No, you said "For American supporters of the NRA’s interpretation of the 2nd Amendment"This does not include any of the extreme proponants of unlimited gun rights. Specifically the NRA does not oppose instant and anonymous background checks, nor do they propose that everyone be issued military grade weapons, especially explosive ones. Those sorts of proponents are the only ones IMHO who would argue with many of the gun confiscations occuring in Iraq.
Oh, then my first post is the right answer. Specifically it is clearly a human right.
Interesting that I would have to resort to animal rights to this OP. The ONLY animal right is the right to TRY to survive, I would extend this to humans, which have the ability to obtain and manufacture weapons including firearms. I would not deny any human the use of a firearm for this purpose to any person.
I have gathered this impression mostly from my past interactions with you and my knowledge of your views of gun ownership rights. You believe that private citizens should be permitted to own almost no guns. You believe the 2nd amendment confers only a collective right of ownership to the organized militia. You deny that the 2nd amendment guarantees the pre-existing right of private citizens to keep and bear arms.
Given all that, your query, as posed in the OP, seems to be a trap. As if you are attempting to induce the private gun ownership rights people, such as myself, to say they do not favor the same rights for Iraqi citizens. It looks like a rather transparent ploy to catch people in a conumdrum which I suspect you’ll immediately label hypocrisy. After all, the NRA isn’t the only institution which believes the 2nd amendment guarantees a personal right to keep and bear arms. There are courts, historians, constitutional scholars, and many others who believe the 2nd amendment means what it says in the phrase, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
That, and the fact that you seem to be soliciting opinion without stating yours. You seem to be asking others to expand on their opinions without offering rebuttal to their ideas, only claiming confusion.
Further, you have asked this question:
which is a hypothetical that has not a thing to do with the topic you originally posted. It, too, appears leading and baited—in other words, a strawman.
Now, my suspicions and assumptions may be incorrect, and if they are, then I withdraw my remarks and permit me to apologize for poisoning the well. But I believe I see sufficient cause for drawing the conclusions I have. I only ask that you actually engage the topic you have posed and rebut, refute, and reply to the many valid ideas which have been posed. Failure to do so would seem to confirm my suspicions.
If you see a conundrum, *you * address it. If the “trap” you project is so transparent, perhaps that’s because I’m not making any effort to be obscure. I will certainly not go on the defensive for infractions that you predict I will commit in the future of this this thread.
You seem to indirectly acknowledge that it’s a complex issue, with areas of light and dark and clear and muddy, but you won’t discuss it unless everyone states whether they’re on the black side or the white side. Fine. Then don’t discuss it.
You want conclusions stated before debate. Mostly, you want personalities and prejudices to hold more weight than dialogue.
Okay, lissener. I will take you at your word; I find your sufficient reason to believe your protestations of innocence. My assumptions about your intentions were mistaken. As I asked before, please permit me to retract my claims; I am sorry for drawing unwarranted conclusions.
Actually, while it is a complex issue, I don’t see that it is all that muddy. I have presented a clear and simple interpretation of my view. If there are indeed gray areas, it is up to you, as an engaged participant in the debate, to point them out. It sounds almost as if you are asking me to present all sides of the issue. I’ve presented those I see; I cannot present issues which have not occured to me.
This is a mischaracterization. I’ve not asked for any conclusions; I’ve asked only that you give us your opinion, in the same fashion you’ve asked for ours. Right now there is little to debate. You’ve not refuted the arguments we’re making, nor have you given us your view so that it may be examined in kind.
I said before, and again in this post, that if my conclusions about your intentions are incorrect, and you have now assured me they are, that I withdraw my remarks about your intentions. Allow me to do so one more time so that there is no misunderstanding: I am sorry for making invalid conclusions about your intentions. Let us carry on with the exchange of ideas.
Can we now go forward in, at least reasonably, good faith? Please shed some light on what you perceive to be the gray and muddy areas of my view, and the others, presented here. Please share your view, so that it may also be examined. I thank you in advance.
lissener, since you have found time to make a number of posts in the period between now and my post immediately above, but not here, you force me to conclude that my retraction and offer of an olive branch was too hasty. It becomes more clear that my initial assumptions were indeed correct. You were never intended to debate this issue in good faith; you were not really, as you claimed, interested in the perspectives of gun rights supporters; in fact, you were actually attempting what I claimed—to spring a trap upon us “knuckle-dragging” barbaric apes.
Sorry things didn’t work out for you as planned. Try not to be so transparent next time.
Well, perhaps. But it only applies to nations. And it has only been applied once. And in that case, ther was a very extensive history of intransigence on the part of the nation to disarm by other means.
As you’ve pointed out, UB, I have spent some time in other threads recently. I have been wasting more time here than I should. There are many dopers for whom I would not consider it was a waste of time to try to clarify myself, and so that’s where I’m rationing my time for now.
You come in here and shit all over this thread and then insist that the burden of proof is mine. I’m just not playing. I’m not going to justify myself to you. It seems more doperly to me, UB, that if you’re going to enter a thread just to focus personal unpleasantries on the OP and try to derail the discussion just because you have a problem with me, that you as a moderator should know that there’s a perfectly good forum for doing so.
Snort. I shit all over a thread that was shit to begin with. Good one.
And in fact, I actually gave a proper answer to your inquistion. You refused to respond to it and still do. What am I left as a reasonable conclusion? It was you who ran this train off the rails. Rather than enage the substantive responses here, you focused on one small statement of mine. For your review, this is all I said which apparently to you sounded like a starting gun and off to the races you were:
That’s it. Nothing more. You are the one who refuses to respond to anything except the personal unpleasantries; unpleasantries which you sparked.
My perspective on this issue underwent some change as a result of the topic of thos thread. But I’ll be damned if I’ll waste my energy sharing any of that with you. Your participation in this thread has pretty well poisoned it for me.
Your conclusions as to my motivations are cynical and wrong, but because you’re so sure about them I’m not going to address them. You ask “What am I left as a reasonable conclusion?” as if you actually considered all reasonable conclusions before jumping to the one you jumped to.
And it’s childish to say that I “sparked” the unpleasantries. I made you do it. Take responsibility for your own reactions. It would go a long way toward convincing me that you were in any way worthy of a serious response. Not that this is important to you. Even less to me.
Great - if true. What in hell prevented you from saying so before? Simple little statement like that is all that was necessary to avoid all these “personal unpleasantries.” Just one little bit of interaction with your topic is all that that was needed - a smidgen of goddamned give and take. Just a few words, “You make a good point,” or “I find your opinion compelling,” or “Thank for giving me something to think about.” Simple shit, really. But nope, too much for you; you refused to show that you cared at all about anything other than laying your trap and the “personal unpleasantries.” After you knew this was a concern, you then did nothing to deflect that - no on-topic interaction at all. Again, what reasonable conclusion was there left to draw, when in fact, there are only two to choose from: that you indeed wished a good faith exchange of ideas, or that you did not. There simply does not exist myriad conclusions to be drawn as you seem to believe; there are but two - and you failed to offer any evidence that you were interested in one of those.
I didn’t refuse. I was considering; I was actually writing a long response. It wasn’t until you pissed in the well that I refused to throw good money after bad, to mix a metaphor.
It’s not my responsibility–much less my desire–to win you over, Uncle Beer. You’ve made yourself, rather, someone I avoid.
After I “knew it was a concern”? After I knew it was YOUR concern. Who cares about your concerns? You voiced no concerns; you drew conclusions and made assumptions, and suggested–and still suggest–that your myopia provided for a valid reframing of the debate. It didn’t. It doesn’t.
Not that UncleBeer needs a hand holder, lissener, but honestly, when I read this thread, I came to almost the exact conclusion that UB pointed out. I felt that this thread was opened as a sauce for the gander type of debate, and that was reinforced with your response that, to paraphrase, “the NRA supports unrestricted access to all types of firearms.” I know, that’s not exactly what you said, but that’s what I read. IMHO, kill this thread and start over.
As for the OP, I think all law-abiding Iraqi citizens over the age of 18 should have the RKBA, with or without an official decree.