Reply #43: That's pretty funny, P_O!

[Lexingtonian]

If you'd like to know, my first post on this board was on this topic. Same fallacies, same propagandazing, same illogic.

Just stop it. Stop it. Support the 2nd amendment fully, and take a proactive citizen stance on the issue. State completely and without reservation that the 2nd amendment is about individual citizen ownership of firearms for personal use and personal protection.

This is blatantly hilarious. Own whatever you like, I agree. But the Second Amendment is not about ownership- it says there is no individual _right_ to bear arms of the kind, no matter what you or I propose to like.

You have no idea how many single-issue voters would change sides in a heartbeat if given the chance.

Yes, we do. Zero. They'd find some other pressing excuse to vote for the Stupid Party. If they believe half the things you do, their schooling has hopelessly failed them to function in the modern world anyway.

In addition, do yourselves a favor. Go out and buy a gun and keep it in your own home. Learn to be a safe gun owner.

And up the risk of getting yourself shot sevenfold? That's in the undisputed statistics.

One of my friends, and Green Party supporter and gun control activist is on the other side of the issue and is totally in favor of gun control, whatever that means. I think it means using both hands, he thinks it means taking my guns away.

So, is something actually wrong with him, or are we supposed to care?

Take your friends to the range and teach them to handle firearms responsibly.

That would be about the last place to learn the 'responsibly' part- surrounded by the Cultists, no actual danger to learn to assess. That's like learning about war by playing video games.

One of the reasons the Japanese army was very reluctant to attack the mainland US territory was because the US population was heavily armed. A rifle behind every blade of grass indeed.

Hardly true- they simply weren't out to enslave illiterates five thousand miles away if there were plenty enough within two thousand miles. Why bother with slow learners. Most of them with squirrel guns and bad shots overall. (Check the stats.)

The Gun Cult really began in Texas after the Civil War. The ex-Confederates were into lynchings and intimidating blacks and Indians, knew wartime guns, and were scared of federal troops being sent in to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments they were doing all they could to suppress.

Fuck gun control. Let it flow! Arm yourself and allow your fellow citizens to arm themselves.

Also to be regarded as a scene of Fools with weapons beyond their level of moral and technical competence to use wisely.

I'll tell you something else. The gangbangers can't shoot skeet worth a shit. They recognize when someone else can knock 50 out of 50 clay pigeons out of the air. I embarass the hell out of them on the range, and they know it.

This is a wonderful canard. The AWB comes out of gangbangers upping the firepower because of their bad aim- streets started getting shot up with 500 and 1,000 rounds by 17-year-olds using shitty mechanisms unworthy of the label 'gun', e.g. Tec-9s. That misapplication of technology and overkill amounts of ammunition started killing 3-5 bystanders for every gang member or drug dealer.

Give up on the assault weapons ban. Stop it. Support the Bill of Rights. Make me stop giving money to the NRA by allowing citizens to arm themselves! Join the responsible gun owners today and support your fellow law-abiding citizens!

Ever the comedian, aren't you?

You know, I posted that first time on the Second Amendment because the gun nut had lied about the Second Amendment. It was the day I went to the nearby museum and saw all the public records involving the weaponry the Minutemen had at Lexington and Concord. The public records show that the _town meetings_ of Lexington, Concord, and other towns in the region had raised taxes and bought guns (and ammunition, clothing, and some small cannons) with the money, and issued them to their town-chartered militia ('Minuteman') units. When the Siege of Boston was over the towns had all the militia members turn in their guns and other 'public property' (yes, that phrase is used) and all the apparel was sold to the State of Massachusetts. The State outfitted its state-chartered militia units (later National Guard) with them for the duration of the Revolutionary War.

That is the context of the Second Amendment. Farmers then, and until the Civil War, had guns that were used to kill birds and cows at short ranges and were pretty bad for use on the battlefield. War-capable weaponry was special order.

The Supreme Court has not accepted individual right-to-bear-arms lawsuits since the 1930s. In the USSC decisions there are, it's clear but (intentionally) not explicit that the individual ability to bear arms is a privilege, Constitutionally. The choice is simply, as in other aspects of the Constitution, to phase in explicit meaning of the parts as it becomes the right sociopolitical situation to do so. As it stands, the Supreme Court decided in the 1930s that too much of the country was too poorly policed and generally too uncivilized in its social norms and behaviors for the kind of rule of law necessary for personal lethal weaponry to be unreasonable. Sadly, in 2004 I still think that's valid as an assessment. But when the society chooses to become a civilization- and lets go of the vanity called Empire- personal lethal weaponry will no longer provide any benefits, and only costs, to society. In the wildest parts, of course weaponry will always be a reasonable part of life, but why Utahns should desire or 'need' to have concealed carry rights into churches and government buildings _as groups_...that makes a mockery of them as an advanced society, makes them lower than gangbangers. Gangbangers at least have the pride of not demanding to have the rules changed to fit their brand of stupidity.

As for the Gun Cult-ism...I call it that because folks of your general propaganda line are not pragmatists about guns. You believe that they are magic wands, able to stop the Bad and create the Good by having them in possession and by the wielding while uttering some spell/mantra. You should have to wear the pointed hats and black robes too. He who has a gun is Omniscient and All-Powerful, in this occult religion, and in the absence of one feels as naked and cursed as the day s/he was born. It does your Will, this holiest of instruments, and It Must Be Praised on online forums. There must be more Believers, and more Power Rushes, more Shazzam! and poof! small furry creatures lie dead because they annoyed you. Oh, the Ecstasy!

I think it was Heschel who said that the creation and emergence of life was a miracle, but killing only a skill. That seems to be the most mature attitude I've come across about lethal weaponry.