I agree. People who argue for gun control on technological grounds never seem to want to make the same argument about free speech and video cameras.
“The Founding Fathers never intended for everyone to be able to record what anyone else does. They never foresaw it, so obviously the prohibition against limiting the right of free speech/press does not apply to anything beyond printed text.”
Sure does sound crazy, but it’s the same logic as the anti-gun argument.
IANAL, so I"m not sure what the import of the cases you cite is. It seems to be saying you can’t be prosecuted for breaking the 1934 law if the government won’t accept registrations of automatic weapons- only they’re still illegal?
Well…freedom of speech is limited and not absolute. Can’t scream, “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire, can’t slander people and so on.
Should you be allowed to buy Stinger AA missiles? Afterall you will need them when the government comes for you.
It was true in the time of the founding fathers, my point was that its not true any more. The technology of warfare has changed, not just of firearms. The modern military era has seen the triumph of professional military over less well trained part time troops (most especially part time troops who are required to provide their own weapons). Those few cases were irregular troops were able to come out on top over professional armies, the irregular troops were being armed by an external power.
The point about improvements arms technology its not that it has allowed sophisticated military weapons, but that it allowed small, cheap, and effective semi-automatic handguns. These cause a majority of modern gun crime, and simply did not exist in the 1700s
The line for what constitutes “arms” has to be drawn somewhere, unless you’re on the extreme end that thinks personal nukes should be un-restricted.
The main fear here is the “single nut with a gun” scenario. Back in 1776, such a person was extremely limited by technology if he wanted to kill people:
A. In quick succession (or lots at once)
B. Steathily
C. From long range
As such, the right for a person to own arms was balanced out by the fact that the person could not do too much damage if he chose to. However, in 200+ years, lots of advancements have been made in all three areas, to where a single person can now kill millions within a span of seconds, and not even need to be present to do so.
There has to be some sort of upper legal limit on arms that can stealthily kill X number of people per second at long range. We’re only arguing about what X is.
Does that same hypothetical upper limit also apply to what the organized military should be allowed to have?
The difference is, the right to free speech has been continuously broadened for decades, while the 2nd amendment has been continuously interpreted to give the government MORE power to restrict gun ownership. Court interpretations of the two amendments went in opposite directions for quite a long time. That is the real issue, consistency.
If I feel I need one, and I am a law-abiding citizen, why shouldn’t I? You posit this question as if the CIA had NOT once passed them out like candy to the Taliban. Were they more trustworthy than the average American citizen?
History is replete with cases when “irregular troops” overcame a professional army, not just a a"few cases," and saying it was only because of being armed by an external power is beside the point. Guerrillas don’t need much in the way of supplies; that’s what makes this form of warfare so successful. Our “professional military” was having serious problems pacifying Iraq until recently, when the Iraqis took up the job themselves. The Afghans forced the Soviets to withdraw in the 1980s; the Vietnamese forced the U.S. to withdraw in the 1970s; the Vietnamese forced the French to withdraw in the 1950s; even in our own Revolutionary War, we (supplied by the French) forced the technically superior British to withdraw. Technical superiority does not automatically equal victory, in any era. And just how is the “modern military era” defined, anyway? The existence of professional armies versus conscripts is only a sign of current international realities, not a permanent state of affairs. The massive armies that fought the Civil War and both World Wars for the U.S. and Britain were created from scratch for the the purpose. Before that, their militaries were small and professional. Now they are again. It’s cyclical.
A bullet from a flintlock will kill you just as dead as a bullet from a 9mm. So what if handguns are more effective now in a military sense? No one laughs off getting shot with anything, in any era, and I would bet the average rifleman back then was FAR better with his weapon than 99% of gun owners today are. (When you’ve only got one shot, you make it count.) And the lessened effectiveness of firearms does not mean life was less violent. Far from it. There’s a reason most frontiersmen and Indians carried hatchets; one way or another, someone was going to lose his skin.
And to carry my analogy further, my point was the mass media simply didn’t exist in the 1700s, either, but no one argues that its existence is a reason to limit free speech.
Not at all… There have been none at all, in recent history of a professionally equipped conventional army being defeated by self-armed irregulars in open battle The few cases that come close, such as the French defeat in Vietnam, required the “irregular” army to stop fighting as guerrillas and field an regular army. That simply CANNOT be done with ordinary folk wielding their own weapons.
Yet all the successful examples you list required a supply of arms from a powerful super power. At the start of the Afghan war the issurgents did indeed largely use their own arms, just as the American revolutionaries had down two hundred years earlier (their is huge culture of gun ownership in that region, that predates the current conflicts), and the had their proverbial ass handed to them by the soviets.
What’s more, in none of those cases did they actual defeat the professional army in the field. They just did enough damage to make their poltical masters withdraw them.
That is clearly what the founding father had in mind. In the 1700s, an army made mainly of militia, largely carrying there own arms, could take a one a standing army, in open warfare, and win. So everyone having their own musket that could be called on in war was clearly “security of a free State”, but the end of the 1800s that was not the case.
They were armed by huge military-industrial complexes, The guys who stormed the beaches at Normandy did not do so with a rifle that hung over their fireplace the week before.
Of course not; guerrillas don’t fight in open battles.
In what sense is that not defeating the professional army? Through the use of applied violence, they got their enemies to cede territory.
Honestly, griffin1977, it sounds like you’re moving the goalposts here.
Even if that would be classed “securing” the state by the founders (I don’t think so at all, they were clearly referring to the ability regular army of citizen soldiers). Then it still doesn’t make the case for a self-armed militia. None of those cases were a peoples militia bearing their own arms, the were armed an insurgency armed by an external power.
It has nothing to with military effectiveness (small easily concealed and reliable semi-automatic handguns are useless military, and no use at all for the ‘security of the free state’). Its socially their impact is felt (they are responsible for a majority of gun crimes), there is no way the founding fathers could have foreseen such weapons and the damage they caused, when they phrased the 2nd amendment.
My point is that these two things combine are the issue I have with the 2nd amendment. If gun ownership still was a reliable fallback against tyrants or external aggression then I’d be all for it, but its not. Unlike in the 1700s a modern army (either foreign or domestic) would make mincemeat out of a self-armed militia in the 21st century. Likewise if handguns with as ineffective now as they were in 1700s.
The idea of a self-armed militia is not some holy grail of military efficiency. Even the Founding Fathers, who believed in the idea, all but begged France for military aid. The idea is not that a bunch of yokels with family rifles can or should take on a standing army, but that the government and/or military will be more reluctant to be heavy-handed with an armed populace. You can argue with that logic (see Iraq) but there are arguments of equal weight on both sides. the Founding Fathers clung to this idea so strongly because it was a deliberate policy of the British government to disarm the people wherever and whenever possible, as a prelude to oppression. In this light, the ability to bear weapons was as much symbolic of freedom as as it was a practical strategy. Other amendments, such as the Third and Fourth, were also designed to prevent any repeat of what the colonists saw as British abuses of power. Most people couldn’t tell you what these amendments are about today. But I would submit that the continued uproar over the Second amendment means that many Americans still take seriously the symbolism behind it. And why shouldn’t we? It’s our country, it’s our Constitution, these are our rights.
And a self-armed militia was originally intended to be a force for social stability under any circumstances, not just a military unit. Back then the militia might be called out to hunt for escaped criminals, guard against Indian attacks, or fight fires. After Hurricane Katrina I’m sure the citizens of New Orleans would’ve appreciated any group of local people who would’ve committed themselves to maintain social order after their elected officials and police officers packed up and abandoned them.
Like I said earlier, there is no reason to assume that society is somehow more violent now because of advanced firearms. In fact, the opposite is probably true. In the 1700s domestic abuse and alcoholism carried little stigma, criminal record-keeping was non-existent, there were NO legal restrictions on weapons of any kind, forensic techniques for investigating crime did not exist, women and children had no legal rights, etc. Compared to us, early American colonists lived in a state of near-anarchy. If you want to talk about social impacts, guns are pretty far down the list, I’d say. They get a lot of googly-eyed press coverage by media folk who don’t hesitate to call every gun with a pistol grip an “assault rifle”; but just as with Paris Hilton, press coverage does not equal true importance. My personal opinion is that when it comes to social problems, guns ultimately are a symptom, not a cause.
I’d strongly disagree. Thats EXACTLY the idea. And at the time of the writing of the constitution it was a good one. A peoples militia WAS a fairly formidable military force, in the right circumstances. The armaments of your man on the street (or the farm) was quite comparable, in many cases even better, than the professionally equipped equivalent.
Indeed.
It is exactly that difficult to figure out for for gun owners. It’s clearly illegal… or is it?
You know, more than anything else I’d like gun laws that are settled. Alas, it’s not to be unless the Supreme Court incorporates the 2nd amendment. Yeah, that might happen. In 2008, with Obama stating that he wants to renew the AWB? Fat chance of that happening.
I’m sorry, but A: you are in error, sir, and B: you are drifting from the topic of the requested debate.
No, the criminal using them is the one responsible, not the inanimate object.
And the reason we have so many such people roaming about is our societies reluctance to punish!
Let me give you a real example:
Quite recently I had to testify at a trial regarding 2 armed robberies committed by the same man. Armed robbery in this state has a maximum of 40 years. He also could have been charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, CCW, disguising himself during commission of a crime, etc… Over all he could have gotten in excess of 100 years.
He got 3 years plus 4 years probation after that.
And this seems to be the norm in cases like this.
If you’re so worried about crime, start locking up the people who commit them for real time, and stop worrying about the tools they use as that is overall irrelevant.
The Afgani’s Militia tossed out the Russians, the Taliban is giving us a hard time, the Viet Cong were hardly a push-over, and altho we did get France to help us in the Revolutionary War, we would not have gotten that help without an effective battle-winning Militia.
Yokels with rifles can do more than you think.