Posted on 09/11/2007 9:52:52 AM PDT by JZelle
Over the past 30 years, I've been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I've thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.
People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.
Make no mistake: all politicians—even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership—hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician—or political philosophy—can be put.
If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash—for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.
If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.
What his attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?
(Excerpt) Read more at lneilsmith.org ...
You think this prevents criminals from getting guns? Really?
But look at it another way. If something is a "right" they why do you have to ask permission to exercise it? The egregious Brady law forces up to ask the government's permission to exercise a right. Hence it is no longer a right, but a privilege. So with the passage of the instant background check, the right to purchase firearms went away to be replaced by the privilige to purchase firearms at the government's discretion.
Let me assure you. With something as destructive as a nuclear bomb, the general welfare clause comes in to play.
I thnk that ordinance of lesser power would easily fit into the general welfare clause.
I think natural law would come into play, remember those set of God given rights we all have that we chose to surrender a very few of in the process of forming a federal government. Therefor, if I knew a neighbor had a nuclear explosive devise, the God given right to self preservation would allow me to take it away from them and deliver it to someone who could render it useless.
I would take it no matter how thoroughly documented their ownersip was or die trying.
The FFL is licensed under the Commerce Clause, because they're involved in an interstate market. The instant background check applies to any transaction they wish to make. The intent of the background check is to make sure they do not sell to prohibited persons, because they have forfeited their right as I explained above. Even the FFL is not obtaining permission, it's a requirement. The result of the background check just says there are no records that disqualify the buyer, or their are.
The background check does not amount to the buyer having to ask permission. The buyer only has to provide his name and fill out a form, which asks questions regarding the disqualifies. That does not infringe on their right to keep and bear arms. The disqualifies have a potential to do that, such as Lautenberg, but most of the others don't. So, it's the disqualifiers that may infringe on the right, not the check itself.
"You think this prevents criminals from getting guns? Really?"
It prevents them from engaging in the legal market. That is good enough. There's no logical reason to allow a freshly released thug, or psycho to walk out of a gun store with a smile on their face. Let them walk out with a frown mummbling to themslves.
You didn't list weapons of mass destruction, but I assure you that one can indeed walk into a hardware store and buy them. You listed what are basically small arms, which have specific and limited capability.
You can only be sure of that, because no one had any at hand.
Yer first name wouldn't happen to be mohamed would it?
Nonsense. Up is down and black is white. OK if it doesn't ask permission how come some people are allowed and some are denied? Your dancing around the facts is worthy of Josh Sugarman.
It prevents them from engaging in the legal market. That is good enough.
Again false. All this does is force the criminals underground and give the government a record of the what law abiding citizens are buying. A destruction of your rights by any other name. Frankly I don't care where criminals and psychos get their guns. They will get them. Only a hopeless optimist or a democrat or a member of Brady's organozations would argue that this gun control (or any gun control) does any good.
Typical. -- Unable to present your anti-gun views in a rational fashion, you stoop to juvenile name calling.
Be ashamed.
I explained that clearly already.
Re: It prevents them from engaging in the legal market. That is good enough.
"Again false.
LOL! It's near 100% effective.
"All this does is force the criminals underground and give the government a record of the what law abiding citizens are buying. "
Wrong. Congress forbid keeping the records. The only records are the 44xxs collected after an FFL retires their business.
"A destruction of your rights by any other name."
No, as I said, no rights are violated, except possibly by particular disqualifiers themselves.
No silly. Check the whole thread. My point in even asking the question was to point out that not every explosive/destructive device is protected for your use under the 2nd amendment. Not everything that goes BOOM is covered under the term “arms”.
Look you weasely little whiney baby. You were the one who started calling me a four -flusher and cr@p in your first post to me.
Get off your high horse for long enough to realize one thing. You aren’t God’s Protector of the Constitution empowered to put others down who disagree with you over it’s meaning all while crying a river if they point you out to be the antisocial overreacting nut that you are in return!
“Day 309: The democrats haven’t ended the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”.
I enjoyed the article but this comment lead on L. Neil Smith’s website is off the charts!
You explained NOTHING. You gave a bunch of nonsense that sounded like Brady sound bites.
LOL! It's near 100% effective.
Try nearly 0% 100% effective would mean that there are no armed criminals. Somehow that hasn't happened.
Wrong. Congress forbid keeping the records
Ohh then OF COURSE the feebs aren't keeping them.
Your response is notably w/o substance and you were given a complete and understandable blueprint of the law and how the law applies to rights.
Re: "LOL! It's near 100% effective.
" Try nearly 0% 100% effective would mean that there are no armed criminals. Somehow that hasn't happened."
Ridiculous! You're simply ignoring the fact that the IBC applies to the legal market only.
Re: Wrong. Congress forbid keeping the records
"Ohh then OF COURSE the feebs aren't keeping them.
If they are, it's illegal. If they are, it only matters to those that know they will inevitably never defend their rights. The rest don't give a damn what they do, because ultimately if they use them, the rest will be up to the challenge.
I'm curious about what support you have for your belief that the 2ndAm was written to include every weapon or destructive device known to an 18th century soldier.
When Paul Revere rode through town yelling, "To arms...to arms!", I am quite sure no one grabbed an explosive mine or cannon.
Spunkets:
You can only be sure of that, because no one had any at hand.
Curious denial of history you two posit. Cannons and black powder were "at hand" in colonial America to any ordinary person who had a use for them.
I'm curious about where you two got your belief that the 2nd was written to enable restrictions on the ownership of weapons or destructive devices known to an 18th century soldier.
Sounds like the discredited book -- "Arming America, The Origins of a National Gun Culture" By MICHAEL A. BELLESILES.
It's no wonder that you can't understand that it is possible for the Constitution to guarantee something which might be a very bad idea, such as the right to keep a nuclear weapon.
You don't even seem to understand that the amendments to the Constitution post-date and supercede the main text of the Constitution. You wouldn't claim that the "general welfare" clause permits freedom of speech to be abridged, would you?
Nothing whatever in the original text of the Constitution can reduce in the slightest the protection afforded by the Second Amendment.
GulfBreeze also said: "Therefor, if I knew a neighbor had a nuclear explosive devise, the God given right to self preservation would allow me to take it away from them and deliver it to someone who could render it useless."
Bully for you. And this differs from the Brady Bunch, who make the same claim regarding handguns, just how? Will you confiscate and burn your neighbor's books if you fear that they might harm you?
The Constitution is a compact among free people. I stopped being morally bound by this covenant when the state of Kalifornia began its draconian program of gun control, despite my inalienable right to keep and bear arms.
It sounds to me like you, too, have decided that the provisions of the Constitution are not to your liking. Thus you, too, are morally free to disregard it.
But what we don't have justification to do, is to pick and choose from among the details of the Constitution. You can't expect protection from the First Amendment while owning other people as property which is forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment.
Don't be surprised, then, if at some future time the mutual rejection of this compact by the two of us has unintended consequences. I might not be able to distinguish between your lawless disregard of the Second Amendment with respect to nuclear arms, and the lawless disregard of the BATFE and Brady Bunch with respect to "assault weapons" or handguns.
Try nearly 0% --
100% effective would mean that there are no armed criminals. Somehow that hasn't happened.
Spunkets cries "Ridiculous!":
You're simply ignoring the fact that the IBC applies to the legal market only.
Amusing wordgaming, seeing that the rational objection to the "instant check' is that it infringes on the rights of only "legal" buyers.
You lawyerly types are so caught up in your own bizarrely 'clever' applications of language, -- that you no longer understand common english law or logic.
PAy attn. No one had any at hand in Lexington and Concord.
"I'm curious about where you two got your belief that the 2nd was written to enable restrictions on the ownership of weapons or destructive devices known to an 18th century soldier."
Try exercising your curiosity and go find where I said anything like that.
"Sounds like the discredited book -- "Arming America, The Origins of a National Gun Culture" By MICHAEL A. BELLESILES."
I'd say your post was generated using the same techniques that he did. Have some coffee and wake up.
It was a conclusion based on faulty logic, thus irrational.
"Amusing wordgaming, seeing that the rational objection to the "instant check' is that it infringes on the rights of only "legal" buyers."
You never were able to explain how an instant background check infringes on any right. At most all anyone can show is that it's a petty inconvenience. That inconvenience is justified by the fact that the instant background check is near 100% effetive in excluding disqualified felons and crazies from the legal market. It's a moral thing that most people are happy to see accomplished.
"You lawyerly types are so caught up in your own bizarrely 'clever' applications of language, -- that you no longer understand common english law or logic."
Amazing! How about this language? You couldn't find your ass if it was handed to ya.
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