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Old December 30, 2012, 09:08 PM   #251
Tom Servo
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And that is not a right, it's a priviledge.
But that's the exact difference between our countries. In ours, the right to keep and bear arms is a right.

Privileges are fragile things that are easily lost.
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Old December 30, 2012, 09:26 PM   #252
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Can you really compare the Netherlands to the United States? Different size, racial make up, drug policies, political structure, history etc. Based on your argument we should adopt the policies of the countries with the lowest percentage of gun related homicides which would be China or North Korea, or maybe Nazi Germany I'm the late 30s - you remember them, don't you?
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Old December 30, 2012, 09:35 PM   #253
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Good night, America, sweet dreams.
Same back atcha....
Happy and safe New Year also.

While you're laying comfortable in you bed, about to drop off the sleep try to imagine this...

The once free people of the United States of America have been disarmed.
The last line of defense between a free people and a tyrannical government has been removed.
The government is now free to take whatever it wants.

Do you really think for even a brief second, that government is going to stop with taking from it's own?
It a world of dwindling natural resources, a corrupt United States, free to pillage the world, is an unimaginable horror.

The only thing our founding fathers could never have envisioned is that one day, the United States would be the sole hyper-power on the planet.

So yes - a lot of us understand all too well the concept of moral responsibility....
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Old December 30, 2012, 09:42 PM   #254
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I'm sitting here and am really saddened that you only see a Right.
The right to bear arms? I'm sorry my country was founded on it please explain what I should see instead.

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But at the same time a lot of you have no regards for the moral responsibility that come with owning a fire-arm.
Please don't lecture me. I know how to own, clean, and use a firearm. 99.9% of the firearms in the country are used ethically, how can you say that we don't understand this morality?

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You already freak out by the mere thought of some type of mandatory storage.
The majority has no right to tell me how I can use and store my property.

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Don't tell me this or that, you infringe my 2a. Gunregistration? It's the first thing of them grabbing my guns. Selling through an FFL? Get your hand out of my wallet!
Irrelevant rhetoric that doesn't have a point other than sarcastic cheap shots. I do not define my personal property in relation to others and what they have to deal with in order to keep their property.

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Training? A gun is not a car which is a for more dangerous object! Really?
Statistically speaking cars kill far more people than guns in the United States. More accidental drownings happen each year than rifle deaths. By that logic pools are more dangerous than rifles. While I don't believe that, you must perform an attempt to present a logical reason to demonize firearms in relation to other potential pieces of property a citizen can own.

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If those things work in my country, they will never work in yours.
Your crime rate has gone up since you "removed" firearms from your country. Not to mention there are enormous social and demographic differences between our countries that you are ignoring.

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So, it probably would be a great idea writing your representatives in Senate and Congres pointing out the basic necessity of your 2a. Don't change anything. Those 10,000 deaths each year will go away when we go to bed tomorrow night for it is then you start the count again and begin with 0.
What faulty logic, if 10,000 deaths occur a year
A) 10,000/350,000,000 = 1/35,000. That's a .000029 ratio, .0029%. How devastating, I mean thats like twice as likely as being struck by lightning!
B) You cannot cite per year statistic and then say we restart the clock at 0 the next morning. That is a rather poor construct of time reference.

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Good night, America, sweet dreams.
You're welcome for our central bank bailing out the entire European Union.

Your remarks are quite childish. I thought Europeans were "enlightened".
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Old December 30, 2012, 10:09 PM   #255
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Originally Posted by Metal God
We all seem to know what will not help so lets take it to the next level and put out some real ideas that can help .
Okay.

Repeal both Federal and state gun-free school zone laws (although if done right at the state level the Federal law is neutered), and invite both teachers and parents who own firearms to carry when in the schools.

Can't afford to post an armed cop or three in every school every day? Canvas the parents and set up volunteer coverage. With enough volunteers, a half decent size school should be able to generate enough armed guards that nobody would need to pull a shift more often than once every two or three weeks.
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Old December 30, 2012, 11:34 PM   #256
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Yup. There should be a couple of people already on staff that would be willing to carry a gun. They could be provided additional training. The shear reality that someone could be armed on the campus will deter most would be cowards.
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Old December 31, 2012, 03:07 AM   #257
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I may be jumping in here a bit late, but I think that giving any ground to the anti-gun folk is a huge mistake. Say the gun community and the NRA were to agree to support legislation that would require a background check for all private sales just as is done when purchasing through an FFL.

#1
I don't think that would stop gangbangers and psychos from getting guns. They could still obtain them from a 3rd party who would claim the gun was "stolen".

#2 *When* the next school shooting happens the anti-gun nutjobs will be back again and this time demanding that we give even more. This time they'll be demanding a ban on "assault rifles" and high capacity magazines. And now the government knows what you have and where you live. Don't think for a second that the anti-gun groupies are not ultimately trying to ban guns outright. It doesn't matter to them if it's for hunting, recreation, etc etc. You hunting rifle is a "sniper rifle" and they'll be wanting that too all for the "greater good". I'm still ticked about the firearms they've already banned, why would I support new laws?
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Old December 31, 2012, 05:07 AM   #258
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And this surely is the biggest fail in this discussion.

"The majority has no right...."

Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
The majority elect your lawmakers who get there mandate how to do things.

In your narrow mind you only can be truly free when you belong to a majority.
So I suggest you get that majority involved. With stupid alternatives portrait by your NRA you will loose this war on guns.
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Old December 31, 2012, 05:18 AM   #259
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And this surely is the biggest fail in this discussion.

"The majority has no right...."

Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
The majority elect your lawmakers who get there mandate how to do things.
There is not a single man, nor group of men, who can tell me I am wrong purely on an appeal to popularity. This concept is the grossest misalignment of truth our modern society has conjured. The majority wanted Stalinist Russia, the majority re-elected Hugo Chavez, the majority is a lynch mob waiting to hang witches in a Quaker village. Democracy, while greater than authoritarianism, is not an inherently ethical construct. To assert the majority and a game of special interest can dictate the man I am and how I will conduct myself is the greatest evil on mankind. I am not a public sacrifice to the will of a riot.

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In your narrow mind you only can be truly free when you belong to a majority.
This is entirely contradictory to what I have interpreted your argument to be, and for you to tell me this is my creed... I have no words to justify your mistake.

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So I suggest you get that majority involved. With stupid alternatives portrait by your NRA you will loose this war on guns.
The second sentence doesn't even make sense grammatically. And this is not war on anything but civil liberty.
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Old December 31, 2012, 06:24 AM   #260
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Originally Posted by dutchgunsmoke
"The majority has no right...."

Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
The majority elect your lawmakers who get there mandate how to do things.
No, Sir, you are wrong.

Our lawmakers have no right to overrule the Constitution. This is why every crazy new law they write starts off with declaring that whatever they wish to regulate or outlaw "is in interstate commerce," because our Supreme Court has ruled that the Federal government is allowed to regulate only things that are in interstate commerce. Thus we get such insanity as a person in California who grew his own marijuana for his own, personal use being charged with a Federal drug crime, on the spurious basis that because he grew his own marijuana in California, he did NOT have to import it from another state and thus he negatively affected interstate commerce.

The only way the "majority" has a right to outlaw firearms is through the process established in the Constitution itself to amend the Constitution. Until that happens, the 2nd Amendment is still part of the Constitution, and it still says "The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

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Old December 31, 2012, 08:22 AM   #261
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Boy, are you guys in trouble.

Am I glad I live in a country without the 2a.
I think the intent of the founding fathers of America was a society where the common man could make morally just decisions without the need of law. The safety of society ultimately comes from the people and the weakest link is the individual. Therefore capable and self-reliant individuals could create a stronger society than weak minded individuals lead/protected by a strong central government: Locke vs Hobbes.

At any rate, a government that recognizes civilian firearms ownership as a right serves/belongs to the people and vice-versa. The gun represents power, so in the end it comes down to how much power the civilians possess.
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Old December 31, 2012, 09:05 AM   #262
motorhead0922
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Originally Posted by dutchgunsmoke
And this surely is the biggest fail in this discussion.

"The majority has no right...."

Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
The majority elect your lawmakers who get there mandate how to do things.
DGS, this is precisely why we have our Bill of Rights: to keep the majority from trampling the rights of the minority. What about those in the Netherlands who want/need to carry a weapon for protection? Their voices have been drowned out. You (both singular and plural) don't know who is being stalked or threatened.

You allow government agents to freely enter your house and search? And you are happy about it? Unbelievable. This is why we have a right which prevents such unreasonable searches.

Yours is a sad, sad situation, and you don't even seem to know it.
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Old December 31, 2012, 09:11 AM   #263
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I can't tell if dutchgunsmoke is serious, or going for irony. Similarly, I can't tell if he is trying to prompt us to get more politically active to defend 2A, or if he really does not get 2A.

This makes it hard to respond.

In any case, he is right that contacting elected officials, preferably in tandem with large blocs of voters who contact them, is more effective than online hand wringing.

I suspect he is not saying he likes majority/mob rule, but that we ultimately need to find ways to sway a majority in the long term. If so, he is also right.

But again, I can't be sure of his intent.

Edit: One of my best friends is Dutch. He resides in the US because he is very unhappy with what the majority voted into power in the Netherlands. Gun laws, price controls, and the works.
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Old December 31, 2012, 09:16 AM   #264
Al Norris
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Originally Posted by dutchgunsmoke
Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
The majority elect your lawmakers who get there mandate how to do things.
Sorry dutch.

While the majority has a right to their beliefs, they don't have the ultimate right to force their beliefs upon the minority.

We are not a democracy, despite how many use that term to describe this nation. We are a Constitutional Republic. Do we have democratic processes? Yes. But at the core of our governing system, is our Constitution. To change the fundamental way we govern ourselves, that document must be changed, through the amendment process.

It is that very process which protects the minority from rule or oppression by the majority. Two-thirds of both houses of the Congress must agree to an amendment, or two-thirds of the States must call for a convention to amend the constitution. In either case, it then requires three-fourths of the States to agree to make any amendment lawful.

That is a rather hard super-majority one must have to make such a change.

Democracy, on the other hand, is nothing more than mob-rule. Our founders saw and detested such a governing system. Hence our Constitutional Republic.

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With stupid alternatives portra[yed] by your NRA you will loose this war on guns.
To counter the violence of evil men, one must needs use violence in return. Kill or be killed is still the law of nature and men are still creatures of nature. We all wish it were not necessary. But you simply cannot pat evil on the back and expect that evil to turn to good.

Such evil must be removed from society. Whether that is through the use of arms of the people or the use of arms of the state, it must be done.
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Old December 31, 2012, 10:57 AM   #265
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The once free people of the United States of America have been disarmed. The last line of defense between a free people and a tyrannical government has been removed. The government is now free to take whatever it wants.

Do you really think for even a brief second, that government is going to stop with taking from it's own? It a world of dwindling natural resources, a corrupt United States, free to pillage the world, is an unimaginable horror.
That's a terrifying thought, and one I have never really had until now... Imagine an Adolf Hitler with the all might of the United States in his hands. Chilling.

As far as the Dutch point of view: I have come to the conclusion that most Europeans don't really understand our Constitution, even if they read it and comprehend the words. I don't know exactly why but I equate it with the man who does a long stretch in the penitentiary, is released, and violates his parole right away just to get back in. He's been inside so long that freedom is frightening. Europe has been ruled with an iron fist for so long it's all they know. First by the Romans and then by their own kings, nearly 2,000 years, all told, they've been suppressed and told what was best for them, and anything more is frightening. Sad, really, and why we broke away to begin with.
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Old December 31, 2012, 11:33 AM   #266
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Having spent ~2.5 years in Germany over the last 25 years, including two stays of a year or longer each, I have some understanding of the European way of thinking. I wouldn't say that Europe is ruled "with an iron fist," as Ben Towe puts it, but there is (IMHO) a much stronger leaning towards collectivist thinking. In Germany, the perspective on the law is often "if it isn't expressly allowed, it's prohibited." By comparison, we Americans often approach it from the other side, "if it isn't expressly prohibited, it's allowed." The Germans have traditionally paid much higher income taxes, but those taxes paid for a much more extensive social net than we have in America.

dutchgunsmoke -- The body of the US Constitution contains the Articles, which are the grants of power to our federal government. The first 10 Amendments to our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, contains limitations on those grants. These are in place for the precise purpose of preventing the majority from overrunning the minority. One of the interesting things about Rights is that they're not always subject to popular vote.
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Old December 31, 2012, 11:44 AM   #267
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And this surely is the biggest fail in this discussion.

"The majority has no right...."

Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
The majority elect your lawmakers who get there mandate how to do things.

In your narrow mind you only can be truly free when you belong to a majority.
So I suggest you get that majority involved. With stupid alternatives portrait by your NRA you will loose this war on guns.
We once had a majority that agreed slavery was legal. Fortunately, we are not a democracy, but a constitutional republic, and the Bill of Rights was extended to that minority that was previously subjugated by the majority. Protected in our constitution by the 14th Amendment.

Pure democracy would be no better than mob rule.
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Old December 31, 2012, 12:08 PM   #268
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The drafters of our Constitution understood a concept known as the tyranny of the majority. Consider Alexander Hamilton's words in Federalist #10:

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Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our Governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
John Adams also wrote about it in A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. Our system of separation of powers and the Bill of Rights are inspired largely by the desire to avoid the tyranny a majority can inflict upon a minority.
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Old January 3, 2013, 12:06 AM   #269
armoredman
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dutch, I feel really sorry for you, with mere privileges, not rights..
Man, am I glad I live in a country with a 2A. We haven't been invaded and conquered by anyone yet.

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Wrong. The majority has every right to tell you all these things.
Well, I was going to expound on this, but a number of people already had, so I'll just say, no, you are wrong, sir, sorry.


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