Gun Control & RKBA
Related: About this forumWhy is it...
...when the topic is the 2A, Bill of Rights and the language of the law, some pro-control folks are interested in debating the terminology and such about how using a gun for self-defense is wrong but when a statement like mine, below, comes up, there's often no response?
In this context, a right is an innate attribute of a person. A right serves as a guide for behavior in that it names good, correct and righteous pursuits. Actions, having as a goal sustaining one's life are congruent with this guide. Enacting legislation providing for such behavior as legal is also congruent with this guide.
Suggesting that a only a group of people rather than an individual have the right to life is just plain bizarre.
safeinOhio
(32,623 posts)which end of the barrel you are looking down.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Since those were not in existance when the bill of rights was written.
Everybody called me out on it. (As they should, I dont buy the argument myself), yet I hear the same people say the 2nd should only apply to muskets.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)..."interpretations of WHAT THE FOUNDERS INTENDED" but not so much about why it's evil to use a firearm to keep an unjust aggressor from just killing you or beating your ass to a pulp.
badtoworse
(5,957 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)You know how they work.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)ileus
(15,396 posts)I doubt I'll ever have to defend my country thanks to our great military. However, I'm not willing to let my personal safety be handled by others. I'm 100% disagree with the regressives suggestion that my life isn't worth less because I'm not behind my front door.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)In many ways the essence of being American, IMHO, is facing the odds, good or bad. Maybe it's not just an American attitude; maybe it's human. It just feels right to me.
If I screw it up, if I'm careless, let me take the blame.
Abridging the right to defense because someone with no criminal record may one day decide in favor of crime, seems like the most piteous surrender on the part of the people and the most suspicious usurpation on the part of the government. How sad that this attitude is so popular.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)I think the Founders were quite aware of this.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)stems from a plaudable notion that man can be perfected, something engrained into modern progressive thought to the extent that policies are enacted toward that end. But carried to the extreme, the clearly imperfect violent criminal is still worthy of the perfecting principle up to the point he is raising the knife over you. And beyond should he survive to stand before the dock. This extreme outlook might indeed place greater value on the pathological criminal than some shmuck who tries to defend himself.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)...I've seen people educated in amazing ways about everything from learning their times tables to highly technical graduate work. I haven't seen effective training in how to become moral, how not to be a criminal or how to give up gang-banging. There's the old joke, 'How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one but... it has to want to change.'
Maybe it's possible to force someone to change what they are; maybe it isn't. I know it's more effective if they want to change. I'm sure violent criminals and even genocidal tyrants have some value as people but making use of that value starts with them. They need to be begin changing.
Shouldn't those who are honest, smart and interested in being prepared be allowed to survive rather than being handicapped by their government?
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Choice. The banal, day-to-day commercial consumptive choice which to some is now raised to the level of destiny, politics and the value of life. "My choice of violent criminality is as important as your life, or the purchase of a T-shirt." In such an environment, it is no surprise that there is righteousness indignation when a criminal is arrested or dropped in his tracks by someone who "chooses" not to be violently attacked.
If a criminal culture so values its purpose (and if that value is rewarded), it is no wonder there is such resistance to change.
stone space
(6,498 posts)When is the last time you were mobilized to go on a slave patrol?
I'm nearly 60, and I can't think of a single instance.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)...the 2A is anachronism is a valid reason to rail against it. Would that mean you're okay with hunting, sporting and self-defense firearms?
kioa
(295 posts)Great argument.
Really.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)...or are you just doing some important shopping?
hack89
(39,171 posts)the founding fathers went back to the first English Bill of Rights 1689 when they were writing the Constitution. The 2A reflects a right that they enjoyed as Englishmen that they wanted (along with nine other rights) to enjoy as Americans. The 2A was not created in a void.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)Only those who have been disarmed can be kept as slaves.
stone space
(6,498 posts)Just like some folks don't believe that hand grenades, attack helicopters and nuclear weapons have rights.
DonP
(6,185 posts)Since no one ever said guns have rights, is some straw man argument all the gun control side has left? That's even weaker than the usual penis references.
You guys are growing increasingly pathetic, not to mention ineffectual and irrelevant.
By the way your spelling needs work too Stoney.
stone space
(6,498 posts)sarisataka
(18,465 posts)From a political perspective.
They are more alike than different.
DonP
(6,185 posts)Are you totally incapable of abstract thought? Yeah, the printed word has never led to the death of anyone, right?
Has your anti gun owner venom finally reached your brain?
Or perhaps I'm mistaken and you can direct us to a quote where someone actually said guns have rights?
Irrelevant and ineffectual. Maybe I'll start making those T-shirts for you and your ilk.
Now please, for entertainment value alone, post another dopey response.
stone space
(6,498 posts)But deadly weapons are not abstract thoughts.
They are deadly weapons.
DonP
(6,185 posts)Still can't make that huge mental jump from your Straw Man concept of; "Gunz have rights" to "Printing presses have rights". Hope your math skills are better than your grasp of similes, metaphors and analogies.
Let me guess, you have never actually seen a Form 4473, never been to a gun show and maybe never a gun store, never passed a NICS check?
Of course guns can be deadly, that's the point. Between the CDC, DoJ and FBI, Defensive Gun Uses (DGU) by the law abiding are estimated from a low of 70,000 to a high of 2.5 million times a year and violent crime is lower than it's been in over 50 years.
If you get your way, what are those people supposed to do to protect themselves, just so people like you can feel all warm and fuzzy about "doing something" about gun violence? Of course it's already falling dramatically with no help from people like you in spite of record high gun sales.
Gun Control seems to be the only area where some progressives believe outright in "Trickle Down".
Get rid of as many legal guns from the law abiding as possible and then hope for the best that the "trickle down" reduces available guns for violent crime.
Go clutch your pearls, wring your hands and mail a check to the Brady Campaign.
Oh, that's right gun control people never actually spend their own money on their "beliefs", they just whine at somebody else.
stone space
(6,498 posts)beevul
(12,194 posts)The argument has never been that "guns have rights" or that "printing presses have rights".
It has always been that people have rights where guns (arms) and printing presses are concerned.
So quit playing games, and quit implying that anyone has said that "guns have rights", because as far as I can tell, no one here has said that, and no one here holds that position.
DonP
(6,185 posts)Or are you just trying to be cute and impress your gun control ilk with your smarmy "wit"?
Failing dismally at both.
You bring nothing of value to the discussion.
stone space
(6,498 posts)discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)...for making my point for me.
Firstly, by following in the footsteps of many pro-control folks in failing to respond to the excerpt which questioned why seeing an armed police force for public safety and crime control is good but an armed individual protecting a single or small group is somehow evil.
Secondly, thanks for clarifying the meaning of the term "some" as in "Some folks don't believe that..." to mean everyone with whom I've ever discussed this. I've not yet found anyone who believes that an inanimate object has rights.
Lastly, thanks again for derailing the thread off into this inane straw-man of a premise that drives home the original point I had in mind when I asked, "Why is it when the topic is the 2A, Bill of Rights and the language of the law, some pro-control folks are interested in debating the terminology and such about how using a gun for self-defense is wrong but when a statement like mine, below, comes up, there's often no response?" I guess I should have said "...few responses?" rather than "...no response?" And I should have added as well that those few responses are mere distractions with no substance.
Thanks for your help.