The National Guard is effectively the modern equivalent of a militia. If you disagree, then please tell me what group in today’s society would be considered a militia? Certainly not an unorganized mob of individuals? Maybe the KKK?
That’s exactly right. Glad you are paying attention. As I said, guns make small, weak people feel like big guys. If they didn’t have their guns, then they’d be a lot less prone to violence
You can’t be serious? If there were no guns or weapons in Iraq, don’t you think that it would be a lot more difficult for the insurgents and militants to be able to attack and kill troops and civilians? Do you read or watch the news by chance?
The militia is, essentially, the sum of citizens owning firearms.
It exists for two essential purposes. One is to keep the peace, since the police are few, far between, and essentially powerless to prevent actual crimes.
The second is to act as a check on the executive. The president is the commander-in-chief of all armed forces. This includes the National Guard. The Framers feared the prospect of an impeached president activating the Guard, imposing martial law, and ruling by decree.
This is much more difficult in an armed society.
Yes, I agree with the theory and I’ll accept that the National Guard is actually part of the government. Problem is, the theory behind an active militia no longer applies in our modern society. It may make people feel good to imagine that a militia is still possible but IMO, this is just a veiled excuse for owning weapons.
As they say, the Constitution is a “living document”, capable of being modified as circumstances change. Militias no longer exist and the capability of individual citizens to band together would generate no better (and probably much worse) results than what is now occurring in Iraq. Frankly, I am hard pressed to come up with any sort of realistic instance where individuals in the USA, on a large scale, would band together to forcibly resist our government. What exactly would the government have to do to engender such an action? Regardless, as I previously said, it would be a futile effort anyway. Therefore, there would seem to be no need for providing for militias. If there is no need for militias, then there is no need for individuals to own guns based on participation in a militia of some sort for some unknown apocalyptic event at some future unknown time.
It’s true, the Constitution is a living document.
Therefore, I suggest you get a movement together and repeal the Second Amendment, if this is so important to you.
Until then, firearms ownership is protected as an individual right.
An attempt to confiscate guns, as you advocate, might be enough. Or maybe the attempt at large-scale revocation of other Constitutional rights.
And by the way, National Guard is not exactly the same things as a state militia.
Do you believe the insurgency in Iraq is hopelessly doomed, and has no chance whatever against the US? They have no possibility, in other words, of getting anything they want by armed resistance, and therefore their violence is a complete waste of time?
Regards,
Shodan
Then you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. 10 million citizens would smash any army they could brng to bear. They wouldn’t even have to fight -simply killing any soldier who appeared on the streets would do. Moreover, with a militia on that scale, you could easily control all food and fuel to the army, destroy every depo they have, and generally keep them from doing anything.
And the mere fact that it does exists prevents anyone from trying.
And if you try and take my rights away from me, I will ignore your proposal, and if you trty and arrest me, I will kill any man who comes to my house to take my guns away.
And if I have to, I will hunt down and kill every one of you thereafter. I’m not playing around here. You want to act like a fascist mob, be prepared to reap the consequences. It will happen if you actually try to take away my rights and the rights of every American.
The able-bodied adults (mostly men, but I won’t complain if my aunts show up with shotguns) of this nation. That’s more or less what the militia was and is. The National Guard is a government agency, which is explicitly what the militia was NOT. The militia were local people not in any military mustered as needed and provided for by the locals with their initial gear (though government wcould provide them with more and did so in the Civil War).
Militia ain’t hard to organize. We already have all the social structures we need to create them on the spot.
Strawman.
Y’know, it is. But for a reason that perfectly illustrates why my our position is correct: they simply don’t have the support of Iraqis. The insurgency is small, a tiny and disliked minority even in the Shi’a (and this is a Shi’a, not Baathist, revolt). If there were suddenly several million militiamen holding places all over Iraq, the US could never hope to win. We’d be too spread out and couldn’t be strong everywhere. No matter how many people we tried to kill, they could melt away and strike by assassination, and by overwhelming small groups. What is going on in Iraq is a totally failed and is falling apart with the slightest push. But if they really had millions of men who believed in the cause, they would win.
Hold on just a damn minnit before we get too carried away with 2nd amendment issues. iamme99, you continue to support your argument with false assumptions. I pointed out one previously (which you have deigned to answer) and now you’ve made another.
You have, said at least twice in this thread, that the guns in the hands of the citizens (or subjects, or whatever they are right now) of Iraq is the source and cause of the turmoil and violence currently running unckecked. If the occupying forces had confiscated all those guns, we wouldn’t be seeing nearly the violence the pictures now show us.
But then you say:
These two things cannot both be correct; they’re mutually exclusive. So which is it? Are the small arms held by the public the cause of violence and unrest, and ownership of them a barrier to an eventual civil peace? Or are they useless for the thwarting the intents of the interim & proposed permanent government? You can’t have it both ways.
As **smiling bandit ** noted, you and your kind will have a tough job disarming the American gun-owner. iamme99, you flat out state that you want to confiscate the legal, moral property of citizens for no reason. This makes you a fascist of the worst order. Because you are afraid, you want to inflict your will on the general populace. As for my car analogy, you obviously don’t get it. People kill more people with cars every year than they ever do with guns. Where is your outrage? But you need/own a car, so they are allowed. You don’t own a gun, so they aren’t. Funny how that works…
You have no basis for your arguments, and you are a proven, self-revealed fascist. Have a nice day.
This is what I was getting at with my question.
Either the arms of the Iraqi populace make a difference, in which case an armed US populace could do the same.
Or they don’t, and the OP was a strawman.
Care to comment, iamme99?
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, the car analogy is spot on. You feel you need one, for whatever reason, despite the availability of mass transit, taxi’s, bikes, etc. You would resist efforts to take your car away from you, and would probably fight in court to protect your right to own a car.
Cars kill more people every year than guns. You have to pass a special course to get a license to drive legally. Some people behave dangerously with their cars, and cause accidents that kill innocent people.
I don’t see much of a difference at all.
How about if the government tried to take away our guns?
Lord Ashtar, or as Shodan put it; 
They most certainly are correct. Let me state up from that I do not support Bush’s war in Iraq. Haven’t from the getgo. But that being said, if we fought this war like they wars were fought say, 2000 years ago, we would have pulled out all the stops - burned the cities, tore apart the infrastructure, took the people’s weapons away, immediately shot anyone who resisted, executed all members of the prior government, etc., In this scenario, then no public would be able to stand against our military. Yeah, a lot of the world would not be happy with these actions, but what are they going to do about it?
What I’ve been trying to say is that if the government here chose to conduct itself in a similar manner for whatever the event is that we are talking about that you believe a militia would stand against, then your guns would be next to worthless.
Wow, I’m a FACIST now! That’s the first time I recall having ever been called that. I must be hitting a real sore spot to cause you to descend to name calling <lol>.
I’d suggest that you spend a little more time and brain power reading what I said, instead of mindlessly lashing out. I said that weak people use guns as surrogate to make themselves feel like they are strong. Guns cause over 11,000 deaths each year and my OP is that they are not necessary in today’s society (unlike a car). If we removed guns from the population, then there would be less deaths caused by guns. Pretty simple, eh? SO yes, there are good reasons why they should be confiscated.
As to cars, they will eventually be controlled by robotics, giving people all the time they need to do all the distracting things that typically lead to accidents, like using the cell phone, eating, conversing, reading a book, putting on makeup, changing the radio station, etc., all of which I see people doing virtually everyday. Most accidents will then be eliminated when humans don’t have to concentrate on driving. Problem solved, unlike the problem with guns.
Yada, yada, yada… Talk is cheap big boy. I seriously doubt that many would follow the path you describe. You’re living in a dream world if you think something different would actually happen. Oh yes, there would be a relatively few groups of people who would go down in Waco like situations. But once some examples were made, the rest would fall into line because like said, most people who own guns are weak people who feel like big men/woman when they have their hands on a gun. So as long as the government is prepared to sacrifice some citizens, I don’t think removing guns would be as big a deal as you all want to make it out to be.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Cars are necessary? Prove it! How many people lived and work in the US without a car? In NYC, hundreds of thousands. Who defines necessary…you? What a joke. I stand by my fascist label. Name-calling only applies when the label chosen doesn’t fit. “Fascist” fits you like a glove, by your own statements.
As for the second part, by your logic(?) if we just eliminated everything, there would be no problems whatsoever. Better yet, to eliminate the problem of people who have problems with guns, we should just get rid of…? Come on, you can say it…yourself. Give yourself a cookie.
So rather than teaching and enforcing…oh…I don’t know…SAFETY RULES, you’d just “have robots do it.” :rolleyes: I really don’t know where to begin with someone this out of touch with reality.
Considering the current state of things, I’m surprised you’re so optimistic about other people’s willingness and capacity to protect you.
And you objected to my characterization of you as fascist because…? :rolleyes:
Not everyone lives in NYC. Many people have to commute 40-100 miles to work and there isn’t any public transportation to avail themselves of. I think that should suffice for the proof of a need for cars. So now, prove to me why guns are necessary? To protect against some imaginary government takeover that hasn’t occurred since this Union was formed?
You can label me however you want. I don’t really care [shrug]. I think people were also labeled fascists years ago when the movement to ban smoking in offices and public places was first broached. That battle has pretty much been won. Guns are next. Just be patient and you’ll see.