Gun Control

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
901

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Indeed.

“Talking around it,” perverting it, twisting it, misinterpreting the semantics, etc., have all been done for decades. The 2nd says what it means and means what it says. The Founders and their countrymen wanted, and established, a union of sovereign states that retained the ability to throw off the yoke of tyranny when the need arose – that is absolutely crystal fucking clear from reading “straight history.”

Those like you and many others who desire even more egregious infringements than you do need to just buck up and repeal it or clarify it to your liking with another amendment. THAT is the answer.

Pussy-footing around with all sorts of contortions in an attempt to get what you want any other way just won’t cut it.[/quote]

Non-answer. C’mon - which is it? Which do you believe is right?

902

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

The answer is an easy one - of course the Second Amendment cannot be read to allow for private owernship of any weapon available to a government. That would compromise the federal government’s ability to defend from external threats, which is its number one job.
[/quote]

No. This is your answer.
Your opinion. Your logic.

A non-sequitur from authoritarians with delusional fantasies about Government goody goody righteousness in the name of Love for authoritarian boots ( public safety ).

If you are going to deflect every argument because you already have a predetermined answer then any interaction with you is in fact a lecture from you.

It is not that you are refusing to dance, rather it is a requirement for those wishing to engage in a debate with you to march to the beat of the drums of your Statist mentality.

907

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

No. This is your answer.
Your opinion. Your logic.[/quote]

Well, uh, yeah. Mighty observant of you.

Well, no, it’s the opposite of a non-sequitur - my argument is “what follows” if you abide by that position.

I didn’t deflect an argument - I provided one, a direct one. I explained, “here is where such a position logically leads.” If I’m wrong, explain why.

This gets old and dumb. I am attacknig an argument the libertarians keep offering up. They don’t have an answer for the issue I pointed out (and so did Smh23). That isn’t forcing them to “dance with me”. It’s…wait for it…debating.

908

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

The answer is an easy one - of course the Second Amendment cannot be read to allow for private owernship of any weapon available to a government. That would compromise the federal government’s ability to defend from external threats, which is its number one job.
[/quote]

No. This is your answer.
Your opinion. Your logic.

A non-sequitur from authoritarians with delusional fantasies about Government goody goody righteousness in the name of Love for authoritarian boots ( public safety ).

If you are going to deflect every argument because you already have a predetermined answer then any interaction with you is in fact a lecture from you.

It is not that you are refusing to dance, rather it is a requirement for those wishing to engage in a debate with you to march to the beat of the drums of your Statist mentality.
[/quote]

I see many words and literally no argument.

“The Second Amendment cannot be read to allow for private ownership of any weapon available to a government. That would compromise the federal government’s ability to defend from external threats, which is its number one job.”

If you disagree, the debate will progress only if you attack the argument with which you disagree. Directly.

909

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

[quote]Schlenkatank wrote:
The pen is mightier than the sword. Americans have no need to take arms against our government, for it would not only be a hopeless battle but an unnecessary and romanticized act of aggression.

Want proof. Look at this man. He does no favors for the advocacy of the right to have an “armed revolution”.

[/quote]

Actually he does.

Think about it, the conversation about this issue went about “gun control now !” to “executive order !” now to “make recommendations.”

Someone finally decided to read the Constitution and figure out that the Great Oz cannot use any of his magic on this issue.

Not just that, but people made enough noise and Obama has enough sense not to piss off the NRA, so he throws out useless Joe Biden to address the issue.

This is some of the worst political bullshit I have seen from Obama, come on, sit down with video game makers ? WTF ! Are you telling me that any of this bullshit would have stopped Lanza or the Aurora shooter, or even the Taft shooter who shot the kid who bullied him ?

These incidents will continue to happen, because you cannot legislate crazy.

There are tons of Lefties who like their guns as well, so it is no surprise why Dems lost on this issue decades ago. They are trying to use this issue to throw a Hail Mary pass in the attempts that made they shake the crazy tree a bit and make some progress.

Not a chance, nothing will pass in the House, not a single thing. [/quote]

No he doesn’t.

In this “interview” Alex Jones proves himself to be an emotional heap of resentment, confusion, insecurity and incoherence. At no point in the interview did he answer a single question, let alone admit that the gun murder rate is 52 times higher per capita in America than in England. His time on CNN only goes to show that the groups that have ardently touted their rights to own guns are fearful and irrational.

I reject your idea that because the idea of gun control is reaching the middle that it means gun control is losing steam. Quite the contrary, I think it means there will be an attempt to solve the issue soon. For example, I believe I have grown from reacting to this latest event. I now think that teachers should have a way to protect their kids, possibly with handguns. I also feel, however, that guns should be owned responsibly, should be made less available to the general public, and should have stricter regulations. I would be happy to elucidate those regulations.

910

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[argument that the Second Amendment forbids arms beyond that which can be hand-held[/quote]

Your mistake, Alpha F, is not recognizing that Smh23 is assuming for the purposes of the argument the position taken by DoubleDuce, Jay Pierce and Pushharder, that the Second Amendment guarantees that private citizens to weapons that would provide an equal and fair fight against the federal tyrant. Smh23 assumes that argument and takes that argument to its logical endpoint (and so have I).

Your argument, as stated, does not assume the argument put forth by DoubleDuce, Jay Pierce and Pushharder, and instead refutes it from the outset - if you’re right, at the time of the Founding, militia were even limited to “arms” instead of “ordinance” (which the government clearly had), and so there was never this “Second Amendment demands equality of weapons between citizens and the federal government” theory, even at the time of ratification.

That’s fine, but it doesn’t refute Smh23’s point that the position leads to a logical absurdity.[/quote]

No, you assert mistake, but do not demonstrate it. You also clearly fail to recognize that I’m not required to ride the coattails of any other argument.

I had zero interest in engaging in the absurdity of (paraphrased) “Well, if the people must be permitted to have weapons of the same power as the government, then the government cannot be allowed to have weapons sufficient to defend the country, therefore the Second Amendment cannot prohibit infringement of the right to keep and bear arms. So it allows the government to decide what arms will be allowed, for example according to public safety, for example to allegedly reduce risk of school shootings.”

If any cannot see through that themselves, then nothing from anyone will aid their incapacity.

And no, I’m not interested in any arguments that the above may not be an exact paraphrase. If you don’t agree it captures the essence closely enough, then that is your prerogative.

Simply because you may think I should have addressed that argument, let alone that your opinion is that I should have held myself within the bounds of that absurdity, does not make it so. You don’t get to define the parameters of people’s discussion. You’re not the chosen lecturer and this is not your classroom.

911

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

Fissile material is not inherently evil, either. Should someone with the financial means to procure and process it be allowed to do so?

[/quote]

Here we go again with the tired and weak debate strategy that says, “Shucks, if we can’t ban AR-15’s we wouldn’t be able to ban ICBM’s. Now all we ‘reasonable’ people admit that ICBM’s are out of bounds so let’s just continue to be ‘reasonable’ by conceding the government can ban “military-looking” weapons as well.”
[/quote]

No, it is the natural argument that arises in response to that particular line of thought. It is the reductio ad absurdum of the proposition in question.[/quote]

I would hope that it would not be natural for any person to make this absurd argument.

There is here neglect that what was written is “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” and not different things that the founding fathers didn’t write, such as “the right to keep arms and ordnance shall not be infringed” or “the right to keep and deploy (or other word) arms and ordnance shall not be infringed.”

If they had chosen to write something of those sorts, then perhaps - perhaps - the above extension to absurdity could at least begin to have some aspect of some sort to it. But, they didn’t.

There’s also rarely, if ever, any use to a reductio ad absurdum that is in fact not parallel. To be valid, each detail has to hold up. Otherwise it is nothing but absurd.

From Miller, “ordinarily when called for service [militiamen during the late eighteenth century] were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.”

So, today, do our servicemen show up with their own weapons-grade uranium or plutonium? Obviously not, and since they don’t, smh’s attempt to make fissile material part of the same category as hand-carryable arms is absurd and shows nothing other than the lengths he will go to.

As reported in https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:_UGl0su-vK8J:www.law.ku.edu/sites/law.drupal.ku.edu/files/docs/law_review/v60/05_Obermeier_Final.pdf+ordnance+arms+“second+amendment”+-ordinance&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi6lsd5XZvP4QmTg_xo_vM22b1AGNBibn63BBp225H_4uHUqUjQFpZIdIWfZ8wZiB5W6J3vz70KhGl9iDN1ggVMbR0Ga8l1ntp0fBZtz2gBYDYttRwwJGHm3C81NeAdfgffzinO&sig=AHIEtbRjjFupKztBL3gwFPh5Z5bUk9wCuA, regarding Scalia’s writing for the majority decision, "Specifically, the Court considered what “arms” were protected under the Second Amendment, giving rise to a number of important and, at times, seemingly contradictory points. For one, it noted that “arms” did not only refer to weapons useful in a military setting, as had frequently been claimed. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the Court held that, much like the First and Fourth Amendments, the Second Amendment was not a static creature, constrained to protect only the types of arms that existed during the time of the Framers: “[T]he Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

From Webster’s dictionary of 1828, which is about as authoritative as one can get with regard to American word meaning in that day, while there appears not to be an absolute distinction between “arms” and “ordnance,” the definition of “arms” with regard to law is:

In law, arms are any thing which a man takes in his hand in anger, to strike or assault another.

while the definition for “ordnance” is:

ORD’NANCE, n. [from ordinance.] Cannon or great guns, mortars and howitzers; artillery.

So if there was an understood distinction where arms - let alone arms that one can “bear” - usually did not mean heavy weapons and ordnance most often meant heavy weapons, and clearly they did not choose the word ordnance, it may be that the Second Amendment, as in Supreme Court decisions, refers to arms that can be carried. And not to ordnance that cannot be carried let alone the absurd such as nuclear weapons, stocks of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, tanks, bomb-loaded F-16’s, etc.

It might even be that when arguments descent to such absurdity, it is because those making them have nothing, thus bringing them to such an empty resort.[/quote]

Jesus.

I was applying reductio ad absurdum to the following:

“And just like when a gun is used for something wrong (murder, robbery, etc), the person is punished, when someone uses words in an evil manner (slander, false accusations, etc), they can be punished. Neither the guns nor the words are inherently evil, so neither should be illegal. When either is USED for evil, the people at fault need to be punished.”

Not to the letter of the Second Amendment.

Get things straight in your head before wasting time shadow-boxing an argument that doesn’t exist and was never made.

912

Whatever.

913

[quote]Schlenkatank wrote:
For example, I believe I have grown from reacting to this latest event. I now think that teachers should have a way to protect their kids, possibly with handguns.
[/quote]

Why this event? PLENTY of school shootings have happened in the relatively recent past…

What makes this one so special?

LESS available? How so? It isn’t THAT hard to manufacture a gun that works reasonably well; make guns more expensive and harder to get, and you simply make this a more profitable field for criminals to get involved in.

You know, just like making “evil” drugs illegal made them a more profitable business for criminals. What kind of regulations are you talking about? I want to know.

914

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

-Thomas Jefferson in response to Shays’ Rebellion

“But the true barriers of our liberty in this country are our State governments; and the wisest conservative power ever contrived by man, is that of which our Revolution and present government found us possessed. Seventeen distinct States, amalgamated into one as to their foreign concerns, but single and independent as to their internal administration.”

-Thomas Jefferson

(Do states still have ANY powers that can’t be superceded by the federal government?)

915

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[argument that the Second Amendment forbids arms beyond that which can be hand-held[/quote]

Your mistake, Alpha F, is not recognizing that Smh23 is assuming for the purposes of the argument the position taken by DoubleDuce, Jay Pierce and Pushharder, that the Second Amendment guarantees that private citizens to weapons that would provide an equal and fair fight against the federal tyrant. Smh23 assumes that argument and takes that argument to its logical endpoint (and so have I).

Your argument, as stated, does not assume the argument put forth by DoubleDuce, Jay Pierce and Pushharder, and instead refutes it from the outset - if you’re right, at the time of the Founding, militia were even limited to “arms” instead of “ordinance” (which the government clearly had), and so there was never this “Second Amendment demands equality of weapons between citizens and the federal government” theory, even at the time of ratification.

That’s fine, but it doesn’t refute Smh23’s point that the position leads to a logical absurdity.[/quote]

No, you assert mistake, but do not demonstrate it. You also clearly fail to recognize that I’m not required to ride the coattails of any other argument.

I had zero interest in engaging in the absurdity of (paraphrased) “Well, if the people must be permitted to have weapons of the same power as the government, then the government cannot be allowed to have weapons sufficient to defend the country, therefore the Second Amendment cannot prohibit infringement of the right to keep and bear arms. So it allows the government to decide what arms will be allowed, for example according to public safety, for example to allegedly reduce risk of school shootings.”

If any cannot see through that themselves, then nothing from anyone will aid their incapacity.

And no, I’m not interested in any arguments that the above may not be an exact paraphrase. If you don’t agree it captures the essence closely enough, then that is your prerogative.

Simply because you may think I should have addressed that argument, let alone that your opinion is that I should have held myself within the bounds of that absurdity, does not make it so. You don’t get to define the parameters of people’s discussion. You’re not the chosen lecturer and this is not your classroom.[/quote]

Discussion works like this:

Claim.

Counterclaim, addressing, expanding upon, and/or refuting the substance of the claim.

Counter-counterclaim.

And so on.

If you don’t want to do this, then opt out.

916

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

No, you assert mistake, but do not demonstrate it. You also clearly fail to recognize that I’m not required to ride the coattails of any other argument. [/quote]

Yep, I did.

That isn’t a paraphrase of the argument, because no one has used the obtuseness of the argument that “2nd Amendment says we get the exact same weapons” as a reason to claim “So it allows the government to decide what arms will be allowed, for example according to public safety, for example to allegedly reduce risk of school shootings.”

It’s a process of elimination. First, we deal with this argument that “2nd Amendment says we get the exact same weapons so we can resist federal tyranny”.

I’ve tried to be patient, but your incessant whine about me “running the classroom” is getting old. Here is how it plays out.

Poster: “The sky is red.”

TB23: “I think you’re wrong - look outside. It’s blue.”

Poster: “Nope, red.”

TB23: “Look outside, I think you’ll find it’s blue.”

Alpha F: “Stop trying to lecture everyone, TB23! You don’t make the rules here!”

TB23: “I was offering counteragument refuting Poster’s claim that the sky is red.”

Alpha F: “You’re an authoritarian statist who lectures! Stop defining the parameters of discussion by trying to logically and factually refute arguments, long considered what you do in a debate on a topic!”

Enough.

917

[quote]smh23 wrote:

Jesus.

I was applying reductio ad absurdum to the following:

“And just like when a gun is used for something wrong (murder, robbery, etc), the person is punished, when someone uses words in an evil manner (slander, false accusations, etc), they can be punished. Neither the guns nor the words are inherently evil, so neither should be illegal. When either is USED for evil, the people at fault need to be punished.”

Not to the letter of the Second Amendment.

Get things straight in your head before wasting time shadow-boxing an argument that doesn’t exist and was never made.[/quote]

This would probably be rightly considered a hi-jack, to change the discussion to “What manner of arms should the citizenry possess?”. Not to mention, my mind isn’t made up on that subject yet. I’m still undecided as to whether it’s reasonable that citizens should have LITERALLY whatever weapons are necessary to overthrow the government if need be, or if that would defeat the purpose of government. It’s a tough issue. Well, to anyone that can actually come to the subject with an open mind. Many here obviously cannot.

918

[quote]NickViar wrote:
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

-Thomas Jefferson in response to Shays’ Rebellion

“But the true barriers of our liberty in this country are our State governments; and the wisest conservative power ever contrived by man, is that of which our Revolution and present government found us possessed. Seventeen distinct States, amalgamated into one as to their foreign concerns, but single and independent as to their internal administration.”

-Thomas Jefferson

(Do states still have ANY powers that can’t be superceded by the federal government?)[/quote]

That is something I abhor; the way Federal gov’t is considered the be-all end-all of authority. At least if individual states are allowed more power, then varying states can mimic the successful ones’ style of governing, learn from each other, etc. When all states are more or less forced to govern the same, it doesn’t allow for ideas like that.

919

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

[argument that the Second Amendment forbids arms beyond that which can be hand-held[/quote]

Your mistake, Alpha F, is not recognizing that Smh23 is assuming for the purposes of the argument the position taken by DoubleDuce, Jay Pierce and Pushharder, that the Second Amendment guarantees that private citizens to weapons that would provide an equal and fair fight against the federal tyrant. Smh23 assumes that argument and takes that argument to its logical endpoint (and so have I).

Your argument, as stated, does not assume the argument put forth by DoubleDuce, Jay Pierce and Pushharder, and instead refutes it from the outset - if you’re right, at the time of the Founding, militia were even limited to “arms” instead of “ordinance” (which the government clearly had), and so there was never this “Second Amendment demands equality of weapons between citizens and the federal government” theory, even at the time of ratification.

That’s fine, but it doesn’t refute Smh23’s point that the position leads to a logical absurdity.[/quote]

No, you assert mistake, but do not demonstrate it. You also clearly fail to recognize that I’m not required to ride the coattails of any other argument.

I had zero interest in engaging in the absurdity of (paraphrased) “Well, if the people must be permitted to have weapons of the same power as the government, then the government cannot be allowed to have weapons sufficient to defend the country, therefore the Second Amendment cannot prohibit infringement of the right to keep and bear arms. So it allows the government to decide what arms will be allowed, for example according to public safety, for example to allegedly reduce risk of school shootings.”

If any cannot see through that themselves, then nothing from anyone will aid their incapacity.

And no, I’m not interested in any arguments that the above may not be an exact paraphrase. If you don’t agree it captures the essence closely enough, then that is your prerogative.

Simply because you may think I should have addressed that argument, let alone that your opinion is that I should have held myself within the bounds of that absurdity, does not make it so. You don’t get to define the parameters of people’s discussion. You’re not the chosen lecturer and this is not your classroom.[/quote]

Discussion works like this:

Claim.

Counterclaim, addressing, expanding upon, and/or refuting the substance of the claim.

Counter-counterclaim.

And so on.

If you don’t want to do this, then opt out.[/quote]
You also don’t get to direct the discussion. Any who wish may get from the information or ideas that I posted what they find in it; any who wish to deflect it or yap against it are also free to do that. But there is no requirement for anyone to follow your rules of how, supposedly, they must post if they want to be here.

As for your other post, if your argument had no relevance to interpretation of the Second Amendment but was only a hypothetical exercise, then your argument may have been of value to few if any. They can decide for themselves. I assumed it was at least intended to be relevant to the interpretation of the Second Amendment, instead of merely polishing your balls. That may have been a mistake. I have never claimed to never make mistakes.

And again, you are not the only participant. I actually had no concept whatsoever that you would absorb anything from it or that it could affect your thinking in any way, because I have not seen that happen in any instance where anyone ever had anything contradicting any of your positions.

920

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

As for your other post, if your argument had no relevance to interpretation of the Second Amendment but was only a hypothetical exercise, then your argument may have been of value to few if any. [/quote]

You are being unbelievably obtuse.

The post was [b]in response to a very specific point made by another poster[/b]. It was of value to the poster with whom I was engaged in discussion, as it was intended to be.

Afterwards, you stepped in and wrote a long-winded response to it [b]without taking the time to understand that it did not address the letter of the Second Amendment, but a point made by another poster on the board[/b].

This post doesn’t need a response, all that needs to be said of this little completely unnecessary tangent has already been said.