Posted on 05/15/2003 3:22:25 PM PDT by Drew68
Yo! Sly, you pathetic piece of cr@p. What's sad to me is you appearing in all those movies glorifying violence and the often inappropriate use of firearms lecturing me.
Only by the most tortured of definitions, and taking these simple words out of the context of the time in which they were written, could one conclude that they referred to a "national guard" or other "army" of the state.
To do so means that the Founding Fathers went to the trouble of writing a special amendment that would insure that the right of an army to bear arms shall not be infringed.
To paraphrase Gallagher, "Were they that f***ing stupid?"
Now I gotta go buy a new gun.
It couldn't possibly be because UK gun violence is skyrocketing following the 1997 confiscatory ban on handguns?
Disenfranchising soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and their families? Isn't that what Gore tried to do lately?
This to me is a shocking quote from him. Makes me want to send the NRA some more money, and I don't even own a gun.
And one other thing; 'not come easily' is a huge understatement. The Second is the guarantor of them all, and she won't fall without copious bloodshed.
That is different. Soldiers *earn* their keep, unlike welfare recipients. Free housing, etc. for the military is not really free as it is offered in exchanged for the paltry sums that soldiers are paid.
Add, "except those provided in exchange for services rendered." Then raise the salaries of our miliary members so that they no longer need foodstamps and subsidized housing (over and above their housing allowance and salary)
At least half of the threat to our homeland comes from our own government, the very people who are trying to disarm us.
Yep!
If congress passed a law tomorrow requiring every gun owner to surrender their firearms --and-- if 90% of the population complied, there would still be 6+ million gun owners owning 20+ million firearms.
In reality, it would be unlikely if even 50% complied to such an order.
The effort to seize guns from the non-compliant would be a bloody undertaking indeed!
Yeah, but one has to be careful when drafting the proposal! *grin*
I think we all agree that while Servicemembers ought to be franchised, and handout recipients ought not to be, what about the civilian employees of government? They surely have an incentive to vote for higher taxes and bigger government, just like the handout recipients...
1.An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2.A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3.The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.
And "well regulated" does not mean regulated by government, but rather properly functioning. I put "well regulated" and "appetite" into a search engine looking for a quote from an old version of the Oxforde English dictionary. Instead I found lots of medical and vetenary articles speaking of "well regulated" cats, dogs , diabetes, etc. Here is one such article, which speaks of a "well regulated" household, which from the context clearly means properly or smoothly functioning.
I knew the term was quite common up through the mid 1800s, but had no idea it was still in common use in some circles having nothing do with guns or militias or even politics. Additional one still speaks of a clock or a gun being properly regulated, in the first case meaning that it keeps good time, and in the second meaning that it shoots where it's supposed to, or when refering to double barrelled weapons, as it's most commonly used, that the barrells shoot to the same point, like they are supposed. to.
Thus a "well-regulated" militia is merely one that works properly.
It is not only weird, it is absurd in the extreme.
LOSERS! EVERY ONE!
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government,no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible."
-U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Democrat from Minnesota, 1960
"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens."
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 29
"The best we can hope for, concerning the people at large, is that they be properly armed."
-Alexander Hamilton
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense...."
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No.28
"These Sarah Brady types must be educated to understand that because we have an armed citizenry, that a dictatorship has not happened in America. These anti-gun fools are more dangerous to Liberty than street criminals or foreign spies."
-Theodore Haas, Dachau Survivor
"There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people were not "brainwashed" about gun ownership and had been well armed. ... Gun haters always want to forget the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is a perfect example of how a ragtag, half-starved group of Jews took 10 handguns and made asses out of the Nazis."
-Theodore Haas, Dachau Survivor
"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense... "
-John Adams, 1788, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471
"And that the said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms..."
-Samuel Adams, Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788; "Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789
"Mr. Madison has introduced his long expected amendments... The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people."
-Fisher Ames, Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 1789
"Passing more gun laws will not stop crime, I think we should more strictly enforce existing laws and try and heal our nation's social woes instead of passing more laws".
-George W. Bush
"If a gun bill will pass because of the politics of the situation, you must see to it that its burdens are imposed upon a man because of a criminal background and not because he is an ordinary citizen and perhaps poor."
-Gen. James H. Doolittle
"The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman — should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offence and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be over emphasized."
-General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1943
"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered individuals...It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
-Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789
"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense is the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety, as in our own hands?"
-Patrick Henry, in Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed. 1836, v.3 p.168
"Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people."
-Patrick Henry, 1782 speech
"First, the Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenseless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided."
-Patrick Henry
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776
"Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation."
-Charles Krauthammer, columnist, Washington Post, April 5, 1996
"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... [where] the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
-James Madison, The Federalist, No. 46
"A people armed and free forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression."
-James Madison
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually. . . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers."
-George Mason, Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788
"That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free state."
-George Mason, declaration of "the essential and unalienable Rights of the People," later adopted by the Virginia ratification convention, 1788
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them."
-U.S. Ambassador to Japan, April 20, 1994
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
-John F. Kennedy
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-John F. Kennedy
"I am pleased to accept Life Membership in the National Rifle Association and extend to your organization every good wish for continued success."
-John F. Kennedy, March 20, 1961
"By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia', the 'security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms', our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important."
-Senator John F. Kennedy, April 1960
"I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly argue with all the world to lay aside the use of arms and settle matters by negotiation, but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power."
-Writings of Thomas Paine 56 (M. Conway ed. 1894)
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by rule of construction be conceived to give the Congress the power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."
-William Rawle, 1825; considered academically to be an expert commentator on the Constitution. He was offered the position of the first Attorney General of the United States, by President Washington.
"The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world... The first step — in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come — is to teach men to shoot!"
-President Theodore Roosevelt's last message to Congress.
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined."
-George Washington, First Annual Address, January 8, 1790.
"There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy."
-George Washington
"When firearms go, all goes - we need them every hour."
-George Washington
"Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."
-Noah Webster, An Examination of The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787
"Gun control has cleared the way for seven major genocides since 1915, in which governments gone bad murdered 56,000,000 persons, including millions of children."
-Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
GOT THAT JACKASSES!! Take your quote list against mine and see your arguments dissolve like a bleeding heart.
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