@GaffaUK

Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick…

So are you saying that there should be a universal set of gun laws which is imposed by the Federal Government upon all the States?

No, I am saying that there should be a universal LACK of gun laws which is imposed by the Federal Government OR the States.

And because the 2nd amendment say it ’shall not be infringed’ then does that mean the other amendments can be ignored?

Back into the rhetorical and ridiculous. Of course that isn’t what it means. Clearly defining one right doesn’t diminish another.

That’s two comments in a row with idiotic, ridiculous, and rhetorical questions. I know you are just trying to trip up my stand on second amendment rights, which you have so far been unable to do, so now you are just reverting to form. I have backed up my claims with damn lying statistics and damn credible real life examples, and if that isn’t enough for you, then so be it. If you don’t want to have a constructive conversation anymore, then I am done with you.

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As Ditto pointed out earlier, “The Second Amendment is the ONLY Constitutional right that specifically states that the right ’shall not be infringed.’” It doesn’t say “shall not be infringed except by the states.” So, constitutionally, a state should not have the ability to impose any additional restrictions on the right to bear arms. That hasn’t stopped it from happening.

So are you saying that there should be a universal set of gun laws which is imposed by the Federal Government upon all the States?

And because the 2nd amendment say it ‘shall not be infringed’ then does that mean the other amendments can be ignored?

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@GaffaUK
Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick.

But even you have have limited the 2nd amendment with your own concessions about guns not being allowed in a courtroom, a jail or a police station etc and that you have restricted children being able to carry guns.

The purpose of being armed, at it’s basest level, is to impose a threat. A threat against criminals who would want to victimize you, and a threat against a government who would want to oppress you. I believe it is necessary that that the basic functions of government are able to be carried out without that threat being directly present. While it is necessary that our elected and appointed officials make policies and set agendas with the knowledge in the back of their minds that their decisions could lead to revolt, they should not, however, be concerned with immediate threats while they do the business of state. I want my leaders to make their decisions based on a whole host of information, not just because someone in the audience will shoot them if they make one that makes the guy unhappy.

The 2nd Amendment doesn’t mention children – surely you are infringing their rights! (btw were Slaves allowed to bear arms?)

Now you are just getting rhetorical, and ridiculous. It is well accepted, and supported by the Supreme Court, that children do not gain access to all the rights of The People until they reach the age of majority. As for the idiotic question about armed slaves–give me a break. What do you think? There were slaves in the mother country back in ‘the day’ too, did they get to carry guns?

At the end of the day – the law has to interpret the 2nd amendment, place in the necessary concessions and balance it with the realities of today and not the 18th century.

Sorry, just because someone says “the times have changed” doesn’t mean I have to accept that same someone putting new restrictions on my rights. How about, “the times have changed, we need to let the military house soldiers in our homes” or “the times have changed, we need to get rid of that pesky fifth amendment” and even “the times have changed, we need to letting people talk so much!”

Also is 2nd Amendment imposed on the individual states? Do they to follow it? Just look at how messy it would be to drive across the states with a gun…

As Ditto pointed out earlier, “The Second Amendment is the ONLY Constitutional right that specifically states that the right ‘shall not be infringed.’” It doesn’t say “shall not be infringed except by the states.” So, constitutionally, a state should not have the ability to impose any additional restrictions on the right to bear arms. That hasn’t stopped it from happening. On a side note, the first amendment only technically restricts the ability of Congress to prohibit the free exercise of religion, or to abridge the freedom of speech, the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. It doesn’t specifically prohibit individual states from doing those things. It wasn’t until the 14th amendment was approved that the first amendment was applied to all levels of government.

Which leads us too…

are you as passionate about the 1st amendment and does that have or need any concessions?

I’m here exercising my 1st amendment rights, aren’t I? And, no, I’m not going to get in a back and forth with you on that subject in this thread.

Yeah my bad – still after 1 minute of looking I found the house invasion in Wyoming that Wisdom challenged me to find.

Ah, the power of Google. But my point still stands. Out of half a million people in this state, there was ONE home invasion robbery. A quick search on Google also shows that Stockton, California, a city of 375,000 people, had 23 home invasions in April 2007. California, by the way, has some of the most restrictive gun laws anywhere in the United States. You will find similar disparities in statistics any time you compare any legally armed population in the US with a similarly populated city that has excessive gun control.

Do you really think individuals and small groups with guns would stand a chance against the might of the US military IF they followed President’s orders?

Yes. People fighting to defend their homes, and their freedom, can be quite formidable. Especially if they are armed. The American Militias of the US Revolution, consisting mostly of a bunch of poorly trained farmers, common laborers, and a few freed slaves, were able to do quite a number on the most powerful army in the world, you know, the one your King sent over here to put us back in line. And your capitalized IF is well noted. I would hope and expect that the members of the US military would not follow those orders, but I wouldn’t depend on it. Every time in history that this has happened, I’m sure that the people of those countries thought the same thing of their own military. Sadly though, the process that leads to a totalitarian dictatorship begins with the indoctrination of a nations youth to support a specific mindset. For example, the Hitler-Jugend. Or the now forming Obama-Ujana.

Also did USSR, Germany and China have significant gun control laws? I presume they didn’t so I don’t think that stopped those tryants from gaining power.

No, they didn’t need them. Their populations were already unarmed, and hence, ripe and ready for oppression. Had they been an armed citizenry, as America is, the history of those countries could be quite different. Each of the three despots that I referenced were responsible for the deaths of over 20 million people. There are dozens more who are responsible for the deaths of millions. The overriding factor that links them all is that the people they preyed on, the people that they tortured and slaughtered, were unarmed.

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those links were for a city called Wyoming in the state of MICHIGAN. Not the state of Wyoming. I believe Wisdom was challenging you to find home invasions in the STATE of Wyoming.

Yeah my bad – still after 1 minute of looking I found the house invasion in Wyoming that Wisdom challenged me to find.

The individual safety of a few people because of the threat of gun crime pales against the safety of a nation when a rogue President declares martial law and orders the troops under his command to occupy American territories. Sure, it sounds extreme and impossible, because that has obviously never happened anywhere else in the world; Joseph Stalin…Adolf Hitler…Mao Tse-Tung……no one really thought any of them would become the tyrants that history will remember them as either. An armed citizenry is just a guarantee that the next one on that list of dictators that are responsible for the deaths of more that 20 million people doesn’t get his start as our President.

Do you really think individuals and small groups with guns would stand a chance against the might of the US military IF they followed President’s orders?
Also did USSR, Germany and China have significant gun control laws? I presume they didn’t so I don’t think that stopped those tryants from gaining power.

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@Wisdom

When you are talking about a “right”, any concession, any at all, erodes that right.

But even you have have limited the 2nd amendment with your own concessions about guns not being allowed in a courtroom, a jail or a police station etc and that you have restricted children being able to carry guns. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t mention children – surely you are infringing their rights! (btw were Slaves allowed to bear arms?) However according to you if you start having such concessions then that erodes that right. At the end of the day – the law has to interpret the 2nd amendment, place in the necessary concessions and balance it with the realities of today and not the 18th century.

Also is 2nd Amendment imposed on the individual states? Do they to follow it? Just look at how messy it would be to drive across the states with a gun…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)

And finally are you as passionate about the 1st amendment and does that have or need any concessions?

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@MrObson

how would you prevent those persons judged mentally incompetent by a court from purchasing a firearm?

If they are caught with firearms, they should be punished. If they are mentally incompetent to the extent that they don’t understand the court ordered restrictions that are placed on them, then they should be committed so they can get the mental health help they need. My business sells alcohol, and as an industry we are expected to make reasonable judgments about whether an individual customer is legally able to purchase alcohol (ie. Are they too young?; Are they visibly inebriated?). The key word there is reasonable. We aren’t expected to take blood samples from our customers to measure BAC levels, and we don’t have to have three forms of ID…one is sufficient. The same reasonable judgments can be expected of those who sell firearms, but the mandates put on them do not have to be onerous.

those links were for a city called Wyoming in the state of MICHIGAN. Not the state of Wyoming. I believe Wisdom was challenging you to find home invasions in the STATE of Wyoming.

Good catch. Looking back, the first and second links he posted were from Michigan, the third, which is the only one that really reported a home invasion robbery, was from Wyoming.

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Interesting thread.

1) Wisdom – how would you prevent those persons judged mentally incompetent by a court from purchasing a firearm?
2) Gaffa – those links were for a city called Wyoming in the state of MICHIGAN. Not the state of Wyoming. I believe Wisdom was challenging you to find home invasions in the STATE of Wyoming.

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@ Gaffa

Stop trying to act innocent. We aren’t buying your B.S.

The problem with making concessions on any Constitutionally protected right, is that there are people who will later try to make you to give up a little more of it, and more. Hand-Gun-Control-Inc has conceded that incremental gun control regulation after regulation is precisely how they have been targeting the Second Amendment, and that their end goal is to make the Second Amendment impotent.

When was the last time you heard Democrats speak out against Sara Brady’s organization, for their continual push for more gun control? The only things that has stopped more Democrat gun control laws is the fear of constituent back-lash, the anti-gun control lobby, most Republicans and (finally!) a Supreme Court ruling recognizing the second amendment as an individual right. (as opposed to the claim by far left Democrats and Hand-Gun-Control-Inc that it was a “collective” right.

All it takes is reading the Federalist Papers, the Anti-federalist Papers, and the other writings of the founders to know why they felt that the Second Amendment was the final fail-safe. They did not write the Second Amendment merely to protect hunting rights, gun collectors and competition shooting. Anyone who tells you different is either a liar or ignorant of the purpose of the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment is the ONLY Constitutional right that specifically states that the right “shall not be infringed.” Accepting concessions on a right is infringement of it.

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@GaffaUK

What’s wrong with a concession? Is that the hyped up feared ‘thin end of the wedge’ theory – that if you concede an inch you suddenly be stripped off all your rights – so it’s best to be bloody minded and even argue against some aspects you may even secretly agree with?

When you are talking about a “right”, any concession, any at all, erodes that right. To quote John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, “Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.” I will compromise on some issues, but not on issues that involve my rights. We have nine original rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, and others that have been guaranteed by later amendments. As far as I am concerned, these rights are sacred and uncompromisable, and I consider ANY attempt to whittle away at my rights as nothing less than an attack on my freedom.

America was created out of the desire of our forefathers to be free from the oppression of your country. In the 233 years since, our country has seen thousands of challenges and threats to the freedoms they fought for, but not a single one of those threats has been greater than the internal threat of disarmament. While most of what I have said in this thread has related to self defense, the truth is that self defense in just a by-product of what the framers really had in mind. The second amendment is primarily about guaranteeing that the citizens of this country are always able to defend themselves against an oppressive government. The threat that they saw wasn’t just limited to another invasion from England, or another country, it was also the threat that the federal government that they founded growing into yet another oppressive ruler.

The individual safety of a few people because of the threat of gun crime pales against the safety of a nation when a rogue President declares martial law and orders the troops under his command to occupy American territories. Sure, it sounds extreme and impossible, because that has obviously never happened anywhere else in the world; Joseph Stalin…Adolf Hitler…Mao Tse-Tung……no one really thought any of them would become the tyrants that history will remember them as either. An armed citizenry is just a guarantee that the next one on that list of dictators that are responsible for the deaths of more that 20 million people doesn’t get his start as our President.

Ultimately, there is only one reason that a government would want to limit their citizens’ right to be armed. It’s so when they start taking away your other rights, there won’t be anything you can do about it. Except, maybe, to stand at the top of your stairs with your cricket bat and hope they don’t come up the steps after you.

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Do you disagree that your tactic is to whittle away at the argument until you get a concession as ditto contended?

I see debate as a way to discuss ideas and opinions. Sometimes it will lead to gridlock when two people have absolutely fixed opinions – sometimes it will lead to some concessions on one or either side. It’s not a sports contest. What’s wrong with a concession? Is that the hyped up feared ‘thin end of the wedge’ theory – that if you concede an inch you suddenly be stripped off all your rights – so it’s best to be bloody minded and even argue against some aspects you may even secretly agree with? lol

As I look back at your posts, on any thread, that is what I see. He is right about it being a tactic, and a highly effective one.

I don’t see it being particularly effective on a high level or on micro level. My opinions on here – like most, if not all, of the opinions on here really have little impact on the real world. I don’t see the gun laws changing because what people say on floppingaces.net. And as this is a site which seems to have hardcore conservative ideas then I don’t see my views changing anyones minds to any large degree.

But if you are doing it by accident, and aren’t really thinking it through, I guess I can believe that. That would fit more with MataHarley’s assessment of you. So which is it?

I’m not quite sure what you are asking here. Are my views accidental? Of course not. Are they completed fixed? Nope. Most of my thoughts are thought through but also there may be holes or things which I haven’t considered which I ‘m sure also goes for those on the right and left.

Do I have an agenda? Of course not. I’m just shooting the breeze and debating. Does anyone on here have an agenda where they hope to make real change through a forum? Possibly. It can help rally the troops and be a springboard for organising campaigns, rallies etc. But most of it on here seems to be debate which is healthy. And to have healthy debate it’s good to have different views – rather than make out someone is dumb because they have different views you.

I know it’s easy to pigeonhole my views as being identical as some others who may ‘truly believe that if you ban guns the criminal will get rid of theirs’ but I don’t agree with that either. I just believe that there needs to be gun control – and the debate lies in where the line is drawn. If I was really motivated and interested in changing the gun laws of another country that I don’t live in – then I would move there and activately campaign against it. So don’t worry:)

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