Guns

  • Thread starter Talentless
  • 5,167 comments
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Which position on firearms is closest to your own?

  • I support complete illegality of civilian ownership

    Votes: 120 15.5%
  • I support strict control.

    Votes: 244 31.5%
  • I support moderate control.

    Votes: 164 21.2%
  • I support loose control.

    Votes: 81 10.5%
  • I oppose control.

    Votes: 139 17.9%
  • I am undecided.

    Votes: 27 3.5%

  • Total voters
    775
It would be fascinating to step into the mind of a medieval person. Today, it's a vanished world. I'm not even sure the concept of liberty existed to them as we know it today. Archers, cooks and stewards were essentially trained peasants locked in service to the feudal order. They would have been a profitless burden to confine as prisoners. Removing life and controlling liberty would have been anathema to the medieval mind, I think. But very, even over familiar to the modern mind.

Absolutely, but the feudal system (and other similar systems) were harshly punitive by just about all modern standards and were heavily based in punishments against both life and liberty.

Regardless of whether or not the mass populus recognised life and liberty as things that some people might even have an entitlement to (although I'm sure they did when Posh People rode past) the system was effectively one of enslavement of the lowest 'classes'.

I'm digressing; I think what I was saying was that an armed siege is a military action which is a threat to life or liberty (or removal/control thereof) in order to attain control of assets/power. The cannon's purpose is a force-mupltiplier to aid in removal of all obstacles (living or otherwise) to physical and political progress, and therefore satisfies my definition of A Gun.
 
Certainly @FoolKiller struggled and merely answered with a quote from @Famine that said "guns do not exist to put bullets into people, and then seemed to be confused about the fact that "life and liberty" is in the preamble to the Amendments, that I agreed wholeheartedly with Famine and that his reply didn't mean the same thing. @FoolKiller said he had to put it into "other words", which unfortunately were the wrong ones.
You've confused me with someone else, as I never quoted @Famine or tried to use "other words." I directly responded to you and received no response to the questions posed to you in my last post.





[EDIT:]

Here is an interesting story. It's just rumor now, but if it turns out to be true, it means even police recognize that some laws are unjust and violate rights.

A showdown is developing between a sizable number of Connecticut state police officers and the politicians who passed into law highly restrictive gun control, gun bans, and bans on high capacity magazines.

Gun rights legal expert and activist David Hardy reported Friday that 250 law enforcement officers in Connecticut have signed an open letter stating that they will not enforce the new anti-gun and magazine laws, which they consider to be a violation of theSecond Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A major news story on these developments is due to be published soon, but Hardy received an advanced notice via email from Tyler Jackson, the head of the Connecticut Peace Officers Association, the organization that sent the open letter.

According to Hardy,

Tyler Jackson has emailed me an interesting story, soon to appear online (I'll link to it once it does)-- the gist is that the head of the Connecticut Peace Officers' Assn has released an open letter stating that the police will not "be party to the oppression of the people of the state by enforcing an unconstitutional law." So far 250 LEOs have cosigned the letter.

Gunowners in the state have already ignored the mandate to comply with the new laws, refusing to register with the state government their possession of so-called "assault weapons" and forbidden magazines.

It is estimated that over 300,000 gunowners have practiced civil disobedience in refusing to register and give up the newly forbidden items. Only roughly 50,000 citizens in the state have complied.

But now these courageous citizens have key support in high places. With at least 250 law enforcement officers joining them in disobeying an unconstitutional law, the gunowners have a new weapon in their arsenal -- the support of hundreds of police officers.

Hardy reported that with the lack of support of police, Connecticut faces massive civilian resistance, with police officers refusing to enforce a law that to most citizens crosses a line that is unacceptable in a free society.

If such a thing can happen in a deeply blue state in New England, what would law enforcement encounter if they attempted such an ill-fated attack on Constitutionally-protected rights in Texas, Wyoming, South Carolina, Utah, or Kentucky?

This is something that the political powers that be in government and law enforcement -- and in the Courts -- should think long and hard about before acting in such a knee-jerk fashion as Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have done.
 
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You've confused me with someone else, as I never quoted @Famine or tried to use "other words." I directly responded to you and received no response to the questions posed to you in my last post.





[EDIT:]

Here is an interesting story. It's just rumor now, but if it turns out to be true, it means even police recognize that some laws are unjust and violate rights.

EDIT:

I'm surprised no judge has ruled this unconstitutional or at least issued an injunction.

From what I understand, 'assault' weapons are now required to be registered under CT law. People who attempted to register their stuff are receiving letters saying they used the wrong postage and are now in violation of the law, and have to dispose of or hand over their weapons. Stupid because now there is a paper trail telling the authorities exactly where to go to get them. Others chose not to comply period.
 
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I have, and I'm sorry... :)

Let me go find the actual poster, d'oh :D

We've been over how I responded to your post. It is disappointing when I take the time to respond to your point only to watch you refuse to process my response. I responded with enough content to qualify as a standalone point. Respond to what I write instead of cherry-picking on-the-surface details.

At some point the stack of reasoning that you have ignored grows too high for me to bother adding to.
 
The government can take my guns away, but they will be taking them from my dead hands as my body is lying in a pile of brass, because I was defending my rights as an American. I didn't buy my gun to kill people. I got it so that I wouldn't be killed
 
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Oh boy here we go again another freedom loving individual getting uppity!


The government can take my guns away, but they will be taking them from my dead hands as my body is lying in a pile of brass, because I was defending my rights as an American. I didn't buy my gun to kill people. I got it so that I wouldn't be killed
 
Slight technicality here - your are not given to you by the constitution and bill of rights. They're simply legally codified in the constitution. Your rights exist independently.

You could read that he's defending the rights that were given to him in the Constitution.

You could also argue that there are more to rights than what's simply in the Constitution and I'd agree with you to an extent, as you know. The only ones that are really arguable are those that have been codified rather than those that are still under debate or simply not codified.

Just being pedantic :)
 
The United States Federal Constitution doesn't give you rights, it just states that you have the rights they were given to you when you were conceived, or when you took your first breaths of life when you were born on this plain of existence, because rights, and/or civil liberties are endowed by God, Allah, All powerful life force that controls this plain of existence, and are inalienable ... or when Xenu comes back to Earth ....

I am defending my rights that were given to me in the Constitution.

Sarcasm ... heard of it?

So let me see here, defending your rights is "getting uppity"?
 
The United States Federal Constitution doesn't give you rights, it just states that you have the rights they were given to you when you were conceived, or when you took your first breaths of life when you were born on this plain of existence, because rights, and/or civil liberties are endowed by God, Allah, All powerful life force that controls this plain of existence, and are inalienable ... or when Xenu comes back to Earth ....



Sarcasm ... heard of it?

Not sure why you'd come on a thread like this with sarcasm, we have plenty of threads for you to be sarcastic and funny if you weren't aware...people that mainly participate here (me included) tend to not appreciate "sarcasm" that doesn't contribute.
 
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The United States Federal Constitution doesn't give you rights, it just states that you have the rights they were given to you when you were conceived, or when you took your first breaths of life when you were born on this plain of existence, because rights, and/or civil liberties are endowed by God, Allah, All powerful life force that controls this plain of existence, and are inalienable ... or when Xenu comes back to Earth ....?

No it doesn't, it says that all who accept the Constitution accept that. "We hold these these truths to be self-evident" is the important line.

I don't believe there's a Constitutional specification that life begins to exist at first breath? Otherwise the pro-life debate would have been a much easier win.
 
I don't believe there's a Constitutional specification that life begins to exist at first breath? Otherwise the pro-life debate would have been a much easier win.

It applies to people. This wouldn't help pro-lifers since fetuses are fetuses and people are people.
 
It applies to people. This wouldn't help pro-lifers since fetuses are fetuses and people are people.

A14 says "no person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law".

To most pro-lifers that's the Amendment that most informs their argument. The specific point I was making to Beeker is that outside that there is no definition of when "being a person" begins. I was speculating that if it had specified all unborn babies as people then the pro-lifers would have had a clear Constitutional argument to bring.

As it is the Constitution just says "person" and so the main argument continues about what (or who) is or isn't a "person", ie when they become "alive", or when they become "alive in their own right".
 
Scientifically speaking, a fetus is a fetus and a person is a person. A fetus becomes a person when the umbilical cord is cut or any other way you can make the fetus no longer parasitic to the mother.

I don't really care what mental gymnastics anyone tries to use to justify calling something that isn't a person a person.
 
Scientifically speaking, a fetus is a fetus and a person is a person. A fetus becomes a person when the umbilical cord is cut or any other way you can make the fetus no longer parasitic to the mother.

D'oh! Did you just try to use Science to win an argument? You know this is the internet, right? :D

I agree with what you say but I also agree that for some purposes we need to know when 'someone' is or isn't 'someone'. Literally that's contradictory but you see what I mean, hopefully. Pro-life goes much further than that argument of course, but part of the push-pull is the actual definition of when the embryo is a fetus and then when that fetus is 'alive' as a person... because at that point they get social protection. I don't know what the definition should be and I think it's too difficult to really make a definitive judgement.
 
No it doesn't, it says that all who accept the Constitution accept that. "We hold these these truths to be self-evident" is the important line.
You're confusing the US Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. They are completely separate documents, even though written within a decade of each other for the same group of people.

The Constitution is the foundation for law in this country. The Declaration has no legal standing whatsoever, although there have been attempts to change that.
 
You're confusing the US Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. They are completely separate documents, even though written within a decade of each other for the same group of people.

The Constitution is the foundation for law in this country. The Declaration has no legal standing whatsoever, although there have been attempts to change that.

The Declaration has no power in law but is the basis that the Constitution ratifies, extends and limits. It has been used heavily as an interpretative text in early Constitutional judgements and is the document that starts the "American" division from Britain's constitutional parliament.

It confers no rights in law but gives the framework of intent within which the Bill of Rights was fashioned. That's why it's my belief that those words are inherited into the spirit of the Constitution.
 
The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of individuals to Keep and Bear Arms.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I will defend that until I die.
 
D'oh! Did you just try to use Science to win an argument? You know this is the internet, right? :D

I agree with what you say but I also agree that for some purposes we need to know when 'someone' is or isn't 'someone'. Literally that's contradictory but you see what I mean, hopefully. Pro-life goes much further than that argument of course, but part of the push-pull is the actual definition of when the embryo is a fetus and then when that fetus is 'alive' as a person... because at that point they get social protection. I don't know what the definition should be and I think it's too difficult to really make a definitive judgement.

Fetuses don't get a full compliment of human rights until they reach 21 years of age in the US (+9 months or +7 months depending on where you start counting from).
 
In what way?

The fact I need to explain "in what way" says more about your understanding of the subject then I could have ever revealed on my own.

You said...
"They don't only exist to remove life or liberty? What do they exist for?"

I said...
"Ensuring those same concepts."

If it's news to you that guns can be used to protect and serve then you've missed out on a great deal of world history.
True, guns can be used by evil people who intend to deprive you of life and liberty but they can also be used to stop those same evil people; often times it's the only way to stop them.

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The fact I need to explain "in what way" says more about your understanding of the subject then I could have ever revealed on my own.

You said...
"They don't only exist to remove life or liberty? What do they exist for?"

I said...
"Ensuring those same concepts."

Thank you. I simply hoped that you'd expand on your brief statement which you did, if with dudgeon.

You clearly think that the method in which a gun ensures the concept of life and liberty while not removing life or liberty on the process is self-evident. I find it otherwise.

How do you actually use the gun to ensure life or liberty without removing life or liberty? Give me an example where a gun does that, beginning to end.
 
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