From what I’ve read, they were so dumb our ancestors could just as easily have rendered them extinct with clubs.
I “love”* how people who are dead set against citizens owning guns have no problem at all with legions of government troops having enough assault rifles, machine guns, grenades, APCs and artillery to confiscate all the non-government guns. Of course there is no precedent whatsoever in all of history of government elites abusing this trust.**
*sarcasm
**ditto.
:rolleyes: That shit again? The 2nd Amendment does not exist so that you can point your guns at agents of your government.
But it would’ve taken longer. This thread is about slowing things down, buying a little time for that bitch you want to ice while you fumble loading your revolver (“The caps! Where are the fucking caps?”) and eventually turn your anger to the ghost of Sam Colt and the moron who came up with this law, but let’s not get silly.
Uncle Sam will always have more money and people than you, so the house always wins. You want to come as close to winning as you can? Negotiate away some of the small things, like 100-round magazines. Compromise is not a slip down a slippery slope but the way people come to solutions that are more or less mutually satisfactory. Bullheadedness only makes it easier for your more rabid opponents to control their side of the debate.
Duh. 
Who said anything about the 2nd Amendment or shooting government agents? I said that the people who hate guns somehow turn around 180 degrees when the person with a gun is wearing a uniform. They love guns, when it’s the police, National Guard and Army carrying them.
But the other side doesn’t want a compromise; they want zero civilian guns. They’re just willing to take every concession they get as an improvement on the current situation. I don’t doubt that there are people who really do think that handguns and hunting rifles are ok, while “assault weapons” are not. But they’re not the people driving the gun control movement- the t-total gun prohibtionists are.
Suppose the pro-gun side offered a “compromise”: they’d agree to a constitutional amendment banning private citizens from owning nuclear weapons, nerve gas or weaponized smallpox, in exchange for the guaranteed right to possess any other conventional weapon. Not only would the gun control crowd sneer at such a “compromise” but would have no incentive to agree to it because all those things are already effectively banned. It’s only the side that has something to surrender that can compromise; all the other side has to offer is a promise that it will never demand more. What would the gun control crowd agree to decriminalize that’s currently banned, if it would achieve a guaranteed lasting compromise? Nothing of course, because the status quo is already intolerable to them. Well that’s how gun proponents feel- we’ve given up too much already, and for nothing.
If you want to take us back to guns from the birth of the nation, why would you also toss away one of the important reasons for the creation of the nation? The people who ratified the Constitution rejected government that allowed soldiers to search homes. What do you expect will happen when the National Guard kicks down my door and learns that all of my firearms already use black powder, but that I use them to protect the marijuana farm in my basement?
As I said earlier, that wasn’t my original point, but if you want to discuss it:
Just what do you think the 2nd Amendment was originally for- hunting and personal defense? The British Parliament could have told the colonials that swords, knives and clubs were perfectly adequate for self-defense, and bows and arrows for hunting; that they didn’t “need” muskets and certainly had no right to rebel against their lawful sovereign King George III. Face it, whether you consider the 2nd Amendment an archaic relic or disagree with the entire philosophy it was founded on, there’s little argument that it was originally meant precisely to give the populace parity of arms with the government.
Besides convenience of an all in one bullet they are significantly safer to operate.
Black powder guns have a nasty habit of blowing up in ones face or at least causing a serious burn. Probably one of the reasons we got rid of them in the first place.
So if I’m in danger from some asshat breaking into my house and I want to get off another shot because I missed the first shot in a panic, I’m fucked because either I can’t reload, can’t see, or half my face is missing.
Good for the intruder, kinda bad for me.
Also even a great hunter will not always get a clean kill shot. So a deer injured and suffering has to wait longer for death because said hunter has to dick around with black powder to put the poor deer out of it’s misery.
Won’t someone please think of Bambie?
I own a Fiat, and I’ll certainly attest to it being prettier than a crappy old Triumph. And the electrical system is far superior!
So, what does it exist for?
Last time we went over this, I think the general consensus was so that people can point their guns at whoever the government tells them to.
"The Eff-Bee-Yi-Yay paid me a visit
And asked me some questions one day…
They asked if I’d fight for my country,
So I said to the Eff-Bee-Yi-Yay:
Yes I will point a gun for my country-
But I won’t guarantee you which way…
I will point a gun for my country,
I just won’t guarantee you which way"
-Woody Guthrie
No, the purpose was to make it easier to call up the militia quickly in a crisis, e.g., foreign invasion. A reason which no longer applies. A well-regulated militia is not necessary to the security of a free state, not any more; even the National Guard we could get along without so long as we have the Army.
Yes.
That is known as “common sense.” The police, Army and NG are the professionals we pay and train and indoctrinate to use (or, in the case of the police, simply carry, preferably) guns in the public interest.
Some anti-gun people are consistent total pacifists who want nobody armed anywhere, but they are always a small minority.
Who, in a position of power, is calling for a blanket ban on guns? There aren’t many of them. And who the hell gave them the power to push for that? Not the normal people who like guns to target shoot, plink varmints, and reduce the over-population of big, fat deer that have forgotten their place in the food chain. No, the nutters react to the react to the nutters who bawl like babies over any attempt to regulate guns and their owners half as much as we regulate cars and the food we buy. You have empowered the anti-gun nuts by making them seem reasonable by comparison.
Edited to insert:
And them, and you don’t want to mess with Gandhi or nuns. :eek:
Bzzzzzzt! Wrong-o, buckaroo. The Third Amendment says you don’t have to let them live there unless Congress says so (there’s always an out in the house’s favor) and the Fourth protects you from unreasonable search and seizure, but Article 1, Section 8 provides Congress with the power “for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union.” Searching for weapons Congress made illegal is, by definition, a reasonable search and the House (and Senate) wins again.
Man, you really are confident that the Rubicon will never, ever be crossed. I suppose the citizens of the Roman Republic were equally sure.
Bro, I don’t know about BG, but for me and Woody Guthrie the worry has always been your side, not ours, making the dumb, totalitarian move.
Wow. I realize things are a bit bad with the 4th Amendment these days, but I’m glad I don’t live in the same USA you live in. But, I’m correct that the colonists objected to quartering troops. (out of curiosity, do you realize that the few times the Third Amendment has made an appearance in Supreme Court opinions, it is usually used as a support to limit the action of government agents or to support the individual’s right to privacy from the government?)
Why do you believe that if Congress outlawed everything but black powder firearms, that the National Guard could conduct warrantless searches of every house in the nation? Why do you believe each search would be reasonable? For example, heroin is currently illegal in the US, and the possession of heroin isn’t even arguably a constitutional right. Can the National Guard kick down every door in my city looking for heroin?
Also, I already asked you what would happen when the National Guard learned that all of my firearms use black powder and are therefore legal, but I also happen to be illegally growing marijuana. In your world will they ignore my crime or arrest me?
What do you believe in American history or jurisprudence allows the government to search every building in America?
The same “common sense” that had the Germans in 1940 paying the Gestapo professionals.
IANACL, but, constitutionally, maybe.
That’s what the cops accompanying them are for. You didn’t think they’d want to miss the fun, did you?
Article 1, Section 8 gives the power—just ask the Confederacy. Just because it hasn’t been tried does not mean it is not constitutional, and moving up the Federal court system takes time.
I set up the OP, with its [del]preposterous[/del] whimsical premise, as a commentary on the attitude that some have that guns are vital to their Americaness, fun, and personal safety, and to discuss how, if they are so important, would a little inconvenience with little loss in functionality be acceptable to (theoretically) reduce gun deaths. You have helped it morph into a thought experiment on the real limits of constitutional power, and I thank you for that because I learned that, if you take its words at face value, the Gummint can pretty much do as it pleases. :eek:
That, on the other hand, didn’t make a lick of sense. Could you explain it further, like how you got from A to B or whatever letter you reached? You lost me along the way.