Thanks to TS's proving that black is indeed white--I have finally come around to the RKBA idea that gun laws are indeed ridiculous!
Yes, that's right--gun laws make no sense at all.
I see your point that Criminals, the insane, maniacs, terrorists, and everybody else who really shouldn't have a gun will get one anyway--no matter how difficult we try to make it.
So, it makes perfect sense that we make it easy for these people to acquire guns!
And make it easy for them to walk the streets carrying guns.
And make it harder to prosecute them when they kill people.
While we're at it--why don't we give them guns when they leave jail, prison, mental facilities and so on.
Yes, let's just give them the guns so they can commit crimes!
I see your point all that makes perfect sense!
Thank you for turning me around that trying to be logical and sensible has no point whatsoever.
Easy guns for criminals!
Gun's are magical and protect us. No evil can come to us from guns!
The gun fairies will protect us!
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them."
ReplyDelete– Walter Mondale
Ah, well Anonymous, Fritz is a nice guy, but he has been known to be wrong on occasion. This is one of them. Do you have a date on that quote?
ReplyDeleteBecause I'd bet that given more recent information, he has changed his position on that point as well.
"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
ReplyDelete– Alan Dershowitz, in The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason, 82 Mich L. Rev., 204 (Dan Gifford), 1995
Anonymous, the folks who believe that silly hogwash are in two camps. There are the paranoid lunatics and the manipulative operators. The second lot include the NRA and gun manufacturers who take advantage of all of you in the first category.
ReplyDeleteIt was actually an argument much like Dershowitz's that brought me to the gun rights side of this debate. I have always wanted the broadest interpretation of the First Amendment. But some on the right wing talk about limiting that freedom for our security. That tells me that we have people in this country who would limit many parts of the Constitution, for any number of reasons. The Second Amendment must be read broadly if for no other reason than the intellectual exercise in reading the whole document broadly. We're better off when we do.
ReplyDeleteAdd in they could be Greg Camp.
ReplyDeleteWow,the Second Amendment must be read broadly?
So,greg,do you believe that Terrorists have the right to weapons of mass destruction?
After all, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
WMD are arms.
Some terrorists are US citizens.
So, don't they have a right to nuclear weapons and nerve gas?
Leave it to you to say something totally stupid, Greg.
Laci the Dog,
ReplyDeleteWe've had this discussion before. The arms being referred to are small arms that one person can operate alone. They are also not weapons of mass destruction. As I've said, we have to balance the number of legitimate uses against the danger posed. Nuclear weapons have no legitimate uses for a private citizen. The same goes for nerve gas. On the other hand, firearms do have many legitimate uses.
By broad interpretation, I mean the kind of thing that is done with the First Amendment. There's no reference in that to the Internet, but it's clear that expression on-line ought to be included in our understanding of our rights. We also incorporate the amendment against the states, since we've come to understand that it's not just Congress that might try to shut us up. I'm glad to see that type of broad reading of the Second Amendment as well.
How can you say that the "arms being referred to are small arms that one person can operate alone",Greg?
ReplyDeleteIs that what the language of the text says?
I believe the phrasing is arms without qualification. And per statutory construction, you have to work with the text as given.
Wouldn't a militia arms include artillery? How much do you know about artillery, Greg? What is an artillery battery?
Did you know that artillery doesn't meet your definition of "arms being referred to are small arms that one person can operate alone" since it requires multiple persons to fire a large artillery piece.
But, even if we take your version--shouldn't brass knuckles,switchblades, swords, clubs,etcetera count? Why just firearms?
"Nuclear weapons have no legitimate uses for a private citizen. The same goes for nerve gas."
How is one going to fight a tyannical government which has that type of weapon without using similar?
You can't expect to take out a tank with a pistol or rifle, can you, Greg?
Even if we take your defintion of "arms being referred to are small arms that one person can operate alone"--one can set off nerve gas or a nuclear weapon on their own.
Tell me about a suitcase nuke, greg.
And there is broad interpretation and there is broad interpretation--you mention the internet for the first amendment free speech--why don't WMD count for arms?
After all, when one uses the term "arms control"--they don't mean "gun control". Arms control refers directly to WMD?
And as you keep saying to me, you can't say broadly interpret the first Amendment, but not the Second.
There is broad interpretation and there is broad interpretation--you are willing to say that the internet counts for free speech because they didn't have the internet.
If you are going to say that, then WMD should meet the definition of arms.
Laci the Dog,
ReplyDeleteSwitchblades and brass knuckles should be included in permitted arms. Those are weapons that one person uses against one other person. They aren't weapons of mass effect.
As I've told you before, I'm working from the definition of arms as would be understood at the time of the writing: the arms that a gentleman was expected to use. That did not include artillery pieces. That did not include warships, those being covered by letters of marque.
If you can tell me how a private citizen can use a nuclear weapon without harming a lot of innocent people, I'll listen to any proposal that you have to make them legal for all of us. I just don't see how it's possible.
As for fighting a tyrannical government, that's an outside possibility, one not worth debating right now.
Greg,you didn't answer my question--does the Second Amendment use the exact wording "arms being referred to are small arms that one person can operate alone"
ReplyDeleteOr does it just say arms?
Does the text of the Second Amendment use the words "the arms that a gentleman was expected to use"?
I think you are confusing Bills of Rights here Greg. The Second Amendment talks about well-regulated militias and makes no mention of "for their own defence as suitable to their class". That's the English Bill of Rights.
Greg, you are the king of stupid comments, but you have topped yourself with this one:
"If you can tell me how a private citizen can use a nuclear weapon without harming a lot of innocent people".
And someone can't do that with a firearm? Can you say Virginia Tech? Can you say Columbine? Can you say Jonesboro?
We are talking weapons, Greg, not playthings. They are meant to maim and kill.
Does it really matter whether the weapon kills one or thousands in the scheme of things?
We are talking arms, unqualified arms. Plain and simple arms.
Do you understand that?
Do you really understand what is going on?
"the arms that a gentleman was expected to use."
ReplyDeleteThat would mean that those entitled to bear arms would be the gentry? Cuz, the only folks that they wanted to allow to vote back then did not include persons of, um, a color other than white.
Laci The Dog is wrong. You are not the king of stupid comments, you are Emperor of the Universe of teh burnin' stoopit.
You obviously think that the Barrett Rifle has civilian applications so what would they be?
Laci asks about nukes and other WMD. You say that, no, of course that's not what the founders envisioned by way of a genetleman's "suitable" arms. Well, I'm guessing that your modern pistols use something other than black powder but black powder is still widely available and I'm sure you do all of your reloads with it so's to maintain your 2nd Amendment purity.
Hey what about IED's? You can make those out of highly explosive black powder or high explosive compounds such as TNT. Would you be cool with, say, pipe bombs made with lead pipe, cut nails and black powder but not shaped charge IED's made with TNT or some other high explosive compound?
I mean, I'm just asking questions, here.
Democommie,
ReplyDeleteSince in America the idea was that we are all equal under the law, every man was a gentleman. Yes, it took us a while to figure out how far that was to be applied, but that was the principle. That being the case, the arms that a gentleman would likely own are available to everyone--minus crminals and so forth. Blackpowder and flintlocks were the current technology. Today, we have more advanced weapons, but those are still available to us, and that's as it should be.
Laci the Dog,
I'm working with how the word would have been understood at the time. We didn't ordain a class structure here, so "suitable to their class" applies to everyone who is a free citizen.
Now, do you really have to be this difficult about nuclear weapons? I said that a private citizen has no legitimate use for one. There's no way that I could use one without harming innocent people. The same is not true for a firearm. I can use one in many ways that harm no innocents. I can use one for target practice. I can use one for hunting or pest control. I can use one to defend myself or my home. None of those necessarily harms an innocent person.
Greg, you have demonstrated once again that you didn't understand what I said.
ReplyDeleteYou should work on how a word is used in the modern context when dealing with your contemporaries. You can use the definition used in a past era when reading works from that time.
Nowhere in the second amendment is there any phrase along the lines of "the arms that a gentleman was expected to use."
There is in the English Bill of Rights.
Of course, when called on this, you have to come up with gibberish to try to justify a statement which has no basis in US law.
Perhaps, your lack of understanding what is being discussed comes from the fact that you are using a lexicon which is far outdated.
The bottom line is, Greg, you are completely missing the point.
As for the difference in arms, your position originally was "arms being referred to are small arms that one person can operate alone".
That changed once I pointed out that Militia Arms include artillery, which is manned by multiple people.
Now,your definition is how much harm the weapon causes with the contention that firearms are less destructive than WMD. Where does it specifically give such a qualification to the word "arms" as used in the Second Amendment?
As I said, You want a broad interpretation of other rights, but a narrow one of the Second Amendment right--as you point out to me--That cannot be done.
You have to work with the complete text as written, not what you wish it would say, Greg.
Laci the Dog,
ReplyDeleteO.K., "broad" was a vague word. I want an individual rights interpretation of the Bill of Rights. Whenever the word "people" occurs, I want it understood that individuals are meant. I want speech to mean any expression that doesn't cause immediate harm--incitement to violence, for example. And that's been the trend for a long time.
Greg, it's really funny watching you flip flop when you are shown to not understand what is going on.
ReplyDeleteYou really have no idea of how the law works--stay away from pretending that you do.
Laci the Dog,
ReplyDeleteIt's not a flipflop, and I do understand the discussion. Your response is typical for someone like you--anyone who disagrees must simply not understand what's going on.
With regard to the law, it is interesting how lawyers and judges give the appearance of working hard to make the text impossible to understand by any but the uninitiated. That's how corporations came to be understood as people, no? The Fourteenth Amendment says person, but naturally, what it really meant was a large business.
Greg, why don't you admit that you have absolutely no legal training instead of pretending to have knowledge that you obviously lack?
ReplyDeleteAs I said, whenever I think a trained chimp could do my job, someone like you shows up and show that is a misconception on my part.
Law is an intellectual discipline which requires certain skills, which you lack, Greg.
Put it in other terms for you, Greg: It's like playing chess.
ReplyDeleteYou are at a level where have no idea of the rules, yet you are trying to take on a chess master.
That is what your attempt at legal reasoning is like.
Greg, there are certain disciplines that require training to be able to properly practise them.
ReplyDeleteThat is not elitism, that is fact.
Perhaps as a person who feels that his baseless and ignorant comments are worthy of consideration in light of proper legal practise, you disagree with this.
That is your right, but it is not elitism to say that a profession and its skills are not held by every person.
Greg, perhaps it is attempts on your part to perform self-brain surgery which has left you so incapable of cogent thought.
ReplyDeleteI give provisional trust to physicians, since they are dealing with something that has good reason to be complex.
ReplyDelete