Obama and Guns: Two Different Views

[jim schmidt]

Originally Posted by bumblebee

I say he fits U of M about like Glenn Beck on CNN...

Well I went to the U of M so I'd very much like to hear exactly what you think about it. U of M is a big system that includes a very conservative business school (Robert H. Smith School of Business) and a well regarded liberal arts program and the world's largest online campus serving the military. It also includes about a dozen independent campus' including Towson State, which also has a reputation for leaning conservative.

As to Lott, he was hired out of American Enterprise Institute during the Erlich administration. All his well-known "research" was funded by them. I've had AEI fellows in my family and I can assure you that they are the Fox News of the think-tank world. In fact, very few think tanks are anything more than tax exempt PR firms for the corporations who underwrite them.

He's had a remarkably unspectacular tenure at U of M since then. I don't think he's accomplished anything. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he's trying to jumpstart a flagging career by offering up a "big lie." I wouldn't be surprised -- although I have no idea and nothing to suspect -- to find out that he's lying.

[Gaolee]

Hooray! We have a logical argument. Thank you Kevin. Parsing a sentence is something that is open for interpretation. I don't know the current state of legal precedent, and that's also pretty important in our system.

I absolutely agree about Constitutional issues being more important. But, the Constitution doesn't specifically mention guns. It mentions arms. Guns are arms. What about tanks? What about fully automatic weapons? What about other Constitutional rights we have been systematically pissing away over time without the same outcry?

[jim schmidt]

Then it seems you have no worries.

[Johnny Busa]

Originally Posted by kevin_stevens

You don't have to be a "gun-foamer" to hold the position that Constitutional issues are more fundamentally important than other issues.

I'll not get into the "militia" issues - on which discussion is widely available - except to say that I knew how to parse a sentence when I was in the fifth grade, and a subordinate clause still doesn't modify the primary structure. And "the people" means the same damn thing as it does in the other amendments.

I couldn't care less whether Americans are allowed to own firearms. I care strongly that the Constitution can be suborned by collateral legislation when the documented process for changing it can't be achieved.

KeS

Well said.

[PhilB]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

You guys are studiously missing the point, as do most single issue thinkers. Gun rights are only one of a number of rights we have to defend. If you have been paying attention, you will know it isn't a simple digital issue. Even the NRA knows that. You cannot buy a fully automatic rifle. Is that an issue the NRA gets bent about? Not that I am aware of. Consistency is usually a sign of clear thought. Gun foamers are rarely consistent, and will often give up all other freedoms as long as they can do anything they want with their guns.

It is a tool, people. The Constitution doesn't say the right to bear Uzis shall not be abridged. There are all kinds of arms. Also, there's the old bugaboo of a well regulated militia. Do you guys belong to a militia? So, what's that all about, anyway? Explain it to me. I will listen, but I will also point out where your logic falls apart, just as I am more than happy to point out anybody elses logical failings. Gun ownership and enthusiasm doesn't make you any more special than motorcycle ownership and enthusiasm makes any of us special.

I only sort of agree that the issue is less relevant right now. It's not as urgent as ending the war in Iraq, or as preventing the implementation of socialized medicine (a much bigger reason not to vote for Obama or Hillary). But gun rights *are* critical, and allowing them to continually be chipped away at is shortsighted and wrong. If Obama gets elected, his views on guns do matter, because a Democrat-majority Congress could (and might well) use that to send him anti-gun bills with the assurance that he will be inclined to sign them.

And the NRA should be "bent" about the unavailability of fully automatic rifles. One of the reasons I don't much support the NRA is their weak stance on so many of these issues. (And note that those haven't been actually outlawed, since the government knows that would be illegal according to the Constitution. Instead, the government has instituted a licensing and tax setup, with inspections and other hassles, to make it so hard that few people will bother.)

The Constitution doesn't say the right to keep and bear *some* arms shall not be infringed; it says "arms". Period. Uzis, being arms, are included (despite the fact that they currently are effectively prohibited).

The militia is the body of the population capable of bearing arms for the purpose of "the security of a free state", whether that be from foreign enemies or domestic.

Originally Posted by Gaolee

Hooray! We have a logical argument. Thank you Kevin. Parsing a sentence is something that is open for interpretation. I don't know the current state of legal precedent, and that's also pretty important in our system.

I absolutely agree about Constitutional issues being more important. But, the Constitution doesn't specifically mention guns. It mentions arms. Guns are arms. What about tanks? What about fully automatic weapons? What about other Constitutional rights we have been systematically pissing away over time without the same outcry?

Yep, guns. Yep, tanks. Yep, fully automatic rifles (exactly the type of gun, given our current technology, that our ownership of should be most protected). Arms properly means pretty much anything except WMDs (chemical/biological/nuclear weapons), as those are not suitable for defense of territory (and thus "the security of a free state"), only for offense.

And yes, all the "other Constitutional rights we have been systematically pissing away over time without the same outcry" need to be addressed as well. Agree entirely. However, it is the right to keep and bear arms, and ONLY the right to keep and bear arms, that ensures that the people possess the power to address all those other rights and to be able to make an effective outcry that the government must pay attention to. If we lose our gun rights, then there is nothing to ensure we keep any of our other rights except the goodwill of the people in power at any given time. Y'all on the left ought to be as afraid of that as those on the right or as we libertarians are.

PhilB

[Gaolee]

I disagree with you, but the disagreement is on emphasis and on details. The right to bear arms is nothing without the right of free assembly, the right to free speech, and the right to avoid self incrimination. Without these other rights, there is no way to organize into the militia of free citizens you describe.

[PhilB]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

I disagree with you, but the disagreement is on emphasis and on details. The right to bear arms is nothing without the right of free assembly, the right to free speech, and the right to avoid self incrimination. Without these other rights, there is no way to organize into the militia of free citizens you describe.

Without the right to bear arms, the right to free assembly can be denied at any time. Without the right to free assembly, if you have arms you may bring them along to your assembly and make it free. Likewise with all the other rights. Mao had an awful lot of things wrong, but he understood power: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." No guns = no power. You are no longer a citizen; you are a subject. Bottom line.

PhilB

[bumblebee]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

You guys are studiously missing the point, as do most single issue thinkers. Gun rights are only one of a number of rights we have to defend. If you have been paying attention, you will know it isn't a simple digital issue. Even the NRA knows that. You cannot buy a fully automatic rifle. Is that an issue the NRA gets bent about? Not that I am aware of. Consistency is usually a sign of clear thought. Gun foamers are rarely consistent, and will often give up all other freedoms as long as they can do anything they want with their guns.

It is a tool, people. The Constitution doesn't say the right to bear Uzis shall not be abridged. There are all kinds of arms. Also, there's the old bugaboo of a well regulated militia. Do you guys belong to a militia? So, what's that all about, anyway? Explain it to me. I will listen, but I will also point out where your logic falls apart, just as I am more than happy to point out anybody elses logical failings. Gun ownership and enthusiasm doesn't make you any more special than motorcycle ownership and enthusiasm makes any of us special.

No sir, YOU are missing the point. The 2nd Amendment is the only security the citizens of the United States have from their government. Once the right to keep and bear arms has been infringed, ALL the other rights will follow. Gun control has worked well throughout history...Look at Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia and Mao's China...more recently there was Pol Pott in Cambodia and even more recently was the Balkin Peninsula and the states of Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, Vojvodina, Croatia and Montenegro. And do we even need to mention what is happening to the disarmed people of the Sudan RIGHT NOW?

Do you not remember why NATO got involved in Bosnia?

It was the Government and the Police, the only people allowed to own weapons, who were burning homes and doing the ethnic cleansing.

And don't say it can't happen here, with the speed our politicians are pursuing socialism and globalism, the only way they can be successful is to disarm Americans.

I agree this election is about more than just guns, but the Second Amendment is the most vital to the freedom of America, and it is the target of the UN and the Globalists...Americans can't be controlled until they are disarmed

[Gaolee]

And that's pretty much the bottom line for authority of any kind. There is no moral basis for authority. It is only force.

[BigArn]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

Emotional argument, not supported by logic. Try again.

Isn't that pretty much what bumblebee said in the above ^^^^
post.???
"Once the right to keep and bear arms has been infringed, ALL the other rights will follow"

[Gaolee]

Originally Posted by BigArn

Isn't that pretty much what bumblebee said in the above ^^^^
post.???
"Once the right to keep and bear arms has been infringed, ALL the other rights will follow"

He got around to it. Now, are certain restrictions Constitutional, or are they not? Should every town have its own nuclear aresenal, or are there limits? This isn't a society built on citizen farmers who can band together as a small militia to fight off the Red Coats any more. And, who are we resisting? The police, who are usually just us anyway, or somebody else?

Let's get into details, test the theories at their limits and see what happens.

[bumblebee]

I found this little piece of literature...At the time it was written, It was Treason...


"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Ben Franklin said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch...Freedom is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."

And you wonder what the Founding Fathers' intentions for the Second Amendment were?

[bumblebee]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

He got around to it. Now, are certain restrictions Constitutional, or are they not? Should every town have its own nuclear aresenal, or are there limits? This isn't a society built on citizen farmers who can band together as a small militia to fight off the Red Coats any more. And, who are we resisting? The police, who are usually just us anyway, or somebody else?
Let's get into details, test the theories at their limits and see what happens.

Tell that to the muslims in Chechnya and Bosnia...they have no reason the fear the government or the police.

And speaking from a strictly Constitutional standpoint, every town in America could produce and maintain a nuclear arsenal if they could afford it. Just because a duty or procedure has been transferred from one party to the next, doesn't mean the first party has abdicated their rights