# what should we do when they come for our guns? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 23, 2001, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645 "2001-08-23T02:20:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/61 "2001-08-24T01:21:07Z")
**pkbites:** _Implausible? But it it’s already starting to happen in California, and it’s only the begining out there. How can you exclaim something is implausible when it’s in the middle of happening. Folks are being ordered to turn in many models of guns. That’s confiscation. It’s happening._ Many types of guns are banned, yes, but there are still many, many legal varieties of guns and ammunition out there. You need an awfully long extrapolation to get from the existing facts to your original scenario of _“I believe that a few guns, like single shot shotguns and hunting rifles with a fixed capacity of 3 rounds or less will be permitted, but extremly regulated, registered, taxed, etc. By allowing some firearms, politcos will be avoiding the stigma of a total gun ban. Handguns and any other types of non sporting will have to be turned in.”_ That’s why I think your scenario in the OP is implausible. Claiming that “it’s happening” is kind of like my saying that the anti-car people are going to succeed in getting cars “all but banned” because my city has limited car traffic in some places and replaced some car lanes with bike lanes. Hey, it’s happening! And I repeat that IMHO this kind of far-fetched imaginative exercise, in which you discuss which criminal actions you should take and how much violence you should commit when and if that dread day of doom finally arrives, doesn’t really accomplish anything except to make extremists on the other side (and even some more moderate opponents) even more distrustful and suspicious of you than they already are. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/62 "2001-08-24T01:26:07Z")
**pkbites:** \*We draw a sharp distinction between what is illegal and what is morally wrong. \* That would be comforting if I didn’t suspect that a lot of present-day perpetrators of gun crimes also believe that that’s what they are doing. \*‘You know, folks, one of the strongest motivations many people have for supporting draconian gun-control measures is because they honestly think that people like you are essentially irresponsible “gun nuts,” whose talk about freedom and self-determination is just a thin disguise for your paranoid fantasies about having an opportunity to shoot a lot of people who are “out to get you.” Please don’t provide this distorted viewpoint with any more, er, ammunition.’ If I really wanted to shoot someone, how would laws regarding the purchase of more guns stop me? I already have plenty of guns. How would laws regarding what type of solder I used to fasten a muzzle brake, or what country my trigger group parts came from, keep me from killing?\* 😕 Huh?? Would you mind explaining to me what your remarks have to do with what I said? ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/63 "2001-08-24T02:17:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\ ***pkbites:** \*We draw a sharp distinction between what is illegal and what is morally wrong. \* > 😕 Huh?? Would you mind explaining to me what your remarks have to do with what I said? \*\* Uh, you are crediting me with a quote I did not post. Knock it off!:mad: Also, **Kimstu** notice that I have never advocated any action in this entire thread. I mearly asked what we should do. I never said we should rebel, shoot the cops, etc., I only asked if that is what should be done. Also, the gun confiscation nightmare is only **begining** in California. More will come. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/64 "2001-08-24T02:41:05Z")
OK, I’ll bite. Just what firearms are subject to confiscation in California? ---
**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/65 "2001-08-24T03:28:03Z")
Why is it that the 1st Amendment “free speech” has been extrapolated to nearly every possible thing other than speech itself, (syphilitic goat-dung encrusted “art” comes to mind) which requires some serious philosophical masturbatory gymnastics to get _that_ out of the 1st Amendment, Sure, ok; no problem. But something as simple and straightforward as the 2nd “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Whoa! Now we’re talking about something _completely_ _different_ here, and a 21 page expository writing treatise is produced by “scholars” which attempts to explain what they _really_ meant… The founding fathers, you know, the people who wrote the damn thing, _wanted_ us to be able to defend ourselves from everything to indians, tyrannical governments, or the idiot down the street, invading armies, whatever. Their intent, as well as their wording, is pretty clear. Let’s just amend the constitution. That’s the legal way to do things, not hide behind a bunch of wimpy legislation or try to claim the constitution doesn’t say what it so clearly does. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/66 "2001-08-24T03:58:35Z")
\*Originally posted by pkbites \* > [@](#): > > It’s also happened in Canada, Americas dimwitted sister.\*\* **I personally think you owe an apology to all Canadians. That is a hell of a thing to call anyone, but especially to our friends and neighbors it is offensive.** ---
**Author:** ![A\_Friend\_of\_the\_Devil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f0a364/32.png) [@A\_Friend\_of\_the\_Devil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Friend_of_the_Devil)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/67 "2001-08-24T04:08:02Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by pkbites_ > Also, **Kimstu** notice that I have never advocated any action in this entire thread. I mearly asked what we should do. OK, you’re asking… Agitate, Agitate, Agitate (Frederick Douglass) Fight for your rights. Vote,and vote wisely. Speak up, write letters, make your opinions known. Join the NRA. Teach the young. Don’t pass up any opportunity to fight for gun rights. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/68 "2001-08-24T04:08:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\*It’s also happened in Canada, Americas dimwitted sister. Or do you call that implausible too? \*\* I call this fallacy _argumentum ab anus_. Just to clarify for you, pk: Canada has never had any sort of right to bear arms on the law books, and it has never been a particular point of Canadian culture. Comparisons between the law in the U.S. and Canada on gun control are apples to oranges. ---
**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/69 "2001-08-24T04:19:30Z")
Here’s what they thought: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in "On Crimes and Punishment- (1764) “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin “Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self-defense.” John Adams, "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-1788) “The said Constitution be never construed…to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts’ Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788) ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/70 "2001-08-24T04:57:17Z")
Just curious…what is your reaction to my response on Page 1 here, in your opinion, **Kimstu**? ---
**Author:** ![warmgun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecccb3/32.png) [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/71 "2001-08-24T08:24:15Z")
(walks in late, looks around incredulously then states the obvious…) Throw down on 'em! ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/72 "2001-08-24T11:30:05Z")
Lordy. I let a new gun control thread go for a day or two, now I have to play catch-up. Sigh. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\*This is a thread for gun owners. > > Most of us believe that at some time in history in the United States, legal firearm ownership of most guns will be all but banned. > \*\* First, let me say that I do not believe this is inevitable, and honestly, and I think this kind of fatalism does not help our cause. By believing that a victory for the other side cannot be prevented, you are essentially conceding it. Hence you are playing right into their hands…certainly they would _like_ you to believe that you cannot keep you freedoms. But just look back over the last hundred years. There are all kinds of things that everyone thought would happen, that didn’t. World socialism. Cheap and abundant nuclear energy. Colonies in outer space. Flying cars. Everybody living in sectors and wearing clothes made out of aluminum foil. The point is, just because there is a broad sense that the continuation of some kind of historical trend is inevitable, doesn’t mean it is necessarily so. Heck, just look at the last fifteen years. Yes, some restrictive laws were passed at the federal level. Of course, this had some nasty political repercussions for the Democrats, in 1994 (IMO, though you may think other factors contributed more to the Democrat’s debacle that year). But on the state level, the clear trend has been towards gun _decontrol_, on the issue of CCW permits. So take heart! We haven’t lost yet, not by a long shot. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\* > > Smoking is a legal activity, tobacco being the backbone of our countrys origin, > \*\* Ummm…I gotta disagree on this one. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\* > and at one time close to a majority of the populace smoked. Today smokers, though law abiding citizens in possesion of a legal substance, are looked down upon, and treated like dirt. Even blamed for some of the problems of our society. > \*\* I think you are exaggerating a bit here…perhaps confusing reality with what government funded PSAs would like you to _think_ is reality. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\* > Doesn’t it scare you even a little that it was this same fantasy of guys in black helicopters coming to take your guns away is what motivated McVeigh? \*\* Two can play at this game. Doesn’t it scare you even a little that gun control was a policy supported by Adolf Hitler? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 1kBR Kid \* > \*\* > Sting wants you to to “Set your imagination free. Imagine a world without guns.” > \*\* Lol I stopped listening to Sting years ago. Not that I don’t believe you or anything, but do you have a cite for this? If Stings comments have any effect at all, I think they will turn people _off_ to gun control. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > \*\* > Well I don’t know why anyone would need an AK47. > \*\* Whether or not you “need” to do something is not relevent. Do you “need” to publish a letter to the editor in the newspaper? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\* > No. the Second ammendment exists to gurantee that the _Federal_ government can’t deny the _States_ the right to keep standing militias. > \*\* Yes, and then as a consequence of the 14th amendment, the protections in the Bill of Rights were extended to all citizens in their relationships with the states. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\* > You, as an individual, have **absolutely no right** to be armed if your **state** government doesn’t want you to be. > \*\* Not true, as per above, plus virtually every state has its own version of the Second Amendment written into its own constitution. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by peewee\_RotA \* > \*\*I don’t like to flood like this but… I got an e-mail (with sources) saying that in WWII 1 reason why Japan didn’t invade america is because most americans at the time owned guns \*\* I gotta say, I think a bigger factor in this decision was a body of water called “The Pacific Ocean”. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by andros \* > > \*\ ***Tejota** , the Supreme Court disagrees with you on the states vs. individuals issue. \*\* > > The Supreme court hasn’t addressed this directly at all, only indirectly. The case is _US v. Miller_. While their ruling doesn’t say so explicitly, the ruling itself makes sense only if they _don’t_ believe this is a personal right. \*\* You advanced this same idea in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=81718&pagenumber=2) and are getting completely buried on it. I urge anyone following this argument to go check it out. Particularly the post by **ExTank** about halfway down, and all of the posts by **Anthracite**. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spavined Gelding \* > \*\*Read the Amendment as saying,“the United States shall not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” There is nothing in the Great Document or in the Federalist Papers that suggests that the individual States cannot infringe that right. \*\* Assuming this is true, what do you make of my point above, about most states having their own RTKBA clauses in their constitutions? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\* > Odd thread. The pro-gun advocates on this board are usually the ones who like to draw sharp distinctions between the gun-toting criminal scum…and law-abiding gun owners (who should be allowed to do pretty much anything they like with firearms). > \*\* :rolleyes: This is a tiresome strawman. Please refrain from using it in the future. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\* > But here we see a majority of the gun advocates expressing their willingness, nay eagerness, to move from the second category into the first, as long as it happens to be for a cause they believe in. I don’t find this very reassuring. > > \*\* Willingness I have seen. Eagerness I have not. Let me ask _you_…can you conceive of _any_ law which, if passed, would be so onerous that you would feel morally compelled to refuse to comply with it? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\ ***pkbites:** \*We draw a sharp distinction between what is illegal and what is morally wrong. \* > > That would be comforting if I didn’t suspect that a lot of present-day perpetrators of gun crimes also believe that that’s what they are doing. > > \*\* Please elaborate on this. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hansel \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > > \*\*It’s also happened in Canada, Americas dimwitted sister. Or do you call that implausible too? \*\* > > I call this fallacy _argumentum ab anus_. > > Just to clarify for you, pk: Canada has never had any sort of right to bear arms on the law books, and it has never been a particular point of Canadian culture. Comparisons between the law in the U.S. and Canada on gun control are apples to oranges. \*\* I agree that the “dimwitted” comment was out of line. What you say about Canada’s gun culture, or lack thereof, runs contrary to what others have said in the same thread. As it happens, I would rather believe _you_, as it bolsters my case for optimism, by making the US seem to be “exceptional”. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/73 "2001-08-24T13:03:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Weird\_AL\_Einstein \* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > > \*\* > > Doesn’t it scare you even a little that it was this same fantasy of guys in black helicopters coming to take your guns away is what motivated McVeigh? \*\* > > Two can play at this game. Doesn’t it scare you even a little that gun control was a policy supported by Adolf Hitler? Mr. Godwin … paging Mr. Godwin … ---
**Author:** ![1kBR\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/dc4da7/32.png) [@1kBR\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1kBR_Kid)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/74 "2001-08-24T13:37:04Z")
## quote: Originally posted by 1kBR Kid Sting wants you to to “Set your imagination free. Imagine a world without guns.” * * * Lol I stopped listening to Sting years ago. Not that I don’t believe you or anything, but do you have a cite for this? If Stings comments have any effect at all, I think they will turn people off to gun control. This was in an article in Marie Claire magazine from around January this year. Someone had designed a T-shirt that says something like “We want butterflies flying in our neighborhood, not bullets”. There were photos of many celebrities holding hands, with their quotes about banning guns. This is also where I read the one from Spike Lee. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/75 "2001-08-24T13:44:05Z")
California has been held up as the horible example in this thread a couple of times. Is anyone going to tell me what firearms are subject to confiscation in California? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/76 "2001-08-24T16:34:43Z")
**pkbites:** _Uh, you are crediting me with a quote I did not post. Knock it off!_ My apologies, **pkbites** (especially since you brought the mistake to my attention so courteously…). The post I carelessly ascribed to you was really from **kalashnikov** , who should consider the comments and questions in my reply transferred to him/her. **Anthracite** , I think you’re my hero, that’s my reaction. 🙂 Thoughtful people like you and **ExTank** are a great comfort to have around in the whole gun-wars issue. **WAE:** \*Let me ask you…can you conceive of any law which, if passed, would be so onerous that you would feel morally compelled to refuse to comply with it? \* Sure, any number of them. But none that I feel would justify me in offering **violent** resistance, much less getting into a personal firefight with the law—at least, not if what was at stake was the (comparatively) mere confiscation of property. \*“That [i.e., “drawing a sharp distinction between what is legal and what is morally right”] would be comforting if I didn’t suspect that a lot of present-day perpetrators of gun crimes also believe that that’s what they are doing.” Please elaborate on this. \* Sure. I suspect that quite a few people who commit crimes with guns think of themselves as essentially moral people who are still abiding by what is morally right even when they break the law (along the lines of “Killing folks is wrong in most cases, but that man deserved to die” or “There ain’t nothing wrong with shooting a n\*\*\*\*\* if he dast insult a white woman” or etc. etc. etc.). I don’t think that sort of taking the law into one’s own hands is a good idea. Therefore, I don’t think that gun owners’ planning to offer violent resistance to (hypothetical) legally authorized attempts to confiscate guns is a good idea either. (Btw, good one **hansel** , but I think technically it ought to be _argumentum ab ano_—y’need the ablative in the object of the preposition, like, y’know. :)) ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/77 "2001-08-24T16:46:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Sure. I suspect that quite a few people who commit crimes with guns think of themselves as essentially moral people who are still abiding by what is morally right even when they break the law (along the lines of “Killing folks is wrong in most cases, but that man deserved to die” or “There ain’t nothing wrong with shooting a n\*\*\*\*\* if he dast insult a white woman” or etc. etc. etc.). I don’t think that sort of taking the law into one’s own hands is a good idea. So the idea vigilanteism is abhorrent to you and you apparently believe that “quite a few” people engage in this activity? How many in “quite a few?” And by what logic do you arrive at this conclusion? I don’t dispute man’s ability to rationalize his acts, but you seem to be taking it to an extreme that I do not believe exists. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/78 "2001-08-24T17:23:54Z")
I have continuously found gun control debates intriguing here. Sometimes even informative, I first have to state that the balanced and informed ‘pro-gun’ posters here have contributed to relieving me of my contempt for the anti-gun control crowd who I had encountered in ‘real life,’ a crowd which had tended to make arguments … well rather more characterized by bombast and ludicrous slippery slope arguments as well as naive if not foolish readings of history. I remain rather neutral on the issue in the end, certainly it strikes me it is difficult to generalize and given the US has a gun culture, foolish to look too much to outside models. In US political culture, and culture in general, it strikes me that private gun ownership plays an important role. A few observations then. First, let us be serious. These arguments about an armed populace as a serious barrier against tyranny or the like are ludicrous. An informed populace, dedicated to democratic liberties is the sole barrier against tyranny. Guns or not is entirely secondary, above all given the power of the modern state and modern military weapons – even for 3rd world countries. My personal experience trotting round the globe suggests no real link between liberty and private gun ownership (whatever the laws might be). Nothing is more bemusing than taking a coffee in Yemen next to some ordinary Yemanis carrying AK 47s and shoulder launched rockets. Ordinary folks, and like every Yemani man, armed to the teeth worthy of the wet dreams of our more paranoid anti-government folks. (I confess to feeling ill-at-ease around weaponry rather capable of demolishing a small town, but utterly ordinary in Yemen) Yet Yemen is hardly a place of liberty. Quite the contrary, and I could cite endless further examples. In the end, its political culture that counts, guns are a neutral reality which can cut either way. A dictator then has to fear information, not guns in the hands of some individuals. Now, I have rather found the arguments in re personal defense and protection much more interesting and convincing. Not for me and not for everyone but certainly not absurd on their face. As such I have rather revised my thinking, becoming much more neutral on guns in general, whereas the paranoid rantings of the NRA crowd, to use the stereotype, had rather turned me off and led me to regard them as a genuine threat to a healthy political culture. What I find most irritating are the sweeping statements and underlying paranoia. A good portion of my family in the USA are gun owners. Typical of them is my brother is the owner of a veritable arsenal to be frank, yet he’s not at all opposed to reasonable gun control and finds the position of the NRA contemptible, as that of the “they are coming” crowd. As such, I can count a goodly number of gun owners who do not believe as the OP asserts. That is not to say this automatically makes any of the positions valid or not, but rather one should perhaps pretend less to speak for all. Now, back to the tangle all. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/79 "2001-08-24T17:52:58Z")
**UB:** _So the idea vigilanteism is abhorrent to you and you apparently believe that “quite a few” people engage in this activity? How many in “quite a few?” And by what logic do you arrive at this conclusion? I don’t dispute man’s ability to rationalize his acts, but you seem to be taking it to an extreme that I do not believe exists._ I’m not quite sure I understand you. Are you saying that there aren’t **any** “vigilante”-type people who are willing to commit illegal violence for the sake of a cause they believe to be just? That can’t be right—look at all the shootings and lynchings spearheaded by the KKK, for example, a group that was convinced of the necessity of illegal violence in defense of what it considered the “morally right” principle of white supremacy. More recently, consider the bombings of abortion clinics and the murders of abortion doctors. And how many murders are committed for private motives of vengeance or moral outrage? I’d say there must be, at a moderate estimate, thousands of people who commit gun crimes in the belief that what they’re doing is morally justified. It worries me to see that same kind of reasoning applied by some gun advocates in this kind of “they are coming” scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645/80 "2001-08-24T18:19:34Z")
In his post of Aug. 24, at 6:30 AM (what is he doing up at that hour) Weird Al Einstein suggests that it is significant that, first the 14th Amendment incorporates the 2d Amendment, and second, that most States have their own Right To Bear Arms provision in their own state constitution. The first proposition is just plain wrong. That was the point of the balance of the paragraph from which WAE excerpted a sentence about the effect of the 2d Amendment on the States. No regularly established court has held the 2d Amendment to be incorporated in the 14th Amendment and as thereby binding on the States as a matter of fundamental law. As to the second proposition, I can’t speak for other States, but as far as I can tell the Iowa State Constitution does not contain a Right to Bear Arms provision. State statute does prohibit the possession of “offensive weapons.” Prohibited offensive weapons include machine guns, sawed off firearms, explosive ammunition, flame throwers, and, except for “antique firearms," cannons and shotguns, guns with bigger than cal. .60 bore. I’m not sure by what logic cannons are excluded from the offensive weapon classification; perhaps the explosive ammunition effectively takes cannons out of the equation. Apparently I can have a cannon as long as I use it to fire solid shot and armor piercing bolts. I do know that there has been some effort to suppress potato guns as prohibited offensive weapons. The Iowa statute does contain a preemption section, which prohibits governmental subdivisions, i.e., cities and counties, from having firearms restrictions that are different than the State statute. Let me once more ask what California is doing or about to do or has considered doing that is so awful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-when-they-come-for-our-guns/77645.md?page=5)