his hoplophobic fears overcome reason.
Okay, I can accept that.
Correct. Classical liberalism is about being liberal with regard to individual rights!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Douglas, D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago didn’t exist in 1882.
They do now.
Get over it.
Douglas, you are an utter moron. You and other like-minded liberals war against the “shall not be infringed” part of the 2nd amendment, but expect others to follow “shall not be abridged or compromised” of your proposed amendment without question?
You amendment would be equally ran over and trampled, just as you propose to trample over an amendment of the same language. Move to one of your already-established bastions of gun-free glory, such as England. You may beg for chains, but the rest of us Americans who value our freedom are keeping ours. “May posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
My previous comment was a little too wordy.
What I ment to say……….
……What an utter FOOL!
“Douglas Christian was born in Germany and grew up in Boston.”
That explains why you know so little about Americans and how we value our Constitution and Bill of Rights. You have the right to speak with ignorance and that is assured by our right to bear arms. You wrote about us not having a right of self defense but to be defended by armed guards.
How elitist! You go right ahead and hire others to defend you or just call 911 and wait for the police to come draw a chalk line around your body and write reports. I’ll use my God given intelligence to defend myself.
Of course these people would love to go in there and destroy the US Constitution..
Here is a tip – sit back and watch Obama……….
nah that’s dumb
“There is nothing democratic about assassinating an elected official.”
Tell that to Count Von Stauffenberg, who tried to assassinate the elected Reichsfuehrer.
Another uninformed comment from an east coast liberal against guns. How utterly … predictable.
I love guns and even I know a dumb pro-gun argument when I see it. Hope this helps.
Helps whom? I was commenting about the author of the article, not guns.
Yes I get that you think anyone who disagrees with your impractical, antiquated ideas about gun rights is “against guns”. I hope my comment helps disabuse you of that notion.
Please explain why you consider the 2nd antiquated and impractical. Thanks
I’ve explained that in this thread repeatedly.
Then your position is that the 2nd Amendment is impractical because it’s authors are dead now, and they owned slaves while alive? Nothing else?
Does this mean, to you, that all of the Bill of Rights should be disregarded too?
no that’s dumb
Then why focus on the Second? Why not the others?
So, you are of the opinion that not knowing even the basics of the subject makes one’s comments more “practical” and “progressive” than those of a person who knows both the subject and the politics of it. Interesting. I disagree with him because he is wrong, proveably incorrect in his assumptions.
Disabuse me? No, not at all. Ignorance is ignorance, and one should never make a public comment with that as the basis of their knowledge on the subject at hand. Nor is my position “antiquated”, as both the Heller and McDonald
decisions from the United States Supreme Court affirm.
Despite the overreaction of Tombstone’s control freaks and fearful townsfolk, Ordinance #9 soon faded away. Arizona is an open carry state, and it is legal to carry firearms in Tombstone and elsewhere in that state. Evolution.
We have always been an open carry state and are a Constitutional Carry State now, that is, if you can legally own a gun, you can carry it, open or concealed, no permit needed.
The Tombstone law against carrying guns was the result of confrontations with the “cowboys” outlaw gang. They are portrayed with red sashes in the movies and were very real. The ordinance was aimed at preventing the damage and injury caused by their drunken gunfire at and after leaving the saloons. Partiers could drop the weapons at the marshals office and pick them up again in the morning, when sober. Guns and alcohol didn’t mix then either.
ibid.
cool place.
Very.
I grew up in CT, very glad I came here. Ct seems like “occupied territory” now.
If Texas falls –highly unlikely– but, if it does, we’re headed that way.
Plenty of room and good people, an excellent Sherriff and Governor too.
I laughed all the way through this article much like those Marines laughed at John Wayne.
“The idea of protection with a gun is delusional”
The proper response, when someone is shooting at you, is to shoot back. You will need a gun for this. It is also the only way to protect an innocent, If you care as much about people as you think you do. If you do not have a gun, call police. Why? Because they have a gun. / Reread paragraph until it sinks in.
Body armor or a body guard is more likely to save your life in such a situation.
My carry gun cost $500, another $400 for gear, training and CC permit. I think the expense paid for itself by saving 8 lives in an interrupted armed robbery one night. The FBI says this method saves almost 300 lives a year with justified shootings. Estimates are another 1,000,000 are saved when the intended victim only displays their weapon.
A body guard probably costs about $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Do the math.
Besides, I can’t fit a body guard in my holster.
But I did add the class IV plates……….
1. Body armor is of little value unless you can return fire. Body armor protects a police officer from a disabling attack, but as soon as the killer realizes that you have body armor, he will make the more difficult shots at limbs or head.
2. Yes, average Americans can afford bodyguards. Why didn’t I think of that?
Just curious Mr. Christian, do you own neither, either or both? Why?
So, you prefer to pay someone to protect you with a gun rather than do it yourself? You also believe that it is better to pay someone to die for you rather that stoop to self protection?
If you’e a member of the elite you can afford a bodyguard. I am military, and believe me, there are strong limitations on armor. Most can’t afford bodyguards. And I used my own personal weapon twice to thwart criminal attack on me. And I read every day at http://www.keepandbeararms.com of such occurrences.
And don’t project your own incompetence with arms (or fear of them) on me or others.
Self defense is not really the purpose of the 2A. That is a great side benefit. I hope one day you come across an armed assailant. If you live through it, it will be by his or her’s generosity, not by any skill you apparently do not possess.
“War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” — John Stuart Mills
In chapter 3 of Locke’s Second Treatise, he discusses the state of war, and refers to that state between individuals:
“Sec. 17. And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life: for I have reason to conclude, that he who would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for no body can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against
the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation; and reason bids me look on him, as an enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that, in the state of nature, would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a foundation of all the rest; as he that in
the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to design to take away from them every thing else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.
Sec. 18. This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than, by the use of force, so to get him in his power, as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he has no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away every thing else. And therefore it is lawful for me
to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me, i.e. kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it.”
You may take the coward’s way, but I do not fear death and will not expose my back to an assailant which will certainly increase my risk of death. I will kill him or be killed if my fate that be, but helpless victim, I will not be.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Did he say “the idea of protection with a gun is delusional”?
Almost 400 times a year police justifiably shoot criminals. Citizen do it almost 300 times.
Estimates vary as to haw many time guns are used to defend ourselves. Usually about 500,000 to 2.5 million. These instances may involve displaying the weapon to ward the criminal off, no shots fired.
I carry on the advice of my father, this turned out to be good advice as it saved the lives of eight people in an attempted armed robbery one night. My wife, I, and four other customers were in a store with two clerks. A masked armed robber came in. After aiming their gun at each of us, we put our hands in the air. When they turned to a clerk in front of the safe and yelled “don’t touch the button” while aiming the gun at him, I drew my gun and told them to “drop the gun”, they didn’t and instead turned their gun at me. So I shot them. Eight people will STONGLY disagree with your statement.
Crime and evil have existed since Cain, come prepared. Or enjoy your victimhood.
PLEASE tell me the predators (I refuse to recognize them as persons) are now taking the eternal dirtnap!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Now, a word from our sponsors:
“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.”
– George Washington
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”
– George Mason
“I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few politicians.”
– George Mason (father of the Bill of Rights and The Virginia Declaration of Rights)
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”
– Noah Webster
“The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
– Noah Webster
“A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace.”
– James Madison
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms.”
– James Madison
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
– James Madison
“The ultimate authority resides in the people alone.”
– James Madison
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
– Richard Henry Lee
“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves … and include all men capable of bearing arms.”
– Richard Henry Lee
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”
– Patrick Henry
“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
– St. George Tucker
“… arms … discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property…. Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them.”
– Thomas Paine
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
– Samuel Adams
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
– Joseph Story
Notice anything in the Founding Father’s sentiments expressed above that give you reason to consider that they wrote it for “slavery”? That’s because they didn’t write it for slavery but for FREEDOM. You seem to have missed that sentiment, or are you just willing to ignore it. You have an interesting approach to Patriotism and the defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the “I feel so much better sense I’ve given up hope kinda approach. So just what is your answer to tyranny, pitch forks and torches?
One think George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason had in common: all slaveholders. “How is it that the loudest yelps for liberty come from the drivers of slaves?” Dr. Samuel Johnson asked.
When speaking of the 2nd Amendment, their slave holding history is vital.
Yes, that’s true, they did own slaves, and still managed to advance the cause of freedom far beyond anyone else in the world at the time. Or since.
If this is your defense to their sentiments expressed in our Second Amendment, good luck.
You will notice, had the British defeated our revolution, the slaves would have remained slaves as Britain retained it also.
Or since? Really? So the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. doesn’t count?
The civil rights movement involved many people and advanced the cause of freedom greatly. It can in no way however, compare to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. To any sensible person.
BTW, Martin Luther King Jr. owned many guns for his personal protection.
If the purpose of the second amendment was to round up runaway slaves, then the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 would have been unnecessary. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 would have rendered the amendment useless.
The purpose of the Second Amendment was slavery, then explain why states that never held slaves, and many that had already freed all slaves, adopted right to keep and bear arms provisions in their state constitutions.
For FREEDOM. Their sentiments are included in a post above, feel free to read them. You will notice mention of freedom many times. Slavery is not mentioned. Please make a note of this fact.
Sorry, this post is a misplaced reply to another comment, my bad.
Sorry, this post is a misplaced reply to another comment, my bad.
Freedom to own slaves. I love how complain they’re losing their freedom by having affordable healthcare. No. Slavery is losing your freedom.
Many States allowed slavery that’s true. That is the reason for the 3/5th Compromise included in the Constitution. The Founders knew eventually all would repeal it.
Did you just say “affordable health care”? I’ve read that everyone’s premiums are rising considerably. Have yours dropped?
Should health insurance be designed merely to insure people who are already healthy or to maintain good health for everyone? If it’s the former, then pre-ACA was good. If the latter, then everyone needs to be insured with a mandate. Again, a loss of slavery! It must be akin to slavery!
Then call it what is.
Not the “affordable care act” but the “You are now slaves to the insurance companies, who are slaves to the government and we will tell you what coverage you must buy at much higher prices act”. If you’re honest.
Honestly, your analogy to slavery is stupid.
The description is spot on, the ACA is stupid. Universal health care isn’t better heath care, it’s health care with a twist of communism.
Actually slaves by proxy to the people benefiting from the earnings confiscated and redistributed, the government being the slaveholder. The recipients are slaves too, being dependent upon their lord and master and not REALLY free to vote as they will always vote for the slaveholder, having lost the ability to care for themselves. Pitiful.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Not really insurance then. If I declined to buy fire insurance and come home to find my house on fire, its not much of a bet which is what insurance is. Are you suggesting I should be able to call my insurance carrier and be able to add the insurance while my house is burning to the gorund or even after it has?
Also, Healthcare is a combination of services and products provided by the labor and resources of others. If healthcare is a right, then you must acknowledge that the providers are slaves.
When the fruits of MY labor put food on someone else’s table, clothe others, pay their cell phone bills, or pay for their doctors and hospital bills, am I not their slave?
My labor is benefiting a third party when only my employer and me should be the beneficiaries. When my resources are forcibly confiscated to the benefit of others, I am a slave,
So much for your concern against slavery. You don’t object to the PRINCIPLE of slavery, only the manner and who it is that is the slave and who is the slaveholder. No more platitudes against slavery please!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Exactly. Had the second amendment been all about returning slaves, the two acts mentioned above would have been unecessary.
The fugitive slave act of 1850 called for federal prosecution of sheriffs in free states if they failed to apprehend and return runaways. Had it been a second amendment issue, why did it only apply to peace officers and not “the people?”
Up until the compromise of 1850, slavery was a nonpolitical issue. Politicians wanted to maintain the balance of power. Free states were free states with no federal requirement to return runaway slaves.
Freemen remained free and many freesoilers and whigs exercised their 2A right. Folks like John Brown. Ever hear for repel of the second amendment after Haper’s Ferry? Me either. 🙂
Washington’s will provided for freedom for his slaves once Martha had died. (Many of the slaves at Mount Vernon were dowry, and he did not have authority to free them.) Washington also freed some of his slaves during his lifetime.
Jefferson never forgot the reaction when he seconded another member of the House of Burgesses’ pre-Revolutionary War proposal to allow masters to free their slaves. After the war, Jefferson was so deeply in debt that he could not, by law, free his slaves. There were cases in this period where freed slaves were re-enslaved because the master who had freed them ended up deeply in debt.
The slave holding history is largely irrelevant to the Second Amendment. Which states demanded a Second Amendment? Some were slave states — but others were New Hampshire (where there were no slaves) and Pennsylvania, which had already started its program of gradual emancipation.
Almost 1/3 of the colonies had already cast off slavery, are you suggesting they would have signed off on an Amendment to advance slavery?
meh those people are all dead, if you want to reanimate them and give them a vote then go for it
That’s how it works in Chicago…..
nah that’s dumb
You are an expert on dumb, we will agree!
nah that’s dumb
So, that they are dead strips wisdom? And since when are my rights subject to a vote? Not much of a right then is it? You must be under the mistaken impression that rights come from men (government); they don’t!
Only an atheist believes “rights” come from man. In fact rights cannot possibly exist if there were no Creator. The so-called rights could not be fundamental–they would be topical to the day and whims of the popular culture–another way of saying that there would be a tyranny by the majority.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”
– George Mason
It takes a slave owner to know! George Mason = hypocrite
So, why are you trying to disarm us?
All but the first are correct. Washington actually never said that.
But I agree with the sentiment
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
§1
Jews (§5 of the First Regulations of the German Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 1333) are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.
§2
Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew’s possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.
§3
The Minister of the Interior may make exceptions to the Prohibition in §1 for Jews who are foreign nationals. He can entrust other authorities with this power.
§4
Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions of §1 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the punishment is imprisonment in a penitentiary for up to five years.
§5
For the implementation of this regulation, the Minister of the Interior waives the necessary legal and administrative provisions.
§6
This regulation is valid in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten-German districts.
Berlin, 11 November 1938
Minister of the Interior
The Jews were stripped of their citizenship and weapons by A.H. Had they not been disarmed through “gun-control” they may well have made a difference in their fate and the outcome of the war. 12 million (six million Jews, six million undesirables) victims fighting for their lives against 3 million soldiers (the German army at their height) may have made a difference to the war’s outcome. We know they would have fought if they had the chance because of interviews with survivors. Personally, I would have rather fought the evil Nazi machine on my feet rather than die for nothing on my knees, how about you?
To pretend the Nazi party did not use gun-control to disarm them, or it had no effect on their lives or even the possible outcome of the war borders on Holocaust Denial.
The 12 million who were disarmed, put on trains then put to death are the reason to tell the truth.
Well said. There is no doubt that the Nazis sought to disarm the Jews. (The Nazis didn’t want uprisings, such as in the Warsaw Ghetto.) So too, the 2nd Amendment was designed to keep blacks as slaves in the South. Part of the Slave Militias job was to search for weapons. However do you really think a minority in Nazi Germany could have resisted the fascists?
Maybe you could answer that question better then me. In your mind, place yourself and loved ones in that ghetto. Would you go quietly onto the train? Or would you try to save yourselves in any way you could.
I know what I would have done.
Here is a sentiment by another victim of gun-control and tyrannical governments:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or
whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwi thstanding all of Stalin’s thirst,
the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Are you honestly suggesting that the choice is either Sandy Hook Elementary or The Gulag Archipelago? Wow! That is ridiculous.
Well, no, I was only referring to citizens resistance to tyranny. But since you brought up Sandy Hook,
How’s that “gun-free-zone” working out for you?
In fact I was wondering,
When you buy one of those “gun-free-zone” signs and put it on your wall, but then, a criminal or madman murders people with a gun, – can you get your money back? The sign didn’t work did it?
We have the option of fixing the problem that led to Sandy Hook (and Aurora, and the Navy Yard, and dozens of other similar tragedies). We can fix our mental health system, which was destroyed with the best of intentions in the 1960s and 1970s. But that would fix too many other problems.
You have grossly misunderstood that passage from Solzhenitsyn, and are doing a profound injustice to what he was trying to say.
He is not making a pro-gun argument here. Just the opposite: he clearly thinks that “axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand” were more than enough for self defense. He even imagines doing simple things like spiking the tires of their paddy wagons. There is no mention of guns here, or of gun control.
That quote is from a footnote to a longer passage where A.S. describes the experience of being arrested. He describes it as “a series of incidental irrelevancies…a multitude of things that do not matter”. The problem was that it seemed like there was “no point in arguing about any one of them individually” – so there was never a moment when people actually bothered to resist. Had they done so, they might have succeeded – but they didn’t, and that is why they “deserved everything that happened afterward.”
You’re welcome to argue that gun control is a form of tyranny that we should resist, but A.S. is not making that specific argument here, and it’s extremely disrespectful to his experience and his work to pretend otherwise.
“or whatever else was at hand?…” Speaks for itself, again, it is you who are misrepresenting history.
Agreed, the word “or” speaks for itself. Look it up.
Even we suppose A.S. has “guns” in mind there and even if we ignore the word “or” that does nothing to change what he is saying.
He is not saying that the Russian people were arrested because they had been disarmed. He is saying that the Russian people were arrested because they didn’t even *try* to resist. That is the entire point of this passage. This is a line of criticism that is completely familiar to anyone who has ever read any Soviet dissident literature.
There is nothing ambiguous or controversial about my point here. Anyone who wants to can read the passage for themselves.
Thanks for your incredible insight into history and the mind of AS.
But to the real world, I know enough to try, so do about 100,000,000 other Americans.
haha, nice try, but you were the one who appealed to the Solzhenitsyn quote. you don’t get to dismiss it as not “the real world” after it says something different than you thought it did. This is you running from your own arguments again.
You think having a gun might have encouraged more resistance than being disarmed? Or do guns only make people aggressive against each other, but not secret police?
Interesting questions, too bad Solzhenitsyn doesn’t touch on them in the passage above! (You know, the one where he’s supposedly making some point about guns.)
In that case, there’s no need for the police to have guns, is there?
Your argument isn’t with me, it’s with Solzhenitsyn, and with the guy who tried to cite a Solzhenitsyn quote to make a pro-gun argument.
Yes, I’m sure if given the choice between a gun or an axe, he would have chosen the axe. You’ve totally convinced me. What…
Your use of the term “Slave Militia” is disingenuous. The proper term is “slave patrol”. You are attempting to twist the unorganized militia with the plantations enforcers and slave hunters. They were two entirely separate entities.
What’s disingenuous about it? What’s being twisted here? Who says that patrol is the “proper” term? Nothing you’ve said here distinguishes them from a militia. Your main objection seems to be that it’s inconvenient for your position, which is more or less the point.
Try researching the term “slave militia”. You will find no mention of the term used throughout history. Wikipedia has an excellent description of the armed force Douglas is referring to, the are described as the “slave patrols”, nowhere in the article is the term “slave militia” used. See for yourself, or remain disingenuous too.
A quick search in Google Books instantly turned up plenty of references to so-called slave patrols as militias.
Speaking of definitions, consider looking up “disingenuous”. I think that it is appropriate to describe those groups as militias because they are bands of armed citizens assuming powers ordinarily reserved for the military and the police. If you disagree with that argument then fine, but consider actually articulating what’s wrong with that conception.
Ok, lets use me as an example. My ancestors were Patriots in the Revolution. They were Militia and Continental soldiers. Their sacrifices freed America from the whims of King George. My ancestors were also Yankees in the Civil War. Their sacrifice freed the slaves. My ancestors goals have always been to preserve the Constitution and advance civil rights for all. Are you suggesting any of them may have been prone to “slave hunting”? Why?
Your position infers that militia members were/are slave hunters and plantation enforcers. This could not be further from the truth. Militias are under the command of our State’s Governors, they are only called to arms by them. Is there a reference you can make to a State militia being used to quell slaves?
The enforcers and hunters were groups of 3 to 6 men, acting for private interests, independent of any State authority.
Uh, I don’t need to call into question the character of your noble ancestors or whatever to make this point. I don’t need to argue that every militia member was a slave hunter (or “prone” to it) to argue that every slave patrol was a militia. That’s like saying that, because all slave hunters were human, and humans are slave hunters. Logic 101.
When you argue that “Militias are under the command of our State’s Governors” you are abandoning your earlier argument about how the word is popularly and historically used so that you can conveniently narrow the definition to a tangential legal conception. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work either. As recently as 2009 SCOTUS wrote that “African Americans in the South would likely have remained vulnerable to attack by many of their worst abusers: the state militia and state peace officers.” Note that this conception of militias was written by Justice Alito in a ruling that *rolled back* gun control regulations. You don’t have a leg to stand on here.
Fine, since you’ve talked yourself into a corner anyway, let’s consider the present. Have you seen any “SLAVE PATROLS” in your neighborhood lately? Do you think there have been any since 1865? Let me know if you do find any and we can consider this issue as having any meaning to our 2nd Amendment.
Sorry, declaring that I’ve “talked myself into a corner” is no substitute for making an actual argument.
You don’t get to float a ridiculously narrow definition of “militia” to save your position – and then, when that’s proven demonstrably wrong, leap over to a new argument as if nothing happened.
Your latest point is easily rebutted but there’s no reason to answer it if you’re going to keep leaping all over the place.
yep
Or better yet, please feel free to include any links or references to “slavery” as being the reason for our Second Amendment. Thanks.
There is an embarrassingly bad law review article by Carl T. Bogus some years ago that relied on the fact that some slave states wanted a right to keep and bear arms provision — but ignored that there were more such requests from states that were either free, or in the process of abolishing slavery.
We know you’ve realized your argument was inadequate because you’re repeatedly trying to buttress it with new ones.
Just answer the question Carl, what compels you to suggest the 2nd was written to advance and protect the cause of slavery. Inquiring minds want to know. References please.
I appreciate that this would be a lot easier for you if you were allowed to put arguments in my mouth, but instead of making all kinds of crazy assumptions about what I think how about you stick to disputing the points that I’ve actually made.
Your points? Some of our Founding Fathers owned slaves while alive, but now they’re all dead. OK, what’s your point?
Where are the references he asked for? Put up or shut up!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
So why is it that 13% of the population commits 57% of all violent crimes per FBI UCR & USDOJ data?
So why is it that 17% of the population commits 30% of all violent crimes per FBI UCR & USDOJ data?
Really carl, LOL, hey everyone, carl claims Alito wrote the following….10 USC § 311 – Militia: composition and classes.
Carl is claiming that Alito is over 222 years old, 0r 121 years old if one remembers wht is called the (Richard (use 4 letter slang name) Act 1902) LOL!
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of
the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
You are aware that the earliest licensing laws for guns in the U.S. were the ones that only applied to black people, right?
If your point is that white Americans have historically relied on guns to oppress black people I’m inclined to agree!
Yes, some have used guns to oppress. LAWS too. Should we now ban laws? Clayton’s point is to the fact gun-control does not make the population safe. Any part of the population. Any more then laws against murder have ever saved a murder victim. It only disarms the law abiding. The criminal does not follow laws BY DEFINITION.
Am I typing too fast, I’ll slow down because I want you to get this part, Gun-control has never saved a single life. EVER. Restricting and disarming the law abiding (the only ones to obey the law) can only place the public on uneven ground against the criminal. Gun-control kills.
True, but the reality is, that “saving lives” (as counter intuitive to you and I”) as the purpose for gun controls seems intuitive to many of the sheep whose education has been compromised severely.
The purpose of saving lives is a lie presented to the public. Civilian disarmament is entirely about the left needing an unarmed public that they may accelerate their “progressive” (hell, let’s call a spade a spade and call them what they are: Marxists) agenda. It has NEVER been about saving lives.They are Marxist statists and freedom is anathema to their very souls.(if they believed in souls)
.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
No, they have historically relied on gun control laws to oppress black people.
Ah. So would you say that the overwhelming majority of black Americans who continue to support gun control laws simply don’t know what’s good for them?
The existence of such patrols is not indicative of that being the INTENT of enumerating the right in the BOR. Regardless, the right is a natural, fundamental one.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Carl T. Bogus’s claim that you are echoing is among the least defensible arguments that I have ever read in a law review. There was at least as much support for the Second Amendment in free states as in slave states.
How could a minority in Nazi Germany have resisted the fascists? Assassination, armed resistance to being rounded up, and the Warsaw Ghetto was not the only rising by Jews in Eastern Europe against the Nazis. Resistance with a gun is a lot easier than resistance with a rock.
You’ve done nothing to establish that guns would have been adequate by simply pointing out that they would have been *more* effective than rocks.
I don’t even get why you would make such a ridiculous point. Is your impression that gun-control advocates don’t realize that guns are more dangerous than rocks? Is that the profound insight on which the anti-gun control movement turns? Because: lol
Anti-gun control is a double negative. Fancy pants misuse of the language.
haha you don’t know what a double negative is
Your argument seems to be that guns won’t help. They certainly help more than pleading for mercy, and to be gassed last.
No, you die either way, just like Germans who tried to resist the Nazis with guns typically died either way. That is my argument. Pleading for mercy and shooting a gun generally had the exact same consequence against the Nazis: you getting killed or thrown into a camp.
Your “I feel so much better since I’ve given up hope” approach to self defense is contemptible. You must consider your life cheap, and not worth defending. Just like your point of view.
They didn’t have millions of their population resisting, now did they. Largely they were supportive of the Nazis. Weren’t they.
They didn’t have even 1/10 of 1% resisting, did they?
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
To search SLAVES for weapons, just like today a Democrat Gun Grabber can’t stand the thought of a black man or woman with a gun. That is why it is discrimination to ask for a photo ID to vote but fine to demand one to buy a gun.
You do not back up your slavery assertion. SHOW me with words from the founders. Please. I have words from the founders I have presented that state a different purpose. PROVE your assertion
It was few Jews indeed: Prof. Israel Gutman, a participant wrote a book put the number at only 350 and that number may reflect others. Some reports say as few as 10 in fact participated.
In any event the problems they inflicted on the Nazis cause the Nazis to kill 50,000 or so. It doesn’t take many determined–especially when organized, and when fought asymmetrically.
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“Following in that rickety tradition is attributing gun control quotes to Hitler. All claims have been debunked. Clayton Cramer, a pro-2nd Amendment supporter, has done credible research into this fiction. He points out most of the gun control laws during Nazi Germany were already in place during the Weimer Republic. Whereas the Nazis passed further weapons bans in 1938, toward Jews and other “non-citizens,” guns were a point of control, not the defining factor. The Nazis controlled everything.”
There is one particular quote purportedly from Hitler on the subject that I have debunked. Stephen Halbrook’s new book about gun control in the Weimar Republic and Nazi period is well worth reading. It demonstrates the enormous paranoia the Nazis had of armed Jews and political resisters, and the extraordinary steps that the Nazis took to use the existing Weimar Republic’s draconian laws for that purpose.
Democracies are not guaranteed to stay democratic — as happened with the Weimar Republic. Even majority will is not a sufficient protection of minority rights, which is why we have a Bill of Rights — to subvert democracy, because majorities are sometimes ignorant, and sometimes passionate. Neither is likely to lead to good decisions. Christian’s column is an astonishing example of the shallowness of thinking that characterizes America today.
Good points Clayton. I especially like your quip regarding my shallowness of thinking. As you know, the fall of the Weimar Republic had more to do with the terrible state of the economy in Germany in 1933 and less to do with guns.
It is a good point Douglas. The firearms registration list, that had no affect on crime, were instrumental in the identifying and disarmament of the Jewish gun owners, pre-WWII.
There is definitely no guarantee that the benign government/authority you surrender your rights to today, will not one day come for more of your rights in the future.
The DOJ told Eric Holder the UBC bill can’t work without a complete registry of gun owners in the USA. This is the danger of this bill and why there is so much resistance to it. The NICS is set up in a certain way, You can trace a gun to it’s owner but not a owner to a gun. If a weapon is found at a crime scene, we call the FBI with the serial number, they have a record of who sold the gun, they call the FFL and they will search their records for the buyer. This way no one can look up your name and know what guns you own, then persecute in some way. This system was set up this specific way to prevent what happened in Nazi Germany. Still, All it would take is someone keeping a copy of the checking list to know who has what. Don’t think it could happen? Neither did the disarmed Jews. Or the other 6 million undesirables.
Read History, it hasn’t been kind to those who’ve been disarmed, we know them as “victims”.
The notion that democracies are sufficient protections is the sort of idea that someone could hold in 1800. Not after the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Founding Fathers knew this fact too, that’s the reason for our Constitution.
Rome fell because it was a democracy without a Constitution.
And other reasons as well. There’s a very depressing quote from the Roman history Sallust (30s BC) that I read to my class about how wealth destroyed the character of the Roman people. I don’t have to do anything but read the quote: my students immediately recognize America.
Yes, we can see this happened throughout history. The society becomes fat and lazy, mentally and physically, while resting on it’s laurels. This is when other, harder people will overcome them. Thank God for the Constitution.
Wealth did not destroy Rome. Moral decay did and relying on captured slaves (the result of moral decay).
But I doubt you can see that. With apologies to The Doctor, “I am so, so sorry” that your students have you for an instructor.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
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Actually, Rome was a Republic and without a formal, written constitution. The US is the first nation to do have one. We are also not a Democracy in the true sense of the word, but rather a constitutional Republic. The difference? Majority rule (tyranny by the majority) as opposed to “Rule of Law,” where 51% don’t get to vote my rights away.
My RKBA is a NATURAL, fundamental, and pre-exiting right, not subject to the “democratic” process nor in fact to arguments grounded in social utility.
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Most importantly, the Weimar Republic’s gun control laws were passed primarily to disarm extremist groups like the Communists and the Nazis… and then the Nazis used those laws. How sure are you that the laws that you pass today won’t be misused in the future by groups as frightening as the Nazis?
The point being, that they used the gun control laws to disarm their enemies and scapegoats. Do you know what 10 Jewish inhabitants did in the Warsaw ghetto. The “uprising” was actually composed of just 10 individuals!
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Cramer hasn’t presented a counterpoint to Christian here. Even granting his argument, all he’s demonstrated is that the Nazis were paranoid about guns.
From that it does not somehow follow that Nazi paranoia was warranted, or that their domestic opposition ever stood any chance of thwarting their ambitions, armed or not. Turns out the Nazis were paranoid about a lot of things!
More to the point, it is straight-up *crazy* to extrapolate that assumption into 21st century America and conclude that armed citizens stand a ghost of a chance against our militarized police forces or the federal government.
The logic here is so flimsy that it’s probably worth reflecting on the motivations of people tut-tutting about “the shallowness of thinking that characterizes America today”. I can’t imagine that Cramer even takes his own post seriously, and can only assume he thinks he’s duping his “sometimes ignorant, and sometimes passionate” fellow citizens with lazy appeals to Hitler.
“armed citizens stand a ghost of a chance against our militarized police forces or the federal government”.
Speak for yourself.
You’re welcome to try to prove me wrong, but that’s beside the point.
My point is that you *can’t* prove me wrong by simply pointing to Nazi Germany and assume some equivalence between their ability to subdue domestic resistance and that of the 21st century United States. The government’s technological, logistical, and strategic capacity for mass control has increased exponentially since then and out of all proportion to the civilian population’s. Especially over the last quarter century.
Lets consider America then, and the reason we even have our Second Amendment. The Founding Fathers didn’t write the Second Amendment for hunting or even self defense, but for the defense against tyranny. As such, it is our DUTY as Americans to reign in tyrannical leaders. Hopefully this will never come to pass. But like a seat belt in your car, it’s there for your safety.
To the effectiveness of such an action, lets use the ratio of Patriots in the Revolution for comparison. 1/3 Were loyal to the British, 1/3 Didn’t care either way the war went. Only 1/3 Of the 2.5 million population of the colonies thought themselves Americans and supported Washington. There are many other factors to consider here but my estimates are that about 5 to 15 million (of a nation of 100 million gun owners) Minute Men would respond to about 2 to 3 million Redcoats. This is bloodshed we should all try to avoid.
BTW, do you remember what sparked the first one?
Ugh. I just argued that you can’t compare 20th century Germany to 21st century America because of significant technological, logistical and strategic changes that have taken place since then in the capacity of governments to suppress civil unrest.
And your response to this is to make an argument about “effectiveness” going back even further to the 18th century?
Please consider the differences between England circa the 1700s trying to enforce colonial rule across the Atlantic and the modern United States, with its massive local infrastructure of law enforcement, surveillance, military bases, and so on.
I have, considerably. There is no way a tyrannical federal government could take over America. That is the reason for the “gun-control” push.
The United Nations is not made up of people from around the world. It consists of governments from around the world, the enterprises meant to control the people of the world. Gun-control is an evil and draconian way to control these people, as it reduces the common man to the status of herd animals. This is why governments propagate it. Gun-control does not make you safer (unless you are a criminal), it makes governments safer. Consider the proposed “assault weapons ban”.
America in perspective:
Total murders- 12,664
Handguns- 6,220
Knives-1,694
Hands and feet-728
Hammers + clubs-496
All rifles- 323 (that includes your “assault” + .50 rifles)
Source: FBI 2011, Expanded homicide data table 8
Why would anyone suggest banning the semi-auto rifle when more people have been murdered with “hands and feet” then all types of rifles? Because it is an effective battle weapon and the one a modern day Minute Man would carry. This is what concerns them, not your safety.
Even if we take your conjecture seriously, all you’ve done is made an argument about what “concerns” the government.
You’ve done nothing to demonstrate that their alleged concern is justified. You have made no argument about capacity. You have not addressed logistics, technological capability, or strategy. You have done nothing to explain *how* citizens armed with legal firearms can do a thing to bridge the massive disparity in power between the citizenry and government authorities. The reasons for this are obvious and hardly need elaboration.
Even tank crews need to come out for food and water.
haha oh man this has turned into you fantasizing about stopping a tank
? There are a number of ways. Watch a movie or read a book to see how.
Not the tank. The crew manning it. There is a difference.
In Afghanistan a few thousand fighters with little more than AK-47s and homemade bombs have held of the US military in most of the country for years. This is done by largely illiterate goat herders. In the US just about everybody can read, meaning anybody can become a bomb maker (there are relatively few of those in Afghanistan) and are much easier to train. Not only that but most Veterans are gun owners and willing to fight to keep that right. Yes a few hundred thousand (more likely though more than a million) resisters could and would fight off any military thrown at them. It may take decades of bloody struggle but it would happen. On top of that the US is BROKE, it survives only only faith by its creditors. That faith is gone the instant conflict breaks out – you can’t collect taxes or maintain economic activity in the middle of a civil war.
I don’t know why you’re laughing, because that is some seriously crazy bullshit.
Dude, the only “bullshit” we see here is in your comments. Do you have a counter point to the laughing man? Can you explain WHY you think his point is “crazy”? With no facts of history, data, or even common sense presented to support your view, it’s only an ignorant opinion. just sayin
The veterans I know — and being one myself I know many — will not take up arms against their government, federal, state or local. Most of them are “conservative” and dislike President Obama. Most (if not all) are pro-Second Amendment. All but two are out of shape (some very much so) and know they couldn’t hang in any kind of a battle, let alone a war. And the two that are “in shape” know what many of us know, but you apparently do not: most people in this country, veterans and otherwise, are just big talkers too afraid to act on the bravado of their poorly written words.
Check your history books: we already fought a Civil War. Unlike you yahoos posting on the internet today, the traitors (Confederacy) were well organized. And you want to know a fact? The federal government won. It survived despite the cost in human blood and material treasure.
It is pure fantasy to believe hundreds of thousands (let alone millions) of gun owners will rise up against the federal government. Get a grip, return to reality. Dude.
The US is not broke. The deficit is at the lowest level since Obama became president, and it will be under 5% of the GDP next year. If we raised taxes on the highest incomes, there would not be any deficit.
Really? Where did that $17,000,000,000 debt go? Did you just click your heels together?
If you include the unfunded liabilities, its not the stated 87 Trillion, but actually $222 Trillion. You can look it up. A paper from a Boston University (a very liberal institution, I might add) economist Laurence Kotlikoff details that.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
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LOL. We have a 222 Trillion dollar debt We ARE broke! The deficit refers to what was raised in a given FY and what was spent. And I consider a 1Trilion + deficit serious. OUR GNP is less than 12 Trillion, we owe 222 Trillion actually, and we are printing fiat money at the rate of 100 billion every month making it less and less valuable.
We owe more money than many times the worlds GNP!
A collapse is inevitable. It is not a question of IF but WHEN!
Holy Hannah!
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Jeez, just use your imagination, it’s your duty per the 2nd, don’t just give up hope.
You want us to write out the strategy? WHY would I tell HOW , when and where I would attack. And what disparity would that be? somewhere in the vicinity of 70% of the military and police (federal agencies and some locals excepting)
They can’t Nuke their own cities, and tanks and other such weapons will be useless under an asymmetrical model.
Plus those of us in the military can and WILL hand over all we can to the people, including MRAPS, tanks, M2, as well as the M240 and M249 SAWs; and grenades and other implements. Trained in all of them!
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Well said!
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You really think all those police and military are robots, who do everything they are told without questioning?
Ah, so I guess you don’t need the 2nd Amendment after all since the police and the military have your back.
100,000,000 law abiding gun owners, 2 million total LEOs in America, do the math. We have THEIR backs.
The fuck you say! That’s a lie.
Gallup poll 2011, 47% households have a gun, 2.5 people per household, 114.3 mil households per US Census, thats over 135 mil people with guns in the home and doesnt account for all those people who have guns, but said NO to the survey.
The lie being, “We have THEIR backs.”
If you really, truly had their backs you wouldn’t allow the politicians to cut their wages and benefits; you wouldn’t allow your representatives to cut funding to provide more and better first responder protection.
You don’t have their backs. You’re on here threatening to take up arms against them!
Like I said, you lie.
The supreme law of the land is the Constitution. The congress can pass laws and the President can order by executive directive, but if these changes are contrary to the Constitution and declared so by the Supreme Court, they are null and void. The Supreme Court is also a part of the Federal Government, and they have been wrong before too, witness the Dred Scott case. It is your duty to ignore them at that point, as a patriot. Or you can follow unconstitutional laws and be considered a rebel. All Soldiers and public office holders all the way to the President swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Administration is a part of the Federal Government with duties and responsibilities to perform certain functions for “We the People”. “We” are the sovereign in this nation. not the government or even a political idol. That means they work for us, not the other way around. The people defending the Constitution are called Patriots. Because that’s what patriots do. They conserve the Constitution that our ancestors gave their lives, fortunes and sacred honor for. the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The people who want to ignore the Constitution are called Rebels. Cause that’s what rebels do. They rebel from the norm. They overthrow and change constitutions.
Sedition is when you “fight” your Federal Government. You can go to jail for that. Treason is when you “fight” the Constitution. You can be hung for that. Do the math.
But it doesn’t look like they work for us. They don’t hear our voces they do what tey want with thier speacel instruest groups.
That is very true, their powers and duties are spelled out in the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights leaves all other matters to the States and We the People.
Congress and the White House have overstepped their bounds, actually ignored them for over 100 years. They are turning the Nation up-side-down. They are trying to take over the country by saying “we were elected so therefore can do anything we want to”. Placing the Federal Government above We the People. This position is Nationalism, not Patriotism.
That is in fact the very reason for “gun-control”. It doesn’t make us safer, rather it is meant to disarm We the People. Rendering us impotent to effect change should the need arise.
And what math is that?
Can I suggest you consult a dictionary? “Constitution” is not in the definition of “Treason” in any reputable dictionary. All the pablum you have written indicates is that you have little understanding of the Constitution. You should find a community college that offers a course in basic civics.
You will notice, treason is the only crime mentioned in the Constitution.
The laws pertaining to sedition weren’t written until Adam’s presidency, to punish his political enemies + Tom Jefferson.
O Dear … you are assuming I am, by your questionable definitions, a “nationalist” and that I place “sedition” over “treason” in the scale of rating crimes.
Sir, you win. The sheer weight of your ignorance is too much for any amount of reality one person can present.
There’s another post on this site to which, I believe, you can relate: https://baltimorepostexaminer.com/pi-wont-change-congress/2014/04/12
You’re an idiot!
The wages and benefits are the result of over spending, and cuts are happening everywhere. You think they should be exempted from hard times?
We DO have their backs–well, except maybe the ones that take the wrong side when the SHTF.
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You’re s liar. You don’t have anyone’s back but your own.
The deep enemy is the force that is wrecking the economy –the country, really –and causing the cuts you curse.
If you are really Great, you’ll snap to and get on the ball. As is, you’re just a so-so Tambini.
I can say you are not part of the “deep enemy.” you are just the willful pawn doing the bidding of the “deep enemy.” And the worst (best) part of it: you’re the willful pawn who PAYS THEM to be their bitch.
Yep!
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Actually, I made the point that counterbalancing the risk makes it more likely that police and military will disobey orders.
The right is ours with or without it being written. Natural rights. Suggest you read on John Locke.
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Wrong. The 2nd Amendment was included to preserve slavery, not to prevent against tyranny.
Can you provide a reference to wording in our Bill of Rights or Constitution that conveys this sentiment? thanks
Even a cursory reading of the Founding Father’s writings on the subject would be enough to dispel that notion. Try reading The Federalists Papers for a deeper understanding of the motives behind the Constitution.
I suspect you performed a cursory reading of the Federalist Papers as you otherwise would have remembered that Hamilton argued against the Bill of Rights.
You should consider everything said by Hamilton in a certain light as he was an agent of the Rothschilds banking empire, hence his propagating the central bank. He wanted to build an empire around this bank. That makes him a Nationalist, not a Patriot.
Try this one:
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?…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
Because your education is so lacking, I will point out that the second use of the word, “sword,” is a metaphor, since the previous sentence is: “Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.” and also due to the reference of unlimited power, meaning of weapons generally.
The BIRTHRIGHT OF AN AMERICAN!
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OMG, you really are a kool-aid drinking idiot! PEOPLE have rights, it happens to be an enumerated, NATURAL right. It had nothing to do with slavery and not one letter from a founding father says it was!
If I were unfortunate enough to be your father, I would send you back where you came from and make a new one–start over! After I slapped my wife for presenting me with you.
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Oh, Oh, I do!!! pick me!
It was when General Gage ordered his troops to collect the private arms and ammo (ball and powder) of the Mass Bay colonists! GUN CONTROL!
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Here are the partial orders given by General Gage on night of April 18th 1775…
Lieut. Colonel Smith, 10th Regiment ’Foot,
Sir,
Having received intelligence, that a quantity of Ammunition, Provisions, Artillery, Tents and small Arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will March with a Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and distroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant
Thos. Gage
Notice they came for our “military weapons”. Some things never change.
You weren’t paying attention to the Romanian Revolution in 1989, were you?
Not only was I paying attention, but I was paying enough attention to recognize a spurious and trivial historical analysis when I see one.
Sorry, but you are wrong. While Romanian military forces did eventually participate on the right side, much of the early fighting was by ordinary people.
And?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsRQP7TifME
…and i believed you when you said you knew about it. Oh well, now you really DO know.
This government couldn’t even get a website to sell health insurance to work worth anything, and you suddenly think they have magical powers? If the government has this kind of power, why doesn’t it stop drug smuggling into the U.S.?
It’s extremely telling that gun nuts think it would take “magical powers” to defeat them.
Maybe you should take a trip down to your local police station or military base and explain to our troops and police officers how incompetent they are because something something *obamacare joke*
The majority of LEOs and Military would support the population. This has been proven by polls of personal asked.
That is also the reason the Founding Fathers placed the 2nd in our Constitution. The fact that you are disseminating a defeatist point of view is “telling”. You sound like a coward, but not only afraid to consider a defense against possible tyranny, you seem to advance the idea that we shouldn’t even try. What is your defense of the Constitution?
“The majority of LEOs and Military would support the population.”
Most likely and the vast majority of Americans oppose the NRA management and their gun nut ideas and that vast majority would not support anyone taking up arms against this government for any reasons hinted at in the posts here. You people are adrift in Fantasyland.
Police Officers and Military personnel are the most likely to own private firearms, and tend to vote pro-gun.
Any police or military willing to confiscate firearms in violation of the Constitution have violated their sacred oath and deserve our contempt.
Current and retired military and police would be the MOST likely to take up arms against the government over this issue.
You are the one in Fantasyland.
Correct.
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The NRA has is held in higher regard then your Dear Leader Obama. Feel free to read the polls.
President Obama happens to be our elected POTUS.
Glad you’ve noticed. Now read the poll results.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/01/17/Media-Ignore-NRA-and-its-ideas-as-popular-as-obama
Less than 1/3 of the colonists supported rebellion against the crown. Your point? What are your unarmed sheep going to do? hmmm?
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1) Incorrect.
2) In case I haven’t made it perfectly clear, I don’t care what the Founding Fathers thought or what the Constitution says. If you position is defensible then you ought to be able to defend it on the merits without lazy appeals to authority.
3) You’re mistaking hubris for courage and realism for cowardice. It’s going to be hilarious if you ever face any consequences for it, but as it stands we both know that you’ll just talk about what a tough guy you are on the internet until you die of old age.
And you will probably continue to sound like a surrender monkey, with no sense of right or wrong, a character lacking respect for those who have sacrificed their lives, fortunes, and scared honor for your liberty and welfare, an anti-social streak running through you personality bordering on sociopathic, until you die of madness.
Excellent use of the language, Mr. Diamon.
Please have a look at the two links I’ve posted nearby. Great lumps to work your language tools upon, when the situation might arise.
I agree. and that he cares not for what the founding fathers thought is VERY telling. He may argue for hubris, but I believe it is as you have assessed, cowardice. It is not lazy to appeal to the authority of the written word by the framers of our Constitution–that MAKES the position wholly defensible.
Notice he ignores our experiences in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
I am anticipating that one day there will be a fight. I have made alliances within the military and LEOs. I have been accumulating over the years arms and LOTS of ammunition and comms, fuel, textbooks, FMs. I have friends in SF who are aware and concerned.
This Woodward does not know of what he speaks. Bieng military, I certainly do. And unlike him, I HAVE been deployed. Not that that matters. You might not have, but that doesn’t mean you don’t understand the issues.
John Adams never fired a shot, and he was somewhat reluctant to join the cause in the beginning. His cousin was fomenting rebellion. I will not do that, but I surely am preparing for that or for the almost certain economic collapse (the true debt being just over 222 Trillion dollars including unfunded liabilities–not the published 87 Trillion–which will result in violence in any event.
regards,
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That’s sarcasm. Why did the best professional military in the world in 1775 get its butt handed to it at Lexington and Concord? Not because the militiamen were great soldiers, but because they outnumbered the British column at least 2:1, perhaps 3:1 by the end of the day. The technology today has advanced, but you have only to look at what happened in Afghanistan, first to the Soviet Union, and then to Coalition Forces, to realize how easy it is for a large number of even ragged forces to cause enormous losses.
The French armed the Americans and paid for the fight – which bankrupted the French state. No victory would have been possible without that enormous help.
You of course realize.. that about 1/2 of those gun nuts have military experience?
Please, gun nuts, just one group of you, one time, attack and try to occupy an active police station or military installation. Just once. It would be great television,
OK, here’s one where the Good Guys fight The Man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29
(Spoiler alert: The Man loses.)
Just one of you gun-banners try and come take guns from armed people while unarmed. That would be great television.
I believe that has actually happened already:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
See for yourself.
The Battle of Athens, there is one for you.
My favorite example–they kicked ass!
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Why, i have access myself and can just open the safe and take all the arms I want when the time comes. And why would I fight my own people who will join me willingly?
Check out CSPOA.ORG. There are more than 460 sheriffs and police agencies that will fight along side. Why in god’s name would I attack my partners?
v/r
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Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
I AM in the military. Aside from the fact that some 70% (or more) would side with the people in the event of armed revolution (imagine the access to the armories they have, what they could provide)–they are also citizens who largely ALSO are gun owners and for the same reasons–and it isn not about sports, I can tell you that! Same goes for local police and sheriffs–check out CSPOA.org. Lots of agencies would line up with the people–Obviously not the DC, Chicago, NYC police departments-nor the FEDs.
Imagine if a mere 3% of gun owners rose up in arms! That would be more than 58,000 per state and the District of Columbia! We have a hard time in Afghanistan and Iraq with less than 15,000 Taliban total!
And it would be an asymmetric war. Imagine the skill sets of these warriors–people employed in the power and communications industries, food distribution industries, and more–
The F35-s will be useless over the cities and drones ill have limited usability and they can be sabotaged, by the people supposedly deploying them for the government! Nukes? Please! Let’s not get sophomoric, okay?
And with advanced public encryption systems (not controlled by the NSA) ie GPG4WIN and others (Guardian project) secure communications and shadow governments can be established in perfect secrecy with minimal risk
The remaining traitors to liberty would have their asses handed to them.
If the government is going to rely on their active duty, reserve or Guard troops to enforce their will, they would be making a mistake. We are talking to each other–many of us.
They will find it hard to use us against the American people or to commit unconstitutional acts. There will not be another “Bonus March” incident.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Viet Nam (French and US), Afghanistan (Russians and US), Algeria, Madagascar, Angola, Rhodesia, Cuba, Iran……… all evidence of standing more than a chance.
My favorite example is April 19th 1775. William Diamond was the drummer boy for the Concord Militia that morning, hence my avatar.
1. The Nazis were paranoid about guns in the hands of Jews and their political enemies, and explicitly because they feared an uprising. Would it have been successful? It is hard to say — but remember that at the beginning of the Nazi regime, there was substantial elements of the Germany military that were not happy about Hitler, and might well have stood down or actively assisted in such a rebellion. The book Target: Hitler contains a detailed description of General Beck’s blunt speech to the other generals about the importance to not following orders, and their obligation to do the right thing.
2. It is certainly the case that no individual has a ghost of a chance against police or military. But when the armed resistance outnumbers the police and military 30:1 — it changes the situation a bit. This is especially the case when there is substantial police or military sympathy for the resistance. If a military unit is ordered to commit a crime, and the consequences of refusing orders are court-martial or summary execution, it takes a remarkable soldier to disobey those orders. What if the target of those illegal orders can shoot back, putting the soldiers at similar risk from either side? That is what happened during the 1877 railroad strikes, when National Guard units in some cities changed sides, or simply refused to carry out unlawful orders.
1) The hypothetical possibility that Nazi soldiers with misgivings about the Nazi agenda might have sided with an armed populace against the Nazis is just that – a hypothetical possibility. Nothing about any of that implies probability.
2) Turns out police and soldiers get shot at a lot. That doesn’t ordinarily change the equation.
“This is especially the case when there is substantial police or military sympathy for the resistance.”
Orwell in Homage to Catalona recounts quite large numbers of Nationalist soldiers–presumably most of them draftees–defecting to his unit and neighboring ones.
Here’s a thought experiment for you. The government declares a national emergency, shuts down the Internet (except for government information sites), and censors newspapers and broadcast media. In response, 0.03% of the population (about 100,000 people) grabs rifles and starts to attack the national government’s leaders in random guerrilla attacks. Sure, many of the guerrillas are not going to survive. How long with the government survive?
Not long if it’s 3% that take up arms………………
Right! And I AM a threeper! It’s in my signature!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
lol, dude you need to stop watching red dawn
Dude, he didn’t watch Red Dawn; he watched Darden, those brothers in Boston, and somewhat longer ago, Mohammed and Malvo.
Not long.
Two teenagers with a couple of guns and homemade bombs shut down all of Boston for a few days.
A few jerks with boxcutters killed 3,000 people, did extreme property damage, did extreme financial damage, and frightened the whole country.
Less than a thousand politicians, focused on partisan ideals, couldn’t work together and shut down 85% of the federal government for two weeks.
The government couldn’t get water to the Superdome during Katrina within 24 hours.
A thousand well-armed, well-planned and focused guerillas could cripple the country in a heartbeat.
Are you aware of what asymmetrical warfare is and how that applies to ANY insurrection in history! See, any who would fight such a tyranny are already resolved to a long, bloody, no holds barred backroom brawl and lets be frank, it wouldn’t be very civil, comprende?
Over 20% of insurrections have succeeded in history.
Taliban and insurgents have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, uh why hasn’t our military and technical might overwhelmed them?
The US civilian population is the most heavily armed of any nation in history to date.
3 mil active duty military personnel in all 5 branches, 1/3 of which are combat ready, the remainder support.
30-35 mil ex military personnel in civilian population and all of them have had their skills and memories erased right!
40% desertion rate in our last civil war and what has been done to change that rate, oh right, nothing.
US civilians have been desensitized to the unleashing of military firepower on US soil, uh yeah right.
You can guarantee all military personnel would obey illegal orders to fire upon civilians eh, lol!
Can you guarantee insurgents wouldn’t get to those commanders families, LOL, oh they will.
Lets see, did every see that letter from the 1,100 plus current & former Green Berets tell Obama & the AWB to stick it where the sun don’t shine, LOL! Whose side would they be on were something like a confiscation to occur, LOL!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HRZfvtYlCY
What about the NG unit that wouldn’t disarm law abiding gun owners in Katrina?
How about all those sheriff’s, more everyday stating publicly to FOAD on any hints of confiscations, bans or political BS.
We see how effective our border security is letting 12 mil illegal aliens and $50 bil in illicit drugs cross each year across our Mexican border alone.
How about states passing bill’s and resolutions to arrest BATF attempting to follow such illegal orders.
We see how effective our border security is letting 12 mil illegal aliens and $50 bil in illicit drugs cross each year across our Mexican border alone.
Yet you can guarantee township, county, city, state, and federal border control, lol!
You can guarantee outside forces wouldn’t provide technical and material assistance just as they do today in Iraq & Afghanistan, lol!
What would be the impact on the economy in the US much less globally were all 3 mil active duty military personnel to be recalled to US soil?
How many of the anti gun extremists who would initiate such an event would it take being shot to change their minds?
What makes you think the insurrectionists would fight out in the open, lol!
What makes you think the insurrectionists wouldn’t take out the communists family members as a way to get to them, as frankly, nothing about war is civil.
What makes you think lists of said communists who would initiate such a war are not already made? Review the book “The Gun Grabbers” by Alan Gottlieb, already has a list of the major players of anti gun lunacy. There are already lists of the minor players, sifting around also, see, govt. isn’t the only one who can make, uh, a “No Fly List”
Besides, those who would initiate such an incident have to sleep sometime, drone operators have to go home, etc, etc, etc..
What makes you think the media lap dogs of these socialists Nazi’s wouldn’t be one of the targets, lol!
Have you documented, traced, and controlled every single piece of machine equipment that is capable of building a firearm, lol!
Explain again how one corners a group of people, who unlike our own civil war, are not concentrated in a geographical area like the south, but in every single state, city, township, etc, etc, etc……
How exactly are you going to pay for such an act, oh that’s right, you will be taxed more.
You really have no clue about what is or is not capable were such a situation to arise.
Oh so many other technical realities you failed to mention…
You probably shouldn’t comment on things of which you have no clue about, makes you look dumber than you are.
lol i didn’t read any of that
Of course you wouldn’t. You have no intelligent rebuttal.
Why would I assume that I have no intelligent rebuttal to something I didn’t even bother to read? Not even your dumb insults make sense.
Then go for it big boy. Show us your finesse and rebut Wfeather1942. Of course that is probably beyond your abilities of the thought processes.
Yeah, people with a negative IQ do have trouble understanding basic english compostion we know!
And yet you continue to display your imbecilic IQ on the internet. Do you have any idea what the hell you are saying with this nonsense? You can’t even write properly.
For future reference, the word “English” is capitalized in all usages and once you learn about punctuation, like when to use commas, you will start to have a basic understanding of English composition.
Then you learned nothing. Typical of a liberal. Low-information voter. Won’t take the time to read anything past a road sign’s length.
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
guys you’ve gotta stop letting your grandpa on the internet, he’s embarrassing himself
So right!
SamAdams1776 III Oathkeeper
Molon Labe
Qui tacet consentit
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
“The logic here is so flimsy that it’s probably worth reflecting on the motivations of people tut-tutting about “the shallowness of thinking that characterizes America today”.
Yessir, Mr. Woodward, I’ll sure agree with that part of your comment, at least. It should have been your introductory sentence.