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Gun Control: Liberty for Security

In general, do you agee with the quote in the context of gun regulations/bans?


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they log on to a NICS website and do the background check.

you keep ignoring what I write

its easy to make a GUN DEALER who receives newly made guns in the course of his business comply

how do you enforce this law among citizens

one day my brother has a gun

where did you get that gun asks Officer Thunder

None of your damn business says my brother-Steve

well did you go through a background check for that gun

None of your damn business says Steve

well I know that the gun was sold to your brother Mr T 17 years ago and last year we required that all citizens must perform background checks


he sold it to me 14 years go, so get Lost
 
such language is unneccessary TD, and doesn't help the discussion one bit.

WTH do you think the purpose of the second amendment was

too bad a bunch of Jews couldn't shoot Hitler, Himmler and a bunch of those other goose-stepping bastards

Germany confiscated guns owned by Jews
 
Free speech is precisely that, but the right of association, due process, freedom of religion, equal protection, etc, are all there to enable the development, free exchange, and protection of ideas. The right to bear arms used to be about that too back in the day. It was a check on government. But today it has lost that element completely.

As our government inches closer and closer to being a corporatocracy in all but name only, I find I can't agree with that. I am becoming more and more convinced that we need to fight tooth and nail to hold on to this particular check on government.
 
If you who claim to be a lawyer who has to have this explained to you I doubt I can help you. I think its important that politicians realize that if they really go way way too far, honest, law abiding citizens have the power to kill them or those who carry out illegal and fascist orders from such people

I like the idea that at the very back of some politician's mind is that fear.

as the old saying goes-when the people fear the government it is called a dictatorship

when the politicians fear the citizenry-its a constitutional republic

So you're going for the check on the government angle like I said... That's pretty obviously dumb, so I remain unconvinced.

I mean, it isn't that I want the government to take everybody's guns away or quarter troops in my house, but I don't want the government to take away all the couches or poop on my head either. But it's a constitution. You're just supposed to hit the high points. We can't list off every trivial thing in there.
 
Can you explain why it is an important right?

There does not need to be any ongoing rational defense of one's rights, including gun rights. They are rights, so get the **** out of here with your grubby lust to restrict them. There is no onus of explanation as to why a right is worth remaining a right.

I think the notion that it is a check on government is pretty obviously ridiculous... Self defense... I dunno. I guess... That doesn't seem to rise to the level of things like the freedom of expression or equal protection or whatnot to me.

Rights don't need to be prioritized with the "lesser" ones being done away with. Just WTF are you trying to argue? Hey by the way, you seem to enjoy free speech... does that need to be defended? Should the guy with poor cognitive functioning or reasoning ability be required to argue for why his right to free speech is important, the way you request defenders of rights to firearms prove why that right is worthy of survival? Maybe stupid people who can't argue their way out of a paper bag don't deserve the right to speak or express themselves.
 
you keep ignoring what I write

its easy to make a GUN DEALER who receives newly made guns in the course of his business comply

how do you enforce this law among citizens

one day my brother has a gun

where did you get that gun asks Officer Thunder

None of your damn business says my brother-Steve

well did you go through a background check for that gun

None of your damn business says Steve

well I know that the gun was sold to your brother Mr T 17 years ago and last year we required that all citizens must perform background checks


he sold it to me 14 years go, so get Lost

strawman hypothetical, as LEOs never ask folks if they went through a background check to get a gun.
 
WTH do you think the purpose of the second amendment was

too bad a bunch of Jews couldn't shoot Hitler, Himmler and a bunch of those other goose-stepping bastards

Germany confiscated guns owned by Jews

Godwining the thread huh?

for your information, most of the 600,000 German Jews didn't own guns, and only a few thousand were confiscated from them.

meanwhile, more than 100,000 Aryans who were 1/2 or 1/4 Jewish COULD LEGALLY own firearms, and they still didn't try to kill Hitler.

nevermind the fact that the Nazis loosened gun-regulations from where they were under the Weimar Republic.
 
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So you're going for the check on the government angle like I said... That's pretty obviously dumb, so I remain unconvinced.

I mean, it isn't that I want the government to take everybody's guns away or quarter troops in my house, but I don't want the government to take away all the couches or poop on my head either. But it's a constitution. You're just supposed to hit the high points. We can't list off every trivial thing in there.

when your rants start making sense, maybe some will take your posts on this seriously

but your claim that some rights really don't matter any more is just plain idiotic
 
Godwining the thread huh?

using history to prove an obvious point


we could have used Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or the butcher in what was once known as Yugoslavia if you prefer
 
strawman hypothetical, as LEOs never ask folks if they went through a background check to get a gun.

that's because its not the law now

DUH

how are you going to enforce the law without registration? (guns that dealers buy new are traceable-guns I have and want to sell to friends are NOT)
 
As our government inches closer and closer to being a corporatocracy in all but name only, I find I can't agree with that. I am becoming more and more convinced that we need to fight tooth and nail to hold on to this particular check on government.

The notion of gun owners being some kind of a check on the government is silly. We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. A bunch of dudes with shotguns isn't even close to being a check on say, the Iraqi army from before the Iraq war, and we saw how well they did against the US military... If you really want gun owners to be a check on the US military, you should be fighting to cut military funding down to 5% of what it is first... As it stands, if there were a revolution (which would be pretty ridiculous in a democracy... what, you can't just wait a year or two for the next election?) what would decide it was which side the military was on, not some dudes with shotguns.

Now, back in the founder's time, an armed populace really was a check on the government. Civilians had comparable arms to the military and greater numbers. Not so today, nor could it be without the country being torn apart by Timothy McVeighs equipped with stealth bombers.
 
Well that's a pretty lame stance... You're just giving up the field?

It makes it look like I'm giving up when you cut out the entirety of my post, except for one sentence. Maybe try responding to the whole thing?
 
It makes it look like I'm giving up when you cut out the entirety of my post, except for one sentence. Maybe try responding to the whole thing?

The rest of your post was just explanations for why you don't think you should bother defending your position, no?
 
by expecting patriotic Americans to follow the law.

I guess you just cannot figure it out

people who cannot legally buy guns are not going to buy guns from someone who is going to do a background check

I guess you cannot answer my question probably because you really have not thought about this issue and because you have admitted you really have no experience in buying guns or hang around people who buy sell and trade guns

the only way to enforce your wet dream is to register every gun in america because if you don't there is no way to prove if a second hand or fourth hand gun that is more than a year or two old was bought from a private seller with a background check

and given your wet dream is not going to stop, in any way, criminals from getting guns, it is not worth sacrificing the freedom of millions of americans just to make the handwringing WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING hysterics feel better
 
The notion of gun owners being some kind of a check on the government is silly. We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. A bunch of dudes with shotguns isn't even close to being a check on say, the Iraqi army from before the Iraq war, and we saw how well they did against the US military... If you really want gun owners to be a check on the US military, you should be fighting to cut military funding down to 5% of what it is first... As it stands, if there were a revolution (which would be pretty ridiculous in a democracy... what, you can't just wait a year or two for the next election?) what would decide it was which side the military was on, not some dudes with shotguns.

Now, back in the founder's time, an armed populace really was a check on the government. Civilians had comparable arms to the military and greater numbers. Not so today, nor could it be without the country being torn apart by Timothy McVeighs equipped with stealth bombers.


you really are ignorant on the reality of armed resistance

if some dictator takes over what is the proper response

10 million citizens going toe to toe with the military (who most likely would side with them)

or 10 million citizens making it their most important duty to shoot that dictator


tell me-if you ended up in power and you know that if you say ban guns and order all gun owners jailed, that would mean 10 million guys like turtle-many of us who have years of experience in long range "target interdiction skills"-are going to do every thing we can to say put a 30-06 in the back of your dictatoring head, would you still engage in such nastiness

I think not
 
The rest of your post was just explanations for why you don't think you should bother defending your position, no?

My post is about rights being rights without each next generation having to defend them against those who seek to restrict them. The rest of my post posed a similar approach to your value on free speech. Do all people have a right to free speech? Even the ones who suck at producing a cogent defense of it? Yes.

But hell, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we do need to defend them every next generation, as throughout history there have always been folks like you trying to trample their way into other people's lives and business. In that case, here is the defense:

Molon_labe.jpg
 
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you really are ignorant on the reality of armed resistance

if some dictator takes over what is the proper response

10 million citizens going toe to toe with the military (who most likely would side with them)

or 10 million citizens making it their most important duty to shoot that dictator


tell me-if you ended up in power and you know that if you say ban guns and order all gun owners jailed, that would mean 10 million guys like turtle-many of us who have years of experience in long range "target interdiction skills"-are going to do every thing we can to say put a 30-06 in the back of your dictatoring head, would you still engage in such nastiness

I think not

Well, we've seen how effective insurgency is in Iraq. It's been a headache for sure. But, then again, the insurgents there are 10 times better armed than the American people. They have all kinds of serious military hardware. And, they're 10 times more experienced than the American people. And still, just a headache for the US military really.
 
The notion of gun owners being some kind of a check on the government is silly. We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. A bunch of dudes with shotguns isn't even close to being a check on say, the Iraqi army from before the Iraq war, and we saw how well they did against the US military... If you really want gun owners to be a check on the US military, you should be fighting to cut military funding down to 5% of what it is first... As it stands, if there were a revolution (which would be pretty ridiculous in a democracy... what, you can't just wait a year or two for the next election?) what would decide it was which side the military was on, not some dudes with shotguns.

Now, back in the founder's time, an armed populace really was a check on the government. Civilians had comparable arms to the military and greater numbers. Not so today, nor could it be without the country being torn apart by Timothy McVeighs equipped with stealth bombers.

As a career military officer I disagree with you. Could the populace go toe to toe with the military and come out victorious? No. But do you think for one second that is how it would happen? Did you pay attention to Vietnam, Iraq or Afganistan? Guerilla warfare is effective against a stronger force. It wouldn't even be necessary to defeat the military. One need only make it not worth their trouble. I believe an armed populace makes it less likely that the need for such a conflict would ever even happen.

And no, I don't think such a thing is around the corner. But we don't know what the future has in store, even if it isn't in our lifetime.
 
The notion of gun owners being some kind of a check on the government is silly. We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. A bunch of dudes with shotguns isn't even close to being a check on say, the Iraqi army from before the Iraq war, and we saw how well they did against the US military... If you really want gun owners to be a check on the US military, you should be fighting to cut military funding down to 5% of what it is first... As it stands, if there were a revolution (which would be pretty ridiculous in a democracy... what, you can't just wait a year or two for the next election?) what would decide it was which side the military was on, not some dudes with shotguns.

Now, back in the founder's time, an armed populace really was a check on the government. Civilians had comparable arms to the military and greater numbers. Not so today, nor could it be without the country being torn apart by Timothy McVeighs equipped with stealth bombers.

And yet somehow you forget that the iraqi insurgency was just that and was a serious thorn in the side of the US military even though they had fewer guns, much smaller numbers, and no moral ambiguity about shooting your own countrymen.
 
Another straw man from the NRA fanboys.

No body wants you to give up you liberty. Own your guns. Just fill out some paper work when you buy them and when you sell them.

First, no one is talking about ONLY removing the ability to own guns. This thread was about regulation and bans.

Second, Technically, a restriction on liberty could be viewed as "giving up" some liberty.

For example, imagine if you had to buy a government permit to start a political blog? Would that be "giving up" some liberty regarding the 1st amendment?

Now...you could suggest that it's a limitation in liberty in exchange for security that you're fine with. But there's a definite case to be made that you're giving up at least a little security if you are allowing the government to enact any restriction on how you exercise a constitutional right when it's not infringing upon the rights of others.
 
Well, we've seen how effective insurgency is in Iraq. It's been a headache for sure. But, then again, the insurgents there are 10 times better armed than the American people. They have all kinds of serious military hardware. And, they're 10 times more experienced than the American people. And still, just a headache for the US military really.
ten times better armed

you are talking out your six again. and just see what happens if we were invaded

lots of military hardware in NG arsenals would be Liberated

and lots of our civilians are very experienced. take my nephew-he's had 42 months of combat over there in the Rangers and then the special forces. he will be a civilian within a few years.

and there are thousands like him-teh best trained combat infantry in the world
 
I don't think we should ban guns or anything, but calling it a liberty issue is quite a stretch IMO. The real, core, liberties are all about protecting the free flow and expression of ideas. Free speech is precisely that, but the right of association, due process, freedom of religion, equal protection, etc, are all there to enable the development, free exchange, and protection of ideas. The right to bear arms used to be about that too back in the day. It was a check on government. But today it has lost that element completely. Now it just seems to be about people think guys are cool... So, I don't think we should ban them or something, but I think it's pretty grandiose to still be canonizing the right to bear arms along with the more serious rights.

So we have someone in the category of "Some Constitutional rights are important and some are less important to the point of not even being part of our 'liberty'"
 
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