Finally a serious question about 2nd Ammendmet

[SkAoUt]

Good to see some bar raising discussions actually take place in this dusty corner.

Not that I've anything to add.

You did shame me into checking out The Charter though. Been a while.

 

[mercury14]

Because it keeps our stupid government under control.

Under control from doing what?

 

[Weird Harold]

Third, the colonists were already armed, did not need the Revolution or the Constitution to tell them they could be, and they have stayed that way for one reason or another ever since. ...

So you're saying that "The Shot Heard 'Round The World" was not fired at British troops who came to Lexington Green to confiscate the Minutemen's armory and arrest their leaders?

The issues leading up to the American Revolution may well be wide ranging and varies, but the first shots were fired to prevent the British forces from disarming the Colonials.

 

[coastal-boy]

I am confident that Colonel Hogan didn't mean to support my argument in his cut and paste attempt to disprove what I was saying, but hey...he did. So then the question really becomes, "How many hundreds of years does a country need to exist before it proves that the our Founding Father's intent for writing an Amendment is no longer applicable?"

 

[1sickbastard]

I am confident that Colonel Hogan didn't mean to support my argument in his cut and paste attempt to disprove what I was saying, but hey...he did. So then the question really becomes, "How many hundreds of years does a country need to exist before it proves that the our Founding Father's intent for writing an Amendment is no longer applicable?"

When parts of the Constitution are no longer applicable, there is a process for amending it to reflect the new reality.

As there has been no proposed amendment to alter, clarify or nullify the second amendment, one may conclude the answer to your question to be: Obviously, more hundreds of years than have already passed.

 

[John Doe]

I am confident that Colonel Hogan didn't mean to support my argument in his cut and paste attempt to disprove what I was saying, but hey...he did. So then the question really becomes, "How many hundreds of years does a country need to exist before it proves that the our Founding Father's intent for writing an Amendment is no longer applicable?"

The same number of years that it takes to repeal the 2nd Amendment.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Not my intention at all, seeing as my formal education largely consists of both history and philosophy (with a strong predilection for politics, ethics, and law on one hand and linguistics, epistemology, and phenomenology on the other), I have nothing but the utmost respect for the power of thought and words.

Noting that words and ideas are artifacts does not diminish them, but rather elevates human artifice to the highest reverence possible. We are responsible for the creation and maintenance of meaning and value, we are biologically empowered to act according to the way of thinking we create and embrace, and from this magnificent capacity has flowed the whole of human history.

I am certainly familiar with the origin of natural law and the "states of nature" described by various thinkers of the Enlightenment. Personally, I am of the opinion that our biology and evolutionary heritage is responsible for not only providing the boundaries that enclose all potential human thought and action, but also may be examined in the pursuit of moral values (Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape comes to mind).

However, it is also impossible to neglect that the ideas on which this conversation is based are, as I mentioned earlier, spatially and temporally historic. Further, they are in diverse company, good and ill. In fact, they triumphed over rather powerful competing ideas expressed by institutions such as the Catholic Church and violently enforced by Monarchs with armies. These ideas may have been suppressed and ridiculed to the point of oblivion. They may have been forgotten entirely (like so many other ideas, languages, and cultures of which we have only the faintest knowledge) had the "war of ideas" gone differently.

Plato and Aristotle may well have been a few more burnt libraries away from being lost to history altogether. If there was a Christ, a terribly high probability of infant mortality could have produced a very different 21st century. Might others have arrived at similar ideas through imagination and rational thought? Perhaps, certainly.

But perhaps is all we get. We're born into a time and place where the likes of John Locke and John Stuart Mill had their day. We could be 7th century Chinese Taoists, having a very different type of conversation despite having roughly the same biological faculties. I personally find this point of view both enormously humbling and empowering, but it makes it difficult for me to take a great many people very seriously.

I think I am going to like having you here.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Difficulty reading I see. Here is the conclusion of what you cited:

It is therefore entirely sensible that the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens’ militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified in a written Constitution.


Thank-you for proving my point: The Founding Fathers intent with the Second Amendment was to prevent the elimination of a State Militia.

And yet you insist on denying the most obvious point that the very purpose of preserving the militia was to ensure that the pre-existing, individual right of the people to keep and bear arms would not be imperiled.

 

[BusyAfternoon]

Anonymous Responds To Obama gun control policy, and how citizens are not required to submit to any law that violates the U.S. Constitution.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqiS3f4gxCQ&feature=player_embedded

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

well, from me at least

I'm a Canadian, we dont have the 2nd Ammendment

I'm curious as to why it is a right to carry a weapon

Personally I see firearm possesion as a privilege then a right, and so does my country

so why is it a right in the states.. what is it about carrying a gun that gives itself the societal equivalent to free speech

just curious

what OTHER parts of the CONSTITUTION do you have a problem with?

I have to wonder how 'Canadians' feel about natural rights, life and self-defense.

Are abortion and euthanasia 'social rights' to keep down the costs of government?

 

[about_average]

But perhaps is all we get. We're born into a time and place where the likes of John Locke and John Stuart Mill had their day. We could be 7th century Chinese Taoists, having a very different type of conversation despite having roughly the same biological faculties. I personally find this point of view both enormously humbling and empowering, but it makes it difficult for me to take a great many people very seriously.

The reason, I think, philosophy was my favorite subject at university, and one of my favorite avenues of discussion was arguments to counter the theories of the greats.
Although, perhaps, more time at frat parties might been more likely to stand me in good stead when I was an iron worker.

 

[Liar]

And yet you insist on denying the most obvious point that the very purpose of preserving the militia was to ensure that the pre-existing, individual right of the people to keep and bear arms would not be imperiled.

So in short, one of you is putting the art before the horse. Which one of you? I'm not touching that.

 

[Lancecastor]

The philosophy comes from "Enlightenment" thinking on the essence of the 'natural' rights of individuals (see John Locke and Thomas Hobbs) and the nature of the social contract (Rousseau).

Exactly...the Colonials were pissy at England, so they copied the French system of government.

The French cheerfully backed the Colonials against the English.

The USA was founded by frenchy-lovers.

 

[contrifan32]

well, from me at least

I'm a Canadian, we dont have the 2nd Ammendment

I'm curious as to why it is a right to carry a weapon

Personally I see firearm possesion as a privilege then a right, and so does my country

so why is it a right in the states.. what is it about carrying a gun that gives itself the societal equivalent to free speech


Do we have to go over this again? What you need to try to understand is that the Second Amendment does not give we the people the right to keep and bare arms... that right is inherent and is not given by any man or government. The Second Amendment insures that our inherent right is not infringed by the government.

The Constitution is a document limiting the control of government not the other way around.

 

[Lancecastor]

the right to bare arms...

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/05/13/article-1019392-00CC77F8000004B0-481_634x337.jpg

 

[Sean Renaud]

Do we have to go over this again? What you need to try to understand is that the Second Amendment does not give we the people the right to keep and bare arms... that right is inherent and is not given by any man or government. The Second Amendment insures that our inherent right is not infringed by the government.

The Constitution is a document limiting the control of government not the other way around.

Except that's just bullshit we like to hear. Rights are given by man and governments. Nothing is inherent.

 

[contrifan32]

Except that's just bullshit we like to hear. Rights are given by man and governments. Nothing is inherent.

No? What about your right to breath? To exist? Do you want me to go on?

 

[Sean Renaud]

No? What about your right to breath? To exist? Do you want me to go on?

Yes I would like you to go on. I suppose you could try to claim that my government can't stop me from doing those things but I hear Hitler and a bunch of Jews proved that to be a bunch of bunk.

 

[Liar]

No? What about your right to breath? To exist? Do you want me to go on?

In many US states, you only have the right to exist under certain conditions.

 

[Lancecastor]

No? What about your right to breath?

Q: Why do Jews have big noses?

A: Air is free.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Exactly...the Colonials were pissy at England, so they copied the French system of government.

Neither the Articles of Confederation nor the U.S. Constitution bears much resemblance to any French form of government before or after 1789.

 

[KRCummings]

Q: Why do Jews have big noses?

A: Air is free.

That was kinda funny.

 

[contrifan32]

Yes I would like you to go on. I suppose you could try to claim that my government can't stop me from doing those things but I hear Hitler and a bunch of Jews proved that to be a bunch of bunk.

It not a question if the government (or Hitler) can try to stop you from things that are inherently your right, of course they can try. But the government (or Hitler if Germany had a Second Amendment) would be in violation of said Amendment and would be subject to the rule of Law and the will of the people.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It not a question if the government (or Hitler) can try to stop you from things that are inherently your right, of course they can try. But the government (or Hitler if Germany had a Second Amendment) would be in violation of said Amendment and would be subject to the rule of Law and the will of the people.

The bolded part is the only part that actually matters. Rights are not inherent or gifted by God. They are granted by man and governments. Its really that cut and dry.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

well, from me at least

I'm a Canadian, we dont have the 2nd Ammendment

I'm curious as to why it is a right to carry a weapon

Personally I see firearm possesion as a privilege then a right, and so does my country

so why is it a right in the states.. what is it about carrying a gun that gives itself the societal equivalent to free speech


Do we have to go over this again? What you need to try to understand is that the Second Amendment does not give we the people the right to keep and bare arms... that right is inherent and is not given by any man or government. The Second Amendment insures that our inherent right is not infringed by the government.

The Constitution is a document limiting the control of government not the other way around.

Gun ownership in America is a privilege, not a right.