The public face of gun control... Michael Moore

tokeprep said:

I think you could make a case that the answer is yes. If you believe the purpose of the Second Amendment was to permit the citizenry to be armed in order to wage insurrection against tyranny again, should that ever become necessary, the framers must have envisioned a public capable of meeting that tyranny. I don't think the type of firepower is relevant, if you believe the people must be able to defeat the government. With handguns? Good luck.

I would split the Second Amendment into two parts, though: some weapons most sensibly controlled by the militia and others most sensibly controlled by the people. A gun would always seem most sensibly controlled by the people; if we lock all the guns away in the armories, the government need only seize control of the armories in order to deprive the people of the means to fight it. What can you do without even having a gun? But just as individual people probably weren't wheeling cannons around in the 1790s, a tank or a grenade launcher seems more sensibly controlled by the militia. The government could seize militia bases just as easily as they could armories, but at least if the people have guns they can fight.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe the right to rebel against tyranny is absolutely necessary, and I think the framers must have envisioned the people possessing sufficient force to meet tyranny, otherwise it would be an empty guarantee. The people secured liberty by force, and the people--collectively comprising the ultimate sovereign of this country--must always be able to secure liberty by the same force, lest we be subjugated and forced to surrender those precious freedoms our constitution is supposed to protect. The people, as the originators of the constitution and grantors of power to the government, must always be vested with the ability to seize that power back. We should never presume that our freedoms will always be unquestioned and absolute.

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That is the inescapable intent of 2A, which was written shortly after the declaration of independence. The second amendment's main intent was to garantee that citizens had the means to resist a tyrannical government.

From the declaration of Independence, IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."

The bill of rights was adopted on December 15, 1791.

desert dude said:

That is the inescapable intent of 2A, which was written shortly after the declaration of independence. The second amendment's main intent was to garantee that citizens had the means to resist a tyrannical government.

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pretty sure they meant king george, too.

we have standing armies now for that kind of thing.

guns are for self defense/hunting. to argue that they are for taking down our own government is outdated and implies that we should be able to carry nukes and biological warfare.

that is inescapable.

UncleBuck said:

pretty sure they meant king george, too.

we have standing armies now for that kind of thing.

guns are for self defense/hunting. to argue that they are for taking down our own government is outdated and implies that we should be able to carry nukes and biological warfare.

that is inescapable.

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Or you could make the argument that governments should not have nukes and biological warfare either if it is illegal for citizens. Wouldn't this make more sense?

ginwilly said:

Or you could make the argument that governments should not have nukes and biological warfare either if it is illegal for citizens. Wouldn't this make more sense?

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i've never seen you make that argument.

in fact, right wingers like yourself are always the last to make that argument.

why do you tie yourself into a pretzel and then proclaim victory?

I just did make that argument. I've also made the argument that if we are allowed to have nukes we have no right to stop other sovereign nations from owning nukes.

If you hadn't seen it before I'll make it now. Nuclear and chemicals weapons should not exist.

If they are going to be allowed to exist for some, we have no right to limit the ownership of others. I do not want citizenry to own one, but if a government other than mine has a weapon that puts us at a disadvantage I want my government who represents me to also own one.

I believe Iran has a right to attempt nuclear power which puts me at odds with the right, I believe Israel has the right to try to stop Iran from such endeavors which puts me at odds with the left.

I feel my position is at least consistent though.

UncleBuck said:

pretty sure they meant king george, too.

we have standing armies now for that kind of thing.

guns are for self defense/hunting. to argue that they are for taking down our own government is outdated and implies that we should be able to carry nukes and biological warfare.

that is inescapable.

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The military is controlled by either the politicians or the generals, not necessarily the people. What if a president decides not to leave office and instead has Congress arrested, declaring the constitution void? What if the military staged a coup and took control of the government? You might consider these laughable scenarios, but that's incredibly shortsighted. What if some huge crisis actually precipitated one of those events and we suddenly found ourselves living in a dictatorship or a military state? You cannot know with certainty that such an event would never take place; democracies have often died in the past, often as the consequence of some cataclysmic crises.

But if in these relatively good times (as we're all sitting on our computers or tapping on our phones, full and comfortable, I think we all must agree--no matter inflation, no matter the current state of the economy--that these are relatively good times) you deprive the people of their power to restore their sovereignty over the nation by force, even with the noble goal of saving innocent lives from senseless death, you permanently cripple the sovereignty of all future people, who unarmed and totally unpracticed would have little choice but to submit to--even if unimaginable--some awful tyranny. If you treasure your freedom, you must appreciate that it exists alongside the right of the people to excise their government by whatever means necessary should the necessity arise.

Sovereignty is truly vested in the people only if they have the meaningful ability to exercise it. When you absolutely accept a government's assurances of liberty, effectively eliminating your ability to destroy that creature the collective power of the people created, you surrender your ultimate power over it; you unleash it, permitting that government to forever be sovereign despite the vigorous objections of the governed.

If you grant that irrevocable trust to the government, you invest ultimate authority in mere men, vain, fallible, and eternally imperfect. You invite inevitable disaster, and worst of all, you bequeath the terrible consequences to some powerless future generation.

UncleBuck said:

pretty sure they meant king george, too.

we have standing armies now for that kind of thing.

guns are for self defense/hunting. to argue that they are for taking down our own government is outdated and implies that we should be able to carry nukes and biological warfare.

that is inescapable.

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ginwilly said:

I just did make that argument. I've also made the argument that if we are allowed to have nukes we have no right to stop other sovereign nations from owning nukes.

If you hadn't seen it before I'll make it now. Nuclear and chemicals weapons should not exist.

If they are going to be allowed to exist for some, we have no right to limit the ownership of others. I do not want citizenry to own one, but if a government other than mine has a weapon that puts us at a disadvantage I want my government who represents me to also own one.

I believe Iran has a right to attempt nuclear power which puts me at odds with the right, I believe Israel has the right to try to stop Iran from such endeavors which puts me at odds with the left.

I feel my position is at least consistent though.

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This is the isntance where I somewhat disagree with you.
The nuclear, biological, chemical genie cannot be put into the bottle anymore. We can't pretend they don't exist, and imo we'd be doing a disservice if we curtailed research on them (with the express and actual goal being defense against their use by an opponent who won't shrink from total warfare).

I agree that Iran and others have the right of a sovereign nation to build nukes etc.
I also believe that other nations have the right to threaten them with a resurfacing should they choose to show the amazingly bad taste to actually use one in anger. We worked out treaties that kept the Russians and Chinese and the other follow-on nuclear powers from following our singular example of their use as weapons. I think that treaties can do much to control the deployment and use of the mass-terror weapons.
As far as the Second is concerned, maybe a similar mindset can be applied: a treaty between the government and its people. "If we pledge to never use these internally, will you sign onto a waiver on the privilege to possess them?" Just a thought. cn

Oh yeah, I understand bear. I would never be convinced eliminating nukes and biological warfare would be possible any more than I could be convinced we can make the really scary looking guns go away. It's just my fantasy. I'm not advocating we even try. But if my government can have one I have no right to say your government can't have one.

ginwilly said:

Oh yeah, I understand bear. I would never be convinced eliminating nukes and biological warfare would be possible any more than I could be convinced we can make the really scary looking guns go away. It's just my fantasy. I'm not advocating we even try. But if my government can have one I have no right to say your government can't have one.

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My prediction/fear is that in one, two hundred years we'll have weapons, or real plans for them, that'll make anthrax and plutonium and Stuxnet look like child's play. I would hope that there will be enough grownups in positions of political and technical policy that we won't assume a head-in-sand policy.

And I do think that there are some weapons or otherwise destructive technologies that are too awful to entrust into the hands of free individuals. A machine gun or a main battle tank or even a Jerry-class aircraft carrier (minus nuclear ordnance) is limited in its ability to ruin a large area. The big weapons are not.
I wonder where the balance might be set for even the most ardent supporters of distribution of power. I can't see any rationale for letting individuals own operational nuclear weapons. One day, I can see corporations owning them for deep-space propulsion and engineering (with the threat of a ballistic scolding by the military for their misuse), but we'll have to cross that bridge when the road takes us there. I'm rambling a bit. cn

UncleBuck said:

ummm, wut?

are you retarded? serious question.

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Funny you would ask that when you support propaganda like this...

Your only hard on for the NRA comes from Thinkprogress.gay - another front for Obama and the democraps

UncleBuck said:

is your dumb ass trying to imply that the founding fathers envisioned the type of firepower we have today?

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They had the foresight to realise a shitty banking system would be more dangerous than standing armies...

cannabineer said:

My prediction/fear is that in one, two hundred years we'll have weapons, or real plans for them, that'll make anthrax and plutonium and Stuxnet look like child's play. I would hope that there will be enough grownups in positions of political and technical policy that we won't assume a head-in-sand policy.

And I do think that there are some weapons or otherwise destructive technologies that are too awful to entrust into the hands of free individuals. A machine gun or a main battle tank or even a Jerry-class aircraft carrier (minus nuclear ordnance) is limited in its ability to ruin a large area. The big weapons are not.
I wonder where the balance might be set for even the most ardent supporters of distribution of power. I can't see any rationale for letting individuals own operational nuclear weapons. One day, I can see corporations owning them for deep-space propulsion and engineering (with the threat of a ballistic scolding by the military for their misuse), but we'll have to cross that bridge when the road takes us there. I'm rambling a bit. cn

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I was rambling a bit too last night when we started this convo. Just as our forefathers may not have envisioned the power of nuclear destruction, I haven't given thought to what may be possible 200 years from now. I would say you are spot on. We'll probably advance technology enough to where individuals could own this awesome power easily enough. Any alternative energy powerful and efficient enough to replace fossil fuels will be bombs in their own right.

Having said that, wouldn't it take an amendment to our 2nd to limit this to individuals? I would say the way the 2nd is written we really do have the legal right to own nukes and chems but there is such an obvious ethical argument against it that no one would challenge it. Amending the 2nd is going to be a fight our country eventually will have to tackle. I hope I'm long gone by then.

ginwilly said:

I'm not advocating we even try. But if my government can have one [nuke] I have no right to say your government can't have one.

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I do no not get that at all. Is there some divine right of govt? Endowed by their creator with certain un-ailenable rights? The USA is not granted those kind of rights by WE.
So, WE say what WE will tolerate in the other countries, as best WE can.
And though we seem fucked up, WE are not kidding.

Are all govts created Equal? Oh HELL no. Royalists and Parliaments. Despots and Warlords. The UN is meaningless and there can be no equality among the very arbitrary, "Nations." Just since WW2, many of them.

It is more of the emotion tampering that even affects solid thinking, grown men.

There is no International Consistution. There is a UN charter. And under UN charter, we catagorically reject that entire notion.

We have MIGHT, so we have the Right to harass the other nations. It is simple. They can do very little about it. And we have the long play here. It is self rule and we set the axis of evil back. We don't play fair because it is self preservation.

Doer, I know I am in the minority on my position and my left brain and right brain are in conflict on this subject. I don't believe we have the right to tell the people of Iran they are not allowed the same opportunity to defend themselves as their neighbors.

I do however feel we need to keep leaders like Ahmakillajew from being in power and having one. I'm all for removing murdering dictators from the face of the earth. Thus, the quandry my stance finds itself in. I'm realistic enough to know we can't have certain leaders owning this power, but leaders are temporary, countries less so.

We do have MIGHT. We can remove leaders without invading countries if we so choose. I believe our military complex discourages this action but that's just the skeptic in me.

If Da Vinci could invent the helicopter, I think our founding fathers could think past muskets.

ginwilly said:

We do have MIGHT. We can remove leaders without invading countries if we so choose. I believe our military complex discourages this action but that's just the skeptic in me.

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Agreed... There are many documented cases of CIA operations that could have prevented wars and removed leaders without requiring full scale military intervention of US and allied nations. Osama and Saddam come to mind.

UncleBuck said:

pretty sure they meant king george, too.

we have standing armies now for that kind of thing.

guns are for self defense/hunting. to argue that they are for taking down our own government is outdated and implies that we should be able to carry nukes and biological warfare.

that is inescapable.

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Yes, the declaration meant King George. The second amendment, about fifteen years after the revolutionary war meant our own home-grown tyrants.

You think the King's standing armies are there to prevent tyranny by the king? You really ought to be working for the Obama administration. I hear Jay Carney's position might soon be open. I am sure they would love to have a tall, handsome Jew with no sense of ethics and the ability to spin silk from sack cloth.

desert dude said:

Yes, the declaration meant King George. The second amendment, about fifteen years after the revolutionary war meant our own home-grown tyrants.

You think the King's standing armies are there to prevent tyranny by the king? You really ought to be working for the Obama administration. I hear Jay Carney's position might soon be open. I am sure they would love to have a tall, handsome Jew with no sense of ethics and the ability to spin silk from sack cloth.

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Dude, I was just saying the other day he make a perfect little "Press Parrot" for O - at least this way he'd get to jack off to the real thing...

echelon1k1 said:

Agreed... There are many documented cases of CIA operations that could have prevented wars and removed leaders without requiring full scale military intervention of US and allied nations. Osama and Saddam come to mind.

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BINGO!!

These wars have nothing to do with "Democracy" or helping another nation rid itself of a despotic leader, or in retribution for terrorist acts.

War is always about taking another country's resources.

Always has been, always will be.

Other countries don't attack us because some American committed a crime there.

But we supposedly attack Iraq and Afghanistan because they sent people to bomb us? Shouldn't we attack Saudi Arabia then?

People don't think.