Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?

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I must say, it boggles my mind that someone could not find a single instance of what they personally consider abuse of national government power under current conditions.
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I think I understand.

BT has a belief system - a Faith, if you will, in Big Government ..... there need be no logic to it ..... and a True Believer will not even contemplate blasphemy, even if he were capable of it.

I know some older people that swear their Party is "for the Little Guy", because of what Roosevelt did for their parents, 70 years ago ....

I know religious people like this, who will admit no wrong was ever done by the One True Church ......

...either that, or he's trolling ......
 
Of course I have faith and I have a sort of belief system, same as you. It's just different. I also realize that sometimes I'm a little hard to follow and that what I write is not up to your academic standards. Take all this as a conversational style exchange, not as a term paper. Maybe my problem is I'm saying what I think, not what someone else said I should say. Sometimes I try to think but nothing happens.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how much faith I have in big government. I don't think it's been tested. But I also have no faith that it will get any smaller unless the country gets smaller or there are fewer people around.

To coachteet (interesting name, by the way), I see no problem with not worrying what the federal government is doing while at the same time, being worried about what the local government is doing. After all, they are two separate governments. I also worry a little about the general militarization of the police, too.

I was being a little tongue-in-cheek in my comments about slavery. I guess no one sees the irony of the way those who wrote so highly about freedom and liberty and equality owning slaves at the same time, while still putting a lot on the line for their cause. It would be asking a lot for them to rise about the age. Obviously, it was a problem they simply were unable to address. They probably hoped it would somehow go away, which sounds a lot like the communist idea of the withering away of the state. I'm not comparing them to communists, just that they didn't settle everything for all time. In fact, as far as slavery goes, it got worse.
 
I also worry a little about the general militarization of the police, too.
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A little?

Seems to me that the exceptions for LE of all levels re: GCA of 1968/FOPA of 1986 contibute to that ....... and flies in the face of Sir Robert Peel's Principles ......
 
What you're missing, BlueTrain, in short, is that the abolition of slavery and/or recognition of universal human rights is actually what the text of the COTUS indicates. It wasn't interpreted that way, for a number if reasons, for a very long time but it actually is "constitutional".
So, the modern understanding isn't some sort of "rewrite", its taking the document for what it says. Plain text meaning.

When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.
 
Yes, I only worry a little about that. My worries are pretty well spread out over a lot of things and besides, I don't feel particularly affected by that, if in fact, it is a problem. If there really is a militarization of the police, it didn't happen over night. It is an interesting topic in itself. However, I remember how conservative people in the late 1960s wanted the police to do more to control problem groups, perhaps with some justification, in the name of public order.

As I think about it, there are some things about the federal government that are a little troublesome but it's congress, not the executive branch. It is the way congress works. I don't think it is necessarily resulting in tyranny so much as they are just running the country into the ground. In other words, they're doing a bad job. Maybe it's an inherent fault in the congressional system, as opposed to other forms of legislatures but maybe not. I don't think the problem can be traced to the consitution unless you think two houses are a bad idea. We have an inherited federal system (from the colonies) but so do several other countries. A core problem is the party system, in particular the two party system, coupled with the seniority system that gives long serving members a lot of power through committee chairs. Congressmen are apparently expected to toe the (party) line when it comes to important issues and woe to him who doesn't. There's also the issue of influence from big money donors, which is corruption in a very basic form. The end result is that citizens, even the voters, become irrelevant.

I don't think any of that results in any abuse of power aside from what I just said or in any particular threat to private gun ownership either. So, mostly it's irrelevant to the thread but don't imagine I'm completely happy with the way things are.

I tried to be coherent and I hope I was. You'd probably have trouble understanding half of what I said if we were talking face to face, just like when I was in the UK year before last. Could barely understand them.
 
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Speaking only for myself, I don't think I have any trouble understanding your points. Rationale, maybe, but not what you're saying.


As I think about it,...
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I'm pretty sure that I completely agree here. The problem isn't the COTUS, it's the government. It's no longer in line with the COTUS and "we the people" seem unable to either recognize or fix the problem, I'm not sure which but a little of both probably.

Almost nothing that congress and the president do today are in line with COTUS assigned powers.
 
BlueTrain said:
You say I make points based on fear. Convince me that you feel differently about your own ideas. You believe exercising our rights to own arms is necessary because you fear a tyrannical government, fear of assault on the streets (and schools, etc.), home invasions, foreign invasion (presumably from North Korea and from Mexico) and so on and so forth. Convince me otherwise.
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By your logic, then, truly free people should not have fire alarms, smoke detectors, or a fire extinguisher in the kitchen because only people who are terminally fearful would stoop to taking precautions against the possibility of something bad happening.
 
BlueTrain said:
The authors of the constitution were fearful of themselves becoming tyrannical, right?
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Possibly, but they certainly knew that they were mortal and certainly hoped that the new country would long outlive them and wisely did not trust whoever came after, regardless of if they trusted themselves or each other.
 
They knew what governments could do. They also knew what a king could do. Also, historically, Oliver Cromwell was relatively fresh in their minds - remove the king and become the king. The idea was to give the new country a chance by protecting specific rights that historically did not exist in other countries ruled by kings and queens - to put the power in the people's hands. Blue Train - in essence they were giving up control - a truly new way of thinking for a group of victors.
 
"Congressmen are apparently expected to toe the (party) line when it comes to important issues and woe to him who doesn't. There's also the issue of influence from big money donors, which is corruption in a very basic form. The end result is that citizens, even the voters, become irrelevant."
Quote from BlueTrain

I really think you answered your own question, BlueTrain! "Taxation without Representation" Big money controlling government, we the people never had or have a Democracy or a Tyranny of the Majority which I would prefer, but a Democratic Republic with elected Representatives who do not represent us so much as the rich elite, an Oligarchy or Plutocracy. Government has done and will do incredibly good things, but the pendulum has shifted away from the common good to elite evil.
 
People who constantly rag on POTUS forget congress lets him run free. Both parties have had chances to reign in EOs, but in the end neither wants to. The idea that you can win the next election than do whatever you want is too sweet for either party to turn away from.
 
People who constantly rag on POTUS forget congress lets him run free. Both parties have had chances to reign in EOs, but in the end neither wants to. The idea that you can win the next election than do whatever you want is too sweet for either party to turn away from.

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
That is the Voinovich building at the Greene Center of Clark State. Turn 180 degrees and another state school, Wright State, is visible. Why did they build this one building "full service" campus that wasn't cheap and has lots of support staff in order to be full service(guidance, placement exams, registration, etc)? They needed Voinovich's vote on something. That simple. They plopped down this waste of money inorder to get a vote. Google Voinovich building and you will see there is a very nice one on many of Ohio's University campuses. All of them can be tallied up to bought votes.
 
It has little to do with the type of gun but instead...why we may need them. The more they limit you the more of an upper hand they lhave.
 
I don't imagine they foresaw a standing army propped up by a military industrial complex either. As has been stated, every able bodied MAN between the ages of 17 and 45 is part of the militia. They were to be adequately trained to secure their communities. I am positive we would maintain weapons equal to or surpassing in quality and in effectiveness to our enemies' weapons, WHATEVER they are.
However, as we are not to be trusted by those that work for us, what we have now is an abberation of what our founders intended.
 
As far as I am concerned this argument is poo poo. back then we were armed equally with the military if you think about it. we could have given them way more of a fight then now. both sides had muskets and knives. Maybe the only advantage would have been cannon but those could have been captured. Today the military is better trained and armed with planes tanks and helicopters that you wont stop with a ar or ak.
 
In the days of The Founding Fathers, the "service" arm of the day, the one carried by the "common soldier was the flintlock musket.

The arm carried by the "common soldier" today is a light weight, selective fire, magazine fed arm. The AR-15, being semi-automatic in operation, is the civilian version of the M-16 the U.S.'s among others, service arm, and as such is EXACTLY what the Founding Fathers would have envisioned.

I doubt that the average anti-gun type would understand the foregoing, though some might.












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alan

In the days of The Founding Fathers, the "service" arm of the day, the one carried by the "common soldier was the flintlock musket.

The arm carried by the "common soldier" today is a light weight, selective fire, magazine fed arm. The AR-15, being semi-automatic in operation, is the civilian version of the M-16 the U.S.'s among others, service arm, and as such is EXACTLY what the Founding Fathers would have envisioned.

I doubt that the average anti-gun type would understand the foregoing, though some might.
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I have noticed that more and more of the Anti-2A (I refuse to refer to them as Pro-Gun Control as IMO they're Anti-Second Amendment) people have begun to "reluctantly" concede this point but then invariably qualify it by sarcastically stating 'what about drones, tactical nukes' etc.
 
amprecon said:
I don't imagine they foresaw a standing army propped up by a military industrial complex either. As has been stated, every able bodied MAN between the ages of 17 and 45 is part of the militia. They were to be adequately trained to secure their communities. I am positive we would maintain weapons equal to or surpassing in quality and in effectiveness to our enemies' weapons, WHATEVER they are.
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They foresaw it, and it was their plan that there would not BE a standing army. The Founders had a deep and abiding mistrust of standing armies. If you read some of the quotations of the Founders regarding the 2nd Amendment, it is clear that their intent was that the citizen militia be armed sufficiently to offer a force stronger than any standing army the government could muster against its citizens.
 
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