House passes bill to expand background checks for gun sales

[Eric the Green]

(06-03-2022, 08:54 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(06-02-2022, 11:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-02-2022, 07:27 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(06-02-2022, 05:34 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Israel example is an interesting one. Yes, it seems a people engaged in actively occupying and oppressing another people needs to have a large army. Come to think of it, that's why we in the USA have the second amendment too; to keep the slaves in line; that's why it was added to the constitution! And it and our large army too still works for that purpose.

literally the opposite. the KKK pushed for the first gun control laws.

That does not change the fact that the second amendment was added to give slaveholders the ability to keep their slaves.

What are you basing this off of?

many sources over the years. Here's one I just googled:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/100210767...-amendment

Quote:

Quote:Fortunately African Americans made much more progress by adopting people power in the sixties, and this has continued. Their adoption by some of them of guns in the sixties did not work out so well. But at that same time, the various backlashes to progress began, and the gun rights movement, which had not yet existed, was a big part of that and still is. It's all of a piece. Gun rights, cries against critical race theory, laws against teaching about gays, promotion and full approval of domestic terror, the attacks on democracy and voting rights, full permission, approval and propagation of mass killings, attacks on women's rights.....

Well, as of recently, black people seem to be quite bullish on owning guns, and in my experience at least, this is far from an unusual. After all, it only makes sense. What are they going to do? Rely on the police to protect them? We all know how poor their track record is even when we're not talking about the violent white supremacists who have infiltrated various police departments in the last few decades.  
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021...cans-surge

If some black people are bullish on owning guns, then they are wrong. Especially in neighborhoods where guns can be more-easily stolen. If we had real Democrats in office, police reform would be happening. We ought to be able to rely on the police, rather than depend on anarchy and citizen violence.

"About eight-in-ten Black adults (82%) say gun violence is a very big problem – by far the largest share of any racial or ethnic group. By comparison, about six-in-ten Hispanic adults (58%) and 39% of White adults view gun violence this way" Pew reports black ownership of guns is lower than that of whites.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20...-and-guns/

Quote:

Quote:it seems a people engaged in actively occupying and oppressing another people needs to have a large army

Going back to this, yes....and the flip side is that people engaged in occupying and oppressing also want their victims to have less of an army and less weapons. Even Marxists are aware of this. Karl Marx was one of the biggest proponents of gun ownership of his time. Again, there is a reason America has never had a dictator.

That depends on your definition of dictator. The USA has had continued slavery in all but name in many southern states, and racial profiling, red lining and discrimination in most states. Most people (including blacks, women, young people and poor people) not being allowed to vote until recently, and now efforts and supreme court decisions to restrict voting again, is not the definition of a free society. Arguably, Woodrow Wilson was a dictator and a racist during world war one. Lincoln and FDR did some questionable wartime restrictive measures. The Patriot Act, National Defense Acts and other policies put the USA on the path to dictatorship under W. Bush. Trump organized a coup and used his office to empower himself to cheat others. Guns did not prevent any of this. Citizens owning guns and weapons of war have nothing at all to do with whether our president is a dictator. You fail to make that connection historically. Arguments that dictators restrict gun ownership is often false, as the history of the Third Reich showed.

I agree with you this far, as I have said: I don't agree that juntas, dictators and thugs should have a monopoly on weapons, if people power does not work, which is the case today in a number of countries-- although the only alternative then is civil war/revolution and an alternative state, not anarchy and chaotic individual violence. But in the USA, those who want no restrictions on owning guns happen to be the thugs and would-be dictators themselves. Those who genuinely want more freedom and more justice in the USA, who are those on the left and not the right, have many means left to them yet that they can use to achieve political and social goals without forming armies or stockpiling weapons of war. People in many countries need to be careful that they don't vote themselves into dictatorship, which seems to be the case in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, The Phillipines, Nicaragua, Brazil, some African countries, arguably India, and possibly the USA.

Notice that even a militarized state oppressing another people like Israel strictly regulates citizen gun onwership. No country besides the United States of America holds this fantasy that individuals owning weapons of war without any restriction guarantees our freedom. And no other country suffers the inevitable results of this fantasy. And that's not the only fantasies that Americans hold these days, with also poor results.