Poll: Lets pretend the government passes a law stating that you can't have a gun anymore...
- Thread starter mattttherman3
- Start date
If you're unwilling to see the deeper meaning of one of the fundamental amendments of the bill of rights being removed by the government, then I'm afraid there's not much that can be done for you.MrGalactus said:
That would not be good...
Please correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't each state in America maintain the rights to basically veto the government's policies if they feel they aren't within the state's best interest? If that is the case I can see America splitting right across the waist - it'll be a less violent version of the Civil War all over again.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't each state in America maintain the rights to basically veto the government's policies if they feel they aren't within the state's best interest? If that is the case I can see America splitting right across the waist - it'll be a less violent version of the Civil War all over again.
![Violator[xL]](https://eg-forums-escapist-data.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/24/24558.jpg?1620210777){kind=avatar}
Don't have a gun, don't want one. People clinging to their guns because of some really old and outdated piece of paper, written in the time that the redcoats might come back, or angry natives, are way beyond my comprehension.
Well, very much hypothetically because I live in the UK and we're already not allowed to have guns, I'd give them up. I don't see why Americans are quite so attached to their weapons, it seems ridiculous.
It's good that you're able to use politics to justify killing people. Well done.TornadoADV said:
Surely the people who vote for ' kill the guy that tries to take it' are joking, right?
You can't be serious - if this actually happpens the guy is probably going to be a cop and is just doing his frigging job...
You can't be serious - if this actually happpens the guy is probably going to be a cop and is just doing his frigging job...
I think you might be overestimating how many people in the military would be willing to revolt against the government. Going AWOL would pretty much be a career ender and a lot of people would not want to lose their jobs/paychecks/lifestyles, especially as you go up the chain of command. I think at best you'd get a bunch of localized desertions and maybe some weapon thefts, and a bunch of people being rounded up and put before military tribunals. Certainly not enough to stop an enforced weapon recall.Sonic Doctor said:
But I'll be the first to admit that I see this from the perspective of an Australian. When we had the huge restrictions on guns put in place there was hardly a whimper from the people, they all just sort of quietly surrendered their guns and the few who complained about being disarmed were laughed at as paranoid conspiracy theorist types. But, and this is something I always point out when talking about gun control, Australia doesn't have anything like the same history as the US. We had no war of independance (we're still part of the British Commonwealth), no civil wars and our constitution doesn't enshrine gun ownership. So there's definitely an apples and oranges thing here and I'm happy to admit it taints my outlook on this.
So the founding fathers had magical powers of precognition, able to see hundreds of years into the future?chadachada123 said:
No, you don't need guns to "revolt against an oppressive regime", because civilized people don't do that. That's what a democracy is all about, gradual change through the will of the people. The Soviet Union wasn't overthrown by an armed militia, it dissolved largely peacefully because of the will of the people.
As we've seen in Libya and Syria last year (and many, many other nations throughout the 20th century), when there's an armed uprising against the government the majority of the military will stand on the side of the government, not the revolutionaries. Good luck fighting those UAV Drones and Abrams tanks with your shitty hunting rifle, mate.
And really, this needs to be put straight for all Americans; No-one cares about your bloody constitution. It's a bad constitution, which is why you have so many Amendments (read: Corrections) added to it.
Invoking "the constitution", "the founding fathers", "freeeeeduuuuhm" etc to support your stance or argument - regardless of what said stance is - just equates you to those Irish "doctors" who let a woman die rather than perform an abortion on her dying fetus because "God wills it!!! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkL9SB06Tpc]".
I'm not sure, I may be tempted to hide them. If they were going to compensate me by paying me at least what I paid for the guns and ammo (should be more since they are stealing my property), then I'd hand them over, but still be pissed about it. What is stupid is that this "assault weapons" ban is, with the exception of the mag size limit, purely cosmetic. Basically the equivalent of saying any car that has the ability to travel over 60 miles an hour, or has two or more of the following: rims, spoiler, fog lights, or a rear tire mount is illegal. (And before any of you anti-gun people jump in with the "cars don't kill people" comments, one this was an example, and two, more people die from car accidents than guns)
From the Declaration of Independence:HellbirdIV said:
Pretty sure Washington also said that a two party system would be the downfall of the government (or something along those lines). It isn't "magical powers", it is actually knowing and understanding what you are doing. Another example of that is from when I worked at a pizza buffet. The guy who started the franchise (or one of the top people or something) said to never do a special on take out or it will crash the buffet and you will have to struggle to keep up the entire time. Guess what happened when we had a special on take out? That very thing.
Another little FYI about your whole thing about the revolt. Just because one country did it one way doesn't mean it will work that way for every country. The Cuban revolution was started by sugar farmers. America isn't even a democracy, that is just another word they throw around.
What the 2nd amendment actually says is ignored basically 100% of the times it's referenced. There's a first qualifier sentence in there that people like to pretend doesn't exist.TornadoADV said:
Nowhere in that sentence does it say that murdering law enforcement officers for doing their jobs becomes justified, legal, or encouraged upon the US government deciding to use their employees to steal people's firearms.
Also, is a paranoid nut owning 5 guns and carrying them around concealed at all times really necessary to the security of a free state? What about those who have already committed violent crime, or the obsessed and/or mentally deranged people who think it's a great idea to massacre a schoolfull of children, are they protecting the security of their free state? Was Jared Loughner part of a well regulated militia? What percentage of private gun owners are required to be members of well regulated militias, or even have to earn a licence these days?
The 2nd amendment does not say anyone can do anything they like with a deadly, offensive weapon wherever and whenever they like. Guns give their owners power over whether the people around them live or die, and it's insane to say that everyone has a right to that power.
If it comes down to that I will engage in armed insurrection against the forces that have taken over our goverment. I believe the right to keep and bear arms is intended as a safeguard against the goverment itself, and there is a reason why it was the #2 Amendment. Losing that right is the beginning of the end for American principles IMO. In my mind it will no longer being the US goverment at this point.mattttherman3 said:
I'll probably make my stand with other like minded citizens rather than acting alone, and the targets will ultimatly be the goverment itself, and those who stand with it, rather than random shootings. My basic attitude is likely to be that if your a goverment employee and don't want to be a target, simply refuse to go to work until it's over. If your a cop or member of the military/national guard either stand with us, or disarm/get out of the way or your a target. When it comes to unarmed protestors, again, you can say what you want, but if you get in our way (human shields, etc..) again you become a target for the greater good.
It would be very dark, and truthfully, no matter who won the US would be a mere shadow of what it is right now. Despite how it might sounds at times to people I don't WANT a civil war, nor do I have any paticular desire to run around shooting liberals/democrats, or whatever other insane things people try and put into my mouth. I'd fight in one if it was provoked, but I don't believe in starting one.
Arguably one of the reasons why I am so Anti-Obama is that the man is a total idiot, even bigger than Dubbya (who despite what people might think, I've also been very critical of, if not for the reasons people on a forum like this are). He held onto power by a 3% lead at a time when the country is more divided and polarized than ever before with elections being resolved on a hairs breadth. One of his first acts of his second term is to try and spin a national tradedy into a tool to pursue a pro-goverment disarmament agenda his party has been pushing for decades. As a direct result of his stupidity he has taken a polarized nation and polarized it even further, his desire to do things like ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and make owning guns even more of a privlege than the right it's supposed to be, has actually lead to a proliferation of all the things he claims to stand against as people are buying all of this stuff up, and stockpiling it unregistered (under the table) with the express purpose of getting ready to fight him.
Now don't get me wrong, I actually don't think a Civil War will happen tomorrow, even if some people think it will happen "soon". I don't think it's even likely under Obama's term. What I think is going to happen is Obama is going to use the panic to push for more censorship and increase gun control, forcing weapons increasingly underground. Inevitably these weapons which are underground are going to be used for crimes, which is going to lead to more legislation down the road, which is going to eventually lead to people turning those guns on the goverment.
Basically, Obama is creating the very gun nightmare he claims to be out to avoid, while attacking a fundemental American right, and turning people against him for that reason. The reason why people want things like Assault Rifles with huge bananna clips is to fight people who have similar weapons, say complete outlaws like drug dealers and gang bangers, or say goverment storm troopers. Take a bunch of people who don't bother anyone but generally don't like the goverment up in their business and arm themselves to ensure a degree of freedom, safety, and options (ie you can choose to go down shooting, not that you ever want to be in that position), then do exactly the kind of thing that they are afraid of by setting out to disarm them, and your basically creating a problem where there wasn't one before. These guys are instead going to stockpile, not register their weapons, and get ready for the goverment to do other things, even if the goverment never does, someone is eventually going to learn there are 24 AKs buried in this dude's yard (for example) to protect them from the goverment "just in case", steal them, and then go on a shooting/criminal rampage. You juat made it easier for the actual outlaws, by turning the guy who never would have been an outlaw into a passive one, and encouraging him to have a huge unregistered arsenal when it might have been content to have one registered assault
rifle he could keep a better eye on.
I'll also say yet again, that one of your biggest safeguards against stupid laws is that at the end of the day some cop has to take his life in his hands to enforce that law. As pro-law enforcement as I am, I am pretty happy with that arrangement, and it prevents things from becoming a police state. Cops generally wind up being fairly committed to doing the right thing, and what's "worth it" rather than being willing to engage in political vanity projects, and sanctioned shake downs and bullying without reason due to the risk. If some politician decided to ban, oh say, images of Spongebob Squarepants (you can pick anything stupid here), and assign strong prison terms for it, somehow passing it into law, at the end of the day some cop has to decide he's going to go through a door and try and take your Spongebob collection by force and throw you in jail. If your unarmed it's easy to be a thug and just do it for your paycheck, "I don't make the law, I just enforce it", "I'm just following orders", on the other hand if you might be armed and willing to shoot the cops in the name of protecting your property, the cops are far less likely to do it, thinking "is it really worth the risk of my life to take away some dude's Spongebob pillowcase?". People do not realize how much of their freedom, and how much societal balance, is based on an armed population.
I'll also point out that other nations that "make fun" of the US for having such a heavily armed population, and all the gun violence, tend to have bigger problems. Looking at the UK for example we see regular cases of people complaining about the stupid things their goverment does and how little power the people have to do anything about it. Truthfully if the populance was armed the goverment wouldn't be able to be so reckless. If you stop and think about some of those bigger issues that cause the largest amount of QQing, weighing the cost of the occasional school shooting against the goverment doing whatever the hell it wants, whenever it wants, and the police running around like a bunch of jackbooted thugs (which Brits complain about heavily, when it's not directly tied to an American comparison), it's pretty obvious the occasional school shooting is a small price (nothing comes without cost). Especially when you consider that many of the nations that criticize the US have so little control that they could never give their population the abillity to be armed if there was a popular demand for it, the goverment would never let it happen, and at the end of the day it has all the guns and the population doesn't have enough firepower to stand up to them.
almost any nation revolted like that. does that means guns are free-for-all? please tell me you are not seriuos.chadachada123 said:
and they revolted for far far more than the right impediments you got today. but times change and reasons to revolt do so as well.
If you think that weapon is sole protection of your liberty, please commit yourself to mental hospital, the sooner the better.
And yet you do not udnerstand that the 2nd amendment was not meant to arm every civilian or that its relevance today is unquestionable.HorrendusOne said:
Oh, the irony!HorrendusOne said:
Certainly, there are many many laws that could save many many lives. however the question is that of outweighing the benefits. Limiting cars to 40 MPH (actually where i live the limit is 45 MPH, so close) would save a lot of lives, certainly, but it would also remove the benefits of safe, long roads. try driving 800 miles at 40MPH, its not fun. What i would suggest instead is enforcing the limitations we have already, that alone would save a lot of people, as the lead cause of car accidents are drunk driving, and last time i checked that wasnt legal.Raytan941 said:
As for guns, guns have no benefits to be lost.
Actually, it would be that unprecedented. You see, the second amendment isn't just an amendment. The first ten "amendments" of the constitution are what's called the "Bill of Rights". These are the things that place checks and balances on the government. The first amendment gives you freedom of expression against the government, the second amendment gives you the ability to rebel against the government, the freedom from forced housing of federal soldiers, etc etc. These weren't late additions or edits, these are the foundation of the constitution meant to place the responsibility of freedom in the peoples hands, not the governments, because the people that wrote it knew that invariably, every government overextends is power and needs to be knocked back.hiei82 said:
People talk about how they could not have foreseen the technology we have today and that the constitution is irrelevant due to obsolescence, but that's not true. They had the foresight to see what could happen and what will need to be done, regardless of the means.
And yes, amendments have been made, amendments have been removed, but NOTHING has ever amended the Bill of Rights. It is the cornerstone of our entire legal system and pretty damn good at what it does in my opinion.
Not a gun owner, but the poll kinda misses the point. The American government is set to ban the purchase of RIFLE-type weapons, not pistols. I mean, look at the past few weeks. Ever since Obama's made his intentions known, I've been hearing about people rushing out to buy the kind of stuff that rightfully should only be in the hands of trained soldiers!
We're talking about home defence, honestly. A baseball bat or a can of Mace should suffice. A pistol, at the most. America isn't the frontier country of yesteryear, there aren't any coyotes or bears or wolves out to bash your doors down and steal all your goodies and/or eat your relatives alive. Criminality can be a problem in some cities, that I'm aware of, but having a gun that shoots more than one bullet per trigger press only increases your chances of injuring someone else - not your chances of neutralizing some perceived opponent.
We're talking about home defence, honestly. A baseball bat or a can of Mace should suffice. A pistol, at the most. America isn't the frontier country of yesteryear, there aren't any coyotes or bears or wolves out to bash your doors down and steal all your goodies and/or eat your relatives alive. Criminality can be a problem in some cities, that I'm aware of, but having a gun that shoots more than one bullet per trigger press only increases your chances of injuring someone else - not your chances of neutralizing some perceived opponent.
I don't own a gun and I probably never will (too scared).
But I do believe people ought to have the right to keep them (if those used for protection/hunting).
BUT IF I DID, I'd probably hand 'em over and let the spiraling crime rate speak for itself.
But I do believe people ought to have the right to keep them (if those used for protection/hunting).
BUT IF I DID, I'd probably hand 'em over and let the spiraling crime rate speak for itself.
Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3:ShadowKatt said:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
The Constitution was never a perfect document. But in this case, that's not precisely my point.
That paragraph, while horrible, was an element of the constitution designed to solve a problem: how do we count slaves for the purpose of taxation? At the time, slavery - while still horrible - was a reality. There wasn't enough political will to undo slavery and many of the founding fathers were slave owners and had a predisposition to maintaining the status quo in that regard. And so, it was a solution to a problem. Then the civil war happened - an event that was always possible, but the U.S. was ill-prepared for and slavery became illegal. The original problem (how to count slaves for the purpose of taxation) was solved by solving the root problem (Can we own another human?)
Another example: Originally, the house or representatives added seats based on population. When a state reached a certain population marker, it received another representative. It continued this way for a while, until they realized the number of representatives couldn't keep increasing forever or there would be too many people in the room. So, they capped the number of representatives at 435 (the current total), and started to have those 435 representatives represent more people as the population grew. They amended the operating rules of the U.S. Government to solve the growing population problem.
I'm not trying to say the Bill of Rights isn't important or should be removed; please don't misunderstand that. I like my first amendment very much thank you, and the other amendments (2nd included) serve an important function. What I'm trying to get across is:
1) The constitution was never a perfect document and therefore
2) We cannot decide that any part of the constitution is sacred and unchangeable because
3) If we declare from on high that "These rules shall never change!" for any reason, we automatically dismiss any alternative solutions to the problem and no discussion or critical reading of the document can occur.
The thing is that the founding fathers, for all they did, are dead. They have no say in this democracy, their will is irrelevant, and they should never have a say again. The people who live in the U.S. NOW are the only people whose opinions truly matter for the purpose of how they the U.S. is governed. We NEED to be able to look at the constitution and all its amendments with our own eyes and be able to ask "Is this solution still working?", "Are there any unintended problems with the solution?", "Is there a better solution to the problem available?", and "Does this problem still exist?" without any kind of bias that would influence our answers in any unwanted way.
I think that the Second Amendment is still a good solution to the problem, but it needs to be controlled. The right to bear arms exists to protect us from governments - The U.S. or otherwise - and individuals who would hurt us, but the abuse of that right (to take lives of others unwarranted, to steal, to hurt the world around us, to impress the will of a minority upon the masses) is another real problem that needs to be addressed and so we must be able to look at the Constitution and all of its elements with clear, unbiased eyes.
Incidentally; my answers:
1) Is this solution still working? - Yes
2) Are there any unintended problems with the solution? - The abuse of that right by a segment of the population
3) Is there a better solution to the problem available? - Limits on who can get a gun and limits on what capabilities those guns can have, in addition to reform of the mental health institutions, the placement of trained professionals in vulnerable public locations, and a comprehensive gun ownership database
4) Does this problem still exist? - Absolutely
Side note: That whole "civil rights movement" thing, effectively added to the bill of rights (the minority became able to express opinions [1st amendment] openly), so expansion of the Bill of rights has occurred; a kind of amendment to the bill of rights. It just did so through an additional amendment.
*hops off soap box before I start yelling about the electoral college system*