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Subject: 
Re: Iraq (was Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 22 Oct 2003 21:13:13 GMT
Viewed: 
1282 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
   This has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with your selective interpretation. Either the 2nd is archaic, for you do not supply militia members as needed from ‘the people’ anymore, the people who join the militia today are supplied with training and arms as needed from the resources of the militia (you don’t bring your gun to basic)--which was the original intent of the 2nd, or you dismantle the standing armed forces you have now for they are ‘unconstitutional’. Stop with the wiggling.

What does my opposition to a standing army have to do with the need, or right, to a militia? The militia is de facto -- it is the people themselves. There is no wiggling. I am not telling you that we are currently doing things in strict accordance with the Constititution as amended to the present day -- I am merely trying to define with as little error as possible what the thing means.

BTW, I take great offense at your conflation of the term “militia” with the idea of a professional army after I have taken so many steps to show that they are not the same thing in either archaic or modern parlance. That’s just you being idiotically stubborn.

   I have a feeling that more people die due to wrongdoings committed with privately owned guns than people saved by private gun ownership.

Great! Have any facts? Cites? Anything?

   And we’re back to this, which doesn’t have anything to do with the 2nd, but let’s dwell here for a moment. This is your arguement now? Because the police are made up of fallible people and can’t be sued? So if you had the ability to hold the police forces accountable for every misstep, would you then give up your gun? Of course not--this is a staw man--you’d come up with another thinly veiled excuse.

No, you misunderstand. I am attempting to deflect a presumed argument on your part -- that the police are sufficient protection. I don’t care about the ability to sue them or not -- that’s just recovery after the damage has been done. I don’t want to take the damage in the first place. My means to avoiding the damage is self-reliance, self-defense, and as a last resort -- access to a gun for a final means of protection.

   Hey, I have an idea--how about we give the cops the resources they need to do their jobs properly for a start. This contempt you have for the men in blue--from where does it arise? “Oh the corruption in the forces!”

Well Canada must be the most civil and peaceful society in existence. Some of the places I have lived over the years were rife with violence of various kinds. I don’t think the police are much of an answer to anything except the creation of more fake criminality. The U.S. is already the most incarcerated place on earth per capita -- does it make it any safer? Nope.

How many police could possibly be enough? Who will pay for these overkill services? I know you haven’t thought any of this through...

   The reason that people had guns was that they may be called up to form the “well regulated” militia--the people would, of course, have to bring their own guns for there were no permanent armies to supply the armaments. Unlike today, where the armed services gives you the tools and training you need.

That’s an interpretation, and not a literal one. Where does it say “you can have either a standing army or a militia, but not both”? That’s just your opinion. The Constitution allows for both.

C’mon Kooties! No cites, no references, no nothing. I know we each have our opinions.

You are showing me a losing hand.

   Language is imprecise? No, really? And yet you stand ever so firm on your interpretation thereof.

Yes, because I can show both an historic and ordinary modern basis for my common every day meaning for things. Your holding nothing.

   I’m talking specifics, you’re talking semantics. If ‘the people’ are to make up the ‘well regulated militia’, ‘the people’ should be subject to the same ‘well regulation’. There’s no semantics about it--you’ve made the excerpts from the founders, framers, fathers, and they expressly state it. Yet you’re arguing against it. Why?

What the hell are you talking about? In the other post on this topic, I state explicitly that the militia is ideally under the authority of someone recognized to be in a position of authority.

But let’s not forget the context here. The people that wrote this stuff just committed treason and fought a bloody war against their former king. I think they were keen to allow some wiggle room between utter subservience to authority and some ability to call for a revolution without any appeal to authority whatever!

You have proof to the contrary?

  
  
   When a 4 year old shoots people, that, at least to me, shows neither discipline nor proper training, nor any reasonable sense of regulation thereof.

Well, cry me a river then. Parents can absolutely prevent these occurances.

   I have no idea where you keep your gun--for where’s the regulation.

I think you picked this post to respond to because it’s actually murkier than the other one. You know damn well that I already argued that you could regulate the people within the militia, but that the right to bear arms was specifically protected. Such protection means no restriction. Sorry.

Telling people how to march, or how to properly ambush and capture a suspect is another matter. I think that’s just a nod at properly organizing a militia -- a recognition of the necessary hierarchical chain of command.

   That doesn’t happen anymore. Therfore, there could be a very good arguement that the 2nd is archaic--If you’re not going to be called up into a milita group and bring your gun with you, the right to bear arms isn’t there, with regards to the 2nd. It’s not semantics, it’s not imprecise wording. The words are there, you just choose to ignore them.

No, you are choosing to ignore the meaning of Hamilton’s comments in Federalist Number 29. The militia as a means to revolt was protected and openly discussed by these men that had just fought a bloody revolution.

You’re ignoring context, again.

   As also stated, I’d go so far as to say that if the private gun owner was subject to the same rules and regulations and training that the armed forces has, then sure, keep your gun--I could possibly see even that little bit of ‘well regulated’ reducing gun related crimes.

I don’t actually have a problem with STRONGLY advising people to seek training in the use of armaments. But it seems to me that the law forbids forcing them to do so. It’s not that we disagree on what should be done, it’s that the law forbids regulation at the level at which it would, or could, effectively abrogate the right to bear arms.

   See, it’s the possible reducing of deaths that is my main drive.

Again, we don’t disagree. I just don’t think U.S. laws can accomplish it without a fundamental revision of some of the fundamental rights of freemen as pointedly protected in the Constitution and by social tradition.

   As for the rest, someone once said to me that “‘Mericans want their guns in defiance of all logical and rational debate”. You, sir, have proven them right.

I’d have to disagree.

-- Hop-Frog



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Iraq (was Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap)
 
(...) This has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with your selective interpretation. Either the 2nd is archaic, for you do not supply militia members as needed from 'the people' anymore, the people who join the militia today are (...) (21 years ago, 22-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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