aa05df0d1cb5…

and I cant think of one single thing congress has done in my life time that would lead me to even consider trusting them, contrasted to the literally hundreds of things they have done to make me not trust them.

doriangrey on November 30, 2007 at 12:17 PM

Our liberties are in danger every time congress gavels to order. Ditto for federal courts.

The First Amendment is the Mouth.

The Second Amendment is the Teeth.

(Gumming your way to liberty never works.)

profitsbeard on November 30, 2007 at 11:15 AM

I like that. Can I quote you?

really believe the far left want to want to have another Civil War in the USA.

oldelpasoan on November 30, 2007 at 11:47 AM
Of course not, ’cause the left would lose; we’ve got all the guns!

Frozen Tex on November 30, 2007 at 11:52 AM

Yeah, their main weapons would be cafe lattes and flowers.

I am seriously weary of the ignorance, lying, and dull-witted blather of the “control freaks.”

The left supports gun control though it leads to higher crime and eases the path of tyrants.

The left supports communism though it has left a terrifying trail of blood wherever it has been “implemented.”

There isn’t a debate, there’s just a bunch of ignorant, idiot whining jackasses who keep mouthing the same blather over and over.

The latest polemics from the controllers don’t have any new arguments, just the ones that saw them soundly defeated 10, 20, 30 years ago.

I used to like arguing with these people, but it wasn’t very long before I realized they had ZERO interest in anything but their fanatical desire for the worst possible outcome. They ignore facts, lie, make things up, and recycle every failed argument, hoping to wear down the opposition through high-pitched, incessant whining.

I’ve been in well over a hundred detailed, referenced, long-and-drawn-out arguments on the subject. LITERALLY every one has ended with the control freak ditching out, either in a fit of whining invective or to simply try to “win” the argument with someone else later (or with me later, for the exceptionally dim ones).

The only tactics they know are obfuscation and repetition, and it’s pathetic. Again, if it wasn’t for the oiled and pliant MSM, the control freaks would be laughed off the street.

Now, I could be out in left field, but I’d suspect that I can do roughly anything a person 150 years ago could do with nothing but the tools in my garage, and a handy hardware store.

Hmm, a quick web search for “zipgun” and the first link has a link for a book “Expedient Homemade Firearms”. Yeah, most of those look do-able with the tools I have. But what about ammunition?

The first link for “make ammo” is an Amazon link for a book “Homemade Ammo: How To Make It, How To Reload It, How To Cache It”. Well ok then, that seems like it will do.

So, the first step is to outlaw guns, but the second step is going to have to be to outlaw knowledge of how to make guns.

Anyone got an idea on how to properly remove knowledge from the minds of the people, and properly prosecute and enforce thought/knowledge crimes?

Or am I likely to have a gun regardless what you do?

The one point they make that I’m interested in seeing the Court address next year is the Second Amendment’s relationship to the military. In colonial times it would have been understood mainly as a right of self-defense against an oppressive national government. Now it’s understood as a defense against burglars. The left occasionally argues, in fact, that so awesome is the power of the United States military that the core purpose of the amendment has been eviscerated. Quite simply, no ragtag bunch of citizens equipped with small arms could possibly repulse a threat from them. Really? How’s that working out in Iraq?

It’s not just “the left” that argues it. Comparing this to Iraq is asininie. If the US military was willing to fight against the general population odds are they wouldn’t follow the same pansy ass rules they follow in Iraq because the very people to whom they are accountable over there are now their enemies. The US army would obliterate a ragtag gathering of southern rednecks and northern gangstas in the blink of an eye. I want to carry arms to fight off criminals. I have no demented illusion that I can take on the strongest military force in the world with a gun.

I saw this editorial in the Harvard Crimson and became royally pissed off. Read the whole thing and be incensed at the increasingly pervasive idiocy that is being passed as education in America’s institutions of higher learning….

georgej on November 30, 2007 at 6:16 PM

I recall reading that during WWII, the Japanese were terrified of the idea of invading the continental US for the same reason.

Any modern state bent upon conquering or subduing the United States must take into their calculations the fact that the United States has 250 million firearms distributed among 85 million citizens, which (according to Time Magazine) comprise approximately 42% of American households.

If only 10 percent of America’s gun owners took up arms to resist either an invading force or a local, state or federal government gone bad, it would result in an insurgency of 8.5 million armed people. That is larger than any currently existing military force on the earth. To understand the impact of this, consider that during deer hunting season, the number of hunters in Pennsylvania alone would qualify them to be the 4th largest army in the world.

In the era after the Soviet Union fell, US and former KGB intelligence personel were sifting through the old Soviet records and a casual conversation developed about the previously, unlamented, Cold War. When asked about the reason for the state of belligerency, the Russians said they were deathly afraid of a war with the United States. When asked if they ever contemplated invading the USA, the Russians laughed and said that American civilians are too well armed and their experience in Afghanistan proved the point. This was recounted in an old issue of Proceedings (of US Naval Institute). Unfortunately, I no longer have the issue and can’t cite the specific article.

The last time the Militia took up arms against a rogue government in the United States occured in 1946 in Athens, TN. Here is an account of the battle of Athens:

On 2 August 1946, some Americans, brutalized by their county government, used armed force to overturn it. These Americans wanted honest, open elections. For years they had asked for state or Federal election monitors to prevent vote fraud — forged ballots, secret ballot counts, and intimidation by armed sheriff’s deputies — by the local political boss. They got no help….

….The election was held on 1 August. To intimidate voters, Mansfield brought in some 200 armed “deputies”. GI poll-watchers were beaten almost at once. At about 3 p.m., Tom Gillespie, an African-American voter, was told by a Sheriff’s deputy, “‘Nigger, you can’t vote here today!!’”. Despite being beaten, Gillespie persisted; the enraged deputy shot him. The gunshot drew a crowd. Rumors spread that Gillespie had been “shot in the back”; he later recovered. (C. Stephen Byrum, The Battle of Athens; Paidia Productions, Chattanooga TN, 1987; pp. 155-57).

Other deputies detained ex-GI poll-watchers in a polling place, as that made the ballot count “public”. A crowd gathered. Sheriff Mansfield told his deputies to disperse the crowd. When the two ex-GIs smashed a big window and escaped, the crowd surged forward. “The deputies, with guns drawn, formed a tight half-circle around the front of the polling place. One deputy, “his gun raised high …shouted: ‘You sons-of-bitches cross this street and I’ll kill you!’” (Byrum, p. 165).

Mansfield took the ballot boxes to the jail for counting. The deputies seemed to fear immediate attack, by the “people who had just liberated Europe and the South Pacific from two of the most powerful war machines in human history.” (Byrum, pp. 168-69).

Short of firearms and ammunition, the GIs scoured the county to find them. By borrowing keys to the National Guard and State Guard Armories, they got three M-1 rifles, five .45 semi-automatic pistols, and 24 British Enfield rifles. The armories were nearly empty after the war’s end.

By eight p.m., a group of GIs and “local boys” headed for the jail to get the ballot boxes. They occupied high ground facing the jail but left the back door unguarded to give the jail’s defenders an easy way out.

VI. The Battle of Athens
Three GIs – alerting passersby to danger – were fired on from the jail. Two GIs were wounded. Other GIs returned fire. Those inside the jail mainly used pistols; they also had a “tommy gun” (a .45 caliber Thompson sub-machine gun).

Firing subsided after 30 minutes: ammunition ran low and night had fallen. Thick brick walls shielded those inside the jail. Absent radios, the GIs’ rifle fire was un-coordinated. “From the hillside, fire rose and fell in disorganized cascades. More than anything else, people were simply ‘shooting at the jail’.” (Byrum, p. 189)….

…Governor McCord mobilized the State Guard, perhaps to scare the GIs into withdrawing. The State Guard never went to Athens. McCord may have feared that Guard units filled with ex-GIs might not fire on other ex-GIs.

At about 2 a.m. on 2 August, the GIs forced the issue. Men from Meigs county threw dynamite sticks and damaged the jail’s porch. The panicked deputies surrendered. GIs quickly secured the building. Paul Cantrell faded into the night, almost having been shot by a GI who knew him, but whose .45 pistol had jammed. Mansfield’s deputies were kept overnight in jail for their own safety. Calm soon returned: the GIs posted guards. The rifles borrowed from the armory were cleaned and returned before sun-up.

The young morons of Harvard’s Crimson are ignorant of their own history. And that is by design….

Repeal Harvard’s charter.

Replace it with a “nuanced” license to operate, but only in double-wide trailers as the existing buildings will be bulldozed to provide a new senior citizens center and water park.

All existing faculty and administrators shall be terminated, with no-rehire.

All current students will be branded with an “H” on their foreheads to indicate that they have been lobotomized by the former staff.

All other amendments derive from the second amendment

But now, when the United States is protected by the most powerful security forces on the globe, the Second Amendment is neither relevant nor useful – The Crimson Staff

I thought they considered our soldiers thugs and rapists

Gun advocates claim the need for handguns in self-defense, but such considerations are moot when weighed against the number of lives that might be saved by making the weapons illegal The Crimson Staff

I have to see those numbers presented by someone of higher IQ then the teddies at the Crimson. Oh, I forgot, they left out the proof. Guess it was so obvious it was not required reading

Constitutional debates over its interpretation stand in the way of the implementation of pressing public policy

Astounding

Were it not for private gun ownership we would be able to implement pressing public policy?

we should repeal this amendment and focus our efforts on legislation that will actually protect the “security of a free state”—a charge explicit in the Second Amendment – The Crimson Staff

Why do we need legislation to protect the security of the free state when we already have the ‘most powerful security forces on the globe’?

I get it. They want to protect the security of the State.

Second amendment people want to maintain the security of the state of Freedom i.e. individual liberty

I cannot even flatter this essay by calling it sophmoric.

Ivy League is a league unto itself. That is why Ivy Leagers prefer to hire other Ivy Leagers, so they can keep their shame secret

no ragtag bunch of citizens equipped with small arms could possibly repulse a threat from them. Really? How’s that working out in Iraq?

Four years and the U.S. and its Iraqi allies have more control over the country than ever. Plus, most of the damage to the U.S. wasn’t done with rifles and handguns, but with bombs (and, to a smaller extent, AK-47s and the like). Would a repeal of the Second Amendment do anything with regards to IEDs? Incidentally, if we’d had the same view of war, life, and security that we had in colonial times, the insurgents would have achieved even less.

I suppose your point, though, is that’s not what the Crimson thinks about Iraq.

Has an amendment ever been repealed before?

Ignoring Prohibition, parts of the Constitution have been modified by future amendments, e.g., the 14th and 25th, which I believe impacted the 10th and 12th, respectively. A well-annotated Constitution would tell the full story.

Any repeal effort should directed at the Seventh Amendment, in any event. (Jury trial in civil cases.)

Only if the amount exceeds $20! If that amendment, enacted after a period of hyperinflation, doesn’t show the fallibility of the founders, I don’t know what does.

Allah, I just wanted to say I enjoyed you’re writing here. I normally do, but this one was exceptional.

Me, I preferred the Hitchens makeover summary, though, upon showing it to a coworker, I got disgust, not laughs. But for me it was the funniest thing I’ve read all month.

Again, much the same way with freedom of speech: you are free to assemble, plan, and perform a protest march, but you have to get a permit, perform during certain timeframes, etc, so as not to interfere with others rights.

Stay tuned next week as the Crimson will presumably make a similar public-safety case for expanding the war on drugs.

Nah, they like drugs.

Any repeal effort should directed at the Seventh Amendment, in any event. (Jury trial in civil cases.)

As long as the Second Amendment is part of the Constitution, I don’t see how the government can restrict the people’s right to keep and bear arms in any way.

Try living in California.

But I’ll go along with The Crimson if they figure out a way to un-invent firearms.

Even if it could be done, it would actually make things worse. Imagine, a world without guns

I think under the current form of the Constitution the principled stand means no restrictions on guns, no restrictions on carrying scimitars or maces in public and of course no restrictions on the ownership of thermonuclear devices either. (Which is good: you can’t be expected to stand up to the Man with a 9mm Glock when the Man has nukes.)

Why not presume that, given that the framers of the Constitution explicitly reserved rights for the people and the states, that sorting out the above would be (should be, must be) a state power, not a federal one and not necessarily an individual right unless specified as a right in the state’s constitiution.

iurockhead on November 30, 2007 at 1:13 PM

Thank you for doing the research I was too lazy/time constrained to do.

Canada has always had stronger firearms regulation than the United States, particularly with respect to handguns. In Canada, handguns have been licensed and registered since the 1930’s, ownership of guns has never been regarded as a right and several court rulings have reaffirmed the right of the government to protect citizens from guns. Handgun ownership has been restricted to police, members of gun clubs or collectors. Very few (about 50 in the country) have been given permits to carry handguns for “self-protection.” This is only possible if an applicant can prove that their life is in danger and the police cannot protect them.

As a result, Canada has roughly 1 million handguns while the United States has more than 76 million.

Like healthcare, lots of people want to copy the Canadian model. Ain’t gonna happen, either one.