BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Raedwulf
Date: 01 May 03 - 06:14 PM

Golly! Various...

PDC - Yes, that's perfectly true. OTOH, if the laws were properly applied, they would likely weed out a lot of the emotionally unstable (such as Ryan & Hamilton, both of whom, AIUI, should have been prohibited from holding firearms). There's a world of difference between a crime of passion (sudden anger, sudden murder - be it with gun, kitchen knife, baseball bat, bare hands, etc), & premeditatedly going out to gun people down. Compare & contrast Dunblane & Hungerford with Wolverhampton? I think it was, where a nut ran amok in an infants school with a samurai sword. The teacher (Allison someone?) was badly injured protecting her pupils, but I don't remember that anyone died? It's much easier to kill indiscriminately with a gun, which is why they need to be controlled. It doesn't mean they need to be legislated out of civilian hands, which is an impossibility anyway.

Nerd - I may forgive you for that horrible pun(-ish)! Then again, it might be better for everyone if I just shot you... (with a bow & arrow, of course!) ;) The two fingers story has a couple of variants, but I believe it's approximately true. I'm sure your version isn't!

Guest - Yep, history IS wonderful! So's humanity - all those lessons to hand, on so many subjects, & we just never seem to learn... *sigh*

Nerd hit the nucleus of what I was driving at. Those acts were intended to ensure that there was an adequate body of men that the state could draw from at need. Neither the medieval statutes nor the second amendment, in my opinion, were intended to guarantee gun ownership to anyone who fancied one & claimed he wasn't a fruitcake! This is why I took particular care to draw the distinction between military & civil in my last post, which Nerd obviously picked up on.

It's pro-/anti- gun arguments that make me glad & relieved I'm English. Britain doesn't have a Constitution. No law here is written in stone. If a law is bad, or becomes obsolete, it can be changed or repealed. As an outsider, it's always struck me that the US Con. is not so much written in stone, as fossilized! You simply cannot suggest an alteration to any of the original clauses - it's (seemingly) a worse crime than desecrating a church or treason. Anyone know the last time one of the original amendments was modified? I know there've been a few added since the first draft, but I'm curious as to whether & when any of the first batch have been altered...

On the subject of poison (curare is S.American, I believe, kat), I wasn't suggesting that China didn't have knowledge, even extensive knowledge, of poisons, just that excrement is so much more... available... I'm also aware that Chinese medicine has been well developed for many centuries. Nevertheless, I reckon acute blood poisoning is something they'd have trouble dealing with! It's a fact that in Europe 50% of duels resulted in at least one fatality (I think I've remembered the quote correctly!), because the participants smeared the edges of their swords with shit. Not bubonic plague, gangrenous pus, or poison. Just common or garden regular-motions-per-day shit...

There are instances of victorious (i.e. killed opponent) duellists dying within a few days of winning, so I've been told. There is actually a wholly English fighting system, developed by an Elizabethan called George Silver, which has survived (thanks to the treatise he wrote, "Paradoxes of Defense") & has been revived in the modern world, based entirely on the concept of the no-score draw - the only way of being sure to survive a duel is to not be hit! It's no good running your enemy through the heart, if he kills you three days later... Nasty, but true! ;)

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: NicoleC
Date: 01 May 03 - 06:37 PM

Amendment 27 was added in 1992, Raedwulf, which was the last addition. I think that last actual change of an earlier provision was in 1971, was Amendment 26 set the voting age at 18 for all states.

In 1972, the ERA passed congress but failed 3 states shy of ratification. I was reintroduced to Congress in 1982, but no progress has been made as far as I know.

Numerous changes were made to the Constitution in the 20th century. Changes are slow and difficult, but by now means is it a stagnant document.

http://memory.loc.gov/const/amend.html

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Raedwulf
Date: 01 May 03 - 07:29 PM

Nicole - Amdt 26 is not one of the originals. Looking at this page, the original Con. ran to 10 Amdts. Others have been added since. I specifically asked about amendments to the original clauses. It seems to me that the further we get from the the last alteration, the less willing Americans are to countenance any further modification....

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: NicoleC
Date: 01 May 03 - 07:55 PM

Raedwulf,

I know it's not an "original" amendment (although there's really no such thing), but it is an amendment that affects an original provision, which said that the states controlled voting. It also, in a way, extended the 15th amendment, which said that states could not deny voting priviledges on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The US Constitution is changed by ADDING amendments. Items are never deleted, they are simply overruled by more recent additions. In some transcriptions, they line out obsolete provisions, but technically, they are still there.

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: The O'Meara
Date: 01 May 03 - 08:58 PM

Tom Jefferson listed 3 reasons for the private citizen to keep (that is, to have on one's person or close at hand,) firearms. They were (1) to defend yourself and your loved ones (2) to hunt for food (3) to overthrow a tyrannical government. Those reasons appear obsolete if you really believe (1) the police will protect you from any crime, (2) Safeway will always provide food (3) the government of the U.S.A can never become dictatorial.
    (1) The police cannot protect the vast majority of private citizens and have no obligation or legal requirement to do so. They come around after the crime has been committed and try to find the perpetrator. Statistically, they do a poor job of even that. That's not the fault of the policeman, but the fact remains. I reserve the right to keep firearms for the same reasons the police have them, and the same type of firearms they have. (2) A few years ago, a rumor got started about a shortage of toilet paper in America. It wasn't true, but within 24 hours there was no toilet tissue to be had at any store in any metropolitan area in the U.S. Suppose there was a serious shortage of something like meat. I reserve the right, and the means, to provide food for myself and my family if necessary.(3) Read up on Richard NIxon. Then, of course, there's John Ashcroft and the new "anti-terrorist" laws. Please think about it before you answer.
    There is a vast difference between being a "subject" and being a "citizen." Do you really think only the police and the military should have guns?
    Would you be willing to post a sign in your front window right now that says "This house contains no firearms"? Why not?
    This is a discussion, not an argument. I'm really interested in your answers.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 01 May 03 - 09:31 PM

Raedwulf:

Even if you "weed out the emotionally unstable" etc., you are left with normal people, who, under the influence of certain stressors, can become emotionally unstable, even temporarily. If the weapon is at hand, and if it is as widely accepted as guns are in the US, then there will be tragedies, even following your "weeding out" idea.

Also, if you are a "normal," and have a gun in your house, does that mean that none of your emotionally unstable friends or family can visit?

The question isn't only ownership -- it's access.

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Nerd
Date: 02 May 03 - 11:47 AM

O'Meara,

you have written a better defense of gun ownership than most. However, to answer some of your points:

(1) The toilet paper thing? I have lived in one of the top 5 metropolitan areas in the US my whole life and do not recall this incident at all. I have always had access to "the white stuff" and can't imagine this story is true. When did it happen?

(2) There are many reasons why the meat argument is fallacious. among them: You can live a long healthy life with no meat whatsoever. If you feel you must have meat because of your personal preferences, you don't actually need guns to hunt. People fed themselves meat for millions of years without guns, remember. If farmed meat disappeared and all Americans went out with their guns to hunt, we would denude the country of animals and quickly be back where we started; our pathologically large appetite for meat cannot be sustained by hunting. And finally, the types of guns used for hunting are not what most gun-control advocates object to, anyway. This is one of many ways in which the world has actually CHANGED since Thomas Jefferson wrote, rendering his slaveowning ass a bit less relevant to the modern world...

(3) Your old buddy "Tom" Jefferson lived in a different era in other ways too. We live in an age where the most effective weapons cost millions and millions of dollars, and as citizens ownership of individual firearms is no longer effective in preventing dictatorships. You can have all the assault rifles and automatic pistols you want, but if the government truly became a dictatorship they would run you over with a tank and take them from your cold, dead hands just as Mr. Heston likes to say.

(4) The erosion of civil liberties under Nixon and Ashcroft is scary, of course, but I'm not sure how having an arsenal of assault weapons would give me any more such liberties. Say I'm a law-abiding Muslim being subjected to unfair strip-searches in airports. Will walking around with an Uzi help me out in some way? It is only when mere anarchy is loosed upon the world that an arsenal will be of use. I personally would rather that there be no such arsenals than that there be many, even if I could have one of them.

(5) I'm interested that you say you want weapons for the same reason the police have them, which in your view is so that they can do a statistically poor job of pursuing criminals after they have committed crimes. I must say the logic of that escapes me.... Obviously you meant for a dfferent reason than the police have them. Care to elaborate?

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: The O'Meara
Date: 02 May 03 - 02:22 PM

(1) The T.P. thing happened in the mid 70s on the heels of "The Great Gasoline Shortage" with long lines at the pumps,etc. I lived in
Northern Virginia and worked in Washington, DC at the time. My point was suppose the system of food delivery most urban folks rely on was seriously disrupted.
    (2) (You evidently don't care for Mr Jefferson's owning slaves. Neither do I. But that doesn't make his ideas automatically wrong. BTW, in both the declaration of independence and the constitution itself, he attempted to prohibit slaverey.) I most definitely disagree with the notion that those framers of the constitution are irrelevant to the modern world. Good point about hunting for meat, though, definitely food for thought. (The pun is accidental.) Nevertheless, I still reserve the right and the tools to provide food for myself and my family.
    Every time a gun-control law is passed, the anti-gun people say "that's one more step." Toward what? In my experience, and according to their stated views, the "gun-control" advocates make no distinction between types of firearms, and their ultimate goal is the elimination of any sort of privately owned firearm, including BB guns and flintlock muskets.
    (3) (Tom Jefferson is not my "buddy." He was already a middle aged man when I was born.) The Afghanis did a pretty fair job of halting the Russians and all their high-tech war equipment for many years, and I have first-hand experience with the "primitive" Viet Cong facing the "modern" American army.
    (4)Its been said that given the choice, the vast majority of people would choose tyranny over anarchy. (As a law abiding Muslim, walking around an airport with an UZI would certainly speed up the strip search business.) The erosion of civil liberties is a creeping disease spread by those in power who wish to stay in power, be they liberal or conservative. The end result of that is a tyrannical, dictatorial government. But I expect that wouldn't happen here without a fight - that's what the 2nd ammendment is about.
    (5) The police have guns to protect themselves from the bad guys. Has nothing to do with rates of apprehension. Even though I don't go out of my way to mix with the bad guys, unlike the police, my reasoning is the same. I think there's a double standard there.
    How about my question of having only the police and the army armed?

O'Meara

ps is this getting too complicated for a mudcat thread?

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 03 - 02:46 PM

Well, they might not have formally altered those first ten amendments, but the US Government seems to have no problems in driving a horse and cart through them. Especially these days.

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Nerd
Date: 02 May 03 - 03:45 PM

It might be too complicated for a Mudcat thread. But here are some more thoughts:

(1)

My point was suppose the system of food delivery most urban folks rely on was seriously disrupted.

If this were to happen, where would these urban folks hunt their food? Would they eat squirrels from Central Park? Breast of Rock Dove? One piece of Rat Tart without so much rat in it? Facetious, obviously, but the point is what I said before: guns would not really help the situation, as there is just not enough meat on the hoof in most regions of the country without the distribution system you speak of. If you wanted to help your country continue to eat meat, the necessary step would be to become a vegetarian for a while and put your efforts into repairing the distribution system, rather than into hunting for own table. Going out and hunting is ultimately an "I'll keep eating meat and f*ck the rest of you" response.

(2)

I didn't mean to suggest that Jefferson was entirely irrelevant because he was a slaveowner. I simply meant to show that the world has changed so much since then that it is pointless to quote one of the "founding fathers" on an issue of practicality such as "maintain weapons to shoot your food with." People in those days had no choice, but now we do.   

Every time a gun-control law is passed, the anti-gun people say "that's one more step."

And what does the Gun Lobby say? "Taking away my automatic handgun is a slippery slope toward outlawing BB guns! You don't want your kids deprived of BB guns, do you?" In fact you make this absurd claim yourself, when you say

In my experience, and according to their stated views, the "gun-control" advocates make no distinction between types of firearms, and their ultimate goal is the elimination of any sort of privately owned firearm, including BB guns and flintlock muskets.

Even if this were true, and rarely is such a thing uniformly true of a large group, this doesn't mean that you also must make no distinction between types of firearms. Why not give up automatic handguns but draw the line at your hunting rifle?

(3)

Both of your examples are of invading armies facing forces who were being supplied with weapons by world superpowers. They were not countries where everyone had his own guns prior to the outbreak of war, and who fought the war with those guns. As such, they don't support your premise, which was that each person having his own guns could be a decisive factor in fighting tyrannical governments.

(4)

The second amendment is not about individual Americans being protected from the American government. The entire text of the amendment 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."

In other words, it's about maintaining the state's power, not defying it. Unless you are part of a "well-regulated militia" working for the security of the state, the amendment is irrelevant to your guns!

(5)

There's some merit to the argument that guns serve to protect "good guys" from "bad guys." But in my experience, "bad guys" are not after me but my property. Would I kill someone to protect my property? No. So unless someone specifically decided to kill me, and to do it in such a way that I could stop them with a gun, having a gun will not protect me. I agree that I am gambling that no one will specifically decide to kill me in such a way that I could protect myself with a gun, just as I gamble that they will not try to shoot me with an assault rifle through my windows and thus do not install bulletproof glass, or gamble that they will not throw nerve gas into my house and thus do not own HAZMAT suits. I've survived this long, but who knows?

As to your question: I'd prefer if only the army and police were armed, yes. In the long run, our democracy survived McCarthy and it will survive a lot more civil-liberty eroding bozos. But it may not survive the racist kooks out there who have arsenals of assault weapons and believe the government is a "Zionist-occupied" state polluted by blacks and jews. So I think the guns out there on the ground are more likely to increase tyranny than reduce it. I do not suggest, by the way, that anyone here falls into this category, but such groups do exist!

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: GUEST
Date: 02 May 03 - 06:40 PM

The idea of keeping a gun in the home for self protection has always puzzled me. If I understand gun safety correctly, guns should be stored unloaded in a locked cabinet, and the ammunition should be kept in a separate locked cabinet. By the time the various componants are retrieved and assembled, the bad guy has had time to do his thing.

Speaking as a liberal, I have no problems with the shotguns my rural neighbors keep to hunt deer, turkeys, etc., and have been known to seek their help when the groundhogs got too numerous in my garden. My maternal grandmother was a crack shot, and kept a rifle for shooting the rattlesnakes that would hole up in her spring house and the armadillos that uprooted her camelia bushes.

Likewise, I have no problems with the sport of target shooting. My father belonged to a pistol club as a boy in England (pre WW2), and the gun was kept at the club.

I do draw the line, however, at private ownership of AK47's and other military grade weapons whose sole purpose is to kill large numbers of people as rapidly as possible, and I'm not too keen on concealed weapons. After all, if it's concealed its not much good as a deterrant; and it can cause an innocent victim to misread a bad guy...someone openly carrying a gun is more likely to be percieved as a threat.

When I was director of an inner city museum in New Jersey, several people tried to convince me to get a gun. I declined, partly because I haven't a clue how to use one properly and would be a danger to everyone, but mainly because I felt that by the time a gun would be the appropriate response to a situtation, the situation would be way out of hand. Far better to derail it before it gets to that point.

A case in point. I had been having problems with youths misbehaving in the men's room of the museum, but I did not want to lose authority by calling the police. My solution was to bring my dog to work. The first time I had a problem after the dog's arrival, we wandered back and suggested to the boys that this was not the place for their behavior. They looked at me, they looked at my dog sitting at heel. One of them said, "Oh, shit, a Rottweiler," and they left. I never had another problem in the men's room, and the boys who had been causing trouble became friends, with the same dog as my ambassador.

It has been well documented that robbers prefer to avoid houses with noisy and/or large dogs. And I would much rather have a dog help a robber decide to go elsewhere, while I called the police; than to have to remember where I put the keys to my guns and ammunition, remember how to load said gun, and confronted the baddy myself.

(And no, my Rottweiler was not protection/attacked trained, only obedience trained; and was fabulous with the schoolkids and senior citizens who visited the museum. His sucessor is a wiz at Agility, and has just passed the test to become a registered therapy dog.)

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Raedwulf
Date: 03 May 03 - 04:00 PM

*sigh* If ever we needed proof that Guests should be made to take a name (*any* name!), here it is! We have one Guest who calls himself 'liberal' & would appear to to fall into the camp that the media would call 'anti-gun' (I am by no means saying that this is an accurate definition!).

We have another Guest who is most definitely a gun advocate. You are not the same person?! Please, guys, give yourself some kind of nom-de-plume. It's rude not to, & makes life so much easier for the rest of us if you do... ;)

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: KateG
Date: 03 May 03 - 05:45 PM

My apologies, to the 'Cat. I did not mean to be anonymous. I'm the liberal with the Rottweiler, and forgot that my cookie doesn't work on my office. Mea culpa.

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Raedwulf
Date: 03 May 03 - 08:23 PM

Thank you, KateG, and... Would Guest care to follow suit & give himself a name?! I wouldn't buy his arguments with a farthing piece, but I'd be happy to wrangle endlessly with 'im if only 'e'd give me summat ter ley 'old of... ;)

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 04 May 03 - 01:32 AM

I might hunt again when Moose have machine guns.

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 May 03 - 01:45 AM

DougR, if I'm not mistaken, a great many Moose in Alaska have guns, as do the Eagles and the Elks.

Subject: RE: BS: 'From my cold, dead hands' farewell
From: GUEST,bob neighmond
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 07:55 PM

you are a neighmond so am i, from n.j. how about you?