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Daddystouch -> RE: The 2nd Amendment (6/26/2008 12:01:31 PM)
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
While it is true the Founders goal was an armed citizenry that would give any future despot or tyrant pause
Good that we agree.
quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
I suggest that is just not applicable today...In today's modern world ,is a citizenry ,even one armed to the teeth with modern weapons enough to give a tyrant pause,did those armed citizens protect us from the Patriot Act a most odious piece of legislation .
To the first question: certainly. To the latter: no. Two things are needed for a free people to resist tyranny: the means to do so and the will to do so. Most Americans have the former, but virtually none have the latter. To take up arms against your countrymen, to make rebellion against your own government, is not an easy thing and one not done lightly. None the less, perhaps these things should have been done then or since or long before, but the answer to this failure is not to take away the half of the equation you already have, but to add the other half. If people have the physical ability to resist tyranny but have not done so, taking away that ability hardly makes them better off. Rather, they should be instilled with the spirit of resistence, the will to defend that which is right with the means that they are so lucky to have.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Some would say that it matters not the Founders could not have conceived of assualt rifles,fair enough....could the founders have conceived of Virginia Tech
Some would say the founders could have conceived of assault rifles. But regardless, Virginia Tech is hardly an effective example for arguing the invalidity of the second amendment. Virginia Tech represents the failure of gun control on two counts. Firstly, gun control failed to prevent Cho from acquiring a weapon, even though he was prohibited from doing so by law. Secondly, gun control failed to prevent Cho from taking his guns past the 'no guns allowed' signs on the college campus. Those signs, posted with the threat of explusion from the university, did prevent the students and teachers from taking their guns that day. I know of one student in Norris Hall who was a concealed carry permit holder who was unarmed that day beause of the university rules, and statistically speaking there should have been several others (I don't know exactly how many there actually were).
Much has been said that Cho used a gun that was banned under the Assault Weapons ban. That's not true, the gun was legal. Some of the magazines he used were illegal to manufacture or import, but not illegal to own. Under the Assault Weapon Ban, Cho would just have had to pay more for his magazines than he did, because of the lower supply in relation to demand - not exactly an insurmountable barrier to someone intent on killing themselves anyway, and a middle class one at that.
It's also important to remember that the worst shooting in US history was undertaken with a simple bolt action hunting rifle, and that the worst mass murder in US history was undertaken with box cutters.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
there is a clause in the Constitution against interference with interstate commerce is there not
If I remember rightly, the interstate commerce clause predates the second amendment, thus the second amendment would prohibit the interstate commerce clause being applied to arms.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
what if a biological weapon were released and the only choice of containment would be a closing of state borders...would voices cry out this is a violation of the freedoms enumerated in the Constitution
I don't think that would be in violation of the constitution... But it presupposes that the only reason for maintaining the right to arms is that it is written in the constittuion. I doubt you would find anyone who would say "the second amendment is a bad thing, but it's in the constitution so we've got to keep it".
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
I am not advocating stripping the people of the "right to bear arms"...I am on the other hand suggesting logic and forbearance demands the right to fetter and legislate that right
What legislation are you thinking of? The OP, IIRC, was sparked by the Heller case in DC i.e. a total ban on handguns, even when dissasembled, and on any other workable firearm. That is hardly a mild regulation.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
...I fear more a gun crazed populace than a well intentioned law...
Well intentioned laws can often bring misery and death to millions. Look not to the intentions behind the laws, for well intentioned laws can be terrible and laws made with dubious intentions can inadvertently be beneficial. But who is guncrazed? Are we here all 'speech crazed' because we excercise that right on these forums constantly?
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
a better safeguard of our liberties would be an informed and voting electorate
Better? Perhaps. A seatbelt may be a better protection against road death than an airbag, but why not have both?
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
well armed and well meaning citizens who decry any attempt at all to flow the stench of blood all these weapons invariably lead to
They of course would argue that gun control is only that: an attempt to 'stench the flow of blood'. An ineffective one, and quite often a counter-productive one that results in only more deaths.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
but the lunatic [at Virginia Tech] was pulling a legal trigger was he not.
No. He was comitting a federal felony when he bought the gun.
quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Than he discounts Columbine using the logic that those kids weren't old enough to legally possess such weapons(conceding somewhat the local government's right to restrict such ownership)their parents were legal weren't they,if I am mistaken I apologise but weren't those guns legally owned by the negligent parents
The killers at Columbine bought their weapons illegally from a dealer who sold them the guns despite their being under age.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Should not legal owners of firearms be responsible for their safe storage
Nobody should be responsible for the criminal actions of others. If someone steals my kitchen knife and murders somebody with it, I am in no way responsible for that. If I leave a knive in my child's crib and she cuts herself, then probably I am. But if I leave that knife in a kitchen drawer or, when she's old enough, I teach her how to be safe with knives, surely that is responsible enough to be legal? We need not lock our kitchen utensils in a safe. There's a very simple way to prevent a young child using a gun: use a semi-auto and don't put a round in the chamber. To use the gun the child would need to pull back the slide or bolt of the weapon - something that many women and older people find difficult enough as it is. Young children simply lack the strength to do it. Conveniently, children old enough to do it are easily old enough to be taught gun safety.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Than comes my favorite argument the one where more guns not less would add to the public safety...pray tell how that logic works...I come from New York City where apparently The Police Department hailed by that City has New York's Finest can not be counted on once the firing starts to show any restraint...how many of You would really like to be present when a bunch of sport shooters in full panic start defending themselves...for myself I would rather skip the shooting gallery
The facts simply do not match your insinuation. Back in the 80s when right-to-carry laws started to appear there were the same cries that it would result in a blood bath. No such thing materialised. Indeed the safety record of concealed carry permit holders is excellent.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
so to sum up IK's post he admits to a municipalities right to fetter gun ownership but seems to think so far these attempts have been a failure
I don't think he admitted any such right - to say that state gun control failed to work is not to say that it is just, only that it is a bad idea.
quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
IMO if one trumpets his right to own Guns ,why can I not assert my right to be safe from those guns.
You are. No one here is going to shoot you. The only people at all likely to shoot you are criminals - criminals who use illegal guns and take no notice of gun laws.
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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Now yesterday I was told the technology for smart guns is not quite there yet,who is responsible for that failure if not the industry and the NRA which has stood in the way of any legislation demanding this..
Passing a law that demands all guns to be ray guns won't make it so. Technology comes when it comes, not when a law says it must appear. I would expect a lot of gun owners would like to see this kind of technology, it just doesn't exist yet.
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