kingoomieiii: Ammoland/

Whoa Black Betty!

Woah Black Betty
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Gun nut Black Betty
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Black Betty had some guns
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Many, many more than one
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She thinks she's Army
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She'll shoot some commies
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ArkAngel: "while some might favor handguns, it is not clear that they are a superior weapon for lawful self-defense."

It's kind of difficult to carry around a Remington 12-gauge without brandishing, which is illegal in places with open/concealed carry.

In fairness, home defense is better served by a shotgun with small-gauge shot, because of the diminished penetration compared to a handgun, which means less chance of accidentally shooting through a wall.

Of course, that means fark-all in terms of open or concealed carry.

I can't own a .50 caliber belt fed machine gun and build a machine gun nest on my roof, what good is the 2nd Amendment to me?

Marcus Aurelius: If I can't own nuclear weapons, what good is the second amendment?

If I can't libel people and yell "fire" in a crowded theater, what good is the first amendment?

whatthef*ckdidijustread?.jpg

Jake Havechek: I can't own a .50 caliber belt fed machine gun and build a machine gun nest on my roof, what good is the 2nd Amendment to me?

That won't protect you.

You need to seed your front yard with a high density anti-personnel minefield. Only then will you truly be free.

Jake Havechek: I can't own a .50 caliber belt fed machine gun and build a machine gun nest on my roof, what good is the 2nd Amendment to me?

Yes you can, it just can't have been manufactured since...1986? I think that's the cutoff date.

Here's an interesting discussion: What's more free, to be able to possess and wield any weapons you wish in the face of a society that poses a relatively constant threat to your person and property, or to be unable to possess and wield weapons, but to then live in a society where you are not constantly threatened, and are thus more "free" to act outside of the bounds of your home?

brerrabbit: The "well regulated" part of the second amendment is part of a subordinate clause. The right is given without any regard for being "well regulated" or not.

You've confused grammar for logic.

Jake Havechek: I can't own a .50 caliber belt fed machine gun and build a machine gun nest on my roof, what good is the 2nd Amendment to me?

I say build it and then dare "the man" to come take it away from you.

Bloody William: Here's an interesting discussion: What's more free, to be able to possess and wield any weapons you wish in the face of a society that poses a relatively constant threat to your person and property, or to be unable to possess and wield weapons, but to then live in a society where you are not constantly threatened, and are thus more "free" to act outside of the bounds of your home?

False dichotomy, thanks for playing.

And Stevens got this exactly wrong, which even a few minutes of research into other writing of the FF on the matter would demonstrate to him. I've yet to meet a single person who reads the second as anything other than a personal right who has taken those minutes.

Bloody William: Here's an interesting discussion: What's more free, to be able to possess and wield any weapons you wish in the face of a society that poses a relatively constant threat to your person and property, or to be unable to possess and wield weapons, but to then live in a society where you are not constantly threatened, and are thus more "free" to act outside of the bounds of your home?

How about a soceity where one is able to possess and wield any weapons you wish and able to live in it where you are not constantly threatened, and are thus more "free" to act outside of the bounds of your home.

Liberals have lectured us that we need to give up guns and pay sky high taxes so that they can bribe the poor to vote for them and threatening us that the poor will rise up and kill us. The lawful citizens and small business owners of Tottenham and South Central did precisely that, and were attacked anyway. We'll keep our guns and our money, thank you.

Bloody William: Here's an interesting discussion:

Depends on your definition of 'freedom'. The common definition is freedom of action, which would default to the former situation as the answer, while many people include security as a part of freedom and responsibility as a counter to freedom, which would push the answer towards the latter. It also depends on your concept of the import of individual freedom over time; anarchy provides the greatest individual freedom at any given moment, but tends to result in a situation that has very little individual freedom. Government by default restricts individual freedom, but guarantees at least a basic level of it that is not otherwise guaranteed under anarchic (or extreme libertarian) societies.

So...there is no 'right' answer, nor would it be an interesting discussion since this is the internet and whatever position you hold above is obviously the right one and everyone else is fascist/socialist/commie/a retard.

beta_plus: Liberals have lectured us that we need to give up guns and pay sky high taxes so that they can bribe the poor to vote for them and threatening us that the poor will rise up and kill us.

potato/10, but thanks for playing.

Uncle Wiggly: but automatic weapons outside the range are dangerous.

That's sort of the point of weapons in general. To be dangerous. Not much good otherwise.

Bloody William: Woah Black Betty
Ammoland
Gun nut Black Betty
Ammoland
Black Betty had some guns
Ammoland
Many, many more than one
Ammoland
She thinks she's Army
Ammoland
She'll shoot some commies
Ammoland

You magnificent bastard.

FubarBDilligaf: False dichotomy, thanks for playing.

It's not a false dichotomy. It's not a realistic scenario, because neither "side' has a pure or complete endgame that is feasible. It's an exploration of the nature of freedom. Would you be more free if you had total control of the arms you can possess, but that it would produce an environment where you would have greater cause to fear for yourself outside the bounds of your own home, or would you be more free if you had free and open experiences outside of your home, but your ability to possess arms are limited?

I'm not taking a side, because I'm relatively anti-gun-laws, myself. Yes, I'm still a liberal. I just think it's an interesting concept, whether freedom is better defined by what we can possess to protect ourselves or how secure we can feel without the need to protect ourselves.

Jake Havechek: I can't own a .50 caliber belt fed machine gun and build a machine gun nest on my roof, what good is the 2nd Amendment to me?

you can own a full auto weapon.

sprawl15: Bloody William: Here's an interesting discussion:

Depends on your definition of 'freedom'. The common definition is freedom of action, which would default to the former situation as the answer, while many people include security as a part of freedom and responsibility as a counter to freedom, which would push the answer towards the latter. It also depends on your concept of the import of individual freedom over time; anarchy provides the greatest individual freedom at any given moment, but tends to result in a situation that has very little individual freedom. Government by default restricts individual freedom, but guarantees at least a basic level of it that is not otherwise guaranteed under anarchic (or extreme libertarian) societies.

So...there is no 'right' answer, nor would it be an interesting discussion since this is the internet and whatever position you hold above is obviously the right one and everyone else is fascist/socialist/commie/a retard.

Well... yeah. That's exactly my point. It's a quandary, and why a compromise between the two absolutes is necessary, even if not ideal to any party. It's just an interesting discussion, because it (should) really make you think about what freedom actually is.

Headso: you can own a full auto weapon.

Indeed. For that matter, you can own a nuclear weapon, provided you satisfy all relevant treaties, laws, and regulations. And can, you know, pay for it.

/

Wow, that blog really paints gun owners as cowards.

Bloody William: a compromise between the two absolutes is necessary

This is where the "False dichotomy" poster is correct: it's not a compromise between those two absolutes. The pro-gun movement doesn't want - or expect - a society with guns everywhere to have an innate level of fear and danger simply by those weapons' presence. On the contrary, they expect the capacity for the average citizen to respond with lethal force when necessary to improve the standards of public safety; if you want to knock over a gas station, the chance of personal injury is much higher when the three people in line to buy smokes are armed.

Nobody is arguing for a high level of danger that requires people be armed. They are simply arguing for the personal freedom to be armed. How would access to firearms increase your personal danger? It wouldn't change anyone's mindset to become more violent; your neighbor wouldn't suddenly start shooting at you if they bought a couple pistols. While greater access to firearms can increase the danger of potential criminals, these criminals rarely follow existing gun law, so the relevance of gun laws is minimal.

Kirkenhegelstein: brerrabbit: The "well regulated" part of the second amendment is part of a subordinate clause. The right is given without any regard for being "well regulated" or not.

You've confused grammar for logic.

"shall not be infringed" is pretty clear. But we've been infringing all over the damned place for centuries now. "The people" could mean individuals or a collective "we the people" sort of thing. "To keep and bear arms" was almost immediately determined to mean "common arms", so brass knuckles and other articles of crime could be effectively regulated. Earlier drafts of the amendment by James Madison reiterated "the body of the people" in each version but the last couple, implying that it was intended to prevent only blanket prohibition on common arms. The earliest versions included a clause stating that no person with religious reservations about shooting folks could be compelled to military service, which links the entire principle of a "militia" to the much more specific "military".

If it were so cut and dried as enthusiasts would have us believe, there wouldn't be half a dozen or more Supreme Court cases clarifying a 27 word passage from our constitution.

It is, however, largely agreed, at least through our judicial history, that "the people" means "individual people", that "arms" are "whatever kinds of weapons the people commonly use to defend themselves" and that the right to keep and bear them changes when you enter into military service, creating two classes of gun owners. Effectively, there's the people whose ownership of firearms is tolerated and limited to certain classes. And then there's the military. Where you can train to fly a jet that fires missiles.

The annoying part is that "common" arms bit. For about a thousand reasons that I'm too busy to really go into today...

sprawl15: Bloody William: a compromise between the two absolutes is necessary

This is where the "False dichotomy" poster is correct: it's not a compromise between those two absolutes. The pro-gun movement doesn't want - or expect - a society with guns everywhere to have an innate level of fear and danger simply by those weapons' presence. On the contrary, they expect the capacity for the average citizen to respond with lethal force when necessary to improve the standards of public safety; if you want to knock over a gas station, the chance of personal injury is much higher when the three people in line to buy smokes are armed.

Nobody is arguing for a high level of danger that requires people be armed. They are simply arguing for the personal freedom to be armed. How would access to firearms increase your personal danger? It wouldn't change anyone's mindset to become more violent; your neighbor wouldn't suddenly start shooting at you if they bought a couple pistols. While greater access to firearms can increase the danger of potential criminals, these criminals rarely follow existing gun law, so the relevance of gun laws is minimal.

That's not true in all cases. There are those will repeat the "An armed society is a polite society" quote. The base assumption of that quote is that people will modify their personal behavior (beyond criminal behavior)_out of fear of reprisal.

sprawl15: It wouldn't change anyone's mindset to become more violent; your neighbor wouldn't suddenly start shooting at you if they bought a couple pistols.

No, but if someone does become violent having access to a couple of pistols greatly increases the amount of damage they can do.

Having said that, if arms ownership is supposed to not be infringed, how come I can't get that nerve gas I've been hankering after? Or that artillery piece?

sprawl15: Bloody William: a compromise between the two absolutes is necessary

This is where the "False dichotomy" poster is correct: it's not a compromise between those two absolutes. The pro-gun movement doesn't want - or expect - a society with guns everywhere to have an innate level of fear and danger simply by those weapons' presence. On the contrary, they expect the capacity for the average citizen to respond with lethal force when necessary to improve the standards of public safety; if you want to knock over a gas station, the chance of personal injury is much higher when the three people in line to buy smokes are armed.

Nobody is arguing for a high level of danger that requires people be armed. They are simply arguing for the personal freedom to be armed. How would access to firearms increase your personal danger? It wouldn't change anyone's mindset to become more violent; your neighbor wouldn't suddenly start shooting at you if they bought a couple pistols. While greater access to firearms can increase the danger of potential criminals, these criminals rarely follow existing gun law, so the relevance of gun laws is minimal.

That's nice in theory, but between the threat of accidents (think about how many people are good drivers, or remember any of the little details of the mandated safety courses necessary to get their driver's license, and think about that applies to a society where as many people have guns as cars... and as many treat them with the same respect) and the fear of overzealous lunatics either wanting to be the next vigilante hero or who answer getting a ball from their front lawn with shotgun blasts, and you get an atmosphere that, even if it can reduce crime (which I'm not sure is proven), results in significant fear and threat to the average citizen. I'm not taking a side either way, but it's not so cut and dry, and it's extremely optimistic to think a well-armed society would immediately be a well-armed society that shows weapons the necessary respect (unless you start including mandatory service time, which would produce a society that's well-armed, but thoroughly trained in their weapons).

Lol.

"They're taking our guns!"
"No, they are not."
"They're planning on taking our guns!"
"No, they are not."
"They want to take our guns!"
"No, they do not."
"Some of them no longer in a position to do so have recently hypothesized on an alternate universe where they took our guns!"

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel there, NRA.

BeesNuts: The earliest versions included a clause stating that no person with religious reservations about shooting folks could be compelled to military service, which links the entire principle of a "militia" to the much more specific "military".

Which itself bends back to the nature of a decentralized government including a decentralized army; the Fed only kept a small corps core of officers/NCOs as training/logistics staff and largely depended on militias as the primary military. The militia also had to provide a significant amount of their own gear; they didn't have National Guard armories. In this context, the 2nd Amendment was as much a method of keeping the main military power of the United States armed as a personal right to own a pistol.

Huh, another NRA nut trying to convince everyone that the relaxed gun laws under Obama are really just a warm up for when he will personally come to your home and TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY!

sprawl15: BeesNuts: The earliest versions included a clause stating that no person with religious reservations about shooting folks could be compelled to military service, which links the entire principle of a "militia" to the much more specific "military".

Which itself bends back to the nature of a decentralized government including a decentralized army; the Fed only kept a small corps core of officers/NCOs as training/logistics staff and largely depended on militias as the primary military. The militia also had to provide a significant amount of their own gear; they didn't have National Guard armories. In this context, the 2nd Amendment was as much a method of keeping the main military power of the United States armed as a personal right to own a pistol.

Well, I agree with that. My reading of the second amendment (disclaimer: I am not a Supreme Court Justice), has always been that the People had arms to prevent a standing army from wielding power over them.

"conservatives" on gun rights = we need to organize and protect the right because things could change at any moment and our guns could be taken.

"conservatives" on workers rights = unions are out dated, we don't need them anymore.