Posted on 01/18/2005 11:25:23 AM PST by newsgatherer
Handgun Control Inc. says it wants to keep handguns out of the hands of the wrong people. Guess what. If you are a law abiding citizen who owns a handgun you have the "wrong hands."
Banning guns works. That is why New York and Chicago have such high murder rates.
Washington D.C. which has strict gun controls has a murder rate of 69 per 100,000. Indianapolis, without them has an awesome murder rate of 9 per 100,000. Gun control works.
You can incapacitate an intruder with tear gas or oven spray. If you shoot him with a .357 he will get angry and kill you.
A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman standing with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
The "New England Journal of Medicine" has some excellent articles on gun control just as "The American Rifleman" carries equally great articles on open-heart surgery.
The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, refers to the National Guard which was created in 1903, 112 years later.
The "right of the people peaceably to assemble" and "the right of the people to be secure in their homes" refers to individuals while "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.
One should consult an automobile technician for vehicle repairs, a computer programmer for problems with your hard drive and Sara Brady for firearms expertise.
Most citizens cannot be trusted so we need firearms laws because we can trust citizens to abide by them.
If you are not familiar with most of the above you have not been following the firearms debate. In fact you haven't tuned in to the liberals who still have their hands in your pockets and on your firearms even though the pounding defeats ...
(Excerpt) Read more at Christian-news-in-maine.com ...
Like taking a cannon to a battle site, rolling it into position, and firing it?
"The court did three things. 1) They stated that without evidence, they could not say that this weapon was protected under the second amendment, 2) They stated that it was not up to the USSC to make that determination, and 3) Remanded the case back down to the lower court.
The USSC did not say the weapon wasn't protected. They said they couldn't say it was protected, without more evidence. They left the door open."
True, though I am not sure what that distinction might have on the law of the land.
Dead Corpse wrote:
Actually. It has. The USSC was presented with just such a case in Silveria V Lockyer. They refused to hear it out right with no comment.
Listing the federal firearms act as an example of military arms being allowed also does not prove that such arms were in any way protected under the second.
All it proves is that the feds were regulating them.
323 by Jim Verdolini
Dead Corpse To: Jim Verdolini
Recent US DOJ study of the Second Amendment as it relates to an Individual Right. Points up the legal history, although it does not speak to the definition of Arms."
read that a while ago, even printed a copy, about 100 pages. great read and, in my view, a correct reading of intent.
341 Jim Verdolini
>>She's not really a liberal, she just gets too much news from Peter Jennings.
Try asking if she'd rather pay for Bail, or Burial?
Very little. A lot less, I think, than what is made of this case.
The case is incomplete. It was remanded to the lower courts and it died there. All we have are just a few comments, with no real decision. We have the sense that the USSC considers "arms" as those weapons that are used by a militia.
Do you see anything else coming from this one case?
Yes, they did... in the 1700's, when the flamethrower, the RPG, the anti-tank missile, the anti-aircraft missile, the ICBM, the 12-inch battleship (:-/) gun, the Howitzer, the M1A1 Abrams tank, the thermonuclear warhead, etc. had not yet been invented. I will boldly go waaaay out on a limb here and assert that the founding fathers weren't thinking WMD's when they wrote the word "arms" in that amendment.
Does it violate the true principle of the authority of the government deriving from the authority of the people if we acknowledge that there are clearly weapons which are too dangerous to entrust to the stability and judgement of one person, but rather must be entrusted to the judgment and wisdom of all the people, in the form of careful control and monitoring by elected representatives?
During the Indian wars some of our more enterprising generals offered various tribes blankets (thru third parties) which had been used to wrap the bodies of smallpox and typhus victims. Wiped out whole villiages this way.
We told them they could live on "X" spot and later found out that it was a great place to lay track for a railroad and then forced them to move to the very inhospitable Oklahoma territories where survival was problematic. Ever hear of something called The Trail of Tears?
Treating them better than the way they treated themselves? That depends on how you define "better," I guess. They treated folks from different tribes in a warriorlike manner, meaning they went to war and if they won, the other tribe was enslaved. That's not just an indian thing, it's a mankind thing. We took away their land (the good stuff) we took away many of their customs like hunting of buffalo (mostly 'cause the hide hunters durn near wiped the species off the planet)....we basically castrated their culture. Hey that's progress. The dominance of the white man was inevitable. Sorry thats just the way it is, but let's not sugarcoat things, either. And sure, the Indians were at times known for going off the reservation a-raiding and a-pillaging. Nobodys hands are clean here.
Groan. Not that argument again.
They didn't envision TV, Internet, cell phones, etc. either - your argument must apply to the 1st Amendment just as much as the 2nd. As Rwanda found out, one misused radio station can swiftly lead to genocide; should radio be exclusively run by government?
If you insist on drawing a line on the "arms" of the 2nd Amendment, you must do so via a coherent independent rationalle. Just declaring an arbitrary line (such as "no crew-served arms", or "cannons are not arms") is extremely dangerous, as there are others who would place that line far lower. By justifying the "I draw the line here" argument, you justify the Brady Bunch's desire to draw the line at Nerf bats.
The brilliance of the Constitution is that it is based on core principles reflecting unchanging human nature, and remains suitable despite advances in technology or idiocy.
That depends... Can you broadcast the 5-o'clock news from your nuclear warhead? :-)
I have seen the hollywood movies describing this but I have yet to see an actual name of a general, a date, a location, a written order or anything similar. If you have proof of this I would be interested in seeing it.
Treating them better than the way they treated themselves? That depends on how you define "better," I guess.
It's not really a matter of opinion. Indians killed more Indians then the dreaded "white man" ever did. Had one Indian tribe had the disparity of power we had possessed they would have wiped out all other tribes. Not held them in slavery, not just have stolen their horses or lands but DESTROYED them. That is objectively worse then the way we treated them. Including the trail of tears.
I'm not being an apologist for the way indians were treated or trying to "sugarcoat" anything. I'm not even sure that an apologist is needed. It's the way things were.
EXACTLY!!!! I don't teach revisionist history. I tell it like it really was, not how the liberals wish it was.
"You are simply denying that the words of the act mean what they say.
___________________________________
The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA 34):
Private individuals can possess a functional machine gun, silencer (suppressor), short-barreled rifle or shotgun, smooth-bore pistol, cane gun, or destructive device (certain shotguns, grenade launchers, hand grenades, bazookas, mortars, cannon, etc.) only after first paying a Federal Transfer Tax of either $5 or $200 per firearm/device.
__________________________________
Private individuals can possess --- --- mortars, cannon, etc.) --- "
One of the "words" you seem to miss is "only" as in "only after". Is it a "right" if one can do it "only" after one gets permission and pays a fee?
Great I'm glad to hear it. If you could tell me what generals intentionally distributed, or caused to be distributed, smallpox infected blankets, I would appreciate the information.
"Fine, you agree with the individual 'intent' of the 2nd, -- but then you turnabout and claim that our individual right to own certain types of arms can be regulated by government..
What part of our Constitution gives any level of government the power to so 'regulate' arms, in your opinion?"
Jonestown, there is a difference between "individual intent" and an unrestrained right to own anything that might be classified as an "arm".
I can find no indication that the founders ever intended this broad definition of arms. I can find specific reference to small arms. The Militia Act and the debates surrounding that speak of military small arms. There is no record of court cases supporting any other right than a right to small arms and the legal record is further limited to a right to specific types of small arms.
The government is only constrained, in reality, from doing things prohibited by the Constitution (yes I know that was the not the idea at the time but that is what has happened).
Now consider we have had a court tell us that Congress CAN regulate free political speech, flat against the clear word and intent of the founders. Do you really believe the courts could not or will not gut the 2nd if they thought it was in their interests?
I write of two things...what the Constitution really says, in my view, and the very different world in which we live where the courts speak of different "rights".
In the world we live, we have a right to small arms of a milita use and all other arms are simply allowed because no one has forbid them, as yet. If you doubt me, how do you explain various state bans on bogus assault weapons and California's recent 50cal gun grab?
Forget indignation over court and legislative attacks on the Constitution. Indignation serves no purpose. Elect politicians who will select judges who have actually read the Constitution.
Now there is an idea.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.