BUSH'S ASSAULT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

The problem for bomb throwers is that there are all kinds of compromises that have to be made along the way in life - and guys like this writer are incapable of making them.

Bush is doing the exact same thing when he signed the CCW law for Texas. There are two Bills that will arm the Pilots and when one of them passes the House and Senate, Bush will sign the Bill over the objections of the anti-gun, anti-self defense dems. Bush's popularity goes up with that of the Republicans. The anti-gun dems start to become a distant memory and life goes on. Politics 101.

Main Line of Mid-America said: 'I fail to understand the fixation on Waco and Ruby Ridge. They were bad. They were the result of bad decisions by a whole bunch of people, some, or even many, of whom are not evil, they're just civil servants."

Waco and Ruby Ridge are the outcome of infringements of the right to keep and bear arms, not "bad decisions".

People who understand the Constitution and the Second Amendment understand when the boot of the tyrant is on their neck. They can sense that the perpetrators of injustice will see to it that they are punished for opposing the tyranny. Both Weaver and Koresh knew that surrender would be followed by lies. The lies told in the aftermath of these brutal outrages prove them right.

I tire of hearing that free people must wait for "due process" when the Second Amendment is clearly being infringed.

Why should I have to submit to a day in court because Kalifornia has decided that I may not own a rifle with a pistol grip? I can feel the foot of the tyrant on my neck.

William:

I think you misunderstand my point. I was agreeing with one_particular_harbour's point that Waco and Ruby Ridge were not the result of conspiracies, but were the understandable outcome of bureaucratic organizations operating in an incompetent and hamhanded fashion.

Check out this recent post:

Twin Titanics: The FBI and CIA are first of all bureaucracies

(I hope this works--I'm in way over my head with this HTML stuff).

The above post summarizes what I was trying to say--the FBI, CIA, and Fed Govt. in general is too damned big and powerful to operate correctly, that is, in the interest of the citizenry. Therefore we get Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc. And both o_p_h and I acknowledge that Reno, Clinton, et. al. were and are really bad folks who used these organizations for their own ends.

I'd wager the BATF and FBI agents didn't do the things they did in order to subvert the 2nd Amendment. They were operating in their own bureaucratic environment in response to the incentives of their particular organizations. And yeah, a part of it was Reno, etc. manipulating events for their own ends. But it wasn't a vast conspiracy.

What happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge shouldn't have happened and the perpetrators should be brought to justice. It won't happen. Again, a consequence of too much government which is what the Constitution was supposed to protect us from. Large parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights have been disregarded by the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary over the years as it suited them at the time. So we end up with an all-powerful out-of-control government monster that stomps on those who get in the way. These events are the culmination of a long string of errors and crimes against the Constitution. It isn't simply a 2A matter.

I'm as big a supporter of the 2nd Amendment as you are. I own firearms of different types and calibers, which I won't detail here. I'm in the market for a scattergun at the moment.

Agreed that both were preventable, by both sides.

The use of the power of the State against the citizens must be with done with extreme caution. For all the talk of our right to bear arms as a bulwark against tyranny (which it is), the Feds can bring to bear overwhelming firepower against any individual or small group. Witness both outcomes.

It is a tragedy that so many Americans don't see how far we have fallen away from the founding principals of limited government. Now we have a new bureucracy "protecting" us at the airport. Feel safer? I don't.

Main Line of Mid-America said: "I think you misunderstand my point. "

I think that I do understand what you are saying.

Our comments are not incompatible. I am trying to stress that I believe that our Founders passed a Constitution which was designed to grant the central government only those powers which were absolutely necessary. Most matters of life and death were to be left in the individual citizen's capable hands.

For example, there is no indication that the Constitution would allow the feeding of anyone who was not acting in the service of the government. This is despite the fact that people who do not eat will die.

The few matters of life and death which the central government does control have to do with declarations of war, punishment for treason, etc. The bungling and bureaucracy was expected and was a necessary trade-off to get the desired centralized results.

The Second Amendment clearly protects my right to keep and bear arms and any tax of that right is an infringement.

The "unintended" consequences of the government treading in an area of life and death where they have no business being is, in fact, quite predictable. The bungling is expected and the infringement is unConstitutional. The former is a consequence of collective action and the latter is a consequence of the corruption of power.

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.