Dr. Orange Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 So the gun law arises. And I was wondering on how you all of SF-O think how the law should go. Should it be increased so its harder or not at all available to obtain a weapon ... OR do you want less gun laws so It is easier to obtain a gun. In my eyes I would want less gun laws. The main reason is thanks to the second amendment ... because I can use it. :3 America's Fore fathers knew that this would happen and we may need guns again. Plus its not the guns fault if someone is shot. Its the owner who pulled the trigger. Lets blame Rosie O'Donnell's fork shall we? And besides, people have kiled people way before guns. So in all cases ... gun control is bullshit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 If guns are easy to get, then crazy people will get them. They should be harder to get so that only the right kind of people can have access to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrypticQuery Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 So in all cases ... gun control is bullshit. Though I find myself incredibly pro-gun, I have to say that this assumption is a bit unfair. You wouldn't want your average hick running about with a submachine gun, would you? The current systems in place satisfy me though; background and mental health checks are necessary. I would like to see the need to complete a mandatory training course before one would receive their license though; make it similar to driving and registering an automobile and the system will work much better. That said, I do find that blaming tragedies upon firearms is a bit ridiculous; they are just tools. The same destruction could have been caused by something else; a bomb or automobile, for example. Laws against firearms will not necessarily curb crime either; last I checked criminals don't usually follow laws. Not to mention that if someone genuinely wants to acquire a firearm, there are sources out there. Take this article from Gawker, for example - http://gawker.com/59...ything?tag=guns If guns are easy to get, then crazy people will get them. They should be harder to get so that only the right kind of people can have access to them. Admittedly, a similar argument can be applied to quite a few things; alcohol and drugs, for example. Unfortunately, limiting people of what they want is difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Orange Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 Though I find myself incredibly pro-gun, I have to say that this assumption is a bit unfair. You wouldn't want your average hick running about with a submachine gun, would you? The current systems in place satisfy me though; background and mental health checks are necessary. Well I have to agree with that. BR checks I think are one helpful was to find the crazies and the unfit. But when you see a hick running around with a submachine gun, usually they illegally obtained it. If by hick you mean "redneck." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Admittedly, a similar argument can be applied to quite a few things; alcohol and drugs, for example. Unfortunately, limiting people of what they want is difficult. Yes, but weapons being so readily available is shameful in my opinion. You can buy one in Walmart for god's sake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Orange Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 Yes, but weapons being so readily available is shameful in my opinion. You can buy one in Walmart for god's sake. Walmart, no. Available, yes. Yet with available comes Backround checks, waiting period and all that good stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 According to like, everything I see on google, guns are for sale in Walmart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prince Elite Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 In Australia, Bella Australia. After 1996 our Gun Laws were increased dramatically after Martin Bryant killed killed over 30 people in less than 4 hours. It's very difficult to procure a firearm in Australia without legitimate reason. I find the gun control in Australia to be effective as we have very little gun-related crimes in Australia. Sure they do happen, but it is rarer than other crimes. It's much easier to escape or fight back against an assailant without a gun than one with one. In my view, our laws are efficient and that gun control is a good thing. It makes it LESS likely for someone to go on a rampage and mow down people in a killing spree, In my opinion of course, I believe gun control to be a good thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Orange Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 According to like, everything I see on google, guns are for sale in Walmart. Well I've been to many walmarts and I have never seen one that sells guns. So they must be few and far between. Just saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Well I've been to many walmarts and I have never seen one that sells guns. So they must be few and far between. Just saying. If you really want one, I recommend shopping with them online. Easy as that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arashikage Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 My Walmart used to sell guns. I don't know what happened, but they don't anymore, they sell BB guns still though. Either way, I have several stores around that sell guns anyway, I wouldn't have trusted Walmart's guns in the first place. However, I'm all for the laws that are currently in place. Background checks, mental history, but could someone explain to me the waiting period you need to go through? I can't make much sense of it. In any case, gun laws are a double edged sword. On the one hand, it's harder for crazy people to get guns, but on the other hand, it's harder for law abiding taxpaying American citizens to get guns as well. People are resourceful with guns, in fact, not six months ago, a man in Utah saved three children and their father with one. I posted a link to the article before, he couldn't break the window of their car which they were trapped in in the middle of a freezing river, so what did he do? He pressed the gun to the window, told them all to get down, angled it slightly towards the roof, and fired. The window shattered, he got in, cut the seat belts off with his knife, and pulled the children and their father out. In another case, there was a robbery at a convenience store, a gun owner who was a patron of the store saw the suspect with the bandanna and the weapon, he threatened the clerk, took the money, and started to walk out. The gun owner had a gun with him and a concealed handgun license, he shot the suspect in the butt, and stayed for when the police arrived. This man faced no charges, only the robber faced legal action. Guns aren't good or bad, it's people, and what you believe really depends on your view of people, but I can assure you, I believe an armed society is a friendly society. Would a man really rob your house if there's a very high likelihood that you'll be on the other side of that door with a shotgun? I think he'd think twice before breaking in if that fear was there. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrypticQuery Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 It depends upon the Walmart location; as I'm visiting the state of Georgia at the moment, firearms can be purchased through the camping and hunting sections toward the rear of the stores. They still require the standard background checks and wait periods, however. And as for what Elite said, I believe crime rates vastly depend upon the culture and societies within their respective countries. Take Mexico, for example [from Wikipedia]; Mexico has strict gun laws. Mexican citizens and legal residents may purchase new non-military firearms for self-protection or hunting only after receiving approval of a petition to the Defense Ministry, which performs extensive background checks. The allowed weapons are restricted to relatively low-caliber and can be purchased from the Defense Ministry only. "Military" firearms, including pistols with bores exceeding .38 caliber, and bb guns (but not pellet guns) require federal licenses and are regulated in a manner similar to that dictated by the U.S. National Firearms Act (NFA). The private sale of "non-military" firearms, however, is unregulated, and while these firearms are supposed to be registered with the government, in practice this is widely ignored. Laws dealing with the possession of "non-military" firearms are left to the states. Generally, "non-military" firearms may be kept in the home, but a license is required to carry them outside the home. President Felipe Calderón has recently called attention to the alleged problem of the smuggling of guns from the United States into Mexico, guns which are easily available both legally and illegally in the United States, and has called for increased cooperation from the United States to stop this illegal weapons trafficking.[44][45] In the five years prior to 2012, over two-thirds of illegal firearms seized in Mexico that could be traced to a source, were traced backed to the United States of America. However, traceable firearms constitute only a small portion of the total seized, and the origin of the majority cannot be positively identified.[46] Although Mexico has incredibly strict gun laws, firearms still proliferate among the country. Though some can be traced back to the United States, others are simply untraceable, showing that regardless of law, criminals will get their hands on guns one way or another. Ciudad Juarez, as I'm sure many are aware, has the highest murder rate in the world, and most are carried out with illegal firearms. --- Also, what about people actually defending themselves?; Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Personally, I hate guns. I think that we humans have enough ways to hurt each other, and I feel guns as another tool in which to do that. This is just my personal opinion though. Whenever I mention this, I do get the "guns aren't evil, the people holding them are", and I respect that and agree, actually. But I still think that there's so much evil in this world. Guns are just another weapon that can fall into the wrong hands. And people that are defending themselves? They can do that without guns. In your video, the robber was armed, but if he didn't have a gun... Well, you see where I'm going with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrypticQuery Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Personally, I hate guns. I think that we humans have enough ways to hurt each other, and I feel guns as another tool in which to do that. This is just my personal opinion though. Whenever I mention this, I do get the "guns aren't evil, the people holding them are", and I respect that and agree, actually. But I still think that there's so much evil in this world. Guns are just another weapon that can fall into the wrong hands. And people that are defending themselves? They can do that without guns. In your video, the robber was armed, but if he didn't have a gun... Well, you see where I'm going with this. I see and respect your opinion, but by that logic nearly everything can be considered a tool just watiing to fall into the wrong hands. And I do see where you were going with that last bit, but because firearms are such a part of the culture of the United States, simply doing away with them will be physically impossible [not that I'd want to.] 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 If you make stricter gun control laws, then they will only be out of the hands of law-abiding citizens that will use them to defend themselves. Criminals don't follow the law as it is. If it's changed, they still won't give a crap and keep buying and procuring guns illegally. Illinois is one of the few states to ban concealed weapons, and this year Chicago has been a bloodbath for that reason (along with the fact that Rahm Emmanuel is going to keep worrying about giving people handouts\bankrupting the city and not dealing with the problem.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PsyMuffin Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 If you make stricter gun control laws, then they will only be out of the hands of law-abiding citizens that will use them to defend themselves. Criminals don't follow the law as it is. If it's changed, they still won't give a crap and keep buying and procuring guns illegally. Illinois is one of the few states to ban concealed weapons, and this year Chicago has been a bloodbath for that reason (along with the fact that Rahm Emmanuel is going to keep worrying about giving people handoutsbankrupting the city and not dealing with the problem.) Yea but anybody could be a law-abiding citizen and still just suddenly go out and kill people, I don't really think there is a way to control the whole "Stricter gun rules", it would still go out to being sold to people who aren't criminals, so in this case it wouldn't of done anything, this guy could of gotten them anyway. No one knew what he was up to until he shot everyone, and so that right there made him the criminal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrypticQuery Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Yea but anybody could be a law-abiding citizen and still just suddenly go out and kill people, I don't really think there is a way to control the whole "Stricter gun rules", it would still go out So you're implying that we should tie everyone up in a straightjacket and leave them in a corner just because they may or may not be insane enough to hurt someone else? --- Honestly, we need to work on understanding the mind and its workings, and what makes it snap, before we can move forward with issues like these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vy'drach Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 According to like, everything I see on google, guns are for sale in Walmart. I have been to Wal-Marts in Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas, and of course The People's Republik of Kalifornia, and have yet to see a gun on sale, not counting cheap-o airsoft and pellet guns. The days of being able to buy .22 rifles, in that plastic that people keep coming out with "miracle cutters" to open, from hardware stores, is long gone. Which is ironic since there was less murdering going on when you could buy guns off a shelf with no background checks or paper work. Which is the real issue. It's not guns, it's that there's more people out there who have no issue with killing, or at least no issue acting upon those urges. That, and any sort of modern "mental care" is worse. Iirc, the perpetrators of the Columbine shooting were actually on a medication for mental problems that could cause worse mental conditions than it allegedely cured. People don't try to cure mental conditions any more. Just cover them up. Now then, back to my statements about guns being more accessible but people murdering more lately. Take a look at this thing: [media=] The Lahti L-39 20mm anti-tank rifle. At 0:28 seconds, you can see a pretty good idea how big that 20x138mmB round is (to put that in perspective, the .50 BMG anti-material round, which it is technically a war crime to shoot a person with, and is capable of cutting a normal sized person in half with a single shot, is only 12.7x99mm) That's a .50 BMG round and rifle. Anyway, during the 40's, after the Finnish/Russian Winter War, and WWII, the Finns wanted to get rid of their surplus Lahti L-39 rifles, so they sold them out of magazines in America, which you could purchase one for $100, and it came with a box of ammo. I have yet to hear of a murder involving a Lahti L-39. Some might say it's because the thing is so loud, messy, and cumbersome, but I have heard of a few murders involving chainsaws, which are also loud, messy, cumbersome, and require you to get close. Criminals generally steal their firearms, buy it out of some guy's van, or buy it in Mexico (which is where the guys in the vans get 'em, anyway). The reason is because criminals generally don't want to spend the $1,000+ on a handgun that they have to go through paperwork that permanently marks the gun as theirs (which is a big thing since each gun leaves it's own ballistic fingerprint on the bullet), when they can buy the same gun for $100 or less, or get it free by stealing it from some guy, and they can now discard the gun no problem if they want to because it cost them next to nothing, and it's not registered to them so it becomes a case of whodunit. California has some of the tighest (and most idiotic) gun laws in the country, and we also have some of the most crime. Where as West Virginia still sells things like sound suppressors that you don't need a permit for, iirc (I've been up all night, can't remember everything exactly), and they have less crime, that went down even more (over 30% iirc) when they passed a law that basically said that, short of gator clamping a generator to the person's nutsack, if someone illegally enters your home, you can do basically anything to them, and if they die, and their family tries to charge you with murder, the courts will automatically throw the charges out the window, and tell them that the person shouldn't of been breaking into people's houses, and would still be alive if they hadn't been, and that they can go fuck themselves trying to charge the person with defending their home. I have no issue with the background checks, the waiting perioud is annoying because several other states, West Virginia among them, have no waiting perioud beyond how long it takes the background check to clear (which takes minutes, fyi, in WV, you leave with the gun the same day you go to buy it), and California has a thing where you have to prove you know how to handle a handgun before you can buy one (in the form of a certificate that you get from a course), which I wouldn't mind being applied to all firearms to keep dumbasses from injuring/killing themselves or others because they forgot to ensure the chamber is clear before cleaning or messing with the firearm. But tightening gun laws I see ending up the way California is with their Concealed Carry Permits. You can be perfectly... oh what's the word... basically, there isn't any legal reason for them not giving you the CCP after all the red tape and legal runarounds, but they still won't give it to you because basically, they don't want to. We have 25 firearms here. Twenty-five different guns, and not counting the two wartime German Mauser 98k rifles, and the Mosin Nagant M1891/30 rifle, I can say that I am fairly sure that none of our guns have caused any harm beyond my sister getting her finger pinched by the slide of the Beretta M9. If you really want one, I recommend shopping with them online. Easy as that. I checked Walmart.com, and not a single gun was found, except the aforementioned bb/pellet guns. Check gunbroker.com for your firearm purchasing needs. That's where I got my CETME rifle from. It's much easier to escape or fight back against an assailant without a gun than one with one. Not necessarily. It depends on a lot of variables. If someone is dead set on killing you, damn the consequences, then yes, guns are one of many options a person can employ that would be easier to escape if the person was unarmed. However, being confronted by a guy in an alley, I'd prefer to be confronted by a firearm than a knife, because an assailant is far more likely to use a knife than a gun. "Guns for show, knives for a pro," after all. Also, depending on caliber and blade type, a knife has much more potential to mortally wound. Most knives a person would use would be serrated, which would cause terrible tissue tearing, where as say a 9mm FMJ would go through pretty cleanly, and would have to hit something vital to cause any severe damage. Contrary to popular belief, you do not immediately die to a gut shot. It can take up to days to die from it, depending if you can get bleeding under control. A quick general guideline, people will generally hesitate when they have a gun as they try to decide if they should fire it as it will draw attention and can be traced back to them (police officers are trained to draw and fire their sidearm in this "three second rule" pause). If the person has an automatic (including semi-autos and burst), stay low as automatics recoil up. If they have a revolver, try to go to the person's left, as a revolver's recoil will pull it to the right, and if you're within 10 meters or so, and the person has a shotgun, head towards him, instead of away. Shotgun spread will increase the chance of them hitting you as your distance to the barrel increases, and while getting closer potentially increases the damage if you get hit directly with it, it decreases the actual chance of getting hit as the spread is lower to closer you are. Of course these are determined by variables, and are not rules, just guidelines. And people that are defending themselves? They can do that without guns. In your video, the robber was armed, but if he didn't have a gun... Well, you see where I'm going with this. What about a person being threatened by a person who got a firearm through illegal means, and is secure in the knowledge that law-abiding citizens shouldn't have anything which can be a real threat to him? 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arashikage Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 For me what it boils down to is, bad guys are going to get their hands on guns whether their legal or not. Criminals break the law anyway, and Ballisticwaffles summed it up pretty well when he said "I'd rather fight off an AK47 with a handgun than a handgun with a pen" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 http://www.walmart.c...25_4155_1088608 Isn't that the range Walmart have? And "a person being threatened by a person who got a firearm through illegal means, and is secure in the knowledge that law-abiding citizens shouldn't have anything which can be a real threat to him" is really just a situation where a man with a gun vs. a man without a gun, something that happens all the time in the US. If that happens, then it's unfortunate, but we don't actually have many situations like that over here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrypticQuery Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 http://www.walmart.c...25_4155_1088608 Isn't that the range Walmart have? And "a person being threatened by a person who got a firearm through illegal means, and is secure in the knowledge that law-abiding citizens shouldn't have anything which can be a real threat to him" is really just a situation where a man with a gun vs. a man without a gun, something that happens all the time in the US. If that happens, then it's unfortunate, but we don't actually have many situations like that over here. The Walmart site shows that you can only purchase those items in very specific stores, notably because every single store within range of the current Georgia zipcode that I'm at had none in stock. Like I said before on that last part though; countries and cultures vary greatly from area to area. The United States is quite unique in its melting-pot origins, and this includes crime and illegal activity. Banning/severely limiting firearms through laws will only affect people that wish to buy them legally. Many criminals do not, in fact, purchase their guns legally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vy'drach Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Well butter my buns and call me a biscuit, they have guns on Walmart.com, though all of them are in-store only, just being advertised online. And it might not happen often there, but this is America, not Scotland. I live only a couple hours drive from Tijuana, to the point that my friend's mom lived here, and worked in TJ. And I know you can get a fully automatic AK and a fair amount of ammo for it, for only $100, where as a semi-automatic only AK-47 here costs anywhere from $600-1000, depending on its features, country of origin, and what not. They try to say that the Mexican Drug Cartel gets their guns from American gun stores, which is straight bullshit, considering their pistol of choice is the FN Five-seveN pistol: It is one of two guns in the world that fire the 5.7x28mm round standard (the other being the FN P90 PDW), and one of the features of that round is it is high power, low recoil (less than a 9x19mm Parabellum/Luger), compact size (the FN P90 carries it in 50 round magazines, and the FN Five-seveN carries it in 20 round, giving the pistol a 20+1 capacity), and military grade 5.7x28mm ammunition is able to pierce kevlar (the material that makes up most standard quality ballistics vests), and still retain that high damage (whereas the 5.56x45mm NATO, another round noted for it's kevlar piercing characteristics, gets that by having a FMJ, and being small size and high velocity, which makes it usually enter and exit a body without any real consequence, requiring a vital hit for the target to even notice being hit sometimes). This is why the Drug Cartel uses them, is that high capacity, armour piercing, high damage round. However, you can not get military grade 5.7x28mm commercially for that very reason. The only way to get it, outside the Belgian military, is the black market. Also, an FN Five-seveN in the US costs $1200 on average, which is a severe price mark up. For the same cost, you can buy several unregistered Five-seveNs on the same black market you're getting the military grade ammunition. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redeemer Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I guess there's more to this than talking about simple restrictions and bans. I've never had first have experience of a culture where guns are legal you see, Biscuit, so it's not my place to try and declare that Scotland is doing is "better". That's not what I'm trying to do here in case you ever got that impression. If anything I'd say Scotland is worse because we have a very, very large drug problem that I have negative encounters with every day, I've even been threatened while at work because I wouldn't give in to people begging for free stuff. I know that most criminals don't get their firearms legally, but when I've been discussing this I've been thinking more along people like that Batman shooter. He was just a kid, a student, and no one suspected him at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vy'drach Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Of course. People will snap, and often other people die. However, these cases are few and far between, and generally isolated. And what's impossible to see is what good the preventative measure of having firearms accessible to law-abiding citizens has done. You can't measure this because it's a case of something not happening, instead of something happening. And West Virginia did have that drop in breaking and entering when they passed that law I mentioned before, but I was mistaken in it being an instant thing. It took the deaths of five would-be burgalars before it dropped, but it did. And according to my friend in WV, they have these at his local gun store. Including the suppressor (not necessarily the model in the video, just that they have suppressors for sale). [media=] And yet their crime is lower than here in The People's Republik of Kalifornia where we have gun laws that state you can't have a thumbhole stock and a pistol grip at the same time, like it makes any difference at all. I do know that there are plenty of open carry states in the US (Open carry meaning you are allowed to carry a loaded firearm on your person with no need for a permit, as long as it remains in plain sight and is not concealed in any way), where people are allowed to wear them into restaurants, movie theatres, and bars, and yet they have much less incidents than states such as this one, with their excessive gun laws. Also, with the Batman shooter, he had access to explosives, whether home made or not, I don't know. Imagine if he hadn't tried to emulate the Joker, and instead just set off to kill a lot of people however he could. What would of happened if he'd went to that theatre with the explosives instead. I'm fairly certain that the loss of life would of been much higher than 12. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this wasn't a tragedy, but the damage could of been much greater without the gun. And eight years or so ago, someone went to a Walmart with a katana, and killed 11 or so people. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DZComposer Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 This thread is deep in TL;DR territory with all these long posts, but I want to say a couple of things and I apologize if these have already been addressed. "Don't blame guns for shootings" This one is even better when "that's like blaming X for problem Y", where problem Y's relationship to X is incidental, like the skyscrapers and suicides argument made in the other thread. That's called a faulty analogy. Yeah, we may have specialized target shooting guns now, but the original reason the gun was invented was to kill things faster and easier than using a blade, and the rounds those guns fire are just as lethal (if not the same) as the ones fired by guns designed to kill. True, it takes the action of a person to kill someone with a gun, but the gun is an enabler. It makes the killing easier and less messy. If you have enough ammo, you can kill many more people before they flee or before you being subdued than you can with a knife. I do not like the idea of making it easier to kill people. While I do not support banning all guns, I think regulation is important. For instance, weapons of war I do not believe should be in civilian hands. You don't need an AR-15 to hunt. You don't need an M2 machine gun to defend against burglars. These are the ultimate killing machines. They're intended purpose is to kill enemy soldiers. I also think licensing is important. People who own guns should have to demonstrate they know how to handle and store them responsibly. If we require licensing for use of things not designed to kill things, but can (Cars), why can't we require licensing for something designed to kill things? "But the big bad GubMint will have a list of all the gun owners." So? This is tinfoil hat speak. The benefits of licensing outweigh the incredibly improbable idea of the government taking everyone's guns away. Besides, they would do a house-to-house search anyway if they wanted to disarm everyone. The second amendment allows the people to protect themselves from the government In other words, this argument says "If I feel the government is being tyrannical, the constitution gives me the right to armed insurrection." Let's look at the second amendment: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Contrast this with Article III, Sec. 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. And Article I, Sec. 8: [Congress shall have the power] To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain a navy; To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; First, I want to point out that the constitution is quite clear that insurrection is NOT a right. Not only can it arguably meet the constitution's definition of treason, the constitution specifically empowers the government to put down insurrections. I'm at work, I don't have my notes for specific quotes on me, but the second thing I want to bring up is the history of the second amendment. And I don't mean the NRA's revisionist history of the amendment. The very first draft, which sadly failed to reach the committee floor it was discussed in (which makes it easy for the NRA to omit mentioning it), specifically forbade the government from establishing a permanent army. Many of the founders distrusted standing armies. Want proof? Look back at the first line in my Article I quote: "To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;" The idea was simple: if it had to be vote on every two years, armies would only be around when needed. Sadly, these bills became rubber-stamp bills. In modern times, we call these bills "National Defense Authorization Acts," or NDAA's for short. Of course, not having an army, what happens if someone invades us? Well, firstly we have a navy. Notice how there are no restrictions on the navy in A1S8. A strong navy can prevent them from landing. But if they do, we need people to fight of course! Hence the militia comes in. The idea was to have local militias, under tight regulation, that would be trained and ready for duty. Notice how this is all in A1S8 as well. Now, it is kind of hard to have a militia if you ban guns, so the language about right to bear arms was added in. The Founders were not monolithic. There were different opinions floating around then, too. There was debate and compromise, and eventually a version reached the floor that made no mention of standing armies, but kept all the stuff about militias and right to bear arms and added a religious exemption from conscription. More debate and compromise, and we end up with the weirdest sentence in all of the constitution: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. A little history, and you see that the second amendment provides for citizens to grab their guns and fight FOR the government, not against it. Also remember, this was before the invention of the Gatling Gun. The vast majority of guns were still muzzle-loaders. This is why the constitution is somewhat vague: Times change. The ability to adapt to the change is perhaps the most genius part of the document, even if it only came about from the acts of compromise. And one more point, the populace in many countries run by tinpot dictators are well-armed. You don't see those dictators falling everywhere to guns. In fact, recently, more dictators have fallen peacefully, especially in the middle east, Libya and Syria excluded. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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