Zwaldd: you keep refering to the NRA’s positional policies incorrectly.
As a Life Member, and a regular attendee of regional policy meetings and an event organizer, let me clarify:
No more new laws until existing laws are routinely and rigorously enforced, and their efficacy measured.
The NRA does not advocate unrestricted possession of military grade heavy weaponry (rocket/grenade/missile launchers, flamethrowers, mortars and artillery, etc.)
It Never Has.
The NRA does not advocate unrestricted ownership of firearms to any and all; the standard BATF Form 4473 (the “Yellow Sheet”) list a few of the classes of individuals that society has deemed unacceptable to own firearms, and the NRA really doesn’t have any qualms with it.
What the NRA gets on about is something that I have explained, over-and-over again (I really should just copy it and C&P it into these discussions), and will do so once more:
It isn’t the reasonable moderates that we’re afraid of; reasonable, moderate people will sit down and talk like rational people, listen to what we say with respect and consideration, and we will also do likewise to them. Together, we will come up with reasonable, moderate, common-sense solutions to the problems of violence inour society without restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens (assuming you view the 2Ad. as an individual right, of course).
But right behind these reasonable moderates are some slightly less-than-reasonable moderates who are waiting with their list of further demands and restrictions;
And, just outside the door, is another group, the unreasonable extremists, who also have their lists of demands and restrictions;
And right down the hall is yet another group, the lunatic fringe, who demand a total ban on all guns NOW!, with door-to-door John Doe Warrant searches and seizures.
Each compromise, each new law, cracks the door open yet further for the increasingly fringe elements to demand that us murdering, callous, red-neck hick gun-owners surrender our guns now, in the name of public safety.
Semantic gerrymandering (I know, a “mixed metaphor”) with the Constitution, slanted research (thank you so much for the ammo, Mr. Bellesiles!), and attempts to engender a culture hostile not only to firearms, but to owners as well has led to the polarized state of affairs, vis-a-vis firearms and their owners.
2Sense: the “populace as partisans” has been hashed over several times, with comparisons to Vietnam and Afghanistan being tossed about.
Apples and Oranges.
First of all, the Armed Populace is to give an ambitious tyrant a “moment of pause”.
And yes, the U.S. Armed Forces are incredibly formidable, with firepower unrivaled anywhere else on the planet at their fingertips.
Should a wanna-be-tyrant go ahead and make his/her play for power, and if a significant portion of the military goes along with it (a prospect that I personally deem highly unlikely), it would still be game/set/match to the people in no time flat.
The reason is thus, and I’ll offer a contrast in comparison:
The military/industrial complex is run by the very people the potential tyrants wish to subjugate. Strikes, civil unrest, mass rioting, sabotage (the term comes from the French, when workers threw their wooden clogs, called sabot, into the machines they were meant to operate) would quickly shut down the American economy, thus depriving the military of the hi-tech “stuff” it needs to run/operate.
Unlike the Vietnamese and the Afghans, the American people can strike at the strategic military/industrial complex fueling their enemy’s war machine, in our tyrannical take-over scenario.
My “wild card” in this scenario would be: “How Many Americans Would Just Line Up And Be Counted In The New Regime, And How Many Would Resist, And By What Demographic?”
To get back to the OP:
Zwaldd: In our society, in any given society, covenants are established such that people may live in harmony. The more complex a society, the more covenants their are. When time and means allow, these covenants are written down, codified, and become custom and/or law.
As society grows even more complex, institutions are, well, instituted to enforce these laws. We call such institutions Governments. These governments not only enforce these laws, but also go on to codify the punishments for violating these laws, and the means of enacting such punishments, among other things.
Governments rule by various means; some good, some bad (being totally subjective, of course :rolleyes: ); our particular form is Representative Democracy by the consent of the governed.
When an individual has trespassed against another individual, the government (and thusly, eventually, the people), or an entity legally charted by the government (and thus the people), such as a business, they have broken the covenanant that binds them to that society; they have violated the tribe’s taboo; they have pissed off the heap-mighty God(s)-of-a-million-horrible-deaths.
And the God(s) must be appeased.
Okay, kidding aside, they have broken the covenants of the orderly society; whether voluntarily or not, knowingly or not, they have done so. Even arguments that they could only turn to crime to physically survive is not accepted.
And one the many forms of punishment a society can dole out is the withholding/revocation of some of the benefits, rights and priveleges of that society’s efforts.
Thus has it been decided in these United States: if you commit a crime of sufficient gravity, certain rights and priveleges of citizenship will be denied to you for your trespass against society.
The ability to effect policy through voting; the ability to serve in the nation’s military (although this has become a hollow threat); the ability to hold public office, or be appointed to a position within the government; and the ability to cause further mischief by legally owning firearms.
All of these (and probably some more that I’m forgetting) are revoked/suspended, even after the term of incarceration has been served.
I suppose it beats being stoned to death, crucified, burned alive, buried alive, vivisected, or stripped naked and cast out of the tribe during the middle of winter, yes?