High gun ownership does equal high gun violence -UN Report

[Kulindahr]

No, it's actually fairly hypocritical. You advocate free unrestrained gun-ownership, yet cherry pick what it applies to. As for the rest, it is not a position based on lies, it is based on provable fact

Wonderful -- you lie about me, then lie about me more, and finally lie about your previous lies.

Seems you're benvolio's mirror twin.

 

[Kulindahr]

This is - again - an opinion you are having, that is probably shared by others, and most certainly not shared by all. "Arms" means weapons. What you THINK those weapons are "supposed" to be is quite irrelevant. The truth is, you flip-flop on this because at one point you insist those are only the things a common soldier would have, but then you claim it should be anything that the government could throw at us.

When the reality is so much simpler. The simplistic and clean way the Second is worded means one of two things - either ONLY muskets and sabres are allowed, or EVERY AND ANY weapon ever invented is. Anything else is your opinion, which, frankly, is worth less and less on the subject.

It's tiresome how you reject reality. Those terms had a specific meaning. That meaning is plain from rudimentary scholarship. That you aren't willing to tackle the thought required to see the meaning does not grant you the authority to make the words mean what you want.

To "keep and bear arms" meant to have and carry/use the standard arms of a common soldier -- that's a fact about the whole concept of militia, and it's what the amendment protects. There is no contradiction with the fact that the militia is entitled to possess any weapons that the military may, in order to be able to exercise the right to insurrection.

Your "solution" is simplistic, even childish, the sort of thing a lazy mind latches onto rather than do any thinking. One only need read the writings of the time to know that "only muskets and sabres are allowed" is idiocy -- and the same writings make your "EVERY AND ANY weapon ever invented" moronic.

The truth is very simple: the militia concept held that weapons fall into two categories, the personal, and the rest. Personal arms are those which the ordinary soldier would keep and bear, i.e. have and maintain in useful condition, and carry with a view toward use -- the term is the same as used in the Amendment, indicating that those are what the people, all the individual citizens,are entitled to and are protected by the Constitution. The rest belong to the militia, not to individuals -- they fall into a category of a corporate right, one exercisable only within the order of the militia system. It's why militias could, and did, have cannon and mortars and such, but individuals did not. And that meaning is the same today, except to fundamentalists who read the thing as though it was written yesterday and has no historical substance or background or foundation.

 

[Kulindahr]

Incorrect. And SUDDENLY, when faced with actual counter-ideology, you fail to write a ten paragraph response. Interesting.

LOL Your post just oozed fear of your neighbors! You somehow think that people with guns are likely to be vaulting your fence and interrupting your barbecue with violence. Unfortunately for you, the continuing increase in the number of people owning guns and carrying them regularly has shown that this is merely a cowardly whine put forth because there is no substance to work with. "Wild West" scenarios have not erupted as predicted -- yet you show that you still believe those fantasies.

I keep bringing in the meaning of militia, etc., based on the writings of the time, and you label it "ideology". Now you're claiming that emotional unfounded fear of your neighbors is "ideology"!

 

[Kulindahr]

No offense, but nobody gives a fuck what they meant, just like many people don't give a fuck what the Bible's writers meant. The ONLY thing that matters is the actual wording, and what it means for modern day law.

No, only fools or liars don't care what it meant. Words have meaning, and the meaning is found only in one place: the intent of the writer. You didn't write those words, no one living today wrote those words, so what they see as meaning is irrelevant.

You make the pre-novice's mistake concerning language, assuming that a given phoneme carries a given meaning and that the meaning you think it has is the only one there is. You thus contradict yourself when you assert "The ONLY thing that matters is the actual wording" while dismissing "what they meant", because what they meant to the writers IS the meaning of the actual wording -- or they would have worded it differently.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kul... it's very hard to take you seriously on this topic when you define the Constitution, an in some ways very dated document that was never by its framers intended to be locked and crystallized for all time in the most rigid understanding possible from the perspective of the context of 1776, as being a bible of the universal, natural human rights which existed before the Constitution and transcend laws or practical considerations of time passing and technology and society changing-- AND as having only one interpretation (yours), and then from that position you say that everyone else is lying.

We're not lying, we're not being dishonest. We're not "spouting falsehoods." Those statements are only true working from a perspective that you are unquestionably right in your interpretation and no one else is, end of discussion. That's clearly what you believe but it's not what the rest of us believe and we're not being "dishonest" in what we're saying.

When someone asserts that guns are "gross" and "breed violence", that's lying.

And I take the Constitution exactly as it was intended: that its meaning should continue as it was written until the mechansim for changing it is implemented, namely amendation. It does have only one interpretation until it is amended. In fact, that's why they gave us a written constitution: so it would be an objective foundation for law, not something pliable in the hands of rulers.

As for rights, those rest on the fact of self-ownership. Unless humans have stopped owning themselves, that is the source of rights.

 

[Kulindahr]

You are totally correct. Laws are also to be changed by the democratic process and not by enabling our mentally ill to get guns and shoot at us out of some antiquated notion that we are going to fight our own government with handguns.

I'll never understand people who use that excuse-- and it's an excuse-- when we can't even get a high voter turnout. If people truly care so much about the direction of government they'd ensure through their votes that they never have the kind of government they'd ever need to worry about fighting in the streets with firearms.

Votes?

Government might be related to votes if elected officials were the sole source of law. Unfortunately, the great majority of law doesn't come from anyone elected but from faceless bureaucrats who don't have to care about being accountable, and generally don't care whether the law they set down bears any resemblance to the real world.

 

[Kulindahr]

This is old outmoded language that does not apply today. And there is no draft in this country any longer and probably won't be one since the focus is on technology and mobility rather than numbers.

It's the LAW today -- sorry if you don't approve of that.

 

[bankside]

LOL Your post just oozed fear of your neighbors! You somehow think that people with guns are likely to be vaulting your fence and interrupting your barbecue with violence. Unfortunately for you, the continuing increase in the number of people owning guns and carrying them regularly has shown that this is merely a cowardly whine put forth because there is no substance to work with. "Wild West" scenarios have not erupted as predicted -- yet you show that you still believe those fantasies.

I keep bringing in the meaning of militia, etc., based on the writings of the time, and you label it "ideology". Now you're claiming that emotional unfounded fear of your neighbors is "ideology"!

No, I'm the one with the barbecue, remember? And a beer. Minding my own business on a summer's day, when, according to your most recent theory, no one will ever leap over my fence with a gun, and to suggest it is just fear-mongering.

As Churchill observed, having tried everything else, I knew you would eventually come up with the right answer. Remind me why I would need a gun to protect me from my harmless neighbours again?

 

[Rolyo85]

No matter how much you deny it, self-ownership is a fact. It's observable and demonstrable, not just psychologically but medically.

No, it really isn't.

 

[Rolyo85]

So sound scholarship is now "making shit up" when you don't like it.

"Militia" and "keep and bear arms" are terms that had specific meanings when the Second Amendment was framed and established. That you keep yourself ignorant of those meanings doesn't give a license to dismiss those meanings.

Me and half the country. Apparently new definitions are needed.

 

[Rolyo85]

Wonderful -- you lie about me, then lie about me more, and finally lie about your previous lies.

Seems you're benvolio's mirror twin.

No, I'm sheep, slave and property, remember?

As for my "lies", you've already proven that you have selective amnesia about your own statements.

 

[Rolyo85]

LOL Your post just oozed fear of your neighbors! You somehow think that people with guns are likely to be vaulting your fence and interrupting your barbecue with violence. Unfortunately for you, the continuing increase in the number of people owning guns and carrying them regularly has shown that this is merely a cowardly whine put forth because there is no substance to work with. "Wild West" scenarios have not erupted as predicted -- yet you show that you still believe those fantasies.

I keep bringing in the meaning of militia, etc., based on the writings of the time, and you label it "ideology". Now you're claiming that emotional unfounded fear of your neighbors is "ideology"!

Um, the post you are referring to wasn't mine. If you can't even pay attention to whom you are responding, maybe you should take a break from this topic.

 

[Rolyo85]

No, only fools or liars don't care what it meant. Words have meaning, and the meaning is found only in one place: the intent of the writer. You didn't write those words, no one living today wrote those words, so what they see as meaning is irrelevant.

You make the pre-novice's mistake concerning language, assuming that a given phoneme carries a given meaning and that the meaning you think it has is the only one there is. You thus contradict yourself when you assert "The ONLY thing that matters is the actual wording" while dismissing "what they meant", because what they meant to the writers IS the meaning of the actual wording -- or they would have worded it differently.

If the intent is so glaringly and splittingly open to interpretation, it becomes irrelevant. You have one opinion, other people have another. And I promise you, unlike me, many of those are actual scholars. Which is why I say a new definition - updated for modern times - is necessary.

 

[Rolyo85]

When someone asserts that guns are "gross" and "breed violence", that's lying.

And I take the Constitution exactly as it was intended: that its meaning should continue as it was written until the mechansim for changing it is implemented, namely amendation. It does have only one interpretation until it is amended. In fact, that's why they gave us a written constitution: so it would be an objective foundation for law, not something pliable in the hands of rulers.

As for rights, those rest on the fact of self-ownership. Unless humans have stopped owning themselves, that is the source of rights.

1. Guns are gross and breed violence. That's an OPINION, and as such, immune to the label "lying". Unless one is a zealot, which your posts paint you as on this subject.

2. However many times you repeat that yours is the True Interpretation, it remains just as open for debate as before.

3. Ownership of any kind is a social construct. Ideology and agreement with others. Most of the world - even the first world - has differing ideas on what rights people have. Your habit of stating ideology as fact is tiring and kills discussion. Fanaticism is off-putting.

 

[Rolyo85]

Votes?

Government might be related to votes if elected officials were the sole source of law. Unfortunately, the great majority of law doesn't come from anyone elected but from faceless bureaucrats who don't have to care about being accountable, and generally don't care whether the law they set down bears any resemblance to the real world.

Ultimately, someone is accountable for any law. So it falls to them to direct their writing regardless of who actually does it.

 

[xbuzzerx]

So sound scholarship is now "making shit up" when you don't like it.

You do a lot of this on this topic though. In fact, this is your routine accusation against others on this topic.

"Militia" and "keep and bear arms" are terms that had specific meanings when the Second Amendment was framed and established. That you keep yourself ignorant of those meanings doesn't give a license to dismiss those meanings.

When someone asserts that guns are "gross" and "breed violence", that's lying.

And I take the Constitution exactly as it was intended: that its meaning should continue as it was written until the mechansim for changing it is implemented, namely amendation. It does have only one interpretation until it is amended. In fact, that's why they gave us a written constitution: so it would be an objective foundation for law, not something pliable in the hands of rulers.

As for rights, those rest on the fact of self-ownership. Unless humans have stopped owning themselves, that is the source of rights.

So was the 2nd Amendment amended through nationwide ratification for every piece of gear beyond conventional 1776 equipment that State reserves & The Guard maintain today?

According to your interpretation, they were never allowed to have GPS or any post-musket firearm or modern vehicles.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Your whole case rests on the assumption that the reports of violent crime daily are false, or that you are somehow immune, or that you just don't care to take responsibility for yourself.

Carrying a firearm is no different than having air bags or getting a flu shot: all three are about facing reality and doing something to take responsibility.

Except that we can actually demonstrate that getting flu shots reduces the chances of getting sick.

We can't do that for having guns everywhere and the chances of being shot or murdered.

 

[HenryReardon]

So was the 2nd Amendment amended through nationwide ratification for every piece of gear beyond conventional 1776 equipment that State reserves & The Guard maintain today?

Yet another sophomorinic and totally meaningless statement.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Sophomorinic is a new one I think.

 

[andysayshi]

The gun debate often relies on invented statistics, but Henry is now inventing words as well.