Guns and the Supreme Court

dyslexia wrote:

I am a gun owner; my fear that is wacko gun-nuts such as david and others are doing about to take away my rights. Fanatics/idiots are seen with fear by more and more common citizens which will most likely lead to more restrictions than if they would just stfu.

This is exactly the point. I was taught to handle fire arms safely when i was a boy. In the army, i qualified expert with M14, which i really enjoyed. I qualified with the M16 later, but just barely--i was not a fan of that weapon. I also qualified with the M1911 automatic pistol.

Setanta wrote:

dyslexia wrote:

I am a gun owner; my fear that is wacko gun-nuts such as david and others are doing about to take away my rights. Fanatics/idiots are seen with fear by more and more common citizens which will most likely lead to more restrictions than if they would just stfu.

This is exactly the point. I was taught to handle fire arms safely when i was a boy. In the army, i qualified expert with M14, which i really enjoyed. I qualified with the M16 later, but just barely--i was not a fan of that weapon. I also qualified with the M1911 automatic pistol.

Maybe you could teach others to handle firearms safely...
it sounds like you are qualified.

dyslexia wrote:

Fanatics/idiots are seen with fear by more and more common citizens which will most likely lead to more restrictions than if they would just stfu.

Good point
Fanatics/idiots on both sides of this issue should just stfu

I have never alleged that you have fallen afoul of the law.
My reaction to you is that you are mentally unstable,

and your obsession with guns,
and the prospect of killing someone

whom you allege to threaten you is to me evidence of that condition.

Your sneer about "Dr. Setanta" is childish,

and it is unwarranted because if am offering an opinion, not a diagnosis.

There are many people here with whom i disagree about gun control--
Dyslexia, Roger and Fishin' come to mind right off the top of my head--
who do not obsessively post about guns,

who do not obsessively claim that if everyone went around armed
we would all be "safe" from the "criminals,"

and who do not refer to me with terms such as "authoritarian collectivist liberal pinkos."

They are reasonable people who state their positions reasonably.

You spew a rhetoric which could come straight out of the red scare hysteria literature of the 1950s.

You obsess about fire arms, bringing the subject up all of the time,
and continually attempting to claim that one either supports unlimited
access to firearms, or one is willfully surrendering one's freedom,
and attempting to deny freedom to others.

Your claims about students going around armed are so insane
that one hardly knows where to begin to explain to you the idiocy of your position,
which is why i don't discuss it with you.

In short, there are many people here with whom i disagree
about gun control who are reasonable individuals,
whom i like and whose expression of their opinions i respect.

You ain't one of 'em . . .

You're really a psycho case, David--
especially with your hysterical rants in which you erect strawmen about
what i do or don't believe. You really have no idea what i believe.

In fact, i'm not opposed to people owning fire arms--
i am opposed to people owning any goddamned gun they can afford.

To me, the balance of good sense would be to protect the right to bear arms
by having a list of approved rifles from the Congress,
and a complete ban of hand-guns.

The real cowards are the members of Congress, though,
whose fear of losing their place at the public troth is so great that they
will suck up the the shits at NRA and loud-mouth, ranting fanatics such as you.

Setanta wrote:

Thomas wrote:

McTag wrote:

Okay since there are honestly-held but polarised legal opinions on this matter, a clarification is obviously required, and a revision to the wording of the Constitution, written as it was all these years ago for a completely different world.

Maybe something along the lines of

"Whereas it is recognised that the function of law enforcement is nowadays undertaken by the police, and the function of defense of the state is undertaken by the armed forces, and no citizen has need to shoot his slaves or the indians or his neighbours or the redcoats any more,

and whereas many of the the people who own guns seem to be the very last people who should be let anywhere near them,

and due to a large number of regularly recurring regrettable incidents, for the better governance of the country and the safety of its citizens the previous widely-assumed "right of the people to bear arms" is hereby rescinded."

Congratulations, you get it! Now all you have to do is persuade two thirds of each house of Congress to pass this amendment, then get three quarters of the states to ratify it -- and you're done!

Thomas, Thomas, Thomas . . . you're so naïve.
First he has to found a special interest group with more money
and a wider base among the electorate than the National Rifle Association
(an organization which seems much more interested in handguns and
machine guns than in rifles).

It is worthy of note
that democracy cannot work
without such special interest groups as NRA
or the 2nd Amendment Foundation et al,
because the electorate wud endure in a state of woeful ignorance
of what governments are doing on all levels, fed, state n local.
We RELY upon SIGs to alert us to what is in the works
before its too late, so that we can contact our representatives
and threaten to disemploy them if thay fail to represent US
and just do as thay damn please.




David

We use journalists for that. You know, impartial and disinterested people with investigative skills.

Yeah they do . . . but they usually aren't employed by the media, most of which is owned by conservative corporations.

As for constitutionalism, i've pointed out that in United States versus Cruikshank and Presser versus Illinois the Supremes have held that the second amendment binds the Federal government and not the states.

To me, the balance of good sense would be to protect the right to bear arms by having a list of approved rifles from the Congress, and a complete ban of hand-guns.

Gun owners: When you clean and load your guns, do you see yourself more closely resembling

a) Davy Crockett

b) Billy the Kid

c) Audie Murphy

d) James Bond

e) George C Scott as Gen Patton

f) Other (Annie Oakley)

?

McTag wrote:

Gun owners: When you clean and load your guns, do you see yourself more closely resembling

a) Davy Crockett

b) Billy the Kid

c) Audie Murphy

d) James Bond

e) George C Scott as Gen Patton

f) Other (Annie Oakley)

?

All people, indeed all creatures of any type, have an inherent right to defend themselves. The government has no right to reduce people to depending on it to defend them regardless of the situation. In many cases, it will be the smartest thing to let the government defend one, but in other cases, including cases where danger is immenent and there is no time to summon a policeman or army, or where one is defending oneself against the government, people must have the ability to defend themselves. This is an inherent right of all life, and the government cannot rightly take it away. A government doesn't bestow rights on people - people have rights which the government is not free ethically to take away. However, in any case before a court related to gun possession, the situation comes down to an interpretation of what the Constitution says. The government has no right to take for itself anything more than what the people have consented to grant it.

Your implication that someone who claims the right to self-defense is like a mock western hero or movie spy signifies nothing but that you have no concept of the inherent right of people to defend themselves from bodily harm. If you want to give up your personal liberties in your country, so be it, but that is contrary to the idea of the proper role of just government given to us by our founders and stated with immense clarity in our Declaration of Independence.

Brandon9000 wrote:

McTag wrote:

Gun owners: When you clean and load your guns, do you see yourself more closely resembling

a) Davy Crockett

b) Billy the Kid

c) Audie Murphy

d) James Bond

e) George C Scott as Gen Patton

f) Other (Annie Oakley)

?

All people, indeed all creatures of any type, have an inherent right to defend themselves. The government has no right to reduce people to depending on it to defend them regardless of the situation. In many cases, it will be the smartest thing to let the government defend one, but in other cases, including cases where danger is immenent and there is no time to summon a policeman or army, or where one is defending oneself against the government, people must have the ability to defend themselves. This is an inherent right of all life, and the government cannot rightly take it away. A government doesn't bestow rights on people - people have rights which the government is not free ethically to take away. However, in any case before a court related to gun possession, the situation comes down to an interpretation of what the Constitution says. The government has no right to take for itself anything more than what the people have consented to grant it.

Your implication that someone who claims the right to self-defense is like a mock western hero or movie spy signifies nothing but that you have no concept of the inherent right of people to defend themselves from bodily harm. If you want to give up your personal liberties in your country, so be it, but that is contrary to the idea of the proper role of just government given to us by our founders and stated with immense clarity in our Declaration of Independence.

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

Freedoms? You have to give up plenty of "freedoms" if you live in a populous society.
You can't make a big bonfire of tyres and garbage beside your neighbours house- it will stain his paintwork and dirty his wife's washing, and the fire may spread uncontrollably.
You can't drive your car at 150 mph
You can't drive the wrong way up a one-way city street
You can't punch your boss or your neighbour in the mouth.
etc etc etc

No matter how you feel you might like to do these things, they are antisocial, dangerous and more or less illegal.

So, you just have to get to the stage of joining up the dots in your thinking. Filling in the gaps. Addresing the inconsistencies.

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.