About the most worthless amendment to the US constitution.
Avedon Carol, as a postscript to one of her typical terrific long posts (this one about real libertarians vs. the fascists in libertarian skins), asks if people really think that the Second Amendment will be allowed to stand under the New American Fascism.
Of course it will. The Evil Party figured this out a long time ago; If you think that the GOP has been supporting the NRA's switchover from being a gun ownership association to being just another Evil Party vote generator because this is the one case where they actually give a fuck about the Bill of Rights, you've missed the point. The wingnut argument that gunz will protect us from the evil government!™ is nonsense, even if you discount the teeny detail that the wingnuts will make this statement and then go out and vote for the party that puts the evil in evil government.
The Branch Davidians had guns. They had lots of guns, all approved by the government. And they used them when Janet Reno came knock-knocking at their doors:
Well, that didn't work as planned. And, what's worse than that, nobody gave a damn that they were murdered by the US government.
MOVE had guns. But they were noisy neighbors, and they used their guns when the Philadelphia police came knock-knocking at their door:
Ooops. I'm sure their neighbors didn't mind having their houses burned down when the City of Philadelphia bombed the MOVE house, killing 11 people and burning down 61 rowhouses.
The second amendment doesn't matter. I realized this when the US government attacked the Branch Davidian compound and the first reaction I heard from conservative coworkers and conservatives on the net was "those kooks had it coming!" As long as the press is willing to paint anyone the government kills as irrational kooks, a large part of the population, including the self-proclaimed patriots who will use their gunz!™ to "protect" themselves against the evil government™, will happily go along with the program (and, once the pesky freedom of the press amendment is abolished, the US Government Propaganda Office will ensure that none of the inconvenient details will disturb the blissful ignorance of the masses.)
The Evil Party abolish the second amendment? Not a chance. The most worthless amendment of all only works to drive gun-toting sheep into the Evil Party sheepfold, and there's no way the Coward in Chief will be allowed to kill the sheep which can be sheared so profitably every election season.
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Disagreed. There was a political cost to what happened in Waco, and with more guns and a more mature internet/readership, it might have made the U.S. raid prohibitively expensive.
You cite two instances where the government overcame inferior firepower. I say, 'so what?' I can name 15 million more. Just because governments can blow away civilians doesn't mean they can't be deterred.
One of the things that kept Jeb from further escalating the Schiavo situation is his awareness that U.S. citizens have guns - lots of the them - and they use them. He knew that the crazies running around threatening federal judges was all fun and games for the rest of the country, but that he was going to be the politico who had to deal with it. Politicos are risk-averse. Introducing an armed citizenry into the mix has an inherrent deterrent effect against government power that is very real. This deterrent effect is no different than media outlets suffering from incessant 'liberal media' label badgering - the media start to self-police, being sure not to offend any powerful people too much. Similarly, Jeb knows that it's a slippery slope from armed raids on a hospice facility to armed citizen uprisings in the streets. He knows that violent government power and an armed citizenry is a dangerous mix. He self-policed, I would argue, in part because of an armed citizenry.
I also think there's a great deterrent effect on individual politicians. What they say, how they say it. If there were no guns in America, I bet we'd get a whole lot more genocidal talk from both sides of the aisle than we already get.
Don't doubt it for a second. Guns still have great influence in deterring government overreach. Hopefully those guns won't be on the side of the State when it all goes down...
Yes, the 2nd Amendment - I got no problems there. Of course, I've never heard the NRA argue for their 2nd Amendment rights based on protection from the government. If you have, please help a brother out - I'm anxious to see an ad or anything from them that is no pro-State. If I had seen such material from the NRA in the past, I might have been convinced years ago that their position was the correct one - or less wrong than some would think.
p.s. methinks that armed citizens in Iraq wouldn't be faring as well as they are against American forces if it weren't for their nice supply of guns. not that they're doing 'well', but they're in a much stronger position thanks to their guns.
and methinks there's a reason folks started floating headlines about Iran arming all its citizens with guns - sure, America, you can take our country, but you're going to have to take it not city by city, not neighborhood by neighborhood, nor even block by block, but house by house. Of course, the Bushies only want control of Iranian oil, not another 'flypaper' scenario, so the whole guns scenario over there seems insignificant in terms of the U.S. bombing (doh!), I mean, working with Iran this summer. But the whole U.S.-getting-its-ass-kicked-in-Vietnam/Iraq thing is not lost on the citizens of other target countries of U.S. imperialism. They now know what's necessary to beat the U.S. Some thought Vietnam might just have been a fluke - not anymore. It may take 15 years of hell, and you will, in all likelihood lose your life as you know it today, but you can remove America from your soil. The Ghandi approach is always a nice option, but it's not likely to deter invasion. Guns might. If you think about it, Iraq, with its armed citizens, is already helping to shape the next century. Sure, a superior power can invade another country, but there's a price to pay - a heavy one - if that invaded country has armed citizens.
I don't think the Iraqi resistance is helped much by every house having their own guns; the complete and utter cockup that was the US invasion (yes, we took over the country. Yayy imperialism! But it would have been useful to do things like, um, use enough troops to protect the armouries so that they weren't a 7-11 for the resistance to shop at in the months before the whole affair went competely to hell) helped a lot more.
When you talk about "a more mature internet/readership", my uncharitable reaction is "and I'd like a pony." Even with the 200 million handguns that flooded into this country over the past 30 years the US government still has a monopoly on firepower. You can take your home-modified assault weapon and maybe take out a dozen local policement, but the National Guard can turn around and drop 100 gallons of not-legally-napalm on your compound without even breaking a sweat.
SOON THIS WILL BE A ONE MAN GOVERNMENT, BUSH AND HIS CREW WANT WORLD DOMINATION REASEACH ABOUT THE SKULL AND BONES AND THE ILLUMINATI THE GOVERNMENT WILL KIDNAP YOU AN USE YOUR BODY FOR AN EXPIREMENT HURRICANE KATRINA AND RITA WERE MANMADE JUST LIKE THE TSUMANI THEY ARE CURRENTLY PLANNING WORLD WAR 3 BUSH IS A LIAR 9/11 WA A GREAT CONSPIRACY IT WAS ALL PLANNED TO TIGHTEN UP SECURITY SO THE GOVERNMENT CAN BECOME MORE NOSY THEY WORSHIP SATAN THEY WERE DOWN WITH HITLER THEY WANT TO KILL US THEY WANT TO REDUCE THE WORLD POPULATION FROM 6 BILLION TO PREFERABLE 1 BILLION SOON WE ALL WILL HAVE TO GET CHIPS IN OUR BODY SO THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS WHERE WE GO AND WHAT WE DO, THEY ARE PLANNING MORE SECRET ATTACKS AROUND THE WORLD OPEN YOUR EYES AND READ THE WHITE HOUSE MUST BE DESTROYED AS WELL AS AREA 51 WHERE THEY BUILD SECRET WEAPONS AND THEY HAVE THE CURE TO EVERY DISEASE THEY STARTED THE BIRD FLU AND HIV SO WE CAN PERISH QUICKER
You folks need to get jobs. Way to much bad mouthing. At least offer a solution once in a while.
I don’t think you understand the point of my post. I’m not asking for “solutions”, I’m pointing out that the Evil Party is taking advantage of the gun nuts and won’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs when having 200 million handguns sloshing around doesn’t effect them at all.
If you want “solutions”, there are plenty of solutions_ out there. Perhaps you should go and find one of them?
For those of you that want the second amendment abolished, keep in mind one simple truth. We have the right to protect ourselves from the government and all people who attempt to take away our basic liberties and our pursuit of happiness. Second paragraph, US constitution. Chew on that lefty.
I noticed the most recent comment fairly late, so a specific response would be pretty pointless. But for future readers I would strongly recommend that before lunging off into some stupid GOA-style rant about guns “protecting” you from the government that you first read the original post, and consider that the executive summary is “If the second amendment mattered, it wouldn’t be there.” Really. Ask David Koresh, who discovered that his perfectly legal under the laws of the United States and Texas armory was worth about as much as a bucket of cold piss when the United States government decided to rid themselves of that pesky priest.
It’s particularly delicious when a gun nut comes here and rants about “the liberals” when the liberals aren’t running the country. Those rights that are being stripped away are being done by the people the gun nuts helped vote in, and once the government decides to go after the gun nuts, all the B*sh-worship in the world won’t protect you from the people you voted for.
The gun nuts are being manipulated like puppets, and everybody but them knows it. Think of it as evolution in action.
Ahem. One more followup. On September 28th, the Republican Party passed legislation which waives habeas corpus and allows torture at the president’s pleasure (S. 3930.) Where were the armies of outraged gun nuts demanding restoration of their rights?
Sure, go ahead and bleat all you want about the second amendment protecting you from the government.
The second amendment has served its purpose; like a sheepdog, it rounded up all the bleating gun-nut sheep and delivered them to the GOP slaughterhouse. And that’s just what your masters in the Republican Party planned;
They don’t care what you say as long as you keep falling to your knees when they crack the whip.
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I suspect that the Evil Party has also worked out that there are plenty of people whose only barometer of freedom is whether they are allowed to keep their guns. As long as they're scanning the horizon for the black helicopters, assault rifle slung over their shoulders, they won't notice the real freedoms they've lost.