"Welcome to the Wild West!"

[Diuretic]

And no sane person actually claims the Government can not REASONABLY regulate what weapons we can have. Larkinn keeps claiming that the ONLY intrepretation of the second that allows private ownership includes NO limits. A standard that is NOT applied to ANY OTHER Right in the Constitution.

It is fear mongering designed to scare people away from the right of US citizens to keep and bear arms.

The second amendment is clear, it establishes several rights. It provides a promise to the States that they will always have a right to a militia and it establishes that every citizen is given the right to own, possess, and bear arms for self defense, for defense of community and for defense of Nation.

NO other place that the term " the people" appears is there a claim that it is not conveying a PERSONAL right or power.



A personal, individual right.

When the decision to add the Amendments was made over 180 amendments were proposed. These were whittled down to just 10. Most of those 10 Amendments encompass more than one right or concept in them.

I wouldn't presume to tell someone else about the efficacy of their laws (well not on an habitual basis at least). Fair points and taken. Thank you.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

If the premise more guns means more crimes, more murders, more shootings, more firearms accidents, then Switzerland should be awash in gun related incidents, deaths, robberies, crimes. The Government ISSUES a rifle to every able bodied adult that finishes basic military training. That country should be a sea of dead and dying.

If banning gun ownership works to lower crimes then England should be safe as hell. The reverse is true, since they banned nearly all weapon ownership gun violence has GONE UP.

 

[Diuretic]

If the premise more guns means more crimes, more murders, more shootings, more firearms accidents, then Switzerland should be awash in gun related incidents, deaths, robberies, crimes. The Government ISSUES a rifle to every able bodied adult that finishes basic military training. That country should be a sea of dead and dying.

If banning gun ownership works to lower crimes then England should be safe as hell. The reverse is true, since they banned nearly all weapon ownership gun violence has GONE UP.

That's my point (lost in the mists).

 

[Larkinn]

You're still ignoring their civility and decency. The reason you wish to steer away from it is that considering their civility and decency attacks the moral foundation of your authoritarian paradigm.

I'm not ignoring it, I'm questioning it. You made an assertion that they were civil and decent, now back it up. My authoritarian paradigm? WTF are you talking about?

Not an argument at all; an accurate observation. Your response is that people should be afraid that others might be able to defend themselves with the very best technology available to them, because guns are only used for self defense--a response that does not answer, "<b>Why</b> should some people be so afraid that others might be able to defend themselves with the very best technology available to them?".

Because that technology can also be used for OFFENSE, and there is no guarantee that it won't be used in such a way. Obviously the worry isn't that they can defend themselves from criminals, but that criminals will get their hands on such weapons and wreak havoc.

I don't think you do know the definition of pedantic; because if you did, you'd not insist, in defiance of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, that every able bodied person, regardless of gender or age, is in the militia.

...

I do know the definition, you just don't know how to read since I've never insisted that every able bodied person is in the militia.

My interpretation does not leave out the militia, and yours makes an assertion that is not there, and is patently wrong.

The Second Amendment does not say, "The right of the people who are part of a militia...". It says that a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State. That clause expresses the federal government's interest in recognizing and protecting the right, which is described in the main clause of the sentence: "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Rights (any rights) are conditional upon the existence of people, not the militia. Rights are not conferred to "the people," they are presumed, and protected by the government. Thus, though a well regulated militia is indissocialble from the existence of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the right stands on its own, upon the existence of "the people," without association with, or contingent upon, the militia.

The preamble to the right does not modify the right. "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,..." is not a clause limiting the main clause (the subject of which is "the right", and the verb is "shall"), rather it's a participle indicating the necessity of "the right" for maintaining a militia--NOT that a militia is neccessary for the the existence of the right.

Then you are not explaining why the words militia are in there. A common doctrine of Constitutional interpretation is to avoid surplusage.

If you're asserting that either Wittgenstein or Quine asserted that words have precise objective meaning, then you should try reading them and get back to me.

Umm that they don't assert that does not mean they are relativist. Relativist has specific connotations that does not include the idea that words are subjective. Generally the idea that words are subjective is so obvious its not argued about, rather what is discussed is where the subjectivity comes from.

Red herring. I made no circular argument.

Yes, you really did.

What the fuck are you talking about? Answer the question: what is wrong with walking down the street with a rocket launcher?

You can kill mass numbers of people with it.

tsk...such intellectual cowardice.

Selling nukes to Iran, North Korea, Burma, etc., is unrelated to my argument, and not basically the same as my argument.

Sure it is. You asked me why am I afraid of letting people defend themselves. Well why are you afraid of letting Iran defend themself with a nuke? Further why shouldn't Al-Qaeda be able to defend themselves with a nuke? Or me? Should I be able to buy nukes?

Absurd is your demand that providing nukes to nations is somehow a neccessary consequence of my argument.

No, not quite.

My resume is not relevent, and resumes really don't indicate terribly much about Supreme Court Justices in light of decisions like Dredd Scott, or even your precious Miller case where the justices were monumentally unaware that short barreled shotguns were used by the military in trench warfare.

We are talking about skill. Experience, and hence, ones resume matters in that case. By the way...which justices on the court now were on the court during the Dred Scott case or the Miller case?

Each of the 9 justices have years and years of practice studying and learning about Con. Law. My guess is you have exactly none.

So, Mr. 1994 Logical Flaws, let's stop trying to use ad-hominem and appeal to authority as a means to avoid addressing the points being made, ok?

Appeal to authority is a valid argument. I also haven't made any ad hominem arguments. Really, if you are using terms that you obviously know nothing about at least spare me the bother of correcting you, and look them up first.

 

[Larkinn]

And no sane person actually claims the Government can not REASONABLY regulate what weapons we can have. Larkinn keeps claiming that the ONLY intrepretation of the second that allows private ownership includes NO limits. A standard that is NOT applied to ANY OTHER Right in the Constitution.

Are you on drugs?

I've been arguing exactly the opposite of that. Loki has been arguing that point. I think that it is unclear exactly what the amendment says, but I've been arguing that regulating guns IS a valid interpretation of the amendment.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Are you on drugs?

I've been arguing exactly the opposite of that. Loki has been arguing that point. I think that it is unclear exactly what the amendment says, but I've been arguing that regulating guns IS a valid interpretation of the amendment.

No right is absolute. The Government has the responsibility and duty to regulate the society we are and live in.

 

[Larkinn]

No right is absolute. The Government has the responsibility and duty to regulate the society we are and live in.

The right to life is, imo.

However, please READ what I say before responding to it. Even a cursory glance at what I was saying should have made it incredibly obvious that I wasn't saying that the government could not regulate guns.

 

[Diuretic]

The right to life is, imo.

However, please READ what I say before responding to it. Even a cursory glance at what I was saying should have made it incredibly obvious that I wasn't saying that the government could not regulate guns.

The right to life should be an absolute but where a government - a government - decides that it can kill someone then it must be that in that particular polity life is not an absolute right, it's conditional.

 

[JimH52]

Please read below:

http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm

This is not from a US source. It is not tainted. It is fact...

 

[LOki]

And no sane person actually claims the Government can not REASONABLY regulate what weapons we can have. Larkinn keeps claiming that the ONLY intrepretation of the second that allows private ownership includes NO limits.

The question of sanity aside, I think you have Larkin and me switched--Larkin is arguing that the 2nd Amendment applies only to members of an organized milita, and I am certainly arguing that under the 2nd Amendment people have the right to keep and bear any arms we choose.

A standard that is NOT applied to ANY OTHER Right in the Constitution.

Well, certainly true where the Constitution is disregrded, otherwise:

First Amendment.

Fourth Amendment.

Parts of the Fifth Amendment.

Ninth Amendment.

Every where conceal carry has been approved in the last 20 years the anti gun nuts have claimed it would result in shoot outs in the streets, in wild west gunfights in the cities of the States that approved the concealed carry.

And yet it has not happened ANYWHERE.

Shhhhhh! Such talk suggests Concealed Carry Permittees are typically civil and decent folks.

If the premise more guns means more crimes, more murders, more shootings, more firearms accidents, then Switzerland should be awash in gun related incidents, deaths, robberies, crimes. The Government ISSUES a rifle to every able bodied adult that finishes basic military training. That country should be a sea of dead and dying.

Indeed. Switzerland issues <b>ACTUAL</b> assault rifles to every able bodied adult that finishes basic military training--training which, by the way, is compulsory.

I'm not ignoring it, I'm questioning it. You made an assertion that they were civil and decent, now back it up.

My qestion may have presumed they were civil and decent, but I made no such assertion. You ignore and avoid the point by responding with a question. However, I will play your retarded game of asking questions in response to questions, by demanding that you first back up your presumption that armed folks are neither civil and/or decent (like Kazmierczak), and your continuation of that presumption in your incredulous questioning that Kazmierczak's vitims were civil and decent.

My authoritarian paradigm? WTF are you talking about?

The one suggested by your demand that, <i>"Appeal to authority is a valid argument."</i> The one affirmed by your insistence that the validity of an assertion is determined by the authority possessed by who is making it. The one solidified by the apparent position you're taking against the notion that the people have a constitutional right be adequately armed against all aggressors against their rights--including the possibly that their own government might one such aggressor.

Because that technology can also be used for OFFENSE, and there is no guarantee that it won't be used in such a way.

I did not ask <i>"Why should some people be so afraid that others might misuse the very best weapons technology available to them?"</i> So this in no way answers the question asked.

But since you insist upon bringing it up, in what way does infringing the right of people to keep and bear the very best defensive technology, protect them from those people who would use that same technology in an offensive or oppressive manner?

Obviously the worry isn't that they can defend themselves from criminals,...

If this is true, then why are the vast, vast, vast majority of regulations that infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms, designed to inhibit potential victims of violence, rather than the aggressors, from obtaining, keeping, and bearing the most effective arms?

...but that criminals will get their hands on such weapons and wreak havoc.

Exactly which gun control regulations do criminals find to be a deterrent for getting their hands on such weapons and wreaking havoc? Background checks? Waiting periods? Licensing? Which?

...

I do know the definition, you just don't know how to read since I've never insisted that every able bodied person is in the militia.

I mispoke. Here you go:<blockquote>I don't think you do know the definition of pedantic; because if you did, you'd not insist, in defiance of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, that every able bodied person, regardless of gender or age, is <b>NOT</b> in the militia.</blockquote>

Then you are not explaining why the words militia are in there. A common doctrine of Constitutional interpretation is to avoid surplusage.

I <b>did</b> explain why milita was mentioned--you should demonstrate that you read before you tell me that I <i>"...just don't know how to read."</i>

Umm that they don't assert that does not mean they are relativist. Relativist has specific connotations that does not include the idea that words are subjective. Generally the idea that words are subjective is so obvious its not argued about, rather what is discussed is where the subjectivity comes from.

Ummmmm, I'll just bet. You're probably not aware that there are folks who assert that words have precise meanings, despite your assertion that <i>"...the idea that words are subjective is so obvious its not argued about,...</i>; and to the extent that your authorities...<blockquote><i>"Another modern kind of cognitive relativism is <b>linguistic relativism</b>, that truth is created by the grammar and semantic system of particular language. <a href="http://www.friesian.com/relative.htm">This idea in philosophy comes from Ludwig Wittgenstein</a>, but it turns up independently in linguistics in the theory of Benjamin Lee Whorf. On this view the world really has no structure of its own, but that structure is entirely imposed by the structure of language. Learning a different language thus means in effect creating a new world, where absolutely everything can be completely different from the world as we know it. <a href="http://www.acgrayling.com/Witt/Wittgenstein1.html">Wittgenstein</a> called the rules established by a particular language a "game" that we play as we speak the language. As we "play" a "language game," we indulge in a certain "form of life."</i></blockquote><blockquote>

"As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits".

</blockquote>...would disagree, they are relativists--at least on this subject.

Yes, you really did.

No, actually not.

You can kill mass numbers of people with it.

So what? You can kill a bunch of people with a butcher knife, you can kill mass number of people with fuel oil, lots of things <i>can</i> happen, and I'm not asking about all those things, and I'm definitely not asking you, <i>"What is wrong with killing mass numbers of people with a rocket launcher?"</i> (The answer to which, by the way, is NOT walking down the street with a rocket launcher.). I am asking, "What is wrong with walking down the street with a rocket launcher?"

Forgive if I wrongly presumed you actually knew what <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/begquest.html">petitio principii</a> actually meant; perhaps you're just ignorant, rather than a coward.

Sure it is. You asked me why am I afraid of letting people defend themselves.

A question you really haven't answered in that your response always involves people initiating violence rather than defending against it--you don't address self-defense, you address the point you're comfrtable arguing against which is, initiating the violence.

Well why are you afraid of letting Iran defend themself with a nuke?

I'm not afraid of this, and I never suggested that I was, but I will point out two bits to you: First, rights belong to individuals, not countries or other oganizations--whatever rights one might like to assign to groups of individuals, come from the fact that the individuals within the group possess those rights. Secondly, I am not exactly sure how one might defend one's self with a nuke, but if one can does so without initiating violence against non-aggressors I see no reason why they should not be able to peacably have one--if you presume this can be done, so will I.

Further why shouldn't Al-Qaeda be able to defend themselves with a nuke?

I don't know.

Or me?

I don't know, but you should.

Should I be able to buy nukes?

If you can afford one, I see no reason to simply disallow you from buying one--but if you have a good reason you shouldn't be allowed to have one, please share it.

No, not quite.

Yes, very much so.

We are talking about skill. Experience, and hence, ones resume matters in that case.

No. Their skill and experince does not make them right--it does not confer validity to their assertions when their assertions are wrong.

By the way...which justices on the court now were on the court during the Dred Scott case or the Miller case?

The exact ones that authored the 2nd Amendment.

Besides, your bullshit argument from authority does not demand such distinction anyway, as they are the authority whether the particular justices presided over a particular case or not.

Each of the 9 justices have years and years of practice studying and learning about Con. Law. <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html">My guess is you have exactly none.</a>

Well, the fact is you're wrong, and I still assert that my resume is not relevent, and resumes really don't indicate terribly much about Supreme Court Justices in light of decisions like Dredd Scott, or even your precious Miller case where the justices were monumentally unaware that short barreled shotguns were used by the military in trench warfare.

Another fact that you seem to be unaware of, is that the Supreme Court is not empowered to determine what the Constitution says, they are empowered to determine if laws have been applied constitutionally or not--they apply the Constitution, they don't write it. In the case of the 2nd Amendment, the SCOTUS is not empowered to rewrite the 2nd to say, <i>"...the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."</i>

<a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html"><b>Appeal to authority</b></a> is a valid argument.

Not really.<blockquote><b>Form:</b>
Authority <b>A</b> believes that <b>P</b> is true.
Therefore, <b>P</b> is true.</blockquote>Regardless of their resume, postion, title, experience, practice, or authority...if the the Supreme Court makes offers up a wrong opinion, then that opinion is still wrong.

The Supreme Court is not infallible; it is not right just because it's the Supreme Court.

<a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html">I also haven't made any ad hominem arguments.</a>

<blockquote><i>"A debater commits the Ad Hominem Fallacy when he introduces irrelevant personal premisses about his opponent. Such red herrings may successfully distract the opponent or the audience from the topic of the debate."</i></blockquote>Attacking my resume, rather than my argument is a textbook example of the ad-hominmem fallacy. Douche.

Really, if you are using terms that you obviously know nothing about at least spare me the bother of correcting you, and look them up first.

Before you presume to correct my usage of terms you obviously know nothing about, at least look them up yourself and spare youself the embarassment of getting schooled.