...since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This is why Pennsylvanians (and other Americans, in every state) want to keep their guns, and won't vote for people who want to take them away, not because they lost their jobs. And one always has to question the motivations of a politician who professes the desire to see an unarmed populace.
You have to understand that they lived in the ghetto for a long time, and few had any jobs. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
gmsc - Now that was funny!
When the government came to relocate them to more appropriate housing they were not happy. They were all to be given a proper education so that could work as skilled aerospace technicians in the new state of the art V2 rocket factory. If only they had understood the government was just there to help, the whole ordeal could have been resolved peacefully.
The most pathetic and absurd thing about Senator Obama's gaffe is that he has not the least idea why what he said should be controversial. In his circles, both among the rich liberals to whom he was talking and among the congregants of his church, such sentiments are commonplace and assumed to be true by everybody.
In Israel there is a kibbutz called Yad Mordechai, named for Mordechai Anielewicz, the commander of the doomed Jewish resistants of the Warsaw Ghetto. In Israel's War of Independence the place held out against the Egyptian Army for six days, giving Israel just enough time to move reinforcements to block the Egyptians from attacking Tel Aviv-Jaffa. It was recaptured in November 1948.
P. J. O'Rourke visited it in 2000, after the start of the Oslo Terrorist War. He said it had a war memorial at one end of the kibbutz and a small Holocaust Memorial Museum at the other end. About the latter he noted that it passed quickly over the sorrow and pity part and got down to memorializing the ones who fought back. Then O'Rourke wrote that the underlying message of the museum was that the real Holocaust Memorial was at the other end of the kibbutz.
OP: quite. Michael Lonie: quite. Now who was it again that is poised to invade and enslave the USA?
Poland in the 1930s had no effective army or organised militia. They paid for it. Israel in the late 1940s had at least an effective organised militia. It saved them.
I believe that the Second Amendment has two parts to it. Strange how the first part is neglected. It might just be that ceasing to do so would heal quite a lot of America's social ills - and that doing something similar would heal Britain's too, to be fair.
I believe that the Second Amendment has two parts to it. Strange how the first part is neglected
If by "two parts," you mean it has a purpose clause, then yes. A purpose clause does nothing to mitigate the plain meaning of the injunction. And in fact it is not "neglected" at all, unless one is completely ignorant of the meaning of the word "militia" to the Founders. In any event, the Supreme Court will rule shortly on this ignorant "argument" about the Second Amendment that refuses to die, and finally put it to rest.
"I believe that the Second Amendment has two parts to it. Strange how the first part is neglected. It might just be that ceasing to do so would heal quite a lot of America's social ills - and that doing something similar would heal Britain's too, to be fair."
Given that a majority of Americans believe the second amendment gives them the right to bear arms and that they want to bear arms, interpreting the "first part" to deny them that right does not appear to be a good prescription for healing anything. Britain has turned increasingly to denying their citizenry the right to self defense and, if anything, their social ills seem to be becoming more pronounced.
Not surprisingly Fletcher, you don't let facts get in the way of your argument. href I think a million man, plus the Home Army is a pretty god sized force. The Germans had a larger force ,despite the supposed constraints on it. In that light, the Weimar era restrictions of private firearms, designed to constrain the likes of the Freikorps & the SA is a better example of 'unintended consequences'
One of the amazing ironies of this Second Amendment ideologies is that in Iraq, the US is fighting against exactly the sort of militias that would otherwise be described as important defenders of freedom. A quote from today's news shows you how well that works:
A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias.
The Republican establishment, and its pseudo-libertarian fellow travelers, needs to make up its mind as to whether private militias are good or bad. One day they are freedom fighters, another day they are terrorists. This flip-flopping between praise and condemnation of militias is busting the bank and undermining security.
Harris, as usual, is confused.
A right to revolution does not imply that every revolution is allowed to succeed, unimpeded.
Perhaps a First amendment example will help. You have a right to speak. No one is obligated to listen, to agree, or to do as you'd like.
Perhaps Jim should get a dictionary and lookup militia then soldier and then use some critical thinking to attempt to compare the two.
A right to revolution does not imply that every revolution is allowed to succeed, unimpeded.
Sure, that's what the Germans could have said in Warsaw: You have the right to revolt, but we'll kill you all if you do.
The analogy with the first amendment doesn't work, because you do have the right to speak, unimpeded.
This is mighty strange hairsplitting, and it has already cost us a half trillion dollars in Iraq. Of course they won't defeat the Shiite militias, for exactly the reasons that are used to explain the Second Amendment. They didn't defeat the Sunni militias either, they just bribed them and renamed them Awakening Councils.
Jim, two things:
1. The US troops allow every married Iraqi man to keep personal fire arms to protect his family. I believe it's an AK-47 and a pistol, but I could be wrong. That's what we call an "individual's right to bear arms and self defense."
2. A right to bear arms _for_self_defense_ is not a right to kill your neighbors indiscriminately and impose a reign of terror. If you do that then your neighbors (and their democratically elected civilian government's armed forces) are empowered to stop you, with force if necessary.
Rand:
It is impossible to argue now, two hundred and odd years after the event, what exactly the Second Amendment was supposed to mean - and yes, I do know that some people think there has been a linguistic shift in the meaning of the term "well-regulated" over that time.
However: Two hundred million guns, in the hands of a population maybe a tenth of whom know how to use them properly, do not make for an effective defense against aggression. Personally I think that requiring someone to get a fair amount of training before being allowed to hold a deadly weapon is not unreasonable; after all, cars are not designed as lethal weapons, although they can be such in the wrong hands, and training is required before using them.
A few more points: Colonial-era guns were limited in the amount of damage that someone with evil intent, or having gone amok, could do with them before being taken down. (Reloading time of maybe a minute?) That constraint does not apply to semiautomatic weapons. The writers of the Second Amendment could not possibly have known that one day it was going to be possible to fire thirty rounds in less than that number of seconds; perhaps if they had it would have been worded differently.
It is quite possible that a requirement for all people in some age range, perhaps 18-20, to serve for long enough to learn some degree of military discipline, and to keep up the training for perhaps 2 weeks per year after that, might help a number of problems. Such training teaches self-discipline and hence might just slow down the rise in crime statistics; in addition, it creates a large reserve of fighting soldiers should the need arise (unlikely in the case of the USA). It works pretty well for Switzerland. One useful side effect of this is that there is only so much money to go around; therefore, the standing army would be smaller, giving less opportunity for ill-advised foreign adventures.
You mentioned the case of Britain. Well, it is notable that the rate of crime has gone up every year since the end of National Service. I think that the two facts are connected.
Personally, I think that Heinlein's idea of democracy is close to the ideal. No service - no vote.
One of the evils of democracy as it is in the USA (and Britain) is the exact opposite of what caused the Revolution. Taxation without representation is bad; representation without taxation is worse. Far too much voting power is held, in both countries, by those who don't pay tax, have never paid tax and never will pay tax - leading to gross irresponsibility in the use of that vote. Most of those people have no intention of ever serving the community in any other way, either.
Voting is a privilege. So is bearing arms. Both privileges should be earned.
It is impossible to argue now, two hundred and odd years after the event, what exactly the Second Amendment was supposed to mean
I have no idea what you mean by this. What is it that makes it "impossible"? The thoughts of the Founders are quite accessible. Just read the Federalist Papers. They explain the thinking behind not just the Second Amendment, but the entire Constitution.
First and foremost in their minds was the event that set off the revolution--when the British attempted to confiscate the weapons...
Colonial-era guns were limited in the amount of damage that someone with evil intent, or having gone amok, could do with them before being taken down. (Reloading time of maybe a minute?) That constraint does not apply to semiautomatic weapons. The writers of the Second Amendment could not possibly have known that one day it was going to be possible to fire thirty rounds in less than that number of seconds; perhaps if they had it would have been worded differently.
I'm wondering where you get the arrogance to ignorantly lecture Americans on the meaning and purpose of their own founding documents. These foolish arguments have been refuted many times, in many places. I'm not going to do it here, other than to provide a link.
If that's the case FC, perhaps we need to liscense the internet as assault speech that the founders could not have envisoned the 1st ever covering.
the Jaish al Mahdi, is nothing but a gang, supported by Iran; Sadr takes orders from Iran. They pulled the plug two weeks ago; left him sputtering into the wind. They gave the order
to kill Khoi; to move him out of the way, so
Iran could direct the Shia in Iraq as they did
in Lebanon with Hezbollah from the splinters of the Amal movement.
Rand:
The difference? It's a bit difficult to gun down 30 people with a laptop.
Where did I get the arrogance? Well... maybe I got it from you, and from some other Americans, that think they have a right to tell the Canadians and the British how to run their countries. Of course, you haven't told us quite as forcefully as your soldiers have told the Iraqis. Or the Grenadians, or the Nicaraguans, or the Panamanians, or...
As for founding documents incorporating freedoms; well, I claim precedence. Ever hear of Magna Carta? In case you haven't - it was signed five hundred and sixty-eight years before your country existed.
It's a bit difficult to gun down 30 people with a laptop.
And it's a bit hard to change millions of peoples' minds with a pamphlet that has to be delivered by horse. Still waiting for your point.
Where did I get the arrogance? Well... maybe I got it from you, and from some other Americans, that think they have a right to tell the Canadians and the British how to run their countries.
Well, then, we're even. Be prepared to be put in your place when you display your monumental historical ignorance.
Ever hear of Magna Carta?
Of course I have. But apparently you've forgotten its meaning (even though it was actually intended to apply only to the nobility). Those who forced its signing would have been appalled at the notion that the King would have been able to disarm the signers.
Actually Mr. Christian the Poles had quite a large army in 1939, 30 divisions with ten more that did not get fully mobilized because the German blitzkrieg came so swiftly. Also they expected their wonderful ally, France, to attack the Germans in the West, where the Gremans had posted only nine second-rate divisions. Had the French attacked they would have beaten the Germans quickly, as quickly as they could move, which admittedly was slow because of the lessons in tactics they had learned in the Great War. But all they had to do was attack. They did not.
Israel in 1948 had a militia with few heavy arms, no artillery, no aircraft except some Piper Cubs, no tanks, and little ammunition. Stalin came through for them by selling them lots of old WWII arms through Czechoslovakia. He did this on the assumption that it would damage the British Empire, which he still saw as the great capitalist power. But the Arab armies that invaded had all the heavy weapons the Israelis lacked.
As for Iraq your views are superficial and out of date, but I'm not going to write pages to set you straight. Go read Michal Yon.
> Sure, that's what the Germans could have said in Warsaw: You have the right to revolt, but we'll kill you all if you do.
Correction - the Germans would have said "we'll try to kill you".
A "right to revolution" is the difference between "we'll try to kill you" and "we'll kill you". In opposing a right to revolution, Harris is arguing that govts should not have any risk, that the oppressed should always die at govt whim.
> A few more points: Colonial-era guns were limited in the amount of damage that someone with evil intent, or having gone amok, could do with them before being taken down. (Reloading time of maybe a minute?) That constraint does not apply to semiautomatic weapons. The writers of the Second Amendment could not possibly have known that one day it was going to be possible to fire thirty rounds in less than that number of seconds;
One small problem - the writers of the second amendment knew about repeaters. They came in two types, multiple barrel and multiple shots per barrel. There were also quick reload devices. (In fact, primitive cartridges had been invented long before.)
As to the "long reload time" argument, none of the massacres have been time-limited. They've taken 1-2 minutes per person wounded.
BTW - Muskets reload considerably faster than muzzle-loading rifles, but then you'd have to actually know what the difference is to understand why. Nevertheless, muzzle-loading rifles can be loaded faster than Christian imagines.
Andy:
Simple really. A musket is quicker to reload because the ball isn't as tight a fit. Of course, this has the downside of making the musket inaccurate. Also, the rifling in a rifle makes the force necessary to ram the ball down the muzzle much greater and hence the job slower and more difficult. Incidentally, the sources I've found seem to indicate that a musket, the easier of the two, takes at least 30 seconds to load even for someone practised in it, and accurate range is less than 100 yards.
As for time issues in the massacres; well, someone walks into your classroom carrying an AK47. Is it loaded or not? You don't know - and if it's loaded and you go for the perp he can probably take out half a dozen of you. If he's holding a muzzle-loading rifle? Well, if it's loaded he can maybe get one before he's swamped.
I suspect that the long times quoted simply mean that in most cases the mucker was wandering around between several spasms of murder.
Rand:
The simple difference between the first and second amendment issues is that people don't die (directly at least) because of propaganda, however efficiently delivered.
The recent story of someone who killed his wife because he didn't have the right drill, and so used a rifle instead, illustrates the point somewhat. Unfortunately, he wasn't the one who paid the price for his own stupidity and lack of discipline and training; "make sure you know what's in front of the muzzle" is one of the first things you're taught if you're taught at all. Obviously, if he'd ever learned that he's forgotten it.
Some people should never be allowed within ten yards of a weapon. Of course, the same applies to cars. I really can't understand why Americans accept the necessity of driving licenses, but at least some of them think that there ought to be no license requirement for guns whatsoever. Perhaps if there had been a constitutional amendment allowing unrestricted ownership and use of horse-drawn carriages, the carnage on America's roads would be even worse today than it already is.
Lastly; Poles in 1939. Sure, they had more troops. All that led to was heroic, but ineffective, cavalry charges against tanks. Why? Quantity doesn't always beat quality. Very fortunately, because by now if it wasn't for that the whole of Europe would be speaking Russian.
Lastly, the signers of the Magna Carta were extremely well, and extremely expensively, trained. This hardly applies to the hordes of heavily-armed yahoos in wonderfully camouflaged bright red plaid that fill America's forests every year.
The simple difference between the first and second amendment issues is that people don't die (directly at least) because of propaganda, however efficiently delivered.
They died by the millions in the last century. Europe became an abattoir. And most of them weren't killed with guns. And had they had guns, fewer of them might have died. One of Hitler's first acts was to confiscate the guns. There was a reason for that.
Lastly, the signers of the Magna Carta were extremely well, and extremely expensively, trained. This hardly applies to the hordes of heavily-armed yahoos in wonderfully camouflaged bright red plaid that fill America's forests every year.
Once again, you display an unfathomable depth of ignorance, and completely unjustified arrogance, about Americans, and American gun owners.
You can ignorantly rant and rail against our Constitution, and its drafters, all you want. Fortunately, you and your ilk have no power to change it.
> Incidentally, the sources I've found seem to indicate that a musket, the easier of the two, takes at least 30 seconds to load even for someone practised in it
Get better sources, or actual experience. I'm not even close to experienced and I can beat that.
And then there are black powder revolvers. Some can be reloaded by swapping the cylinder.
>, and accurate range is less than 100 yards.
100 yards is more than adequate in the incidents in question.
> suspect that the long times quoted simply mean that in most cases the mucker was wandering around between several spasms of murder.
In most cases, nope. He just stood there and killed unarmed people.
I forgot to mention the "mad scot" during the revolutionary war who had a troop with breechloaders. Yup, we fought against them.
That troop was disbanded when the Scot was killed. (How can the guy with the better gun be killed if gun tech is so important?) The brits continued to use inferior arms through a couple more conflicts until their discipline couldn't make up the difference. Better dead than admit that they were wrong and all that, much like Christian.
I guess that makes us even - Christian didn't bother to respond to the fact that his claim about gun tech was wrong. The founders knew about repeaters and still wrote the 2nd amendment.
Then again, Christian also doesn't know that the combination of medical tech and gun design is towards less lethality, not more. (A .50 ball is nastier than a .357 bullet.)