Posted on 05/02/2005 8:58:28 PM PDT by CHARLITE
BTTT
Scratch this:
"(c) Restrict the right of minors to own or possess a deadly weapon."
"(a) Restrict the right of any person having been convicted of a violent crime to own or possess a deadly weapon."
And violent crime needs to be defined. Too many ways for the states and grabbers to twist this.
Not to bog things down in technicalities, but there's already a 27'th Amendment, ratified in 1992. This would have to be the 28'th.
One thing needs to be added to this.
(5) This amendment reinforces the rights of the Citizens to protect themselves against their Government by force of arms should it become necessary.
If somebody's too dangerous to own guns he should be in jail. If he's not in jail, he should be able to own guns, bu tnot commit crimes with them. I'd drop that one altogether.
There are four basic reasons for something like the second ammendment.
Every one of the founding fathers is on record to the effect that private ownership of firearms, the 2'nd ammendment, is there as a final bulwark against the possibility of government going out of control. That is the most major reason for it.
At the time of the revolution and for years afterwards, there were private armies, private ownership of cannons and warships. . . The term "letters of marque, and reprisal" which you read in the constitution indicates the notion of the government issuing a sort of a hunting license to the owner of a private warship to take English or other foreign national ships on the high seas, i.e. to either capture or sink them. The idea of you or me owning a Vepr or FAL rifle with a 30-round magazine is not likely to have bothered any of those people.
The most major motivation for the present generation of gun-control laws, i.e. the problem with drug-dealers owning AKs, is a drug problem and not a gun problem. Fix the drug-problem, i.e. get rid of the insane war on drugs and pass a rational set of drug laws, and both problems will simply go away. A rational set of drug laws would:
Do all of that, and the drug problem, the gun problem, and 70% of all urban crime will vanish within two years.
But I digress. The 2'nd ammendment is there as a final bulwark against our own government going out of control. It is also there as a bulwark against any foreign invasion which our own military might not be able to stop.
Just prior to WW-II breaking out in the Pacific, a meeting took place in Tokyo in which a number of Japanese general officers asked Isoroku Yamamoto, the only one of their number to hve spent any time in the United States, what the problem was; why not simply invade the place and get it over with. Admiral Yamamoto replied that the problem was not the US military, that there were fifty million lunatics in this country who owned military style weaponry and practiced with it, and that there would be "a rifle behind every blade of grass". This apparently bothered him a great deal more than the 300,000 or so guys in uniform prior to the war.
A third obvious reason for private ownership of firearms is to protect yourself and your family from criminals and wild animals. Criminals in fact are not the sum total of problems in the world which firearms can help in dealing with. In particular, we read about tens of thousands of people being killed every year by poisonous snakes in India; it's hard to picture that happening if the people were armed.
Finally there's a fourth reason for the 2'nd ammendment, which is to provide the people with food during bad economic times. When you listen to people from New York and from Texas talk about the depression of the 30's, you hear two totally different stories. The people in New York will tell you about people starving and eating garbage, and running around naked. The Texans will tell you that while money was scarce, they always had 22 and 30 caliber ammunition, and that they always had something to eat, even if it was just some jackrabbit.
Eating is habit-forming; in any general societal breakdown which might be caused by a war, a major terrorist success, or whatever other cause, this last rationale for the 2'nd ammendment could very quickly become the most important.
Wouldnt the anti-gunners still be able to put a magazine capacity limit if they wanted to weasel their way around this by saying you only needed 1 bullet to defend yourself for example?
"If somebody's too dangerous to own guns he should be in jail. If he's not in jail, he should be able to own guns, bu tnot commit crimes with them. I'd drop that one altogether."
Not wanting to get into a debate tonight, I took the middle ground. I tend to agree. A lot of people do crazy things in their youth, that they would never do later in life. There is such a thing as a repentant sinner.
And all of us here wish you'd had one, too. You could have posted a major article on your "shoot first, talk later" policy, with suitable photos of your expertise.
Allow me to bring up a problem with the legalizing drug thing that a lot of folks miss. If you take the profit out of it the crooks will just turn to other crime to support themselves. Do you actually think that the meth freaks, crackheads, junkies and the big time dealers will actually get a legal job when that source of cash is shut off? Most, if not all, are addicts with a record. Who will hire them and at what wages? Do you think that some gang member with a felony record, a hatred of squares, a third grade education and a habit who is used to easy money is going to start flipping burgers or collecting shopping carts? Aside from the fact that most employers require drug and background tests, these guys ain't gonna work. They will turn to armed robbery, home invasion and kidnapping. Oh, BTW, with harsher sentencing, they don't leave witnesses.
I don't really see what those types are going to do which is worse than what they're doing now...
A lot (if not most) of the people you are describing commit crimes in order to get cash for drugs. If drugs are legal and available, the price of drugs will drop like a led balloon. No need to commit crimes when drugs are cheap and easy to get. The war on drugs has made matters worse by driving the price of drugs through the roof. More crime is needed to pay for them.
Totally agree!
Kidnapping for ransom is huge in, say, columbia where drugs are cheap. They hijack a bus, rape and take the rich ones for ransom. The rest are killed.
Let's say that you are willing to support the average addict through welfare. What about the cartel members, gang members and ex cons who want the cash that they now get by selling drugs? They aren't going to work at mickey ds or wally world for $8.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I totally disagree with this sentiment. Who are you to say this or that caliber is illegal? If one wants a .50BMG, he/she is and should be allowed to have a .50BMG for self defense. Even according to your own response, the weapon in question might be necessary for defense against a runaway gov't. Now, Welcome to Free Republic! I see that you recently joined, and would like to welcome you- we need more members like yourself. I also sense from some of your statements that you have been around awhile, as I have. Again, welcome aboard.
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