Ha Ha.
And you’re dodging the question.
Again… if you were living in 1776 Boston, would have you fought the redcoats?
I answered the question. I would have become a privateer.
Well, but the weapons the British were going to Concord to get weren’t personal weapons. They were militia weapons. The way colonial militias worked was that a town would own weapons, which it would keep locked up in an arsenal. Then, when it came time for militia training, the arsenal would distribute the weapons, then, after training, collect them and lock them back up. Most Bostonians probably wouldn’t own muskets of their own, which were largely used for hunting and combat. If a Bostonian was armed, it would likely be with a knife or pistol.
As to the question if I would fight the redcoats, probably not. I assume I’d be proud of being a British subject, One of “the freest people in the world.”, as the British boasted about themselves, ruled not by some absolute monarch who ruled with fear, using secret police and force to terrify ignorant peasants, but by an elected parliament, where people were free to speak and think as they wanted.
Fascinating. Do you, um, have a cite for this? (Keep in mind that Bellesiles’ book is a work of fiction…)
Interesting. And at least you’re honest, unlike some other [ahem] folks in this thread.
So I assume you do not celebrate Independence Day?
Let me go through this again for the benefit of Crafter Man and others. When the light Infantry and Grenadier companies, plus some Royal Marines, from the Boston garrison marched to Concord and brushed aside Cpt. Parker’s company of select militia at Lexington, the British had two objectives. The first was to seize the colonial organized militia’s armory of two or three small cannons (provided by the Crown), a supply of gunpowder (provided by the Crown) and a collection of camp gear and foodstuffs. The second was to arrest John Hancock , Sam Adams and other leaders of the Patriot Movement in the Bay Colony Assembly.
The armed force that met the British was the select and organized colonial militia. At the time the Boston area was a powder keg just waiting for a spark. The port of Boston had been closed and unemployment was widespread. Boston had been garrisoned. There were many other topics of controversy. Many of them are recited in the Deceleration of Independence. The colonials of almost every streak were intent on getting the port open and the garrison with drawn. The colonials had previously been successful in having the Stamp Act repealed through non-cooperation and intimidation and physical violence toward Crown Officers. Many, if not most, thought that resistance to the British garrison would result in England backing down again. It was Colony policy to use the militia to restrict the British to Boston town by using the militia if necessary.
The point is this, the colonial force at Lexington and Concord was the legitimate armed force of the Bay Colony, armed and equipped and organized by the colonial government with a substantial contribution by the British Government. It was lead by officers appointed by the legitimate colonial government and it was the legitimate agent of that government to translate that government’s policy into blood and death.
The British objective was not to disarm the citizenry of the Bay Colony. It was to disarm the colonial militia. In fact, the stuff left in the arsenal/depot at Concord was destroyed. This amounted to some flour, tents, gunpowder and musket balls. I think that the trunnions were knocked off the two or three cannon that were found.
As far as the question is concerned–would I have fallen in with the militia?–if I were a member of the militia, of course. Were I not a member of the legitimate and organized militia, I think I would be inclined to get the hell out of the way. A member of the militia had a duty to his government to report and, if ordered, to fight. In the same way, I had a duty to report and fight, as did many other on this board, when called to do so by my government, however dubious the cause might have been.
Fuck right the fuck off, shitbag. I get a kick out of naval history, so I’d serve my country by becoming a privateer. How the fuck do you divine that I’m “dishonest” in that?
**
For which? For the fact that colonial militia weapons were town property? Not off the top of my head…that’s something I picked up from some military history and colonial history classes. If you want, I can find it for you.
For the fact that most Bostonians probably wouldn’t own muskets, think about it. If you were to move to New York City right now, and wanted to get a gun for protection, assuming there were no restrictions on the weapons you could get, would you be most likely to get a rifle, a shotgun, or a pistol? My answer, at least, and the answer of most people, I think, would be a pistol. It’s small, concealable, can be used in a small space, isn’t a particularly cumbersome weapon to use, and you don’t draw as much attention to yourself walking down the street with a pistol as you would with a shotgun. The average colonial Bostonian is in the same position. He doesn’t have to worry very much about hunting for food, or fighting off Indians. He does have to worry, though, about burglars or muggers. So what’s his choice? A pistol.
**
Actually, I do. You asked me what I probably would do if I had lived back then, and, like most of the colonists, I probably wouldn’t take up arms against the government. However, living now, my loyalties are to the current government. Whether the Revolutionary War was a good or bad action by the patriots is water under the bridge.
I want a 12 gauge pump action short barreld semi automatic shotgun and a .40 caliber semi auto pistol with at least a 10 round magazine capacity.
The pistol is for carrying concealed when I have to go out of my house at night through crime land to go to work. It’s not something that people are gonna see on me, and gives me the element of surprise.
The shotgun is for inside the house when john q crackhead decides to break in. It doesn’t require me to aim like the pistol does, and if I load it with birdshot, I’m not going to worry that a miss is going to go through the paper thin wall of my apartment and kill someone on the other side by accident.
So yeah, I’m not going to choose just ONE gun. I’m going to choose TWO guns because each one of them has advantages for different situations.
Answer your question?
Again I ask Crafter_Man and others-If the Supreme Court rules that the 2nd Amendment does not provide for an individual right to keep and bear arms, how will you respond? I’m not talking about overturning it, just interpreting it to your personal dissatisfaction. Do you stand by the Constitution as it is interpreted by the SCOTUS, but lobby and organize to eventually get it changed to what you want it to be, or do you discard and disregard those laws you disagree with?
minty: Naval privateer? You’re more ambitious than all of those “militias” combined. At least ground-based forces have all kinds of cover and tricks for spoofing reconaissance. And a partisan can hide quite nicely in and amongst the peeps.
Out on the flat, wide open ocean? Fuhgedaboutit.
My answer was honest enough: when the feds come-a-knockin’, it’ll be at an empty residence, and one Jose Valez (whoever he is :rolleyes: ) in El Paso, Lubbock, Abilene or Amarillo will be venturing out to start potting feds left and right. Prolly El Paso; he can get across the border into Mexico really quick when the heat starts closing in, and surface again anywhere along the southern border (thanks to NAFTA) to start all over again.
What? Do you think sweeping gun confiscation legislation is going to be passed in secret, without a great deal of hullabaloo in the media? Ole Jose can see that one coming months, if not years in advance, and plan accordingly.
“Violence never solves anything” has got to be the most fatuous statement ever made; violence just isn’t always the preferable, or optimal solution. It often creates other problems as quickly as it solves the ones it set out to correct. But it is often the method of last resort.
In my book, anyway.
And with recent about-face amongst legal scholars and some of the courts (a trend I hope will continue to the point that some of the silly federal and state anti-gun laws are repealed) violence is looking less and less likely anytime soon.
Others may feel differently. YMMV.
So the Europeans, Japanese, etc. should immediately rise up and start killing their oppressors, right?
Oh, and I’ll scout out some locations for your revolutionary headquarters when I reach Cozumel later today.
I have a right to keep and bear arms. Period. If the SCOTUS interprets the 2nd Amendment as protecting an individual right, then hip hip hooray and we’ll have a party. If instead the SCOTUS interprets the 2nd Amendment as protecting a so-called “State right," then boo hoo. Will I still keep and bear arms? Of course. The existence of my rights is not dependent on any SCOTUS decision. If you don’t believe that, then you must also believe we didn’t have any rights before the SCOTUS & Constitution existed.
Let me ask you something, Czarcasm: Let’s say the SCOTUS ruled that the 1st Amendment does not protect an individual’s right to freedom of speech. (Remember, we’re talking hypothetical here.) Would you shut up? Or would you go ahead and speak your mind anyway?
Czarcasm asked
I wouldn’t accept their decision as legal and I would peacefully protest. The only way that I would either give up my arms or leave the country is if a constitutional amendment was legally passed which repealed the 2nd amendment. I do not recognize the right of the court to grossly misinterpret clear prose
(“The People” != “The State”). I’d feel the same way if the Supreme Court suddenly decided that
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”
meant the right of the state to peaceably assemble. As a matter of fact, if The Supreme Court came to that conclusion, I’d happily engage in civil disobedience and start peaceably protest that decision in defiance of their illegal decision. The court has the right to interpret the law, not to make it up. Regardless of how many incorrect decisions anyone quotes, “The People” != “The State”
Same with the second amendment. I don’t recognize the authority of the court to legislate away a right by grotesque word-twisting and I’d be willing to go to jail to protest that decision, same as I would with the first.
Fenris
Just what sweeping gun confiscation legislation are you people talking about? With a Second Amendment recognized by the courts as protecting state militias and not private firearms ownership since God knows when, has there been any “sweeping gun confiscating legislation?” Have the Feds come to my house to relieve me of Gran’pa’s twelve gage? Can you people do any thing but conjure up doomsday scenarios and yelp “my cold dead hands?”
No one that I know of ever argued that firearms ownership was not approved by the Founders. After all it was not very long before the Bill of Rights that carrying a side arm was the mark of a gentleman. Of course the Founders approved of firearms in the hands of private persons. They just did not give it Constitutional sanction.
Private ownership, however, was not the problem that the Second Amendment was directed toward, as has been repeated by scholars, historians and courts since George Washington fell in the Ohio River. To pretend otherwise is either pandering to a block of electors or selfish commercial self interest. The government’s attitude toward the extent of the Cuban threat is only slightly more honest than the Atty Gen’s revelation about the scope of the Second Amendment, but it has the same motivation. Try walking into the local US Attorney’s office with a big iron on your hip and see just how far the right of the people to bear arms will get you.
You Americans are fucking crazy!!!
Oh! That’s helpfull. Trying to bost your post count there, Buddy?
For “bost”, read “boost.” Spell-check is my friend.
minty: cross-cultural comparisons now, hey? Since when did the Japanese or Europeans have anything to do with the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights? Since 1776, that is?
Last I looked, the vast majority of Japanese live in Japan, and the Europeans live in Europe. Under their own Constitutions.
Not ours.
Any discussion shifting the focus towards them is side-stepping the main topic. They don’t have a 2nd Amendment.
We do.
And make sure the Revolutionary HQ is well stocked with Dos Equis and Negra Modelo. They can keep the limes, though. Never saw the logic behind ruining good beer with fruit juice.
Spavined: Since 1939. If it’s been decided since George got wet, how come Miller rocked gun owners to their heels in sheer suprise? How could one Circuit Court contravene stare decisis and elocute in dicta, with a great dose of legal scholarship (most of it more recent; starting, say, about the early-mid 70s)?
I’ve seen the individual and collective rights interpretation legal scholarship. Dozens, literally, of the individual. Even from avowed gun haters. A handful of collective rights. Their numbers dwindle rapidly once the bought-and-paid for pap from their own lawyers is tossed.
But nothing happens in a vacuum. Look at the political and social landscape of the 1930s. And then look at Miller again in that context. Do a few bells start going off? Does it get the mental juices flowing? Taken in context with the legal scholarship and commentary from the 150 years preceding it, does it not strike a dissonate chord?
IN a way, Miller was a good ruling; it lays the ground work for tossing all of the silly Assault Weapons bans. After all, they resemble the sort of arms one might bear in defense of one’s nation in service to a militia. When called.
Miller might be the petard upon which the Brady Bunch is hoisted.
Glad I got that grenade launcher for my AR-15. It’s actually only a 37mm flare launcher, but I’m sure that there’s somone, somewhere making HE rounds for it.
Your interpretation, Spavined, only works as means to a desired end-result: the elimination of private ownership of firearms in the United States. Period.
Because once it’s firmly decided that only militias recognized by the federal government can keep and bear arms, then it’s anything goes in the federal and state legislatures, until only a select few can own single-shot .22 short rifles, stored in the local police armories, after filing a ream of permission-to-own requests and submitting to more fingerprints and photos than all of the FBI’s ten-most-wanted have between them, before finally being approved after a year or two of routine denials from government clerks making little more than minimum wage and enjoying their little power trips over the rest of the peeps.
And people like you will be smiling your smug little grins while telling us, “See? Individuals still have the right to keep and bear arms. What’s all the fuss about?”
Because while civil liberties have moved ever closer to abortions on demand and public pornography as free speech, gun rights have continuously dwindled with each piece of legislation that’s been passed. The trend is established; it’s not a slippery slope when you’ve been pushed flat on your ass and you’re barreling along at ludicrous speed down the mountain towards the precipice.
One last thing: someone called Emerson a convicted wife beater. I’d like to see a cite for that.
Like I said, some people are incapable of critical thinking and are limited to conjuring up doomsday scenarios and chanting the Cold-Dead-Hand, Cold-Dead-Hands mantra.
Like you ** Ex-Tank**, I have read the literature on this issue. As far as I can tell the bulk of the individual rights stuff shows up in the Hunt’in and Fish’in magazines and features out of context unsupported quotes from long dead icons. Benj. Franklin said this (three second, one sentence sound bite), Thomas Jefferson said that (another three second sound bite), here is an autographed photo of James Madison with his .44 Mag. That stuff is not serious scholarship and you know it. If you don’t know it, you should be ashamed of your self.
Slippery slope, my ass! If you don’t allow the courts, the only institution in this country authorized to do it, interpret the Constitution and the law, do you do it by some sort of opinion poll? Do you set your self up as the ultimate arbiter of all things you have an interest in? Or do you, as I think you said, gather up your collection of smoke poles and high tail it to the woods to escape the black helicopters?
Hoe might be right. Maybe we are crazy, some of us any way, and deluded to boot.
Is Constitutional law really that unclear? My ghod, how can I believe someone’s opinion on Constitutional rights if that same person would chuck the Constitution right out the window the instant the Supreme Court Of The United States, the only group that gets to decide on these matters, makes an unpopular decison. “I’m all for law and order as long as it rules in my favor!” is not what this country is all about, damnit. As far as this paranoic “The secret police are coming to get my guns!” yakking goes, may I point out that if the power reverts to the states, the states, which are influenced by the people even more directly that the Fed is, get to decide on who does or does not get the guns. The would be a damn good chance that in quite a few states the gun laws would be even looser than they are now.
If, on the other hand, the states go all out on a nation-wide ban, it would be because the people want it.