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Old 04-15-2013, 07:14 PM
 
2,160 posts, read 4,951,204 times
Reputation: 5527

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Quote:
Originally Posted by nybbler View Post
Those rights in the Bill of Rights were all secured by blood. A lot of blood.

If allowing prior restraint of the press -- all of it, from TV news down to newspaper articles to posts on city-data -- would save 10 kids a year, would you support it?

If allowing warrantless searches of homes at police discretion would save 10 kids a year, would you support it?

If allowing crackdowns on non-mainstream religions would save 10 kids a year, would you support it?

If eliminating the right to remain silent would save 10 kids a year, would you support it?

Waving the bloody shirt is easy. But it's not particularly valid as an argument.
Waving the bloody shirt? Yes. EXACTLY. For example, the first line of your post: "Those rights in the Bill of Rights were all secured by blood. A lot of blood."


As for the hypothetical scenarios you pose, they are completely incongruous and irrelevant. None of them are parallel comparisons to the 2nd Amendment and gun rights.

People having 1st Amendment rights (freedom of press, freedom of religion), people having 4th Amendment rights (protection from unreasonable search/seizure) and people having 5th Amendment rights (right to remain silent), don't cause the accidental or deliberate deaths, shooting or otherwise, of children or other people.

This is in direct contrast to people invoking the outdated 2nd Amendment to get/have a gun or an arsenal...that they can't handle properly or safely...which they then use to accidentally, or not accidentally, kill someone.

So how can I, or anyone, answer a question like "If allowing warrantless searches of homes at police discretion would save 10 kids a year, would you support it?" It's not a logical question.



And again, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were penned shortly after the Revolutionary War, with some things specifically in response to/in context of Great Britain's tyrannical actions on the 13 colonies, like imposing martial law and disarming the Patriot militia. The spirit of the 2nd Amendment is NOT about allowing any clown to have a bunch of modern day assault rifles in his basement to protect himself from the government in case Obama turns us into Cambodia in 2013, or to protect himself from perceived "gang bangers" or other perceived unsavory characters. To say any different is disingenuous, at best.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not static documents. Obviously, this country has felt the need to update and revise the Constitution (there are currently 27 Amendments) as history has progressed, in order to keep it relevant to the times.

 
Old 04-15-2013, 08:06 PM
 
10,220 posts, read 19,145,986 times
Reputation: 10880
Quote:
People having 1st Amendment rights (freedom of press, freedom of religion), people having 4th Amendment rights (protection from unreasonable search/seizure) and people having 5th Amendment rights (right to remain silent), don't cause the accidental or deliberate deaths, shooting or otherwise, of children or other people.
Now that's just nonsense. Nobody's ever been killed in a riot which could have been prevented by restricting peaceable assembly? Nobody's ever been killed by practices done under the cover of religion? No criminal has ever managed to commit additional murders because his home wasn't searched or he got acquitted from previous crimes because he couldn't be forced to confess?

Quote:
This is in direct contrast to people invoking the outdated 2nd Amendment
All of the rights in the Bill of Rights have the same date on them.

Quote:
So how can I, or anyone, answer a question like "If allowing warrantless searches of homes at police discretion would save 10 kids a year, would you support it?" It's not a logical question.
No, it's not a COMFORTABLE question. Because once you start saying "this right is void if any kids are killed in a way any way related to it", you're going to lose them all.
 
Old 04-15-2013, 10:07 PM
 
2,160 posts, read 4,951,204 times
Reputation: 5527
Quote:
Originally Posted by nybbler View Post
Now that's just nonsense. Nobody's ever been killed in a riot which could have been prevented by restricting peaceable assembly? Nobody's ever been killed by practices done under the cover of religion? No criminal has ever managed to commit additional murders because his home wasn't searched or he got acquitted from previous crimes because he couldn't be forced to confess?
Dude, what, seriously, does this even mean? I don't understand the parallel you are trying to draw. What does that have to do with the initial, hypothetical questions you posed, and how does that support your and jkrunner88's opinion that the collateral damage done (dead children) from keeping the 2nd Amendment unchanged and status quo, is "WORTH IT"?

People assembling peaceably because the 1st Amendment allows them to, don't cause death or bodily harm.

People having a gun in their hand because the 2nd Amendment says so, can and have directly caused death or bodily harm.

Your initial hypothetical question was along the lines of "If repealing the 1st Amendment would save 10 children a year, would you support that repeal?" (The expected/desired response being, "No, of course not!")

But it's not a logical question because there are no hypothetical children to be saved from that hypothetical scenario since people invoking their right to peaceably assemble don't do it with the intent of either threatening someone's life, or actually taking someone's life.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nybbler View Post
All of the rights in the Bill of Rights have the same date on them.
You are better than this.

Yes. Thank you. I'm not talking about calendar dates. But you know that.

The initial intent of the 2nd Amendment is not 100% relevant to the political/legal landscape or life in general today. We're talking about late 1700s as compared to 2013. Lots of things have changed.

Do you think the founding fathers had this in mind...





...when penning the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?



Or, do you think it was more like this:







Quote:
Originally Posted by nybbler View Post
No, it's not a COMFORTABLE question. Because once you start saying "this right is void if any kids are killed in a way any way related to it", you're going to lose them all.
No, it's a nonsense question. And who said a right is void when kids are killed? You are heading into straw man territory.

We are talking about amending the 2nd Amendment to be more relevant to the current state of gun affairs in America. Are you going to completely deny that we are the most gun saturated nation in the world? Are you saying that gun violence is not at all a problem? Are we going to try to sweep it under the rug, or are we just in blissful denial about it? We are not talking about changing the 2nd Amendment and changing gun laws for the sole purpose of saving the lives of some kids, or a few kids, or 10 kids, or 100 kids. Or some adults, or a few adults, or 10 adults, or 100 adults. It's a much broader issue than that.
 
Old 04-16-2013, 06:11 AM
 
3,984 posts, read 7,060,374 times
Reputation: 2889
There's nothing more heartless than seeing a school shot up & someone saying "that's sad BUT it's our God given right to own assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammo." Heartless & borderline psychopathic.
 
Old 04-16-2013, 07:32 PM
 
10,220 posts, read 19,145,986 times
Reputation: 10880
Quote:
Originally Posted by Docendo discimus View Post
Dude, what, seriously, does this even mean? I don't understand the parallel you are trying to draw. What does that have to do with the initial, hypothetical questions you posed, and how does that support your and jkrunner88's opinion that the collateral damage done (dead children) from keeping the 2nd Amendment unchanged and status quo, is "WORTH IT"?
It's pretty simple: You're willing to throw away Second Amendment rights if it will save some childrens' lives. Are you also willing to throw away First, Fourth, and Fifth amendment rights if THAT would save some childrens' lives?

Quote:
People assembling peaceably because the 1st Amendment allows them to, don't cause death or bodily harm.
People have been killed in riots which started out as peaceable assemblies. Of course, rioting isn't protected by the 1st amendment, but neither is murder by the 2nd.

Quote:
Yes. Thank you. I'm not talking about calendar dates. But you know that.
Then what are you talking about? How can one amendment among ten, all enacted on the same date, be outdated while all the others are not?

Quote:
The initial intent of the 2nd Amendment is not 100% relevant to the political/legal landscape or life in general today. We're talking about late 1700s as compared to 2013. Lots of things have changed.
Since your examples concerned technological change, technology for speech and the press have changed a LOT more than firearm technology. But do you seriously assert that the founding fathers of the United States, a group which included a number of inventors including Benjamin Franklin, would not expect technological progress?
 
Old 04-16-2013, 07:55 PM
 
3,984 posts, read 7,060,374 times
Reputation: 2889
At least if you're talking history, get it right.

The 2nd Amendment, along with the 3rd, are two of the most un-adjudicated of the Bill of Rights. Up until 30 or 40 years ago, the concept of no gun restrictions and the 2nd Amendment applying to everyone was not how the 2nd Amendment was understood at all. The concept of the people being able to establish a militia was really its primary aim. Considering how the country was founded, this makes perfect sense. People might've kept rifles at home for hunting, but armories were used to store large amounts of weapons in case a militia was needed. The 2nd Amendment for many decades didn't speak to private ownership of guns at all. Some of the old Wild West towns had very strict gun control - at least on the books. You were supposed to check your weapon in a public setting and concealed weapons were the hallmarks of criminals, not law-abiding citizens.
 
Old 04-17-2013, 11:02 AM
 
Location: Nebraska
4,531 posts, read 8,837,327 times
Reputation: 7595
[quote=Docendo discimus;29142073]". . .

Yes. Thank you. I'm not talking about calendar dates. But you know that.

The initial intent of the 2nd Amendment is not 100% relevant to the political/legal landscape or life in general today. We're talking about late 1700s as compared to 2013. Lots of things have changed. , , ,"

Yes muzzle loaders were the form of firearm available to the People in the 1770s. But remember the citizens owned the same type of weapon that the Armed Forces of that time (militias) also had. Firearm technology has improved tremendously since 1776. Yes citizens have access to modern firearms with a lot more firepower today compared to 1776. However PRIVATE CITIZENS cannot own or carry the same weapons that a member of our military can. A private citizen (currently in some states) can own a semi-automatic rifle with a thirty plus capacity magazine. The weapons our infantry carry are fully automatic and many of them are capable of firing hundreds of rounds in a minute. The Founding Fathers would probably think that if a soldier of a standing army can use a weapon a Private Citizen should be allowed to keep and bear the same weapon.

Checks and balances played a huge part in the way our Constitution was written and adopted. Even though our armed forces have vastly superior weapons to those owned by Private Citizens the NUMBER of ARMED PRIVATE CITIZENS is exponentially larger than the number or our armed forces. Check and Balance. Remove arms from the hands of Citizens and the danger of a tyrannical government increases by a huge factor.

GL2
 
Old 04-17-2013, 12:12 PM
 
Location: High Bridge, NJ
3,859 posts, read 9,953,435 times
Reputation: 3399
Quote:
Originally Posted by EBWick View Post
Some of the old Wild West towns had very strict gun control - at least on the books. You were supposed to check your weapon in a public setting and concealed weapons were the hallmarks of criminals, not law-abiding citizens.
The laws you're referring to did prohibit the concealed carry of firearms, but not the open carry of firearms. The reasoning was the good guys had no problem carrying their guns openly and only the bad guys would have a need to conceal a gun. Fast forward to today in states like Pennsylvania where open carry is legal, open carriers are sometimes subjected to police harassment because some members of the general public just assumes that anyone carrying a gun who is not wearing a police uniform must be a criminal.
 
Old 04-17-2013, 03:32 PM
 
3,984 posts, read 7,060,374 times
Reputation: 2889
Quote:
Originally Posted by Badfish740 View Post
The laws you're referring to did prohibit the concealed carry of firearms, but not the open carry of firearms. The reasoning was the good guys had no problem carrying their guns openly and only the bad guys would have a need to conceal a gun. Fast forward to today in states like Pennsylvania where open carry is legal, open carriers are sometimes subjected to police harassment because some members of the general public just assumes that anyone carrying a gun who is not wearing a police uniform must be a criminal.
And having a gun available to get dinner or defend your family because of little or no law enforcement made sense back then. For the vast majority of America this isn't the case today.
 
Old 04-17-2013, 03:52 PM
 
Location: High Bridge, NJ
3,859 posts, read 9,953,435 times
Reputation: 3399
Quote:
Originally Posted by EBWick View Post
And having a gun available to get dinner or defend your family because of little or no law enforcement made sense back then. For the vast majority of America this isn't the case today.
I have no desire to wade into your debate, just pointing out that you were misrepresenting 19th century laws banning the carrying of concealed firearms. Carry on.
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