The 2nd Amendment - What does it mean?

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: supergenius586 200 years ago, people had hostile native americans to deal with. People lived miles from help. Guns were a neccessity.

Hostile native americans? Miles from help? Gee, I thought you were thinking of Texas 2005...

[FIFI]

Ok "SuperGenius" :rolleyes:

Give me your pets, your car, your tools, your silverware (etc). We don't live in a bubble wrapped world. EVERYTHING has the potiental, if in the wrong hands, to kill. Since we are spouting out statistics, how about the fact that 2 out 10 teens (13-19) are seriously hurt / killed in a automobile accident EVERYDAY in the United States? Shouldnt we ban all of the cars too? I mean, they give people the chance to hurt themselves and others, don't they?
Gun laws are missing a major point: CRIMINALS DONT CARE ABOUT GUN BANS! Instead, the government and anti-gun supporters raise the cost of hunting every year, make guns ridiculous to purchase, and drive gun stores out of buisness. If you want to stop criminals, then punish them. Dont just slap them on the wrist.
Ok. I am done being passionatly rude.

Ahhhhhh..I feel slightly better!

[G. Adams]

Quote by: supergenius586 Ok. Some people tend to forget that was wrote a little over 200 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Even if every person in the country had a gun, it couldn't do much to stop someone with enough power to take over the country to begin with. But it is an understament to say guns have a part in many crimes. The U.S. has 15 gun deaths per 100,000 people. We lead the list in gun deaths per year. Japan, which has gun restrictions, was at the bottom with only 0.5 deaths per 100,000 people. That's ridiculous! I think no private citizen should have the right to own guns, because they then have the power to kill someone. No one has the right to kill anyone that way. Defending your stereo or not. Yes, I think weapons with long barrels used for hunting should be allowed because they're not easily concelled. You can't sneak up to a bank teller with a shot gun. The 'basic' right of humans is not to protect yourself, it is to survive. Yes, that may require self-defense. But you should not deprive another person of their right to survival. Yes, you could shoot them in the leg or something, but how often does that happen in the heat of the moment? Rarely. 200 years ago, people had hostile native americans to deal with. People lived miles from help. Guns were a neccessity. Now days, three numbers get you help. 911. In today's modern world, it is not neccessary for a person to have a hand gun with the potential to kill someone. A person with a police record or a outstanding citizen.

You say the ownership of guns gives people the ability to kill each other? My fists can kill people, and ironically I'm more likely to kill someone with them, as I'd never pull a gun in an argument but when my fists start swinging I don't stop till the other person i quiet on the floor or I'm dragged off. So, chop off my hands? Hell I'm pretty nifty with my feet and legs too, maybe they should go? Remove my teeth as well, cause I'll bite your bloody knees off.

The basic right to survival is based upon the right to protect yourself. How can you 'ensure' your survival if you are unable to protect yourself? As much as good coat defends me from the cold, a weapon, most preferably a firearm, protects me from attack. I should not remove someone elses right to survival, agreed, when we are in normal circumstances. But, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, when someone attacks me we are no longer in normal circumstances, but in a state of war, in which case my survival takes precedance.

Out of curiosity, what is the difference between a hostile native american and a hostile druggie? I sympathise with his position, but thats no reason to jump me for cash.

People did used to live miles from help, but distance is unimportant if help doesn't come in time. You can call the police and they'll take half an hour, in which time you've been beaten to a bloody pulp and watched your wife raped. And what are the police going to do anyway if they confront someone in your house who is armed? Shoot him too, and no offence to them, but I'd put money on me being a better shot than 90% of them, and I'd no which walls not to shoot at that would risk a stray bullet into my family.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Lou Minotti I would have to disagree with this. I have pondered it for years. I think the founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing.

As smart as they were, it's impossible that they ever could've envision the conditions we live in today.

I'm not saying their overall messages should change, just that they should be reworded using modern languages to pinpoint their messages for legal sake.

As it is now, the language is so obsolete that it makes it hard to extract an unambiguous message from the text. IE, it's like the bible: any lobby group can find something in there that supports their cause.

[Sonart]

Quote by: PatrickHenry "We hold these truths to be self-evident... yada yada" Why would the US government be any more amenable to citizen resistance to tyranny than any other?

I'm sure that in the heat of their own revolution, Thomas Jefferson and friends thought revolution was a wonderful thing. I daresay, however, that had President Jefferson been faced with an armed insurrection 25 years later, he would have crushed it with every means at his disposal, ignoring their "rights granted by their creator" to overthrow his government, and held himself a hero for doing so.

Quote by: PatrickHenry When we resist gov intrusion and are subjected to armed force by gov agents, should free citizens simply acquiesce? A time is coming..."A long train of abuses and usurpations"

We're talking armed rebellion... hence it's application to the 2nd Amendment... and I submit that it's simply inappropriate in todays world. How did the Lebanese recently throw off the yoke of Syrian dominance? Armed rebellion? Hell no, they tried that, with disastrous results. In today's world, it's peaceful rebellion that works best, just like in Lebanon, the Ukraine, Poland, the Phillipines and India.

In the United States, it's going to be citizens standing together firmly but peacefully that will bring potential tyrants to account. Armed insurrection will never succeed.

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 If they want to be, however, it's completely up to them. They don't need a reason, then just decide they want a gun one day and they can get one.

And likewise, if I want to own and drive a car, I should be able to just go out and get one and drive it, right? No license, no registration, nuthin. But I can't, can I, because it's not in the public interest. So why should I be able to get a deadly weapon simply because I want it?

I'm sure if they had been able to, the government wouldn't have allowed 9/11 and the OKC federal building bombing. It's not a case of allowing or disallowing.

Those were single incidents in which the authorities were taken by surprise, and the perpetrators were, at least with OKC, promptly captured and brought to justice. They may have STARTED insurrection, but they didn't win their rebellions, did they? Again, during the entire existance of the United States, name a single armed insurrection against our Federal government or states that has succeeded. I mean successful rebellions, not successful acts of destruction in the name of rebellion.

Quote by: G.Adams You say the ownership of guns gives people the ability to kill each other? My fists can kill people,

Your fists can also be used to build things, to write, to paint, to express, to do lots of things. And if I feel threatened by your fists I can run away. Guns were invented and designed to do one thing and one thing only... kill from a distance. Period.

Quote by: G.Adams The basic right to survival is based upon the right to protect yourself.

A society has a right to protect itself, too.

Quote by: PatrickHenry Without weapons, democracy cannot prevail over tyranny.

Bull!

Without guns, India cast off British tyranny.

Without guns, Blacks in America defeated the tyranny of segregation.

Without gun, the Phillipines cast off Ferdinand Marcos.

Without guns, the Lebanese cast out the Syrians.

You don't like guns, you don't like America, runa.

Yeah, and 50 years ago we could just as easily have said that if you liked n-gg-rs, you didn't like America. Go to hell, Patrick.

Quote by: LouMinotti People also have the God-given right to own guns.

Care to point out the passage in the Bible that says that?


.

[tman_ndsu08]

Those were single incidents in which the authorities were taken by surprise, and the perpetrators were, at least with OKC, promptly captured and brought to justice. They may have STARTED insurrection, but they didn't win their rebellions, did they? Again, during the entire existance of the United States, name a single armed insurrection against our Federal government or states that has succeeded. I mean successful rebellions, not successful acts of destruction in the name of rebellion.

Lack of proof for one viewpoint does not prove that viewpoint false. That's a logical fallacy.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote from Sonart
"I'm sure that in the heat of their own revolution, Thomas Jefferson and friends thought revolution was a wonderful thing. I daresay, however, that had President Jefferson been faced with an armed insurrection 25 years later, he would have crushed it with every means at his disposal, ignoring their "rights granted by their creator" to overthrow his government, and held himself a hero for doing so."


This is a joke right? What "legitimate" reason would "armed insurgents" have to overthrow the U.S. government twenty five years after its inception?


Today, all who swear the oath to protect the constitution are in violation of that oath. Even without direct action to subvert the constitution, by just doing nothing, and letting their fellow Representatives, and Senators violate the constitution, they commit treason, and should be tried for their crimes.


There is a huge difference between attempting to overthrow a legitimate government, and trying to take back what is yours.

[caspian88]

Let's think about 911 for a moment. Hmm, how long does it take to call the police, tell them what's happening and where you are, and for them to get to you? 5 minutes, at the fastest? 20 minutes, average? Now, what could I do in the 20+ minutes I'd get as a criminal in your house? I could kill everyone within a few minutes. I could rape a family of one woman and five girls, twice over, and kill them all, grab some cash and jewelry, and run for it, and stand a decent chance of getting away if done correctly.

Now, what does that criminal have to be armed with? Let's try a knife. Hard to defend against, unless you're trained or have a reach weapon handy. Let's give them a baseball bat ($20 at Big 5 for a 34 ounce wooden bat). How can you defend against that? It's almost impossible - I could break your bones easily with it. You can't exactly duel me with your own bat. I personally carry my bat, past the police station here, when I walk to school, resting on my shoulder, and no one even looks at me oddly. I do this at 6:30 in the morning, and that late at night. I wear almost all black, and I look like either a bum or a common anarchist. Who's going to stop me? No one ever does. So, I could take this bat, walk into a suburban neighborhood, find a house without an alarm - most houses telegraph their alarms - break or open a window, climb in, beat the people inside to death, grab the good stuff, and run, and get out of there in only a few minutes. They might not even have a chance to call the cops. If they don't, and I'm careful, no one will notice their deaths until the next day, giving me enough time to take everything I can carry, and maybe even eliminate the fingerprints and DNA evidence. And you're dead.

Now, take that criminal with the bat. He walks in, I shoot him. The neighbors call the police, having heard this shot. I call the cops. Our criminal is dead, or nearly so, I have cops, and I'm safe and so is my property. I can't fight him with my own bat. I can't take him with knives and whatnot. The only weapon I have that could deal with him, that isn't a firearm, would be a Swiss halberd. Not very common.

So, I should either live near a police station or carry around a crossbow. Right...

[caspian88]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Today, all who swear the oath to protect the constitution are in violation of that oath. Even without direct action to subvert the constitution, by just doing nothing, and letting their fellow Representatives, and Senators violate the constitution, they commit treason, and should be tried for their crimes.

I agree completely.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Sonart Quote by: PatrickHenry You don't like guns, you don't like America, runa. Yeah, and 50 years ago we could just as easily have said that if you liked n-gg-rs, you didn't like America. Go to hell, Patrick.

Take it easy, Sonart. That's not very nice manners, and I said nothing racist. You are dragging in strawman arguments again. The fact is America is full of guns. That is a right that has its own Amendment, so unless you and about 150 million of your gungrabbing friends can repeal it, there will continue to be plenty of guns in this nation. If you don't like guns, it is a fact that you don't like America as it is and as it will(likely) be...

[The Dunedan]

Sonart,
Your passionate defense of non-violent resistance is to be commended. However, non-violent resistance only works when;

1: The Gov't in question cares about popular opinion. Non-violent resistance does not change the minds of Governors by some magic spell, it changes their minds by calling broad attention to their abuses. This, in turn, threatens them with either being voted out of office, being on the recieveing end of international sanctions, etc. If the Gov't doesn't care what anyone thinks of them ( N. Korea, Communist China, Soviet Union ), this mechanism is disabled.

2: Reminding the Governors that, if they should refuse to "play ball" with the non-violent resistors, VIOLENT resistance may begin. The only reason that the racists in Washington DC "played ball" with Martin Luther King was because they knew that behind him, waiting for him to fail, were men like Bobby Seale and Malcolm X; men with guns, who were not afraid to use them. The Deacons For Defense actually -did- respond with violence on a number of occaisions...after which the KKK gave them a wide berth. Likewise, the British dealt with Ghandi because they knew that, should they fail to do so, Jawaharal Nehru and his far more radical Nationalist colleagues would probably begin to incite violent resistance. The threat of armed, violent resistance if non-violent resistance fails is what makes non-violent resistance work. Non-violent resistance is essentially the act of saying "Look how many of us there are, and how committed we are. Would you rather deal with us now, peacefully, or later, when we come to kill you?"

Absent Condition 1, Condition 2 takes over. If the Gov't in question ignores Condition 2 ( or renders it impotent by disarming the People, and therefore eliminating the threat ), then the only remaining options are violent revolt or acceptance of slavery.

[PatrickHenry]

Hey, Sonart. Do you think the Darfurians have any weapons to fight back against the Janjaweed? Maybe that's why they are mutilated, ethnically cleansed, raped and killed?

[Mia]

Quote by: Sonart Without guns, the Lebanese cast out the Syrians.

They did that all by themselves? It didn't have anything to do with pressure from the US, who has big guns?

:rolleyes:

[Pooeypants]

Quote by: The Dunedan Foreign examples are much more prolific and instructive: Ireland: 1916-1922. Irish insurgency drives out British. 1965-1995. Insurgency in Occupied Northern Ireland drives British to negotiations.

Might I remind you that NI is still a fairly hostile environment, the IRA are still prevalent and causing trouble, the British gov't is requesting that they disarm to keep the peace.

Quote by: The Dunedan Afghanistan: Just ask the Russians how well this one turned out. 60,000+ dead bodies tend to make quite an impression.

If you're refering to the 1980's conflict where Americans and Islamists helped to defeat the Russians, you have to ask yourself, was it worth it? The Taliban took over once the Americans left and they established a theocracy which was disposed of recently. The same taliban fellows who helped to defeated the Russians. Not quite a success story is it?

[Lou Minotti]

Care to point out the passage in the Bible that says that?

What are you talking about?

Yeah, and 50 years ago we could just as easily have said that if you liked n-gg-rs, you didn't like America. Go to hell, Patrick.

Wow, that took the debate down about 10 notches. That was completely ridiculous...

So why should I be able to get a deadly weapon simply because I want it?

Because anyone can make one. And it's your God-given right...

[Lou Minotti]

Might I remind you that NI is still a fairly hostile environment, the IRA are still prevalent and causing trouble, the British gov't is requesting that they disarm to keep the peace.

HA. The IRA isn't causing trouble . The BRITISH GOVT is the entity that should be on it's knees begging forgiveness.

[Lou Minotti]

In fact, the actions of the British government and the behavior of it's out-of-control agencies in NI is PRECISELY THE REASON giving up your arms to a government, ANY government, is unbelievably naive and ridiculous. The people must become passive for fascism to breed efficiently. Like in the 60s: Millions of angry, intelligent protestors turned into passive, acid tripping flower children almost overnight. Just "love your brother" and everything will be fine. Bollocks....

[tinybear]

Lou, the IRA consists of bastards who would put a bomb in a fast food chain outlet in Piccadilly Circus and time it to go off during lunch time. I know who should be on their knees begging forgiveness when their time comes.

[Lou Minotti]

Lou, the IRA consists of bastards who would put a bomb in a fast food chain outlet in Piccadilly Circus and time it to go off during lunch time. I know who should be on their knees begging forgiveness when their time comes.

Tiny, you are out of your depth on this one. No one is sticking up for the IRA. Please don't paint your little boxes around this like you do with every other topic. I would really appreciate this debate not sliding down to a third grade level. Thanks. :rolleyes:

[Pooeypants]

Quote by: Lou Minotti Tiny, you are out of your depth on this one. No one is sticking up for the IRA. Please don't paint your little boxes around this like you do with every other topic. I would really appreciate this debate not sliding down to a third grade level. Thanks. :rolleyes:

Excuse me, but your earlier posts was

Quote by: Lou HA. The IRA isn't causing trouble . The BRITISH GOVT is the entity that should be on it's knees begging forgiveness.

This implies that you believe the IRA to be a benevolent pacifist organisation. TB mentioned about one of their numerous terrorist actions, I think your attack is out of line.