Debate about Gun Control

[Eric the Green]

(05-31-2017, 11:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-31-2017, 10:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: We don't have a government that believes in America. We have a government that believes in big business and government collusion and enabling of same. We have a government that colludes with and is beholden to hostile foreign nations.

If the USA government needs to be faced down, it is no longer constitutional; in which case the 2nd amendment does not protect your right to bear arms or that of an armed populace.

The danger from such a government comes from the current regime of this time. Another Supreme Court justice appointed by this regime would cement that need to face down this current unconstitutional, un-American government.

I quite agree that the Supreme Court isn't doing its primary job of protecting the meaning of the authors and amenders of the Constitution.  I disagree that the conservatives, especially those concerned with the 2nd Amendment, are the greater transgressors.  Justices of various flavors have thrown away the meaning of the law in favor of modern ideas.  In this, the liberal justices have been far more free in legislating from the bench than the conservatives.  Five old men should not be changing the meaning of the Constitution.

You are also using a style of rhetoric more common from the conservatives.  You are confusing your point of view with The American Point of View.  This is a not subtle inference that what you think is correct, and what your opponents think is not American.  There are two Americas, at least, if you're only counting the bigs.  In spite of your partisan blindness, neither America is always perfectly right or perfectly wrong, or perhaps perfectly anything.

Yes, we have to confront the inhabitants of Washington DC.  I'm with you that the place to start is the Trump administration.  It doesn't stop there.  Both houses and both parties of Congress are too tight with the capitalist elite class.  The Supreme Court is too political.  A core problem is a conservative base that has preferred enabling the capitalist elites rather than let the coastal liberals transform the middle of the country by using the government to force their culture on everybody.  Of course, the central part of the country wants to transform the coasts too.

Now, I've seen often enough your perspective that you are right, those you disagree with are wrong, that the answer is intolerance, hate and beating half of America's culture into submission.  That's you.  You're hate, intolerance, and a refusal to listen personified.

And to some degree this can be justified.  There are precious essential elements of urban American culture at risk, and compromising on them isn't really an option.  The difficulty is the precious essential elements of rural American culture that are of equal merit.  What is too precious to let go of?  Excepting the precious, to what degree can the two cultures just leave each other alone?

Cause that's American too.  Liberty.  Freedom.  That means, in part, that so long as folks have rights and equality, folks shouldn't interfere with each other.  They should let each other choose and live their own diverse life styles.  Harm none, and the government strives to make sure that none harms you.  Nobody should be hatefully, stridently pushing to change others into what they are not.  From my perspective, it is the mutual intolerance and hate that is more the problem than the conflict in values and resulting drive to coerce each other.  Your basic attitude in many ways is the problem, not the solution.

Two armies, marching towards each other, with standard bearers in the lead, both flying the same flag.

In the old days, if one was hungry, one grabbed a rifle and headed off into the woods to find supper.  No paperwork.  No deep political partisanship.  That's what deer were for.  You can't arbitrarily decide that that's no longer American, that the words written in the Constitution now have a different meaning because you say so.

Last week, we were in rough agreement.  Work harder to ban possession by felons, the insane, terrorists and their ilk, with due process.  Close some loopholes in the background check process.  Acknowledge that the country is so divided that a legal extreme forcing of either culture on the other isn't going to happen.  This week you are back to your old hateful rants.  You did say you were tired of repeating yourself.  Frankly, so am I.  However, I am not one to stay silent in the face of hate, intolerance and a blatant disrespect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But if you respond in kind, can you claim to be any better than I?

"You're hate, intolerance, and a refusal to listen personified.

And to some degree this can be justified."

Make up your mind. You have frequent trouble doing that in this respect.

While we may come to a level of agreement, we're not going to be in total agreement about guns, ever. That does not mean I am hateful, intolerant, don't listen, etc.. People who don't agree with you are not necessarily those things. Perhaps you could tolerate my different views. Agreement is nice when it happens, but sometimes it doesn't.

No, this was not a hateful rant above. It is perfectly obvious that any further Republican appointment to the Court will turn it into a protective agency for big business and big money, and will uphold their privileges against the rights of the people. It practically IS all these things already, thanks to Trump and Gorsuch. You can't be in favor of liberal legislation Bob, and then be in favor of a Court that will slap it down and impose conservative ideology in the name of originalism.

I can't see how if a USA government becomes unconstitutional, that it protects your right to bear arms, which is a constitutional amendment.

I can't see how this current Trump government is not one that endangers our rights and our constitution, and probably is a government in collusion with hostile foreign powers. This seems to me to be fact, not hate. I don't hate Trump or his minions. He's entertaining, and claims to love America. That's fine. But he doesn't belong in his current office, and his behavior and policies are extremely toxic. That's not hate; it's fact. And we need to resist him.

In which case, you may be right that the people need to be armed. But if it comes to that, and goes that far, the 2nd Amendment is moot and does not apply.

You could argue that the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution protects the right to bear arms just in case the government later becomes unconstitutional. It's a bit of a stretch; the constitution enables a state of rebellion against the government that it itself establishes, if needed? That would probably be X_84's position and bobc's as well. But I doubt that was the intention of the framers; they were thinking of the means of protecting public safety from crime and rebellion and even invasion in the days before the USA had a standing army, national guard or police force. It "protects" the security of a free state, which means that it assumes that it is a free and thus a constitutional state. That seems a more probable interpretation to me.