Quote:
Originally Posted by Got Stripers
Like I said before I have no problem with guns, yes I have issues as I'm sure many do, of illegal handguns getting into the wrong hands; but not legal sale of guns to anyone who can qualify. I'm glad there was a Texan with a handgun ready to stop that nut job from doing more damage then he already had. Same goes for rifles, shotguns and anything else needed to pursue your passion for hunting and shooting.
Why should you be allowed to act on a passion for hunting and shooting if the tools used for your passion can kill thousands of people?
BTW the Texan you refer to used an AR 15 not a handgun.
If we take the argument that you should be able to arm yourself in order to form a militia to defend or defeat a tyrannical government, I think the list needs to include far more than your over the gun counter AR rifle.
The Second Amendment already does that.
First the premise that the government is going to control all branches of our military in order to take control of the civilian population might be really good stuff for that next science fiction movie, but that's all it is fiction.
So because you say it is fiction, it must therefor be fiction. History be damned.
Again, if you feel that scenario is actually possible in today's society, I think you have been wearing that foil hat far too long.
As you might say, "today's society" has evolved (I use that in a metaphorical way, not a scientific way--even metaphorically, mutated might be better than evolved). Has "evolved" from a society that saw possibilities, underscored by actual history, to one that is encouraged to ignore history so is not capable of seeing possibilities. And not even being able to see how powerful and restrictive its government has actually become. And which is spoon fed the diet of fearing each other, but never to suspect a government which steadily separates itself from society, becoming more its master than its servant. And a society which willingly dons a hat which it can no longer see is made of tin foil.
But lets assume for a minute that it actually a possibility, what percentage of the civilian population are armed and then you have to ask; what percentage of those people will take up arms against the military?
If the people no longer take their constitutional rights as inherent and to be protected by the methods that Constitution affords them, and if the federal military no longer is willing to protect and defend the actual Constitution they swore to protect and defend, and if the people and their militaries believe in the supreme power of the federal government and swear allegiance to it, rather than to the Constitution, then your trust in the federal government better be justified.
But if the people still hold and protect constitutional rights, and if so too does the military, then there will be no need to take arms against the military. It would be the federal government, not the people, that would be powerless except to do the people's will and to stay within the bounds that the Constitution affords it.
The federal military is still composed of the sons and daughters of the people at large. Who do you think the military would side with? So, at this time I don't hold to, as you put it, "the premise that the government is going to control all branches of our military in order to take control of the civilian population."
But if the ifs I noted above occur, then yes, the scenario you describe is possible. That you think it isn't possible implies to me that the scope of possibilities you envision is unusually, or deficiently, narrow.
Then taking this bizarre scenario further, we have X number of willing civilian militia armed with guns, rifles, shotguns and a smaller percentage with AR style assault rifles, all going against 4 branches of the military; all controlled of course by some mythical leader with unreal power to control and persuade the leaders of the military this is what needs to happen to form the new world order.
WOW, I can't wait for the book and then the movie, I think it's going to be a dynamic read and exciting movie  |
Those movies have already been made. The books were best sellers, and the movies were box office hits.
BTW, this notion that we have evolved and the Constitution must evolve with us is either stupid on its face, or is just ignorant, or is scientifically sounding propaganda meant to persuade us of its merits.
It typically takes several thousands, if not millions of years for the process of evolution to bring about a fundamental change in biological matter and in the most complex "living" things, including humans. The notion that we have fundamentally evolved in a span of 200 years is not science. Nor even logic. Certainly not fact. Humans are fundamentally the same now as they were in the Founder's time. The Constitutional framework is as relevant now to human nature as it was in their time. It, indeed, was founded on that very human nature that we still entirely possess.
Our "times" may change, but the change is merely mode and fashion, not fundamental. Modes of transportation or weaponry, or technological advances, do not fundamentally change what we are. Our passions, desires, motivations, egos, ability to love or hate, to love beauty and truth or to lie and be ugly, to be good or evil, to wish to be free or be dependent, to rule or be ruled, and so forth, have not changed. And we are still the same political, social beings, or animals if you wish, who form governments which in various ways respond to what we fundamentally are. Those governments range in manner and scope from totalitarian to anarchist. The Constitution is probably the most "centrist" in that it protects individual proclivities in that broad range to function together in the freest most harmonious possible way. When you change our constitutional structure in either direction relative to the range between the totalitarian to the anarchic, you drift in either one of those directions and away from the ideological and harmonious center.
The rights which are inherent to us in the Constitution are the foundation for its existence. The powers in the Constitution which we consent to the government we form are not to create an all powerful government, but for the purpose of protecting our inherent rights. When we, for public safety, or any altruistic or dictatorial purpose, relinquish some inherent right over to expanded government power, under the pretext of public safety, we take a step in the direction of the totalitarian by restricting the vast many in order to somehow restrict the minute few. And we lessen the duty of the central government to protect our inherent rights, giving it, on the contrary, the power to replace some inherent rights with those it prescribes. And thus we begin the process of precedent to go farther and farther down that path.