I never said that fascism wasn’t tyranny. And i don’t need you to quote the founders to me; i’m willing to bet i’ve read them as frequently and at least as intelligently as you.
But the fact remains that the tyranny with which the founders were concerned was NOT the populist nationalism and authoritarianism combined with loyalty to a charismatic leader that we have come to know as fascism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. All i’m asking is that people not unnecessarily Godwinize this issue.
Just out of interest, who was quoting who? Or did both these men say exactly the same words independently of one another? Or are you trying to get a two-fer, offering the same quotation twice and pretending it counts as two different ones?
U.S. v. Miller simply addressed whether a sawed-off shotgun with a barrel of less than 18 in. constituted the sort of weapon suitabe for militia use. Later courts added a “suitability test,” then one court went off the deep end with it’s “militia only” interpretation of Miller, leading to the states-rights/militia only interpretation of the 2nd by anti-gun liberal activists.
Who’s arguing against background checks?
Why have a waiting period when it’s been shown to be totally ineffective for its stated purpose?
How many gun shows have you attended? How many guns have you purchased at a gun show? How many guns have you seen purchased at a gun show?
A little over half of my collection (4 of 4 rifles, 1 of 2 shotguns, 0 of 3 revolvers, 2 of 3 semi-auto handguns) was purchased at a gun show. On every single purchase a background check was performed through NICS.
Incorrect. Every state must meet, at a minimum, the Federal requirements for the sale or transfer of firearms. The argument that part of the gun supply problem is the fault of a few “bad states” is fucking idiotic.
Really? Since the NFA passed in '33-34, crime with legally-owned full-auto weapons has dropped to practically nonexistant. And I guess you never heard of Project Exile? Which was rejected by an anti-gun president and Justice Dept.? But which was adopted by Pres. Bush’s admin.?
The check is already done by NICS for every firearm transaction conducted by Licensed dealers. The Bush admin. has focused the efforts of the Justice Dept. on locating and shutting down “unlicensed dealers.” Again, waiting periods have never been shown to have any effect on crime, and was never nothing more than an attempt to condition people to getting a gun when the state says you can, not when you want it.
Once the sheeples are conditioned to waiting, the next step was (is) to condition them to being told “No.”
Elvis: I know you’ve read enough Straight Dope to have read what I am about to say before, which means that you are a hypocritical, anti-gun jackass, and your purpose here on the Straight Dope is NOT about fighting ignorance, but about espousing the propaganda of whatever cause you happen to be a sock-puppet of.
The Militia is the People.
The People are the Miltia.
The Militia is the People.
The People are the Militia.
When in time of peace, the People are the People.
When in time of War, or other emergency, the People are the Militia.
Federal law (need I post a cite to the U.S. Code page again?) classifies the Militia into the Organized and the Unorganized. The Militia is all males age 17-45 who are citizens of the U.S. (or who have affirmed an intention of becoming so). It is further broken down into the Organized Militia and the Unorganized Militia. The Organized Militia is the National Guard (affirmed by the Supreme Court in Perpich v. Dept. of Defense to be an adjunct branch of the Federal Armed Services), and the Naval Reserves. The Unorganized is simply, and here I
The first half of the 2nd is an introductory clause, and is in no way the dependant clause of the entire sentence; it is expository in nature, not conditional. Not in 18th century Colinial English, and still not in 21st century American English.
And yet you jump into these threads spouting the same tired old lies, the same tired old bullshit. Are you just too fucking stoopid to comprehend fucking FACTS when you have your nose rubbed in them?
And you’re a prime example of why the “Guest” function should be rescinded. There is more than ample evidence in this thread alone that there are at a minimum (as of 1996) 108,000 Defensive Gun Uses per year, probably closer to 1,000,000 + per year.
Do the rest of us paying customers a favor: Fuck Off.
Fuckin’ 'A yes, I will “pick on” a “Guest!” If a “Guest” wants to jump in and get froggy with their line of bullshit, then they need to get slapped down just as hard as a real member.
You go on believe that, if it makes you feel better.
Just out of interest, if all the measures you list are so successful, why does illegal and criminal gun use continue to be such a problem in the United States?
After all, at some stage along the way, just about every firearm that ends up in a bad guy’s hands has to come from a legal source. Unless the bad guys are making the guns themselves. Are they? I don’t know.
How is it that so many weapons, which were presumably built by legal firearms manufacturers, and distributed to legal gun stores and gun dealers, get into the hands of the wrong people? I mean, at some stage in the process, some person presumably makes a legal purchase and then, in turn, makes an illegal sale or uses the gun illegally himself.
Of course, you could argue that it’s not the fault of the gun dealers that some of their customers choose to resell the guns illegally. And you’d be right. But the fact remains that it happens, and that when it does it’s the result of people slipping through the same laws and regulations that you claim are so successful.
There is also, i guess, the possibility that the majority of illegal guns in the US are illegally imported and then sold on the streets. Is this the case? If it is, then you might argue that US firearms laws aren’t the problem, and that port and border security are to blame. But for every once-legal gun that ends up in the hands of a bad guy, there has to have been a particular time and place at which the it was transferred from a legal owner to the criminal. And that’s what should be prevented.
Just as you wrote, if all they wanted was to guarantee the state’s right to form a militia they wouldn’t have mentioned “the people” at all. But they did, and you’re doing exactly what you accuse others of, reading only half of the amendment. So again I ask, why did they bother mentioning “the people”? If, as you wrote, not including the phrase would change the meaning, what changes with the inclusion or exclusion of the phrase containing “the people”?
If we read the first amendment in the same manner we see that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” is the initial phrase, and by your reasoning, the only “people” who would have the (mentioned later) right to peaceful assembly are those who can ensure that Congress doesn’t do exactly that. Who can overturn acts of Congress? Not indiviudals but judges, so the first amendment wouldn’t really apply to private citizens either. I think we can agree that would be a rather poorly-understood reading of the first amendment.
For your opinion to be correct it is necessary to deny the existance of the more recent Verdugo-Urquidez decision which defines “people” in the context of several amendments, including the second. Even before that, the tenth amendment made a distinction between “people” and “states” so the founders clearly understood the difference. The people can have their arms seperate from any militia, just as the people can have their assemblies outside of congressional matters.
It’s much less of a problem than it is made out to be; The crime rate’s down to less than it was in the mid-'60’s. It was always higher than, say, the U.K., and probably will be for some time; that’s not, in-and-of-itself, indicative of a problem. The U.K.'s, as low as it is, is much higher than some other places
About 60% come from thefts; some say home thefts, and I’m sure that’s some constituent of that 60%, but it also includes store thefts, and warehouse thefts.
Agreed; but I (and others) don’t think bans/restrictions on law-abiding citizens are the answer. Education is one aspect, but nowadays, if you even say the word gun in/around a school, you get arrested for “making threats.” Okay, I exaggerate. But only a bit.
Too, the current supply would indicate that, even if all guns were banned right now, and that if every citizen turned in every legally owned gun right now, the criminals would still outgun the U.S. Army for the next several decades.
Stop being such a prick, amigo. Reasonable people are capable of disagreeing on these matters.
You forgot “well-regulated.”
Given that it’s pretty clear the founders were talking about state militias, one wonders what relevance the federal definition has to the question at hand, aside from the fact that it’s much more efficient to cite a single federal statute than the patchwork of state definitions. And do keep in mind the significant body of federal case law that holds the Second Amendment is no impediment whatsoever to the state governments establishing whatever gun control restrictions they please.
Well that about wraps it up for the gun control debate. Thanks for clearing things up for us!
Not meaning to speak for Weirddave here, but I would venture that the question is moot. In a home it is actually better (from a tactical standpoint, as well as a safety one) to have and use a pistol than a shotgun. I use both, but perfer a pistol. Tactically, the reason is a shotgun (for civilians) has a minimum barrel length of 18", making the vast majority of shotguns in circulation 36" or longer. That’s one really long arm to be weilding in a close quarters situation. Try passing a doorway with a full sized shotgun at the ready or in a shooting stance. It is difficult to move with one, let alone to actually get a proper sight picture. A pistol, on the other hand, does not hinder its user in a CQ situation. Even a really long barreled weapon (such as Tarus’ BlackHawk, with it’s 11" barrel) is easy to move in comparison to a shotgun, as your arms are not hindered by a buttstock. In the end, you can simply defend yourself better with a pistol.
More importanly, however, is the safety issue. This is based on the availability of munitions on the market. Shotguns are, for the most part, lead and steel slingers of various power and capability. Less-lethal ammunitions are difficult to obtain and often do not work well in semi-automatic shotguns used for hunting. Furthermore, the types of cover found in a home (couches, Lay-Z-Boys) easily defeat a beanbag or rubber slug. If you want to use a solid load, full sized buck loads are a poor choice (000-Buck in a 3" magnum shell can penitrate a cynder block) whereas smaller game loads are not guarenteed to take down a target. Slugs (solid projectiles often massing 500 grains or more) are wholly inappropriate for the job. Finally, a shotgun has a pattern (the way the shot spreads when it leaves the muzzle.) Although this can and does increase the odds of scoring a hit, it also increases the odds of wounding or killing someone other than your target. A pistol, on the other hand, is a far more precise weapon with a range of options with regards to ammuntion. Pistols can be loaded with frangible ammo (which vaporizes when it hits something more solid than flesh), jacketed hollow points (JHP, bullets with a copper or steel jacket and a soft lead tip) or FMJ rounds. A frangible round will penitrate the aformentioned sofa (if the bad-guy has taken to hiding behind one,) but will stop when it hits the wall (assuming it hasn’t hit the bad guy.) If it hits a person, it will not exit their body, as it will fragment and create multiple wound-paths. A JHP will stop inside the badguy, as it expands and ‘bites’ into him, causing a more traumatic wound path. FMJ rounds are generally frowned upon as home and self defense rounds because although they inflict terrible injuries, they also tend to overpenetrate and hit other things.
Anyway, that’s my two bits.
~Fush, probably the only guy on the board who will fess up to being a gun fetishist. I kiss them goodnight, every night
[QUOTE=SoulI’d love to hear what anyone, gun or anti-gun, has to say about this info.[/QUOTE]
I couldn’t care less what the Supreme Court has to say about my right to keep and bear arms. I have this right regardless of what the Blackrobes think…
Damn Gremlins. :smack: Let me try again… I couldn’t care less what the Supreme Court has to say about my right to keep and bear arms. I have this right regardless of what the Blackrobes think…
It seems that Thomas Jefferson wrote that in a letter addressed to James Monroe. Mr. Monroe then used it himself. (They both get google hits for it.)
The point stands, the founders were concerned with tyranny. Fascism is tyranny. Therefore the founders were concerned with facsism, or at least would have been had they been aware of it’s future existance.
It’s as if I put a deadbolt on my door to prevent intruders. Later, a man with a green shirt tries to break in using a hockey stick. It’s as if you are saying that my deadbolt isn’t to prevent him from breaking in because I couldn’t have forseen that a man with a green shirt would use a hockey stick to break in. It’s a needless, silly nitpick.
Hey, ExTank, I wasn’t talking to you. I was addressing mhendo, who was using his usual holier than thou attitude towards a guest who was making a perfectly valid and reasonable point.
It’s good that you at least admit you have no idea what you are talking about. I just wish you clueless people who don’t know the first thing about guns would stop trying to grab mine.
How do drugs come to be in the hands of millions of Americans? What’s the legal source that just about every drug has to come from? Look, it’s really simple. Criminals want guns. They are always going to be able to get them on the black market. We currently have about 30,000 laws or so on the books about guns. It’s already illegal to get a gun on the black market if you are a criminal.
You cannot magically snap your fingers and make the millions of guns out there now go away. Even if you could, they would still just get more of them the same way that drugs come in now.
Yet, remarkably enough, that’s the law of the land, isn’t it? You’ve had it explained to you many times. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t get to pretend it isn’t the law.
Which means you haven’t absorbed anything you’ve been told, nor do you have a response other than invective.
And there is the underpinning for the “well-regulated” requirement, which can only mean that Congress and the Executive have both the authority and the responsibility to regulate it. It also explains the reason for the Amendment itself, a reason which again you don’t have to like but can’t pretend doesn’t exist. Yet somehow you manage that trick.
You might look up the meaning of “expository” if it makes you feel better, considering that the Constitution is not itself just another law but the document that establishes the principles which guide laws and their interpretation and enforcement.
What you are contending to be “FACTS” are simply your preferred, conclusion-derived interpretations of matters that are in fact settled law to the contrary. You can complain all you want about how the courts have it wrong, but your efforts would be more productive if you focused that energy on getting an amendment passed to make the law be what you want instead of what it is.
And they have done so. You don’t have to like that any more than ExTank does, but there it is.
If you don’t have any alternatives to propose, I guess we’ll just have to stick with the one I already laid out, huh?
I’d appreciate your defining what “ilk” you think I’m part of, and why. Well-poisoning, don’tcha know.,
Rights do entail responsibilities, don’t they? Surely you’d acknowledge that government, IOW The People acting collectively, has rights of its own as well as responsibilities, and The People acting individually have responsibilities of our own as well as rights.
ExTank has already chanted that mantra, about the militia of defense being drawn from the citizenry.
Also important, I believe, is that the Miller in the Miller case was deceased before his case was brought to the Supreme Court, and therefore his side of the case did not actually get its ‘day in court.’ I’m sure certain lawyers on these forums would disagree with me, but that is my opinion.
Not in Pennsylvania. I’ve got a license to carry concealed fireams, and I still have to fill out the BATFE 4473 and undergo a NICS check to purchase a firearm from an FFL holding dealer. So does my father, who’s had his license to carry concealed firearms for more than thirty years.
The so-called loophole means that it is just as legal for a private citizen to sell to another private citizen (who is not lawfully forbidden to own firearms) at a gun show exactly the same long guns (rifles and shotguns) that could be sold in such a transaction outside a gun show.
Chicago and Washington DC would be very good counter examples to your argument. Both began with registration, and then used the refusal to allow any new registrations as a de facto ban.
That number lies somewhere between 100,000 and 2,000,000 a year.
The actual number includes ‘persons known to the shooter’ or ‘acquaintances’ which includes things like rival drug dealers and gang members. It also relies heavily on the very flawed Kellerman study in which he looked at only one county in Washington state, a high crime area, and then claimed his number accurately reflected the entire country.
It’s already illegal to shoot people, and already illegal for a teenager to own or possess any kind of pistol. The minimum age for handgun ownership is 21.
That background check takes approximately five minutes with the NICS system and uses a database of criminal records in every state and county, as well as the FBI crime database.
Brady II eliminated the previous federally required five day wait because it sped up the process of doing a background check and turned it into a telephone call in which the FFL dealer provides the buyer’s driver’s license number and name and the system responds with the buyer’s SSN (which must be provided on the BATFE 4473) and either an approval number or a denial.
So far as I know, the study to which you are referring is one and the same as the study to which Uncle Beer and I have responded.
Much like the H&K MP5 in both semi-automatic and select fire, using the 9mmx19 ammunition that is extremely common for handguns.
Something very similar happened in Edinboro, PA in the 90s also. Then there was the Virgina Law School shooting where yet another very similar thing happened.
You’re right. Keep and Bear Arms maintains a daily list of links to news sources around the country of stories in which people have used firearms to defend themselves from crime.
This is where I disagree with you. I am a reasonably educated person who can read and understand English. The Constitution is written in English, and there are plenty of other materials around written by the Framers as they wrote the Constitution from which to derive context and their thoughts. These are also in English. The Supreme Court need not tell me what the Constitution means, it needs to tell the government when it has overstepped the bounds of the power the people, via the Constitution, loan to it.
Doesn’t the military use something of that nature?
My recollection also seems to indicate that there have been people killed during the waiting period when they went to purchase a firearm for personal defense. While I don’t advocate running right out and buying a gun without learning to use it, I do see that as an indication that waiting periods can cause unintended but serious damage.
Now, what did ‘well-regulated’ mean in 1789?
I don’t think the Framers were stupid. They obviously had a reason for choosing the word ‘people’. If they had meant states, I’m quite sure they would’ve been able to dip their quills in the ink and write the word ‘states’.
The Constitution does not purport to hand out any rights to anyone. The point of the Constitution, and this is evident if you read it, is to define to the government what power is specifically lent to it by the people, and the Bill of Rights further specifically prohibits the government from abridging what the Framers believed to be essential rights. As for where those rights come from, the Declaration of Independence is extremely clear on this issue as well. The people have these rights because their Creator endowed them.
Note their use of the phrase ‘among these’ to indicate that the unalienable rights include but are not limited to what is specified. It’s pretty clear that they meant the people retain all rights by virtue of being people, and that the government is meant to have only those powers that are on loan to it.
This is where you bust out with the bit about how “regulate” meant like a watch, right, and didn’t have anything at all to do with government regulation? Unfortunately for that tired old canard, the Constitution itself uses the word “regulate” in the ordinary sense of “to control or direct according to rule or law” on multiple occasions. See Art. I,
Nor do I think they were stupid, which is why I don’t ignore the patently obvious fact that they used both well-regulated militia and the people in the text of the amendment.
