Posted on 10/08/2005 11:23:32 AM PDT by Whyarentlibsred
Amendment II: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Upon reading the above, it is clear to me that the first part of the Second Amendment “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,” no longer applies to the situation in America today and should be changed to better reflect valid reasons for allowing citizens to keep guns in the United States. While things may have been different in the 1700s, the days when ordinary citizens armed with light weapons (rifles and handguns) can assemble and defeat a professional military are long over. There is now a vast disparity between the amount of firepower that the average gun owner on one side, and the U.S. military on the other, could bring to a hypothetical fight, and historically even the successful guerilla movements that drove away professional armies possessed more weapons than just long arms. For example, the Afghan guerillas who defeated the Soviets possessed recoilless rifles, RPGs, and Stinger SAMs, all weapons that are banned by law from U.S. citizens today. Besides, the National Guard already fulfills the function of a State Militia, and the existence of the National Guard has almost nothing to do with guaranteeing a citizens right to bear arms. Because of these reasons, it is clear that using a well-regulated militia to defend the state as a reason to allow people to keep guns is outdated.
A much better reason to allow people to keep guns is so they can defend themselves from criminals, as demonstrated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. After Katrina, it wasn’t the government people were worried about, it was armed gangs of their fellow American citizens looting and raping that were a threat to them. The government has enough checks and balances in place to take care of itself; if some Commie dictator did win the presidency I can’t see the mainly conservative military following any orders to disarm the people or send all conservatives to reeducation camps. However, when it comes to defending his family from the ravages of his fellow citizens, a man has no choice but to rely on his own weapons. The police won’t always be there for you, but as long as concealed carry is legal, your gun will be. I think the Second Amendment should be changed to reflect this fact, that the security of the state is up to the military, but personal security is up to the nation’s individual citizens. I think a better Second Amendment would read “An individual’s ability for self-protection being necessary to a secure society, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Sure, the original intent of the founders may have been to allow citizens to form militia, and to protect against the government, but I think this bit of Constitutional reconstruction to reflect the reality that fellow citizens are more of a threat than the government ever will be is justified.
[The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.]
i don't think hoax is the right word as both quotations are both pertaining to confiscation...
As far as I've seen, most posts have disagreed with points from my first post, and not been personal attacks and the like. I'm guessing that most trouble other people have had has come from the way they've presented themselves (ie they were looking for trouble.)
On guns: Conversely, could we argue that most existing firearms legislation is unconstitutional because it is too restrictive of the types of arms that citizens are allowed to carry? Looking at New Orleans again, it's not too hard to concieve of a situation where gun control laws prevented the populance from posessing the weaponry that would allow them to protect themselves from criminals. Since the Second Amendment was created to allow citizens to defend themselves, and the hypothetical gun control laws prevented citizens from doing that effectively, it could be said that such laws were an illegal restriction on the rights of citizens to defend themselves and should be abolished.
I think Katrina will probably be a boost to those who want to let people keep their guns. The government was obviously not there when people needed it to be there, and its a bit hard to argue that legally obtained guns cause crimes when the guns in the hands of looters were stolen and the only thing protecting some people were their own personal weapons.
Most of the responses I've seen have been replying to points in my first post, and not personal attacks or the like. I'm guessing that problems other people have had have come from the way they presented themselves (ie they were looking for trouble)
On guns: Conversely, could we argue that most existing gun legislation is illegal because it is too restrictive of the types of arms citizens are allowed to carry? As pointed out somewhere in the thread, the Second does specify arms, not guns specifically.
I think Katrina will probably be a boost to those who want to let citizens keep their guns. In this situation the government was not there when people needed it to be there, so the only defense they could rely on was what they could come up with themselves. And its a bit hard to argue that legally obtained weapons caused crime when the guns in the hands of looters were stolen, and legally obtained weapons were the ones doing the defending.
Germany required firearm licensing and registration in 1928, several years before Hitler got in power in 1933.
The 1928 "Law on Firearms and Ammunition" is shown in side-by-side German and English in "Gun Control" -Gateway to Tyranny, available from the JPFO site linked above. I have a copy.
You are ignorant...get an education.
In answer to your screen name...THEY ARE!
My apologies.
Not sure. Nothing happened between the Vietnam war and the Soviet-Afghan conflict of the 1980s.
A tank division aint worth beans if all the little people who do the paperwork to order the fuel, parts, and ammo and figure the payroll decide it's not in their best interests to show up for work
Posting a contrary opinion and inviting reasoned discourse is generally welcomed here, which is why you haven't had any trouble
Social crimes perpetrated upon individuals will affect those upon whom the crime is perpetrated. Keeping a weapon is a second amendement right, it is a right the left seems to find in privacy, but will only apply to their personal causes like homosexuality, etc.
That particular situation helped overthrow the Shah of Iran when strikes were occurring across Iran.
I'm with you on that one!
Indubitably, the citizenry needs to possess military grade weapons in order to rise up against an oppressive regime that would dare coup power. The founding fathers possessed as a poster brought up, military grade weaponry for the time period and they would expect nothing less. Also a well regulated militia is a misnomer. A poster not too far back posted this and I forget his name.
"The historic definition of "well-regulated" often gets lost in translation. Since muskets back then had no rifling and thus the musket balls tended to inaccuracy, it was the concentration of many balls of lead careening through the atmosphere in a general direction that was the military order of the day. The ability to train a number of guns to deliver these balls in one general direction was called "regulating" your fire and hence, a citizenry proficient in the use of the musket and well-practiced became a "well-regulated" militia."
As stated above the 2nd amendment suggests a well trained and armed populous, with access to weapons on par with those that claim authority.
He believed the Standing Army of the United States would never stand as one against the People but, in fact, would split in two - ending up fighting against itself side-by-side with an armed populace which would also take sides in the conflict. He rightly believed this because the Federal Army would be comprised of men from all parts of the country and civil wars are usually every bit as regional as they are ideological.
There's absolutely no reason at all to believe his conclusions wouldn't hold true today. There's no situation I could think of, short of some absolute catastrophe, where a unified US Military would war against the populace. Units and whole divisions would peal off, taking their equipment with them. You would see the same battlefield topology we saw in the 1860s.
I could go on but that would take too much time because the logic and facts of basically every sentence of your post is flawed.
Posted by naturalman1975 to ronnied
On News/Activism 10/08/2005 10:23:44 PM EDT · 32 of 32
The quote is inaccurate - the 640,000 firearms figure includes weapons that were voluntarily surrendered to ther government in exchange for cash - people could have chosen to keep those weapons, they were entirely legal, but they decided they'd rather have the money. So people were not forced to surrender 640,000 personal firearms - most of them chose to do so.
Selling firearms in Australia has been very complicated for a long time - there was a lot of paperwork involved in transferring ownership of a firearm because you had to make sure the person you were selling to was a 'fit and proper person' to own that firearm. Selling to a dealer was easier, but gun dealers typically paid very low prices for most second hand firearms. So over the years a lot of shooters had kept their old weapons when they updated to new ones - it wasn't worth the trouble of selling them for the amount of money you could get for them.
When Australia's gun laws changed in the mid-to-late 1990s in the aftermath of Port Arthur the government funded a buyback of any firearm people chose to hand in - not just the relatively small number of firearms that now became more restricted. So at that point a lot of legal firearms were handed in as well. It was a quick and easy way to get a decent price for your excess firearms.
Nobody really knows how many of the 640,000 firearms handed in during the buyback were ones people had to surrender but the proportion was quite small. The vast majority of those weapons were ones people could have continued to own.
People were not forced to hand over 640,000 firearms. People had to hand over a fairly small number which can't be quantified as far as I know, and chose to hand over a much larger number. Some people chose to surrender excess weapons they didn't use any more and kept those they still used. Some handed in all their firearms - I had an elderly neighbour at the time who hadn't been shooting in years - he got me to take his firearms in and get the cash for them - and this was typical.
Nobody knows exactly how many firearms are in Australia. Estimates range between 2 and 10 million, with most estimates gathered around 4 million. So even if 640,000 had been confiscated, that would still leave a lot out there - and most of those 640,000 were weapons people could have kept if they had wanted to.
Whether the gun laws lead to an increase or decrease in crime is quite hotly debated in Australia - and it depends on which figures you look at. Some figures show an increase in certain crimes, some show a decrease. Overall, the only thing that is clear is that whatever effect the laws had, it seems to have been pretty slight.
fyi
While it was easy for the Wehrmacht to overrun Yugoslavia, the Nazis had to commit up to 600,000 troops ( by some estimates ) to maintain the occupation.
Now, extend this scenario to the hills of West Virginia, the Rockies, the 'boondocks' in 'flyover country'. In fact, certain cities might have to have a significant contingent to either blockade or subdue, depending on the 'rebel' status.
Then, there is the issue of resources, and having troops guarding them to prevent a midnight accident.
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