Posted on 10/31/2016 7:08:21 AM PDT by rktman
Guns are an important part of American history, both from a legal and illegal standpoint. From the single action revolvers of the old West to mobsters with Thompson submachine guns, American culture and society have enshrined firearms into our national iconography. They are inherently complicated things, created with the latent potential to protect or to destroy. Beyond our national discussion of gun legislation, the possession of deadly weapons by regular citizens remains a more contested issue.
The far right and the far left are exaggerating and arbitrarily simplifying what is an extremely nuanced and philosophical question. I hope to reframe our current political discourse and put it into the historical, even global context of human violence. Instead of looking at statistics, which Mark Twain termed damn lies, we would do well to hypothesize for a moment. What place do firearms have in American society?
(Excerpt) Read more at info.umkc.edu ...
Of course. But it wasn’t one school. It was the entire school district to fund “magnet” schools. And Troost Ave, and all of its “culture” would not have enticed Johnson county kids to rush to Paseo, Westport, or Southeast, and Center High Schools. It failed miserably because such a system would require discipline and parenting. The antithesis of Troost Ave culture.
Well, let’s see...
Since the war that won us our independence - from a far-away corrupt dictator who didn’t give a damn about us except regarding how much in taxes he could extract from us - started because the British tried to seize militia armories in Lexington and Concord, I’d say that they have a place in our history.
They still have a place, so long as we have corrupt dictator-wannabee politicians, who don’t give a damn about us except regarding how much in taxes they can extract from us. I don’t see that going away any time in the next 10,000 years or so, and thus firearms have a spot of honor in American society.
Evidently, a few folks agree with me: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2015/09/us-will-reach-400-million-private.html
The 2nd Amendment isn’t about common street criminals, any more than it is about hunting or target shooting for fun. Those are nice side benefits, but the main purpose is to serve as the ultimate safety net for our liberties. All politicians know that there will be Hell to pay if they try to impose a dictatorship...and that’s why it hasn’t been tried - yet.
Please don’t use the crime argument - it falls right into the trap of the gun-grabbers, who will take any practical concern you have involving firearms and flip it into, “Well, we can fix that, you don’t NEEEEEED that awful gun and all of those bullets....” You know what, it is a right that is as valuable as our 1st Amendment right to free speech and, in fact, it guards it (and all of our other rights). Its purpose is to deter threats to our liberties and, if that deterrence fails, to make sure that we can keep it by eliminating the threat. Period. Full. Stop.
Without adequate means of individual self defense, no “enlightened” Society will stay that way for long...
St. Louis had another Federal judge spending taxpayers’ money. There, they took an opposite tack from KCMO—they would bus (or taxi) inner city youths to the suburbs. The taxis came in when someone participated in an after-school activity. When taxpayers declined to increase the school tax, the judge simply raised it on his own. The judge also ordered the state to help pay for his plan, so all Missouri taxpayers got to “contribute”. The result was the same—failure and for the reasons you cite.
Ancesthntr,
Your thoughts are based upon rights, and that’s fine. But let’s get it down to brass tacks.
Your statement: “but the main purpose is to serve as the ultimate safety net for our liberties.” I find this interesting as that may have been a need, or a possibility, in our early years. But now is impractical. If a group of people in a state, got together with their weapons and attack the government using force, they can’t win. The government is too well manned and supplied. And by saying a “civil war” is the answer, you’re talking suicide along with tyranny based upon an act of attack on the sovereignty, thus succession. South tried that.
Guns are not the weapon, votes are. Publicly damning candidates is the answer. Getting the truth out and getting people in that are not going to do harm hiding behind laws they invented, is the answer. Your problem is not about guns. It’s about trying to prove a point of the failure of the people to be either stupid enough, dishonest enough, or just plain lazy enough to put people in office that are not in their best interest. The guns won’t help. The vote does.
And that means both sides of the aisle. The ones doing harm and the ones letting them. You’re a believer in truth. Otherwise you wouldn’t be placing comments on these boards for the freedoms of the people which is what our liberties are about.
But ask yourself a question, would you trade the right to carry a gun for protection for the guarantee you wouldn’t need it? And at the same time know if you wanted it, you could get it anytime?
You mistrust the government, and with good reason. But that’s the voter’s fault for getting them in there. The answer is to get rid of the politician that you think you need guns for and getting guns out of the hands of the people that shouldn’t have them.
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Contested by whom?
You KNOW who “they” are. Sadly, “they” know who we are.
Yes, I remember Fort Hood. But that was not the fault of the gun, it was the fault of the government. Days after the shooting, reports in the media revealed that a Joint Terrorism Task Force had been aware of a series of e-mails between Hasan and the Yemen-based imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been monitored by the NSA as a security threat. But they did nothing about it except sit back and wait.
Further more, he did not use one of the weapons assigned to him by uncle sugar. He used an FN Five-seven pistol, purchased on November 5. It was a private weapon he admitted to buying because it was the most advanced handgun with the largest magazine he could get.
The man was dangerous, they knew it, and they did nothing about it until someone got killed. He should have been confined and not be allowed his assigned weapons until an investigation was accomplished. Government allowed it happen. Get rid of the incompetence, and it wouldn’t have happened. To be honest, if they had just used protocol, they’d have been fine. And protocol would have taken steps to keep a weapon out of his hands.
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Contested by those who feel they could more firmly rule over us were we to be made relatively helpless by disarming us...
Good. Let THEM fear...
And at the same time know if you wanted it, you could get it anytime?
= = =
I am on a walk, and attacked by pit bulls. I need it now.
PS my Fort Hood reference was that none of the victims were armed to defend themselves.
And then our border is porous.
I don’t have to read the article to say: “Damn right they do!”
I had some before a tragic boating accident
Are you sure? It looks like a Colt Python to me.
Yes, it IS a Colt. I searched S&W .357 Magnum and found the image, my apologies...
It is a Colt, I did a search on S&W 357 magnum where I found that image - my apologies.
Why the low capacity magazine in the picture?
20 round mag was standard issue on the M-16, at least when I was in :-)
Why are you walking in an unsafe area? My wife can, and does, walk around my neighborhood at any time and she never has a problem. Part of the reason we selected this neighborhood was because it was safe. “Might happens” are only a variable if you feel threatened. Do you carry your weapon when you go for a recreational walk or when you go to the bank because you might run into a carjacker or a bank robber. Is your community that unsafe?
Remember what I said. If the government could guarantee you wouldn’t need it, why would you carry it? I grew up in a town of about 25K people that is the same size today. Nobody openly carried a gun. There was no crime. The problem is the criminals. If the government would arrest all the people that broke the law. and make jails so miserable they wouldn’t want to go back, or publicly hung them and not put them back on the streets to do more, you wouldn’t need a gun.
It’s a matter of choice. You put yourself in a position that doesn’t question your safety, and you aren’t in danger. If your street is unsafe, get the cops to make it safe. If people have dangerous dogs that get loose and attack people, destroy the animals and jail the owners. Problem solved. You aren’t threatened and you never fired a shot.
red
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