Abandoning the Second Amendment

[horge]

Forget the foreign-state-sponsored illegal immigration
constituting an invasion...

You actually HAVE heavily-armed foreign troops on US soil, scaring off your Border Patrol:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=179039


You are the richest, most powerful nation on earth.
You have laws that allow your citizens to arm themselves.
Your Second Amendment argues a DUTY to be armed and ready.


I'm puzzled, what is your government thinking?

 

[beerslurpy]

Horge,

Well said. I wish more Americans understood this.

They are pretty adept at relearning it when they need to. Plenty of people got shot in chocolate city during the hurricane.

 

[Waitone]

Horge, there exists a tipping point at which the ruling class will face uncompromising opposition to the insanity of what we call immigration policy. I think the ruling class understands they face trouble. What I don't think they understand is immigration insanity is a symbol for a lot of other repressed issues the taxpaying class suffer under. We are facing a period of time where severe political and social realignments could easily take place.

 

[Maxwell]

US vs. Miller resulted in the dubious analysis that a sawed-off shotgun was
not a suitable weapon for use by a militia

Actually the military does use sawed off (short) shotguns, as do the police.
Its a suitable weapon for war meaning its also suitable for any warrior.
I find this case funny because anti-guns also make the case that civilians shouldnt have military weapons either.

The underlying point of their arguments is to take away all guns from anyone they can, even LE and the military when its possible.

This particular case is an argument they dont want to follow because it makes things far worse for the anti's if they succeed. Even in a suppor role to the federal military, a proper militia must be allowed a large list of weapons thats currently not legal.
The "sporting purpose" and "only old guns" clauses work more in their favor if they can keep them in place, despite the fact their 100% against the constitutional right we're supposed to have.

 

[striker3]

the federal government be given the authority to turn military forces against the U.S. population, the military will disintigrate. The majority of U.S. soldiers will not take up arms against their fellow Americans. Think about it--in this instance the enemy will not be nameless people who speak another language but the fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles, and even grandfathers of the soldiers themselves. There will be mass desertions if the federal government were to order soldiers to attack U.S. citizens.

I think that the chance of the military turning on their fellow Americans is a real threat. So many of them are not educated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and have no desire to learn the truth. They believe in the chain of command to a fault. They think that anything or anyone the government says is an enemy, is. Hell, almost all of them think the Patriot Act is a great idea! Even the ones who work with the NSA themselves think that warrantless phone taps are an asset and to Hell what the Constituition says about it.

Now I am not saying that they will definetly turn against fellow Americans, but I would not so casually rule it out either. It is an eventuality and possiblity that needs to be thought about and dealt with. Remember, the largest threat to America will always come form within...

 

[antarti]

I think that the chance of the military turning on their fellow Americans is a real threat.

I would have thought the Civil War, and especially the Bonus Army smackdown (soldier vs. veteran), etc. would have put all the wondering about this issue to rest. Enough of them will take orders to make for a real fighting force, with superior equipment and logistics. History repeats.

 

[JJpdxpinkpistols]

Actually the military does use sawed off (short) shotguns, as do the police.
Its a suitable weapon for war meaning its also suitable for any warrior.
I find this case funny because anti-guns also make the case that civilians shouldnt have military weapons either.

One of the biggest problems with Miller is that it was a dead case, literally. Miller himself was dead, and his attorneys had zero interest in the case, and the supremes wished to spend as little time as absolutely possible on the case in order to move on to other more "live" issues.

So the Supremes said: "The military doesn't use sawed off shotguns" and no one cared to challenge them on this.

IIRC, Miller's statement was essentially a single sheet of paper.

I do not believe it will be re-examined anytime soon.

 

[Waitone]

I think that the chance of the military turning on their fellow Americans is a real threat. So many of them are not educated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and have no desire to learn the truth. They believe in the chain of command to a fault.

I go one step further. "Professionalism" has gone from a work attribute to a precept of morality. It is ok to do <insert action of choice> as long as you do it professionally. The Einsatzgruppen during WWII was a professional organization.

 

[longeyes]

Not to worry. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Relax. Carpe diem.

 

[Manedwolf]

Well said. Very well said.

And it may well come to that. If terrorists come here and decide to engage in combat, simultaneously, in malls, shopping centers across the country, in drive-bys in suburbs, to truly try to "terrorize" the population...who will defend against them?

Will it be the police, suddenly overwhelmed and outgunned, who can't be everywhere at once? Will it be the military, already stretched thin and unable to react that quickly?

Or will it be the CCW with a Glock in their pocket, a S&W on their hip, a 1911 in their waistband, or the owner of an SKS, an AR, Winchester 30-30, an 870, an antique Garand or 98K who know how to use them...that might need to STOP people trying to kill their fellow citizens, neighbors, all of that?

In an age of asymmetric warfare, when an enemy could be anywhere, could target any nonmilitary group of civilians, wouldn't you want as many as possible of your "forces" to be around as well? People who do not ever want to have to do such a thing, but...if it happens, are ready to defend their fellow citizens?

 

[Manedwolf]

I think that the chance of the military turning on their fellow Americans is a real threat. So many of them are not educated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and have no desire to learn the truth. They believe in the chain of command to a fault. They think that anything or anyone the government says is an enemy, is. Hell, almost all of them think the Patriot Act is a great idea! Even the ones who work with the NSA themselves think that warrantless phone taps are an asset and to Hell what the Constituition says about it.

Now I am not saying that they will definetly turn against fellow Americans, but I would not so casually rule it out either. It is an eventuality and possiblity that needs to be thought about and dealt with. Remember, the largest threat to America will always come form within...

I doubt that the actual enlisted military would ever turn on their own communities. They ARE middle America. When you see a soldier on the news saying "I Think That Everything Is Great. Freedom is On The March"...they're forbidden from criticizing the commander in chief, and they'd likely be subject to reprisals or punishment if they said something negative. At the least, their career might come to a halt, rankwise.

The ones I worry about are the most extreme sorts of private contract mercenaries. Not the sort who are vets making money doing escort jobs, but the sort who ENJOY killing.

What would the founding fathers have thought if they knew we'd employ our own version of Hessians?

 

[Manedwolf]

Sir, i disagree with some of your comments...
1."if war comes to the US", no way is any soldier's army going to offend our shores. period..

War DID come to the US. Not the old formalized storming-beaches sort, no. This is a different sort. Asymmetrical warfare.

The next "beach head" might be a group of terrorists already here opening up with machine guns in a large mall, in which case, it'd fall to police AND nearby CCWs to take them down if possible.

But it is war.

 

[Zedicus]

Forget the foreign-state-sponsored illegal immigration
constituting an invasion...

You actually HAVE heavily-armed foreign troops on US soil, scaring off your Border Patrol:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=179039


You are the richest, most powerful nation on earth.
You have laws that allow your citizens to arm themselves.
Your Second Amendment argues a DUTY to be armed and ready.


I'm puzzled, what is your government thinking?

horge, not a day goes buy that 90+% of us don't wonder the same exact thing....
we are doing what we can, but the majority of it is for naught as we also have people in our country who are intent on systematically destroying the USA from the inside.

those people are who we call "Liberals" and are little more than a Bizzare mix of Communists and Fascists.

 

[CAnnoneer]

those people are who we call "Liberals" and are little more than a Bizzare mix of Communists and Fascists.

Precisely. The one thing they agree upon is their hate of free America. So, they both sabotage the status quo in the hope of fomenting their own wet dreams of unsustainable societies.

 

[Graystar]

Unfortunately, U.S. v. Miller is widely misunderstood and/or misrepresented.

I agree. And it seems to continue.

“The Supremes never said the lower court decision was wrong. What they did was send the case back to the trial courts to answer whether a short-barreled shotgun is the type of firearm that was useful for the militia.”

This is a major misunderstanding. Do you really believe that the Supreme Court shirked its responsibility, threw it collective hands in the air and said, “aw hell we don’t know...YOU figure it out”?? The Supreme Court does no such thing.

The Court did NOT send anything back to be answered. It provided the final ruling on the issue.

The state posed several lines of reasoning in its brief, one being the length of the weapon. From the opinion, it is clear that the court based its decision on this point.

The opinion contains THREE excerpts from militia acts, all noting the type of weapon militiamen were expected to possess, and the length of the barrel. All excerpts indicated that long-barreled weapons were to be borne by militiamen. THIS is the reason why the court found “no evidence” that a short-barreled weapon was a weapon of the militia...because existing law defining the weapons of militiamen called for long guns.

At the time of the ruling, there was no argument and no evidence that Miller could have provided that would have changed the outcome. And please remember that the so-called short-barreled Trench gun actually had a barrel length of 20 inches, longer than the 18 inch limit imposed by the NFA.

 

[striker3]

I doubt that the actual enlisted military would ever turn on their own communities. They ARE middle America. When you see a soldier on the news saying "I Think That Everything Is Great. Freedom is On The March"...they're forbidden from criticizing the commander in chief, and they'd likely be subject to reprisals or punishment if they said something negative. At the least, their career might come to a halt, rankwise.

The ones I worry about are the most extreme sorts of private contract mercenaries. Not the sort who are vets making money doing escort jobs, but the sort who ENJOY killing.

What would the founding fathers have thought if they knew we'd employ our own version of Hessians?

I am sorry if I am bringing this off topic, but I have to disagree with you Manedwolf. The enlisted in the military are the more dangerous threat because they are the most easily fooled. They will not feel that they are fighting their countrymen, they will be told that they are fighting terrorists that threaten the government of their country. A government that they believe EMBODIES their country. The Americans they will be fighting will become nothing but targets, and it is easier to kill targets than people.

Those in the military who realize the truth will be branded as traitors and easily suppressed. As was noted earlier, just remember the Bonus Army incident. These were war veterans that were killed and run off by a military just a few short years after they had themselves served.

 

[Waitone]

Striker3, at first blush I'd have to disagree with your assessment. Then I took a look at your profile. Now you've got my interest. Would you please elaborate on your assessment?

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

My parents both came from large rural families, and I have over 100 first cousins, ranging in age from 40 to 80. Many of them have kids in the military, and for the most part these are good, smart kids. The area in which I grew up would probably be one of the first to reach some sort of tipping point if things got bad enough (they're a lot closer to that point than you might imagine right now). These are rugged, resourceful, extremely independent-minded folks and they are not taking the increasingly regulated life they are being forced to lead very well. These people tolerate a great deal of inconvenience and sacrifice in order to live in such an isolated part of the world. If they wanted someone telling them what to do and where they could go, they'd succumb to the big-wage jobs offered in metro areas. These folks are also more heavily armed than most European armies, and they're highly skilled at using their weapons.

As I said, I see my hometown residents and people just like them all across the U.S. as the first to take up arms if they felt that we had reached a tipping point. Given the demographics of such regions and the advantages afforded by intimate knowledge of the terrain and environment, I suspect they'd be as successful as the Finns were in beating back the Russians. (One Finnish farmer with a deer rifle and a pair of cross-country skis could hold off a Russian battalion for an entire morning. They'd snipe a half dozen officers and be back at the farm in time for chores.)

Perhaps my view of the caliber of our armed forces is skewed by the high quality of my friends and relatives who are serving, but I can't imagine too many soldiers from such rural backgrounds would fight against their families back home. My bet is that there would be a mass desertion of soldiers with rural backgrounds.

Forgive my anti-urban bias, but having lived half my life on a farm and half in the city, it's my observation that urban youth are too incompetent to pour urine from a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. (And I'm not talking race here-white boys from the city strike me as equally as useless as kids from any other indiginous ethnic group. Immigrant kids might be an exception. The immigrant kids I meet generally seem to be pretty resourceful, making me think that many of them have rural backgrounds.)The urban youth might comprise the bulk of our armed forces, given the basic demographics of our country, but my own prejiduce makes me think that the kids with rural backgrounds are by far the most useful and resourceful, and that the urban kids who remained in the military would be best used for cannon fodder.

I may be completely insane here, but I wouldn't recommend poking the rural population of the U.S. too hard or you may find out I'm telling the truth the hard way.

 

[hugh damright]

The Framers believed that a standing army might turn against the people. After all, they had fought off their own British Army. And the Framers declared that a standing army was a danger to liberty, and I reckon that's still true here and now.

They said that, instead of a standing army, the proper defense of a free State is militia. Some Founders were even concerned about the militia, and that the federal power over the militia might result in the US sending militia from one State into another.

I suppose it's easier for yankees and Californians to believe that the military would not turn on them. As a Southerner, I know damn well they will come. When my Granddaddy was a little boy, he hid under his bed, because the yankees were coming. He wasn't pretending, they really came.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

How many soldiers in the Union Army from Confederate states stayed in the Union Army once the S hit the F? My guess is that most soldiers from southern states high-tailed it back across the Mason-Dixon line as fast as they could run.

 

[Thain]

Under the laws of my State, all males between the ages of 18 and 44 are members of the militia. This is automatic, and happens as soon as your 18th birthday rolls around... the well regulated (meaning: trained) part is up to us however.

 

[publius]

Ultimately, the tragic failure remains:
that of assuming such a distinction could be made, of whether a weapon
is "militia-type" or not, even with Miller's representation present.

Welcome, horge. Your posts are relentlessly polite!

You bring up an interesting point, but as Graystar noted, making that distinction is an activity that predates Miller by quite a few years.

 

[publius]

The opinion contains THREE excerpts from militia acts, all noting the type of weapon militiamen were expected to possess, and the length of the barrel. All excerpts indicated that long-barreled weapons were to be borne by militiamen. THIS is the reason why the court found “no evidence” that a short-barreled weapon was a weapon of the militia...because existing law defining the weapons of militiamen called for long guns.

US vs Miller excerpts:

Clauses intended to insure the possession of arms and ammunition by all who were subject to military service appear in all the important enactments concerning military affairs. Fines were the penalty for delinquency, whether of towns or individuals. According to the usage of the times, the infantry of Massachusetts consisted of pikemen and musketeers. The law, as enacted in 1649 and thereafter, provided that each of the former should be armed with a pike, corselet, head-piece, sword, and knapsack. The musketeer should carry a "good fixed musket," not under bastard musket bore, not less than three feet, nine inches, nor more than four feet three inches in length, a priming wire, scourer, and mould, a sword, rest, bandoleers, one pound of powder, twenty bullets, and two fathoms of match. The law also required that two-thirds of each company should be musketeers.

By an Act passed April 4, 1786, the New York Legislature directed:

That every able-bodied Male Person, being [p181] a Citizen of this State, or of any of the United States, and residing in this State, (except such Persons as are hereinafter excepted) and who are of the Age of Sixteen, and under the Age of Forty-five Years, shall, by the Captain or commanding Officer of the Beat in which such Citizens shall reside, within four Months after the passing of this Act, be enrolled in the Company of such Beat. . . . That every Citizen so enrolled and notified shall, within three Months thereafter, provide himself, at his own Expense, with a good Musket or Firelock, a sufficient Bayonet and Belt, a Pouch with a Box therein to contain not less than Twenty-four Cartridges suited to the Bore of his Musket or Firelock, each Cartridge containing a proper Quantity of Powder and Ball, two spare Flints, a Blanket and Knapsack; . . .

The General Assembly of Virginia, October, 1785, (12 Hening's Statutes) declared,

.....

Every officer and soldier shall appear at his respective muster-field on the day appointed, by eleven o'clock in the forenoon, armed, equipped, and accoutred, as follows: . . . every non-commissioned officer and private with a good, clean musket carrying an ounce ball, and three feet eight inches long in the barrel, with a good bayonet and iron ramrod well fitted thereto, a cartridge box properly made, to contain and secure twenty cartridges fitted to his musket, a good knapsack and canteen, and moreover, each non-commissioned officer and private shall have at every muster one pound of good [p182] powder, and four pounds of lead, including twenty blind cartridges, and each serjeant shall have a pair of moulds fit to cast balls for their respective companies, to be purchased by the commanding officer out of the monies arising on delinquencies. Provided, That the militia of the counties westward of the Blue Ridge, and the counties below adjoining thereto, shall not be obliged to be armed with muskets, but may have good rifles with proper accoutrements, in lieu thereof. And every of the said officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, shall constantly keep the aforesaid arms, accoutrements, and ammunition ready to be produced whenever called for by his commanding officer. If any private shall make it appear to the satisfaction of the court hereafter to be appointed for trying delinquencies under this act that he is so poor that he cannot purchase the arms herein required, such court shall cause them to be purchased out of the money arising from delinquents.

The second of those makes no reference to length, and the others do (note the dates) only because they were trying to ensure that the militiamen possessed a sufficiently effective weapon.

That's the question. Will it effectively kill Redcoats (or whomever might constitute the current threat)? The answer with respect to sawed off shotguns, or almost any modern gun, is yes. Some would be more effective than others.

But, as horge pointed out, that is really a question best answered by individual citizens, based on the situations in which they find themselves. I don't think that the Court was suggesting we should all have muskets of not less than bastard musket bore. They were suggesting we should all have effective weapons. What is an effective weapon? You'll know it when you need it, as horge said.

 

[Graystar]

The second of those makes no reference to length

No it doesn't. But the reference firearms, muskets and firelocks, are long guns. Notice that flintlocks are not specified.

That's the question. Will it effectively kill Redcoats

No. That’s not the question. The Court cannot entertain questions that it is not asked. The feds argued that a short-barreled shotgun is not a weapon of the militia. The Court looked and, as they said, found no evidence to contradict. The excerpts you provided comprise the evidence that they did find. That is why there is no way Miller could have won. The issue was answered and closed. It could not have been revisited.

 

[publius]

That darn Miller! If only he had had a machine gun.