[BBeck]

jon.kiparsky, on 04 November 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

Craig, the problem with your position is that many people weigh the possibility of armed rebellion against the most advanced military in the history of the world, with off-the-shelf tools, and then they look at the reality of what guns are actually being used for, today, for real, not for pretend-playtime-stories, and they make a rational decision that they actually want to trade away the opportunity to indulge in a futile and suicidal armed attack on your hypothetical future dictatorship in favor of getting some control on the real and actually occurring violence that happens every day.

Well, like it or not, this is the purpose of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Not for some armed group of 100,000 people to take over the government, but rather that all Americans are armed so that 100,000 could not do such a thing even if there were no Federal army. It's not about the rifles held by the minority but rather about the rifles held by the majority. More importantly, its not about an armed rebellion, its about making the politicians tremble in their boots at the thought of not bothering to count the votes in the ballot box. It's about never letting it get bad enough in the first place for politicians to even consider not counting the votes in the ballot box for fear of what would happen to them if they did.

And while tanks, jets, nukes, and bombs can affect battles, it is the riflemen who win wars. Not to mention that if the Federal government were ever to use large scale weapons on its own people they would make martyrs of them and there would be 1,000 showing up to fight the next day for every 1 they killed today. But the Second Amendment is not intended to support armed insurrection; it's intended to assure that we will always be a government Of the People, By the People, and For the People. That doesn't mean 100,000 revolting. That means all of the people refusing to let go of the right of self government.

The reality is that gun crime has been cut in half in the past 2 decades according to the FBI, while gun ownership has proliferated and while gun bans have been on the decline and while concealed carry has been on the rise. The reality is people defend their homes and their children with guns every day when no one else can, not against a tyrannical government, but from very real and often violent criminals. The reality is that the weak, the handicapped, and the elderly don't have to live in fear in this country because they have a right to protect themselves against able bodied assailants.

And the reality is that gun control is not about saving lives. There are many causes of death in this country that none of the anti-gun crowd seem to even care about. We don't see 27 Executive Actions to end drunk driving. Instead, what we see is the Center for Disease Control being told to study gun ownership as a "disease" rather than the FBI being told to study gun violence as a crime. Because the FBI already does that and their facts show that gun violence is on the decline without the need for any further laws.

[Craig328]

BBeck, on 05 November 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

Well, like it or not, this is the purpose of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

...its not about an armed rebellion, its about making the politicians tremble in their boots at the thought of not bothering to count the votes in the ballot box. It's about never letting it get bad enough in the first place for politicians to even consider not counting the votes in the ballot box for fear of what would happen to them if they did.

^^This...probably couldn't have been stated any better.

One additional thing to consider...the issue as Jon framed it isn't what happens. Look at Libya and Syria for recent examples. The way it tends to work is that a minority of people get fed up enough to take up arms against their government. They barricade roads, maybe set the local IRS office on fire, whatever. They're armed and in revolt. As Jon very wisely observed, this is the moment the National Guard gets involved. The governor calls them out to disperse and scatter the crowd. This is where protests turn into revolts though. Suppose the crowd DOESN'T disperse. They stand their ground. Now what? Well, this is where the government doubles down or goes home. They order the National Guard troops to open fire on the crowd. Now...pause the story there for a moment.

Ever ask why each state has a National Guard? Ever wonder why the federal United States Army doesn't perform military operations inside our borders? The way the country was originally set up, the federal government was exceptionally weak and the country really was merely a confederation of states. UNITED states. Each state's National Guard is made up of people from that state. Volunteers as well. No draft. This is intentional. The national army reports to the president but the state guards report to their governors. Those governors know, without a doubt, that when they order their troops to open fire on the crowd that they're asking Ohioans to shoot other Ohioans. Those troops also know that as soon as they open fire on people from their own state...they can't go home. This juxtaposition isn't just not accidental...it's exactly as intended. Click play.

The order to fire on the crowd is given...and the guardsmen waver (as they're supposed to). Each one has a duty to weigh the order to open fire on other Americans and determine whether the order is legal. Not only that but even if some decide it is legal, will they do it knowing they and their families are immediate pariahs amongst their friends and neighbors the moment they do? What typically happens next is that some guardsmen fire, some don't and the incident ends in bloodshed. But what happens the next day? The citizenry is now enraged. Their own government has shot down citizens in the street. People who were on the fence before are now off of it. Also, every guard unit that wasn't involved is now thinking about which way they'll jump. More than that, the officers are now considering "if the order comes down do I follow it"? This is where some units back the government but others go over to the people...and their weapons and training go with them.

Understand, in the scenario, the crowd hasn't fired a shot. That probably never happens (Gandhi managed it but that's why he's notable) but the situation doesn't really care who fired first. It's happened here before too:



...in Boston. It wasn't lost on the Founding Fathers that it was British regulars who shot colonists. When they drafted the Constitution their mention of citizens and militias (state militias were the origins of the current state National Guards) having the right to keep arms was explicit and intentional in setting up the confrontation of citizens facing citizens. People will always decide on family, hearth and home when presented the choice between that and the government.

Incidentally, this also tends to figure into the arguments some people make against a "cradle to grave" nanny state where everyone is dependent upon the government. Once you're dependent upon them, you're kind of at their whim.

[jon.kiparsky]

Craig328, on 05 November 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Incidentally, this also tends to figure into the arguments some people make against a "cradle to grave" nanny state where everyone is dependent upon the government. Once you're dependent upon them, you're kind of at their whim.

You mean like the nanny state that's busy telling people what they can and can't do with their bodies all over all the anarchist-dominated states? That's you guys, baby. That's the nanny anarchist party at work.

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And the reality is that gun control is not about saving lives.

I'm afraid that's exactly what it's about. Believe it or not, nobody really cares about your toys, and nobody really wants to control you. You're just not that interesting.

The state doesn't need gun control to prevent your scenario. With or without firearms, if people try to start an armed uprising against the US, they're probably going to be infiltrated by a few FBI agents before they have two dozen members in their conspiracy. You do read the papers, right? Your cell would be shut down, and a good thing, too.

I notice you haven't answered any of the questions that I posed. Please explain why would an ordinary citizen should think allowing al Qaeda to take over the government would be a good thing. That is more or less what you're advocating for - if you can "resist" the government with armed force, so can they.

And really, please do try to explain why you prefer forcing your will upon others to participatory democracy - and why should anyone else want to allow you to exercise that preference?

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it's not about an armed rebellion, its about making the politicians tremble in their boots at the thought of not bothering to count the votes in the ballot box.

So it's about an armed rebellion. I mean, you're talking about "If Gore's people in Florida had had guns, Bush would never have been President". And you're right, participatory democracy did fail in 2000 - but what would it have looked like if the left had gone down to the polling places with guns? I don't think that would have been an improvement. Do you?

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Look at Libya and Syria for recent examples. The way it tends to work is that a minority of people get fed up enough to take up arms against their government.

Yeah, let's look at Lybia and Syria for example.

How's that working out for them? Syria, last I checked, has been mostly leveled, and the people fighting are two gangs of thugs who can't agree on which way to best tyrannize the people, who are quitely going about the business of starving to death or else leaving if they can possibly arrange to do so.

I'm glad you brought that up. This is your vision of how we should choose our government? I find I'm not really drawn to it. What's the attraction, for you?

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There are many causes of death in this country that none of the anti-gun crowd seem to even care about. We don't see 27 Executive Actions to end drunk driving.

Wait, what? You're old enough to remember when MADD was considered a radical left-wing conspiracy - and the same people who opposed them were using essentially the same libertarian arguments, that the "nanny state" shouldn't be allowed to tell a grown adult how many beers they could drink while driving. This was exactly the same constituency that the NRA was appealing to. I mean, you guys lost that one a while back, but you can't rewrite history like that. Please, man, you were alive when this happened.

[Dogstopper]

Also, It's election day y'all. To really make your policies matter, go out and actually vote. Every person at every level of office matters in topics like this.

[BBeck]

jon.kiparsky, on 05 November 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

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And the reality is that gun control is not about saving lives.

I'm afraid that's exactly what it's about. Believe it or not, nobody really cares about your toys, and nobody really wants to control you. You're just not that interesting.

Then stop trying to take away my right to self defense! Apparently, you do care about it or you wouldn't be wasting this much political energy trying to disarm me. (And by you I mean Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin, and a whole host of other anti-Bill of Rights zealots who have been controling this country in the US Senate for about a quarter century with no term limits.)

And stop stomping all over the Bill of Rights in general. Stop spying on me with the NSA. Stop putting cameras all over my city that track my every move, like the system that the city of Dallas is currently working on purchasing that uses the cameras that are already all over the city plus the ones in police cars to scan every license plate in the city every day to check it against their database. And you know as well as I do the list of offenses goes on and on. And both political parties are guilty.

And while you're at it, stop engaging in Orwellian Newspeak to change the way people think by calling things what they are not. It's gun control, not "gun violence". Suicide is not "gun violence". Just calling suicide "violence" is a bit of a stretch. But changing the language to make people think of gun ownership as a disease that needs to be cured is not helping your case that the government can be completely trusted in every matter all the time regardless of which political party has control. And we won't even go into how the media has become a tool to spread anti-gun propaganda.

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The state doesn't need gun control to prevent your scenario. With or without firearms, if people try to start an armed uprising against the US, they're probably going to be infiltrated by a few FBI agents before they have two dozen members in their conspiracy. You do read the papers, right? Your cell would be shut down, and a good thing, too.

This is basically where your argument falls apart. We already have guns. We don't run around waving them in peoples' faces or take them with us to argue with people or fight political fights. Almost always, people don't even know that we have them. Why? Because we don't threaten people with them. No one is talking about a "cell" here. I said every person in the country should be armed and any "uprising" should be of the majority, not 100,000 people who are dissatisfied with the government.

I want all of my political opponents to be armed. Why? Because first of all, I trust they don't want a gun battle any more than I want one. Second, I at least then know that they respect my right to my opinion and my freedom. We can argue about all sorts of political stuff, but the Bill of Rights is not open for debate. Period.

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I notice you haven't answered any of the questions that I posed. Please explain why would an ordinary citizen should think allowing al Qaeda to take over the government would be a good thing. That is more or less what you're advocating for - if you can "resist" the government with armed force, so can they.

And really, please do try to explain why you prefer forcing your will upon others to participatory democracy - and why should anyone else want to allow you to exercise that preference?

Seriously!?!? Who said anything about Al Qaeda taking over. And if Al Qaeda is coming into this country, I definately want to be armed. Disarming the American people is not going to keep them from building bombs out of pressure cookers and setting them off in public places.

You keep going off on this tangent about how a small group of people are going to participate in an armed uprising against the government. I'm not advocating for that. I'm advocating for the ability for the entire country, with all of her citizens, to have the ability to participate in an armed uprising against corrupt politicians in Washington of any party who want to control We the People for their own gain. Again, I'm advocating for majority control, not a small insurrection. But I'm also saying that if the day should ever come, and hopefully it never will from either political party, when the government controls We the People, rather than We the People controlling the government, we should still have the means necessary to take the power back. Not 10 of us. Not 1,000 of us. Not 100,000 of us, but all of us.

And, I'm not trying to force my will on others unless you mean the Bill of Rights (which was democratically agreed upon at the time and there is even a Constitutional process to change it if the majority agreed to change it). If I were, we would be talking about laws requiring you and everyone else to carry a gun on their person at all times.

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it's not about an armed rebellion, its about making the politicians tremble in their boots at the thought of not bothering to count the votes in the ballot box.

So it's about an armed rebellion. I mean, you're talking about "If Gore's people in Florida had had guns, Bush would never have been President". And you're right, participatory democracy did fail in 2000 - but what would it have looked like if the left had gone down to the polling places with guns? I don't think that would have been an improvement. Do you?

What I said was that the guns of the American people are there to make politicians afraid not to count the votes. I'm not going to argue that the correct decision was made in Florida on that election, but no one is claiming the whole election was an outright fraud. We all know that was an extremely close election and any fraud was not widespread. It's not like Republicans took over the country and took away the voting voice of all Democrats every since then. We still count votes in this country. So, I'm not sure what your point is there.

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There are many causes of death in this country that none of the anti-gun crowd seem to even care about. We don't see 27 Executive Actions to end drunk driving.

Wait, what? You're old enough to remember when MADD was considered a radical left-wing conspiracy - and the same people who opposed them were using essentially the same libertarian arguments, that the "nanny state" shouldn't be allowed to tell a grown adult how many beers they could drink while driving. This was exactly the same constituency that the NRA was appealing to. I mean, you guys lost that one a while back, but you can't rewrite history like that. Please, man, you were alive when this happened.

No. I don't remember that whether I was old enough to remember it or not. It certainly was not me making that argument. And I am the NRA. I am a Lifetime Endowment member of the NRA. I will likely co-chair the next annual NRA meeting. Michael Moore convinced me to join. Seriously, I joined immediately after watching "Bowling for Columbine". I joined the NRA before even feeling like I needed to own a gun. Two events changed that. One was having my home invaded. And two was having the government tell me which guns I'm allowed to own.


But, I think we all know that gun-control dominatated the polticial landscape during the first half of this year and that other issues where people are dying in greater numbers was not. Again, show me how many Executive Actions we had against any other cause of death in America?

Oh. And I early voted last week. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in my political involvement with time, effort, and money. As messed up as this country is, I still think the way to change things is through the political process, not with armed resistence.

This post has been edited by BBeck: 05 November 2013 - 01:45 PM

[jon.kiparsky]

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Seriously!?!? Who said anything about Al Qaeda taking over.

You're arguing that you'd like to have a situation where someone who doesn't like the current government can change it by armed force. That's the "whole point of the second amendment", right?
Unfortunately, you don't get to choose who does the changing by armed force - if you can prevent "tyranny", then al-TeaParty can prevent loose morals, by the same methods. I'm actually quite glad that you aren't ever going to be in a position to exercise anything you're talking about, because if you could, then much worse people than you would be in a position to do the same thing - and I think some of them would try to do it.

As I say, I think an active and engaged citizenry is the correct way to preserve a democracy. You continue to argue that you want to have the ability to affect the makeup of our country by force of arms, and, having carefully considered that argument, I find it's lacking.

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Then stop trying to take away my right to self defense!

I do not want to take away your weapons, and I don't think anyone else does, either. I want you to carry a registered and uniquely identifiable weapon that can be traced back through a secure chain of custody, and I want you to be personally responsible for any weapon that you own.
I would like for you to take care to make sure that your gun doesn't harm anyone, and if it does, I want you to be answerable for it. The former is your business, the latter is everyone's business.

I would like to have reasonable limitations on who can own weapons, the precise nature of those limits to be debated but most likely something along the lines of "no crazy people and criminals" would be the nub of it.

That's what gun control is about when I use the term.

I am not trying to take away your "right to self defense", and neither am I trying to take away your guns - and these are two completely different questions. The NRA is very fond of trying to confuse you with this idea that registration is somehow inevitably going to lead to fascist jackbooted hippie thugs coming into your house and taking your guns and raping your womenfolk. It's not. It's like registering your car. Cars have been registered for a while now, and nobody has gone around confiscating them.

Now settle down and talk sense. You're starting to sound like Farrell. Frothing at the mouth doesn't help anything.

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It's not like Republicans took over the country and took away the voting voice of all Democrats every since then.

Well, they did take over the country, you have to admit that. But it's okay, democracy was restored after a time. We'll let that one go.

The taking away voting rights has been a state-by-state campaign, so I won't say it's related - but if you read a newspaper once in a while, you'll notice that stopping people from voting is a major effort under way in many states. It's usually presented as "make people carry ID so the bad old Mexican people don't come and vote", but the idea is basically to make it harder for poor people to vote. I think you'll agree that this is pretty reprehensible, and I look forward to hearing what you, being a fan of democracy, are doing to prevent this in your state.

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No. I don't remember that whether I was old enough to remember it or not. It certainly was not me making that argument.

That was directed at Craig - he's an old fart like me, I'm pretty sure he remembers MADD. Sorry, I got the quotes mixed up, thought I was quoting him there.
Anyway, since you're a young whippersnapper and still wet behind the ears and all that, yes, back in the day MADD was thought by many people to be a crazed liberal conspiracy, and part of the leftist nanny state. Truth. They were out for stiffer penalties for drunk driving and lower blood-alcohol limits, and their main opposition was basically the NRA mailing list.

Funny thing is, if you tried to repeal drunk driving laws today, you'd have an uproar - it turns out people like that left-liberal nanny state agenda, once they get the hang of it. (the creation of the middle class, which voted Reagan into office, was largely the result of unions - another crazy liberal notion. Women and minorities being allowed to vote - another crazy liberal idea that people got used to. The list goes on...) So I have no doubt that within the next decade or two some reasonable national registration will be enacted, and you gun owners will find that you don't mind at all, and we'll all wonder what the fuss was about.

[DarenR]

As a gun owner I see nothing wrong with registerring them----

i know to many f'ed in the head people who own guns that shouldnt--

there is nothing wrong with having to pass a background check either----

who wants a convict or a murdered to be able to buy guns without a background check-- not me i tell ya

[macosxnerd101]

Just adding as well- the second amendment was written at a time where people owned weapons comparable to the governments. That just isn't the case anymore. How many people here own F-22s or nukes? What about a state of the art naval warship? If the argument for guns is to be able to check the government through some sort of armed revolt, the government outclasses the people in terms of weapons easily.

[DarenR]

macosxnerd101, on 05 November 2013 - 05:11 PM, said:

Just adding as well- the second amendment was written at a time where people owned weapons comparable to the governments. That just isn't the case anymore. How many people here own F-22s or nukes? What about a state of the art naval warship? If the argument for guns is to be able to check the government through some sort of armed revolt, the government outclasses the people in terms of weapons easily.

sorry but my red rider bb gun trumps your so called nukes

[h4nnib4l]

I question the extent to which the armed forces would work against US citizens, though. The idea that every member of the military is obligated to disobeying unlawful orders is pounded in early, and hard. That's why everybody burns in military scandals, not just the senior personnel present. If there was a large uprising of US citizens, depending on the reason, I might have found it hard to put my sights on Americans. I would have had a hard time anyway. That is definitely not what we signed up for.

[h4nnib4l]

And to the state of the art military thing: shit doesn't work very well against insurgency. Out of all the amazing gadgets we had with us, including air support, the only one that really did a lot of good after the invasion was the ol' M4. There were AWACS and UAVs on station, always a Cobra/Bell pair, tanks with all their nifty optics systems, and some really neat equipment that prevented remote detonated IEDs from exploding. But we left all those toys behind and went walking around, street by street, when we were looking for Jackie the Iraqi and his weapons cache. When you're fighting an insurgency (and trying to preserve the infrastructure and populace to the extent possible), your coolest implements of war are often negated.

[supersloth]

never change, everyone.

[Craig328]

macosxnerd101, on 05 November 2013 - 05:11 PM, said:

Just adding as well- the second amendment was written at a time where people owned weapons comparable to the governments. That just isn't the case anymore. How many people here own F-22s or nukes? What about a state of the art naval warship? If the argument for guns is to be able to check the government through some sort of armed revolt, the government outclasses the people in terms of weapons easily.

I'll respectfully disagree. During the time period you mentioned cannons were the uber weapon and very few private individuals owned same. Nations' armed forces were equipped with warships where each one was sporting more cannon firepower than a field army. Also, back in those days, training and tactics were paramount and militaries had those in abundance in comparison to civilians. George Washington was a civilian who had served as a colonial infantry officer during the French and Indian war. He was considered the colonies' best military leader. Most people forget that he won only three battles in the entirety of the revolution and of those three one was the surprise attack on hungover Hessians on Christmas night, another had him repulse 3 separate attacks before eventually retreating and the third (Yorktown) victory had his army half comprised of French regulars and the naval component (the only thing keeping the British from evacuating by sea) was entirely French. Not exactly a stellar record.

The Continental Army was nearly always outnumbered, always outgunned and pretty much nearly always out-generaled by better more competent leadership...and yet they won. What it shows is that the comparative quality of arms does not determine the outcome. Vietnam showed that more recently for the Americans, Afghanistan for the Russians.

This post has been edited by Craig328: 05 November 2013 - 02:44 PM

[BBeck]

jon.kiparsky, on 05 November 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

You're arguing that you'd like to have a situation where someone who doesn't like the current government can change it by armed force. That's the "whole point of the second amendment", right?
Unfortunately, you don't get to choose who does the changing by armed force - if you can prevent "tyranny", then al-TeaParty can prevent loose morals, by the same methods. I'm actually quite glad that you aren't ever going to be in a position to exercise anything you're talking about, because if you could, then much worse people than you would be in a position to do the same thing - and I think some of them would try to do it.

As I say, I think an active and engaged citizenry is the correct way to preserve a democracy. You continue to argue that you want to have the ability to affect the makeup of our country by force of arms, and, having carefully considered that argument, I find it's lacking.

I am not arguing that I would like to have a situation where "someone" who doesn't like the current government can change it by armed force. I am arguing that we all can change it by armed force if some day should come where the politicians refuse to listen to our votes. I'm also advocating that We the People should be in charge of our government rather than our Government being incharge of We the People. I'm arguing for self government and a democratic republic.

I do not support a group of people taking up arms against the government because they disagree with the government. That's not what I'm advocating at all. And there are current existing laws that make that illegal. Not to mention you are absolutely correct that it would be infiltrated by the FBI or one of the other 16 spy agencies this country has long before it got off the ground. That sort of illegal activity is not what I am saying the Second Amendment is about or what I am about.

The part you are, I think, not understanding is that I am talking about all of us agreeing that our government has gotten out of control and that changing things through the political process does not work anymore. We are still a long ways away from that inspite of how badly the Bill of Rights has been trampled on.

I am not at all supporting armed vigilanties or rebels to try and change political policy through the use of arms. Quite the contrary, I am telling anyone who is dissatisfied with what's going on in this country to get "plugged in" and "fight" by using the legal political process. I still very much believe in the political process. And I practice what I preach by getting politically involved myself, not joining some physical rebellion. The last thing I ever want to see is the Second Amendment invoked. Don't let it get that bad! Get out and learn about what's going on in Washington! Then get involved politically. I think the Bill of Rights is in trouble. But the way to defend it is to get informed and get involved politically.

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Then stop trying to take away my right to self defense!

I do not want to take away your weapons, and I don't think anyone else does, either. I want you to carry a registered and uniquely identifiable weapon that can be traced back through a secure chain of custody, and I want you to be personally responsible for any weapon that you own.
I would like for you to take care to make sure that your gun doesn't harm anyone, and if it does, I want you to be answerable for it. The former is your business, the latter is everyone's business.

I would like to have reasonable limitations on who can own weapons, the precise nature of those limits to be debated but most likely something along the lines of "no crazy people and criminals" would be the nub of it.

That's what gun control is about when I use the term.

I am not trying to take away your "right to self defense", and neither am I trying to take away your guns - and these are two completely different questions. The NRA is very fond of trying to confuse you with this idea that registration is somehow inevitably going to lead to fascist jackbooted hippie thugs coming into your house and taking your guns and raping your womenfolk. It's not. It's like registering your car. Cars have been registered for a while now, and nobody has gone around confiscating them.

Now settle down and talk sense. You're starting to sound like Farrell. Frothing at the mouth doesn't help anything.

As I stated, by "you" I don't mean you personally. I mean the anti-gun crowd you are advocating for. I mean the larger political movement that you are supporting. And go ask the Brady Campaign, who the administration have worked together with on this issue, how many of my guns I get to keep.

There has been a concerted effort to end the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights in this country for years. Their attacks make it quite clear what they want. They don't go after guns based on any logical characteristic such as muzzle energy, rate of fire, etc. Instead, they go after guns that they think look scary. And more than that, they go after guns that they think they can get gun owners to agree to give up.

At one point, it was "Saturday Night Specials". Those are small easily concealed and cheap low powered pistols. Those are actually the guns used in most gun crimes. But still, it was mainly an effort to get rid of the guns most easily attacked. They are also the guns used by the poor to defend their homes and families the majority of the time.

Then they went after the evil "sniper rifle". They use terms like "high powered" rifle. Basically, any rifle with a scope on it is their idea of a "sniper rifle". So, we're mainly talking bolt action hunting rifle (interestingly enough they never go after shotguns for some reason and those just happen to be the guns most often owned and used by the ultra-wealthy). And the term "high powered" just means it's not a low powered .22. All rifles (except rim fires) fall into the "high powered" category they villianize.

Now, it's the "evil" assualt rifle. This basically means every modern gun in existance pretty much. Basically, they are talking about semi-automatic weapons. A World War One technology. Most modern handguns fall into this category other than the fact that they are not rifles. They fire at the same rate, and many of them hold similar amounts of ammunition. As a general rule, the more ammunition a gun holds, the less powerful and deadly it is. But I can fire a revolver almost as fast as a civilian AR-15 without any special training or anything.

Anyway, the assaults on the Second Amendment make it very clear that the people behind this stuff, such as Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin hate all guns. They don't go after the ones that are the most lethal. They go after the ones they think they can get public support to take away.

So, yes. They want to take away all my guns. Anyone who pays attention to what they are attempting to do, can quite clearly see that they see all guns as instruments of death that no human should own except their soldiers and body guards.

The NRA is not confusing me about anything. I research this stuff on my own independently. I don't just let someone tell me what to believe especially about this.

Pretty much every gun I own had a background check done on me. Guns are not registered in Texas. The government is not "supposed" to keep any record of the background check or the gun. But the gun dealers are required to do so. So, they have those records of me. So, I'm not trying to circumvent the law.

And I'm not worried about jackbooted thugs kicking my door in. The "jackbooted thugs" (like Feinstein) know that they would see the Second Amendment come to life if they started doing that. They are not that stupid. In fact, they are quite smart. But here's a scenario that I do worry about. Feinstein tried to put basically all semi-automatic (modern) rifles under the same law that governs ownership of machine guns. Yes, you can own a machine gun in the US. But you basically have to go through a big legal process where you go on file with the FBI/ATF for the rest of your life including finger prints and up to date information about where you and the gun can be found. You have to get the government's permission to take the gun across state lines even if it's 4 miles to show it to your brother who is thinking about buying it or such.

Or possibly, they just manage to get a national gun registry. However they manage to get a list of all guns and all gun owners, the list/database is what's important here. Now, I don't want to suggest that this administration is so corrupt that they would do this, but keep in mind that we are talking about what could be a gradual intrusion on our rights across many administrations including Republican administrations. Feinstein may want every gun removed from this country but she still has to act within the law and can only do what voters support.

Anyway, here's the scenario I see where the Federal government "might" someday take guns away. And it doesn't involve jackbooted thugs. First, get a national gun registry through requiring government records be kept on all background checks and require all guns to be in the registry. Make it a felony to possess a gun not in the registry. You can say "I lost it" or "it was stolen" but if it ever turns up again in your possession you've just committed a felony and might do 10 years hard time for it. Third, just simply pass the sorts of laws they've been working on passing where they continuously take away more and more guns and make the guns less and less powerful through amunition restrictions and so forth. Then pass a law so that no weapon is grandfathered in. Since they have you and your gun on the list, there is no "Sorry I don't have it." They just simply pass a law that says turn it in for destruction within 90 days or a felony warrent will be issued for your arrest. No jackbooted thugs. No kicking in doors. Just simply look for an arrest warrent the next time you are pulled over for having a headlight out. And when that warrent is found, you go to Federal prison for 10 years.

Through this plan they could easily take every legal gun in the country. They might do this over a process of 50 years. I'm not saying they would take all guns overnight. But once they have the more powerful guns, it will probably be too late to object to them taking the rest. And, maybe to avoid technically violating the Second Amendment they might let you keep such guns only at a local gun range in a safe at the gun range facility. That way they could tell you "Oh. No! You still have the right to keep and bear arms. You just have to do it at a Federally approved gun range. It's still your gun. You can come visit it any time you like."

The bottom line is that registration is the first step to confiscation. They can't confiscate without registering. Without a list of every gun and every gun owner, any move to disarm the American people will result in all the guns "magically" disappearing over night.

More importantly, registration is nullifying the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, without going through the correct political process to alter the Constitution.

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It's not like Republicans took over the country and took away the voting voice of all Democrats every since then.

Well, they did take over the country, you have to admit that. But it's okay, democracy was restored after a time. We'll let that one go.

The taking away voting rights has been a state-by-state campaign, so I won't say it's related - but if you read a newspaper once in a while, you'll notice that stopping people from voting is a major effort under way in many states. It's usually presented as "make people carry ID so the bad old Mexican people don't come and vote", but the idea is basically to make it harder for poor people to vote. I think you'll agree that this is pretty reprehensible, and I look forward to hearing what you, being a fan of democracy, are doing to prevent this in your state.

I don't want to get into a broad political discussion here, but we just had our first election with voter IDs. A black woman checked my drivers license and made me sign that I am me. It wasn't so tough. I have a hard time believing minorities cannot get a drivers license. Furthermore, there has been a public campaign here to tell people that they can get a free government ID to vote with if they do not already have a drivers license or some sort of state issued ID that you need to have a bank account or survive in today's society.

You've been brainwashed to believe a lie that this about discrimination. It's not.

Anyway, I hope I don't start "frothing at the mouth". I can get very impassioned about political issues, which is why I generally try to stay out of the Caffinee Lounge and especially not get into political discussions. I'm here to help people program games, not discuss or fight about politics. However, the Second Amendment is an issue near and dear to me.

I hope we can both walk away from this discussion as friends and with mutual respect for one another.

This post has been edited by BBeck: 05 November 2013 - 03:15 PM

[BBeck]

DarenR, on 05 November 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

sorry but my red rider bb gun trumps your so called nukes

You'll poke your eye out with that thing!