Iraq's Rebuke to the NRA

Slate.com ^ | 03/14/2003 | Timothy Noah

[steve-b]

I teach american government!

Now that's a frightening thought....

[ZULU]

Also, Iraqis may have guns, but Saddam has bigger ones, a secret police, and probably controls all the ammo.

[nightdriver]

"Would our military turn on its citizens. By law no. However if they did there's not much anyone could do to stop them."

Remember Waco? Posse Comitas notwithstanding.

[SauronOfMordor]

The second ammendment is one of those unclear points. Is it an individual right? A state right? How important is the militia clause? What constitutes a militia? None of these questions has a diffinitive answer.

In the context of how it was originally understood, as shown by the plain words of the Federalist Papers and the Militia Act of 1792, it is necessarily an individual right

As a practical matter, the US does not have a gun problem, it has a criminal problem which is not solvable by trying to ban guns. The drug dealers will always have guns. If all else fails, they'll smuggle them into the country disguised as a routine cocaine shipment. Or give an underpaid Army sergeant a bag full of money to look the other way while they drive off with a truck full of guns, rockets, and grenades. Or just pay an unemployed machinist to MAKE some (and keep in mind that it's easier to make a full-auto rifle than a semi-auto)

[Travis McGee]

His hero V. I. Lenin knew all about this when he marched into the Russian Duma with the Latvian Rifles.

The more things change...

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Beautifully said as usual, Joanie.