We are the minority, does the majority have right to disarm us?

C

cold dead hands

Moderator
I was at the library tonight and I picked up one the so-called 'news' rags (one of the more popular ones) and read the article on the Heller case (hint...the mag has a big pic of a Beretta on the cover) and I was a bit suprised that the gun control issue was reported with very little bias, but that is not my point.

If said article has the facts straight then we are in the minority with the majority being non gun owners (4 out of 10 being firearms owners...at least those who will admit it).

It has been said that democracy is mob rule at the ballot box....in this case I do believe that if there were to be a national vote for or against civilian ownership of guns we would would be on the losing side of the vote.

I realize that said article pointed to polls that indicated that the majority of Americans are against banning guns, but a poll is a poll and not a binding vote.

(In the back of my mind comes the question, who will have the balls to disarm the minority...we saw England fall and we would like to think we are stronger than that)

The short of the long is the question that asks wether or not the 60 percent have the right, ability and power to remove a god given right from the remaining 40 percent?

Let us change it to an 80/20 or 90/10 or even 98/2 percent ratio. Does the mob still have the right to make us bow to their will. Surely decent folk in the mob would be intelligent enough to say that the gun owners are dying off and that they should be left to go extinct on their own because all good men know that evil wins when then they do nothing to protect the innocent.

Sorry for the winding logic train. This is how I thnk, and type.
 
300 men at Thermopylae disagreed with the theory that the mob could rule. While the story has grown into a legend of 300 against a million and the reality of the action was more along the lines of 2000 against 200,000, those are still daunting odds.

Some fights are fought so that the rest of your life, you don't fight your own conscience.

"Molon Labe!" is a battle cry that has been repeated more than once through the ages in many languages, and it is one of the most probable battle cries of future revolutions that may come, either here or elsewhere in the world.
 
I guess if they were to put it as a question on a national ballot and the majority of the voters selected banning firearms, they could try it. I'd like to think the resulting court cases would stop it.

We don't really run this country by majority rule. There are a lot of issues that have been adjudicated in favor of the minority.
 
There is alot of talk of guns being banned and then all us gun owners fighting a bloody revolutoin to get our rights back. From what I've obseved of humanity, I dont see it hapening.

If the public got organised and wanted to ban the guns, they could, and most of us would regretfully send our guns to the crusher.

Those who didnt would probably die in a hail of gunfire, leaving a wife an children to fend for themselves while as their faces are broadcast on the news as Cop Killers, Terrorists, and Madmen.

In a years time, I bet most of us would be either watching football or playing golf.
 
The United States has never held a national referendum. I'm not even sure of how one would be authorized or enacted. It might require a constitutional amendment or perhaps could be effected by state compacts. But as of now, there's no mechanism for enacting national gun prohibition based on a popular vote.
 
This is a constitutitional republic. Our political system has some elements of democracy in it, but the founding fathers realized that the "passions" of a majority could prove dangerous if not checked. Some rights are granted to us by the Creator. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights guarantees citizens other rights. No majority vote can strip us of those rights.

However, these rights have to be defended from activists, demagogues and various other charlatans who think they can tend our business better than we can. We elect representatives, senators and an executive. They are supposed to work for us rather than the other way around.
 
The thing I found about living in Australia during the 'gun buy back' (seizure) was that the media was biased against us and a considerable number of shooters would not get of their back sides and fight for what they believed in.

I hope a lot of that was Australia's layed back attitude- otherwise we have problems in the US.
 
They don't have the right... but people do things they don't have the right to do all the time.
Whether they have the ability and power remains undecided, and we won't know until they try.
 
if you remember back to when the AWB was passed the Democrats paid for that mistake at the next election

they will continue to try to distance themselves from the issue but that doesn't mean they won't pass another AWB if they get the chance
 
There would never be an up-or-down vote to ban all guns all at once.

First, they'll ban, say, .50-caliber rifles. We'll all bitch and moan and accept it.

And then they'll 'close the gun show loophole'. We'll all bitch and moan and accept it.

And then they'll introduce, say, a five-day-waiting period. So less people will buy guns because they don't want to wait the five days.

And increase the excise tax on guns.

And ban A-Salt Wepins.

And get to a point where less and less people own guns, year after year, decade after decade, until the amount of gun owners is too small to be politically significant.

It won't happen overnight.

There'll never be a stand-up political fight, much less a physical one.
 
One thing is not all people who don't own gun are against your right to own one. I have two guys I fish with that have never owned guns but support my right to own one.
 
The majority does not rule in this country regarding our rights. We are a Constitutional Republic which means that our government has limited powers and reach. As I understand it an amendment may be overturned by a 2/3rds majority vote, so for instance I imagine the majority would rule, but our society hasn't become that far imbalanced yet.
 
which means that our government has limited powers and reach.
Click to expand...

Sombody should tell the boys in Washington about that... :D You have to have a permit to buy a handgun in many states. Another to carry it concealed. You cannot openly cary any weapon in some places. Some states do not allow you to cary a firearm in your car unless youre taking it to the range or bringing in home (and it has to be taken apart and locked up for that) If you have a felony on your record, you cannot own a gun, even if the crime was non violent.

What part of "shall not be infringed" allows for any of that to happen?
 
From what I've read of the founding fathers views democracy was a dirty word. It's not mentioned once in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. I kinda agree with them. Long live the Republic.
 
After the advent of the muzzle-loading flintlock, the only sustainable form of goverment (in those countries in which the citizens had access to arms) was democracy. This weapon was the first to give the ordinary citizen the ability to fight soldiers and it meant that the king could no longer rule by force.


Democracy can only exist (for long) in countries in which the ordinary citizen can fight soldiers. Europe and some other areas have largely had democracy forced on them by Anglosphere countries. Those countries and even England are returning to authoritarian rule now that their citizens have been disarmed.


Can the majority take away our guns? Theoretically no, because we have guns. Same reason the king could no longer rule by force. But are we willing to risk our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to preserve our liberties? Well, on the Internet, clearly. In real life? Hmmm...
 
I believe they will slowly ban/take certain types of weapons away until the upper crust are the only ones w/ the ability to own and keep their "sporting" rifles and hunting will be nothing more than a sport for the priviledged. If there will ever be a revolution against the ruling class, it will be then. While I share the common passion here about gun ownership and rights I have to ask the original poster(Cold Dead Hands) where he got his information about gun ownership being a "God" given right? This is not a flame, I just don't understand where this came from.
elkman
 
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