[QUOTE=kevlaw]
If the constitution were changed by lawful means, would you support the constitution, or would you oppose it.
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If it were passed by lawful, constitutional means that would mean a majority of my fellow Americans (a LARGE majority) would want it that way. If that were the case I would certainly abide…that’s different than opposing. It wouldn’t really affect me, since I haven’t owned a gun or had one around the house since the kids were born…and my kids are probably older than most posters on this board.
My cite supports der trihs claim that US Forces confiscated weapons in Iraq without mutiny.
Regardless of the political bias of the article, i assumed that Slate’s statement of the facts would be credible as the NY Times article it in turn cites doesn’t seem to available.
Do you still doubt the facts? Would a cite from NYT be acceptable to you or would you still doubt them?
the article supports the fact that you wanted a cite for - US Forces confiscated arms without mutiny. The fact that it happened 8 years ago doesn’t change that. Neither does the fact that the ban wasn’t 100% effective, nor the fact that the ban was more strict that the law was in the US in 2003… But note that, once the ban on assault weapons expired in 2004, the iraqi law was more strict than the us law… And still US forces enforced it without mutiny… Which further supports the idea that you should not count on the army to mutiny against a government that issues lawful orders that it personally does not agree with.
The US government has been able to confiscate similar weapons in the US without a mass revolt too…for decades. Why? Because most civilians don’t really care enough about having LAW rockets, heavy crew served machine guns and other heavy automatic weapons to make that much of a fuss about it. The key point being that they haven’t tried to confiscate ALL of the weapons. Your cite doesn’t support a general confiscation of weapons by US forces against the Iraqis…in fact, it merely says that such weapons (automatic heavy weapons) were banned by the CPA and doesn’t say whether it was every followed through with meaningful confiscations.
If you want to think it supports DT’s assertion, that’s fine with me. From my perspective it doesn’t, and is irrelevant anyway, since the US population is not going to react the same way that the Iraq population would theoretically react if the US tried to confiscate all of their weapons, which we aren’t doing in any case.
To put it another way using the Freedom of Speech angle, most citizens aren’t going to be up in arms if there are bans on kiddie porn, despite the fact that, technically, making such porn illegal cuts into our Freedom of Speech to look at or read what we want to without government interference. It’s not going to cause a revolt, however. That doesn’t mean that if the government tried to ban all speech or even large, broad categories of speech (say, if they tried to ban all porn and to confiscate everything porn related in the public’s hands) this wouldn’t cause a huge backlash and large scale protests.
again, his point was not about willingness to give up arms. It was willingness to confiscate them. We have historical evidence that us soldiers were quite willing to confiscate AK47s when the law required it. Now we are just arguing about wherre they would draw the line… Glocks? Saturday night specials?
I think you’d have to go a long way down that line before you caused substantial sections of the US military to turn on their superiors.
[QUOTE=kevlaw]
Too many negatives in there to follow.
If you are saying that you could nibble away at the constitution for years before a significant chunk of the electorate would care, i agree with you.
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No, not saying that at all, though I agree as well you could do this. In fact, I believe this has been the anti-gun strategy wrt the 2nd. No, all I was saying is that the general public is not going to be up in arms over having things banned that they don’t really care about…such as kiddie porn or heavy weapons. Trying to extend those bans, however, especially if there isn’t a political climate conducive to it, is going to trigger more general protest.
Then his point makes no sense and isn’t in keeping with his usual posting style. Your cite shows that the CPA banned heavy weapons, but didn’t go into details about confiscation…and it was a very vertical, narrowly focused ban, not a general ban on all weapons (as DT implied). A narrowly focused ban is not going to get more than a small percentage of the population up in arms, because they don’t care about having a .50 cal machine gun or an RPG launcher and assortment of rockets to go with it. So, DT trying to use this as a counter for a population supposedly just going along with a ban to counter point how the US population would supposedly react makes no sense…the Iraqis didn’t revolt because no one tried to take all their weapons away. I’m not even convinced that the ‘ban’ was even systematically put in place, but even if it was and if the US went house to house confiscating the items on the list, most people aren’t going to care…they don’t have heavy weapons, crew served machine guns or RPG rocket launchers. The folks who do are probably fighting already. It’s banning kiddie porn or rape porn vs banning ALL porn.
Maybe so, maybe no. It would depend on how all of this went down, I’d say. If it were all above board and constitutional you probably would have the military rock solid behind the government, as it should be. If it wasn’t, then the ‘government’ itself would be split, since I can’t see both political parties going along in lock step. I can’t see the general population just ignoring it either, if it didn’t go down above board and constitutional. Again, the picture in my mind is the periodic explosions in the French populace when the government does or attempts to do something that a large non-zero portion of the French citizens don’t like very much.
I must admit I skipped a lot of this thread. I try not to do that in a thread I’m going to post in, but my eyes were rolling so much it started to hurt a little.
First, IMO if the Second Amendment were repealed, hunting rifles and such would not be made illegal in most places. Handguns would be. I presume the federal government would apply pressure via funding to the states to ban whatever’s on the list, like it did with the drinking age and does with drug laws.
I’m not at all sure what sort of events would happen during this period. I feel confident that gun owners would generally decide that they do enjoy their freedom more than their right to bear arms and comply. This includes everyone in this thread. I think I’m safe in that prediction. It’s easy to talk big on the internet. It’s different when you’re looking at going to prison.
I’m equally confident in predicting that there would not be a civil war, the United States would not collapse, and that crime rates would not skyrocket. Further, spree killings, domestic slayings, and school shooting would decline.
After that, I see two possibilities. The first one is that the Second Amendment is re-enacted, because American politicians are prostitutes instead of leaders. The second is that a generation goes by and people wonder why the it was ever in the Constitution in the first place.
I think the american people are far more willing to give up their liberties than french people are and, as I recall, the Iraqis did not exactly accept their occupation meekly.
In any contest between patriotism and constitutional rights, patriotism would win hands down. Again, the last 8 years demonstrates that all too well. Most americans don’t care about freedom of speech, freedom from unlawful imprisonment or unlawful search, the right to bear arms because they are abstract ideals that (they think) don’t affect them personally.
Freedom of speech? Fine! As long as people don’t go saying bad things about America.
Unlawful imprisonment? Only for the people that deserve it!
Right to bear arms? Whatever! As long as people aren’t allowed serious weapons!
Unlawful search? Only for people who are hiding stuff they shouldn’t have anyway.
There’s a small minority that cares about any of this stuff.
[QUOTE=kevlaw]
I think the american people are far more willing to give up their liberties than french people are and, as I recall, the Iraqis did not exactly accept their occupation meekly.
[/QUOTE]
You are all over the board. Occupation? What’s that got to do with the subject? What metric are you using for Americans being more willing to give up liberty than the French??
Patriotism vs constitutional rights?? Again, where are you getting this? The last 8 years have demonstrated that we don’t care about Freedom of Speech or unlawful imprisonment? And this time period has demonstrated we don’t care about the right to keep and bear arms?? How are you measuring all of those things?
Really? Why hasn’t all porn been banned then? Why haven’t all guns been banned? Are you saying that a small group is preventing this stuff from happening? That only a small minority of people really care about Freedom of Speech or the Right to Keep and Bear Arms? Freedom of Religion??
I agree there appear to be fundamental differences in how we think.
But in this case, I think you’re off the mark. In a discussion about the Constitution, the assumption is going to be that “repeal an amendment” means “within the scope of the Constitution” not “as ordered by Morbo the First after he has himself crowned Emperor of America”.
In the unlikely event that somebody overthrows the government and assumes dictatorial powers, I think we can take it as a given that he or she will have already assured the support of a substantial portion of the armed forces as a prerequisite for their coup.
If the federal government gained the power to ban the private possession of firearms, I wonder if any of the more gun-friendly states would pass laws making it extremely easy to register oneself as a police auxiliary, permitted to keep a firearm in exchange for doing a week’s park patrol once a year…
Its so good to see reasonable moderation here. Thank you for your opinion. I’ll just bow and back out of the room. I can see that my input isn’t needed. Please take this as your option to tell me how wrong I am, and how I’m a coward for leaving.
As a gun-loving friend of mine likes to say, “Kill them, kill them, blood makes the grass grow.”
If it somehow gets to the point that our* democratic government* abolishes guns, then that means gun rights defenders are either a minority or significantly disenfranchised.
Surrender your weapons & you will live. Those who resist are all like the Koreshians now; resist & you will be burned.
Randy Reed, David Koresh, 10 000 times over. And without remorse, you scofflaw sonsabitches.
I think you mean Randy Weaver- and for the record, he survived and pocketed a hefty settlement from the Feds for the wrongful death of his wife. On the other hand, his wife and son were shot by FBI snipers, so there is that.
ExTank if you had a totalitarian dictator take over the United States (Emperor Norton II) then his repealing the Second Amendment would be the least of your concerns.
If anything he would probably encourge a far greater amount of gun ownership and training in its use, a fully trained and armed populace fits in very well with such peoples vision.
You know, this is the second time I’ve heard someone say this - the first time, it was from Der Trihs, but I hold you to a higher standard than him on the issue of political debates, honestly. What makes you say this?
Has there ever been a totalitarian ruler who was actually okay with gun ownership by the population?
People always bring up Saddam Hussein and talk about how gun-friendly he was, to try to make the point that you’re making. I don’t buy it. I’m sure that Saddam’s cronies and their families and friends and all of the other individuals who supported his political machine were allowed by his government to possess armaments. This is not the same thing as anyone in the country being allowed to be armed, totally regardless of their political views.
