The Contradiction

BGutzman · March 29, 2011, 10:32 PM

It is interesting to note that the U.S. Government has apparently indicated that it is possibly willing to send arms to Libya. The arms would be for the rebels which in part includes factions which have sponsored terrorism against the U.S. and it allies.

Given that the current administration is seeking to greatly expand gun control the question comes to mind how is it that we are going to at least in part risk arming sworn enemies of our country and yet our offices of state are seeking ever further gun control?

Without debating the politics or political party’s involved I ask you, how is it possible to have such a contradiction in law? Can we continuously restrict firearms to ever greater levels and yet arm or at them minimum risk arming some of our country's sworn enemies? Is it legal, and in the within the limits of this forum where do you stand on this contradiction as it applies to law and the current legislation pending against our freedoms concerning 2A?

http://http://www.foxnews.com/world/...fight-qaddafi/

Usertag · March 29, 2011, 10:36 PM

That doesn't make any since. Lets just feed the beast.

raimius · March 29, 2011, 11:28 PM

It's simple. Politics is frequently two parts emotion and one-third logic. (Yes, that would be incomplete logic.)

arcticap · March 30, 2011, 01:18 AM

A good cause shouldn't be abandoned for a few bad guys.
Look at all of the bad guy "felons" in the U.S. that are let off the hook because of legal technicalities.
Yet no one would argue that a person who has been let off the hook by such a legal technicality should have the same legal status as another person who has been convicted of having committed the same offense and is classified accordingly as a felon.
So maybe the bad guy insurgents should be considered the same as the domestic felon who has been let off on a legal technicality.
Even if those bad guy insurgents are not "morally" innocent, then the Libyan cause is still larger than those individuals.
Is our foreign policy a contradiction of our nation's domestic gun control efforts?
No, I don't see it that way nor do I agree that there has been quantitatively more gun restrictions as of late.
Recent Supreme Court decisions have reversed or loosened up some gun control restrictions.
Aiding foreign insurgents isn't the same as denying or tightening up domestic gun availability to U.S. citizens even if such policies were being instituted.
We already have free elections, human rights and national self-determination that we aren't currently battling for through civilian para-military type action.
Gov't. agents aren't torturing or killing U.S. citizens as a matter of routine.
So then it would seem that apples are being compared to oranges as far as that gun control comparison goes, i.e. domestic policy vs. foreign policy.
I don't know of any U.S. gov't. military actions here on our soil against American citizens that would make the domestic vs. foreign gun control issues seem to have anything in common at all. Our gov't. hasn't recently reduced the ability of Americans to protect themselves from tyranny by taking away their guns.
That's the bottom line as best as I can objectively compare based on trying to identify the least common denominator of the two major issues. There just doesn't seem to be any substantive tangents connecting either of them.

kozak6 · March 30, 2011, 02:37 AM

Do you have an authoritative link?

BGutzman · March 30, 2011, 06:51 AM

Sorry heres the link and I added it to the thread above.

http://http://www.foxnews.com/world/...fight-qaddafi/

alloy · March 30, 2011, 07:12 AM

The Libyan government is not allowed to sell oil. The rebels are. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72R3UU20110328 The contradiction of the OP, is trumped by the ramifications of high priced gasoline.
It just is, what it is.
I want less gun control legislation in the USA, regardless of what is going on in Libya, and don't see the connection exactly.

DonutGuy · March 30, 2011, 08:57 AM

selling arms to other countries and arming the bad guys is nothing new, think back to Reagan and the illegal arms sale to Iran...

Glenn E. Meyer · March 30, 2011, 09:16 AM

Tenuous connection at best. Let's be careful in this thread. Is the issue that we are supplying what are seen as an armed forced - the rebels? We are not supplying individuals. The 2nd is about individuals and not militias as an organized body.

Ducking for cover on that.

But that's the difference. We aren't supplying individual citizens as individuals.

I think folks who try to use this action as a RKBA point will just get a big HUH? - and it isn't a selling point except for some obscure argument in the choir. Fox is just huffing.

alloy · March 30, 2011, 09:28 AM

The ATF sending guns to arm Mexican narco terrorists, then using that same information to enact domestic firearm legislation, those connections seem more relevant.

Opposed.

BGutzman · March 30, 2011, 05:29 PM

To me I see the legal contradiction of arming people who have no backbround checks, who havent passed any sort of anything that we require our citizens and worse some of these people are sworn enemies of our nation.

It seems reasonable that if our government does arm these people, it wont be with semi automatics but standard 16A1's or something similar.

I just see this great legal contradiction.

**44 AMP** · March 30, 2011, 09:29 PM

Quote:

To me I see the legal contradiction of arming people who have no backbround checks, who havent passed any sort of anything that we require our citizens and worse some of these people are sworn enemies of our nation.

It seems reasonable that if our government does arm these people, it wont be with semi automatics but standard 16A1's or something similar.

I just see this great legal contradiction

No legal contradiction, these people are foreigners!

US domestic law does not apply. That's only for US citizens. The US govt can give US govt property to anyone they want, provided the US govt agrees!

I do agree with the moral hipocracy, but there's no legal one...yet.

Yep, no new machineguns for taxpaying US citizens since 1986, but we got no problem giving them to 3rd world "freedom fighters".

Interesting they get them, and we don't. Something to do with "Liberty" I've been told....

Eagle Eye · March 30, 2011, 10:58 PM

The US buys no oil from Libya....zero. Most of their exports go to Asia and Europe.

arcticap · March 31, 2011, 02:05 AM

There's no contradiction concerning machine guns. This is considered to be military assistance which we would give to any of our allies with a cause that we support.
Case in point. The Israeli gov't. was shipping jet engines directly to Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT for repair. Their cargo planes loaded with the Israeli engines would land on Pratt's private air field and Israeli soldiers would disembark from the plane to guard and escort their engines into the repair facililty while they were armed with fully automatic weapons.
So their soldiers had permission to bring their own weapons onto our soil as a military courtesy. It's understandable and accepted because it's for a good cause and for our ally which we can all understand and support.
It's about defending their expensive government property to protect it from sabotage. I don't know who approved or trained their individual soldiers, but it's a matter of trust. If someone got shot on American soil by them then that would be an international incident. But the bottom line is that the decision makers that we empower trusted them and authorized it because it's military hardware.
So giving weapons to the Libyan rebels that we would give to just about any other of our allies is really not a contradiction either morally or legally. After all, we're allies with communist nations, dictators and countries around the world. Some even have nukes aimed at us. And Ghadaffi is responsible for killing quite a few Americans in the past, including 189 civilians on Pan Am Flight 103.
To speak of moral hypocrisy, he's one of the world's boss terrorists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103

blume357 · March 31, 2011, 08:33 AM

I can't see how we or the U.N. can even consider supporting them since Kaddfi is a recognized legitimate government that has all the protection of both.... aren't these Militants and their weapons the same thing the U.N. is trying to ban with there illegal arms treaty?

Eagle Eye · March 31, 2011, 10:46 AM

We need to remember that the protests began peacefully on the square with signs and shouting. This type of protest is accepted in the US daily as freedom of speech. Ghadaffi supporters (troops and police) shot some of the protesters. Then he vowed to go door to door and weed out those who disagreed with him.

Could we accept this treatment in the US? Is it acceptable to our values? The answer is no to each of these.

Would our protesters be justified in fighting back? Yes. This is one of the reasons our Constitution allows us to bear arms.

Are there "bad people" interspersed with the protesters? Probably so. Just as there are "good people" interspersed with Ghadaffi supporters. Some of the latter have sided with the protesters.

Hopefully they will move to a new election and a less authoritarian form of government rather than one of force that is led by Ghadaffi family and friends. And hopefully the process will develop laws that keep the "bad people" somewhat in control by a reasonable process.

How long will it take? It may never happen. But it won't be resolved in days or weeks. It took the US a few hundred years to declare independence and fight for it.

And we still have problems, but we do not shoot those who disagree with government. We have a somewhat slow but peaceful process to disagree and promote change. It is not perfect.

Glenn E. Meyer · March 31, 2011, 11:02 AM

OK, this is about Libya directly. Thus, it's world politics and moved away from the the rights issue.

Sorry, gang - closed.

Glenn

March 29, 2011, 10:32 PM	#1
BGutzman Senior Member Join Date: December 4, 2009 Location: Frozen Tundra Posts: 2,414	The Contradiction It is interesting to note that the U.S. Government has apparently indicated that it is possibly willing to send arms to Libya. The arms would be for the rebels which in part includes factions which have sponsored terrorism against the U.S. and it allies. Given that the current administration is seeking to greatly expand gun control the question comes to mind how is it that we are going to at least in part risk arming sworn enemies of our country and yet our offices of state are seeking ever further gun control? Without debating the politics or political party’s involved I ask you, how is it possible to have such a contradiction in law? Can we continuously restrict firearms to ever greater levels and yet arm or at them minimum risk arming some of our country's sworn enemies? Is it legal, and in the within the limits of this forum where do you stand on this contradiction as it applies to law and the current legislation pending against our freedoms concerning 2A? http://http://www.foxnews.com/world/...fight-qaddafi/ __________________ Molon Labe Last edited by BGutzman; March 30, 2011 at 06:49 AM.

March 30, 2011, 01:18 AM	#4
arcticap Senior Member Join Date: March 15, 2005 Location: Central Connecticut Posts: 3,166	A good cause shouldn't be abandoned for a few bad guys. Look at all of the bad guy "felons" in the U.S. that are let off the hook because of legal technicalities. Yet no one would argue that a person who has been let off the hook by such a legal technicality should have the same legal status as another person who has been convicted of having committed the same offense and is classified accordingly as a felon. So maybe the bad guy insurgents should be considered the same as the domestic felon who has been let off on a legal technicality. Even if those bad guy insurgents are not "morally" innocent, then the Libyan cause is still larger than those individuals. Is our foreign policy a contradiction of our nation's domestic gun control efforts? No, I don't see it that way nor do I agree that there has been quantitatively more gun restrictions as of late. Recent Supreme Court decisions have reversed or loosened up some gun control restrictions. Aiding foreign insurgents isn't the same as denying or tightening up domestic gun availability to U.S. citizens even if such policies were being instituted. We already have free elections, human rights and national self-determination that we aren't currently battling for through civilian para-military type action. Gov't. agents aren't torturing or killing U.S. citizens as a matter of routine. So then it would seem that apples are being compared to oranges as far as that gun control comparison goes, i.e. domestic policy vs. foreign policy. I don't know of any U.S. gov't. military actions here on our soil against American citizens that would make the domestic vs. foreign gun control issues seem to have anything in common at all. Our gov't. hasn't recently reduced the ability of Americans to protect themselves from tyranny by taking away their guns. That's the bottom line as best as I can objectively compare based on trying to identify the least common denominator of the two major issues. There just doesn't seem to be any substantive tangents connecting either of them. Last edited by arcticap; March 30, 2011 at 11:45 AM.

March 30, 2011, 06:51 AM	#6
BGutzman Senior Member Join Date: December 4, 2009 Location: Frozen Tundra Posts: 2,414	Sorry heres the link and I added it to the thread above. http://http://www.foxnews.com/world/...fight-qaddafi/ __________________ Molon Labe

March 30, 2011, 08:57 AM	#8
DonutGuy Senior Member Join Date: January 31, 2010 Posts: 327	selling arms to other countries and arming the bad guys is nothing new, think back to Reagan and the illegal arms sale to Iran... __________________ McLovin? Yeah. Great name. It is, it just rolls off the tongue. 'Sounds like a sexy hamburger!

March 30, 2011, 09:16 AM	#9
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	Tenuous connection at best. Let's be careful in this thread. Is the issue that we are supplying what are seen as an armed forced - the rebels? We are not supplying individuals. The 2nd is about individuals and not militias as an organized body. Ducking for cover on that. But that's the difference. We aren't supplying individual citizens as individuals. I think folks who try to use this action as a RKBA point will just get a big HUH? - and it isn't a selling point except for some obscure argument in the choir. Fox is just huffing. __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens

March 29, 2011, 10:36 PM	#2
Usertag Senior Member Join Date: January 1, 2011 Location: Louisville Posts: 261	That doesn't make any since. Lets just feed the beast.

March 29, 2011, 11:28 PM	#3
raimius Senior Member Join Date: January 27, 2008 Posts: 2,199	It's simple. Politics is frequently two parts emotion and one-third logic. (Yes, that would be incomplete logic.)

March 30, 2011, 02:37 AM	#5
kozak6 Senior Member Join Date: June 16, 2005 Location: AZ Posts: 3,113	Do you have an authoritative link?

March 30, 2011, 05:29 PM	#11
BGutzman Senior Member Join Date: December 4, 2009 Location: Frozen Tundra Posts: 2,414	To me I see the legal contradiction of arming people who have no backbround checks, who havent passed any sort of anything that we require our citizens and worse some of these people are sworn enemies of our nation. It seems reasonable that if our government does arm these people, it wont be with semi automatics but standard 16A1's or something similar. I just see this great legal contradiction. __________________ Molon Labe

March 30, 2011, 10:58 PM	#13
Eagle Eye Senior Member Join Date: March 10, 2011 Location: Kansas Posts: 178	Oil from Libya? The US buys no oil from Libya....zero. Most of their exports go to Asia and Europe.

March 31, 2011, 02:05 AM	#14
arcticap Senior Member Join Date: March 15, 2005 Location: Central Connecticut Posts: 3,166	There's no contradiction concerning machine guns. This is considered to be military assistance which we would give to any of our allies with a cause that we support. Case in point. The Israeli gov't. was shipping jet engines directly to Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT for repair. Their cargo planes loaded with the Israeli engines would land on Pratt's private air field and Israeli soldiers would disembark from the plane to guard and escort their engines into the repair facililty while they were armed with fully automatic weapons. So their soldiers had permission to bring their own weapons onto our soil as a military courtesy. It's understandable and accepted because it's for a good cause and for our ally which we can all understand and support. It's about defending their expensive government property to protect it from sabotage. I don't know who approved or trained their individual soldiers, but it's a matter of trust. If someone got shot on American soil by them then that would be an international incident. But the bottom line is that the decision makers that we empower trusted them and authorized it because it's military hardware. So giving weapons to the Libyan rebels that we would give to just about any other of our allies is really not a contradiction either morally or legally. After all, we're allies with communist nations, dictators and countries around the world. Some even have nukes aimed at us. And Ghadaffi is responsible for killing quite a few Americans in the past, including 189 civilians on Pan Am Flight 103. To speak of moral hypocrisy, he's one of the world's boss terrorists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 Last edited by arcticap; March 31, 2011 at 02:27 AM.

March 31, 2011, 08:33 AM	#15
blume357 Senior Member Join Date: August 2, 2005 Location: Greenville, SC Posts: 3,943	I can't see how we or the U.N. can even consider supporting them since Kaddfi is a recognized legitimate government that has all the protection of both.... aren't these Militants and their weapons the same thing the U.N. is trying to ban with there illegal arms treaty?

March 31, 2011, 10:46 AM	#16
Eagle Eye Senior Member Join Date: March 10, 2011 Location: Kansas Posts: 178	We need to remember that the protests began peacefully on the square with signs and shouting. This type of protest is accepted in the US daily as freedom of speech. Ghadaffi supporters (troops and police) shot some of the protesters. Then he vowed to go door to door and weed out those who disagreed with him. Could we accept this treatment in the US? Is it acceptable to our values? The answer is no to each of these. Would our protesters be justified in fighting back? Yes. This is one of the reasons our Constitution allows us to bear arms. Are there "bad people" interspersed with the protesters? Probably so. Just as there are "good people" interspersed with Ghadaffi supporters. Some of the latter have sided with the protesters. Hopefully they will move to a new election and a less authoritarian form of government rather than one of force that is led by Ghadaffi family and friends. And hopefully the process will develop laws that keep the "bad people" somewhat in control by a reasonable process. How long will it take? It may never happen. But it won't be resolved in days or weeks. It took the US a few hundred years to declare independence and fight for it. And we still have problems, but we do not shoot those who disagree with government. We have a somewhat slow but peaceful process to disagree and promote change. It is not perfect.

March 31, 2011, 11:02 AM	#17
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	OK, this is about Libya directly. Thus, it's world politics and moved away from the the rights issue. Sorry, gang - closed. Glenn __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens

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