The Right to Bear Arms, Yet again

The BBQ Pit
201

This one is simple - as an owner of a large amount of weaponry, including multiple so-slurred “child-killing assault weapons”, I know exactly what to do in this case.

I obey the law. And work to change it.

I know most of my pro-2nd Amendment friends here think I’m foolish for saying that, or think I cave too easily.

But in almost all cases, the Constitution and the laws clearly based upon it and in line with it must be obeyed.

Wait a minute - Una said “in almost all cases” - she must be a lesbian militia terrorist, right?"

Nope - I’m trying to be as accurate as possible. If, for example, an Amendment was passed sending gays and lesbians to concentration camps, well, that causes direct, measureable harm to my person and that of those I love. And that comes first.

Repeal of the 2nd Amendment may diminish my capacity to defend myself and those I love, but it does not harm myself or them directly.

So that is my line. I imagine even the anti-gun crowd would agree with me on that one.

Or not. I guess I don’t care either way.

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I’m glad somebody understands how this country is supposed to work.

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I don’t know that that is entirely fair. I have a different viewpoint is all.

I always thought Socrates was stupid for not fleeing when imminent harm was looming. Instead, he wanted to obey the law - even an unjust one.

There is a “squirm” that I will do - should the SC rule that the current 2nd Amendment does not grant an individual right, and the government try to confiscate, then I have two issues:

  1. From my research, my opinion is that the intent of the authors of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was to grant an individual right. I have already discussed why in detail in numerous old GD threads, and I won’t rehash. Just accept that it is IMO. If the SC suddenly seems to be making (IMO) a political decision that is not born up by my research, then I will feel very uneasy about this.

  2. If the government does try to take my private property, 100% legal and legally owned at this point in time, with no just compensation (defined by me as being, at a minimum, the purchase price of my weapons, many of which are worth a lot more), then I feel that is a violation of my rights as well. And this will cause much uneasiness too.

What would the result of this aforementioned “uneasiness” entail? Well…I’m not certain. I do want to obey the law, because I believe in Law, and I do think that when the day ends, and we are facing real life - America will exist without firearms. It would be a much less safe and much less rational society (IMO), and it would be a disgraceful thing to do that would herald our final decent into a fallen empire. But in my lifetime, it would make little difference in my way of life. It would not change my job, my health, my house, my income (unless the Govt. did pay me full value for my weapons, in which case I would do very well), my loves, my activities (other than not being able to target shoot with Fierra :frowning: ). It would also make me feel much less safe at home, and I would likely resort to devising legal lethal weapons to defend myself.

I’m an Engineer, after all. I can build a lot of shit that can kill.

Most likely, Czarcasm, this uneasiness would mean I obey the law fully, but move to my other home country out of disillusionment and disappointment. I don’t know - I would imagine the worst case (from your viewpoint, perhaps) being that I keep one weapon, just one, at home locked but handy, out of fear of my personal safety.

The current situation that we have in America is far different than a clearly worded, unambigous Constitutional mandate which says “Thou shall not…” That I would have to obey without the squirming above.

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But I think that you understand that, if the law is not to your liking the proper thing to do is to try to change it, not disregard it. As far as the difference you pointed out between laws that inconvenience and laws that pose a direct threat, I probably agree with you, but I also understand that not everyone has the same definition of “direct threat”.

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Really?

Since apparently I don’t “understand how this country is supposed to work”, how exactly does “I would peacefully protest” a decision that I consider illegitimate show a lack of understanding about how “this country is supposed to work.”?

Perhaps you could explain the proper way “this country is supposed to work” if the court makes what you consider an illegal decision.

Fenris

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Uhm…yeah, Spavined. I’m sure all these folks are staff writers for Guns & Ammo (an excellent periodical which I’m glad graces my mailbox once a month).

If the Second Amendment Law Library were up and running, I could give you even a few more. Alas, that worthy site has gone bye-bye.

In all seriousness, if there were going to be violence over the whole issue, I believe it would’ve happened already, during the Clinton/Reno watch. Somebody would’ve popped Sarah Brady a while back.

I suspect that if even 1/10 of 1% of gun owners were predisposed towards violence over the issue, the Dark Years would’ve spurred them to action. So I’m assuming that, like it’s already known, the vast majority of gun owners are peaceable, law abiding citizens willing to work within the system in the face of extreme opposition and vicious attacks.

Czar: remember, in the 1950s and 60s, “colored folks” were supposed to sit in separate seats on busses and trains, drink out of separate water fountains, etc. Quite a few people thought that that was how things were supposed to work, until one woman said, “I ain’t movin’.”

One woman, on a bus, sparked a sea-change in our society concerning “how things are supposed to work.”

Generally:

A wise man recently said, “Stripping people of their dignity, and then rubbing their noses in it, is a very bad idea. It carries all sorts of unintended consequences.” He gave several recent examples of peoples, stripped of their dignity, and then humiliated for it, and the resulting events. We know them as WW I and WW II.

I guarantee you, one and all, that the vast majority of gun owners are a silent majority, and for one of two reasons:

1. They don’t believe gun bans and confiscations are possible here. They, like you, look at the NRA and its membership as kooks.

Don’t give them any nasty reality checks; they’ll be more fervent to the pro-gun rights cause then you could possibly imagine. They’ll be angry at being fooled, at allowing themselves to be fooled. Hell hath no fury as a citizen duped.

2. Those who think gun bans and confiscations are right around the corner, and are preparing accordingly. I’m not talking about survivalists hiding in bunkers, stockpiling toilet paper and condoms; nor am I speaking of self-styled “militias” parading around in fatigues on the weekend and eating up pro-gun rhetoric.

No, these people are doctors, lawyers, and indian chiefs; mechanics, technicians, and file clerks. They are the normal, everday people you pass every day without giving a second glance, going about your business as they go about theirs.

The only real difference is that they, unlike you, have a closet or safe full of guns; pistols, rifles and/or shotguns. And they take them out, load them up, and go target shooting at the local range; they shoot skeet and trap, and then ducks and geese come hunting season.

They can shoot, clean and dress a deer without batting an eye, and go to work Monday morning to administer computer networks, give eye exams, litigate trials, change the oil in your car, command battalions of Army troops, or cut a lovely boquet of roses for your wife on your anniversary. For now, they vote, and keep their opinions on guns, the NRA and the Brady Bunch to themselves.

But they are out there, they are watching, and believe you me, they are more than ready.

C’mon. There’s an estimated 140,000,000 of us “gun nuts” in America. If something were going to happen, at least one kook would’ve slipped his moorings and started potting prominent anti-gun legislators and such.

If the Second Amendment is repealed or amended against gun owners by the Constitutionally allowed method of amending the Constitution, then fine, I’ll hand 'em over or move away.

But if some piece of shit legislation gets passed by a stacked Congress, then we’ll see what comes out in the wash.

I can just about guarantee we’ll have a brand new Congress come elections time, one way or another. You don’t have to worry about us “kooks,” “gun nuts,” or whatever pejorative you care to apply to the vocal members of the NRA; you need to worry about #s 1 & 2.

But hey, what do I know? I’ve only spent my life since the age of five immersed in the gun culture. I’m just another “kook” in the NRA. A little yapping dog, that you can blithely ignore in your self-righteous assurance that you and others like you speak for all Americans on this matter, as you trod upon what millions of Americans consider hallowed ground.

Stripping people of their dignity, and then rubbing their noses in it, is a very, very bad idea.

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Fenris, peacefully protesting, lobbying and the like is exactly how you are supposed to change laws. As for statements by others, meeting law enforcement at the door with a loaded weapon, or organizing your own “militia” and hiding in the hills cannnot be compared to the Rosa Parks scenario. When she sat at the front of the bus, she was not brandishing an Uzi. She peacefully protested, and know what the consequences would be.
If you don’t like the law, work to get it changed. If leaving the country is the option you choose, then I guess you haven’t got what it takes to fight the good fight.

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EX-TANK: You have to concede that you do not know whether or not I own guns or whether I have taught my children how to handle them or if I am now or ever have been a member of the NRA. Those things are irrelevant to our discussion. The original proposition was that the Atty Gen US had sold the Federal government’s position on the scope and meaning of the Second Amendment to the firearms industry. I think that is precisely what has happened. You and others seem to think that what has happened is that the Atty Gen has had a Road to Damascus epiphany. I think I’m right and that you are naively mistaken.

Your last post does raise a proposition that I had not considered—that for some people their own sense of personal worth and dignity is wrapped up in the idea that they have a constitutionally sanctioned right to own firearms. This raises the whole marketing idea that somehow some commercial products project a sense of potency and thus big bumpers and tailfins on automobiles in the 50s and 60s and the failure of the Ford Edsel. It may explain why some people react to the idea that there is no constitutional privilege for gun ownership the same way I react to the prospect of personal castration (NOOOOOO!). I will leave this before I get too deep into a topic I know almost nothing about.

I don’t think I’m a gun control advocate or that I have a secret agenda. I think that I’m a realist and a little knowledgeable about the operations of the governments and the courts. I do not see any realistic danger of the State, local or national government doing anything under the long standing “collective right” interpretation of the amendment that it could not do under the “individual right” theory advanced by the firearms industry. The difference between the two is the difference between restriction based on a rational connection between legitimate objective and means under the collective right view and a compelling state interest in restriction under the individual rights view. In either case I would think that things like a waiting period for purchase, a ban on fully automatic firearms and sawed off guns and licensing for concealed weapons could be sustained as could prohibitions on armor piercing, explosive and incendiary ammunition.

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FWIW, here is a FindLaw article by an attorney and former Federal prosecutor who disagrees with the “individual right” argument and with the Bush administrations stand on 2nd Amendment rights, but argues that the Justice Department and Solicitor General are perfectly within their rights, indeed expected, to change the Department’s position regarding a Constitutional issue. Make of it what you will.

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Spavined: your gun control fact challenge (should you decide to accept it):

1. Show how waiting periods have had any effect. I have research suggesting they haven’t. Suicides? Do you seriously think if a person’s suicidal enough to kill themselves, and commits to that decision, that a 5 day waiting period is going to dissuade them?

If so, explain how Japan, with near-zero rates of gun ownership, has the same suicide death rate as we do. Explain how Switzerland doesn’t.

**2.**Name the last instance a legally owned automatic weapon was used in a violent crime.

3. While the term “sawed off” covers a lot of ground, shotguns and rifles are already prohibited under federal law from having barrels less than 18 inches, or overall lengths less than 26 inches. What were you wanting to accomplish here, again?

4. Most states that I know of that allow concealed carry make it licensed concealed carry. If there is one that does not, it’s new to me. A few (Arizona and Vermont, IIRC) allow unlicensed open carry, with certain restrictions regarding establishments (courts, bars, etc.,). Hell, Vermont may even allow unlicensed concealed carry. I’d have to check.

But even if they do, the problem of “everyone wandering around packing heat with blood in their eyes, turning our streets into Dodge City” has already been proven demonstratably false.

5. “Armor Piercing” ammunition is another “scary word” the gun control lobby and the media like to toss around. Fact: a goodly number of hunting grade rifle cartridges are effective armor penetrators by delivered energy at impact alone, without any special design characteristics.

Bullets specifically designed to penetrate armor (hardened metal cores, etc.,) as such are already illegal for civilian ownership, as is exploding/incendiary ammo, IIRC. Those fall into the “destructive devices” category.

I’m so glad that you’re actually up-in-arms over nothing. If you are a gun owner, as you suggest you might be (hell, I couldn’t decipher your circumlocutions on that point), then you are one of the most willfully ignorant ones that I’ve met.

And from where I stand, the difference between indvidual and collective right is a huge one. Under a collective right intepretation, it’s just about anything goes where the little guy (like me?) is concerned. Under an individual rights interpretation, the burden of just cause behind any proposed legislation is, as I think it should be, and just about is where any other civil liberty is concerned, upon the legislature.

Citizens DO NOT have to justify their rights to their legislators; legilators have to show just and reasonable cause for proposed restrictions upon civil liberties, and an individual rights interpretation puts the onus on them.

My rights exist, regardless of whether a Constitution, a governemt or a legislature acknowledges them. That’s the underlying principle of Liberty.

But it ain’t for the weak of stomach or faint of heart. Freedom means that bad people will take advantage of our collective liberty to do bad things to other people. We try to catch them and punish them; we don’t restrict the rights and liberties of the law abiding on the general theory that any individual sheep in the flock may actually be a wolf in disguise.

When the wolf shows his teeth, we take them down, and take them out of the flock. We don’t start culling and shearing sheep out-of-season just to make sure.

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At last check, Vermont allowed unlicensed concealed carry. And has a pretty low crime rate, especially relative to States with much more restrictive legislation.

Kansas allows unlicensed open-carry, but due to home rule this is effectively nullified, as every county, city, township, and hell, maybe homes association can override it. So it is really a “Big Lie” that Governor Graves used when he tried to justify his veto of concealed carry.

…which is something the vast, technologically illiterate out there don’t, and will never understand. “Oh my God, a .270 can penetrate a ‘bullet-proof vest’? It must be a military armor piercing round then!” :rolleyes:

(cough)Steel 7.62x39…still legal to own (but not import)…still will go through a damn lot of metal.(/cough) This is a gray area, and it is very hard to enforce. Ironically, armor-piercing rounds, since they do not expand in the body, are a far “kinder” thing to be shot with, as they essentially just become a human body hole punch. Yes, that’s bad, but not as bad as an expanding hunting round, which can kill you by kinetic energy transfer and shock alone.

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I’ll answer, because I don’t expect anyone to help you out here.

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EX-TANK: What challenge? The statement you have seized on is that government’s ability to regulate/restrict firearms in private hands under either the collective right view or the individual right view is, as a practical matter, the same. Under either view the govt. could probably legislate a waiting period, prohibit armor piercing and incendiary ammunition, etc. Your response is that none of that stuff is worthwhile. I don’t know about that. Given the mind set in Congress during the Reagan administration it seems to me that the proponents of the waiting period did make a case that there was a compelling govt. interest in imposing that restriction. It is hard for me to imagine that there is not a compelling interest in keeping shotguns that can be concealed under a jacket off the streets. Nobody but the NRA, acting as shill for the manufacturer (and I am choosing my words, here) saw any legitimate use for bullets that would pierce body armor. It seems to me that a compelling govt. interest case can be made for every firearms restriction we have just as easily as a rational connection case.

In terms of the little guy doesn’t have a chance, I think your comment betrays a lack of understanding of how things work and also indicates that you have joined that vast army of whiners who think they ought not to have to pay alimony, that their street wasn’t fixed fast enough, that a Black man got a job they should have gotten if they had only bothered to apply for it, and generally that they are not Emperor of the Universe. The little guy gets things done by banding together with other little guys and voting. If you get enough little guys in a bunch some courageous sole will stand as your champion to go to Congress or to your state legislature. Given the mood of the times it will be some egomaniac who has read the opinion polls and is willing to prostitute himself to your issue in order to get elected. Even better find some major industry whose objectives mesh with yours and watch them shape public opinion and buy the govt. position on your issue. How do you think the farm bill got through Congress and was signed by the President? I’ll guarantee is isn’t because farmers are a major national voting block. It may have something to do with the future prosperity of Cargil, Archer-Daniels-Midlands and Monsanto.

With the NRA the Firearms industry has worked the scam backwards. They have transformed a pretty non-political target shooting club into a 600-pound gorilla with a massive campaign of public relations and Chicken Littleisms (the sky is falling, the sky is falling). Once upon a time the NRA’s big event was the shooting match at Camp Perry. Now there is a major push for every election and the biggest part of the budget is for paying washed up Grade B actors and bribing Congressmen. Tell me about the poor oppressed gun owner! Good Lord, man, you just bought the Attorney General of the United States!

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An enormous variety of hunting rounds can pierce police body armor, up to and including the “Type 3” armor. These guns include the venerable .30-06, .308, .270, .243, .22-250, etc. All medium-powered rifles, normally used for hunting deer, antelope, and moose.

Since these can penetrate body armor, then only “the NRA, acting as shill for the manufacturer (and I am choosing my words, here) saw any legitimate use”, and not all those hunters out there that own these weapons?

You know, being in favor of gun control is cool and all. But misrepresenting or being ignorant of a scientific fact of firearms and ballistics is not helpful to your side. This is one of the reasons pro-gun people fear the anti-gun side:

Anti-gun person: “Are you aware that currently you can walk into any Wal-Mart and purchase ammunition that can pierce even police bullet-proof vests? And that the NRA supports the right to buy this cop-slaughtering ammunition?”

Uninformed doofus voter: “Gosh, that’s not right. Someone ought to do something about that!”

Pro-gun person: “But that’s ludicrous - nearly every hunting round out there from medium-high powered hunting rifles can do the same!”

Anti-gun person: “You admit your complicity in the potential deaths of millions of cops! And you’re even proud of it! My God, have you no shame? You’re just a shill for the gun and cop-slaughtering lobby!”

Uninformed doofus voter: “Yeah! Whatever they said! Get away from me, cop-killer!” (proceeds to beat pro-gun person to death with their fists, because Lord knows those aren’t deadly weapons…)

Anyhow. Thank you for attending this edition of Hyperbole Theatre. Bye bye! :slight_smile:

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Isn’t it a shame that we have nothing better to do on a Saturday evening than yammer past each other.

It is my recollection that the armor piercing ammo was a Teflon coated slug designed to defeat body armor.

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<hijack>

For a few of us(and I’m quite sure there are many), most of the serious posters in this thread are providing us with information which helps us to refine our own thoughts on the topic(s) discussed here.

I consider all informational posts to be valuable. <hijack>

Carry on.

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Absolutely! Which is why I beg Anthracite and/or ExTank to be gentle when they correct Spavined Gelding on the “armor piercing” bullet canard.

218

-The projectile you’re looking for was made under the KTW name. Pull a Google on “KTW” and “armor piercing”.

The round was in fact developed by law enforcement officers for occasional use in rare “barricaded suspect” situations. I was never meant for daily/regular use, and in fact has never been available for retail sale to anyone outside the full-time law enforcement community.

At the time the bullet was developed, very few outside the LEO community even knew about soft body armor, let alone owned such a garment. So it stands to reason that the thing was not “designed to defeat” the armor that the designers themselves were wearing. Most of the KTW articles that Google will pull up, tend to mention that the projectile was developed with car doors, windshields and dumpsters in mind.

No officer to date has been killed with an “armor piercing” round. (Well, last I read the statistics, that is.)

In any case, “armor piercing” does not equal “magic evil lethal bullet”. AP invaribly means “nonexpanding”- the projectile does not deform or “mushroom” as it passes through the target. Go back up and reread Anthracite’s mention of nonexpanding projectiles.

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It ain’t so much a matter of correcting him, as getting him to read the previous posts. The information needed to dispell the myth he believes of armor-piercing projectiles requiring a teflon coating has already been posted. And in many threads here, not just this one. But to make a claim immediately after it’s been refuted shows either: a) the poster is doing nothing more than the yammering (to which he admits), or b) willful ignorance. I’m not sure which is less productive and more annoying, but it does provide us a living example of Anthracite’s little sketch.

220

As far as the NRA and armor piercing ammo is concerned, ** Don Nichel’s ** comments notwithstanding, when the Teflon coated bullet was developed there was a substantial hullabaloo in Congress over whether the ammo should be made available to the general public. The police and law enforcement groups and agencies were in favor of a prohibition. The NRA opposed it as a hole in the dyke that would lead to the horrors of gun control. It is my recollection that the NRA was alone in its opposition.

Let us review the bidding here, although through a jaundiced eye.

ORIGINAL PROPOSITION: The Justice Department has reversed its long standing view of the Second Amendment as providing a collective right to bear arms. Secondary proposition: the switch is a pander to the NRA as the running dog of the firearms industry.

First Response: Prove that the courts have consistently held that the Second Amendment confers a collective right.

Second response: I don’t care what the courts say. I am a true patriot and the Constitution says what I say it says. You pinko-commie bastards keep your slimy hands off my guns.

Third Response: What would you do if the government came for your guns?

Fourth Response: If you take away my guns you will take away my manhood.

Fifth Response: You dummy, you don’t even know that high velocity rifle ammunition can pierce body armor, therefore all your other contentions are false.

While I may well be a benighted pinko-commie bastard intent on depriving you all of your manhood by agitating for gun control (and for all you know, maybe ONE-WORLD-GOVERNMENT, too), it doesn’t seem to me that there has yet been a direct response to the original proposition or to the secondary proposition. This thing is rapidly deteriating into a theological brawl over the civil religions of gun ownership and gun control. I’m not a communicant of either faith. I’m looking for a fight over the politics of the thing. However, maybe that is just what all this is.

An old adage in the lawyer business is that when you have the fact, argue the facts; when the law is on your side, argue the law; when you don’t have the law or the fact, beat on the table. There is a lot of table beating going on around here.

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