You are looking this through the narrow lens of your lifetime, it is highly unlikely that over a dozen lifetimes that they will not have an attempted military take over.
Should we bin the first part of the 14th because there is little risk that we would try to deny blacks citizenship today?
Also note that many of these unnamed countries you speak of were only recently disarmed.
A dozen lifetimes?! That’s a thousand years you’re talking about there, give or take a century or so. Deliberately attempting to legislate for all the possible eventualities in that kind of timespan seems pretty silly.
I don’t think so, because the general principles of due process, equal protection of law, etc., are still applicable as fundamentally important issues in modern society.
But there’s nothing fundamentally important about ownership of any particular type of object, except in the context of the civic purpose that ownership of that object is supposed to serve.
The effective power of civilian militias to dominate official armed forces used to be a fundamentally important issue in America’s early days. And private ownership of guns served the purpose of maintaining that power, so private ownership of guns became a constitutional right—and appropriately so, IMO.
Nowadays, however, the effective power of civilian militias to dominate official armed forces is both essentially eliminated and irrelevant to the functioning of “the security of a free state”. Except, of course, in the hypothetical apocalyptic scenarios of Evil Military Junta takeover that we’ve been batting around here, where the Constitution is essentially a dead letter anyway.
So gun ownership is no longer realistically relevant to any fundamentally important constitutional purpose, and therefore, IMO, it’s no longer entitled to the status of a constitutional right.
Kind of funny that England as an example found simple rifles such a risk to their massive armies that they argued that the risk of rebellion by the working class was one of the reasons to control private ownership of arms in 1920.
The only thing you have offered is your opinion that they are of no use, you have not given a single cite or example to prove so.
What long running disarmed democracies exist?
I see no reason to think that civilian control of the military as being less tenuous today than it was in the past.
I don’t claim that guns “are of no use”, and I have never offered any assertion or opinion to that effect.
What I do claim, and what you have produced absolutely no evidence to rebut, is that
privately owned arms are no longer capable of dominating regular military forces in the US, and
the extent to which privately owned arms may deter an outbreak of irregular military tyranny is at best unproven.
That’s irrelevant to the question of whether privately owned arms would be significantly useful in fighting a full-scale civil war against an unconstitutional military tyranny if we did happen to find ourselves saddled with one. I don’t think that constitutional rights ought to be assessed on the basis of how valuable they might prove in the hypothetical event of an unconstitutional military tyranny.
What do you count as “disarmed”? Democracies where gun ownership is banned in general, or ones where there’s a low incidence of gun ownership although it’s legal, or just ones that don’t specify a formal constitutional right to gun ownership?
Small arms win wars all the time, you have I provided many examples, El Salvador, Afghanistan etc…
Is it that maybe you consider the source of the item relating to it’s functionality?
States fall quickly to our cold war era military but it isn’t very effective in winning a war against those who do not want us in control vs the incumbents.
Even small forces can win, it is not a lost cause as you claim.
Why is the US special, we are living in good times but those may not last forever, why would we be special vs. the countries that did have Military dictatorships in the past 100 years.
Are the people of Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Egypt, Guinea, Ethiopia,The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Indonesia,Japan, North and South Korea, Laos, Pakistan, Philippines, Syria, Thailand, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain and Turkey so much different?
It is not a hypothetical, people like to have power, once in power they like to stay in power.
Lets say similar to today’s law in England, which is the main reason most people want to remove the 2nd, it is an impediment to their political goals.
By making the cost of a coup d’état much higher it helps prevent one.
Arms do not need to be raised to be of use.
As stated earlier in the thread there is no reason to believe that individuals who are paid to plan and weigh costs vs. benefit would for some reason not do so when considering the overthrow of a government.
Sure, but now we have the professional military to win our wars for us. There is no way any small band of anti-government American rebels with small arms is going to dominate or impose its will on our military forces operating constitutionally under a legitimate government.
Now, if we should have some bizarre combination of circumstances that actually destroys our legitimate government and puts us at the mercy of a military tyranny, then we’ll be wielding whatever arms we can scrape together in an all-out state of civil war and anarchy.
But that sort of hypothetical non-constitutional situation, as I keep repeating, is IMO not what we should use as a basis for determining constitutional rights.
Well, for one thing, we’re not a third world country with a tradition of governmental instability. Nor are, for example, the UK, Canada, and Switzerland, all of which have not been taken over by military dictatorships within the past hundred years.
More importantly, the point I was making was not that the US is “special” in the sense of somehow being immune to military tyranny, but that a hypothetical military tyranny would be a catastrophically UNCONSTITUTIONAL situation and consequently is not an appropriate scenario for evaluating the merits of CONSTITUTIONAL rights. I don’t know why this is so hard for you to understand.
Hate to break it to you, rat avatar, but if we do find ourselves in a state of all-out civil war and anarchy against an unconstitutional military tyranny, I’m not going to worry my head too much about whether the traitors we catch are getting constitutionally specified fair trials, either.
In short, I don’t really give a rat’s avatar about constitutional rights in the context of drastically unconstitutional emergencies, or vice versa. Constitutional rights, IMO, should be based on the norms of the constitutional functioning of the state, not on the apocalyptic abnormalities of its imagined complete breakdown.
And now that I’ve made this point four or five times, I hope you’ll excuse me if I decline to explain it again in future.
You don’t actually understand what the word “hypothetical” means, do you? The scenario of a military tyranny in the US is hypothetical in the sense that there currently isn’t one, and consequently we have to hypothesize its existence in order to discuss it.
:dubious: Oh? You’re asking for examples of “long-running” democracies existing under gun regulation laws less than a hundred years old?
Now all that remains is for me to ask “What do you count as `long-running’?” and for you to reply “Oh, let’s say democracies that have been around for more than a hundred years”, and presto, you will have cunningly set up your question to force the answer you want.
The overall impression I’m getting from your arguments is that you think individual gun ownership needs to remain a constitutional right because you believe that
(a) gun ownership provides some unspecified level of deterrence against an unconstitutional military coup;
(b) gun ownership would increase our chances of overthrowing an unconstitutional military coup if somehow it didn’t manage to deter it the way it’s supposed to; and
(c) an unconstitutional military coup would be a very real and imminent danger for us within the next few centuries or so if we didn’t have the unspecified level of deterrence against it provided by the individual gun ownership rights that nonetheless might not manage to deter it which is why we need to protect gun rights so we can defeat the military coup if it happens.
If you really don’t see how feeble these arguments look as a justification for continuing to award gun ownership the status of a fundamental constitutional right, I don’t think there’s anything else I can say that will convince you.
Sez, again, you.
Repeating the same allegedly factual assertion over and over again because you think it just “stands to reason” is not the same as providing convincing evidence for it.
The fact remains that the degree to which an armed populace actually quantifiably deters the launching of a coup d’état in a developed democracy is simply unknown.
Consequently, I don’t accept that assertion as a valid argument in favor of the claim that private gun ownership serves a significantly useful civic purpose in maintaining national security.
And you’re not going to get me to accept it as such simply by re-stating it over and over again with the same lack of any quantitative evidence.
That “professional military” is the risk, it is the power of the people is what is the check for that power. It is not hypothetical the need of the military to be subordinate to the people is essential.
The reason it is a RIGHT is to PREVENT that catastrophically UNCONSTITUTIONAL situation
UK, Canada, and Switzerland all had rights to arms for 100s of years this only changed in the UK due to fears of a communist revolution.
Switzerland has a much higher rate of gun ownership in fact it is legally required to keep a rife for most men.
This is getting circular, so I’ll bow out too, it would seem that if your claims were real you could give examples.
Your claim of ***apocalyptic abnormalities *** being the only use is unfounded and really a capricious argument. It does nothing to address the relative commonality of state failure.
By being an impediment to the government being overthrown it directly relates to the function of the government.
Wait, protecting the document from infringement is a feeble argument?
The length of time is mostly because a government needs to be tested to see if it survives, even with a recession we are living in flush times.
Pointing to proof that your claims are anything more than opinion would be a start. I am not going to be convinced by baseless appeals to emotion.
Too bad, then, because now the “professional military” has a definitive and conclusive firepower advantage over “the people” in pretty much every conceivable situation, except perhaps the complete collapse of the constitutional state with universal rebellion and anarchy.
The people may still control the military nowadays through the democratic process (and I certainly hope we continue to do so), but we have no longer any realistic hope of being able to control and regulate them in an orderly way through superior armed might.
Are you really attempting to argue against this? Can you really imagine any plausible situation where, in a constitutionally functioning state, the US military couldn’t take down any particular band of rebels that tried to “subordinate” it?
I don’t think you can, because every example you suggest of the citizens going up against the military assumes some kind of apocalyptic all-out “state failure” scenario. IMO, as I’ve noted, that’s not the type of scenario that the provisions of the Constitution should be designed to address.
But you’ve offered no factual evidence that having gun ownership as an individual right actually does prevent such a situation: you’ve just continued to repeat it with no facts to substantiate it.
And look, the UK has still not been taken over by a military coup.
Moreover, I question your interpretation of a so-called “right to arms” in Canada. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not declare a right to bear arms except subject to the provisions of law. (The same, by the way, is true of the seventeenth-century English Bill of Rights, which permits gun ownership only “as allowed by law”. A recognized “right” to own guns as long as guns aren’t illegal hardly counts as a constitutional or fundamental right to gun ownership.) In fact, the Canadian Supreme court has specifically ruled that "Canadians, unlike Americans do not have a constitutional right to bear arms.”
Your argument is not strengthened when your examples don’t even support the points you’re trying to make.
Once again, you have provided nothing in the way of quantitative evidence that indicates whether or to what extent private gun ownership really does provide “an impediment to the government being overthrown”.
Certainly. The “document” of the Constitution isn’t a sacred cow and doesn’t need to be “protected from infringement”.
What’s important and worthy of protection are the fundamental rights of the people. And in the modern world where the standing army of the state outguns the citizenry by orders of magnitude, there’s no convincing reason that I can see to maintain the status of private gun ownership as a fundamental right of the people. So we can eliminate that anachronistic provision from “the document” with no harm done at all.
I think the problem you’ve been having here is that you can’t see the difference between a factual claim and a statement of opinion. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, some of the things I’ve been saying here are indeed my own opinion.
The reason I’ve been repeating them is to show you that your unsupported assertions of alleged facts that you can’t show to be true have done nothing to change my opinion.
If you can’t provide any actual factual evidence to attempt to change my opinion on the merits of the case, you should stop trying to change my opinion merely by repeatedly disagreeing with it. Because that’s not going to work.
I’m not the one mixing argument; his statement stands as argument completely disconnected from reality. A recognition that it an action might not be ‘politically viable’ doesn’t demonstrate one understands the process to actually do what he wants done. Is he ***really ***arguing that 38 states would ratify an amendment giving the federal government autonomous absolute power to impact the personal arms of the private citizen? That’s laughable on its face because states have always reacted to federal gun control initiatives by expanding or clarifying the right for their citizens.
That Mr Mace remains fixated on the impossible is plainly evident as he calls argument against his proposal, “absurd”:
Uhhhh, first, the rest of WE THE PEOPLE that choose to NOT to give the federal government that power.
Second, the fundamental principles of our Republic that holds the rights of the citizen are not subject to the ignorant whims of a oppressive, discriminatory majority.
If such an law were to get passed and come into effect and be challenged as an illegitimate exercise of powers never granted, then YES! It certainly is a judge’s or Justice’s obligation to apply the Constitution and the principles that the Constitution is founded upon to the law and decide its legitimacy.
No, we have contracted with government to lend it certain limited powers to be exercised with our consent and only for as long as We the People consider the government performing to our benefit.
Rights are powers we reserve, retain and are excepted out of the grant of powers we have established in the Constitution.
I don’t need any agent of the government to tell me what my rights are. My rights predate the Constitution and the governmental authority created by it.
By the Constitution’s structure, no governmental agency has any legitimate import on the extent of my rights, only of laws. This also extends to the courts including SCOTUS. As a creation of the Constitution their duty is NOT to determine if a right that predates the Court’s creation exists, or its scope, or whether it is popular, or whether the social impact outweighs holding the government to the constraints inherent in the Constitution’s enumerated powers . . . The Court’s only duty is to decide whether a challenged law was enacted beyond the strictly limited, clearly defined powers delegated to the legislature.
I find especially repugnant any member of Congress pontificating on the extent of my rights; their purview is only the creation of law at the citizen’s behest, not having an opinion on the citizen’s rights. Their only legitimate concern regarding my rights is to not exceed the legislative authority granted to them by the Constitution . . . if the bastards could only stick to that our rights would be safe without regard of their listing in the Bill of Rights.
When the government is violating the principles of its establishment it is no longer, ‘the government established by the Constitution’. It is then and forever more, an illegitimately governing foreign entity, incapable of claiming the protections of the Constitution it is violating. It becomes at that point subject to We the People rescinding our consent to be governed, rescinding our grant of powers and removing the illegitimate tyrants that have usurped powers. If this can not be done peacefully, We the People have retained the original right of self-defense to throw off the usurpers with any means at our disposal.
There is nothing to “return” or pass on because the federal government has never possessed the power to “control firearms”.
Nations without a “right” to arms or that have had strict civilian disarmament laws (and even game protection decrees) enacted have lived under those conditions often for centuries (i.e., the UK). The original intent of those restrictions were to quell / dissuade civilian uprisings and perpetuate authoritarian government.
That some “modern” European nations have a compliant, obedient and servile populous is not an endorsement of modern (20th Century) gun control.
The Constitution is founded on certain principles that are agreed upon before the social compact is created and powers granted. Those principles are deemed permanent because the powers established by the Constitution are powerless to retroactively (ex post facto) alter them.
In the case of guns in the hands of the citizenry, the armed citizenry is a fundamental component of the Republican form of government the framers promised to the states and can not be acted against.
If you want to disarm the citizens you would need to institute a new Constitution founded on your new principles . . . The present one can not be altered to violate the principles of its creation.
Also, in the case of the Bill of Rights one must remember that many states conditioned their ratification of the Constitution on those provisions being added (with Rhode Island and North Carolina outright refusing to sign). It seems reasonable to argue that asking the states to approve the removal of any of those provisions would be resisted quite vigorously.
Bullshit and bullshit. If armed citizenry is so fucking important, why do most of the world’s democracies have gun controls?
All we have to do is repeal the oft-misunderstood 2nd Amendment, the rest of the Constitution does not depend one iota on it.
This is just such utter nonsense it is practically beyond discussion. There is no part of the constitution that cannot be amended, or dumped in whole, or replaced, if the rules of amendment, as laid out in the constitution, are followed. Those states that want to “resist vigorously” can do so by voting against an amendment and urging their peers to do the same.
I actually agree with you that, politically speaking, dumping the second amendment isn’t going to happen, certainly not in our lifetime. But there is nothing so sacred about it that it can’t be removed in a process that’s any different from any other part of the constitution.
There aren’t forces advocating that people be forbidden to buy and eat food though . . .
A more proper metaphor would be that you are advocating rescinding Newton’s Law and wanting it removed from every textbook and scientific treatise because you don’t like gravity . . .
The right to arms does not in any manner depend on the 2nd Amendment to exist. Repealing the Amendment would not create powers where none existed before.
Many because they feared armed citizens . . . :smack: Duhhhhh
As I said right above:
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Neither does the right to arms.
There must be a parallel universe where this drivel makes sense.