A moral dilemma

[GEM]

For a long time various sexual acts were illegal - even between married consenting adults. Then laws and court decisions returned the choice to perform such acts to the citizens.

If some future tight wing government decided to make such sexual acts illegal but did not institute gun control, would you lead armed rebellion for to free our sexuality?

Or just vote the repressed bastards out of office.

I would point out that most of our rights have been strenghtened through the checks and balances of our governmental structure.

Giant steps towards freedom have been taken that way.

 

[Blofeld]

Laws are decided for you. As for the question of what is morally correct, individuals must decide that for themselves. How strongly you feel on an issue where the two contradict each other determines your actions.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Slavery is one such example. Bad laws protected it. While these laws exist, I would suggest rallying people together to try and change them.....

Slavery is a bad example. It was, more than anything else, a matter of deeply entrenched custom. It had been an accepted practice dating back to the dawn of civilization, at one time or another in virtually all cultures. It continues to be practiced in parts of the world today.

But beginning in about the 18th Century, much denigrated Western Civilization began to properly see it as reprehensible, and by the latter half of the 19th Century it had been eradicated in the West.

 

[blackcash88]

I'd do the same before CC was legal here. I'd carry anyway. Screw 'em.

 

[ProficientRifleman]

Let's say you live in a country/state that allows concealed carry for civilians

Silly me, I figured you weren't talking about the military anyway...

 

[orionengnr]

Let's say you live in a country/state that allows concealed carry for civilians for self defense purposes and you do have a ccw license and carry a gun. Then changes are made and the government decides civilians aren't allowed to carry anymore, no concealed carry, no open carry, no carry of any kind, not even knives or mace etc.

Vote wisely in November, and this will remain an intellectual exercise.

 

[Bearhands]

"that's what separates the good, law abiding citizens from the law breaking criminals."

Sounds to me like you'd like to vote for Obama........ but realize that your freedoms are at stake......
If so..... you are right... it's very much at stake. and yes.. laws can and DO become too much. When we start to ignore the Constitution..... we become less than we are.

 

[Chisel Head]

...It's probably more difficult to get them back than to keep them in the first place...

History always had a nasty habit of reliably repeating itself

...For a long time various sexual acts were illegal - even between married consenting adults. Then laws and court decisions returned the choice to perform such acts to the citizens.

It depends on where, GEM. All states bordering Mexico have the most liberal sex laws. Nevada is still the only state where prostitution is legal:

...If some future tight wing government decided to make such sexual acts illegal but did not institute gun control, would you lead armed rebellion for to free our sexuality?...

I'd probably start by shooting the lock on my ol' lady's chastidy belt

...Vote wisely in November, and this will remain an intellectual exercise.

Given the selection, it would be wise if nobody voted at all

...Sounds to me like you'd like to vote for O'Bama...

I'd vote for Ralph Nader, if he let everyone keep their guns. Most people don't vote for a 3rd party candidate, for fear of taking votes away from the lesser evil candidate. Sort of like holding the carrot on the stick in front of the mule to keep it pulling the wagon. As if designed that way. No wonder they call them Demopublicans.
The only successfull country, in central Europe, is Switzerland which has a direct form of democracy of which the founding fathers thought that the US constitution would guarantee the like

...It continues to be practiced in parts of the world today...

It's actually practiced everywhere, to a certain degree. Spouses will claim that it's practiced in the institution of marriage, for example. In any situation involving dependency, there is always a risk of the dependent one's interests being exploited

 

[BullpupBen]

If your going to give up your Right to Keep and Bear Arms because the federal government tells you to, we'd might as well just remove the second amendment from the constitution right now.

 

[Frank Ettin]

....it would be wise if nobody voted at all...

Well that's not going to happen, so if you sit it out, the choice will be made for you by those who don't.

...Most people don't vote for a 3rd party candidate, for fear of taking votes away from the lesser evil candidate. Sort of like holding the carrot on the stick in front of the mule to keep it pulling the wagon. As if designed that way....

Whatever -- but the fact remains that Obama will be President unless McCain is elected. Electing McCain is the only way to keep Obama out of the White House.

It's actually practiced everywhere, to a certain degree. Spouses will claim that it's practiced in the institution of marriage, for example. In any situation involving dependency, there is always a risk of the dependent one's interests being exploited

But that's not what we mean when we refer to slavery.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

We have a moral OBLIGATION to violate unconstitutional laws, just as the peaceful sitins etc. of the 50s and 60s for darker folks. Think Rosa Parks. Whether we have the intestinal fortitude to live up to this obligation often depends on how much we have at stake financially and family wise, to challenge the laws, as well as our level of "principled-ness" which varies person to person.

Clearly, the 2A protects our right to keep and BEAR arms. Bear means "carry". We don't have legal open carry in my state, and sadly, I've not had the fortitude to carry openly, get arrested and challenge the law - I don't have a lot of money for lawyers. Maybe now with Heller, I might, however. I do carry concealed.

 

[GEM]

Kind of a political thread. It's a typical 'if they ban our guns - let's fight' without considering the real complexity of politics.

As I said before, civil rights have progressed by political action for many years. Gun rights have progressed that way also. "Let's fight" surfaces about election time and comes to nothing.

Why aren't there:

1. They won't let us drill in Anwar - let's fight
2. They are drilling in Anwar - let's fight
3. They will ban abortion - let's fight
4. They won't ban abortion - let's fight
5. They won't have national health care - let's fight
6. They will have national health care - let's fight

Never see a gun list proposed fighting for any freedom or civil rights except they are coming for my gun and I want to go Wolverine in my bunker.

Pay attention to the elections, vote for progun candidates, try to make the RKBA attractive outside of just social conservatives (who are anti lots of other civil rights).

 

[Chisel Head]

Well that's not going to happen, so if you sit it out, the choice will be made for you by those who don't.

But, if everybody would sit out, they would be making my choice.
Seriously, what you say is true. Here, in Germany, the real opposition party says:

"For every citizen which refrains from voting, this is essentialy a vote for us"

Electing McCain is the only way to keep Obama out of the White House.

Again, going out to vote to keep the most evil candidate from obtaining office by voting in a candidate of lesser evil. Or, at least, a candidate which is possibly even more evil. But, guarantees not tampering with values which are indispensible to us

But that's not what we mean when we refer to slavery.

Did you want to say Black Slavery, to begin with?

We have a moral OBLIGATION to violate unconstitutional laws, just as the peaceful sitins etc. of the 50s and 60s for darker folks...

Darker than what? How dark, Sir?
How do you violate unconstitutional laws by performing peaceful civil disobedience?

 

[Frank Ettin]

Again, going out to vote to keep the most evil candidate from obtaining office by voting in a candidate of lesser evil...

That's not necessarily the worst thing to do. The lesser evil is still lesser. And everyone who ever won an election was the lesser evil to someone.

Did you want to say Black Slavery, to begin with?

Slavery is the institution in which one human can own another as a chattel. It hasn't always been a matter of a white person owning a black one. At one time or another in human history pretty much every race, every ethnic group and persons of pretty much every religion have been slaves.

 

[Don Gwinn]

Well, here in the Legal forum we limit ourselves to questions of what the law says, not whether or not we ought to obey it. And if I might be allowed to give a little advice . . . you could keep yourself up at night for weeks with this if you make it a general question. To resolve it at all, you need to consider a specific law and decide whether you can morally obey it.
Notice that I wouldn't advise you to think about whether you like the law or whether you want to disobey it--that way is a slippery slope. The real question is whether it's possible to obey this law morally and ethically. If it's immoral to obey the law, then you have a conflict you have to resolve, and chances are neither choice will be clearly right or lead to simple happiness.

Then you have a personal choice to make. Use your judgment no matter how much good advice you seek out. No one else can take the consequences for you (for either choice) so no one else's judgment can be substituted for yours.