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Poll

Should Ordinary Citizens be allowed to own, carry, & use Firearms to defend their own lives, & the lives of their family & friends?

Absolutely Yes!
I thinks so.
I don't think so.
Definitely No!
My name isn't String, so let me have a icy cold beer so I can ponder the options...
Topic: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms? (Read 335040 times)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1300 –
Our crime thing is very different from you lot over there and you can come out with whatever would-be pious stuff you feel inclined to but makes no difference to the hard truth. What other countries in the modern world want to be as immature as America on damn guns? It was one thing having the rule nonsense at the start of the country but not when time and things moved on. That every time there is a mass shooting armaments sales go up you lost a five figure number annually in the population.  It is not even enough to have a single gun but the numbers with an arsenal are head shaking along with military style weaponry and the whole damn thing makes your country look daft, immature and nonsensical.

Having such a large and long time military there isn't a practical deuce of sensibility hanging on to some rul from the early days. Hundreds of millions of weaponry, constant mass shootings and ignoring that more Americans have been killed at home than wars. Unbelievable and you come up with pointless arguments for guns and cannot get rid of the killing problems. Many of your city policemen are as bad and I do not detract from my stance because the hard facts speak for themselves and the mindset is that I am being daft  while you all continue to go bananas.  You do not need the right to bear arms as you have an army and an armed police. Grown ups with a mental midget mind......
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1301 –
Quote from: rjhowie on
Our crime thing is very different from you lot over there
Yes. Your coppers and their political masters cringe at being called Islamophobic, so they let Pakis rape and prostitute young girls for twenty years…
I assume, RJ, that you have no daughters. If you have sons, wouldn't you teach them better?

I appreciate that most Europeans would rather die than defend themselves and their families! (Just another reason to question the reason for NATO…)
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
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Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1302 –
Quote from: ensbb3 on
Legislation to control guns within reason can be found. Our system does not allow disarming the populace without substantial changes to the Constitution.
Just like in most other countries, afaik in the UK you can get a gun permit if you're not a criminal and you can otherwise prove that you won't be a public danger. The specifics may or may not be sensible, but the general principle of a driver's license for guns doesn't a priori sound without reason or for that matter against the American Second Amendment.

I felt no need to get a driver's license until I was 21 and even then I mainly did it because it can can open up a few more job opportunities (although it hasn't yet). Similarly, and perhaps incomprehensibly to some, I haven't felt any particular desire to acquire a gun permit, but to say that I'm therefore disarmed (as in kept from owning a gun if I wanted to) would be deceptive.

You'd probably be correct to say that in many European countries a regular majority would be sufficient to allow for "disarming the populace," rather than the supermajority required to change a constitution, but as desirable as embedding such protections in the constitution may be, that doesn't mean theoretical absence corresponds to any actual effects. And in fact I should point out that arrest 2007/154 of the Belgian Grondwettelijk Hof (constitutional court) nullified an attempt to make previously legal guns illegal. We also have cute little concepts like constitutions and separation of powers that keep the executive branch in line. Those 2 million unregistered guns here in Belgium? Still. Legal.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
I appreciate that most Europeans would rather die than defend themselves and their families! (Just another reason to question the reason for NATO...)
Like that Spanish cop on vacation who shot four terrorists a couple of months ago?

https://twitter.com/AP/status/898527930896306176

Here, have a video of what professional police work looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGm81LcFmF0

If I were judging by mass media coverage of the US, that suspect wouldn't be in custody but dead because of unprofessional "defense" (i.e., just shoot like a madman).

And indeed, we'd rather live than defensively die because someone couldn't keep their defensive trigger finger away from the defensive missiles pointed at North Korea. :)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1303 –
Our standard police are not armed like your bunch of Audie Murphy lot.  Nor do we have a written constitution (and wider democracy) like you lot of childish mindsets living in the damn past. You have an army and those legions of police so why hold on to an outdated nonsense? Mental midget grey cells.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1304 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
I felt no need to get a driver's license until I was 21 and even then I mainly did it because it can can open up a few more job opportunities (although it hasn't yet). Similarly, and perhaps incomprehensibly to some, I haven't felt any particular desire to acquire a gun permit, but to say that I'm therefore disarmed (as in kept from owning a gun if I wanted to) would be deceptive.
A gun permit or a driver license are not too much different and both have nothing to do with the Constitution. Simple local administrative bureaucracy.
Relating guns and constitution shows well what a farse of constitution they have. Still at the 19th century, hanging around killing Indians and exterminating bisons. Course they need a gun.

It seems their police is at the same level. Shoot first and ask later. The justice being no different, judge Linch school still at its best.

Finally this is turning into a problem, the world tired of far-west wanna be cowboys.
A matter of attitude.
 

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1305 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
I appreciate that most Europeans would rather die than defend themselves and their families!
False dichotomy. Defending yourself does not mean that you will live.

Anyway, how many times have you defended yourself and your family? With a gun? Against whom?

In a civilised country, you would not have to do it at all. But when such a situation arises, how does a gun help, specifically? A gun may help the criminal just as much as it may help you, depending on who draws first. Law-abiding and peaceful citizens would tend to not draw first.

Legislation makes no difference here. Culture makes all the difference. The difference between a criminal and a law-abiding citizen is not the law (law applies equally to both), but the culture, their behaviour and mindset.

In America, it's the delusion that having guns is a constitutional right for people to defend themselves[1] that sets the tone. It's an enormous delusion, because the practical regulations in place in America, the actual density of guns, both legal and illegal, and average folk's actual familiarity and competence with guns is all non-different compared to (the worst parts of) Europe. It's just the mindset that is different, the mindset in America being "we have the right, we know better". This sense of superiority has nothing real going for it.

A rational person would understand that guns do not improve your chances for defence or survival. Superior firepower improves your chances, but a rational person would also understand that, since legal rights apply equally to everyone, anybody can have superior firepower over anyone else. Chances are not exclusive to yourself or to law-abiding citizens. When there's a need to remind basic things like this, it can be safely concluded that the discussion is not rational.
1 This popular interpretation is directly opposite to what the 2nd amendment says. It says that guns are for the people to form "a well regulated militia" whose purpose is to provide security to the state. The original intent of this amendment was to arm the people for the war of independence against the UK. You have of course your ideological reasons to reinterpret history.↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1306 –
Quote from: ersi on
False dichotomy. Defending yourself does not mean that you will live.
It's that too, but I think it's a set of false premises more than anything.

1. You need to be prepared for violence if you want to live.[1]
2. Being prepared means owning a gun.[2]
3. "Europeans" don't own guns.

1, 2, 3 ⇒ "Europeans" aren't prepared,[3] ergo they would rather die.[4]
1 This one makes sense.↵
2 Even this one might make a partial, very incomplete kind of sense.↵
3 It follows from premise #2.↵
4 ??????↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1307 –
Yes, let's analyse Oakdale completely away.

Quote from: Frenzie on
1, 2, 3 ⇒ "Europeans" aren't prepared,[1] ergo they would rather die.[2]
I guess this one is what you'd call a non sequitur.
1 It follows from premise #2.↵
2 ??????↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1308 –
That it is. But really I think it all comes down to what being prepared means. To me it means thinking through scenarios in advance to hopefully prevent yourself from making a disastrous spur of the moment decision if anything ever were to happen. That means critically reading a book like this (although I haven't) that speaks from experience as well as statistics and research. You shouldn't make illogical leaps to conclusions in one direction or the other because of some irrational moral panic. If American media haven't deceived me, China's had some mass stabbings that aren't dissimilar to American gun killings.

From the studies I've read guns don't decrease your chances as long as you don't think you're a SWAT team sent in to clear your house from armed invaders. Guns just don't seem to increase your chances either compared to pretty much any form of resistance.[1] They are in effect largely a non-issue except for (mostly American?) political purposes. I'm not saying there aren't real issues, but whether you allow guns/drugs/abortion or not likely doesn't actually address them.
1 Where I should point out that resistance means pretty much any act other than submission. Which includes running away. In fact my current understanding is that running away can often be your best shot (pun intended), at least in scenarios where someone wants to force you into submission under threat of violence, and that for your own sake any violent resistance should be limited to that which is necessary to ensure your safe getaway. Of course you should go all out should such an occasion arise, but it basically means you shouldn't linger. An aggressor might have lowlife friends.↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1309 –
Sensible nations do not seem to want to be like the USA on this gun matter and unfortunately the way that the people there have been directed and influenced has been too much part of the general ethos. Does the silly right to have arms to defend yourself a salvation of the massive problem in America/ No is the concise answer and the mass numbers of the population just ignore the original reason for that constitutional insertion. When history moved on instead of growing up the country did not leave the late 18th and early 19th century in the past which is what it should have done. Instead  hundreds of thousands of the citizenry being blown away is okay which displays a sad built-in immaturity.

There are of course sensibles over there and I know that actually personally but they have no chance of doing much and have to sigh and be stuck with the damning fault in the system which has been manipulated into a vague right. When some on the gun side ridicule the outside world for the terrible enigma and picture of the nation they get gung-ho and arrogant and only add to that inherent  nonsense.  Five figures of the gunned down, massive purchasing, over 300 million weapons will continue and get the sensibles no damn where.  A great constitution that permits such horrible aspects and sad.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1310 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
I probably mentioned this the last time one of their video clips was posted, but just so you know where they're coming from: the VPRO is a red[1] public broadcaster.
Red cat, blue cat, catch mice is good cat.

Code: [Select]
hēi māo bái māo zhuāzhù hàozi jiùshì hǎo māo
 黑  猫  白  猫   抓住    耗子   就是   好  猫

1 Not Republican. The other red.↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1311 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
That it is. But really I think it all comes down to what being prepared means. To me it means thinking through scenarios in advance to hopefully prevent yourself from making a disastrous spur of the moment decision if anything ever were to happen.
Yes, if that were the topic. But the topic is a bit different.

Everybody agrees that guns (can) have a useful function for humans, such as hunting, self-defence and law enforcement, and it's a good idea to have some competence with them, just like with any other tool or technology that crosses your path. The issue is that when guns are seen as some inalienable human right like freedom of speech, problems just keep multiplying themselves. The most obvious problem is that liberal proliferation of guns self-evidently arms the criminals as a matter of course. Another problem is that, while the 2nd amendment of the U.S. constitution is part of the so-called Bill of Rights, it has "well regulated" written into it, which should prevent any insane interpretation a la "the Founding Fathers gave us this right so we can protect ourselves from the evil Government!",[1] this very interpretation is all over the place in American media, and via mass entertainment also affects the world elsewhere.

Quote from: Frenzie on
From the studies I've read guns don't decrease your chances as long as you don't think you're a SWAT team sent in to clear your house from armed invaders.
From movies like Home Alone we learn that we are precisely a SWAT team protecting our home from intruders, that it works all the way and it's fun too. We were born to do it and it's pretty much the whole meaning of life.
1 The wording of the amendment prevents this interpretation, not to mention common sense: Are the gun rightists saying that the government gave them the right to shoot the government in the face? Why would the government be so self-despising? And, when the government issues rights like this, how can it be called evil? Such government is more like so gracious that it's pitiably stupid.↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1312 –
Quote from: ensbb3 on
Maybe they can take your opinion away next? It seems to be causing you distress. Your government treats you like children by taking everything away from you. Your police get stabbed - or have to surrender streets to hooligans because they can't even defend themselves and you think they can protect you? Bombs seem to go off there more than we have shootings. And your media force feeds you the idea that disarming your populace somehow makes you safe. What kind of child mind does it take to believe you need someone to hold your hand and keep you safe?

Your system isn't the only way to proceed. Degrading other systems to justify your own shortcomings seems to be your only weapon left. Legislation to control guns within reason can be found. Our system does not allow disarming the populace without substantial changes to the Constitution. That you surrender to your own government so easily makes you no better off.

This post is more interesting than all Smiley's posts combined. There is an insidious claim that clearly had made their way into the hearts and minds of many American minds, that the US goals of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" are in conflict with the Canadian "peace, welfare, and good government". By now many by consequence seem willing to believe that peace is bad, welfare is bad, and good government is bad.

If you have "peace, welfare, and good government" you will almost automatically get "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", but not necessarily the other way around. You don't have to look back in history, you can look to countries around you, how countries have turned from bad to good, or from OK to horrible.

Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, these countries are all armed to the teeth. Has that led to better government? Emphatically no. More life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Again no.

The best protection against a bad government is a good government. So how do we get a good government? Checks and balances is good.  Transparency and accountability is critical. Representative politicians is useful. As are watchdogs with teeth. Having an informed, critical public and good stable and adaptive institutions. A government staffed with bright, skilled bureaucrats.

Armed farmers and wingnuts won't stop people in power from abusing it, the aforementioned mechanisms can. If the armed militia wannabees become too much of a nuisance, throw them a trinket. Look, a shiny new wall! A wall for everyone! You can get a wall! And you can get a wall! And you! And you!

If they can't be bothered to distract, they can repress (which won't happen Waco-style, and hasn't happened Waco-style). And of course, if all else fails, bomb/drone your way out of the problems. Worked a treat for Bashar Al-Assad. Half the Syrians are now refugees, and he's still in power, more secure than for a long time. The same of course goes for the Hashtag Resistance. Nuke New York City and Silicon Valley, give them something else to tweet about.

By saying and believing government is by nature bad, you won't care when government turns bad and start plundering and pillaging. By saying and believing regulation is bad, you ensure that all the regulations will be bad, as will their absence of course. You are inviting a kleptocracy, and rule by the inept. By believing weapons protect against government abuse, you keep buying more weapons while the government keeps abusing more.  You are being had. Owned.

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1313 –
Quote from: ersi on
Another problem is that, while the 2nd amendment of the U.S. constitution is part of the so-called Bill of Rights, it has "well regulated" written into it, which should prevent any insane interpretation a la "the Founding Fathers gave us this right so we can protect ourselves from the evil Government!",[1] this very interpretation is all over the place in American media, and via mass entertainment also elsewhere in the world.
Someone should tell them Evil Communists™ like Trotsky would like that interpretation. :P But a lot of the stuff you might see in support is just a bunch of quote mining and outright falsehoods. When you actually read what those guys wrote,[1] they're not half as crazy as they're made out to be. Except that as Trump rightly indicated, Jefferson was pretty much a nasty racist slave-holder who saw militias as a way of protecting against slave uprisings. It comes down to that other oddly ignored word: security.
1 Madison, Jefferson, Adams, etc.↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1314 –
ersi, you  think government grants you your rights… We disagree on this.
We –at least many of us, here in the U.S.– still think that our rights preceded government; that government exists to safeguard such rights… And should be abolished, when it doesn't.  We said so, unequivocally.
But I understand your point of view. You'd have whoever got a majority of the vote be allowed to do whatever they want. Don't you remember what that led to before?
(The Jews do…)

Americans own guns; and, yes, in large part that is to prevent the government from doing stupid shit.

The government will do stupid shit, if it faces no opposition.

Think a moment about why Imperial Japan didn't invade the west coastal U.S. at the onset of WW II… (Too many guns in the hands of too many Americans!) People will fight, if they can.
You'd like people to be unable to fight — I take it.
Are you unable or unwilling to fight? Have you nothing to fight for? Does your shame make you denigrate nobler souls?

Your country has repeatedly been conquered. That's not a criticism; it's a fact. It's what happened in Europe throughout most of history… Peoples conquering peoples.
And now you want to preach "multiculturalism" as the new religion? :)

Have you considered that only a free people, able to defend themselves, can resist the various entities that call themselves "government"?

Do you miss the Soviet Union? Would you explain why you don't?
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1315 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
Americans own guns; and, yes, in large part that is to prevent the government from doing stupid shit.

I assume you don't believe this, but make an argument for the sound of it, but anyway. The US government does stupid shit all the time, it isn't Americans owning guns that stop them, if they at all are stopped, but people discovering what they are doing, and institutions that disallow them from continue and/or punish them for what they have done.

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1316 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
ersi, you  think government grants you your rights...
No.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
We disagree on this.
You are disagreeing with your own strawman delusion.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
We -at least many of us, here in the U.S.- still think that our rights preceded government; that government exists to safeguard such rights... And should be abolished, when it doesn't.  We said so, unequivocally.
Who "we"? The founding fathers "said so, unequivocally", right? Are they coextensive with every American ever? No, they were just the government for the time being, struggling for independence from another government. Consequently, yes, it was the government who proclaimed (a formulation of) your rights. You can of course keep your deluded version of history, it remains deluded.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
But I understand your point of view. You'd have whoever got a majority of the vote be allowed to do whatever they want.
Clearly you understand nothing. You barely understand yourself. Some fresh air would do good. Been to at least Canada or Mexico this century?

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1317 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
It comes down to that other oddly ignored word: security.
Security of state no less! ("...necessary to the security of a free State...")

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1318 –
Quote from: jax on
This post is more interesting than all Smiley's posts combined.
I agree, that this post makes a better point than Smiley's posts; but I'm an American, so I understand what Smiley says — in a way that Europeans may not.

Indeed, guns are prevalent in this world.
The freedoms that persist in the U.S. are not.

Why is that?

I listen to the likes of Howie, who thinks we're all gun-mad. Yet he's seen his "coppers" kow-tow to Pakis or their multi-culti politicians, allowing decades of rape gangs get away with their nefarious — what would you call them? Shenanigans?
He doesn't think it's a "big" deal. (I assume he has no daughters; or sons — else he'd be mortified. Wouldn't he?)

I know that Europeans (some…) reject the right to bear arms; specially as a rebut to established power.
(I suspect that that's the primary reason they do: They are cowed; and they won't abide a portion of the populace that won't be… Such a nice conundrum: What do you do when someone disagrees with you? The modern state says, Crush them. The modern intellectual says, Crush them! The children being "educated" in our universities say, Crush them!!! (They sometimes use more exclamation points…)
What is the point of talking, if you're going to kill us? Shouldn't we kill you first? :)
Is that what you want?
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1319 –
Quote from: ersi on
Been to at least Canada or Mexico this century?
Nope. They neither of them have the civil rights that I expect… (YMMV, of course!)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1320 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
Quote from: ersi on
Been to at least Canada or Mexico this century?
Nope. They neither of them have the civil rights that I expect… (YMMV, of course!)
So you expect your civil rights be granted by governments, even governments other than your own? Haha, gotcha!

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
I know that Europeans (some...) reject the right to bear arms; specially as a rebut to established power.
All Europeans reject "the right to bear arms" in the sense of inalienable human right. The few who think it's a human right have bought into American gun-rightist nonsense (there was one such small group of U.S. fans in Estonia, but it vanished as the W era closed).

At the same time, (all) Europeans accept the right to bear arms in the sense of permitting qualified people to buy and use guns and weapons. Not that the government can revoke such permission at will, but that they can regulate it just like driving a car or serving food is regulated. This is how it actually works here and everybody who wants a gun has one or a few just like in America. Common sense.

As I said earlier: Everybody agrees that guns (can) have a useful function for humans, such as hunting, self-defence and law enforcement, and it's a good idea to have some competence with them, just like with any other tool or technology that crosses your path.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
[Europeans] are cowed;
Common sense is hopelessly over your head. You just won't get it. Ever.

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1321 –
Quote from: ersi on
Quote from: Frenzie on
It comes down to that other oddly ignored word: security.
Security of state no less! ("...necessary to the security of a free State...")

Indeed. And there is plenty of additional context available to clarify intent, even within the confines of the US constitution itself.[1]

Quote from: US constitution preamble
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Why did I highlight domestic tranquility? Precisely because of rebellions and slave uprisings (i.e., rebellions by another name).

Moreover,
Quote from: http://constitutionus.com/#a3s3
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Call me crazy, but Shay's Rebellion sounds like treason to me under this definition. Or as Wikipedia puts it:

Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion
The rebellion took place in a political climate where reform of the country's governing document, the Articles of Confederation, was widely seen as necessary. The events of the rebellion served as a catalyst for the calling of the U.S. Constitutional Convention, and ultimately the shape of the new government.

Historical context. It might be very hard to do right, but only the intellectually reckless wouldn't quickly check out a few relevant lemmas in their encyclopedia.
1 I can't be the only person who's actually read a few constitutions. One of the most interesting to me is the  1798 constitution of the Batavian Republic. In 1801 France forced the Batavian Republic to adopt a retrograde constitution instead.↵

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1322 –
As an aside, I just did a little breakfast experiment regarding the meaning of "bear arms". Like I said, context. One should never forget that we're reading an eighteenth century text. If you look in the dictionary, you see that today the second meaning of the phrase to bear arms is "to serve in the armed forces." Now if this were as little as fifteen years ago, that'd be the end of it for me. I'd have a vague hypothesis with pretty much no way of doing anything with it. But it's not 2005. Good things do come out of Google occasionally, like their Ngram corpus search coupled with Google Books and Google Scholar.

Anyway, so we can tailor a custom search and glance at some results.

Quote from: https://books.google.be/books?id=pkhgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA288
how far I have gone to bear arms against him, and in the Station of a Volunteer
Quote from: https://books.google.be/books?id=dIROQJOslckC&pg=PA379
to compel others to bear arms
These sources are insufficiently American and I don't care enough to find out more as part of my breakfast experiment. However, based on these preliminary results it seems at least a plausible hypothesis worth looking into a little bit deeper whether to bear arms might refer to joining a militia. In modern parlance, something closer to taking up arms to fight rather than just randomly carrying and owning weapons.

(I regard the US constitution mostly as a linguistic treasure trove. Sue me.)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1323 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
As an aside, I just did a little breakfast experiment regarding the meaning of "bear arms". Like I said, context. One should never forget that we're reading an eighteenth century text. If you look in the dictionary, you see that today the second meaning of the phrase to bear arms is "to serve in the armed forces."
Heh, so when the founding dudes said "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed", their original intent was "y'all have the right to get conscripted with your own equipment" :lol: Now this is definitely something a government would say :)

Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?

Reply #1324 –
Quote from: ersi on
Heh, so when the founding dudes said "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed", their original intent was "y'all have the right to get conscripted with your own equipment" :lol:
Based on my preliminary results coupled with what I am sure of (cf. above about domestic tranquility), I think we can't discount the possibility that it's actually intended to be like Switzerland.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
Think a moment about why Imperial Japan didn't invade the west coastal U.S. at the onset of WW II... (Too many guns in the hands of too many Americans!) People will fight, if they can.
As @jax said, "I assume you don't believe this, but make an argument for the sound of it." The logistical challenges inherent to invading the United States are its greatest protection from foreign invaders, Canada and Mexico excepted. (It's perhaps no surprise then that Canada burned down the White House.) Even Pearl Harbor hardly affected America's defensive abilities at sea;[1] only its offensive capabilities were temporarily slightly tampered.
1 In other words, long before any enemy has had a chance to set foot on US soil (not counting some small colonized islands in the middle of the Pacific).↵