Trump Fires Comey

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-16-2017, 10:50 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-16-2017, 05:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-16-2017, 05:11 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Original intent was for flintlock muskets and rifles... and maybe crossbows.  In my ideal world you would need a hunting license to get a gun, and then only as appropriate for the hunt.

  
The original intent, and the wording of the text,  was all sorts of arms, not just the few sorts of arms that you are fond of.  You are projecting your daydreams on the Constitution rather than reading what the Constitution actually says.

Yes, you are describing your ideal world.  That's harmless.  I'd be much more careful about not confusing your blue daydreams with the history of the United States of America.  I'd be aware that red leaning people have daydreams too, daydreams much more compatible with the laws of the land.

Since you mentioned history, let's look at the state of the world when the Bill of Rights was written.  The world was still in the Agricultural Age, and the prospect of an industrial future with the advances it would create weren't even contemplated.  It's hard to argue that this amendment was intended to support technology no one could even dream about at the time.

Oh, modern firearms were still just a twinkle in the gunsmith's eyes, but they were sure enough being dreamed about.

But the other thing to remember is the political and military situation at the cusp of the Industrial Age.  Classic Agricultural Age culture forbade their lower classes the possession of arms.  This was a classic approach the ruling class consistently exercised to keep their superiority over the common folk.  Britain in its era of the longbow, and later the musket, broke with this weapons prohibition tradition.  They armed every man.  At one point not only were long bows permitted, but it was required to bring them to church for the mandatory weekly practice.  This paid off in terms of a small island being able to contest militarily with larger continental powers who kept the old Agricultural Age arms prohibitions in place.

I don't think it an accident or a coincidence that just as the common people were starting to step onto the military stage, were starting to influence winners and losers, that the notion of bills of rights and representative governments started catching on.  There were a whole bunch of people with weapons in hand.  The newer wannabe elites started saying things that they thought such people would want to hear.  I consider the breaking of the arms prohibition to be an important part of the Agricultural / Industrial cusp.

The influence of an armed populace waned among some people in some places.  The colonial and revolutionary periods were the peak of it.  Still, at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the notion of an armed free people being able to keep check on the ruling elites was a popular one...  even among some ruling elites.  The blue daydreamers just don't understand or feel the values associated with an armed populace.  The NRA Republicans sure do.  It is the values of these revolutionary times that got written into law, and the blue daydreamers just can't see it, just don't believe in it.  In parts of the country, these revolutionary values never went away.

Anyway, the notion of Trump restoring revolutionary values is an odd one.  The worse he gets, the better the blue folk are getting to understand the old values.

Make America great again?

Thomas Jefferson Wrote:The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.