Gun Control

[babe]

This is actually an excellent argument vs. any constitutionalist about anything. The Constitution is not a set of values, but a guideline for governing. The fact that it was amended 10 times almost immediately after publication should show the true intent of the founding fathers.

I'm absolutely for gun rights but most advocates are going about it in completely the wrong way. The argument needs to have a modern context.

this is actually nonsense. The Constitution, as envisioned by the original framers, was a contract between states, the people, and a federal government. It was not a "set of values" agreeable to the community, but a designed structure for preventing government from repeating the abuses that had occurred with historical civilizations against independent "states" and against free people when power was accumulated in the hands of a few.

This is no irrelevant anachronism of the eighteenth century, but the tragedy that has been the twentieth century as well. Statists or their apologists always avoid seeing the elephant in the discussion here. Powerful states are more dangerous to human life, property, liberty, and rights than any other thing people have ever "accomplished".

By ignoring the realities of power accumulated in the hands of a few men, we have been led into the useless wars of the past one hundred and fifty years, always with the result that at the end, stronger and more dangerous governments have prevailed.

and it's our delusion to call this progress.

Our founding fathers were educated in the classical language and history of Greece and Rome. They had knowledge of how strong governments failed in that history which we seem to know nothing, or admit nothing, about today.

Those who ignore history, or are ignorant of it, have the future prospect of repeating the worst of it in their own times.

So how about looking at gun control laws in various countries around the world today where people live abject lives under governments with no real economic opportunity or significant personal liberties, with totalitarian statists, dictators and fascists and socialists, proscribing the people from owning private weapons for any reason, regulating every other aspect of life. . .for the convenience of efficient elitist rule. . . . this is the contemporary context of this discussion today.

If you like that kind of life, you can easily find places where you can enjoy all that control. Just go, please. Just mind your manners when the revolutionary soldiery with their totally illegal weapons and squabbling over control of the shanties in your neighborhood in gangland fashion come around. . . .

[One Brow]

We would actually reduce the problem by regulating professional psychiatric protocols for treating people with obvious tendencies in this direction, and maybe going back to more of a lock-up philosophy for the mentally disturbed.

Despite our great societal expenditure for treating psychiatric patients, we have many months, even years of delays in getting professional attention for them. . . . and under Obamacare, these delays will be increased, not decreased.

Part of the issue is that there are a huge number of people who exhibit similar problems, and only a tiny percentage go on to kill.

[Scat]

So why are folks like you always trying to change the Constitution?

Where have I ever advocated changing the Constitution?

[Scat]

Interesting, if you substituted the word "gun" with the word "voting" our 10 year old argument would finally come to an end.

So you are OK with implementing a background check and providing ID to vote?

[Brown Notes]

this is actually nonsense. The Constitution, as envisioned by the original framers, was a contract between states, the people, and a federal government. It was not a "set of values" agreeable to the community, but a designed structure for preventing government from repeating the abuses that had occurred with historical civilizations against independent "states" and against free people when power was accumulated in the hands of a few.

This is no irrelevant anachronism of the eighteenth century, but the tragedy that has been the twentieth century as well. Statists or their apologists always avoid seeing the elephant in the discussion here. Powerful states are more dangerous to human life, property, liberty, and rights than any other thing people have ever "accomplished".

......

Right, so what these guys were trying to do was set up a representative governing body with checks and balances. They threw in gun rights after the fact and worded it pretty nebulously AND under a pretense that no longer is relevant, the need for a well ordered Militia.

In those days Americans were very much against having a professional Army, obviously now we have the most powerful professional armed force in the world. The idea that a handful of people drilling once a month or whenever with some rifles is the only thing keeping Americans free from having this enormously powerful group of destructive entities used against them is absurd. Representative government is what accomplishes this.

It is reasonable to conclude like Obama has that there is room within the 2nd amendment for compromise between the extremes of having no rules regarding weapons at all, and making them all illegal. I happen to be of the opinion that legislating firearms more will not reduce crime but that is a separate issue.

As far as you paranoid rant goes, I suppose you better get your underground railroad going so we can send all those poor Canadians to Somalia.

[candrew]

So you are OK with implementing a background check and providing ID to vote?

Well for starters, I think all guns should be registered just like all voters.

[Scat]

Well for starters, I think all guns should be registered just like all voters.

So in your opinion, ideally, all guns would be registered and only someone who provides ID and submits to a background check can own a registered weapon. Should not the same criteria be applied to someone trying to vote? Why should one right be heavily monitored and the other a free for all?

[candrew]

So in your opinion, ideally, all guns would be registered and only someone who provides ID and submits to a background check can own a registered weapon. Should not the same criteria be applied to someone trying to vote? Why should one right be heavily monitored and the other a free for all?

Well, I don't know about you; but my voter registration is renewed through my DMV - so indirectly, I have to show about 40 pieces of ID to register to vote.

[fishonjazz]

So in your opinion, ideally, all guns would be registered and only someone who provides ID and submits to a background check can own a registered weapon. Should not the same criteria be applied to someone trying to vote? Why should one right be heavily monitored and the other a free for all?

A vote cant kill someone.... a gun can, sorry man but guns and votes are not the exact same thing

[candrew]

A vote cant kill someone.... a gun can, sorry man but guns and votes are not the exact same thing

Well that's not really Scat's fault, I was the one who originally made the comparison. I just wanted to point out that you have to register to vote, but there are so many damn loopholes in the gun laws, it's not that difficult in many states to acquire a gun without registering it or going through the mandatory back ground check.

I had a friend when I lived in Texas who had about 20 something guns (and a son who was bi-polor, so, um look out if you live in the greater Austin area) and 2 of them were registered. The rest of them he bought used through private person-to-person sales.

[SaltyDawg]

Well that's not really Scat's fault, I was the one who originally made the comparison. I just wanted to point out that you have to register to vote, but there are so many damn loopholes in the gun laws, it's not that difficult in many states to acquire a gun without registering it or going through the mandatory back ground check.

I had a friend when I lived in Texas who had about 20 something guns (and a son who was bi-polor, so, um look out if you live in the greater Austin area) and 2 of them were registered. The rest of them he bought used through private person-to-person sales.

So is the solution to deny gun sales to anyone who has a kid that fails a background check?

People are making way too much out of this.

[Gyp Rosetti]

So is the solution to deny gun sales to anyone who has a kid that fails a background check?

Yes, unless the family is laptop-free. Then, their modernization would be apparent and all well.

[babe]

Part of the issue is that there are a huge number of people who exhibit similar problems, and only a tiny percentage go on to kill.

this is actually true.

but likewise, if only one in a thousand people with those problems go on to kill, only one in a million guns is used in such rampage shootings too. So if it's not cost-effective to focus on the disturbed persons profile that keeps supplying the rampage shooters, neither is is cost-effective to focus on guns for a way to prevent these horrible killing sprees.

Actually President Obama knows the best way to protect kids in school. The same way his kids are protected in the school they go to.. . . . .

a LOT of responsible armed personnel maintaining security.

The disturbed mental profile of the shooters correlates that they, when they have made up their minds to do the shooting, have also made up their minds to end their own lives rather than be taken down. Whenever someone rushes them with any credible chance of taking them down, they put their gun to their own head and pull the trigger.

Therefore, having armed personnel on hand where the kids are is the best deterrent available.

[Hack]

I lost my gun today. It just fell right out of my sweat pants and I didnt even feel it. That was my favorite gun too. It had a real cool look to it. Im lucky I have 15 guns, so its all good.

[babe]

Right, so what these guys were trying to do was set up a representative governing body with checks and balances. They threw in gun rights after the fact and worded it pretty nebulously AND under a pretense that no longer is relevant, the need for a well ordered Militia.

In those days Americans were very much against having a professional Army, obviously now we have the most powerful professional armed force in the world. The idea that a handful of people drilling once a month or whenever with some rifles is the only thing keeping Americans free from having this enormously powerful group of destructive entities used against them is absurd. Representative government is what accomplishes this.

It is reasonable to conclude like Obama has that there is room within the 2nd amendment for compromise between the extremes of having no rules regarding weapons at all, and making them all illegal. I happen to be of the opinion that legislating firearms more will not reduce crime but that is a separate issue.

As far as you paranoid rant goes, I suppose you better get your underground railroad going so we can send all those poor Canadians to Somalia.

stop pretending you're a mentally balanced, reasonable person who can carry on a polite conversation.

Or drop the stupid slurs.

Some of the folks who signed the Declaration of Independence considered personal rights and liberties more dear than their lives or fortunes. They lived in a country where most people were perhaps annoyed at the British overlords, but not exactly all wanting to fight for independence. The class of folks who preferred British rule over a stupid hopeless war with the best army on the planet were called Tory. Often they had financially favorable relations tied with the British commerce.

The founders of our country were not paranoid, but realistic. When they sat down to write the Articles of Confederation they were unwilling to create a new Government capable of giving them all the same grief the British gave them.

In the context of their times, just a few years after the desperate war for independence, nobody imagined their government would want to confiscate personal firearms. They were virtually unanimous about knowing their success was dependent upon the willingness of people to defend their newly won independence with their own personal weapons.

An accurate understanding of their times requires the recognition that they did not want a professional military force under the control of a strong central government, precisely because they wanted to make sure as best they could that their government could not turn again into an oppressive nightmare.

That was the whole point of the revolution, and the whole case for independence.

We are probably not going to need a huge standing army to maintain the peace inside our country, and the personal weapons which most Americans have in private control are no threat to our independence or liberty. As long as we have an electoral process which is competent to effect changes in government, we will continue to have relative peace in our communities.

There is little opportunity for organized military forces to be raised in our country which are not loyal to or interested in defending our institutions and way of life, and our government. One of the reasons that is so might be the size and superior weaponry in the hands of our military under government direction, but I think it is just as true that as long as there are millions of citizenss loyal to our government with their own personal arms, the yayhoos who might try to start a revolution actually face a huge force of non-uniformed armed citizens who would defend this country as we know it.

In countries without this kind of armed citizenry, a few agent provocateurs with foreign money and weaponry can establish themselves in the bundoks somewhere, and become the local relevant "government".

the best thing about having armed citizens with their own liberty to defend, is that taxpayers don't have to foot the bill.