WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Parkland: The Summing Up [Bumped]
byVanderleunonFebruary 26, 2018
“So now we know that the Parkland shooter was known to the local police, who did nothing. He was known to the FBI, who did nothing. His unstable behavior was known to teachers, who did nothing. The armed guard at the school stood there with his thumb up his butt while the the school was being shot up, and did nothing. In other words, we have a avalanche of failures from the highest levels down to the lowest. Every rule, every procedure, every safeguard that was put in place to stop these shootings from happening failed to stop this one from happening because the adults who were entrusted with the responsibility to keep shootings from happening did not do their f*ing jobs. Everybody knew the kid had serious problems, but nobody wanted to step up and actually do anything about it. And now we’re treated to the spectacle of these fake ‘townhall’ meetings organized by left-wing agitators who teach the kids to recite the anti-gun talking points that they want them to say and we’re supposed to just nod our heads and pretend that all we need to do is pass a few more laws and then everything will be just ducky. Sometimes I think we’re all just cardboard cutouts living in a Potemkin village.” — The Oregon Muse at The Morning Rant
The local police had a video feed of the security cameras at the school. But the video was on a 20 minute delay (?!). The cops say they did not know this. The delay caused critical confusion during thier response, and helped the shooter to just walk away. The police picked up little Nickey almost one hour later.
TJFebruary 23, 2018, 4:36 PM
The local police had a video feed of the security cameras at the school. But the video was on a 20 minute delay (?!). The cops say they did not know this. The delay caused critical confusion during thier response, and helped the shooter to just walk away. The police picked up de Jesus Cruz (“of the cross of Jesus”) almost one hour later.
TJFebruary 23, 2018, 5:04 PM
Ack!
So bizzare I had to post it twice.
Also, it now looks like three other armed deputies arrived at but did not go in the school, even after police got there…
A search on Google just now of arguments against gun control leads me to almost all (maybe 85% or 90%) arguments for gun control. I tried 3 or 4 different ways to word the debate search; looks like Google feels that the argument only goes one way.
Feel isolated, at all?
Here’s an argument. What authority will be banning (some specific) guns? Although there is precedent for laws that limit ownership of certain guns, and that treat different categories of guns in different and specific way, the fact is the Bill of Rights prohibits the government from making laws about gun ownership and possession. Jefferson himself wanted all men armed. The point is: government becomes the very thing we are supposed to be protected from: a state that takes guns.
The reason why sawed-off shotguns were regulated, according to the govt’s argument, was that they had no military purpose. They correctly understood that our gun rights are of a military (irregular) nature. Now, the argument goes the other way: you don’t need a military gun. Hmm. Comprehend much in your reading, Che?
The calls for gun control (my broken record, here) are a call for a counter-revolution. When AR rifles are banned, the tipping point is right there. The government will now claim the authority (wrongly) that they can now adjudicate somehow ownership of what is essentially one of the most common long arms that Americans own. I don’t own one, because I thought they were shit when I was an infantryman. There are lots of categories and types of firearms that beat the AR platform seven ways to Sunday. Those will be next on the chopping block!
The cops and the FBI. That’s a rich one. A cop’s job, properly done, is an heroic one, when the law is justified and right. When they don’t act heroically, that doesn’t surprise me, either. These poor Parkland kids were sheep to the slaughter, and our liberal socialist system is to blame.
You’re on your own, now, Americans. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
ghostsniperFebruary 23, 2018, 7:32 PM
See what the common denominator is in all those failures, right?
Wile E. MohammedFebruary 23, 2018, 7:41 PM
So while I was checking my pocket constitution I found nothing on FBI, Public Education, or private Security. Did see this other thing called the 2nd. Something about infringement? Why do they always go for the control thing rather than other contributing factors? The Government can’t provide protection for you.
Fletcher ChristianFebruary 24, 2018, 2:53 AM
Oh, the 2nd again. Of course, it is well known that at the time the Constitution was put into place the newest thing in man-portable military hardware was a muzzle-loading flintlock with which one might get off 3 shots per minute – if exceedingly well-trained, and undisturbed. A bit difficult to go for a killing spree with one of those, no?
Slightly different from the several hundred a semi-auto firearm of today allows, don’t you think? Oh, BTW, the 2nd also has stuff about “well-regulated” and “militia”.
JaynieFebruary 24, 2018, 4:24 AM
I really cannot discern a common denominator. Letting a kid skate? Passing the buck, passing the problem along?
ghostsniperFebruary 24, 2018, 4:29 AM
@Fletcher, what part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?
BTW, the muzzle loading flintlock was the “assault weapon” of it’s time.
It’s not the gun, mine have harmed no one, but the person.
Perhaps people should be regulated?
Oh, that’s right, they already are.
On paper.
But the gov’t forces that are legally bound to enforcing those regulations routinely ignore them.
For shame.
Then obviously the only option is to create more regulations for them to ignore.
Yeah, that’s the gov’t way.
Snakepit KansasFebruary 24, 2018, 5:44 AM
Fletcher,
If you don’t like the 2nd Amendment, then change it through legal process. You don’t sound much like an expert on constitutional law so maybe you should study up some. Instead you come here, throw a Molotov cocktail, and offer no viable solution.
PunditarianFebruary 24, 2018, 5:48 AM
In XVIII century language, “well regulated” does not mean “controlled by the State.” It means “well trained” – substitute “proficient” for “well regulated,” and you can see why – for reasons of public security – the Founders bound the government to respect the individual citizen’s God-given right to keep – and bear – arms.
And the Pennsylvania long rifle, in the hands of a practiced rifleman, was incalculably superior to the military musket.
Ignorance of the specific meaning of the 2nd Amendment, a mere 27 words, continues to amaze me, as if the words in that amendment meant one thing back in 1700s, and now in the 21st century the words mean another thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are three (3) simple components within the 2nd Amendment that were valid in the 1700s and remain valid today. Number 1, militias. Number 2, people, i.e. we the people. And number 3, arms.
Though I can grudgingly understand some confusion regarding what qualifies as a militia in today’s day and age, as there are organized (National Guards and Air National Guards) and unorganized militias, which today are typically referred to as reserve militias (all able bodied men ages 17 – 45 – see here, there should be no confusion that militia laws are still in effect and people remain subject to those militia laws, i.e. they are part of the militia.
So, the law continues to recognize that a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, and people, NOT simply current National or Air National Guard members, make up that militia. So, as United States citizens, a people, we are the supplement to the current Guard members, the organized militia, because militia laws remain valid throughout the United States.
So, on to the arms. Because the people are, by law, part of the militia, reserve though they may be, the people are, by law, allowed to keep and bear arms. Individuals who suggest that the arms referred to in the Constitution means a flintlock rifle and a cutlass are deluding themselves, and suggesting that the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States were shortsighted simpletons lacking foresight that as the future unfolded innovations in technology, progress, would occur.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Are those 27 words that difficult to comprehend?
Howard NelsonFebruary 24, 2018, 6:25 AM
@John Venlet
Thank you for the US Code education. Does the segment you refer to exclude those 46 and older from the 2ndA recognition to rightfully own and bear arms?
If yes, is their right ensured within the 9thA or 10thA, although nonexplicitly?
Does the segment you refer to exclude those 46 and older from the 2ndA recognition to rightfully own and bear arms?
Howard, your question is a non-starter in regards to the right to bear arms. The code I referenced deals only with the makeup of the organized and the unorganized, or reserve, militia. Interesting to note that within that code it also states that former members of the armed forces are not necessarily exempt from reserve militia duties until they reach the age of 64. The shorter answer to your question is no, though I think you know that.
Gentlemen, the first clause (militia) is the supporting clause, and the next one, the “people” clause, is the meat of the thing. It is the individual’s right to bear arms. The argument is that it is the military aim of the people to secure their persons and property from tyranny.
This is why the argument that we don’t need military arms is specious. We were denied sawed-off shotguns because they weren’t of military value. IOW, they didn’t fall under the reasoning of the 2A. Also, the machine gun thing was made at a time (if I’m not incorrect – this understanding goes back along time in my memory) when organized crime gangs were bearing and using tommy guns. The infringements were made by our heavy-duty socialist government in an effort to fight big crime in the 20s and 30s.
Somehow, dim-witted law and policy makers want criminals to not have weapons, and if that means taking them from everyone, then so be it. The more heavy-handed, the better. That way, the future for socialism and communism looks bright to them.
Stop with the mental health bullshit. That is another way that commies use to limit who gets and doesn’t get guns. Don’t people read history? I used to think of myself as nerdy for reading so much history. Now, we who have read are the fucking clarions.
Excuse the martial swearing.
PunditarianFebruary 24, 2018, 9:02 AM
Perhaps we should add, that in general, when a court interprets a statute, the preamble to the active part of the statute is not what determines its effect. The 2nd could begin by saying “The moon being made of green cheese,” and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” would still be something that “shall not be infringed.”
This tragedy is becoming more surreal every hour. The Scot Peterson culprit, the armed security guard who hid behind a concrete barrier, is now hiding in his house with 24/7 police protection until he can get some plastic surgery and a name change. Now it appears that there were several more sheriff’s deputies that were at the school and ordered to stand down. I though it uplifting that at least Sheriff Israel told the world what this man did was repulsive. Well… the rabbit hole is going deeper. https://tinyurl.com/y76jg89m
Punditarian’s point, which is correct, can even be parsed down to something more elemental. Our inalienable right to life. If we are not allowed to bear arms in order to protect ourselves, the right to life would be alienated.
ghostsniperFebruary 24, 2018, 11:08 AM
One more time, in very simple words.
The right to protect yourself PRE-DATES the gov’t.
Notice that a “right” is not given to anyone, they are born with it.
The gov’t can only give “privileges”, ie., a drivers license, which they can revoke at any time because they own it. The gov’t has no authority to revoke rights. If it does so it is in violation of the highest law in the land.
As stated above, the 2A does not give anyone a right to bear arms.
The 2A is an explicit bar on gov’t from messing around with it.
The shotguns and machineguns Casey mentioned are not defined in the 2A as anything other than “arms”, thus, the 9 black robes that made them illegal did so illegally. Same with background checks, age limits, gun show “loopholes” all of it. Everything this rotten assed gov’t has done in regards to arms is illegal. According to the exact and very specific words of the 2A.
Howard NelsonFebruary 24, 2018, 6:52 PM
The unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are foundation stones for the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights come from disagreements as to what their terms meant when codified and what common sense limits were to be applied so as not to detract from the rights of others. Actual and imminent danger definitions and appropriate countermeasures are unclear and poorly prioritized.
Main action seems to be brainless blabbing. As a starter to the existing system how about a 20 year prison term for dereliction of duty of law-enforcement personnel — dereliction resulting in murder of innocents? Dereliction includes not pursuing corrective actions for warnings transmitted. Oh, what a hullabaloo if duty was demanded! We’d have to have robots taking, transmitting, and following up for action on warnings.
The contest is among all those with valid arguments as to what is common sense. In the DoI, Life comes first.
The Immortals among us will not live long enough to see the contest’s end.
Wile E. MohammedFebruary 24, 2018, 7:53 PM
I want to see Tom Steyer waste M30 on 2018 for the emotional vote. I want the DNC to run full force on “impeachment” “sensible gun laws” & “repealing crumbs” I would like to see all the Marxists demand we the people give up our right to protect our own life and those of family. At some point the Marxists will demand that Sheriff Scott Israel and his gov’t workers confiscate guns house to house. That when it will get interesting.
ghostsniperFebruary 25, 2018, 4:28 AM
“Sheriff Scott Israel and his gov’t workers confiscate guns house to house.”
======================
Never happen, they won’t even enter a school with 1 teen shooter.
Cowardice, stupidity, and extreme laziness combined with arrogancy are the requirements for today’s jackboots. They don’t want to get their heads blowed clean off. And. Look at a jackboot with crossed eyes and he will “fear for his life” and soil himself. Truly embarrassing people.
Take out a tire or 2 first then you get to take your time with the other stuff, as they sit in their tomb terrified and shaking in fear. Fear turns to horrific terror when you text them pix of their family’s entrails strewn about the yard. Shear insanity takes over and all bets are off as people so consumed by their own mind become incoherent, blubbering, seeking release from the horror within. White hot copper will set them free.
Ray Van DuneFebruary 25, 2018, 7:52 AM
Well NPR hit the trifecta of biased coverage this morning. The “gun show loophole” urban myth showed up. The cop who refused to do his duty was used to refute the argument for a “good guy with a gun” who would have been inside defending his students and his own life. So what happened to the “trained police officers” that make the “good guy with a gun” irrelevant, again? And finally, although the litany of law enforcement failure was recited, no conclusion was drawn: “Oh well turns out police and background checks can’t protect us either, so we just need to grab all the guns from the Law-abiding.” And “the penny that will not drop”: why did all of the many encounters with police and the many complaints from the schools not create a red flag on the killer’s background check? Because NONE OF THEM WERE REPORTED TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES, in order to avoid the school district having a bad score in the discipline of minority students! But my gun in my safe is the real problem, right?!
As an aside, the execrable Mara Liasson committed all of the intellectual flimflammery above. Mara is a prime example of a “Bint”, which I just this morning realized is a perfect contraction of two words, the first beginning with a “BI” and the second ending in “NT”.
PunditarianFebruary 25, 2018, 8:32 AM
The argument is not that a good guy with a gun WILL stop a bad guy with a gun, but that a good guy with a gun CAN stop a bad guy with a gun, and that a good guy with a gun is for all practical purposes the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun. And of course the good guy with a gun has to be willing to stop the bad guy. By definition, cowering behind cover and failing to “march to the sound of the guns” is not a “good guy.”
TenFebruary 25, 2018, 12:42 PM
Proof that the 2A is a not a birthright in any practical sense is evident: That supposed birthright exists for precisely as long as it does and not a second longer. Therefore, the right codified in 2A is subject to definition and definition needn’t include that intermediate step through G-d, another rather ephemeral construct no less tangible than this 2A right that apparently wafts through some intellectual heavens.
Does that mean you don’t have a right to defend yourself? Of course not. It means you have a right to defend yourself until you no longer have a right to defend yourself. Does that mean G-d doesn’t exist? Of course not. It means you can no more define G-d than you can own – in any sense other than mental – Its purported claim in favor of your “rights”. History deals with such harshly.
For all the world knows, your G-dly, unalienable right is a projection. And sure enough, for their and your joint purposes concerning the matter, all three indeed are.
Therefore, there is no intermediate intellectual step in or during which the right shall become somehow manifest in some greater sense, domain, or even in reality itself to be functionally rendered more meaningful, more viable, or more real. So why do rightists continually subscribe, in a world made mad with dozens of madnesses – not least of which being rightless, G-dless Progressivism – to this notion that not only is 2A’s principle codified in 2A as organic right of human spirit as real as that spirit itself, but that as such that it will thus justly inform The Mad?
I mean, anyone coming to take your rights, such as you believe them to be, doesn’t care, which explains why they come.
Beats me. All I know is I have this right to defend myself right up until the point in time when I do not. Seems to me that makes the thing one hell of a lot more meaningful than arguing about it with a willfully deaf psycho.
ghostsniperFebruary 25, 2018, 7:32 PM
“…more meaningful than arguing about it…”
====================
I don’t argue about it because it is inarguable.
Except by idiots.
If asked, by an idiot or anyone else, I state what I have before and leave it at that.
If the other guy doesn’t get it that’s his problem.
Bottom line, my stuff is mine and nobody gets to say anything about it.
Better get used to the idea that there are a whole mess of criminals and people trying to be criminals in this country and you can never be sure who is who. Will your wife turn your ass in if they threatened to take her kids? Yeah, I’m an agitator, and I’m trying to make you think. Think a least 3 steps ahead at all times.
Just today I looked up a local mexican restaurant on google maps we went to on my birthday last month. Over in the left hand column it said I went there 3 weeks ago. WTF??? How did my computer know that? My cellphone told it. When I first bought this Win10 computer almost 2 years ago in the set up process it wanted to “sync” my devices and ignorantly I clicked yes. Now, everytime my phone is on and I’m going somewhere it is telling my desktop via gps where I’ve been.
Suppose there was a crime committed in proximity to the path that has been recorded who knows where from my phone? I could be arrested when they check the cellphone records from the towers around the crime scene and BAM now I’m a person of interest until such time my $100k lawyer says I ain’t. So this afternoon I did the research and uninstalled that function from the desktop and put my phone on permanent airplane mode. I’ve had cellphones since the early 90’s and a smartphone for the past 6 years and this week I’m going to pursue going back to a dumb clamshell if that is at all possible. The noose keeps getting tighter and tighter.
TenFebruary 25, 2018, 9:09 PM
Conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights come from disagreements as to what their terms meant when codified and what common sense limits were to be applied so as not to detract from the rights of others.
[…]
The contest is among all those with valid arguments as to what is common sense.
Not exactly, or at the least, let’s develop that.
1. Intentionalism is a myth, but it’s a myth rightists get afoul of too much. Textualism is what powers our system, and as is noted above, the text is clear. “Conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights com[ing] from disagreements” is how that goes astray. Again, the text is clear.
2. There is, therefore, no real contest, especially among these common sense type intentionalists. Intentionalism is a myth, and it’s a myth rightists get afoul of too much.
Courts don’t interpret law. Courts apply law and to be law naturally the text must be clear. If the law is not clear, the Court shall send it back to the legislature. The court may not make a stovepipe into either a past participle or a loaf of rye, or more vividly, a penalty into a tax or whatever that preposterous thing was.
Ironically, conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights come not from disagreements per se, but from actual intent to disagree, interpretation being the Trojan Roberts. Which means there is no textual “contest” whenever there is a particularly partisan contest. As a present, running, political piece of rubber, the law is not particularly contestable. That would be the legislature, provided it does not subsequently rewrite the supreme law of the land with no official, legal notice to it.
Finally, something you wrote makes a little sense, although still dense. Mr Ten.
I’m someone who enjoys reading books that are old; a hundred years old, 200, or ancient in years. If you keep the language as is, especially when the original texts are in English, the use of the language can make things very hard to understand.
A little digging, and the 2A becomes not hard to get, but fairly plain. It has the grace, and simplicity or being short, as well. Jefferson intended (trigger word) all men to be armed, but that is written as is – not ciphered.
I also enjoyed when Penn and Teller did a short video on the 2A, where they take down the comma between the first 2 clauses.
The gun control advocates want mostly to hear themselves yelling. They certainly haven’t got common sense, as they keep asking for it. My proofs are that they are scared of the Armalite design, but haven’t got the foggiest clue as to what it is, or how it works. Very near to me is a loaded gun cabinet. I’d very much prefer being shot with an AR-15 than anything in that arsenal, if I had to be shot at all. And, in a stroke of grand irony, the government’s rounds for that weapon would please me far more than the civilian round.
And, this brings us back around to the whole reason for the people’s arsenal. It is unequivocally and robustly designed to be the guns of an irregular militia – a military force.
TenFebruary 26, 2018, 10:25 AM
In my own defense, Kahn, I try to let my opinions be as informed as my self-image is mute. It seems some vaunted identitarians start their day with a nice steaming cup of quite the other way around. Call it rightist virtue-signalling.
Plus I can make paragraphs.
Anyway, good thing making “a little sense” finally dawned on you when it came to something as trivial as 2A. Imagine it being an important topic.
Snakepit KansasFebruary 26, 2018, 11:02 AM
Ten,
You say “All I know is I have this right to defend myself right up until the point in time when I do not. ”
Based on what? I’ve used circular logic like that before, but only to be funny.
Nice paragraphs.
TenFebruary 26, 2018, 12:01 PM
Rights come in two forms, Arkansas Slim, those you continually seize and those you do not have to continually seize. There is no such thing as a right you can point out written in the constellations by G-d that has all mankind in accord now and for evermore. Thus, a right you cannot point out written in the constellations shall by probable necessity not induce all mankind into accord.
You must assert, seize, and defend this “right”, and as it turns out most of the time, against a majority who just on the basis of their numbers, do not find it a right at all. You will argue the definitions. Hey, so are we.
This structure of reality is called linear logic. A thing exists unless the thing does not exist. A thing exists until such time as the thing does not exist. If, say, Kentucky Crockett has it on good local authority that he has a G-d-given right he then finds nobody but he subscribes to, then naturally only he’ll subscribe to that “right”. The “right” is not a Right except if he can enforce it, such as he may be.
Likewise, a Framer may rightly and wisely and, well, somewhat fancifully claim G-d has given man the Right to self-defense, a premise I would not argue with except to point out that unless a bunch of people agree to enforce it as such it remains a fancy and an intellectual projection, not unlike G-d Itself. This aspect of reality is also called linear logic.
On the other hand, circular logic would, say, “G-d gives me Right X and you may not violate it. Therefore you shall not violate it because G-d and I say so”. This is similar to the circularity that claims the Bible to be infallible because it itself says so.
This does not mean either assertion is ultimately untrue, it means that it argues a specious, circular assertion and seeks to project it forward as a thing it can never be, which is a notion, ideal, or principle. Meanwhile, it was already functionally not a Right among all those immune to it being one. It’s unlikely they’ll wake up one day and realize how wrong they were and call you on the phone to apologize.
Here’s one: If this has to be pointed out more than once is the argument itself circular? Because it keeps circling back to the same empty claim, and that claim really goes solely to the definition of The Right. Given the propensity of Proggism to mess with definitions in order to be lunatic, good luck with that. To us both, because I don’ t happen to disagree with you or Stovepipe Bob, just the notion that you’ll get anywhere with all that outside of your own circle. Which could be a single person.
I’m pretty sure the neighbor’s cat and the neighbor both agree that the neighbor is Fred Astaire. It appears that as well-intentioned as both areknown to be, this agreement they have does not make it so.
timFebruary 26, 2018, 12:05 PM
At the time the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written the printing press was the only means, besides word of mouth and individual hand written letters, that “freedom of speech” could be exercised.
The Founders obviously could not envision radio, TV, the internet/smart phones. Therefore, these devices of communication obviously should not be allowed to spread slander, falsehoods, half-truths or outright lies….or things I simply don’t practically like. So please stop, I don’t like ye having all of this freedom. You simply don’t need it, nor is it necessary.
If ye would like to exercise the 1st Amendment, please use a horse with a gentleman rider, preferable with a tricorn, to send forth a letter.
Otherwise, I’m afraid our differences shall have to be settled by what was customary of that particular period – a duel with pistols.
So, Mr. Ten, Sir, can you please enlighten me, linearly, what, exactly, is your opinion on firearm ownership by individuals who are classified as citizens of a State?
TenFebruary 26, 2018, 1:03 PM
Answer: That that State, being of our kind and type and having been established by our original means, is a government of us the people, a people who agree, for as long as possible, that enormous personal autonomy and sovereignty naturally carry with them the right to self defense. And that agreement can be called a Right but it is precisely no more or less transcendent or immutable or unalienable or especially G-d-given than your “right” to free speech is in China.
Or Canada.
The Framers were bright guys and well-moved but surely even they knew they were projecting Rights into the gale of history. If only G-d and G-d-given rights were what we absolutely know and can forever rely on as tangible, concrete absolutes. What they really are – including to us too – are abstracts and intangibles and variable definitions.
I think they knew that. And that knowledge is probably what led them to interrupt the natural flow of humanity by interjecting these Rights as specific exceptions to it. Because they are not concrete and absolute they needed to be proclaimed, even if G-d Itself moved it to be. We know that too: We use them as instruments of exceptionalism because that’s what they are. But they make poor arguments against our usual history and against its miserable status quo. That stuff simply does not care.
Were Rights discovered as nuggets dispensed from above? Who knows; that’s part of the endless debate as to just what they are. But even if they were, they are entirely and forever, as far as any of us know, ours to keep or to screw up. And that again makes them our projections.
Mr. Ten. Quite evidently, the answer to my previously stated question, which was straight forward and rather unequivocal, is, no. You cannot.
Howard NelsonFebruary 26, 2018, 1:41 PM
For the purposes of clarity, simplicity, complexity, uncertainty, accuracy and common sense —
Is 2A in agreement that a murderous, insane criminal
has a right to own and bear arms? Does common sense come into play? What would be the intention, the purpose, the significance, the net value of interpretation modifying the ‘simple’ reading of the 2A text?
In a better world each law would in detail take into account all appeals to its future applicability.
What does simple reading of 2A say about gun rights of a violent paranoid? Are common sense judgements to be made and actions taken on likelihood of imminent violent felony?
Re Ten on Intention:
Absent intention, only random action. I agree with you that, God or no God, we choose the standards by which we live. Along with the 10C, I try my best to live by the 11th Commandment, ‘Fool neither yourself or others.’
TenFebruary 26, 2018, 1:48 PM
Generous of you to have added that handy tip about self-evidence, Venlet. But while such an opinion is of enormous importance, can you elaborate on just how you came to be this sensitive and reactive to the general topic? Because that seems not to be evident.
Ten, perhaps I would elaborate if you would provide a clear and concise opinion to my previously and politefully requested question. Failing that, I shall not run on the gerbil wheel, as you seem to be so fond of doing.
ghostsniperFebruary 26, 2018, 2:24 PM
In the simplest of terms the 2A is a limit on gov’t force.
The right was already existing when the 2A was written.
It is against the law for the gov’t to violate that right.
The gov’t has already violated the 2A many times.
In 1973 when I was 18 years old I walked into a store and bought a brand new Winchester .22 rifle and all I had to do was show my drivers license to verify my age, paid the coin, and walked out. No questions asked, no paperwork to fill out.
2 months ago I tried to buy a gun at a store and after filling out the 4473 form in a digital kiosk I was turned down, no reason given. I checked back every few days for a month and was never given “permission” to buy that gun. Though I got my deposit back for the gun I did not get back my $15 fee for the NICS (background) check. My so called 2A right was violated egregiously.
You see what happened there? I was ripped off for $15 and there is nothing I can do about it. The thief is a faceless entity at a distance. Checking around, a lot of people will tell the same story. My neighbor said he’s been turned down 8 times in the past 2 years. Do the math on what his “right” has cost him recently. 1 more way the gov’t steals from the citizenry. But since my guns are stored in my office everything related to them expense wise is written off as a “””business expense”””.
I have held concealed weapon licenses in several states for more than 30 years, I’m an honorably discharged army veteran, have never been convicted of any crime except minor traffic stuff long ago, have more than 2 dozen fingerprints on file in various gov’t requirements, purchased several firearms in the previous year, but I was still turned down for this particular gun, a S&W Victory .22 pistol.
“”” “”” You have to be smarter than the average bear to survive in business in this communist country. A goodly portion of my time while being in business since 1986 has been to stay out of the way of the numerous layers of gov’t criminals while still trying to make a living. As a friend from communist Czechoslovakia back in the 60’s once said, “When the rules get tougher the people get sneakier.”
TenFebruary 26, 2018, 2:27 PM
You’re a little too flip for me, Venlet. I filled the letter of your request and instead of realizing that, you deferred to some primeval need to disagree with the guy probably more on board with your 2A rights than any.
This is, as I alluded, because you are reflexive and hypersensitive to the stuff you make up and project onto others. I doubt you even know why.
And that, folks, is what’s wrong with the right, by the way.
Snakepit KansasFebruary 26, 2018, 3:46 PM
Ghost,
The gun store must be charging you the $15. NICS does not cost anything. I’ve done dozens and dozens of NICS background checks and have the FBI number on speed dial. I have never experienced a person being denied, only delayed. After a few days, if there is no further response, you should be able to buy the gun. If you have a CCH local to your state then you should not have to go through NICS background check. The CCH information should be put on the FED form and you should be good to go.
At our gun range we occasionally identify what we consider a straw purchaser or someone that doesn’t have all their dogs barking. We get all the NICS information then deny the purchase on the straw purchaser then turn it over to the ATF. Video, testimony, paperwork with fingerprints etc. to convict is all available. Nobody has been called to trial, so probably nobody every got charged. I had one guy wanting to buy a 1911 once, but he was talking kind of crazy and had a hint of alcohol on his breath. I politely pulled him aside and advised him I would not sell him anything. He politely left.
Ten. I’m sorry you consider me flip. I’m simply being direct.
TenFebruary 26, 2018, 4:28 PM
Ten: Obviously, rights are a construct.
Venlet: Enlighten me, linearly, what, exactly, is your opinion on firearm ownership by individuals who are classified as citizens of a State?
Ten: Sure, I’ll bite: My opinion is that the State, being us, originally and principally agree – that being our construct – that with responsibility and liberty comes the right to self defense.
Venlet: Quite evidently, the answer to my previously stated question, which was straight forward and rather unequivocal, is, no. You cannot.
Ten: I’m sorry, what? Is it “no” or “I cannot”. Because it’s evidently yes and evidently I just did. So can you elaborate on just how you came to be this sensitive and reactive to the general topic? Or are you trolling.
Venlet: Ten, perhaps I would elaborate if you would provide a clear and concise opinion to my previously and politefully requested question. Cause I don’t do gerbils. Neener neener no tap backs.
Ten: I’m sorry; are you under the impression I owe you something?
Venlet: I’m just being direct, dude!
Ten:
Venlet:
Ten: You’re a very special case, aren’t you?
Howard NelsonFebruary 26, 2018, 6:17 PM
For the rationally religious and those religiously rational, I recommend the many YouTube entries treating Stoicism. Seneca’s ‘On Anger’ is a nourishing place to meet. See ya there.
Ogoous
U
ghostsniperFebruary 26, 2018, 6:45 PM
Casey’s right, about the AR15 effectiveness. I too have some guns that can create far more devastating wounds, at greater distances. But when it comes to home defense I grab the Remington 870 marine magnum with mag extension. It is probably the most universal firearm I own and the one I have the most experience with and am most comfortable with. For distances from point blank out to say 100′ or so nothing on this planet can cover the bases like a well earned 870. Nothing.
If a highly experienced shooter went into densely populated area with an 870 the toll could be very high, well over 100 easily. Packed into a small room, each shot would kill multiple people, with say, 00 up to maybe #4 shot. The AR is shooting individual BB’s in comparison and 30 rd mags won’t change that because an experienced shooter can reload an 870 as fast as he can pull the trigger, with either hand, from underneath or over the top, doesn’t matter. A dump bag on his left hip with 200+ rounds and he’ll be there all day long.
So if the time ever comes that my guns go fishing in a lake or auctioned from an abandoned storage unit the 870 will still be right here.
Ghost, I had to get an extra full choke to reach my version (Mossberg) out to a hundred yards. Even so, I’d have to be highly motivated to shoot at that range. I won’t throw a slug past 50 yards, and my aim point is modified for that.
(saving the planet one return saved at a time, my next paragraph begins here…)You’re totally correct that it’s an all purpose weapon that trumps the AT most of the time, in my mind. It basically covers the yard to the edge of the field. Don S. makes an interesting defense of the .223 in his comment elsewhere.
Donald Sensing, I cannot dispute your or your CID assessments, but am left wondering why the troops in OEF complained about lack of Hadji penetration. A jammie-wearing NVA guy, wasted away on rice and snake, may be struck down by the round, but a #230 American male is a whole ‘nother critter. Some reports from Las Vegas had rounds not penetrating (probably in the 300 yrd ranges), and I myself have found my .223 round just sitting on top of the snow downrange. I don’t chamber that round in anything I own anymore, and have never fired it into ballistic jelly or anything of that sort.
Fascinating about the yaw, and it turns me off to the weapon.
Mr Ten. Since you have shown that your authority is self-derived, I find it real hard to accept your rationale for anything. Hubris much?
John A. FlemingFebruary 27, 2018, 2:17 AM
Perhaps I may try. Just joshing you Mr. Ten, but I find your prose a little too dense for my taste. I’ve had my fair share of philosophy classes and was thrilled by all of them, especially when I could decode the unique and preciseful manner in which things are discussed. Nevertheless, when writing for a diverse audience, it helps to kis. Which I’ve found to be difficult for me to do successfully. Respect your audience. Don’t make then work so hard.
1. We have always had the right to defend our lives, our family, and our communities. We haven’t always had the effective power. For far too long, kings and conquerors held overwhelming power over us helots.
2. We have always had the power to kill our children. But it was rarely ever considered a right. Most people, from the most primitive barbarian societies to the present, found it to be at least a deeply unsettling and distasteful practice. That took (and still takes) some serious religious fervor or strong cultural mandates to overcome.
3. From these two extremes I then claim that a right is what each person has equally. Their life, their family’s lives, their chosen communities. Their liberty to choose the actions of their lives. Their choice of life’s goals.
4. The RKBA has become a first class right by the invention and refinement of firearms. (I won’t define
“first class” here. tl;ywnr itykwim) Now every citizen is as powerful as any of the king’s men. And by the 2A, we have told our government exactly that. Naturally enough, all the wannabe kings and their filthy minions and courtiers and henchmen just despise that galling restriction. Hence their never-ending quest to deny to us the effective power to defend ourselves, our family, and our communities.
5. The police have become the king’s men and the standing occupying army so despised by the Founders. We the People must be their equal. Never give up our guns. Never give in, never surrender.
6. Western women and some men are crazy. For almost the first time in history, every woman has the legally-protected power to kill their children without consequences. And such power burns their soul, as the frantic efforts to preserve it demonstrate.
TenFebruary 27, 2018, 3:41 AM
I’m moderately surprised by that finding, Kahn, but naturally not by the tone. In with all your usual self-exultation – that whole ‘Murican, identitarian, online shtick of yours – somehow “hubris” is suddenly the net result of the other guy’s simple reasoning things out.
I suppose what you’re trying to claim is that whole “since all rights derive from G-d” thing, etc, but what you’re really saying is that you haven’t a clue what that means, which has been my point in a somewhat more pragmatic, theologically-rigorous framework. I’d say you’re blundering into the bald assertion many have that your rugged faith powers your generally rigorous premise while at the same instant not realizing what faith is. As in, G-d gave us faith but the Founding, the Founding gave us absolutely certainty. Sorry, G-d, but we’ll take it from here … and oh by the way, it’d be hubristic to come to any other conclusion.
I imagine in your world it would be.
But this is in a nutshell the rightist, cultural, identity-centric ball of goo that we see all over these days as a reactionary counter, such as it is, to walls of psychotic leftist virtue-signalling. The Superior Rightist just knows stuff that, being of Superior Rightism, is naturally superior and out here in 2018 should be just as public and just as signally. It is assumed that by projecting it right back that the left, with all its genuine psychosis, is expected to know this stuff by sound or contact – this admitted faith-based stuff – and by knowing it – which the Superior Rightist constantly accords is his emblem and article of faith – the leftist shall be, what, exactly? Enlightened, illuminated, converted, reformed, rendered respectful, or simply crushed of and by these utterly concrete yet faith-based constructs?
I guess the way this works is that G-d gave specifically the Founding something that was so concrete that to not accept it was akin to rejecting a belief. Which would be hubristic. Of course nobody knows quite what it is, including the Superior Rightist, but by gum he’s superior because of it. But this is not pride. This is a derived Something Certain, this external pride and self-centeredness and taking-it-on-faith all in one.
So it’s kind of a surprise to realize that after looking into stuff for over half a century you find yourself staring down the barrel of one loaded identitarian Pharasee or another, to coin a phrase, and then finding that having questioned Superior Rightism, that one is oneself terminally prideful. Just because.
The problem, Kahn, is that theologically that isn’t your father’s old school mobile. That is instinctive, self-oriented rightist identitarianism and that is indeed what they used to warn against in the pews and from the pulpits…
BunnyFebruary 27, 2018, 3:47 AM
6. The vote on Roe vs. Wade was 7-2. Those justices supporting the case’s pro-choice outcome were as follows, including the president nominating each and the president’s party affiliation:
Harry Blackmun (Nixon, R)
Warren Burger (Nixon, R)
William Douglas (FDR, D)
William Brennan (Eisenhower, R)
Potter Stewart (Eisenhower, R)
Thurgood Marshall (LBJ, D)
Lewis Powell (Nixon, R)
Those dissenting on Roe vs. Wade — only two – and both were not Republican-president-nominated to the Court:
Byron White (Kennedy, D)
William Rehnquist (Nixon, R; chief justice under Reagan, R)I https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-supporters-roe-vs-wade-was-decided-by-a-republican_us_581fbd44e4b044f827a78f87
And not a single woman among them. Some Western men and women are crazy. Sorry to intrude into your gun discussion, which concludes with the same old same old. I am triggered.
TenFebruary 27, 2018, 4:02 AM
I appreciate your comments, John, and, if anyone cares to inspect my own stuff, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that I find them as agreeable as they are rational.
The element I’m challenging, however, is the disconnect between the first two sentences in your first point and the enormous tension laid against “rights” by the last three of your fifth. Immediately we come to the problem of definitions. And given the tension in that fifth point, the word “rights” becomes a projection the moment it’s born.
In other words, it is a construct and it exists for not a moment longer than it does. In any way that matters, it ceases when it ceases. At that moment it may continue on as an ideal but it is certainly no right. Yes, the nation is whacked and yes we have no right, for example, to kill babies. But yes we do, because we are whacked.
But G-d! we say. Yes, and?
So let’s define the right as such before we stand pat on our vigorous, purely intellectual resistance. Let’s define where rights really derive from and how because of not they’re just some guy on a soapbox in his driveway.
If the ostensible political right would only realize that having pretty much squandered all the other rights it’s a little hollow to make a cultural sacrament and badge of identity out of this particular one, maybe one ounce and than a second ounce of liberty could be reclaimed. Because it was the political right that sacrificed a nation and it was the political right that did it by sloth and arrogance and the same appeals to pride and culture that are more or less all it has even now to recommend it.
Amazingly, there have been or are half a dozen movements of far more actual structural, original, conservative, and constitutional weight than the typical normie boomer rightist bullshit out there is, and all that identity-signalling that looks like one hell of a capitulation.
ghostsniperFebruary 27, 2018, 4:54 AM
This is getting to be a little more than ridiculous.
I’m outta here.
Ten, Good Morning. I’ll respond to a few of your statements.
…My opinion is that the State, being us, originally and principally agree – that being our construct – that with responsibility and liberty comes the right to self defense.
While I am in agreement with your statement, above, for some reason you remain evasive to my original inquiry, to wit, the ownership of firearms by private individuals, citizens. The right of self defense and the possession of firearms are two distinctly different things.
I’m sorry; are you under the impression I owe you something?
Not whatsoever, Ten. I simply value honesty and straightforwardness when conversing with individuals, and I do not perceive these traits in your evasions to direct questions asked of you.
You’re a very special case, aren’t you?
That’s what my mom always told me, though being one child of eight in my family, I didn’t necessarily believe her.
TenFebruary 27, 2018, 7:43 AM
As always, Venlet, any claim by this state shall derive from just powers, naturally, and that brings us right to our meaningful answer and the one that counts, the one I believe you’ve had for awhile. The state isn’t wielding legitimate power as you see it? Then your right does not exist, except mentally. See: totalitarianism and free speech.
Those and only terms condition the firearms indicated in 2A. Like I and probably a hundred or more have observed over the last couple of centuries – possibly even here; you could check yourself – the original textual language is plain and unconditional.
Apparently you find this reasoning something I need to clear up or pass muster concerning. So let me ask you, based on this evident reasoning, what do you suppose is my position on firearms?
***
I generally don’t claim the higher ground with quite your unabashedness, Venlet, but being that as it may, in other company we’ve probably all detected a faint intellectual dishonesty to posing instead of positioning, one potentially compounded by, I’m afraid, appeals to one’s own integrity. While tempted to defer and take you at your word in this case, I must confess to a tinge of demotivation. Forgive my not rushing to cater to your clear and non-evasive requirements.
Arms? I don’t recall deconstructing or revising the 2A concerning them but I think I remember advocating for its plain, textual language.
I don’t really read your tedious posts, Mr Ten. You make assertions disparaging God, but He is not mocked.
Do you understand the meaning of authority? Hint: it resides outside of you. That is to say, it resides outside of persons for whom God is their sufficiency. All others are self-authorizing. No thanks. Your ruminations are venal, not to mention uninteresting.
TenFebruary 27, 2018, 8:20 AM
“God”, Kahn? Venal?
Concerning what you want to insist is my character so as to diminish it, there for want of basis you simply stoop to another rude fabrication – maybe Kahn always projects where he hasn’t the sense to grasp and he smears where apparently he hasn’t the integrity to control himself. If so, this taking of liberties generally this owes to a dimness of intellect and a shallowness of character. You have no more idea of my […] of G-d than, I wager, you could ever of “God” Itself.
The same holds for authority.
Do you know why I use G-d, Kahn? Why there is no word for […]? I suspect you do not.
Johnson observed that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Speaking for “God” is likewise the first recourse of the arrogantly, ignorantly, Pharisaically hidebound. In fact, it is the biblical taking the Lord’s name in vain. (Here again, this is why cultural identitarian rightism is a intellectual disaster.)
Ten, you go on and on with your paragraphs, and yet you cannot answer a direct and simple question. Additionally, you ask me to inform you what your position in on private firearm ownership based on your many, many paragraphs. I shall presume to do no such thing, that onus is yours, and yours alone. I will not hold my breath that you will clearly answer my original question.
While you quite clearly have the ability to reason, Ten, your replies to comments directed to you in this thread border on, unfortunately, soliloquy.
TenFebruary 27, 2018, 9:03 AM
Oh, it’s an “onus” now. In other words, I do owe you.
You have some indeterminate axe to grind and as you see it, I’m the nearest wheel. That would be both fallacious and, well, dishonest, as dishonest as expecting me defend myself over and over against all that cheese you keep projecting that I’ve already addressed what, four times?
Your welcome’s plumb wore out, Chief.
ghostsniperFebruary 27, 2018, 9:46 AM
After 4 budweiser tall boys in a row I can piss my entire 34 letter full name in the snow in uppercase gothic.
If you can do 35 or more you are the new winner!
PunditarianFebruary 27, 2018, 10:46 AM
What a convoluted web we have woven here. The Founders, on the other hand, were quite direct and simple. They thought it self-evident that:
1) All men (that is, all human beings) are created on an equal level (important here beyond the notion of equality before the law, is the determination that men are created, and that there is a Creator who did that)
2) Part of what defines being human, is that each individual human is “endowed” with certain “rights” by that Creator – this means that these “rights” are integral, and any infringement of them goes against the wishes/plans of that Creator – so they are called inalienable.
3) These “rights” include (but may not necessarily be limited to) the right to life (that is, the right and responsibility of each individual to defend his life) – to liberty – and to the pursuit of happiness –
4) Those last two “rights” need not detain us here – it is the right to “life” upon which the Second Amendment rests – the Founders thought that (legitimate) government was a collective tool to guarantee protection of those individual rights – any government that infringed those rights was contrary to natural law, and it was the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
5) That thinking carries over into the design of the Federal government we find in the Constitution, it being constrained and limited in order that individuals be free
6) In addition to the individual right of self-defense, the Founders thought that the people had to be able to defend themselves against an illegitimate government, and that therefore, the individuals who make up the people had to be proficient in the use of arms (“well regulated”) and that therefore, the government of a free people must never infringe their right to keep and bear arms
7)The AR-15 is a very widely used platform with much going for it. The history of its early testing in the field remains somewhat controversial. In less-than-perfect hands, the piston-operated mechanism of the AK-47 and -74 is probably more reliable that the gas tube of the AR-15. I think the M-14 is probably superior to both “assault rifle” platforms.
8) There was a time in this country, within living memory, when high school ROTC units were equipped with (fully automatic-capable) M-14 battle rifles, without any undue consequences of which I am aware
9) The problems we’re seeing in this country are not gun-related, they are culture-related, and go far beyond school shootings. The consequences of the Gramscian assault on our morality, our politics, and our cultural heritage are even worse in other spheres of life
“…when high school ROTC units were equipped with (fully automatic-capable) M-14 battle rifles…”
=======================
Doubtful.
A real “automatic” rifle carried by school kids?
Just like that business about school kids with rifles in gun racks in their trucks for shooting during school competitions. I was in schools in rural Gettysburg and suburban Florida from 1959-1972 (K-12) and never seen anyone with a gun on school property and I’ve talked to several other people older than me and they never seen it neither.
Anyway, my dad and I were driving past Cypress Lake High School mid-day around 1970 and there were some ROTC doods out on the field with their white wooden guns and my dad said, “I remember seeing Russian kids marching with guns on TV and Walter Cronkite said how terrible it was how they train their kids to be soldiers.”
A few years later my youngest brother was one of those students at CLHS carrying a fake gun, and I was in Germany carrying a real one and now forty years later our oldest grandaughter is carrying a fake gun too.
“We” have become “Them”.
Did they become us?
Snakepit KansasFebruary 27, 2018, 7:49 PM
Ghost,
As a 1983 graduate of a high school in a semi-small town, I can attest to seeing shotguns in the gun rack in the back of pick up trucks in the high school parking lot. There were no shooting sports at school. After a discussion during drafting class about Ruger single action revolvers, the next day one guy brought in a Blackhawk .357 cloaked in a brown paper bag, to show the teacher. Mr. Brown, as I recall now, was a rather pragmatic guy and fond of firearms as I am today. He did not over react to the student bringing the pistol to class. He admired it when presented, then said “Let me hang onto this until after school”. Then he gave it back to the student, who took it back home. No drama, no SWAT team, probably just a kind word of advisement to not bring such to school again.
ghostsniperFebruary 28, 2018, 4:36 AM
@Snake, our experiences differ. I never seen it.
Things were still somewhat reasonable in 1983 but by the time jethro klintin came on board in 92 the foundation crumbling was very obvious and now it is completely gone.
Snakepit KansasFebruary 28, 2018, 11:00 AM
1983…bought my first AR-15. A Colt. $550 including tax.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
The local police had a video feed of the security cameras at the school. But the video was on a 20 minute delay (?!). The cops say they did not know this. The delay caused critical confusion during thier response, and helped the shooter to just walk away. The police picked up little Nickey almost one hour later.
The local police had a video feed of the security cameras at the school. But the video was on a 20 minute delay (?!). The cops say they did not know this. The delay caused critical confusion during thier response, and helped the shooter to just walk away. The police picked up de Jesus Cruz (“of the cross of Jesus”) almost one hour later.
Ack!
So bizzare I had to post it twice.
Also, it now looks like three other armed deputies arrived at but did not go in the school, even after police got there…
A search on Google just now of arguments against gun control leads me to almost all (maybe 85% or 90%) arguments for gun control. I tried 3 or 4 different ways to word the debate search; looks like Google feels that the argument only goes one way.
Feel isolated, at all?
Here’s an argument. What authority will be banning (some specific) guns? Although there is precedent for laws that limit ownership of certain guns, and that treat different categories of guns in different and specific way, the fact is the Bill of Rights prohibits the government from making laws about gun ownership and possession. Jefferson himself wanted all men armed. The point is: government becomes the very thing we are supposed to be protected from: a state that takes guns.
The reason why sawed-off shotguns were regulated, according to the govt’s argument, was that they had no military purpose. They correctly understood that our gun rights are of a military (irregular) nature. Now, the argument goes the other way: you don’t need a military gun. Hmm. Comprehend much in your reading, Che?
The calls for gun control (my broken record, here) are a call for a counter-revolution. When AR rifles are banned, the tipping point is right there. The government will now claim the authority (wrongly) that they can now adjudicate somehow ownership of what is essentially one of the most common long arms that Americans own. I don’t own one, because I thought they were shit when I was an infantryman. There are lots of categories and types of firearms that beat the AR platform seven ways to Sunday. Those will be next on the chopping block!
The cops and the FBI. That’s a rich one. A cop’s job, properly done, is an heroic one, when the law is justified and right. When they don’t act heroically, that doesn’t surprise me, either. These poor Parkland kids were sheep to the slaughter, and our liberal socialist system is to blame.
You’re on your own, now, Americans. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
See what the common denominator is in all those failures, right?
So while I was checking my pocket constitution I found nothing on FBI, Public Education, or private Security. Did see this other thing called the 2nd. Something about infringement? Why do they always go for the control thing rather than other contributing factors? The Government can’t provide protection for you.
Oh, the 2nd again. Of course, it is well known that at the time the Constitution was put into place the newest thing in man-portable military hardware was a muzzle-loading flintlock with which one might get off 3 shots per minute – if exceedingly well-trained, and undisturbed. A bit difficult to go for a killing spree with one of those, no?
Slightly different from the several hundred a semi-auto firearm of today allows, don’t you think? Oh, BTW, the 2nd also has stuff about “well-regulated” and “militia”.
I really cannot discern a common denominator. Letting a kid skate? Passing the buck, passing the problem along?
@Fletcher, what part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?
BTW, the muzzle loading flintlock was the “assault weapon” of it’s time.
It’s not the gun, mine have harmed no one, but the person.
Perhaps people should be regulated?
Oh, that’s right, they already are.
On paper.
But the gov’t forces that are legally bound to enforcing those regulations routinely ignore them.
For shame.
Then obviously the only option is to create more regulations for them to ignore.
Yeah, that’s the gov’t way.
Fletcher,
If you don’t like the 2nd Amendment, then change it through legal process. You don’t sound much like an expert on constitutional law so maybe you should study up some. Instead you come here, throw a Molotov cocktail, and offer no viable solution.
In XVIII century language, “well regulated” does not mean “controlled by the State.” It means “well trained” – substitute “proficient” for “well regulated,” and you can see why – for reasons of public security – the Founders bound the government to respect the individual citizen’s God-given right to keep – and bear – arms.
And the Pennsylvania long rifle, in the hands of a practiced rifleman, was incalculably superior to the military musket.
Ignorance of the specific meaning of the 2nd Amendment, a mere 27 words, continues to amaze me, as if the words in that amendment meant one thing back in 1700s, and now in the 21st century the words mean another thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are three (3) simple components within the 2nd Amendment that were valid in the 1700s and remain valid today. Number 1, militias. Number 2, people, i.e. we the people. And number 3, arms.
Though I can grudgingly understand some confusion regarding what qualifies as a militia in today’s day and age, as there are organized (National Guards and Air National Guards) and unorganized militias, which today are typically referred to as reserve militias (all able bodied men ages 17 – 45 – see here, there should be no confusion that militia laws are still in effect and people remain subject to those militia laws, i.e. they are part of the militia.
So, the law continues to recognize that a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, and people, NOT simply current National or Air National Guard members, make up that militia. So, as United States citizens, a people, we are the supplement to the current Guard members, the organized militia, because militia laws remain valid throughout the United States.
So, on to the arms. Because the people are, by law, part of the militia, reserve though they may be, the people are, by law, allowed to keep and bear arms. Individuals who suggest that the arms referred to in the Constitution means a flintlock rifle and a cutlass are deluding themselves, and suggesting that the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States were shortsighted simpletons lacking foresight that as the future unfolded innovations in technology, progress, would occur.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Are those 27 words that difficult to comprehend?
@John Venlet
Thank you for the US Code education. Does the segment you refer to exclude those 46 and older from the 2ndA recognition to rightfully own and bear arms?
If yes, is their right ensured within the 9thA or 10thA, although nonexplicitly?
Does the segment you refer to exclude those 46 and older from the 2ndA recognition to rightfully own and bear arms?
Howard, your question is a non-starter in regards to the right to bear arms. The code I referenced deals only with the makeup of the organized and the unorganized, or reserve, militia. Interesting to note that within that code it also states that former members of the armed forces are not necessarily exempt from reserve militia duties until they reach the age of 64. The shorter answer to your question is no, though I think you know that.
Gentlemen, the first clause (militia) is the supporting clause, and the next one, the “people” clause, is the meat of the thing. It is the individual’s right to bear arms. The argument is that it is the military aim of the people to secure their persons and property from tyranny.
This is why the argument that we don’t need military arms is specious. We were denied sawed-off shotguns because they weren’t of military value. IOW, they didn’t fall under the reasoning of the 2A. Also, the machine gun thing was made at a time (if I’m not incorrect – this understanding goes back along time in my memory) when organized crime gangs were bearing and using tommy guns. The infringements were made by our heavy-duty socialist government in an effort to fight big crime in the 20s and 30s.
Somehow, dim-witted law and policy makers want criminals to not have weapons, and if that means taking them from everyone, then so be it. The more heavy-handed, the better. That way, the future for socialism and communism looks bright to them.
Stop with the mental health bullshit. That is another way that commies use to limit who gets and doesn’t get guns. Don’t people read history? I used to think of myself as nerdy for reading so much history. Now, we who have read are the fucking clarions.
Excuse the martial swearing.
Perhaps we should add, that in general, when a court interprets a statute, the preamble to the active part of the statute is not what determines its effect. The 2nd could begin by saying “The moon being made of green cheese,” and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” would still be something that “shall not be infringed.”
This tragedy is becoming more surreal every hour. The Scot Peterson culprit, the armed security guard who hid behind a concrete barrier, is now hiding in his house with 24/7 police protection until he can get some plastic surgery and a name change. Now it appears that there were several more sheriff’s deputies that were at the school and ordered to stand down. I though it uplifting that at least Sheriff Israel told the world what this man did was repulsive. Well… the rabbit hole is going deeper.
https://tinyurl.com/y76jg89m
Punditarian’s point, which is correct, can even be parsed down to something more elemental. Our inalienable right to life. If we are not allowed to bear arms in order to protect ourselves, the right to life would be alienated.
One more time, in very simple words.
The right to protect yourself PRE-DATES the gov’t.
Notice that a “right” is not given to anyone, they are born with it.
The gov’t can only give “privileges”, ie., a drivers license, which they can revoke at any time because they own it. The gov’t has no authority to revoke rights. If it does so it is in violation of the highest law in the land.
As stated above, the 2A does not give anyone a right to bear arms.
The 2A is an explicit bar on gov’t from messing around with it.
The shotguns and machineguns Casey mentioned are not defined in the 2A as anything other than “arms”, thus, the 9 black robes that made them illegal did so illegally. Same with background checks, age limits, gun show “loopholes” all of it. Everything this rotten assed gov’t has done in regards to arms is illegal. According to the exact and very specific words of the 2A.
The unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are foundation stones for the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights come from disagreements as to what their terms meant when codified and what common sense limits were to be applied so as not to detract from the rights of others. Actual and imminent danger definitions and appropriate countermeasures are unclear and poorly prioritized.
Main action seems to be brainless blabbing. As a starter to the existing system how about a 20 year prison term for dereliction of duty of law-enforcement personnel — dereliction resulting in murder of innocents? Dereliction includes not pursuing corrective actions for warnings transmitted. Oh, what a hullabaloo if duty was demanded! We’d have to have robots taking, transmitting, and following up for action on warnings.
The contest is among all those with valid arguments as to what is common sense. In the DoI, Life comes first.
The Immortals among us will not live long enough to see the contest’s end.
I want to see Tom Steyer waste M30 on 2018 for the emotional vote. I want the DNC to run full force on “impeachment” “sensible gun laws” & “repealing crumbs” I would like to see all the Marxists demand we the people give up our right to protect our own life and those of family. At some point the Marxists will demand that Sheriff Scott Israel and his gov’t workers confiscate guns house to house. That when it will get interesting.
“Sheriff Scott Israel and his gov’t workers confiscate guns house to house.”
======================
Never happen, they won’t even enter a school with 1 teen shooter.
Cowardice, stupidity, and extreme laziness combined with arrogancy are the requirements for today’s jackboots. They don’t want to get their heads blowed clean off. And. Look at a jackboot with crossed eyes and he will “fear for his life” and soil himself. Truly embarrassing people.
Take out a tire or 2 first then you get to take your time with the other stuff, as they sit in their tomb terrified and shaking in fear. Fear turns to horrific terror when you text them pix of their family’s entrails strewn about the yard. Shear insanity takes over and all bets are off as people so consumed by their own mind become incoherent, blubbering, seeking release from the horror within. White hot copper will set them free.
Well NPR hit the trifecta of biased coverage this morning. The “gun show loophole” urban myth showed up. The cop who refused to do his duty was used to refute the argument for a “good guy with a gun” who would have been inside defending his students and his own life. So what happened to the “trained police officers” that make the “good guy with a gun” irrelevant, again? And finally, although the litany of law enforcement failure was recited, no conclusion was drawn: “Oh well turns out police and background checks can’t protect us either, so we just need to grab all the guns from the Law-abiding.” And “the penny that will not drop”: why did all of the many encounters with police and the many complaints from the schools not create a red flag on the killer’s background check? Because NONE OF THEM WERE REPORTED TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES, in order to avoid the school district having a bad score in the discipline of minority students! But my gun in my safe is the real problem, right?!
As an aside, the execrable Mara Liasson committed all of the intellectual flimflammery above. Mara is a prime example of a “Bint”, which I just this morning realized is a perfect contraction of two words, the first beginning with a “BI” and the second ending in “NT”.
The argument is not that a good guy with a gun WILL stop a bad guy with a gun, but that a good guy with a gun CAN stop a bad guy with a gun, and that a good guy with a gun is for all practical purposes the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun. And of course the good guy with a gun has to be willing to stop the bad guy. By definition, cowering behind cover and failing to “march to the sound of the guns” is not a “good guy.”
Proof that the 2A is a not a birthright in any practical sense is evident: That supposed birthright exists for precisely as long as it does and not a second longer. Therefore, the right codified in 2A is subject to definition and definition needn’t include that intermediate step through G-d, another rather ephemeral construct no less tangible than this 2A right that apparently wafts through some intellectual heavens.
Does that mean you don’t have a right to defend yourself? Of course not. It means you have a right to defend yourself until you no longer have a right to defend yourself. Does that mean G-d doesn’t exist? Of course not. It means you can no more define G-d than you can own – in any sense other than mental – Its purported claim in favor of your “rights”. History deals with such harshly.
For all the world knows, your G-dly, unalienable right is a projection. And sure enough, for their and your joint purposes concerning the matter, all three indeed are.
Therefore, there is no intermediate intellectual step in or during which the right shall become somehow manifest in some greater sense, domain, or even in reality itself to be functionally rendered more meaningful, more viable, or more real. So why do rightists continually subscribe, in a world made mad with dozens of madnesses – not least of which being rightless, G-dless Progressivism – to this notion that not only is 2A’s principle codified in 2A as organic right of human spirit as real as that spirit itself, but that as such that it will thus justly inform The Mad?
I mean, anyone coming to take your rights, such as you believe them to be, doesn’t care, which explains why they come.
Beats me. All I know is I have this right to defend myself right up until the point in time when I do not. Seems to me that makes the thing one hell of a lot more meaningful than arguing about it with a willfully deaf psycho.
“…more meaningful than arguing about it…”
====================
I don’t argue about it because it is inarguable.
Except by idiots.
If asked, by an idiot or anyone else, I state what I have before and leave it at that.
If the other guy doesn’t get it that’s his problem.
Bottom line, my stuff is mine and nobody gets to say anything about it.
Better get used to the idea that there are a whole mess of criminals and people trying to be criminals in this country and you can never be sure who is who. Will your wife turn your ass in if they threatened to take her kids? Yeah, I’m an agitator, and I’m trying to make you think. Think a least 3 steps ahead at all times.
Just today I looked up a local mexican restaurant on google maps we went to on my birthday last month. Over in the left hand column it said I went there 3 weeks ago. WTF??? How did my computer know that? My cellphone told it. When I first bought this Win10 computer almost 2 years ago in the set up process it wanted to “sync” my devices and ignorantly I clicked yes. Now, everytime my phone is on and I’m going somewhere it is telling my desktop via gps where I’ve been.
Suppose there was a crime committed in proximity to the path that has been recorded who knows where from my phone? I could be arrested when they check the cellphone records from the towers around the crime scene and BAM now I’m a person of interest until such time my $100k lawyer says I ain’t. So this afternoon I did the research and uninstalled that function from the desktop and put my phone on permanent airplane mode. I’ve had cellphones since the early 90’s and a smartphone for the past 6 years and this week I’m going to pursue going back to a dumb clamshell if that is at all possible. The noose keeps getting tighter and tighter.
Conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights come from disagreements as to what their terms meant when codified and what common sense limits were to be applied so as not to detract from the rights of others.
[…]
The contest is among all those with valid arguments as to what is common sense.
Not exactly, or at the least, let’s develop that.
1. Intentionalism is a myth, but it’s a myth rightists get afoul of too much. Textualism is what powers our system, and as is noted above, the text is clear. “Conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights com[ing] from disagreements” is how that goes astray. Again, the text is clear.
2. There is, therefore, no real contest, especially among these common sense type intentionalists. Intentionalism is a myth, and it’s a myth rightists get afoul of too much.
Courts don’t interpret law. Courts apply law and to be law naturally the text must be clear. If the law is not clear, the Court shall send it back to the legislature. The court may not make a stovepipe into either a past participle or a loaf of rye, or more vividly, a penalty into a tax or whatever that preposterous thing was.
Ironically, conflicting interpretations of the Bill of Rights come not from disagreements per se, but from actual intent to disagree, interpretation being the Trojan Roberts. Which means there is no textual “contest” whenever there is a particularly partisan contest. As a present, running, political piece of rubber, the law is not particularly contestable. That would be the legislature, provided it does not subsequently rewrite the supreme law of the land with no official, legal notice to it.
Finally, something you wrote makes a little sense, although still dense. Mr Ten.
I’m someone who enjoys reading books that are old; a hundred years old, 200, or ancient in years. If you keep the language as is, especially when the original texts are in English, the use of the language can make things very hard to understand.
A little digging, and the 2A becomes not hard to get, but fairly plain. It has the grace, and simplicity or being short, as well. Jefferson intended (trigger word) all men to be armed, but that is written as is – not ciphered.
I also enjoyed when Penn and Teller did a short video on the 2A, where they take down the comma between the first 2 clauses.
The gun control advocates want mostly to hear themselves yelling. They certainly haven’t got common sense, as they keep asking for it. My proofs are that they are scared of the Armalite design, but haven’t got the foggiest clue as to what it is, or how it works. Very near to me is a loaded gun cabinet. I’d very much prefer being shot with an AR-15 than anything in that arsenal, if I had to be shot at all. And, in a stroke of grand irony, the government’s rounds for that weapon would please me far more than the civilian round.
And, this brings us back around to the whole reason for the people’s arsenal. It is unequivocally and robustly designed to be the guns of an irregular militia – a military force.
In my own defense, Kahn, I try to let my opinions be as informed as my self-image is mute. It seems some vaunted identitarians start their day with a nice steaming cup of quite the other way around. Call it rightist virtue-signalling.
Plus I can make paragraphs.
Anyway, good thing making “a little sense” finally dawned on you when it came to something as trivial as 2A. Imagine it being an important topic.
Ten,
You say “All I know is I have this right to defend myself right up until the point in time when I do not. ”
Based on what? I’ve used circular logic like that before, but only to be funny.
Nice paragraphs.
Rights come in two forms, Arkansas Slim, those you continually seize and those you do not have to continually seize. There is no such thing as a right you can point out written in the constellations by G-d that has all mankind in accord now and for evermore. Thus, a right you cannot point out written in the constellations shall by probable necessity not induce all mankind into accord.
You must assert, seize, and defend this “right”, and as it turns out most of the time, against a majority who just on the basis of their numbers, do not find it a right at all. You will argue the definitions. Hey, so are we.
This structure of reality is called linear logic. A thing exists unless the thing does not exist. A thing exists until such time as the thing does not exist. If, say, Kentucky Crockett has it on good local authority that he has a G-d-given right he then finds nobody but he subscribes to, then naturally only he’ll subscribe to that “right”. The “right” is not a Right except if he can enforce it, such as he may be.
Likewise, a Framer may rightly and wisely and, well, somewhat fancifully claim G-d has given man the Right to self-defense, a premise I would not argue with except to point out that unless a bunch of people agree to enforce it as such it remains a fancy and an intellectual projection, not unlike G-d Itself. This aspect of reality is also called linear logic.
On the other hand, circular logic would, say, “G-d gives me Right X and you may not violate it. Therefore you shall not violate it because G-d and I say so”. This is similar to the circularity that claims the Bible to be infallible because it itself says so.
This does not mean either assertion is ultimately untrue, it means that it argues a specious, circular assertion and seeks to project it forward as a thing it can never be, which is a notion, ideal, or principle. Meanwhile, it was already functionally not a Right among all those immune to it being one. It’s unlikely they’ll wake up one day and realize how wrong they were and call you on the phone to apologize.
Here’s one: If this has to be pointed out more than once is the argument itself circular? Because it keeps circling back to the same empty claim, and that claim really goes solely to the definition of The Right. Given the propensity of Proggism to mess with definitions in order to be lunatic, good luck with that. To us both, because I don’ t happen to disagree with you or Stovepipe Bob, just the notion that you’ll get anywhere with all that outside of your own circle. Which could be a single person.
I’m pretty sure the neighbor’s cat and the neighbor both agree that the neighbor is Fred Astaire. It appears that as well-intentioned as both areknown to be, this agreement they have does not make it so.
At the time the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written the printing press was the only means, besides word of mouth and individual hand written letters, that “freedom of speech” could be exercised.
The Founders obviously could not envision radio, TV, the internet/smart phones. Therefore, these devices of communication obviously should not be allowed to spread slander, falsehoods, half-truths or outright lies….or things I simply don’t practically like. So please stop, I don’t like ye having all of this freedom. You simply don’t need it, nor is it necessary.
If ye would like to exercise the 1st Amendment, please use a horse with a gentleman rider, preferable with a tricorn, to send forth a letter.
Otherwise, I’m afraid our differences shall have to be settled by what was customary of that particular period – a duel with pistols.
Salutations
So, Mr. Ten, Sir, can you please enlighten me, linearly, what, exactly, is your opinion on firearm ownership by individuals who are classified as citizens of a State?
Answer: That that State, being of our kind and type and having been established by our original means, is a government of us the people, a people who agree, for as long as possible, that enormous personal autonomy and sovereignty naturally carry with them the right to self defense. And that agreement can be called a Right but it is precisely no more or less transcendent or immutable or unalienable or especially G-d-given than your “right” to free speech is in China.
Or Canada.
The Framers were bright guys and well-moved but surely even they knew they were projecting Rights into the gale of history. If only G-d and G-d-given rights were what we absolutely know and can forever rely on as tangible, concrete absolutes. What they really are – including to us too – are abstracts and intangibles and variable definitions.
I think they knew that. And that knowledge is probably what led them to interrupt the natural flow of humanity by interjecting these Rights as specific exceptions to it. Because they are not concrete and absolute they needed to be proclaimed, even if G-d Itself moved it to be. We know that too: We use them as instruments of exceptionalism because that’s what they are. But they make poor arguments against our usual history and against its miserable status quo. That stuff simply does not care.
Were Rights discovered as nuggets dispensed from above? Who knows; that’s part of the endless debate as to just what they are. But even if they were, they are entirely and forever, as far as any of us know, ours to keep or to screw up. And that again makes them our projections.
Mr. Ten. Quite evidently, the answer to my previously stated question, which was straight forward and rather unequivocal, is, no. You cannot.
For the purposes of clarity, simplicity, complexity, uncertainty, accuracy and common sense —
Is 2A in agreement that a murderous, insane criminal
has a right to own and bear arms? Does common sense come into play? What would be the intention, the purpose, the significance, the net value of interpretation modifying the ‘simple’ reading of the 2A text?
In a better world each law would in detail take into account all appeals to its future applicability.
What does simple reading of 2A say about gun rights of a violent paranoid? Are common sense judgements to be made and actions taken on likelihood of imminent violent felony?
Re Ten on Intention:
Absent intention, only random action. I agree with you that, God or no God, we choose the standards by which we live. Along with the 10C, I try my best to live by the 11th Commandment, ‘Fool neither yourself or others.’
Generous of you to have added that handy tip about self-evidence, Venlet. But while such an opinion is of enormous importance, can you elaborate on just how you came to be this sensitive and reactive to the general topic? Because that seems not to be evident.
This is why the school shooter wasn’t in the database and could buy the gun.
https://www.browardprevention.org/behavior/promise/
Ten, perhaps I would elaborate if you would provide a clear and concise opinion to my previously and politefully requested question. Failing that, I shall not run on the gerbil wheel, as you seem to be so fond of doing.
In the simplest of terms the 2A is a limit on gov’t force.
The right was already existing when the 2A was written.
It is against the law for the gov’t to violate that right.
The gov’t has already violated the 2A many times.
In 1973 when I was 18 years old I walked into a store and bought a brand new Winchester .22 rifle and all I had to do was show my drivers license to verify my age, paid the coin, and walked out. No questions asked, no paperwork to fill out.
2 months ago I tried to buy a gun at a store and after filling out the 4473 form in a digital kiosk I was turned down, no reason given. I checked back every few days for a month and was never given “permission” to buy that gun. Though I got my deposit back for the gun I did not get back my $15 fee for the NICS (background) check. My so called 2A right was violated egregiously.
You see what happened there? I was ripped off for $15 and there is nothing I can do about it. The thief is a faceless entity at a distance. Checking around, a lot of people will tell the same story. My neighbor said he’s been turned down 8 times in the past 2 years. Do the math on what his “right” has cost him recently. 1 more way the gov’t steals from the citizenry. But since my guns are stored in my office everything related to them expense wise is written off as a “””business expense”””.
I have held concealed weapon licenses in several states for more than 30 years, I’m an honorably discharged army veteran, have never been convicted of any crime except minor traffic stuff long ago, have more than 2 dozen fingerprints on file in various gov’t requirements, purchased several firearms in the previous year, but I was still turned down for this particular gun, a S&W Victory .22 pistol.
“”” “”” You have to be smarter than the average bear to survive in business in this communist country. A goodly portion of my time while being in business since 1986 has been to stay out of the way of the numerous layers of gov’t criminals while still trying to make a living. As a friend from communist Czechoslovakia back in the 60’s once said, “When the rules get tougher the people get sneakier.”
You’re a little too flip for me, Venlet. I filled the letter of your request and instead of realizing that, you deferred to some primeval need to disagree with the guy probably more on board with your 2A rights than any.
This is, as I alluded, because you are reflexive and hypersensitive to the stuff you make up and project onto others. I doubt you even know why.
And that, folks, is what’s wrong with the right, by the way.
Ghost,
The gun store must be charging you the $15. NICS does not cost anything. I’ve done dozens and dozens of NICS background checks and have the FBI number on speed dial. I have never experienced a person being denied, only delayed. After a few days, if there is no further response, you should be able to buy the gun. If you have a CCH local to your state then you should not have to go through NICS background check. The CCH information should be put on the FED form and you should be good to go.
At our gun range we occasionally identify what we consider a straw purchaser or someone that doesn’t have all their dogs barking. We get all the NICS information then deny the purchase on the straw purchaser then turn it over to the ATF. Video, testimony, paperwork with fingerprints etc. to convict is all available. Nobody has been called to trial, so probably nobody every got charged. I had one guy wanting to buy a 1911 once, but he was talking kind of crazy and had a hint of alcohol on his breath. I politely pulled him aside and advised him I would not sell him anything. He politely left.
Ten. I’m sorry you consider me flip. I’m simply being direct.
Ten: Obviously, rights are a construct.
Venlet: Enlighten me, linearly, what, exactly, is your opinion on firearm ownership by individuals who are classified as citizens of a State?
Ten: Sure, I’ll bite: My opinion is that the State, being us, originally and principally agree – that being our construct – that with responsibility and liberty comes the right to self defense.
Venlet: Quite evidently, the answer to my previously stated question, which was straight forward and rather unequivocal, is, no. You cannot.
Ten: I’m sorry, what? Is it “no” or “I cannot”. Because it’s evidently yes and evidently I just did. So can you elaborate on just how you came to be this sensitive and reactive to the general topic? Or are you trolling.
Venlet: Ten, perhaps I would elaborate if you would provide a clear and concise opinion to my previously and politefully requested question. Cause I don’t do gerbils. Neener neener no tap backs.
Ten: I’m sorry; are you under the impression I owe you something?
Venlet: I’m just being direct, dude!
Ten:
Venlet:
Ten: You’re a very special case, aren’t you?
For the rationally religious and those religiously rational, I recommend the many YouTube entries treating Stoicism. Seneca’s ‘On Anger’ is a nourishing place to meet. See ya there.
Ogoous
U
Casey’s right, about the AR15 effectiveness. I too have some guns that can create far more devastating wounds, at greater distances. But when it comes to home defense I grab the Remington 870 marine magnum with mag extension. It is probably the most universal firearm I own and the one I have the most experience with and am most comfortable with. For distances from point blank out to say 100′ or so nothing on this planet can cover the bases like a well earned 870. Nothing.
If a highly experienced shooter went into densely populated area with an 870 the toll could be very high, well over 100 easily. Packed into a small room, each shot would kill multiple people, with say, 00 up to maybe #4 shot. The AR is shooting individual BB’s in comparison and 30 rd mags won’t change that because an experienced shooter can reload an 870 as fast as he can pull the trigger, with either hand, from underneath or over the top, doesn’t matter. A dump bag on his left hip with 200+ rounds and he’ll be there all day long.
So if the time ever comes that my guns go fishing in a lake or auctioned from an abandoned storage unit the 870 will still be right here.
And that, folks, is what’s wrong with the right, by the way..
Ghost, I had to get an extra full choke to reach my version (Mossberg) out to a hundred yards. Even so, I’d have to be highly motivated to shoot at that range. I won’t throw a slug past 50 yards, and my aim point is modified for that.
(saving the planet one return saved at a time, my next paragraph begins here…)You’re totally correct that it’s an all purpose weapon that trumps the AT most of the time, in my mind. It basically covers the yard to the edge of the field. Don S. makes an interesting defense of the .223 in his comment elsewhere.
Donald Sensing, I cannot dispute your or your CID assessments, but am left wondering why the troops in OEF complained about lack of Hadji penetration. A jammie-wearing NVA guy, wasted away on rice and snake, may be struck down by the round, but a #230 American male is a whole ‘nother critter. Some reports from Las Vegas had rounds not penetrating (probably in the 300 yrd ranges), and I myself have found my .223 round just sitting on top of the snow downrange. I don’t chamber that round in anything I own anymore, and have never fired it into ballistic jelly or anything of that sort.
Fascinating about the yaw, and it turns me off to the weapon.
Mr Ten. Since you have shown that your authority is self-derived, I find it real hard to accept your rationale for anything. Hubris much?
Perhaps I may try. Just joshing you Mr. Ten, but I find your prose a little too dense for my taste. I’ve had my fair share of philosophy classes and was thrilled by all of them, especially when I could decode the unique and preciseful manner in which things are discussed. Nevertheless, when writing for a diverse audience, it helps to kis. Which I’ve found to be difficult for me to do successfully. Respect your audience. Don’t make then work so hard.
1. We have always had the right to defend our lives, our family, and our communities. We haven’t always had the effective power. For far too long, kings and conquerors held overwhelming power over us helots.
2. We have always had the power to kill our children. But it was rarely ever considered a right. Most people, from the most primitive barbarian societies to the present, found it to be at least a deeply unsettling and distasteful practice. That took (and still takes) some serious religious fervor or strong cultural mandates to overcome.
3. From these two extremes I then claim that a right is what each person has equally. Their life, their family’s lives, their chosen communities. Their liberty to choose the actions of their lives. Their choice of life’s goals.
4. The RKBA has become a first class right by the invention and refinement of firearms. (I won’t define
“first class” here. tl;ywnr itykwim) Now every citizen is as powerful as any of the king’s men. And by the 2A, we have told our government exactly that. Naturally enough, all the wannabe kings and their filthy minions and courtiers and henchmen just despise that galling restriction. Hence their never-ending quest to deny to us the effective power to defend ourselves, our family, and our communities.
5. The police have become the king’s men and the standing occupying army so despised by the Founders. We the People must be their equal. Never give up our guns. Never give in, never surrender.
6. Western women and some men are crazy. For almost the first time in history, every woman has the legally-protected power to kill their children without consequences. And such power burns their soul, as the frantic efforts to preserve it demonstrate.
I’m moderately surprised by that finding, Kahn, but naturally not by the tone. In with all your usual self-exultation – that whole ‘Murican, identitarian, online shtick of yours – somehow “hubris” is suddenly the net result of the other guy’s simple reasoning things out.
I suppose what you’re trying to claim is that whole “since all rights derive from G-d” thing, etc, but what you’re really saying is that you haven’t a clue what that means, which has been my point in a somewhat more pragmatic, theologically-rigorous framework. I’d say you’re blundering into the bald assertion many have that your rugged faith powers your generally rigorous premise while at the same instant not realizing what faith is. As in, G-d gave us faith but the Founding, the Founding gave us absolutely certainty. Sorry, G-d, but we’ll take it from here … and oh by the way, it’d be hubristic to come to any other conclusion.
I imagine in your world it would be.
But this is in a nutshell the rightist, cultural, identity-centric ball of goo that we see all over these days as a reactionary counter, such as it is, to walls of psychotic leftist virtue-signalling. The Superior Rightist just knows stuff that, being of Superior Rightism, is naturally superior and out here in 2018 should be just as public and just as signally. It is assumed that by projecting it right back that the left, with all its genuine psychosis, is expected to know this stuff by sound or contact – this admitted faith-based stuff – and by knowing it – which the Superior Rightist constantly accords is his emblem and article of faith – the leftist shall be, what, exactly? Enlightened, illuminated, converted, reformed, rendered respectful, or simply crushed of and by these utterly concrete yet faith-based constructs?
I guess the way this works is that G-d gave specifically the Founding something that was so concrete that to not accept it was akin to rejecting a belief. Which would be hubristic. Of course nobody knows quite what it is, including the Superior Rightist, but by gum he’s superior because of it. But this is not pride. This is a derived Something Certain, this external pride and self-centeredness and taking-it-on-faith all in one.
So it’s kind of a surprise to realize that after looking into stuff for over half a century you find yourself staring down the barrel of one loaded identitarian Pharasee or another, to coin a phrase, and then finding that having questioned Superior Rightism, that one is oneself terminally prideful. Just because.
The problem, Kahn, is that theologically that isn’t your father’s old school mobile. That is instinctive, self-oriented rightist identitarianism and that is indeed what they used to warn against in the pews and from the pulpits…
6. The vote on Roe vs. Wade was 7-2. Those justices supporting the case’s pro-choice outcome were as follows, including the president nominating each and the president’s party affiliation:
Harry Blackmun (Nixon, R)
Warren Burger (Nixon, R)
William Douglas (FDR, D)
William Brennan (Eisenhower, R)
Potter Stewart (Eisenhower, R)
Thurgood Marshall (LBJ, D)
Lewis Powell (Nixon, R)
Those dissenting on Roe vs. Wade — only two – and both were not Republican-president-nominated to the Court:
Byron White (Kennedy, D)
William Rehnquist (Nixon, R; chief justice under Reagan, R)I
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-supporters-roe-vs-wade-was-decided-by-a-republican_us_581fbd44e4b044f827a78f87
And not a single woman among them. Some Western men and women are crazy. Sorry to intrude into your gun discussion, which concludes with the same old same old. I am triggered.
I appreciate your comments, John, and, if anyone cares to inspect my own stuff, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that I find them as agreeable as they are rational.
The element I’m challenging, however, is the disconnect between the first two sentences in your first point and the enormous tension laid against “rights” by the last three of your fifth. Immediately we come to the problem of definitions. And given the tension in that fifth point, the word “rights” becomes a projection the moment it’s born.
In other words, it is a construct and it exists for not a moment longer than it does. In any way that matters, it ceases when it ceases. At that moment it may continue on as an ideal but it is certainly no right. Yes, the nation is whacked and yes we have no right, for example, to kill babies. But yes we do, because we are whacked.
But G-d! we say. Yes, and?
So let’s define the right as such before we stand pat on our vigorous, purely intellectual resistance. Let’s define where rights really derive from and how because of not they’re just some guy on a soapbox in his driveway.
If the ostensible political right would only realize that having pretty much squandered all the other rights it’s a little hollow to make a cultural sacrament and badge of identity out of this particular one, maybe one ounce and than a second ounce of liberty could be reclaimed. Because it was the political right that sacrificed a nation and it was the political right that did it by sloth and arrogance and the same appeals to pride and culture that are more or less all it has even now to recommend it.
Amazingly, there have been or are half a dozen movements of far more actual structural, original, conservative, and constitutional weight than the typical normie boomer rightist bullshit out there is, and all that identity-signalling that looks like one hell of a capitulation.
This is getting to be a little more than ridiculous.
I’m outta here.
Ten, Good Morning. I’ll respond to a few of your statements.
…My opinion is that the State, being us, originally and principally agree – that being our construct – that with responsibility and liberty comes the right to self defense.
While I am in agreement with your statement, above, for some reason you remain evasive to my original inquiry, to wit, the ownership of firearms by private individuals, citizens. The right of self defense and the possession of firearms are two distinctly different things.
I’m sorry; are you under the impression I owe you something?
Not whatsoever, Ten. I simply value honesty and straightforwardness when conversing with individuals, and I do not perceive these traits in your evasions to direct questions asked of you.
You’re a very special case, aren’t you?
That’s what my mom always told me, though being one child of eight in my family, I didn’t necessarily believe her.
As always, Venlet, any claim by this state shall derive from just powers, naturally, and that brings us right to our meaningful answer and the one that counts, the one I believe you’ve had for awhile. The state isn’t wielding legitimate power as you see it? Then your right does not exist, except mentally. See: totalitarianism and free speech.
Those and only terms condition the firearms indicated in 2A. Like I and probably a hundred or more have observed over the last couple of centuries – possibly even here; you could check yourself – the original textual language is plain and unconditional.
Apparently you find this reasoning something I need to clear up or pass muster concerning. So let me ask you, based on this evident reasoning, what do you suppose is my position on firearms?
***
I generally don’t claim the higher ground with quite your unabashedness, Venlet, but being that as it may, in other company we’ve probably all detected a faint intellectual dishonesty to posing instead of positioning, one potentially compounded by, I’m afraid, appeals to one’s own integrity. While tempted to defer and take you at your word in this case, I must confess to a tinge of demotivation. Forgive my not rushing to cater to your clear and non-evasive requirements.
Arms? I don’t recall deconstructing or revising the 2A concerning them but I think I remember advocating for its plain, textual language.
I don’t really read your tedious posts, Mr Ten. You make assertions disparaging God, but He is not mocked.
Do you understand the meaning of authority? Hint: it resides outside of you. That is to say, it resides outside of persons for whom God is their sufficiency. All others are self-authorizing. No thanks. Your ruminations are venal, not to mention uninteresting.
“God”, Kahn? Venal?
Concerning what you want to insist is my character so as to diminish it, there for want of basis you simply stoop to another rude fabrication – maybe Kahn always projects where he hasn’t the sense to grasp and he smears where apparently he hasn’t the integrity to control himself. If so, this taking of liberties generally this owes to a dimness of intellect and a shallowness of character. You have no more idea of my […] of G-d than, I wager, you could ever of “God” Itself.
The same holds for authority.
Do you know why I use G-d, Kahn? Why there is no word for […]? I suspect you do not.
Johnson observed that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Speaking for “God” is likewise the first recourse of the arrogantly, ignorantly, Pharisaically hidebound. In fact, it is the biblical taking the Lord’s name in vain. (Here again, this is why cultural identitarian rightism is a intellectual disaster.)
Ten, you go on and on with your paragraphs, and yet you cannot answer a direct and simple question. Additionally, you ask me to inform you what your position in on private firearm ownership based on your many, many paragraphs. I shall presume to do no such thing, that onus is yours, and yours alone. I will not hold my breath that you will clearly answer my original question.
While you quite clearly have the ability to reason, Ten, your replies to comments directed to you in this thread border on, unfortunately, soliloquy.
Oh, it’s an “onus” now. In other words, I do owe you.
You have some indeterminate axe to grind and as you see it, I’m the nearest wheel. That would be both fallacious and, well, dishonest, as dishonest as expecting me defend myself over and over against all that cheese you keep projecting that I’ve already addressed what, four times?
Your welcome’s plumb wore out, Chief.
After 4 budweiser tall boys in a row I can piss my entire 34 letter full name in the snow in uppercase gothic.
If you can do 35 or more you are the new winner!
What a convoluted web we have woven here. The Founders, on the other hand, were quite direct and simple. They thought it self-evident that:
1) All men (that is, all human beings) are created on an equal level (important here beyond the notion of equality before the law, is the determination that men are created, and that there is a Creator who did that)
2) Part of what defines being human, is that each individual human is “endowed” with certain “rights” by that Creator – this means that these “rights” are integral, and any infringement of them goes against the wishes/plans of that Creator – so they are called inalienable.
3) These “rights” include (but may not necessarily be limited to) the right to life (that is, the right and responsibility of each individual to defend his life) – to liberty – and to the pursuit of happiness –
4) Those last two “rights” need not detain us here – it is the right to “life” upon which the Second Amendment rests – the Founders thought that (legitimate) government was a collective tool to guarantee protection of those individual rights – any government that infringed those rights was contrary to natural law, and it was the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
5) That thinking carries over into the design of the Federal government we find in the Constitution, it being constrained and limited in order that individuals be free
6) In addition to the individual right of self-defense, the Founders thought that the people had to be able to defend themselves against an illegitimate government, and that therefore, the individuals who make up the people had to be proficient in the use of arms (“well regulated”) and that therefore, the government of a free people must never infringe their right to keep and bear arms
7)The AR-15 is a very widely used platform with much going for it. The history of its early testing in the field remains somewhat controversial. In less-than-perfect hands, the piston-operated mechanism of the AK-47 and -74 is probably more reliable that the gas tube of the AR-15. I think the M-14 is probably superior to both “assault rifle” platforms.
8) There was a time in this country, within living memory, when high school ROTC units were equipped with (fully automatic-capable) M-14 battle rifles, without any undue consequences of which I am aware
9) The problems we’re seeing in this country are not gun-related, they are culture-related, and go far beyond school shootings. The consequences of the Gramscian assault on our morality, our politics, and our cultural heritage are even worse in other spheres of life
Ghostsniper for the win! Venlet, out.
“…when high school ROTC units were equipped with (fully automatic-capable) M-14 battle rifles…”
=======================
Doubtful.
A real “automatic” rifle carried by school kids?
Just like that business about school kids with rifles in gun racks in their trucks for shooting during school competitions. I was in schools in rural Gettysburg and suburban Florida from 1959-1972 (K-12) and never seen anyone with a gun on school property and I’ve talked to several other people older than me and they never seen it neither.
Anyway, my dad and I were driving past Cypress Lake High School mid-day around 1970 and there were some ROTC doods out on the field with their white wooden guns and my dad said, “I remember seeing Russian kids marching with guns on TV and Walter Cronkite said how terrible it was how they train their kids to be soldiers.”
A few years later my youngest brother was one of those students at CLHS carrying a fake gun, and I was in Germany carrying a real one and now forty years later our oldest grandaughter is carrying a fake gun too.
“We” have become “Them”.
Did they become us?
Ghost,
As a 1983 graduate of a high school in a semi-small town, I can attest to seeing shotguns in the gun rack in the back of pick up trucks in the high school parking lot. There were no shooting sports at school. After a discussion during drafting class about Ruger single action revolvers, the next day one guy brought in a Blackhawk .357 cloaked in a brown paper bag, to show the teacher. Mr. Brown, as I recall now, was a rather pragmatic guy and fond of firearms as I am today. He did not over react to the student bringing the pistol to class. He admired it when presented, then said “Let me hang onto this until after school”. Then he gave it back to the student, who took it back home. No drama, no SWAT team, probably just a kind word of advisement to not bring such to school again.
@Snake, our experiences differ. I never seen it.
Things were still somewhat reasonable in 1983 but by the time jethro klintin came on board in 92 the foundation crumbling was very obvious and now it is completely gone.
1983…bought my first AR-15. A Colt. $550 including tax.