gungasnake wrote:A number of competent scholars have gone back and looked at all of the materials bearing on the second ammendment at the time it was written and come to the exact conclusion I do based both upon the obvious English language interpretation and the historical context, and the current judicial interpretation is that the ammendment does indeed confer a right for individuals to own their own weaponry, with no regard as to whether or not they might belong to "militias".
I'm sure those "competent scholars" know about as much as you do regarding statutory construction.
gungasnake wrote:You're flogging a dead horse.
When it comes to deceased equines, no one can out-flog a genuine American gun-nut.
dyslexia wrote:
Quote:I believe it would be quickly swallowed by the gulp stream.
Quote:flogging a dead horse is preferable to riding one.
When you share these little bits of wisdom, not only does it make me laugh, it worries me about what goes on in your head that you don't share with us. :wink:
joefromchicago wrote:What manly, powerful weapons, cjhsa. Can't you feel your penis increasing in size just at the thought of possessing one of those beauties?
Awesomely witty insult. Original too, I'm sure.
Why would an individual need a .50 caliber combat rifle?
To be fair, perhaps in the same breath we should also ask
why would a country need 10,000 nuclear warheads?
10,000??
Or, why should $1000 of your own hard-earned income be taken
from you and spent to kill 100,000 innocent civilians?
Well? Is a combat rifle in the hands of a free citizen really
even a drop in the ocean compared to what larger, organized
budgets do, have done, and continue to do within our country?
Does our fear of one hypothetical individual going crazy really compare
to the deadly actions already taken by actual governmental programs?
How many people have actually died as a result of assault weapons
being as available to civilians, as opposed to lesser weapons? How many lives per year?
Isn't the banning of assault weapons too little, too late, and much too blind?
And I don't believe I will wake up to the morning newspaper anytime soon to find that the ban has cut crime in CA one bit.
Well, tommrr, you might, if you could find a crime comitted with anything chambering a 50 BMG.
roger wrote:Well, tommrr, you might, if you could find a crime comitted with anything chambering a 50 BMG.
Sometimes the obvious escapes me. Now I'm off to find that crime
Setanta wrote:Florida needs to be gently detached from Georgia and Alabama and allowed to slowly, almost imperceptibly, drift away into the Atlantic . . .
I need some kind of vacation for sure.
ebrown_p wrote:Quote:There are numerous examples in history of the populace overthrowing a government under these conditions, including our own revolution. Ghandi defeated a powerful occupier with no guns at all.
Brandon, Brandon, Brandon,
Invoking the name of Ghandi as part of an argument that guns are needed against the government....
I don't even know what to say to that..
I can compare Santa Claus to Hitler if the nature of the comparison makes sense. My point was a counter to Setanta's claim that a modern day citizenry couldn't resist a well armed police. I gave an example of someone who resisted a well armed occupier with no weapons at all. On the limited basis of the comparison, it makes perfect sense, is true, and was relevant to the discussion.
As to my argument that guns are in principle needed to prevent or resist a hypothetical future dictatorship, what I am saying is exactly what the Founders said. The Declaration of Independence itself says that it is the duty of the people to throw off an oppressive government. Your seeming unfamiliarity with the founding principles of your country is bizarre in light of your intelligence and education.
With all the fear and hate that President Bush has inspired in the leftists; with their cries of "Theocracy!" and "Stolen Elections!" one would think that they would be in favor of gun rights.
But, no.
They have Faith in government.
question:
When your vote no longer means anything, what power do you have?
That's rich . . . the NRA sucks millions per annum out of the credulous to support a bloated board and management, and pay very expensive lawyers and lobbyists . . . for what? You've got Gunda Din's witless contention that the first clause of the second amendment is meaningless. It that were so, why hasn't the high-priced legal talent at the NRA taken test cases into Federal courts, and pursued it all the way to the Supremes? There are only about two cogent answers to that question. The first is that they have no case, and they know it. The second is, if they get what gun owners who are fervent about this want, they are all out of a job. Either way, you're gettin' suckered, and suckered big time. You're payin' for chin music--and it's damned expensive chin music.
Add to that the way the Energy companies vacuum the cash out of our pockets, and flip a dime to the boy holding the door (read: politicians), it is laughably abusurd for conservatives to take the attitude that the left has no power, but they do. Suckers come in all shapes and sizes, and many of them come in the unrestricted gun ownership model.
Think about just how much power you personally have the next time you write a check out to the NRA. Then ask yourself what your money buys.
JPFO stands for Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership:
http://www.jpfo.org/
Aside from everything else, they claim that 170 million people were murdered by their own governments over the last century and they have a movie available on the subject:
http://www.innocentsbetrayed.com/
Some of you guys who favor the idea of governments having a monopoly on firearms might want to watch it.
Ted Nugent doesn't look very bloated to me.
I did not say the individual members of the board were bloated, rather the board itself. It is important to the NRA image to pack the board with recognizable figures--to make the greatest impact with the contention that this is a mainstream issue.
Hmm. It's not a mainstream issue?
I hunt and fish and vote. It's a mainstream issue.
gungasnake wrote:JPFO stands for Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership:
http://www.jpfo.org/
Aside from everything else, they claim that 170 million people were murdered by their own governments over the last century and they have a movie available on the subject:
http://www.innocentsbetrayed.com/
Some of you guys who favor the idea of governments having a monopoly on firearms might want to watch it.
There's probably an Space Aliens for Gun Rights front group, too. Surprised that wasn't included in this list...
There's some real quality of thought right there.
CJ, you are intelligent, and i have not the least doubt that you are a decent man, and a good family man. None of which authorizes an extrapolation from there that this is a mainstream issue. Most people are not obsessed about firearms as you are. Most people go through their daily lives without giving firearms a second thought. It only becomes a "mainstream" issue when the one side howls about gun control legislation, or the other side howls about violence resulting from the proliferation of firearms.
In my never humble opinion, both sides of this issue taken together do not represent a significant proportion of the population. Tell ya what, you think your way, and i'll think mine.
If free people ought to be able to form their own government
(it's a stretch, but think "true democracy"),
then shouldn't ordinary people be able to overthrow any form
of government that usurps them?
Not just through civilized elections, but through force if necessary?
The only time freedom exists is when people MAKE it happen.
So, shouldn't the citizens have more fire-power than the government,
to ensure that things don't get carried away?
It's a scary and corrupt time when people lose control of, and live only at the mercy of, their own government.
