Pledge to ignore gun control

Water Cooler
#21

i have, similar size to .22. Also VERY good for groundhogs.

the primary argument for use lies in home defense and defense against the state. Both of which it is great for.

i’d add that you could make a stronger argument against the practical application of easily concealable weapons (handguns). Cops aren’t shooting people because they’re afraid they’ve got an ar15 in their waistband and they almost entirely contribute to opportunistic street violence and robberies because of their concealibility.

i’d vote to ban handguns before ar’s all day if I were king. Of course it’ll never happen though.

#22

Second amendment doesnt grant you right to defense against the state. Plus you may not need guns against the state as military will be hesitant to use deadly force against its own ppl regardless of whether they carry weapons. Soldiers come from the same people they would be ordered to kill.

#23

the interpretation of the intent of the second ammendment is debated.

I agree soldiers don’t want to kill their population. Without guns they can simply jail and oppress them. Guns allow the population to force the issue by forcing a choice.

#24

The intent is pretty clear :“necessary to the security of a free State”. The State is the beneficiary, not the target. This is written for a country that didn’t have a standing army and would need citizens to carry arms to defend it. Militias could be easily raised if you had many volunteers carrying guns. Something along the lines of Switzerland.

#25

constitution was written in 1782, Continental Army (standing army) wasn’t disbanded until 1783 and the US Legion (standing army) was formed in 1792. Many interpreted free state as meaning a state free from federal oppression.

alternately you could argue using your interpretation that it’s the foreign oppressive resource sucking behemoth that is the us military (see Switzerland) that is out of line.

#26

Are you sure?

#27

I have used for prairie dogs.

#28

ok, my bad I misremembered. Second ammendment was ratified December 1791 with the legion formed the next year.

you could argue using your interpretation that it’s the centralized foreign oppressive resource sucking behemoth that is the us military (vs Switzerland) that is out of line.

#29

Per you: your comprehension skills aren’t up to snuff.

#30

Yes some of the authors were strongly opposed to standing armies run by the federal government. IMO the 2A is therefore anachronistic as surely even the most diehard Constitionalist wouldn’t favor liquidating the army navy and af in favor of a citizens Militia.

#31

For every op-ed saying the second amendment is about gun control you get a scholar article like this one from lectlaw (http://www.lectlaw.com/files/gun01.htm) saying:

The overriding purpose of the Framers in guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms was as a check on the standing army, which the Constitution gave the Congress the power to "raise and support."

As Noah Webster put it in a pamphlet urging ratification of the Constitution, “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.” George Mason remarked to his Virginia delegates regarding the colonies’ recent experience with Britain, in which the Monarch’s goal had been "to disarm the people ; that [that] . . . was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." A widely reprinted article by Tench Coxe, an ally and correspondent of James Madison, described the Second Amendment’s overriding goal as a check upon the national government’s standing army: As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

Thus, the well regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state was a militia that might someday fight against a standing army raised and supported by a tyrannical national government. Obviously, for that reason, the Framers did not say “A Militia well regulated by the Congress, being necessary to the security of a free State” – because a militia so regulated might not be separate enough from, or free enough from, the national government, in the sense of both physical and operational control, to preserve the “security of a free State.”

It is also helpful to contemplate the overriding purpose and object of the Bill of Rights in general. To secure ratification of the Constitution, the Federalists, urging passage of the Constitution by the States had committed themselves to the addition of the Bill of Rights, to serve as "further guards for private rights." In that regard, the first ten amendments to the Constitution were designed to be a series of “shall nots,” telling the new national government again, in no uncertain terms, where it could not tread.

It would be incongruous to suppose or suggest the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, which were proscriptions on the powers of the national government, simultaneously acted as a grant of power to the national government. Similarly, as to the term “well regulated,” it would make no sense to suggest this referred to a grant of “regulation” power to the government (national or state), when the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights was to both declare individual rights and tell the national government where the scope of its enumerated powers ended.

#32

Why? So we can spend trillions on social services instead of parading around the world with a fleet of carriers bombing the piss out of every opponent and creating enemies in the interest of “securing a free state”? How many terrorist attacks has Canada suffered?

#33

If an ammendment is widely thought to not reasonably apply to today’s world, there is a mechanism to change it. I don’t recall an option to ignore until the change takes place. The dangers of not following the law are enormous. I’m always surprised how educated people don’t mind an alternative “interpretation” as long as they personally are on board. I guess they don’t find the rule of law particularly important. Where is the mass movement to change the constitution?

#34

^Do you believe armies should be raised for only two years?

#35

Constitution doesn’t say an army may only be raised for two years. It says the money for that use should be raised for no more than a period of two years (i.e. subject to renewal). The budget is currently renewed annually.

“The Congress shall have Power To …raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years ,”

Anyhow, I’m still waiting on your full rebuttal of that article I posted on the second ammendment. Like the explicit statements by the framers regarding the purpose of the second ammendment in public letters and the fact that authority for a standing army was granted in the constitution itself… the amendments were clearly granting authority to private citizens against federal infringement per their explicit purpose.

#36

The framers found the idea of a massive outsized standing army at the federal level proportional to a small country to be outlandish. Reading their thoughts on the subject is eye opening at how far things have progressed in various directions. There’s also a clear statement reinforcing the second amendment buried in this excerpt as well. From Federalist #46 " The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it.

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.

Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it."

#37

ban all knifes

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-sagamihara-stabbings-19-dead-8492641

#38

The anti AR crowd just doesn’t get it in their simplified view of the world.

#39

Always wonder why these dont get more press. Woman shoots armed robber http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-news/184000612-story

#40

I just wish I was able to understand the same level of complexity as you to understand why someone being able to kill people with a truck or some guy killing lots of disabled people with a knife makes any difference whatsoever to controls over weapons that serve zero purpose other than being able to kill lots of people in a very short period of time.