Author Of 'Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea'

[xynzee]

U.S. Constitution Article 1 Section 8:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

[xynzee]

Nope, not a word about the Constitution allowing for an insurrection, but a certainly outlines that Militias are for quashing them.

The issue isn't that you have a gun, it's the threats that are being made against the legal order, (ie "2nd Amendment remedies").

Jefferson's quote about the "Tree of Liberty" is about the Shay's rebellion. Hamilton who penned the 2nd felt that everyone involved in the Shay's was to be executed for insurrection.

[xynzee]

Shay's was deemed to be a symptom of failure of a lack of strong Central Government for people to have their grievances heard and therefore lead to the forming of the Constitutional Congress. Which in turn gave us the Bill of Rights.

[stchman]

Liberal rhetoric. These liberals won't be satisfied until we are under their complete control.

What they also did not discuss is people have the right to defend themselves.

[Joseph565112]

The right of the People is a clear statement, it means the People, geniuses.

Further, a militia is simply impossible without armed civilians....duh.

What's next, are we going to debate the quickest route to a point on a map?.....oh yeah, it's a straight line......8th grade geometry anyone?

[INSURRECTION1ST]

Hello!

[clownpenisfart]

That is one of the stongest discussions I have ever heard.

[TheGiantRobot]

I guess this was bound to draw at least one gun nut. Or should I have said maniac?

'You can kill someone with a fork!'

'There are still guns in England, so gun control doesn't work.'

'You can organize people with random guns into a well regulated militia, therefore you must have random guns to have a well regulated militia.'

This is delusional black and white thinking - because something isn't white you say it's black, or visa versa when it suits you. You aren't talking about reality.

[djzacmaniac]

Guns laws only restrict lawful gun owners. Criminals simply don't participate (look at the drug market as an example. Drugs are illegal. ANYONE can buy drugs). I don't even own a gun personally. I do however, understand why it is important to have that right.

[djzacmaniac]

Supply and demand. As long as criminals (or violent governments) want, and use guns, law abiding citizens, and police will need them as well.

[TheGiantRobot]

This argument that "criminals" don't participate in our laws is flawed. Meaning, what, people who have criminal convictions don't participate in our laws? Of course they do. If your argument is that some people will break the gun laws, the answer is "Of Course!!!"

Laws don't stop anything, they restrict it. I am not for, by the way, banning all guns, but this topic is on the 2nd amendment. It doesn't even say guns, it says arms. It's a much bigger topic than gun ownership.

[djzacmaniac]

I refuse to be surprised by disingenuous arguments on youtube any longer. How do you stop a criminal from buying a gun? The answer is obviously that you CAN'T, due to SUPPLY and DEMAND. So what is the point of having a law that does not achieve what it intends to? I contend that gun control does achieve what it sets out to, DISARM the population.

[TheGiantRobot]

There you go again, saying I'm dishonest for no reasonable reason.

I would say that implies that you are dishonest, but actually, I think you are beyond dishonest - I think you are delusional - the price of constant denial.

And you still are going into black and white territory, saying it's all or nothing. If something equals everything, then stop worrying about it, take up your fork, and get on with life.

[djzacmaniac]

Do you have anything to add to the debate?

[TheGiantRobot]

No, go ahead and mark this comment down twice also. That's very cute.

[djzacmaniac]

I think you can only thumb up or down a comment once.

[djzacmaniac]

Yet, I'M the delusional one. lulz.

[Fangtorn]

Anyone else HATE these create a cartoon adverts? They piss me off so badly...

[djzacmaniac]

Even the federal government can't say it has made a difference. The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.

[djzacmaniac]

I wanted to know why the laws weren't working, so I asked the experts. "I'm not going in the store to buy no gun," said one maximum-security inmate in New Jersey. "So, I could care less if they had a background check or not."

[djzacmaniac]

"There's guns everywhere," said another inmate. "If you got money, you can get a gun."

Talking to prisoners about guns emphasizes a few key lessons. First, criminals don't obey the law. (That's why we call them "criminals.") Second, no law can repeal the law of supply and demand. If there's money to be made selling something, someone will sell it.

[djzacmaniac]

MYTH: Mandatory gun registration means all guns must be registered.

[djzacmaniac]

FACT: Because it is already illegal for convicted felons to own guns, the Fifth Amendment protects felons from being forced to incriminate themselves by registering their guns. Any criminal can easily avoid gun registration by committing a felony and getting probation, or by storing his guns at the home of a convicted felon. If his existing guns are confiscated, he can buy more from any drug dealer. continued

[djzacmaniac]

Source: Fifth Amendment To The Constitution Of The United States and the US Supreme Court ruling Haynes Versus United States

[djzacmaniac]

MYTH: Trigger locks are the best protection against unauthorized gun use.

FACT: The best protection against unauthorized gun use is to keep guns in a child-proof burglar-proof safe whenever they are not being used for hunting, self-protection, or target-shooting. Trigger locks do not protect guns from being stolen, and an improperly-installed trigger lock can cause a gun to fire accidentally, especially if the gun is dropped.

[djzacmaniac]

MYTH: Twelve children are killed with guns each day.

FACT: Half of the people that politicians count as "children killed with guns" were actually legally adults. The gun murder rate started falling when crack cocaine started going out of style in 1990. In 1997, 2284 children aged 0-17 years were killed with guns, most of them teenagers. That is 6 per day. In 1998, the number dropped to 1971, still mostly teenagers. - continued

[djzacmaniac]

. That is 5 per day. The age distribution of child gun deaths tracks the age distribution of child drug dealers.

Source: Centers For Disease Control

[djzacmaniac]

MYTH: Most gun deaths are caused by accidents or by crazed madmen.

FACT: More than two out of every three gun deaths are either suicides or drug-related murders.

Source: Centers For Disease Control - Deaths 1998 (625KB document!) and U.S. Department Of Justice - Bureau of Justice Statistics

[DidntKnowWhatToPut1]

I'm happy firearms are illegal in the UK

[burntonion05]

I think these fools that talk big with their guns are a bunch of hot air. When it is time to stand up and fight they will crawl back in their hole and act like the sheep they really are. That is why they are so afraid and need a gun in the first place.

[TheGiantRobot]

The punctuation of the amendment, as distributed to and ratified by our states, is:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

That's an unambiguous statement that the purpose of this amendment is for the state's militia. You can debate how the arms are to kept and borne (borne meaning carried), but not the why. I 100% agree with Joshua. His point about guns vs. Democracy is great, too.

[djzacmaniac]

What is the purpose of the state militia? To protect the citizens, from ANY body that tries to commit a crime against them, including the federal government. If the Army starts enforcing local and state laws, it is time to shoot at them.

[TheGiantRobot]

I don't agree that the point of a state militia is to protect against anybody who tries to commit a crime against a citizen. That sounds like a police force, though I don't know my history - maybe they used to be the same thing.

And it's a subjective argument whether or not the state militia is there to defend against the federal government.

In any case, people keeping random guns in their houses isn't a well regulated state militia.

[djzacmaniac]

Until they band together like the minute men did against the red coats. You are either lying, or you are ignoring history.

[TheGiantRobot]

Dude, what are you talking about, lying? You just demonstrate that you are an extremist and probably not terribly honest or in touch with reality yourself.

[djzacmaniac]

Did you not type the following sentence?

In any case, people keeping random guns in their houses isn't a well regulated state militia.

You are either lying, or you are ignoring history.

[djzacmaniac]

Either you know that a well regulated militia can be (and has been in our national history) made up of people keeping random guns in their houses, and are lying about it, or you are without knowledge on the subject. Either way, the weight your opinion would have held is greatly diminished.

[djzacmaniac]

Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia

[dangerouslytalented]

The Second Amendment was, long term, a very very bad idea. Allowing everybody the right to have lethal weapons, without giving them commensurate responsibilities, just can't work.

[djzacmaniac]

Would not 'commensurate responsibilities' include assault and murder laws? Everyone is responsible for their actions, under the law. A steak knife is a lethal weapon. A slingshot, a crossbow, a fork... An armed population is suppose to make the government afraid. Unfortunately, in America, the people are afraid of our government. DHS checkpoints, warrant less seizures, all of the tyranny that is inflicted on us is our own doing. It is legal to protect yourself, even from the government.

[dangerouslytalented]

It is very hard to kill somebody from across the street with a steakknife. Guns are specifically designed to kill. That is the only thing they are good for.

[djzacmaniac]

It is very easy to walk across the street and kill some person with a steak knife, if you want them dead. I agree that guns work very well as a killing instrument. Like you said, that is what they are designed for. Why else would one need a gun, but to kill someone that is a threat? Is it wrong to defend your life with the same deadly force as your assailants? If citizens are barred from having guns, the only people that will have them are those with no respect for the law.

[dangerouslytalented]

Have you been in a country that has tight gun control? There are not many people who have access to guns. And those who do have these guns without permits or licences quickly become known to the authorities.

[djzacmaniac]

WORNG. So in the UK, the crown is aware of all of the criminals who keep illegal guns? I;m afraid that is a very ignorant statement.

[dangerouslytalented]

They have to keep them well hidden don't they? And what use is that?

Look at the rates of gun violence, you will find that they are far lower in places with gun control.

And other violence is not commensurately higher. And the other violence is not nearly as leathal as gun violence. Result: Fewer murders.

[djzacmaniac]

Canada has hundreds of MILLIONS of guns, they don't have the same problems America does with gun violence, or other types of violence for that matter. Guns are tools. Not evil entities. There is an effort in the UK to ban pocket knives. This is because "tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people." Quoted from Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe.

[djzacmaniac]

Another great quote from the same Judge.

"But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- continued

[djzacmaniac]

where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

[djzacmaniac]

Most states now have "right to carry" laws. And their people are not living in a state of terror. Not one of those states reported an upsurge in crime.

Why? Because guns are used more than twice as often defensively as criminally. When armed men broke into Susan Gonzalez' house and shot her, she grabbed her husband's gun and started firing. - continued

[djzacmaniac]

"I figured if I could shoot one of them, even if we both died, someone would know who had been in my home." She killed one of the intruders. She lived. Studies on defensive use of guns find this kind of thing happens at least 700,000 times a year.

[djzacmaniac]

MYTH: "Gun-control" laws worked in England.

FACT: After more than fifty years of "sensible gun-control laws," English criminals have more than three million illegal guns, twice as many as ten years ago.

[dangerouslytalented]

From whose ass did you pull THAT factoid from?

If America's gun control laws were not so lax, then Britain would not be having this problem at all.

[djzacmaniac]

Gun control zealots love to make highly selective international comparisons of gun ownership and murder rates. But Joyce Lee Malcolm points out some of the pitfalls in that approach. For example, the murder rate in New York City has been more than five times that of London for two centuries -- and during most of that time neither city had any gun control laws.

[djzacmaniac]

In 1911, New York state instituted one of the most severe gun control laws in the United States, while serious gun control laws did not begin in England until nearly a decade later. But New York City still continued to have far higher murder rates than London.

[djzacmaniac]

In England, as history professor Joyce Lee Malcolm points out, over the centuries "violent crime continued to decline markedly at the very time that guns were becoming increasingly available." It was during this period of severe restrictions on owning firearms that crime rates in general, and the murder rate in particular, began to rise in England. "As the number of legal firearms have dwindled, the numbers of armed crimes have risen," Professor Malcolm points out.

[djzacmaniac]

In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s, there were more than a hundred times as many. In England, as in the United States, drastic crackdowns on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens were accompanied by ever greater leniency to criminals. In both countries, this turned out to be a formula for disaster.

[dangerouslytalented]

Disaster?

What disaster?

And New York State was surrounded by states that do NOT have gun control laws that are NEARLY as strict. The states that have lax gun control laws are undermining everybody else.

[djzacmaniac]

I feel like I have to add that I generally do not support tougher sentencing for criminals. That is included as it is part of the article I took the excerpt from.

[djzacmaniac]

In three pages, the court went from claiming that the registration law was intended to stop "an evil in the misuse of rifles and shotguns by criminals" to admitting that it was "not aimed at persons inherently suspect of criminal activities." Meaning that law abiding citizens would be the target of registration, even though they are persons who are not inherently suspect of criminal activities.

[dangerouslytalented]

So you are turning to legalistic loopholes? Honestly?

Next you will be saying that it is constitutionally OK for those who are banned from driving to refrain from registering their cars.

[djzacmaniac]

I didn't say it was ok, the supreme court did. I don't think anyone should have to register their cars. Loopholes be damned!

[djzacmaniac]

While England has not yet reached the American level of murders, it has already surpassed the United States in rates of robbery and burglary. Moreover, in recent years the murder rate in England has been going up under still more severe gun control laws, while the murder rate in the United States has been going down as more and more states have allowed private citizens to carry concealed weapons -- and have begun locking up more criminals.

[dangerouslytalented]

That does not have any direct relation to gun laws.

[djzacmaniac]

So why have guns laws if they don't reduce crime? Read all of my posts, you should know that England has always had exponentially low murder rates compared to America. Even without gun laws on either side of the pond. I contend that gun laws are designed to take away the power of the people to effectively revolt. Rhetoric then comes into play, convincing enough to mislead well meaning, intelligent people like yourself, into believing fallacies and half-truths. Supply and demand. Law be damned.

[djzacmaniac]

In both countries, facts have no effect whatever on the dogmas of gun control zealots. The fact that most guns used to murder people in England were not legally purchased has no effect on their faith in gun control laws there, any more than faith in such laws here is affected by the fact that the gun used by the recent Beltway snipers was not purchased legally either.

[dangerouslytalented]

Oh come on. Do you know how rare gun crimes are in Australia? If somebody gets shot, it makes the headlines. If somebody is killed with a gun it makes the headlines for DAYS. If it is unsolved within a few days, it makes headlines for WEEKS.

Loose gun laws ALLOW people to buy guns illegally. Proper registration of all guns would have allowed us to find out the source of Malvo's guns easily.

[djzacmaniac]

n Haynes v. U.S. (1968), a Miles Edward Haynes appealed his conviction for unlawful possession of an unregistered short-barreled shotgun. [1] His argument was ingenious: since he was a convicted felon at the time he was arrested on the shotgun charge, he could not legally possess a firearm. Haynes further argued that for a convicted felon to register a gun, especially a short-barreled shotgun, was effectively an announcement to the government that he was breaking the law.

[djzacmaniac]

If he did register it, as 26 U.S.C. sec.5841 required, he was incriminating himself; but if he did not register it, the government would punish him for possessing an unregistered firearm -- a violation of 26 U.S.C. sec.5851. Consequently, his Fifth Amendment protection against self- incrimination ("No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself") was being violated -- he would be punished if he registered it, and punished if he did not register it.

[dangerouslytalented]

In other words,criminals who do not want to be caught are constitutionally allowed to not register firearms?

Registration allows the authorities to work out where the guns which are used for crimes are COMING FROM, so that the suppliers to criminal gangs can be held accountable for their actions.

That is why gun manufacturers spend so much on fighting gun registration. Because criminals are BIG CUSTOMERS.

[djzacmaniac]

If I manufacture, or sell firearms for/to criminals, why would I incriminate myself by registering them, when the supreme court says I don't have to? I wouldn't. So the only people affected by registration, are law abiding citizens, who would never commit a crime with their guns to begin with. Additionally, lawful gun owners would only procure their firearms through legal means, again negating any logical reason for registration.

[djzacmaniac]

While the Court acknowledged that there were circumstances where a person might register such a weapon without having violated the prohibition on illegal possession or transfer, both the prosecution and the Court acknowledged such circumstances were "uncommon." The Court concluded:

[djzacmaniac]

We hold that a proper claim of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm under sec.5841 or for possession of an unregistered firearm under sec.5851.

[djzacmaniac]

In England as in America, sensational gun crimes have been seized upon and used politically to promote crackdowns on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, while doing nothing about criminals. American zealots for the Brady bill say nothing about the fact that the man who shot James Brady and tried to assassinate President Reagan has been out walking the streets on furlough.

these last few responses were take from an article by Thomas Sowell.

[TheGiantRobot]

I think, Dangerous, that you have misinterpreted the 2nd Amendment, but it's easy to see why. The right to bear arms is a reference to bear claws. An army moves on its stomach, after all. This is an amendment guaranteeing our access to pastries.

[djzacmaniac]

COmedy GOld

[darktoadthesticky]

Governments become corrupt. All governments. We encourage other people to take up arms against their governments. Grabbing a gun and fighting the government as an individual is crazy, however, if its a majority of the population that is a revolution. It is the responsibility of the government to represent the People. Not this interest group or that interest group.

[dangerouslytalented]

All it takes is one douchebag with a gun to fire it at somebody for them to assert their will over everybody else, like what happened with Kennedy.

[djzacmaniac]

Yes, because only one douche bag was responsible for that murder.... Get real. Even if Oswald was acting alone, his possession and use of a gun is not responsible for that president's demise. It was the utter lack of security that caused Kennedy's murder. Had the Secret Service done their job, nobody would have been in that room with the window open. IF guns were illegal on that day, someone with the intent to kill the president would have been able to secure one, I am sure of it.

[darktoadthesticky]

Very true.

[dangerouslytalented]

If he had not had access to a mail order gun, then he would not have been able to get away with it.

All it takes is for one douchebag to slip through the net. The secret service is only human.

[rogertheedodger]

Cenk is great.

[Drey4ltur]

lol... brownie