Now they control both Houses, so they're gonna try, try again.

[cow451]

it has shown just how corrupt various systems are.

Who “it”?

 

[Thomas White]

The technology has nothing to do with the principle. The people who wrote the second amendment wrote it so the people would have the ability to defend themselves from government in revolution should the government ever become tyranical. That principle still stands, unless you would have the government give up modern weapons of war the people should have access to them. The ability to be armed is the difference between a citizen and a slave.

So the people should have access to nuclear warheads?

 

[Fervent]

So the people should have access to nuclear warheads?

Should governments? Anything permitted to the government but denied the people is tyranny. Or are we not the masters of our government?

 

[Thomas White]

Should governments? Anything permitted to the government but denied the people is tyranny. Or are we not the masters of our government?

That statement is illogical. Should everyone print their own money? Of course not.

 

[Fervent]

That statement is illogical. Should everyone print their own money? Of course not.

The government doesn't print money, a private bank does and then loans it to the government. And it shouldn't be happening, fractional reserve banking is theft.

 

[Thomas White]

The government doesn't print money, a private bank does and then loans it to the government. And it shouldn't be happening, fractional reserve banking is theft.

What are you talking about? The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints money. Private banks do not legally print money.

 

[Fervent]

What are you talking about? The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints money. Private banks do not legally print money.

The federal reserve dictates the printing of money based on the federal funds rate and is in control of the money supply. Simply because they aren't operating the presses is rather irrelevant. Besides that anyone can print their own money if they want, and corporations do all the time they simply need something to back it. In fact I just went to Kohl's today and spend some Kohl's cash.

 

[cow451]

The federal reserve dictates the printing of money based on the federal funds rate and is in control of the money supply. Simply because they aren't operating the presses is rather irrelevant. Besides that anyone can print their own money if they want, and corporations do all the time they simply need something to back it. In fact I just went to Kohl's today and spend some Kohl's cash.

That shirt looks good on you. Brings out the color of your eyes.

 

[Sketcher]

Yes, weaponry had progressed from matchlocks to flintlocks! Wow! No more ignition delay!

If you recall, the war was fought against an overseas monarchy with a powerful army. So the solution was "a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state". I agree that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are all in danger if we don't have the right to defend our own lives and the lives of others from those who seek to physically harm us. That is why we have the police and the military -- "well-trained militias". Why do you think the first part of the Second Amendment is there? Why doesn't it just say "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed"?

It's not the right of the militias to keep and bear Arms, it's the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. The people keep and bear Arms, they bring those Arms and join the militias.

 

[Aldebaran]

It's not the right of the militias to keep and bear Arms, it's the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. The people keep and bear Arms, they bring those Arms and join the militias.

It actually works either way:
"I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers."
- George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 178

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."
- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789

“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788

Gun Quotations of the Founding Fathers | Buckeye Firearms Association

 

[Fervent]

It's not the right of the militias to keep and bear Arms, it's the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. The people keep and bear Arms, they bring those Arms and join the militias.

The irony of it is if we actually took that right to heart and formed militias the government would crack down long before it ever got anywhere. A la Ruby Ridge and Malhuer Wildlife Refuge.

 

[Sketcher]

The irony of it is if we actually took that right to heart and formed militias the government would crack down long before it ever got anywhere. A la Ruby Ridge and Malhuer Wildlife Refuge.

We've got militias, the Michigan Militia comes to mind. Many on the left who are in favor of greater firearm restriction say that only militias and police should have the firearms. What doesn't make sense is why they would think restricting firearm ownership to groups like that, and also the police - who were being protested with fire and looting for allegedly having a racist culture and practices - would be a good idea. That will funnel people right to the police and the militias that leftists don't seem to like. If you want to have more groups of people to organize well-regulated militias who are more down to Earth, the logical thing to do is to not restrict firearms to existing militias, so that new ones can more easily form.

 

[Neogaia777]

I hope there are not people dumb enough out there to voluntarily give up all of their gun ownership and weapon ownership rights, despite the risks, or occasional tragedies, or occasional cost of some lives sometimes, that we might occasionally take sometimes in order to have them, etc...

You think everything will always be and always stay the same, etc, that the almighty government will always take care of you, always be able to, etc, and always will, etc, always see to your relatively stable world, and existence, and your every comfort and safety, etc...?

Just how naive and ignorant are you, etc...?

Has history taught you nothing, etc...?

Your own government will even enslave you if they can and are able to, etc, something our founding fathers in this country knew very, very well, etc...

I can only hope a lot of people are at least just as smart as them, etc...

Anyway...

God Bless!

 

[iluvatar5150]

It's just like with this little rifle here: a Ruger .22 sport rifle. Very small caliber, semi-auto, Doesn't fire any faster or farther either way, nor does it use bigger ammo. You still have to squeeze the trigger every time to make it fire---you can't just hold the trigger down and spray lead; doesn't work that way.

The ONLY DIFFERENCE between these two weapons is that one looks like a plinking rifle, and the other looks all black and threatening. Whoooo----scary, huh? The kicker? It's the exact same weapon.


View attachment 296207

If they’re the same weapon, why are they both still on the market? Why would a person buy the bottom one over the top? Why would a person pay more money for all of those extra bits?

 

[pescador]

I hope there are not people dumb enough out there to voluntarily give up all of their gun ownership and weapon ownership rights, despite the risks, or occasional tragedies, or occasional cost of some lives sometimes, that we might occasionally take sometimes in order to have them, etc...

You think everything will always be and always stay the same, etc, that the almighty government will always take care of you, always be able to, etc, and always will, etc, always see to your relatively stable world, and existence, and your every comfort and safety, etc...?

Just how naive and ignorant are you, etc...?

Has history taught you nothing, etc...?

Your own government will even enslave you if they can and are able to, etc, something our founding fathers in this country knew very, very well, etc...

I can only hope a lot of people are at least just as smart as them, etc...

Anyway...

God Bless!

Just how naive and ignorant are you? Has history taught you nothing?

Your own government will never enslave you if they can and are able to.

Why are you so afraid??

 

[Neogaia777]

Just how naive and ignorant are you? Has history taught you nothing?

Your own government will never enslave you if they can and are able to.

Why are you so afraid??

I'm more afraid of it all coming crashing down one day soon right now, and then having to survive afterwards or during right now, then I am my own government enslaving me or trying to enslave me right now, for which I might require some guns or weapons to both feed and protect, etc...

But history does show us that governments that can enslave a people eventually will, or will always eventually do so as much and as far as they can and or are able to, "eventually", with all of them "eventually", etc, even with some of the, right now, even eventually some of very best of them right now, like America right now, etc...

But I think that's a lot farther off then it just all coming crashing down sometime right now, and I feel like I should rightly be able to always have a few guns in case of that, etc...

I also grew up with guns, and hunting and fishing and all of that, and that's still very prevalent still where I live, etc, and should never "not be allowed" ever, etc...

God Bless!

 

[parousia70]

The technology has nothing to do with the principle. The people who wrote the second amendment wrote it so the people would have the ability to defend themselves from government in revolution should the government ever become tyranical.

This is a myth.

If you read through James Madison’s notes on the constitutional convention, six or seven of the constitutional ratifying conventions, and the debates around the Bill of Rights, you will find that Literally nowhere, at any time, under any circumstances – even remotely – did any of the founders sit around and say, “Yeah, this government we’re creating, someday it may go just nuts, so we should give the citizens the right to own gun so they can kill government employees at will, if they believe government is oppressive.” They literally never thought that. That’s the most bat-guano crazy thing that you could assert. These people just put a country together and they were building a republic, one that they hoped would last centuries. The whole point of the division of government into three parts, in order to diminish the power of any one branch, was key to making sure that it worked. So your claim is just a complete nonsense story.

Where that story seems to have come from is in the 1970s, the (American) Rifleman magazine – the NRA’s magazine – a teenager wrote an op-ed suggesting that was maybe what was on the mind of the founders. That idea got picked up by people in the John Birch Society and other hardcore right-wing groups, who were already, at that point, viewing the federal government as oppressive, and it grew into this thing that people simply assume was a founding American principle, as you have done.

There is absolutely no basis to be found in the founding letters, documents, thoughts or ideas of our country’s founders, nor in the 2nd amendment itself, that American citizens have to right to kill government employees at will if they believe the government has become too oppressive.

 

[Fervent]

This is a myth.

If you read through James Madison’s notes on the constitutional convention, six or seven of the constitutional ratifying conventions, and the debates around the Bill of Rights, you will find that Literally nowhere, at any time, under any circumstances – even remotely – did any of the founders sit around and say, “Yeah, this government we’re creating, someday it may go just nuts, so we should give the citizens the right to own gun so they can kill government employees at will, if they believe government is oppressive.” They literally never thought that. That’s the most bat-guano crazy thing that you could assert. These people just put a country together and they were building a republic, one that they hoped would last centuries. The whole point of the division of government into three parts, in order to diminish the power of any one branch, was key to making sure that it worked. So your claim is just a complete nonsense story.

Where that story seems to have come from is in the 1970s, the (American) Rifleman magazine – the NRA’s magazine – a teenager wrote an op-ed suggesting that was maybe what was on the mind of the founders. That idea got picked up by people in the John Birch Society and other hardcore right-wing groups, who were already, at that point, viewing the federal government as oppressive, and it grew into this thing that people simply assume was a founding American principle, as you have done.

There is absolutely no basis to be found in the founding letters, documents, thoughts or ideas of our country’s founders, nor in the 2nd amendment itself, that American citizens should have to right, and the firepower, to kill government employees at will if they believe the government has become too oppressive.

Have you read anything by Jefferson? Start with his letters regarding Shay's rebellion. It may not have come up in the discussions, but several of the founding fathers held a cynical view of executive power and recognized they were setting up an experimental government that could have gone wrong in numerous ways.

 

[parousia70]

Have you read anything by Jefferson? Start with his letters regarding Shay's rebellion. It may not have come up in the discussions, but several of the founding fathers held a cynical view of executive power and recognized they were setting up an experimental government that could have gone wrong in numerous ways.

Show me where Jefferson believed or advocated that the citizenry had or should have the right to use firearms to kill government employees at will any time we believe this experimental government is “going wrong”, as was your initial claim I responded to.

Again, this is a myth, a very pervasive myth, but a myth none the less.

The actual reason for the second amendment is two-fold.
The first was that there was an absolute and broad consensus among the founders and framers of the Constitution that a standing army during times of peace was a threat to liberty, was a danger to the governments. This grew out of the experience that these people had of watching country after country in Europe over the preceding 2,000 years have great military victories, and then when the army comes home when the war is over, the army takes over the country and boom – you’re suddenly living in a military dictatorship.

So they did two things: No. 1, in Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution, they said that Congress can appropriate or spend money for anything – except the army. And if Congress spends money and appropriates for the army, it may not be for more than two years, ever. And that’s why every two years, since the founding of the republic until today, Congress has to pass a military appropriations bill.

No. 2 was the alternative to a standing army during times of peace was basically to have citizen militias, who could be called up by the state governor or by the federal government, if necessary, and turned into an army to fight a war. That was the real intention of the Second Amendment, which is why it starts out talking about well-regulated militias.

This is where the concept and implementation of the national guard came from.
The National guards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia are the “well regulated militias” authorized by the second amendment.
And those national guard “militias”, made up of an armed populace, are the bulwark against a foreign invasion in times of peace that the second amendment was designed to provide for.

Contrary to your assertion, The second amendment, again, is not a license for an individual u.s citizen to kill individual u.s. government employees at will anytime an individual u.s. citizen believes the u.s. government has become too oppressive.

 

[renniks]

Sorry, but I'm a Christian. God is my authority. Selective quotes from the Buckeye Firearms Association don't take priority over what The Bible clearly says.

What does the Bible say about guns? Please enlighten us.