A question about your constitution.....

[Gusto md]

Does the fact that your constitution contains 'the right to bear arms' predispose anyone from Amercian to the belief that they must be prepared for hostility from even their own countrymen?

I have always wondered whenever I see someone talking about gun control in America, and some always comes up with 'It's in our constitution'. Should we explore why it is in there? I have seen maps from years ago saying 'Here be dragons' on a usually flat earth model. Just because someone has written it down years ago, does it mean it is still relavent today? How about in 200 years time?

I'm not bagging any person or country, I am just curious what factors may lead to the violent crime and gun deaths in America that I read about nearly every day.



Edit to appease the anal retentive

[WillowTree]

1. Would it surprise you to know...

....that the word "bare" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution or any of its amendments?

[merwin]

2. Well, the right to bear arms does :-)

[lenidog]

8. Would it surprise you that possibly English is his second language and

maybe we may want to cut him some slack/

[Gusto md]

10. Maybe......

You could separate yourself from your tv and actually engage actively in a serious question?

[lenidog]

13. Hey I am on your side

Me, I am a moderator on a board whose membership is mostly French. Their English spelling sucks and my French spelling sucks. Together we still survive with the help of the Alta Vista Babel Fish.

[Gusto md]

17. My apologies if I sounded harsh

But there was no malice intended.

One thing that pisses me off more than anything is people who sit around whinging that the country is so screwed and Bush* is an asshole, yet are too lazy to even get of the couch to do anything, except type on forums how the country is so screwed and Bush* is an asshole. They piss me off more than anything.

[lenidog]

20. well you will find that many including myself

do more than just type on the forum. This is a great place to find out what is going on free of the propaganda. You will also find many threads that tell you what is going on to try and stop Bush and what you you can do or where you can go to help. Lastly and more importantly its a place where progressives from around the country and around the world can keep contact with each other and support each other and remind each other that they are not alone.

[newyawker99]

26. Hi Gusto md!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[lonestarnot]

3. Try no jobs, rich keep theiving moe money from po every day, try slave

labor, try desperate people do desperate tings, try drugs to escape it all, try taxation w/o representation, try the constitution is a living breathing document that has been equalled by no other document, try forget it!

[Floogeldy]

4. The right to bear arms . . .

. . . was to insure that the masses could blow the fuck out of their government if that government overstepped its bounds.

And to defend the country from invaders, too.

[Gusto md]

5. Well time to start presenting.....

I'm sure your governement has far from overstepped the mark, don't you agree? :)

[lenidog]

6. Yes but Americans are hard to rile up

As long as they have their comforts and personally don't see any problems you need a cattle prod to get them off their couches.

[evlbstrd]

12. Floogledy is right.

Jefferson:

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

And my favorite:

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends , it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315

[Gusto md]

9. And on the invaders

Shouldn't that be left to trained professionals (i.e the Army, etc) rather than ma and pop sitting on the porch yielding a shotgun?

In today's age of technology, I think people would be aware if a foreign power was taking over America. You would not catch citizens unaware with the need for quick access to arms.

[lenidog]

11. True but one side even when they are both professionals still has to

lose. Also until the 20th century the US Army has been traditionally very tiny compared to our population and size of our nation. It wasn't until after the Spanish American War that the standing professional army reached a size above 20,000 men.

[Gusto md]

15. So.......

So you don't really have the need for citizens to be armed ready for combat against foreign powers any more?

[lenidog]

18. Not really

Unless there is a Attila the Inuit preparing an army that we don't know about. You see the thing is there is two interpretations of that amendment to the Constitution. The first is that the amendment says that the Militia has the right to bear arms and that shall not be infringed. Meaning we as citizens have no individual right to bear arms. The other side believes because it says the right of the people shall not be infringed that we have an individual right to bear arms. I belong to the second group. I feel that because I am a responsible law abiding citizen that is is my individual right to own a firearm for whatever reason I deem fit. As long as I remain a law abiding citizen that right should not be taken away from me. Because I also realize that our rights are not limitless there are some restrictions placed upon them but if they are resonable and logical I have no problems with them. In the end though I will not give up the basic right and I will fight to stop any limits in that right that I think are wrong.

[punpirate]

7. The answer to the presence of the 2nd Amendment...

... can be found in Article I, Sec. 8.

Purely, simply, regardless of what the gun nuts say. That's why it's there.

Since the "militia" is charged with the defense of the realm (according to Article I, Sec. 8), in 1787, they had to have weapons to do so. That's why the amendment exists.

The right-wing and the NRA have used the wiggle room in the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to enable their possession of all manner of unnecessary weapons. Gun manufacturers have used that amendment to avoid regulation of their industry. Had the framers had the foresight to add a reference to the original Constitution as explanation for the 2nd Amendment, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.

[NoKillShelterGuy]

14. Im sure the framers thought the word people...

was clear enough for everybody to understand.

[punpirate]

16. I will remind you that...

... there's a qualifier: " A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state...."

Some folks tend to ignore that.

Cheers.

[NoKillShelterGuy]

22. And some people pretend the word people

means militia, when it clearly does not.

Prosit.

[punpirate]

23. As I said...

... read Article I, Section 8.

Do so. In this context, it's instructive.

Cheers.

[NoKillShelterGuy]

24. Also Amendment X...

where the distinction between people and state is evident...

[punpirate]

25. BS....

Just read what the Constitution has to say about militias. Amendment X is about the distribution of rights (modified as it is by Amendment IX).

Try to avoid sophistry here and simply address the relationship of militias to defense of the territorial nation. In 1787, small arms in the hands of ordinary citizens--loosely organized in local militias--were the means of resisting invasion (or, sometimes, were essential in maintaining order, as in the use of militias in the Whiskey Rebellion, unpopular as it was, and the enforcement of the tax later abandoned). But, Article I, Section 8, determines the validity of local militias and their organization for the purposes of defense of the physical territory of the country. The Second Amendment is subordinate to Article I, Section 8, in time and in purpose.

The Supreme Court has already decided, in 1938 or so, the extent of the type of weapon permissible, and that's beyond argument. No tommy guns, no bazookas, no SAMs, no personal nukes. Not difficult to understand. No argument on the basis of that ruling.

But current arguments for any and all weapons without oversight and regulation is foolish and contributory to an insane culture of the right to kill on impulse (as recent Florida law strongly suggests).

As I've said here in the past, I know guns. I started shooting when I was eight on a farm in Texas. I shot expert in the Army. But, one of the things that bothers me most (considering where I live) is the number of crazy fucks running around with guns with very big clips. That I can do without, thank you very much.

Cheers.

[NoKillShelterGuy]

27. You should read that case from 1939.

It states that weapons with military applications are protected by the Second Amendment, while sporting guns are not so much. And you're ignoring that the main clause of the Second Amendment does not say the right of the militia, it says the right of the people. If you look at Amendment 10, you'll see that the founders could indeed distinguish between the state (and therefore the militia) and the people.

You say you can do without the crazy fucks running around with guns and big clips. Well, I could do without the Nazis running around marching. The First Amendment gives them that right, and my wishes have nothing to do with it. The Second Amendment gives people the right to own guns that are militarily useful. Your not liking that doesn't change it.

[Selatius]

19. It's mainly a socio-economic phenomenon

If you ask me, there are simply too many variables to track. The biggest ones though are poverty and the availability of opportunities to advance oneself and the family life.

If you'll note, the Swiss have the highest rates of gun ownership in the world outside the US, yet the crime rate per capita there is a fraction of that seen in the US. Gun violence is a fraction of what it is in the US.

What separates the Swiss from the US as far as crime goes? Well, you could probably write a doctoral thesis just trying to explain it, but it would probably include things such as wealth distribution (Are there pockets of extreme poverty like in the inner-cities?), education (Is it easy to afford a college education?), economic mobility (How easy is it to gain a relatively high standard of living?), cultural factors, etc.

[Xithras]

21. It's more relevant than ever.

The vast majority of gun owners fall into three camps:

The first is the protection against tyranny camp. This camp believes that any government can become evil and oppressive, and that the citizens should remain capable of overthrowing their government at will. This was one of the primary purposes of the second amendments inclusion in the Constitution. People who think that it can't happen here don't read the news much...government oppression still happens every day in countless nations on this planet, and the Reich wing would love to bring that kind of oppression here. The Germans didn't think the Holocaust could happen before WWII either.

The second camp is the individual liberty camp. Quite frankly, most of them simply don't care what your opinion is. They want to live their lives free of government intrusion, and resent ANY attempts by "big brother" to regulate what they can and cannot do. In their opinion, if you're not directly hurting someone else, then the government shouldn't interfere.

The third group doesn't care about either of the first two. They just want a gun to defend themselves if someone breaks into their homes. These are the types that buy a gun, toss it into the nightstand, and forget about it until they need it.

Believe it or not, both the criminals and the rabid gun nuts are small minorities among gun owners. Most gun owners (like me) simply consider them tools treat them appropriately. I don't obsess over my guns, but I won't vote for any candidate that supports any confiscation schemes either (Dem or Repub). In many ways, we're the "silent majority" in the gun control debate.

[Toots]

28. Yes you or any foreigner should fear for your lives

We Americans live in absolute terror it would seem. Certainly no "Home of the Brave" Americans are a psychotic bunch and any thinking person should be very afraid. Americans are afraid of their own shadows and thus arm themselves to the hilt and shoot the first thing to move. No rational reason for such fear but it exists. As to whether the age we live in no longer requires every swinging dick to cary a firearm. Not hardly. We are way to afraid to disarm.