Posted on 01/14/2013 4:08:51 PM PST by marktwain
The renewed debate over gun rights that has followed the massacre of elementary schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., has included scrutiny over why gun advocates believe they need a right to bear arms. Among the reasons: Many advocates believe that individual gun ownership helps preserve American liberty, making government fearful of trampling on rights of its citizens. If government goes too far, the argument goes, Americans have the right to revolt by force.
Is that argument correct? Or does it belong to fringe gun enthusiasts?
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldandnews.com ...
Lighten up. I did not say you were wrong at all in what you wrote. I was providing added info on the matter from the Declaration of Independence.
I am sure the Founders’ intent regarding armed resistance to tyranny was something like what the DemocRats say is their position on abortion: it should be legal, and rare.
Except that the Founders weren’t lying and the ‘Rats are.
“Rare” comes around pretty often for things that ‘Rats want, and it may be coming around fairly soon on some stuff they will regret.
Yea, I know it’s about gun control, but DAMMIT, metal detectors or armed guards/teachers would work MUCH better!
I believe the founding fathers would say we are duty bound to “throw off” our current government. The only debate left is what constitutes a “long train of abuses.”
For at least three of those rebellions there was no right to crush them, I believe. That isn’t a right, anyway, it is a power. Legitimate government gets power through the sovereign people sacrificing liberty for security, ir so the theory goes. But certain things they cannot give up, those being inalienable, and other things they haven’t given up, though government pretends otherwise.
Indirect taxes must be uniform according to the Constitution. The burden if the whiskey tax fell on one region more than others, probably by design, even if it was abstractly neutral. People had a right to resist it, in my opinion, including with violence. Not that everything they did was justified, but certainly Washington’s initial response was tyrannical. The latter response, under Jefferson, was th correct one: repeal.
Slaves had the same natural rights as us, and therefore were not responsible to any laws that would keep them in bondage. They had nit infinitely but unfountably more justification, for instance, than the American colonists revolting against the British.
The Constitution had no perpetual union clause, and the states were not denied the power to secede. Even were they, the people would not be bound by it. Certain of their rights are inalienable, meaning nontransferable, and they canny be forced to live under a government which they feel has become destructive of their liberty, even were the states bound, which they weren’t. The people could use the states as vehicles for their rebellion even if the states were constitutionally bound in union, which again they weren’t.
I don’t know enough about Shays.
There is no “right” to armed revolt. That action is a solemn duty (at least if those who rebel against tyranny succeed), or an act of treason (if the tyrants prevail). The decision between the two depends on whether those who participate pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor . . . or just their posting stance online.
Armed revolt is both a right and a duty. Whether you’re marching on Washington or shooting a home invader, it is the same principle. Your life, your liberty, your gun, your responsibility.
“Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
John Harrington
And if you lose, be ready to face the Hangman
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Better a hangman or firing squad than sitting with your thumbs firmly planted where the sun don’t shine and allowing yourself to be overrun.
Like other threads have stated -took an oath to protect the Constitution and while the contract may have run out, the Oath hasn’t
Though there is only so much to be gained by a single person with his weapon, the phrase ‘death from a thousand paper cuts’ should be remembered.
The Vietnamese sort of proved what a ‘handful of determined people’ could do in holding off a powerful, better armed force.
They may not have won a major offensive, but they sure raised hell with US and kept us busy with their ‘guerrilla ways’.
Well, see, that’s superficially true. Certainly the side in power has an advantage. But there are plenty of books defending the Torries, blacks, injuns, women, etc., against the Founders. Entire libraries are filled by Lost Cause books, despite the near monopoly of Lincoln worship within respectable opinion. The “winners write the books” thesis is truer of countries without natural rights traditions like ours.
History gives perspective, and allows us to be hanging judges, in Lord Acton’s formulation. Nevertheless you are free to say it’s bunk and one damn thing after another. Might makes right, and so forth. Just don’t whine when the strong man turns on you.
“rebellion begins as treason”
I follow Lysander Spooner in declaring that if popular sovereignty is true and natural rights exist there is no such thing as treason.
In MY lifetime I would say abuses began with the “Great Society” in 1964. A lot of personal freedoms have been lost since then.It is incremental like the frog in a boiling pot of water. I used to ask my students how many laws would be passed in ten years if they passed 10 laws a year.Luckily they knew the answer was 100.Then asked them how many laws were revoked in those 10 years.Gave them something to think about when they realized it was 0.Shades of Atlas Shrugged.This situation we are in now has been years in the making and I think it is coming to a tipping point. Will be interesting to see who will stand up to a Fascist form of government that we are entering with this Kenyan as president.
1776 Fact Check: Declaration of Independence
“...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, IT IS THEIR RIGHT, IT IS THEIR DUTY, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security...He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”
These SOBs don’t have ANY respect for us. Their time is coming.
That may be like a soundbite, but the entire Declaration is a series of bold assertions and aphorisn with a minimum of logical development. Those truths are self-evident? Nit accirding to the vast najority if humankind for recorded histiry. Our lifting the right and duty to revolt out if Jefferson’s question-begging tirade or carefully constructed explication of eternal truth depending on whether you agree, we can selectively quote him. It’s not taken out of context and doesn’t warp the meaning, anyway.
So what if they knew they could be hanged? That has nothing to do with it. Do you know the meaning if the term “right”? Revolters being right doesn’t mean they can’t be killed. It means it would be wrong for the British to do so.
.....”it was actually exercised in the battle of Athens, TN, in 1946.”
Today I got an email containing the 13:32 video of the battle in Athens, TN by returning G.I.’s from WWII. What an eye opener this film is to those not yet convinced that our Founders knew exactly what they were doing when they put the second amendment in the Constitution.
This video can be found prominently on Youtube....just punch in BATTLE OF ATHENS.
True. Excellent reference. These are hard times. We will be called to do hard things. Semper Fi.
The Declaration makes the case better, but if course that was its whole point. A decent respect for other people’s opinions compelled us to list our reasons, and blah, blah, blah. The 2nd amendment was under no such burden to explain itself, since it was merely a legal mechanism.
Nevertheless it does justify itself, much moreso than other amendments. What do you think the security of a free state was about? Either domestic insurrection against legitimate government, foreign invasion, or a central government grown destructive if liberty. All of them, actually.
The Declaration makes the case better, but if course that was its whole point. A decent respect for other people’s opinions compelled us to list our reasons, and blah, blah, blah. The 2nd amendment was under no such burden to explain itself, since it was merely a legal mechanism.
Nevertheless it does justify itself, much moreso than other amendments. What do you think the security of a free state was about? Either domestic insurrection against legitimate government, foreign invasion, or a central government grown destructive of liberty. All of them, actually.
We got a war on drugs right ?
Use the existing database on the dangerous drugs to monitor those who are taking the psychiatric drugs too. We have controlled substances, break through the HIPPA laws so the bureaucrats track the unstable minds as in those on these drugs.
It’s not the guns, it’s not the metal detectors, IT IS THE MINDS, unstable minds.
Absolutely correct. I pray that we don’t have to go to this place. That said, “Lock and Load.”
“All enemies foriegn and DOMESTIC!”
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