TBE on 22/7/2010 at 11:47
Quote Posted by DDL
I have images of heavily armed office people shooting out the windows of the WTC and laughing maniacally as they shoot down incoming passenger jets, now..
That's because you don't have a brain and/or did not read.
Keep your head in the sand, ostrich, and just keep to yourself.
Vivian on 22/7/2010 at 12:27
Ostriches don't actually do that.
DDL on 22/7/2010 at 12:31
Ok....so you're on a plane, and terrorists get up and start shit. Are we suggesting everyone on the plane then SHOOTS them? Coz that'll work wonders for hull integrity and friendly casualties.
If not, then I would point out that administering a big 'ol beat-down can be safely achieved by unarmed people.
If I'm not getting your point, then EXPLAIN better, because thus far you have given zero satisfactory explanation as to how mass gun ownership improves any situation at all. Escalation very rarely actually helps situations.
And preferably compare and contrast your 'positive gun ownership situations' with analogous situations from somewhere without widespread gun ownership, like the UK.
Nicker on 22/7/2010 at 14:36
Quote Posted by TBE
September 11th, 2001. We weren't prepared. How can you prepare for something unknown?
Actually the field agents knew there was something afoot involving commercial jet liners, which they reported to their superiors. They also knew that when the cells went underground, it indicated an imminent attack. This was also reported to the handlers. The problem was, and still is, the handlers all have prescient knowledge of the intent, means and methods of the enemy and merely require confirmation of their prejudice. All information not fitting their articles of faith are discarded.
Ditto Katrina. The condition of the levees was well known. A major storm was inevitable. Local authorities were not prepared, and the feds knew it. All warnings were ignored by those with the power and responsibility to do something.
It is information, properly understood and acted upon, that saves the most lives, not armed citizens meting out frontier justice.
Muzman on 22/7/2010 at 15:02
Quote Posted by TBE
Now I'm not envisioning a zombie apocalypse or a day-after/nuclear winter scenario, but I'm saying this: Be prepared. If you're prepared for the worst, you can cruise by swiftly in day to day life in our normal society as it is now. One of the things that is common to a lot of these things I've brought up is the ability to defend yourself.
Well we're on this chat again, but preparing for the worst above all is exactly how you end up with an enormous and wasteful military industrial complex long after the end of an arms race. There is no theoretical limit to the 'worsts' anyone can concieve, while a vanishly small number of the resources commited to dealing with them and needed to maintain these things are actually applicable to every day life. This is not quite as bad on an individual level, but still seems impossible to generalise about. The economics don't stack up.
Back on the law thing for a bit, the second amendment seems like more of hurdle to freedom than an enabler of it these days. Call me naive but that wording that is so heavily defended is curtailing communities from managing themselves as they see fit, which doesn't strike me as terribly democratic or free. I've probably got a tin ear for law (better than probable actually) but it seems in my vague imagination that there's got to be a way to let guns be around among people who can demonstrate a need or just plain want to have them and aren't going to shoot anybody
and stop gangbangers and bandits and whatever else from getting them. But any attempt to do this is quickly taken to the supreme court by the NRA and the meaning of the amendment doesn't seem terribly ambiguous; arguments can be made against
any restriction of firearms. Those who see slippery slopes to tyranny in every direction would never go for it, but it seems like there ought to be a way to re phrase that so some practical self determination to stem the numbers of the things is at least safe from constant constitutional attack.
Yeah the usual objections come up; if you banned handguns in Baltimore or wherever it wouldn't even make a dent. And even if it did locally, crooks could still go over to Virginia or wherever and get them there anyway. But typically these civic moves do seem to have to start small and they need at least some small legal instrument to help them along. I don't think anyone with any brains would suggest that large scale gun posession is completely un problematic. To forbid any management of that is completely illogical, Jim. (the usual furn'er caveats apply)
Phatose on 22/7/2010 at 17:00
There are issues with widespread gun ownership, yes. There are also benefits to it though, and when the document was signed into law, people clearly thought that the benefits outweighed the gains.
Now I can certainly understand the notion that changes in society would merit changes in the law, but we have the constitutional amendment process to deal with that. But even the most ardent supporters of gun control seem unwilling to attempt that, and allow an end run around the law creates unpleasant implications for the other freedoms protected in the same manor.
Rug Burn Junky on 22/7/2010 at 17:10
Quote Posted by Muzman
Back on the law thing for a bit, the second amendment seems like more of hurdle to freedom than an enabler of it these days. Call me naive but that wording that is so heavily defended is curtailing communities from managing themselves as they see fit, which doesn't strike me as terribly democratic or free.
I find that argument very suspect. It subverts the very notion of a "right" applied at the individual level. A local mob restricting rights is curtails freedom no less than a national one. It's a hurdle to local sovereignty, but then again, it's meant to be.
Everyone here is focusing on the wrong thing, TBE included (or rather, especially). While DDL and Nicker are most likely correct that those are horribly thought out examples in support of "gun ownership," that's not what this is about. There are three different debates to be had. The first two - 1) Whether gun ownership is a good thing. 2) To what extent the 2nd Amendment actually protects gun ownership - aren't relevant to the conversation at hand. We don't need to have those chats at all, and to the extent that TBE is devolving his own arguments into (the first of) them shows a lack of understanding.
The original assertion being made by TBE isn't that gun ownership is good (though I'm sure he believes that), but that the 2nd amendment itself is "important." He's backing that up by non-sequitur. Conflating the Second Amendment with actual gun ownership shows precisely why he's ill-equipped to teach the subject. Going all "git off mah land" when that hurricane reaches Utah has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.
It is important only to the extent that it is the foundation for a right that we happen to have. The problem being, of course, is that that right itself isn't particularly important. That is because there is a huge mismatch between its intent and what it is currently used to justify.
Does that change (1) the debate about the desirability of mass gun ownership? Not really.
Does that change (2) the extent of the right? Well, in subtle ways, yes, but only at the margins. That's for constitutional scholars and judges to discuss, and most here are ill-equipped for that debate.
But it utterly destroys the "importance" of the 2nd amendment as a practical matter. It's like discussing the importance of Christopher Columbus because of his discovery of India.
This is what I mean by context. Teaching the second amendment in childish brush strokes by telling him about 9/11 and pearl harbor belies that lack of context. The simple fact that that is the one and only right that seems important enough to use as an example belies that lack of context. There are a good many justifications for home-schooling, but TBE's stirring defense seems to be that he needs to ensure that narrow-minded attitudes get passed on, and that is what is problematic.
I'm also fascinated by the amount of fear shown in TBE's examples. Something I'd like to get back to in its own thread, because it's a topic that really interests me, but the conservative mindset really is a scared one. The lesson taken away from all three of those events seems to be that we need to be ready to lash out before anyone else gets to us.
CCCToad on 22/7/2010 at 17:28
Either way you slice, wanting to control the philosophy of your children isn't that great an argument for homeschooling because those attitudes have a good chance of changing as the kids grow older. However, many homeschool parents recognize the intrinsic limitation of homeschooling and work to counter that by having their kids read extensively. In my experience, the homeschooled kids that I have known were actually much more open minded and current in their knowledge than the public schooled ones for that reason. the public schooled kids were largely ignorant of history and literature by comparison. For example, we had one kid who, at 14, had already the classic greek works of the iliad, the aeniad, and xenophon whereas only one other kid in the high school class had even heard of those works.
Second: exactly how do you define "narrow minded attitudes"? And are whatever attitudes the kid picks up always going to be more narrow minded than the dominant attitude in high schools? Its not exactly like a vicious, hostile intolerance for other worldviews is the exclusive domain of far-right evangelicals. After all, it wasn't a far-right evangelical in the administration who was talking about using force of law to "ensure that people say the right things"
Muzman on 22/7/2010 at 18:06
Quote:
I find that argument very suspect. It subverts the very notion of a "right" applied at the individual level. A local mob restricting rights is curtails freedom no less than a national one. It's a hurdle to local sovereignty, but then again, it's meant to be.
Well I'm (hopefully, clearly) not proposing open slather. But I don't think gun ownership is a right anyway, which obviously doesn't matter in this chat.
The question is the same though; how do you restrict gun ownership/posession/what have you without crossing the second amendment? I'm sure it's happened. Seems like you can knock down anything these days though. What of this mismatch in intent and application? How do you make those arguments go away? Just a matter of who's on the bench?
Yeah it's beside the point I guess. Just a topic of inevitable curiosity when it comes up really. Those one or two recent knock downs of some state's restrictions could have been terrible law bound to be removed for all I know. Just a fact masked by the idealogical hue and cry from either side.
Rug Burn Junky on 22/7/2010 at 18:58
Quote Posted by Muzman
The question is the same though; how do you restrict gun ownership/posession/what have you without crossing the second amendment?
That gets into the depths of constitutional interpretation - compelling government interest, narrowly tailored, etc. etc. etc. - and depends on the facts and circumstances of the law being discussed. But think of it by analogy to other freedoms. Not to be too cliched, but you can stop people from yelling fire in a crowded movie theater without crossing the first amendment.
The unfortunate hallmark of the 2nd amendment debates is that the most vocal proponents of the right are the same type of simplistic people who can't see it as anything but binary. The result is that they take the principle to its unfortunate extremes, damn the consequences. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, but unfortunately, too many people are willing to treat it as such.
