Posted on 01/17/2013 8:29:38 PM PST by neverdem
The public discourse suddenly swirls angrily around this issue: How big a gun should people be allowed to own, with how many bullets? Despite all the furor, the question has a very simple answer. But it's the wrong question.
Even those who routinely carry a concealed weapon, and certainly many who don't, wrestle with the question, "How much firepower does anyone need?" Perhaps those who don't own weapons think the answer should be very close to zero. Those who know that many times each year violent attacks are stopped when someone simply shows a weapon understand that self-defense tools are legitimate and necessary, but still worry about where the line should be above that level.
Legislators are hurriedly drafting a variety of bills to answer the question, phrasing them in terms of how evil a weapon looks, whether it automatically chambers the next shell for you, and how many cartridges it can feed. For those more knowledgeable about guns, the real concern is with things far beyond the personal defense category: rocket-propelled grenades, for example, the sort of things jihadists bring to a party at the U.S. embassy.
Here are some simple, foundational ideas to help sort it out.
The first principle is that the federal government has no constitutional say whatsoever in the size or quantity of weapons maintained by the people -- because that very government is the most dangerous person in the room. The Second Amendment has one purpose: to ensure that "we the people" can withstand a tyrannical government, for perhaps the first time in history. The writings of James Madison (Federalist #46), among others, make that abundantly clear...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
AND it will come as a complete shock to them.
Yep, as it has every single time throughout history.
Too bad about that boating accident...
The Occupants and Sodom and Gomorrah were TOLD what would happen, but they were too busy trying to sodomize the angels.
"You don't say."
*shrug* Everybody dies. How many guys get chance to sodomize an angel?
I did misspeak. They do have one use. Targets.
I hear that those Sonatas have plenty of engine. Problem is they run out of suspension at those speeds, and then...
BLAMMO!
I am not trying to be smart, but I don’t have a clue what mylife is talking about. Does he think the suspension blows up at high speed? In my younger years I took several cars north of 120. I doubt whether the suspension in those cars were any better than that found in a Sonata. Of course they all had several hundred pounds of detroit cast iron leading the way which may have helped add some stablity. (Heavy objects tend to want to go in a straight line.)
Happens every day.
No. I am saying it does not have a suspension made for those speeds.
It’s not a matter of weapon size. The Constitution says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. The sentence ends there. There are no qualifiers.
Pic properties say the guy's name is Kirill Kuzmin. Looks like a Russian immigrant (okay, maybe from another former SSR) brought something of the old country with him -- token of his former service in The Suck, maybe?
Whatever. Looks like he's ready to show Barky's NBP peeps how to parrr-tay.
Sucker's 23mm at least, maybe 30. Just damn! I do believe that will stop Agent Hotchner's big black SUV.
When you see that Warthog coming with its big gun and a rack of Mavericks slung underneath, you’d better have a tiny cave in a big mountain handy.
It's not a throwdown that Madison was correct here about the shoving match between federal and state governments, by the way. The Civil War gave these ideas a severe test, and a lot of people would say that the answer was "FAIL".
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.
For your information.
It certainly sounds like Madison is talking about us, doesn't it?
They designed that gun for Todd and Sarah Palin -- LOL!
The amount of firepower needed is an individual decision, and not up to the government. The right to have arms is not based on need. We have a right to whatever we deem is needed.
We don’t tell the ritzy and ditzy entertainers/news people or the crazy congress critters how many security guards they need, and they should not be telling us what we need.
If they feel that restrictions are needed, let them start with their own brain dead selves and their security people and procedures.
A .308 to the .338 Lapua
A .308 to the .338 Lapua
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