Responsible Gun Owner Takes A Stand On Gun Control (Sarcasm)

[Lord Revan]

Part of the ignorance problem is that a LOT of these yahoos haven't actually read the documents in question themselves. They're quoting what someone else told/taught them about it.

it's not just that, it's also that they're unwilling (if not also uncapable) to go and see what the documents actually say due to think they know it already and "it's just *insert bad guy faction of choice here* trying to take away my God given rights" if someone tries to tell to go look it up themselves.

Aka they're not just ignorant, they're willfully ignorant cause they trust only those people who say to them what they think is right.

[Alyeska]

Thread title modified per Posting Ruling 12. Back to your regularly scheduled programing.

[Stark]

Yeah. Basically, the Declaration is part of the "small-c" constitution of the US, because it's an implicit statement of political philosophy. By making specific assertions about their rights as citizens, and by making specific complaints about King George's actions, the authors implied certain things about what a government should and should not be able to do. No quartering troops on private citizens, no taxation without representation, and so on.

So while the Declaration has no legal force, citing it is sort of... like the practical version of quoting Locke or someone like him.

The catch is that for an ignorant person who doesn't know or want to learn the context, any random string of words from the Declaration can be used to justify anything. The same thing happens, on a lesser scale, with quotes from perfectly random people, as long as they sound nice if you're smug and stupid about them.

Saying something has no legal force but kind of sort of does or should in case we imagine they were forgotten in the constitution seems pretty weak, and this kind of weak stuff could be where these kind of attitudes come from. Like Revan says,the majority of people will never read the documents and know them only second or third hand from authorities. It's almost as if worshipping a piece of paper is fucking stupid, and that people should know what the actual principles governing their nation actually are and not founding father fanfiction to avoid people believing xyz reform/bill/whatever is an affront to god.

[Irbis]

>sigh< I wish we could inject some sanity into the US 2nd amendment. While I do support the right of responsible, well-behaved, and law-abiding citizens to own weaponry, just as one might own other potentially dangerous items, it's not an unlimited right and there should be some regulation to ensure that those exercising their weapon rights do not needlessly endanger anyone else (aside from lawful self-defense). I don't this the current situation is at all ideal.

Let me ask hypothetical question - what if someone else proposes to bring back slavery using the very same argument? Of responsible, well-behaved, and law-abiding citizens right to own slave - after all, they might treat them humanely, shower them with gifts, and don't needlessly endanger anyone else. Why wholesale ban, instead of case-by-case basis? What if someone wants to be slave?

You don't even need to make dumb mental gymnastics to make right to own slaves god-given, it's right there in Koran and Bible, black on white. It's also traditional - slavery existed for as long as civilization did, while right to have gun is tiny fraction of civilization existence. Hell, universal right to own weapon of any kind is new, before that we had laws banning various social classes/castes from owning all weapons - thus any god-given, traditional argument to own a gun can be made a hundredfold in argument to own a slave, too. Why we should accept it in one case and not in the other?

About inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence - right to live is the most important one, guns basically exist to violate it. Either directly, by shooting, or indirectly, by creating terror atmosphere of danger that can kill though heart attacks or lapses of judgement of people convinced person threatening them is armed and lashing out instead of resolving conflict peacefully. Sure, some people won't kill anyone with their gun, directly or indirectly, but same can be said about slave owners, what if owner doesn't really violate rights of his slaves? Why, o gun owners, we should accept oppressive state taking away his god-given rights despite him being flawlessly responsible citizen?

[Starglider]

>sigh< I wish we could inject some sanity into the US 2nd amendment. While I do support the right of responsible, well-behaved, and law-abiding citizens to own weaponry, just as one might own other potentially dangerous items, it's not an unlimited right and there should be some regulation to ensure that those exercising their weapon rights do not needlessly endanger anyone else

The US government has already managed to impose major restrictions on gun ownership and has been constantly increasing them at both state and Federal levels for the last century. The US constitution is unusual in that it explicit tries to defend citizenry from the excesses of government, and recognises that any leeway given to politicians and civil servants will (eventally) be abused to the max. Even more gun restrictions under discussion never seem to invite a 2nd amendment legal challenge, the only question is voter support. So I would say that writing further government regulation directly into the constitution is not necessary, and the only major problem with the 2nd amendment is the ambiguity of the milita clause.

[Broomstick]

Let me ask hypothetical question - what if someone else proposes to bring back slavery using the very same argument?

I'd say it was a fucking stupid argument because I don't view ownership of people to be at all relevant to a discussion of gun ownership. How about we compare it to sumptuary laws or price of kumquats at the local produce store?

About inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence - right to live is the most important one, guns basically exist to violate it.

First, as already noted in this thread the Declaration of Independence is NOT a legal document!.

Second - the founders of the US viewed gun ownership as vital to preservation of liberty (inalienable right #2), which they viewed as vital to the pursuit of happiness (inalienable right #3) which MIGHT have something to do with why the second amendment exists in the first place.

Either directly, by shooting, or indirectly, by creating terror atmosphere of danger that can kill though heart attacks or lapses of judgement of people convinced person threatening them is armed and lashing out instead of resolving conflict peacefully.

I don't get this "terror atmosphere of danger" you speak of.... I've lived around gun owners and guns all my life and while I have great respect for the hazards the mere existence of guns does not produce this "atmosphere" you speak of, any more than someone owning a chainsaw or a 5 gallon container of gasoline produces such an "atmosphere".

[Simon_Jester]

Saying something has no legal force but kind of sort of does or should in case we imagine they were forgotten in the constitution seems pretty weak, and this kind of weak stuff could be where these kind of attitudes come from.

Probably yes.

It's almost as if worshipping a piece of paper is fucking stupid, and that people should know what the actual principles governing their nation actually are and not founding father fanfiction to avoid people believing xyz reform/bill/whatever is an affront to god.

I think it would actually be nice to have a national constitution that came with a compact political treatise laying out in full the reasons that constitution was written.

On the one hand, it at least makes it more possible for people to have intelligent conversations about politics beyond "all nations should enact this identical list of reforms regardless of all other factors." Different nations might experiment with different kinds of policy reform, or choose different legal regimes to fit different demographics within their country. And this could be laid out in the documentation.

On the other hand, a treatise like that also makes it clear just how much times have changed. That founding treatise will look a lot less interesting when 200 years later you're reading Thomas Jefferson's "boy oh boy do I love slavery!" remarks thrown in with the rest.

Unfortunately the Declaration of Independence isn't an example of this, it's mostly a bunch of American businessmen and landowners complaining about all the random shit George III had done to them and saying "fuck you, I'm out of here!" So it focuses specifically on abuses of government power, at the expense of the "promote the general welfare" and so on goals that were outlined in the Preamble to the Constitution. Which is the real mission statement of the US government in my opinion.

Maybe the existence of the Declaration as (naturally) an anti-government document helps to explain why it is so super-revered by the anti-government political faction in the US. And, for that matter, by people like the Confederates in 1860.

About inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence - right to live is the most important one, guns basically exist to violate it.

Is it, really? Is having a guaranteed right to be alive all that valuable, if you are not allowed to pursue happiness for yourself, or are not allowed the freedom and flexibility to find your own way of doing so?

Guarantee the right to "life" out of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and forget the rest, and you end up with Zamyatin's We.

[Rogue 9]

On the other hand, a treatise like that also makes it clear just how much times have changed. That founding treatise will look a lot less interesting when 200 years later you're reading Thomas Jefferson's "boy oh boy do I love slavery!" remarks thrown in with the rest.

You wouldn't get that out of Jefferson - he made it plain on several occasions that he saw it as an unfortunate economic necessity, that would and should be left behind as the nation advanced. The later Confederates took note of this and took pains to say that he was in error when justifying their rebellion. (This doesn't make his personal ownership of slaves any better, but it does mean that you wouldn't see Confederate-style constitutional guarantees of slavery had the Constitutional Convention laid out their goals in the treatise you posit.)

[Simon_Jester]

Sorry, I was being... willfully indifferent to accuracy, I'll be honest. I was trying to make the basic concept simple enough that I wouldn't have to write a whole different paragraph about it; I'm windy enough as it is.

[Broomstick]

Unfortunately the Declaration of Independence isn't an example of this, it's mostly a bunch of American businessmen and landowners complaining about all the random shit George III had done to them and saying "fuck you, I'm out of here!" So it focuses specifically on abuses of government power, at the expense of the "promote the general welfare" and so on goals that were outlined in the Preamble to the Constitution. Which is the real mission statement of the US government in my opinion.

The current constitution is also the second attempt at forming the US, hence the phrase in the pre-amble "form a more perfect union" because the first union under the Articles of Confederation was weak and sucked at being effective. As it attempted to correct some of the mistakes of the first one would hope it was a better framework than what had been attempted before.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Ricin letters a con, set up by Dallas actress to frame her husband

A TV actress was arrested in Arkansas Friday in connection with ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The arrest of Shannon Rogers Guess Richardson, initially reported by NBC News, comes two weeks after Richardson contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation claiming that her husband, Nathan Richardson, had sent the letters last month to Obama, Bloomberg and Mark Glaze, head of a gun control organization co-founded by Bloomberg.

Richardson, a 33-year-old Army veteran, was questioned by the FBI last week. He has been married to Guess, a former Dallas beauty queen, since 2011. Mrs. Richardson, a mother of five, has had minor roles in cable TV series The Walking Dead and The Vampire Diaries.

She contacted the FBI after finding a suspicious substance in her refrigerator and ricin-related Internet searches on the couple's computer. But NBC reported that investigators said had sent the letters. She was taken to a local courthouse Friday near the couple's home in New Boston, Tex.

Hope you gun banners enjoyed making fun of me and mine for a while...

[Alyeska]

Duchess. It comes with the territory of being a gun owner these days. Thanas acted like I had the plague when I expressed interest in a silencer.

[Thanas]

Duchess. It comes with the territory of being a gun owner these days. Thanas acted like I had the plague when I expressed interest in a silencer.

If this is acting like you had the plague then you are a very precious child indeed.

[Flagg]

The idea that some deranged gun nut wrote the letters isn't exactly hard to believe. I'm glad it's not.

[Crown]

Hope you gun banners freedom haters enjoyed making fun of me and mine for a while...

That's how I misread that quote. Thought I'd share. Made me laugh.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You have fun with that, Crown!

[Crown]

You have fun with that, Crown!

I purposefully typed 'misread' as I did want to convey that it was my own psychological bias (if you would allow) that caused the error.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Fair enough. I know you just have a different idea of what freedom is.