Right to Keep and Bear, what does it really mean?

[awgrizzly]

The Supreme Court ruled that the second amendment applies to the states as well. Their ruling on the second amendment allows for "reasonable" restrictions. Currently lawsuits (largely brought by the NRA) are wending their way up to the SC challenging restrictive state gun laws. Eventually the courts will either better define what's reasonable or rule on a case by case basis (I doubt the last).

 

[captain awesome]

Its been said before but is worth repeating: it does not matter what we think the 2nd Amendment means, only what the Supreme Court says it means. As of now we have a SC that says it is an individual right, but not an unlimited right (despite the "shall not be infringed" language). Where the line is drawn is anyone's guess.

Now this is where you are wrong. It matters very much what we think it means. If it didn't it would not be worth continuing our fight. I compare such statements to saying; "throw your arms to the air and give up, because you will never change anything." WRONG. Continue to interpret your own way, raise hell, put up a fuss and let every one know about it. Just do it with dignity. If you act like your opinion matters, others will believe it does. If you don't it will never change.

 

[Panzercat]

Buzzwords like 'assault' and 'high-capacity' are only enablers to slippery slope arguments. They annoy me so much that it's my sig of the hour and really my view on the 2nd amendment as well.

 

[jbrown50]

Buzzwords like 'assault' and 'high-capacity' are only enablers to slippery slope arguments. They annoy me so much that it's my sig of the hour and really my view on the 2nd amendment as well.

I too just shake my head when I hear or see so called pro-gun people support the anti's views such as these. I chalk it up to complacency.

I remember an incident told to me by one of my friends who is a cop. One day while off duty in plain clothes five guys tried to carjack (bikejack?) his motorcycle from him while he was at a local mall. He shot the one with the gun pointed at him and all of them turned and quickly ran away including the one he'd shot. They later dropped off their buddy at the hospital and after that their blood stained stolen car was found abandoned.

Up until that day my friend saw no need to carry anything more than his Sig 229 357 by itself, without even one spare mag, when off duty. Today he carries two spare mags with the gun when off duty. He'd never been robbed before and began thinking about the "what ifs", ie; what if more of them had been armed?. What if they'd tried to carjack him with his wife and kid in the car?

The most interesting aspect of the encounter was that he thought that he'd fired twice, maybe three times at the perp, but actually fired 7 rounds.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The most interesting aspect of the encounter was that he thought that he'd fired twice, maybe three times at the perp, but actually fired 7 rounds.

That's not uncommon. Under stress the mind focusses on the task at hand to the exclusion of other things. I worked for many years in military training, and one thing we found is that people under stress see time and space differently.

For example, when you design a flight simulator for the Navy, you need two 3-dimensional carrier images. One for normal flight, and one for landing -- the "landing" carrier is much longer and narrower than any carrier ever built. But if you try to use the "normal" carrier for landing the pilots will tell you it's all wrong.

That's a classic example of distortion of space under stress. Many other senses are also distorted. For that reason, if you are ever in a shooting do not give specifics about time, space, numbers and so on. If you do, you will be proven wrong, and that's a "lie" that can be used against you in court.

Instead, use words like "close," and "quick," and "several" instead of "five feet" or "two seconds" or "I fired three rounds."

 

[CraigC]

Seriously, on how our nation became, the right to own slave, colored (not joking) allot of it.

If you really believe that the war was about slavery, you have a lot of reading to do.

"Mr. Lincoln held the nation together" at gunpoint and it certainly was not for such a noble cause as ending slavery. Which is exactly what the founding fathers wrote the Constitution to prevent. So tell me exactly how one believes that the same government that invaded and destroyed its own people and infrastructure to free one ethnic group, then three months later instituted a campaign of genocide against another??? Bury your head in the sand much?

No sir, state's rights were just as important as every other, including the 2nd amendment.

 

[1911Tuner]

"Mr. Lincoln held the nation together" at gunpoint and it certainly was not for such a noble cause as ending slavery. Which

I knew there was somethin' about that CraigC feller that I liked.

Odd that, in 1775, the "Rebels" came to be called Heroes of the Revolution" and less than 85 years later...the same thing caused the southerners to be branded as villains who fought only to keep slavery alive. Slavery was a late comer to the game. Spin doctors are nothing new, and the winners get to write the history. Betcha if you read the British version of the American Revolution, you wouldn't know it was the same war you were reading about.

So tell me exactly how one believes that the same government that invaded and destroyed its own people and infrastructure to free one ethnic group, then three months later instituted a campaign of genocide against another???

Yeah. They didn't much like them savage redskins havin' rifles, either...did they now?

Which is exactly what the founding fathers wrote the Constitution to prevent

Precisely. The Founding Fathers knew too well the dangers of an all-powerful government entity. They'd just won a bloody, hard-fought war for independence from just such an entity. The 2nd Amendment was put in place as a final check and balance...just as much to protect us from domestic tyranny as from foreign. That's why the words "Shall Not Be Infringed" Don't contain qualifiers like "Due Process" and "Subject to Approval."

Craig...If you're ever in my neck of the woods...you be sure to stop by and set a spell. I'll put on a pot of turbocoffee and we can talk over some of the finer points of "The War of Northern Aggression."

 

[LibShooter]

If you really believe that the war was about slavery, you have a lot of reading to do.

....

No sir, state's rights were just as important as every other, including the 2nd amendment.

The right that the states were fighting for was the right for their rich folks to own other folks. Whether or not that right was protected by the Constitution it was wrong.

Mister Loncoln didn't go to war to free the slaves. His goal, as someone artfuly put it, was to hold the country together at gunpoint. To do that slavery had to end.

I'm not sure the actions President Lincoln took in 1861 were Constitutional. I am absolutley sure they were right.

The evil that was done to Native Americans by the same government does not change the good that was done between 1861 and 1865.

 

[CraigC]

Craig...If you're ever in my neck of the woods...you be sure to stop by and set a spell. I'll put on a pot of turbocoffee and we can talk over some of the finer points of "The War of Northern Aggression."

Deal!

The right that the states were fighting for was the right for their rich folks to own other folks.

The states were fighting for the right to govern themselves. They were being unfairly taxed by the more populous north. The war had absolutely nothing to do with slavery until Lincoln made it so. It was about what every other war was about, real estate, money and power. Slavery was on its way out. It was quickly becoming obsolete. Civilization was built upon slavery but its end was near. European countries abolished slavery by paying for their freedom. Something that would've cost a fraction of what the war did. Further, to believe that thousands upon thousands of northern young men marched to their deaths to free slaves and that thousands upon thousands of free, poor white men marched to their deaths to defend slavery, is ludicrous beyond measure. Yet that is the lie we have been told, the lie taught in our schools, the lie that the vast majority of americans believes. Of course, to refute said nonsense is to be labeled a racist, a revisionist and perhaps maybe even a traitor.

All one has to do is learn of Sherman's march to the sea, his own damning words of waging war on women, children and the elderly and the subsequent "reconstruction" to understand why so many Southern folk are still bitter about The War. Race has nothing to do with it. Those who have paid dearest are the freed slaves themselves and it continues to this day.

Whether or not that right was protected by the Constitution it was wrong.

I was referring to state's rights. That each state voluntarily entered into a union. The fact that Lincoln felt he had to go to war to "save the union" proves that the union should have been dissolved. To force states to stay in the union is completely contradictory to the wishes of the founding fathers.

 

[GambJoe]

If you really believe that the war was about slavery, you have a lot of reading to do.

I agree that there was more than one reason for the civil war, states rights and slavery being all but two. From what I read about from the draft riot in NYC to them Mainers At Little Big Top all believed they were or would be fighting to free slaves. The rioters were against being drafted to die for someone they really didn't care for and the Mainers believed they were doing Gods work.

Likewise I believe most men of the south went to war to fight for their right to own slaves. From what I read about slavery as it was taken place on Long Island NY if you owned a slave or two you were on your way to wealth. I believe it was the same in the South.

What was the southerners time table for ending slavery?

I see the issue of being to defend yourself as a God given right. Written into the constitution or not. See why Adams didn't want to include the first ten amendments. I also believe that the states have a right to write their own laws unless they trample on our rights a citizens of the USA.

 

[LibShooter]

I was referring to state's rights. That each state voluntarily entered into a union. The fact that Lincoln felt he had to go to war to "save the union" proves that the union should have been dissolved. To force states to stay in the union is completely contradictory to the wishes of the founding fathers.

The Constitution says new states can be admitted to the Union but it says nothing about states leaving the Union. Lincoln's opinion that they can't leave has the same basis in law as the Confederates' opinion that they can. This disagreement was settled at Appomattox Court House.

Like Lincoln, I believe the Union was worth preserving... even at gunpoint. Had it not been preserved, I doubt we would be having a free discussion here about what the Second Amendment means.

 

[CraigC]

Likewise I believe most men of the south went to war to fight for their right to own slaves.

What? Do you know what percentage of people in the south could even afford to own slaves? It was tiny. Slaves cost an average of $1500 which was more than most households earned in a year. Only the very wealthy even owned slaves. My great, great, great grandfather faught in the war with all his brothers and his father. They certainly did not fight for slavery. They were sharecroppers, hardly a step up from slaves themselves. As were the people who lived in the house I'm in right now. 150yrs ago their net worth was not more than $2000. They had a bunch of children and buried many of them. One of whom was a veteran from that war. It is silly to think that only slaveowners fought in the war because there were so few of them. Which might force anyone with a modicum of knowledge of history to think that maybe it wasn't about slavery.

Regardless, if would've been VASTLY less expensive to pay for the slaves to be freed, which I might add came from slave traders based in northern ports, than it was to wage war. Disregard the popular perception that the war was about slavery and think about it for just a moment with an open mind. Racism has always been at least as rampant in the north as the south. Do you really think that a hundred thousand yankees would march to war to free slaves in 2011??? No one in their right mind would. People believe this nonsense because they want to. They want to believe that Lincoln was the savior. That he was the great emancipator. He was not. He wanted the slaves to be shipped off to Africa or Haiti. He certainly did not want them to have the right to vote. He did more to destroy what this nation was intended to be than any other individual in history.

Waging total war on your own people to "save the union".....yeah right.

 

[LibShooter]

Waging total war on your own people to "save the union".....yeah right.

Yeah... it was right. Suppose the war to preserve the Union had not been fought. The right to own slaves was guaranteed in the CSA's Constitution, so it's likely that institution would have lasted for decades. With such a long border between the nations, African Americans would be illegally emigrating at a rate that makes what's going on in Arizona look like nothing.

Tensions between the nations would be unlikely to get better. The war would come, probably with tanks and machine guns. Today we would live in two broken nations each dependent on its seperate European allies.

Hitler's nephew might be king of the world.

 

[GambJoe]

It is silly to think that only slaveowners fought in the war because there were so few of them.

I said that people who believed it was their right to own a slave.

This is getting way off topic now. When my grandparents came to this country they found a new life they put aside the past. I don't know what their hardships were in the old country. They never spoke about it. They were share croppers to at least we have that in common. It's worked out for them and the majority of Americans. Not that it's easy. But it's good.

Forget the past, we'll all have a better future.

 

[CraigC]

Forget the past? That seems to be most of our problem in this country. Those who refuse to learn from history. Our history and heritage is as important as our future. This is where folks could use a little perspective.

Fact is, growing up in Florida, the way history is taught in schools, it makes folks think they have something to be ashamed of being from the South. Growing up, learning on your own and reading something other than a school book, you find out that it is not quite so cut and dried as we have been led to believe. You come to understand what really happened and accept the truth. I can't tell you what a profound moment it was to finally understand that Southerners were not the villians history portrayed us to be. That it was in fact 'we' who were wronged. That the reasons and intentions behind what happened were not as black and white as we had been led to believe. That we did indeed have something to be proud of. Something to cherish. Something to defend, as our way of life has been under attack for 150yrs. You realize the reasons behind what bitterness remains. You realize that there are parts of the South that never recovered from the war. You come to understand that much of what we believe to be right and wrong are mostly a matter of perspective.

What does NOT help the healing process is the tendency for those on the other side to pretend like it never happened. To use statements like "get over it" or "forget the past" are just as inflammatory to true Southerners as racial slurs are to their respective ethnic group.

 

[HBrebel]

So after all this talk, the words "shall not be infringed" remain. There is no court, government puppet, or united nations that can take away your gun, or even tell you what gun you may have. Regarding assault weapons, when was the last time there was a street crime where an "assault rifle" was used? Those guys use whatever they can get their grubby hands on, usually a hi-point or some other cheap 9mm pistol. Our government will try to keep anything from us that it can, they continually distort and try to rework the words in our constitution. Some of them even laugh when told that they are violating it. And regarding the civil war, wasn't it Jackson or one of the other southern generals that said something like " to keep slavery all we needed to do was not fight this war". That war was about states rights, and keeping the feds in check.

 

[LibShooter]

I can't tell you what a profound moment it was to finally understand that Southerners were not the villians history portrayed us to be. That it was in fact 'we' who were wronged.

Those guys aren't "us" and "we." They are "them." Like you, some of my ancestors fought for "The Glorious Lost Cause." And like a lot of East Tennessee families I have ancestors who fought for The Union. I also have relatives who fought on both sides of WWI, WWII and may have ancestors who fought for and against Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745.

I'm neither particularly proud or ashamed for any of them. Since poor farmers in East Tennessee didn't often own slaves, my ancestors who wore gray probably were conviced to enlist by some smooth talking Colonel. My ancestors who wore blue may well have enlisted for the money. Truth be told, I have the most respect for my great-great grand-something who took his family up into the Smoky Mountains and hid out until the whole thing was over.

I'm not one for hero worship. I do thank them for what they left us, The Second Amendment, for instance.

 

[GambJoe]

Forget the past? That seems to be most of our problem in this country. Those who refuse to learn from history. Our history and heritage is as important as our future. This is where folks could use a little perspective.

Forget the past not History.

I sorry I don't have all the fact but I do know a little about history. I am disgusted at what Sherman did but what the south suffered is not more than blacks suffered as slaves.

 

[Neverwinter]

I said that people who believed it was their right to own a slave.

A look at the modern political landscape shows that there are still poor white people willing to sacrifice their interests for the interests of the monied few.

It is clear that the Southern way of life was under attack from the Civil War to the present. By the semicentennial after the Civil War, Plessy v Ferguson was decided and the 14th and 15th amendments were passed.

In this decade, the anti-gun way of life has gone under attack as well. McDonald and Heller are the judicial examples. States have relaxed previous limitations.

 

[ghostwriter]

wow... I wish I had paid better attention in grade school to my history. You guys are incrdible. I've learned more about that portion of our history than I can remember from school. Honestly... no kidding.
What would this country be like if the North had lost?

 

[1911Tuner]

Honestly... no kidding.
What would this country be like if the North had lost?

Had it not been preserved, I doubt we would be having a free discussion here about what the Second Amendment means.

You can bet on it. Great Britain was watching with keen interest, and licking her chops at the prospect of a divided America and the opportunity that it would have presented to regain her lost colonies.

Supplying her southern "ally" with arms and materiel in hopes that the war would drag on for another 2-3 years...had they been successful, it would have been a simple matter to step in and occupy an exhausted and war-weary Confederacy under the guise of providing security for the new nation with a massive military buildup...and the United States of America would have had an enemy to deal with...not 3,000 miles away...but many within artillery range...and you can be sure that these factors didn't escape Lincoln's notice. So, he may have made it about slavery in order to gain public support for an increasingly unpopular war...but it was as much to keep Olde England on her side of the Atlantic as anything else.

It's an old strategy that the French used when they supported us in our war for independence from England. France became our ally, not because they loved us so much or even cared that we became independent or not...but to wear Great Britain down. (The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Sound familiar?)

The British surrendered at Yorktown not because they were defeated, but because they understood what France was doing, and they could no longer afford to continue to pour resources into an insurrection 3,000 miles from home...when they faced an actual threat just across the English Channel.

Divide and Conquer. It's as old as Sun Tzu.

 

[LibShooter]

What would this country be like if the North had lost?

Harry Turtledove has written a great series of novels exploring what might have happened had the USA lost the Civil War.

It starts with How Few Remain. The series is a good read.

I'm fairly certain the USA and CSA would not have been friendly neighbors for the past 150 years. Generations of small conflicts and big wars would have eroded the prosperity and freedom on both sides. Nations constantly at war tend to do away with luxuries like a free press and an armed civilian population. They also attract dictators.

I'm glad we didn't try this experiment in real life.

 

[1911Tuner]

Harry Turtledove has written a great series of novels exploring what might have happened had the USA lost the Civil War.

Upon arriving at Gettysburg, had Lee listened to Longstreet and occupied Little Round Top and Seminary Ridge...it could have very well gone that way. I've often wondered how Robert E. Lee...inarguably one of the finest tacticians who ever drew breath...could have made such an amateurish blunder. Occupying the high ground if possible is pretty much War 101.

One thing that I'm sure of...If the south had won, life in America would be a much different proposition than it is...and it wouldn't have been a better one.

 

[CraigC]

The main point I would like to make is that war was not the answer. As a nation we (yes, We) had lost our ability to compromise. The republic gave way to democracy and majority rule. One side sought to impose themselves on the other. Rather than finding a peaceful solution, Lincoln chose war. His blunder, which was much bigger than Lee's at Seminary Ridge, was that he assumed it would be a very short affair. Which it clearly was not. It's not about who would've or should've won, it's that the war was completely unnecessary in the first place and the most destructive event in our history.

It was not about slavery, as we have been brainwashed into believing. If it were, it was the silliest plan to bring about its end in world history. If you want to know what Lincoln really thought about slavery, read his own words. He did not care about slavery as an institution. He did not care about their individual freedom. He did not care about their rights. He wanted them shipped off to Africa or Haiti. Abolishing slavery was a strategic move and the freed slaves were used as political pawns.

The scariest thing about it is how easy it was to erode our rights and expand the powers of government and we let it happen. All in the name of the greater good. Kind of like, well, I don't know, the Patriot Act. As a people we must remain vigilant and remember that "trading a little liberty for a little temporary safety" is never a good thing. We must also remember Thomas Paine when he said that government, in its very best form, is a necessary evil. Ours has become a monster and we let it happen. The 2nd Amendment is all that stands between what little freedom we have left and absolute tyranny and socialism.

 

[1911Tuner]

Craig...You've done your homework well. The War Between the States is probably the most misunderstood event in our history, but the schools don't teach the truth...if they even were aware of it to begin with.

The 2nd Amendment is all that stands between what little freedom we have left and absolute tyranny and socialism.

And that's the absolute truth...and those who would circumvent it understand that as well as we do.