Posted on 05/03/2007 9:28:22 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
When events like the Virginia Tech massacre occur, The Times and other newspapers quickly become forums for people who favor stronger gun-control laws and those who oppose such measures, or who think that we have already gone too far in the direction.
The division is so wide that the only common ground you can find is probably in the O.K. Corral. Different folks have incredibly strong opinions both ways.
I don't expect this issue to be resolved in my lifetime. Nothing I can contribute to the general discussion will change anyone's mind one way or the other. I hereby - well, at least for the moment - remove myself from the overall debate.
Except for one side matter.
That's one that occasionally creeps into the letters of some who fervently interpret the Second Amendment as an absolute, unbridled guarantee that you can own all the firearms you want and any kind that's manufactured.
This argument says that keeping firearms is necessary to ensure that the public can resist government oppression should such arise. In other words, unless you can shoot back at the feds, you can't be free.
That's a nice, John Wayne-type view of the world. But it's wrong. It's not just debatably wrong. It's factually wrong.
And the reason it is wrong is this: The government has and will always have more firepower than you, you and your neighbors, you and your like-minded friends or you and anybody you can conscript to your way of thinking.
You simply can't arm yourself adequately against a government that is rotten and needs to be overturned. Your best defense is the ballot box, not a pillbox.
That is why it is so scary to see events occur like the one in Collinsville last week. In case you missed it, six folks were charged with caching an alarming amount of weapons. These included scores of grenades, thousands of rounds of ammunition, 70 improvised explosive devices, two silencers and a submachine gun. Oh, and 100 marijuana plants. Go figure.
These people have been arrested, not convicted, so let's allow the courts to decide whether they are guilty.
But it strikes me that you have these kinds of weapons for one of two reasons:
You plan to use them to harm people.
You plan to use them to defend yourself.
Undoubtedly, you can harm a great many people with this kind of firepower. And if your aim is to use it against the government, well, that in itself is against the law.
What you can't do with these weapons is defend yourself successfully, in the long run, against the government. It has tanks. It has bombs (see Philadelphia on May 14, 1985, when the city bombed an entire block occupied by a group that didn't like the government). It has airplanes. It has nuclear weapons, for goodness sake.
You can't beat 'em.
You'd be foolish to try.
So let's take that argument off the table. I don't presume to say that by doing so we will be able to reach a consensus or a compromise or whatever about how we should or shouldn't control firearms in modern society.
I'm just saying that shooting it out with the government is like the exhibition team versus the Harlem Globetrotters as far as who is going to win.
Only a lot more bloody.
Oh so true.
This is one of two things the 2nd Amendment is EXACTLY about.
If the author would do a little research on the founding father's writings, he might understand this.
Two words:
King George.
L
I love it when anti-gunners use the O.K. Corral gun fight to prove that guns cause violence. Tombstone was a gun free zone and the gun fight happened when the Earp side tried to disarm the Clanton side. The reason this fight is so famous is because there were so few gun fights in the old west, not because there were so many. An armed society is a polite society.
The real question is what percentage of the military will obey the orders to shoot American Citizens who are defending Constitutional rights. Even more important what percentage of officers will obey those orders.
I welcome replies from long term military men and women on this question.
Well, I don’t know about that argument, if one can take it off the table. I see that Osama bin Ladin just used airplanes that seemed to “do a job” on the government. And then, I don’t see the Islamic terrorists using tanks and so on over in Iraq, but they have managed to create an awful lot of havoc. I would imagine that the same kind of havoc could be created here, by those who might want to — if it ever came to that.
And talk about “nukes”, well..., you might not want to eliminate those from the discussion either. I heard that Al Qaida is actively working to get one or two into this country and set them off.
So, I don’t quite think that this argument can be taken off the table...
One word: Baghdad
I wonder if the author believes we’re winning in Iraq? I believe we are, but I have a feeling this guy thinks we’re losing — and if that’s true, I’d like to see him explain how asymmetrically armed terrorists can give us so much trouble, but asymmetrically armed citizens here would have no chance.
I am not encouraging or condoning anything of the kind — but his argument fails on that point.
“You simply can’t arm yourself adequately against a government that is rotten and needs to be overturned. Your best defense is the ballot box, not a pillbox.”
The Author is discounting Guerrilla tactics. Look at the Viet Cong for proof.
It’s hard to believe that anyone could be this dumb. ...is it satire?
Does 1776 ring a bell with this chap?
jw
Bingo...you posted before I had the chance. GMTA.
Part of Old Glory and the writing “Since ‘76” sounds like a nice tattoo idea.
Rotten governments don't have an honest ballot box. That right there undermines the rest of what he has to say.
If these folks were preparing to "shoot it out" with the government, how were they arrested without a fight?
This sounds like a typical liberal straw man argument - knocking down a point no one is arguing.
If it were that easy to defeat a guerilla force armed only with small arms and some minor explosive devices then why are we having such trouble in Iraq and with the Taliban, why did the USSR leave Afghanistan? We have nukes and planes and MOAB’s for goodness’ sake!
If the govt. is for, by and of the people then how can the people not have the guns? Unless the govt. is no longer for, of or by the people but an elite political class with an exclusive divine right to use force to ensure the people are kept in line. Dismiss it as paranoid hype all you want (and it may be at this point in time) but things could change in a very dark direction in a decade.
This is a dangerous, defeatist mentality that is sure to make life much easier for tyrants who want to rule the people with an iron fist and deny them basic liberties.
This one must have been written close to deadline.
The government, united, with good intelligence, with competent and willing troops, has more firepower than you. But the government, riven with dissent, not knowing where its enemies are, trying to send soldiers who don't agree with it into harm's way, has a harder time. It's terribly expensive to put down a popular insurrection, and many insurrections don't even stay where they're put.
Politicians and the people who work for them don't like to be shot at. The threat of unpredictably applied, lethal force changes the atmosphere, even if government forces would hypothetically win on an imaginary level playing field. This is why terrorism is such a problem: With miniaturized technology and quick travel on his side, even one guy can cause a lot of trouble.
The writer's calculations are about 225 years out of date.
I agree with him completely:
“Nothing I can contribute to the general discussion will change anyone’s mind one way or the other.”
I don't have to arm myself against the entire government, just those few in government that want to take away my right to own a gun.
BS sophistry. Theyre not going to be lugging machine guns and bazookas around your neighborhood and doing it without being seen. They might pack a pistol (as they do now), but if they want to be "occupiers", everyone is going to know about and reject it.
Typical, typical leftist misdirection. There could never be a Warsaw ghetto insurection with an unarmed populace, and the former is the last thing "tyrannical authorities" want. This writer is a nitwit.
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