Posted on 12/08/2008 11:20:28 AM PST by SecAmndmt
Gun Control: Protecting Terrorists and Despots
Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the city of Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people, and terrorizing thousands.
Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many?
India’s gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy.
Gun control advocates tell us that removing guns from society makes us safer. If that were the case why do the worst shootings happen in gun free zones, like schools? And while accidents do happen, aggressive, terroristic shootings like this are unheard of at gun and knife shows, or military bases. It bears repeating that an armed society truly is a polite society.
The fact is that firearm technology exists. It cannot be uninvented. As long as there is metalworking and welding capability, it matters not what gun laws are imposed upon law-abiding people. Those that wish to have guns, and disregard the law, will have guns. Gun control makes violence safer and more effective for the aggressive, whether the aggressor is a terrorist or a government.
History shows us that another tragedy of gun laws is genocide. Hitler, for example, knew well that in order to enact his “final solution,” disarmament was a necessary precursor. While it is not always the case that an unarmed populace WILL be killed by their government, if a government is going to kill its own people, it MUST disarm them first so they cannot fight back. Disarmament must happen at a time when overall trust in government is high, and under the guise of safety for the people, or perhaps the children. Knowing that any government, no matter how idealistically started, can become despotic, the Founding Fathers enabled the future freedom of Americans by enacting the second amendment.
In our own country, we should be ever vigilant against any attempts to disarm the people, especially in this economic downturn. I expect violent crime to rise sharply in the coming days, and as states and municipalities are even more financially strained, the police will be even less able or willing to respond to crime. In many areas, local police could become more and more absorbed with revenue generating activities, like minor traffic violations and the asset forfeiture opportunities of non-violent drug offenses. Your safety has always, ultimately been your own responsibility, but never more so than now. People have a natural right to defend themselves. Governments that take that away from their people should be highly suspect.
This is sad and wrong. And it makes Ron Paul not very libertarian -- or very useful to the world.
One other thing that you conveniently forget is that the person who wrote the Constitution (James Madison) was President at the time of the Second Barbary Pirates war. Where Congress authorized Madison to deploy Naval ships against Algiers.
There was no “declaration of war” to start this war. Do you think you know the intent of the Constitution better than the person who wrote it?
I think you’re getting stuck on stupid here.
Go back and read that report to Congress. I think his history is pretty good and I respect his assessment and opinion more than yours.
It is widely held that there are declared and undeclared war.
Your view that are authorized use of force being ‘decalred’is revisionist.
The only justification for the war in Iraq (and the Barbary Wars) without formal declaration is:
“To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;”
Iraq did violate the terms of the cease fire that it agreed to after the first Gulf War. However, since that war was also waged without a formal declaration, you can make the argument that it was illegitimate.
At any rate, this whole situation would be much better with a formal declaration. The Congress does not have the power to grant the President authority that he is not given by the Constitution. And since Article 2 Section 2 makes clear that the President requires that the armed forces be “called into actual service” before he can be commander in chief (otherwise all rules and regulations governing the military are to be made by the Congress), the congress cannot authorize the president to call the military into service on his own.
You are the one that is stuck on stupid since you cannot comprehend basic english. Again, nowhere in the Constitution does it say Congress has to make a declaration of war. It says Congress has the power to declare war. A verb, not a noun. How they choose to declare war is up to them.
You don’t have to respect my opinion (as I don’t yours). However, would you respect the opinion of James Madison who wrote the Constitution and did not have a formal declaration of war for the 2nd Barbary Pirates war, but Congress passed a law directing him to use the Navy to fight against the Barbary Pirates? I guess not.
We both know that there is no magic formula or encantation for declaring war. However, you haven’t shown me where the Constitution authorizes a Use Of Force in leu of a Declaration of War.
Congress can declare war. Historically there are declared and undeclared wars. Historically. Whether you like it or not.
The Gulf Wars are UNDECLARED wars. Whether you like it or not.
If you read that document I linked for you you'd see that and the barbary pirate issue, too.
Are you 12 and unattended? If not, why the constant name calling?
A formal declaration of war is unambiguous. No one can vote for war then crawdad out of it. A resolution of force is as undefined as it is undeclared.
The Democrats took advantage of the ambiguous nature of the resolution of force by weasling out and back tracking. If they'd voted for WAR then there is not question that there will be bloodshed, violence, and loses.
You are fighting a losing battle.
History recognizes DECLARED and UNDECLARED wars. You are trying to change that.
That makes you a Revisionist!
Straw man arguments only show the weakness of your own thinking.
Were the Barbary Pirate battles declared or undeclared war?
I’ll answer that, they were undeclared.
You seem to be in denial and in need to invent facts.
FWIW, what would Washington, Jefferson, or Madison say about our current Gulf War? Would they approve of a multinational force in an undeclared war invading and occupying another soveriegn country?
You can classify wars any way you want. I happen to have fought in one “undeclared” war and in two other “actions”. Guess what? People got killed in them. War is war. Perhaps in some white paper submitted to Congress or maybe in a course on history you can classify them as declared and undeclared wars, but when I was in the Marine Corps we called them all wars. We didn’t have the time, inclination or luxury of figuring out what to classify them.
You are the one in denial. Whatever you want to classify these events as, the fact is they are constitutional. That was the main point to begin with. The Constitution says that Congress has the power to declare war. The Constitution is silent on what the procedure is for declaring war. My educated guess is that was on purpose so that the government would have flexibility in these situations based on circumstances that came up.
My guess is educated based on the writings of the founders and based on their actions when they ran the first governments. The First and Second Barbary Pirates were are very instructive in that the vast majority of the people in our government (at that time) were founding fathers. It is reasonable to suppose that they should be the experts above anyone today. They used Congressional acts to authorize both President Jefferson and President Madison to use the Navy and Marines to attack the Barbary Pirate nations. That is war.
Based on that information, I can confidently say that both Madison and Jefferson would have deemed the process by which we went to war in Iraq (Iraq War resolution passed by Congress) constitutional. Since Washington was dead by the Barbary Pirates war, we don’t know what he would say. However, Madison wrote the Constitution, Bill of Rights and many Federalist papers. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. There are no more authorities than these two on what our founding fathers thought was constitutional and unconstitutional. They had a hand in all of our four founding documents. I can only speculate (as you would) if they would have voted yes or no if they were in Congress. But they would not have had a problem with the process which was the whole point.
You keep making references to me as if I must be some 12 year old. Well, if there are any 12 year olds with a BS degree from a college university, then I guess I could be 12. I wish I were 12 years old again. Perhaps you are the toddler since you fail to grasp basic points. More likely, you are just blinded by your hatred of Bush and love of Ron Paul. Bush has many faults which I could take the rest of this post listing. How he went to war and the Afghan War and Iraq war are not among them.
Don't use that as en excuse to be lazy and ignorant.
There have been exactly five times where war was formally declared and you cannot change that.
There is a model for the congress to fully express in unambiguous terms their intent to pull out all stops and to take the fight to the end of surrender.
Obviously the Barbary Pirate wars, Korea, and VN did not fit that model. And let me remind you that there has never been a surrender in either Korea or VN.
You keep making references to me as if I must be some 12 year old.
My 13 year old doesn't continue readressing issues that are moot. We both know that the Consitution doesn't give a formula for declaring war, yet you trumpet that as if you discovered it and the rest of us are still scratching our heads on it. Not the case.
Here's a simple thing to do: go to an older history book or go to google and look up 'declared wars' and you'll see that there are declared and undeclared wars. This isn't an ideal restricted only to academia and DC White Papers, but an idea that is commonly accepted throughout the population.
Give it a try, post a vanity simply asking if Korea or VN were declared or undeclared wars. Not a question of whether congress authorized them but if the were declared or undeclared wars.
Congress has certainly authorized force in the past and that isn't the question. The US has all kinds of 'legal' authority to enforce UN Sanctions, no question about that.
But did enforcing those sanctions include invading a country, toppling its government, occupying the country and installing a new government?
IMO those are acts and consequences of war not simply using force to enforce UN sanctions.
Politically speaking, if a president doesn't have enough evidence to convince congress to declare war then he shouldn't try to conduct it under a ruse or else he risks losing his support. And that is what happened to Bush. When it was politically expedient his opponents withdrew their support and created obstacles for him to continue with the war.
Had he asked for and obtained a declaration of war then it would be clear to all that it was no holds barred to submission, not just enough holds to restrain or pacify the enemy.
BTW, the Founders and next generation also knew enough about the Constitution that they FORMALLY declared war in 1812.
What is that sound? Is that the air going out of your argument?
Awwwwwww......too bad!
You are a fool and perhaps better go consult your 13 year old as I’m sure he has more sense. I originally responded to your implied assertions that the Iraq war was unconstitutional. Many Ron Paulnuts make this claim and it is simply not true.
Whether a war is declared or undeclared is moot to my original and only point. What George Bush did going into Iraq was CONSTITUTIONAL. I’m tired of hearing Ron Paulnuts claim that it wasn’t a declared war and therefore wasn’t constitutional.
All of my arguments have been to defend this, yet you constantly try to go down rabbit paths to get off the original thing I responded to. Yes, historians have classified wars as declared and undeclared. For the purposes of this discussion, I don’t care about that. The wars that were undeclared were still CONSTITUTIONAL (Barbary Pirates I and II, VietNam etc.) so it does not matter what historians have classified them as.
Again, the Iraq war was CONSTITUTIONAL. You say that I keep going an issue that does not matter, yet it was the only issue I brought up. You keep going over something that was never in the original discussion (declared and undeclare wars). You have a comprehension problem.
Back to square one.
Oh, btw, you can leave the Ron Paul pejoritives out of it as it looks like you get a nut every time you use it. You gain no more credibility that way.
The Founders and subsequent Congressess knew how to formally declare war because they did that on five different occaissions.
What Congress did for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom was not a formal declaration of war. They purposely did not formally declare war.
I’m questioning the propriety of conducting war without declaring war.
You seem to be saying that it is ok, no matter, it is all the same. Is that correct?
And does the child being visited have an uncle named Roy.
Oooo...owwwww.....ohhhh....wow that hurt! LOL I guess now you have to change your shorts, right?
Based on US history there seems to be a time to declare war and a time to use military force without a formal declaration.
It seems to me you are saying that there is no difference, either way is just the same thing, it doesn't matter.
And I'm disagreeing, saying that there is a time and place to formally declare war.
OIF/OEF as it has been conducted should have been a declared war. IMO we have conducted a war (not just a use of military force) without declaring war.
And the reality is that the Congress did not formally declare war and the US has waged war on Iraq but failed to do so by declaring war.
I see a difference in using or projecting force and waging war. We should not be waging war without declaring war.
If there is not point in declaring war, the what is the point of the Constitution saying it?
Is it to peohibit the president from declaring war?
Maybe but if the President can conduct war without declaring war, and there is no differnce between waging war and using force or dclaring or not declaring war, then what is the point?
The point is the the Founders did not want anyone but Congress to have the authority to commit the US to wage war on other nations.
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