Subject:
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Re: The Blood of Patriots & Tyrants (was Re: Sticking my gun...etc.)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 24 Sep 2003 07:33:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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981 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
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I asked you to cite laws that equate guns with the ‘upholding of democracy’,
that they’re there to make the recently voted out politicians leave office.
After all, if it has the importance that you assign to it, wouldn’t you think
there would be a law somewhere? Show how guns made Nixon step down, etc.
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“ A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state...”
The 2nd Amendment. militia = free state.
Do you see it now? I could waste my time looking up references in state
constitutions too, but why bother? I have this funny feeling that you will find
this an insufficient answer to your silly issue anyway.
Contrary to your foundational claim, it is often the very things taken for
granted that often go unstated -- so no, I don’t think given the importance of
the the right to bear arms that anyone necessarily saw a need to express it in
law, or to make any precise equation of the matter. The U.S. almost did not
have a Bill of Rights for that very reason. Some argued that rights unenumerated
would be harder to disparage because they would be de facto. In a sense they
argued that rights were best protected by the open and notorious exercise of
those very rights -- stating such in law was not only redundant but opened one
up to attacks of the precise kind with which you, of late, have beleaguered this
newsgroup. They absolutely foresaw the problem of semantic arguments arising
should our rights be enumerated in such a statement.
You seem to want to complain in both directions. It is my general observation
that you reject the claim that the 2nd Amendment means what it plainly states;
or that, alternatively, you reject its obvious and historical application to
individuals. My second observation is that in stepping blithely over the plain
meaning of 2nd Amendment (and you would not be the first to do so) you tend to
reject the argument that rights not enumerated in the rest of the Bill of Rights
are thereby respected by the 9th Amendment -- the existence of which points up
the very aforementioned tension between enumerated vs. unenumerated rights. In
other words: if it is stated, you want to argue the precise meaning of the
language used (as if the entire argument hung in the balance) until the right
disappears; while simultaneously arguing that if it is an unstated right (and
you are deemed correct about the 2nd Amendment not applying to individuals) that
the 9th Amendment does not then create support for an unstated right.
This contrasts vividly with my claims: that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t require
any significant or esoteric knowledge to arrive at its plain and historical
meaning; and that even if one were to find such plain meaning wanting (or
inapplicable to individuals for some political reason) that the right to bear
arms is so fundamental and intrinsic to the political heritage of the U.S. that
it is then an unenumerated right protected by the 9th Amendment.
If you were correct no one in the U.S. would have any guns. Since I observe that
you are pointedly incorrect, I must therefore have the right of it: the right
does exist.
The open and notorious exercise of the right to bear arms by millions of U.S.
freepersons is proof of the existence of the right.
Your failure to understand the early dispute arising between the Federalists and
Anti-federalists factions in early U.S. history tells me that you are ultimately
not well-qualified to have this conversation. I don’t care if you are a gun
control kind of guy, but let’s keep the foolishness at the door. I am finding
your “essential” question entirely beside the point -- no one cares about it but
you. It is not the anti-gun silver bullet that you would like to pretend it is.
Whether the equation is stated or unstated matters only to you. In finality, I
am amazed that you find this question so important. I may have missed it earlier
because to these eyes it seems completely unimportant.
For my part, I am still waiting for you to prove that a gun doesn’t have a
military use. That would be the “numero uno” ridiculous thing you have argued
in this thread.
-- Hop-Frog
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