Debate about Gun Control

[Eric the Green]

(09-07-2016, 04:22 PM)Copperfield Wrote:

(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This is a common argument but quite incorrect. I am always surprised that any government would recognize in its constitution the right of the people to rise up and overthrow it by force of arms. The second amendment is indeed about the need of a free state to protect itself. The need to put down uprisings and repel invasions is specifically mentioned in the constitution, iirc. That's why the militia was needed. It was probably intended to repel a slave rebellion. In any case, the people can't protect themselves from the government through their individual right to bear arms. The government has to enforce law and order and protect itself from invasion. It has to be armed, therefore, and is always likely to be better armed than individual gun owners are. The only way for the people to threaten the government violently with guns is to do what Dixie did; form an alternative government, conscript an army, equip it with all the weapons an army can muster, and make itself into the very kind of state that you are rebelling against.

So yeah, you should probably read the declaration of independence too. It pretty clearly spells out the natural right of revolt, violently if necessary (hint: it's part and parcel of the right to self-defense).

Well yes, I agree. And Jefferson said a little revolution every once in a while is a good thing too. Maybe so. But this was not something that was ever going to be put into the Constitution. A government does not give a people the right to disobey its constitution or its laws. Such a revolution has to be unconstitutional, and the rebels must be ready to pay the price for their rebellion. Dixie paid the price and it wasn't pretty.

Nowadays, unlike in Jefferson's time, the influence of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have entered the picture. In an at-least semi-civilized society like ours, non-violent revolutions work better. In places like Syria, no. The non-violent protesters needed to form an army, and they did.

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(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The idea that the people protect themselves from the government with their own arms, suggests that police shooting unarmed black people has justified what the guys did in Dallas and New Orleans in response, and shooting police/the government by themselves. I disagree; they did not have the right to go kill police. Black lives matter, and the Black Panthers did some things right, but no, the people do not have the constitutional right to shoot the government or rise up and overthrow it-- unless they are ready to set up an alternative state of their own with their own constitution and defend it with a full army. Talk like this from Warren Dew suggests that many people today are ready for civil war, and have utterly given up on law and politics as an alternative. Be sure and understand what you are getting into with your calls for individuals to be armed to "protect themselves from the government." It means civil war and gross slaughter, for which the rebels will suffer disproportionately.

When a government declares war on its own citizens as the US has for decades, one has to eventually expect a response from those same citizens. People will only tolerate bullshit for so long.

I'm not so sure you can say the government has declared war on its own citizens. Generation X hyperbole; a common thing you are expressing, although I don't think the majority of Xers feel that way. Yes it has done some things that I would agree with you are not proper conduct on US citizens. I'm not sure it has ever been any different.

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(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This is a strange statement that takes me aback. So Warren, you are saying here that free governments need to have large numbers of armed citizens ready to fight wars, which really means drafting huge numbers into the army, and without this the people lose their freedom.

It's called a militia. No need for a draft. War being a political thing tends, to happen a lot more with standing armies under political control. That's kinda why the US Constitution suggests that the government shouldn't rely on standing (i.e. full-time) armies.

Why did it call specifically for setting one up, then?

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(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Armies do not consist of such individualist libertarian anarchist gun toters. Governments build armies by putting young people into their armies and taxing their citizens to put lots of military weapons in their hands and at their control. So what are you talking about here, Warren? Make some sense of your statement, and take responsibility for it if you can. I don't think you can.

Ummm yeah, sometimes they do consist of such individualist libertarian anarchist gun-toters. You really should keep up on current events.

Yes, and the Kurds get US backing. And the Kurds are not anarchist fanatics who hate their autonomous regional state, and merely want to protect their right to bear arms. They are real freedom fighters and deserve our support.