Well, I may be called or inferred to be stupid by certain members of certain boards or by certain individuals in person, but it matters little. I haven't shot myself or anyone else accidentally, and I handle firearms quite regularly. It's a load of fun if you're a patient sort of person.

<font color = lightgreen>Speaking of citizens who will face down criminals, whatever happened to Bernard Getz? ( [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] I think that was his name) He was the guy who shot some muggers on the New York subway, in case the name isn't clearing the dust off the memory.</font>

Hey, we may disagree and have certain clashing philosophies and style, but I don't automatically assume that a person who uses guns is stupid, including you. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Like I stated before, regardless of my personal philosophy and expirience, I am for the personal ownership of guns and applaude efforts to educate people in how to use them correctly. I do favor making better guns (particularly handguns), like guns that are more difficult for unauthorized users ( like unattended and untrained children or criminals who get hold of a cop's gun) to handle. I don't think we need new laws to accomplish this, simple consumer demand would suffice.

IIRC, Getz was acquited. A victory for us all.

I agree. I enjoyed the time I had shooting as well. I can understand that.
It's something I'm more than prepared to never do again however, if even one life is saved.

My enjoyment of shooting vs a person living.


No contest.

Well, if you happen to go out to a target range, and fire some shots off from an old revolver at a couple of 20-yd targets, you aren't hurting anyone. I'm not sure the paper is a real fan of you, but your fellow man doesn't have any problems with what you're doing.

Understand that it's Irresponsible gun use that causes wrongful gun deaths.

Dav, gave you a while to see if you were going to elaborate before rebutting.

I know that it is hard to argue a vague idea or notion, and I appologise for not elaborating more. I am doing this deliberatly because any planning about overthrowing the gubmint (even if just a mental exercise) is a violation of the Alien and Sedition Act, PATRIOT ACT, Patriot II and a bunch of others. I am not about to commit a felony or provide any "How To" ideas to anyone. I just submitt that it is possible and any versed in tactics and strategy may come up with their own "what if" scenarios.

Tyrranny need not be so blatent that voting rights are suspended. Prior to the US going into Iraq, Saddam Hussein was theoretically voted into power with 100% margins. All that is required is for a vote to not really matter. In a local poll a few weeks ago, a stunning 75% of people polled felt that their vote did not count for anything, that no matter who was voted in or out of office the politicians would do whatever they pleased anyway. Only the names changed, not the system. That is indicative of a population that feels that the governing body has broken faith with it's governed. At this point there aren't too many steps needed to Revolution. Revolution need not be on the violent scale, but it is the last failsafe.

You also mention a "properly democratic government". Not a single 1st world nation today is a democracy. The US was founded as a Representive Repbulic, but that system has been continually corrupted over 200 years. Political Parties and money destroy any semblence of democratic process. If anything existing governments today are shades of plutocracy and socialism.

Also, a corrupt government need not impose it's will upon the populous to suppress Liberty. That's too much effort and makes you look like a bad guy. It is much better to have the populous trade it's Liberty freely for the illusion of security. Rinse, wash, and repeat for a few generations and the ONLY way to untangle the mess is a revolution. Thomas Jefferson believed that time frame to be 20 years ..... we are a bit over due.

Since neither tactics nor strategy seem to be your forte, a discusion of military theory won't do much (this is not an insult mind you ;) ). Suffice it to say that history is littered with occurances of technologically and numerically inferior forces defeating much more powerful foes. The Greeks were inferior to the Persians. A teenager by the name of Alexander was initially inferior to Sparta and Athens. The Goths and Huns were inferior to Rome's Legions. The British were inferior to Spain's Armada. We Americans were inferior to the Brits. The Russians were inferior to Napolean. Cromwell and the People were inferior to the King. Sheer numbers brought down the French Monarchy. Heck, technologically, we Americans were inferior to the Germans. The Vietnamese were inferior to us. Need I go on?

You also fail to recognise that a People's Revolution is just that, by the People. The System cannot possibly hope to retain 100% loyalty or control. Gen Robert E Lee, Gen "Stonewall" Jackson, and Gen Longstreet were the Union's finest generals prior to the South ceding from the North. They defected.

I am not saying that peaceful revolution is not possible or preferable. I am saying that an armed and well trained population is the last provision to keep gubmint honest and revoke consent to be governed should all other methods fail.

You may believe you have debunked the need for the 2nd but really you have not. All of your examples naively rely on the beneficence of government. And they all fail when your ideal governments turn away from the People. A study of the Amercian Federal gubmint and it's expansion of powers would reveal that this is all to easy a temptation. How many affronts to Liberty can be found in American history? Way to many, and we were a nation founded on Liberty! Slavery, Manafest Destiny, Japanese Concentration Camps, The Tuskeegee Syphillis Experiment, McCarthyism, reactionary elements of the Civil Rights Movement, possibly the Kennedy Assassination (and Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X - entertaining conspiracy theories only to expound upon a point), PATRIOT ACT. How many examples do you need showing gubmint acting less than benevolently? America is not the only "modern democracy" doing such actions either, only I am more familiar with my own back yard. ;) You would probalby be supprised by the darker secrets of your own gubmint (I hope you are not naive enough to believe that you don't have at least one skeleton hiding in a closet).

The cold hard fact is that you cannot 100% trust Liberty or Securtiy that is provided by someone else; that you don't defend for yourself. For eventually the time will come when their intrests are at the expense of yours.

If you really want to expose facades, take a look at the practices of gubmint. It doesn't even have to be the national level either. Gubmint maintains it's control in today's "modern democracies" by labeling the small voices as "consiracy theorists", "bad people", "crazy cultists", "law breakers" and as long as the general population is not affected by laws that target "those people" everyone is happy. But when laws start biting Joe Citizen in the course of his normal everyday life, that is when apathy will convert to anger.

[ 03-23-2004, 08:14 PM: Message edited by: Night Stalker ]

Sorry dude - I had forgotten all about this lil gem of a thread [img]smile.gif[/img] .

In part one you argued that tyranny doesn't need to be blatant to generate a populist uprising - but your very words depict that it must needs be tyranny. That means that to some demonstrable degree it is required that there be supression of the people. For that supression to be ongoing it requires electoral supression or mass manipulation - so my point remains that that sort of usurption of power is not possible under your fixed term democratic two party system.

You argue that usurption could be envisioned to be possible. Well of course almost anything is possible, but my argument is that it isn't feasible or relevant in todays developed society (and I confine that specific to the US because I am disputing US law). Nothing you have presented has disputed my contention that the probability of such an event is exceedingly small. To use that minute probability as a means of promulgating gun ownership raises to a near certainty the prbability that someone will die needlessly from the abuse and misuse of a weapon that was "on hand". Note that I contine to restrict our debate to the effect of the 2nd amendment on gun availability without taking things to the next level of what is good or bad about gun control.

20 years huh - Thomas Jefferson sounds an impatient type - makes you wonder if he would suffer from road rage if he got stuck in modern day freeway crawl ;) .

You presented lots of examples of poor and greedy government, and looking through you would see almost equal numbers of poor administrations being voted the hell outta there as a result. If you ask me, the piece of legislation that needs fighting to be maintained is not the 2nd Amendment - it is the 2 terms only bit - that is why TJ hasn't had his 20 year revolution cycle - that is why populist uprising is reduced to a historical footnate in the US.

Well, in theory, the democratic process is a form of organized revolution. Also, I think TJ may have been deep into his cups or visiting Washington's "special crop" field when he made the 20yr. comment. Open revolution -- armed or otherwise -- every 20 years, pfffft who has the time or the effort. Looking back over the last 20 years, what are we revolting against? Al Gore's invention the internet? Crockett and Tubbs fashion faux pas? Voodo economics? DNA testing and oval orifices? I've used the quote myself, of course, and I like it -- but sheeesh, TJ only had 1 revolution during his life, and look what work that was!

On the other hand, taking Davros argument to the end, we are left with no rights other than electing our government. I think that if that's all our system was designed to provide, the Constitution would be a lot shorter. I remember that at least 10 rights were so important the drafters of the Constitution immediately amended the document to include those rights. These rights were also so important that all states ratified this immediate amendment to the Constitution. All of those rights have a purpose, and I hate to see them eroded. The 8th amendment, for instance, has been neutered by the SCOTUS. I'd prefer to hang onto the other 9 amendments found in the Bill of RIghts as long as I can, thank you. I may not be able to single-handedly take on my government in a game of thermo-nuclear warfare, but I still agree with the founding fathers that a man has a right to carry his basic weapons in his struggle against the world.

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Basic weapons as in clubs, sticks, rocks, knives.

Nothing basic about a firearm.</font>

[ 03-24-2004, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]