In fairness, I asked for the quotes. Actually... I asked for references to the papers, since I prefer to read quotes in context. But if I have the quotes, I'm sure I'll be able to track down the original sources.

@Draugnar
Thanks especially for the SCOTUS decision. Although, as Stevens points out in the dissent, SCOTUS held in US vs. Miller that the right to possess a firearm must have "reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia". Rest assured, I'll read the decision and both published dissents thoroughly.

@hecks - I was being a bit tongue in cheek.

In answer to your question 'is a well regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state?' it may be possible that security of a free state is protected by a well arm militia, but is it necessary? I would say that there are many free states around the world that do not rely on the private ownership of guns. It may be that these free states can only exist without guns in peace time and until they are tested with tyranny. Until we get to the end of time, I suppose we will never know.

Yeah... I didn't read the attribution on your quote until after I responded.

As to the necessity of a well regulated militia, I tend to agree with your reasoning, but I understand that there may be those who don't, and I welcome elaboration on their points of view, particularly on your point emphasizing the word "necessary". *coughmichiganmancough*
Perhaps they would argue that the United States is not presently a free state, or that it does not presently enjoy adequate security. I think others would (and have here, previously) made their cases to that effect.

If people contend that the USA isn't free then the current lax gun laws clearly haven't met their objective.

I mentioned earlier the intent behind the constitution, that being to create a peace and tranquil state. If America isn't at peace with its self again maybe it's time to change our thinking.

There are those who argue (loudly) that the US is not free. There are also those who would argue that it is not secure. I am not among them, but they are out there.

@ Hecks -
"If you're talking about disbanding (most of) the army and replacing it with a citizen militia, would it then would it stand to reason that the "well regulated" part means we'd have registration of firearms? If so, you may be heading toward a model I could see being constitutional, in theory, though it's rather semantic, since you will never get the US to disband its professional army, no matter what section one article eight says."

In brief, yes, I am talking about massively downscaling the size of the U.S. military, particularly weaponry that lends itself to foreign adventures. And sure, I can see a statewide registry as being part of that system. The founders' vision of a militia is that they would be raised by the states as part of the checks and balances system.

Your last sentence is perhaps most indicative of the major problems the U.S. faces: "no matter what section one article eight says."
We seem to be in a position where ordinary citizens do not expect (or want?) our politicians to uphold the constitution on this and many other issues. That means that, fundamentally, we are a lawless nation - and *that* is precisely why the founders put the second amendment in the constitution. They envisioned a time when lawlessness might reign, and citizens would need more than ever the right to keep and bear arms.

So if Nigee, Maniac and our other European friends want to make fun of us for something, I think they should make fun of us for not being able to follow our own constitution. Their carrying on about guns is mostly ignorance and bigotry, but we're wide open to criticism on our lawlessness.

@FlemGem,
I think, rather along the same lines, that the primary problem is not our inability to follow the Constitution, but our inability to change that document to fit the times in which we live.
We lack either the political will, the political courage, the political engagement, or the political common ground to update the Constitution when it needs updating with appropriate amendments. The last successful amendment to be proposed was 1971 (yes, I realize 27 passed in 1992, but it was submitted for ratification in 1789).

People want the results they want, but don't want to take the time to fight, argue, and advocate for them, so instead the courts change their interpretation or the executive branch simply refuses to enforce the laws they don't like.

@Hecks -
Yes, I think that's a fair evaluation. The consitution is too hard to change - or we're too impatient or divided or self-centered or lazy - so we can't live under it. We've got some solid agreement on this one.

@FlemGem
"We've got some solid agreement on this one."
You're right. We do. For some reason that makes me want to go take a shower.

@Hecks
Huh, I didn't realize I was so repugnant. Or maybe it's agreeing with someone that's so repugnant?

@hecks,

Unfortunately, the Genie that is the firearm cannot be put back into the lamp of innovation from whence it came -- and It's woefully naive and childish to fashion policy around the notion that it can be. America, as GW, TJ and PH so eloquently pointed out, was a nation wrested out of the arms of tyranny by the GUN! So much so that the right to bear arms is codified in our foundational document. All rights have downsides -- the right to free speech enables the KKK and the Neo Nazis to rally speak despite their despicable tenets. Guns kill, but they save innocent lives as well. Get over your fear, and stop trying to save everyone.

Once more unto the breach:

@semck:

"I couldn't disagree more. This robs the Nazis and their generation of Germans for the responsibility that is uniquely theirs."

In what way? I mean, they were uniquely evil and their actions and The Final Solution was uniquely terrible whether or not another nation was capable of such an action as well...to put it another way, that the Holocaust COULD have happened with another country and another leader does not at all diminish the responsibility laid at the feet of those who DID actually do the deed, namely, Hitler and the Nazis.

"Did earlier generations of Germans set them up for it through abominable behavior and words? Absolutely. But was it inevitable to the point that it couldn't have been avoided? No. Not even close."

I obviously disagree, but go on...

"The earlier generations, after all, had so far resisted whatever temptation they may have felt to butcher millions of their Jewish compatriots."

1. Look the The Middle Ages...they didn't "resist the temptation" then...

2. That they hadn't yet turned to a holocaust-level cleansing doesn't invalidate my point, in fact, I'd argue it validates my idea that they were building to this sad end--after all, in most cases in world history where there have been two factions, one despising the other, it's comparatively rare for the one to leap right to genocide...usually there's decades or centuries of discrimination and racism and bigotry and unfair laws and ghettos and beatings and escalations before ethnic cleansing begins in full--such was the case in Germany.

(It's also worth pointing out the obvious, namely, that "Germany" as a single entity obviously didn't even EXIST for most of European history, but rather as a collection of different Prussian states, so it could well be argued that even if the hatred was there against the Jews, the organization and resources needed for such an en masse extermination as the Holocaust couldn't have been realized--thankfully--for all those centuries in small agrarian Prussian states...after Germany unifies in the 1800s, it's only a little less than 150 years before they DO initiate the Holocaust, so on the one hand, pressure was building up over the centuries, and on the other, Germany was now being unified and needed to reconcile its radically different factions, and thus in the same way artists like Wagner sought to over-emphasize the whole "Aryan" aspect and correspondingly jab at Jewishness for being "other" to this new idea German-ness, the German state can be seen as having done this...so all that takes time, adds even more pressure, and thus...)

And a quick

3. As for "butcher[ing] their Jewish compatriots," while I don't want to over-generalize, it is worth noting that, as stated above, by the 1900s many Germans DID see the Jews as being "other" to German-ness; rather than their being real "compatriots" to them, they were perhaps more like tenants sharing the same apartment as them, who they disliked but didn't feel they could do much about besides be increasingly rude and bigoted...until a certain someone and his Reich popped up--

Which is WHY saying that the Holocaust was inevitable does NOT diminish Hitler's crime or diminish the Nazis as villains; just because we can imagine a Hitler figure popping up in an alternate France that LOST WWI and hates its Jews about as much as the Germans hated theirs, and thus say that no matter who won WWI, very probably, the Jews were sadly sure to lose, regardless, that's still simply playing the fantastical "What if?" game, and DOES NOT take away from the REALITY of the situation, namely, that it was Germany and Hitler and NOT France and some French Hitler that did the deed.

@MichiganMan:

"Armed Jews might not have stopped the Holocaust cold, but it would certainly have been an impediment. Again, read Solzenitzen (sp?), those that actually did the rounding up would think twice if their units received armed resistance. Would it have stopped the Nazis? Likely no. But, if they're going to kill you anyway, why not make then pay a price and hope that the price becomes too dear?"

Because quite frankly, that last sentence gives away the foolishness of that statement--

"Hope the price becomes too dear?"

You're talking about isolated pockets of Jews, surrounded by citizens who don't like them (and are ALSO armed) taking on the Nazi army, one of the most formidable armies and outright killing machines of modern times, with pistols and shotguns, maybe. and hoping THAT will make "the price too dear" to people who were willing to expend so much fuel, gas, time and energy in death camps INSTEAD of using those resources to fight their war for world domination?

Really?

These are people who have a thousand years of hatred flowing through them...
Who are taking resources away from fighting the single largest conflict in human history because they want to kill you THAT MUCH...
SO MUCH they're willing to sacrifice all that time and energy and resources in killing you...

With, again, one of the most frightful killing machines of modern times in the Nazi army...

And you really, REALLY think isolated pockets of Jews being attacked by that AND citizens who hate them AS WELL (as citizens took part in Kristallnacht as well as soldiers) will be able to make "the price too dear" to that immense horde of tens of millions?

Especially when they're fighting with MAYBE pistols and shotguns against machine guns and (for the time) military-grade rifles, grenades, bombs, tanks and so on?

...

It's that kind of ludicrousness from the pro-gun lobby that's frankly insulting in regards to the "if the Jews had guns" scenario.

The idea that ANY price would've been "too dear" for these people...
The idea that ANY amount of realistic resistance could have stopped or slowed it...
The idea that ANY amount of guns could have saved the Jews...

These are people sacrificing from their war effort to kill on the side...
These are people willing to develop whole new ways of killing just for the Jews...
These are people who were perfectly find giving Jews over for experimentation and torture, who were fine gassing them, shooting them, burning them...

You REALLY THINK that's going to be stopped?

I'll say it, for the record--

EVEN IF EVERY LAST JEW IN GERMANY HAD HAD A MILITARY-GRADE RIFLE...

The Holocaust wouldn't only have still happened, if anything, it'd have been WORSE, because then such a conflict risks appearing almost legitimate to the rest of the world, rather than appearing as what it was, a massacre the likes of which the world must never see again...

France, Britain, Russia, the US--

NONE of these nations went to war to save the Jews as it was...the US even turned away some refugees...

These nations ALREADY took a long, long, LONG time to help the helpless, wholly-victimized Jews...do you think they'd have come even as "quickly" as they DID when Germany could have claimed to be putting down an illegitimate rebellion fostered by people these countries already didn't even like?

Let alone the fact that the Holocaust was deadly enough with it being a massacre, introduce more weapons of war into this and not only do you get the deaths in the death camps but deaths in the field, so the death toll rises, as (and here's where I again point out I'm not diminishing their role in this by saying the Holocaust could have happened elsewhere under other circumstances)--

These were the NAZIS they would have been facing.

Give the Jews rifles, and watch as grenades, rockets, bombs, planes and tanks do even MORE damage to the Jewish people, watch the death toll rise even more.

The only difference might have been more dead Nazis--

And frankly, I'll trade less dead Jews for more Nazis left alive for OTHER nations to kill, thank you very much.

@Draugnar:

"Please tell me where I said the holocaust could have been averted? Please tell me where I even referred to all the Jews having guns meaning jack shit? I referred to the Jews in the Belorussian forest who *did* arm themselves and caused a hell of a lot of hassle for the Nazi pricks trying to kill them and asked if they, as Maniac has implied, should have obeyed the law and just let themselves be slaughtered."

1. Your question, thus, was a loaded one, and
2. I prefaced MY comment by saying something to the effect of "I don't know if you're of this view or not, but OTHERS have stated it and so I'm taking this nonsensical argument on," though
3. I recall thinking your phrasing implied thinking to that end, but
4. If that wasn't your line of argument then refer yourself to that prefacing statement

"As Conan said (paraphrased and shortened) "Crom, no one will remember who fought here today or who won or lost. What matters is that few stood against many...""

And once again, in matters of genocide, we drag up Conan the Barbarian...

From 1 Samuel to the Holocaust, debates on these matters and the Conan quoting is ruining a very fun-if-campy Arnie movie for me... ;)

To the actual quote, I suppose I just reiterate my point above about the imaginary situation in which the Jews all had rifles--

It wouldn't have stopped it,
It'd have just lead to more deaths on both sides,
And I'll trade Jewish lives for Nazis lives, as there were others to kill the Nazis--

6 million is a high enough death toll, I'd rather not make it 6.5 or more because of doomed stand...

Call me a coward if you will--

I'll take more Jews living to flee another day to another land than dying in Germany with only a hollow word or two about "honor" in an honor-less age to comfort the families of the dead.

The Yiddish language as a main second/third language in Europe and so much Jewish literature and culture already perished in the Holocaust...

6 million died.

That's not even "quite enough," that far, far too many dead--more need not die, for ANY reason.

@Maniac:

"I think that most people believe it was right to stand up to the Nazi[s]"

And it was.

I'm just saying more need not have died in a vain, doomed attempt, especially when the death toll was already so high.

"What the gun lobby want us to accept is x amount of certain deaths now is worth the price of saving y amounts of possible deaths later."

And I'll ALWAYS argue that's not at all the case, and an error in thinking--

Accepting deaths that ARE in the hope of preventing deaths that MIGHT happen.

"Why do America have a constitution? Isn't it to insure domestic peace and tranquility? If the second amendment doesn't serve the purpose for which it was designed to do, surely it needs to be re-thought?"

YES.
THANK YOU.
+1

That is EXACTLY what I argued months ago, that if the wording of the 2nd Amendment no longer is relevant or helpful (and it's not, if you're keeping guns for PERSONAL defense, pro-gun people, that's FAR different from keeping them for "A well-regulated militia," that wording indicates advocating for organized militias, NOT scattered vigilantes across the nation with a stockade "just in case," there's a key, key difference between an ORGANIZED militia to protect against tyranny and isolated stockades across the country, or a James Holmes ordering all those weapons and bullets and then carrying out his own brand of individual tyranny against his victims) we should have a new Amendment to deal with it in the same way we dealt with other outdated things written into our laws (counting blacks as 3/5 of a person, ending slavery, ending Prohibition, etc...key--I AM *NOT* saying we should then repeal the right to own guns, but rather redefine what it means to own guns rightfully and responsibly and redefine that right to defense for the 21st century, as an 18th century understanding of it is no less arcane and hopelessly outdated--hence our dilemma--than that 3/5 "Compromise.)

@Obi - Two words for you - Guerilla Warfare. It's what the Belorussian Jews did and it works. When your enemy is determined to exterminate you, take some fo them with you. My Conan quote is actually very apropos as Conan had no clue if he would win or lose. He just knew he had to make a stand and not go to the slaughter voluntarily. He lost his father. He lost his mother. He lost his childhood. He even lost the love of his life. Someone was going to pay if they wanted to take his life.

"'Why do America have a constitution? Isn't it to insure domestic peace and tranquility? If the second amendment doesn't serve the purpose for which it was designed to do, surely it needs to be re-thought?'

"YES.
"THANK YOU.
"+1"

Here's the full quote:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Notice the part about "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"? Yeah -- don't leave that out.

"That is EXACTLY what I argued months ago, that if the wording of the 2nd Amendment no longer is relevant or helpful ... we should have a new Amendment to deal with it in the same way we dealt with other outdated things written into our laws"

That is at least a reasonable and just opinion. I certainly disagree, and strongly, but you point out the right way to go about it -- change the amendment, don't just ignore it. Too often people forget that there's an amendment process, and that they are not allowed to bypass it.

As for our holocaust argument: I continue to disagree -- it wasn't inevitable at all, not till the first gas chamber was turned on; people have choices to make, and they can always turn back, however much historical PRESSURE there may be on them not to. I think I've made my point though, and will let your response to this close that sub-discussion (unless you raise a radically new point).

@Obi,

Get over yourself and your lame ass historical absolutism. If you're going to be hearted to the slaughter like cattle why not fight? Would it make a difference? It would to the men who I took with me to the grave. The German people hated the Jews, but they didn't fear the Jews. Killing those that come to kill you has a way of making people stop and think long and hard about their actions. The nazis were able to methodically implement their Final Solution because the population they targeted was so passive and unwilling to fight, even when faced with their own inevitable demise.

So yeah, you're a coward. You're a Jew aren't you? To claim that fighting the Nazis would have caused more death and that that is unacceptable is crap. When the Einzengruppen first started the killing there were no camps, just death squads shooting people and dumping them into pits. If these men were met with violent resistance, no matter how futile, the genocide they were attempting would have been slowed. There was no resistance, unfortunately, and they were emboldened. Finding bullets too expensive, slow, and the method too psychologically taxing, the Nazis in true German spirit pushed for ever greater genocidal efficiency. All this was enabled because the outside world didn't care and the persecuted didn't fight back.

And Obi - I saw your prefix, but you replied to my post and you even state you thought I had that point of view. I don't. I don't even necessarily think any single Jew should have raised a hand to those who would kill them. That is a personal choice based on one's personal moral code.

I truly was trying to tell maniac that the right to defend oneself by whatever means necessary is a natural right. That is why not only were the Belorussian Jews an example, but the slaves who took over the Amistad as well. Both were in violation of the laws someone believed they were obligated to obey. Both were absolutely correct in their actions. This does not mean a pacifist is incorrect. The two are not at odds.

@Michigan, there's no call for fighting language. "Coward" is a serious insult and until a man's mettle has been tested in a crisis, there's no basis upon which to issue it.

And an unarmed man who stands in front of a tank and refuses to move is not a coward. He may be a damned fool, but never a coward.

I found this a powerful argument:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/01/28/gun-laws-and-the-fools-of-chelm-by-david-mamet.html

"Notice the part about "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"? Yeah -- don't leave that out."

And where in that language do you read "And you may secure that liberty by means of assault weapons and armor-piercing bullets and other such weapons which We Founders, whom you all love to quote in an attempt to back your attempts, have no clue about and could not have known about--nevertheless, be our guest!"

That's a vague, flowery, idealistic platitude, NOT any real or concrete-worded justification or defense for your SPECIFIC stance.

"That is at least a reasonable and just opinion. I certainly disagree, and strongly, but you point out the right way to go about it -- change the amendment, don't just ignore it. Too often people forget that there's an amendment process, and that they are not allowed to bypass it."

Fair enough. :)

"As for our holocaust argument: I continue to disagree -- it wasn't inevitable at all, not till the first gas chamber was turned on; people have choices to make, and they can always turn back, however much historical PRESSURE there may be on them not to. I think I've made my point though, and will let your response to this close that sub-discussion (unless you raise a radically new point)."

I think it's now been Godwinned to death (no pun intended) so yeah...

I maintain that a Holocaust-like event was pretty much unavoidable given the socio-economic and religious culture of Continental Europe, though it didn't have to take the form it took...but we can agree to disagree and leave it there.

@MM:

"So yeah, you're a coward."

Because I'll take more women and children alive rather than their dying for some "principle?"

"You're a Jew aren't you?"
Yep."
"To claim that fighting the Nazis would have caused more death and that that is unacceptable is crap."
I'm claiming that THE JEWS fighting the Nazis, when they were isolated and hopelessly outmatched would have caused more death...not to mention they're, well, civilians...yeah...women and children, they're not usually whizzes with rifles and guerrilla warfare, and even if they were, I'd rather them alive than dead, especially when the British and Americans and Russians and (to be fair) French Resistance were ALL fighting the Nazis.

"When the Einzengruppen first started the killing there were no camps, just death squads shooting people and dumping them into pits. If these men were met with violent resistance, no matter how futile, the genocide they were attempting would have been slowed."

My turn to say a point is crap--

Do you honestly mean to suggest that a people which had a historical hatred against the Jews dating back nearly a thousand years, which had so many of its prominent artists and thinkers and politicians alike all calling the Jews out for centuries, a people that were willing, AGAIN, to waste bullets and then gas and fuel and metal and manpower systematically murdering people as well as destroying all semblances of their culture...

You REALLY think some Jews with pistols was going to stop that?

If so, that's not only laughably absurd, it borders on the insulting, as if indicating the Jews could have escaped their own fate if ah! alas! if ONLY they'd embraced that holy, God-granted right to own a large firearm and wield it, untrained, at others rather than try and flee for their lives from a people and society poisoned against them for centuries politically, artistically, intellectually, professionally, religiously (if you were a Catholic German, the RC Church preached that the Jews living and dead were responsible for deicide and maintained that stance until 1964, and if you were Lutheran/Protestant, well, good old Martin Luther hated the Jews as well, so either way you hated the Jews on that most dangerous of levels, a religious one).......

You honestly think that millenia of hatred towards the Jews in Europe was going to be slowed by a few women or untrained men and children with small arms against one of the most well-armed killing machines of the last century?

If so, quite frankly, sir, you're a short-sighted fool, and there's no nice way to put that.

"There was no resistance, unfortunately, and they were emboldened."

They were not emboldened, they had no NEED to be emboldened, they were in this for genocidal purposes full-stop (save wild ideas such as relocating the Jews to Madagascar or other fringe concepts.)

I'm sorry to say that you have a GROSS misunderstanding of how social strife and bigotry affects people, how that becomes part of one's national and ethnic and personal identity and builds and festers over centuries, and how that is NOT all suddenly prevented by a few vigilantes with firearms.

Quite frankly, you sound like a firearm fundamentalist and a fool, someone who thinks a gun in anyone's hand can solve any problem--after all, if it could have prevented or slowed the Holocaust, what ethnic cleansing COULDN'T it have prevented, as the Holocaust is kind of the grand-daddy of them all (again, not to belittle the African Slave Trade or Trail of Tears-style treatment of the Native Americans.)

Guns don't solve social strife--

Guns ARE sometimes legitimate tools for defense, but the Holocaust was indefensible, full-stop...

And if you REALLY think that a people who devoted that much manpower, time, energy, and so on to the systematic extermination of the Jews and European-Jewish culture, who had tanks and machine guns and bombs and grenades and flamethrowers and planes and all the other terrors of modern war, if you REALLY think that these people were going to be in any way "slowed" by a few Jewish mothers, fathers and children with pistols...

You're proposing the genocide equivalent of slowing a massive landslide by placing a few paper towels in the way.

I'd go so far as to say "resistance" would have emboldened the German CITIZENS to get involved, as after all, once you start killing, you can now be held--rightly or not--culpable in the public eye...so when you start killing German soldiers, German civilians, then, will begin to attack you...even more so than before, as now even those who sympathized and did NOT attack you might be persuaded that you're taking violent action against "the boys in uniform."

"All this was enabled because the outside world didn't care and the persecuted didn't fight back."

All this was enabled because of 1,000+ years of hatred towards the Jews in Europe...

A great deal of which you can thank Medieval Christianity for (but to be fair to modern Christians, there's a GREAT deal that I daresay many modern Christians would agree Medieval Christianity/Islam have to answer for.)

The outside world didn't care as they were prejudiced, or else had their own problems...

And the persecuted didn't fight back because they were terrified, innocent civilians with NO CHANCE and wanted to--here's a shocker--flee and try to LIVE rather than die, guns in hand, in a vain attempt at some kind of symbolic statement...

And to suggest mothers and children should have tried to fight with pistols against the most powerful killing machine in the 20th century rather than flee for their lives is not only sickly and cruel, but rather easy for YOU to say from the comfort of desk chair and hunched over your laptop, sir.

@Draug:

" I saw your prefix, but you replied to my post and you even state you thought I had that point of view."

Alright, then my mistake for thinking you had that point of view, hence my putting that clause in there in case, as is the case, I was mistaken.

"This does not mean a pacifist is incorrect. The two are not at odds."

To be clear:

I'm not a pacifist.
If everyone will recall the latest Israeli/Hamas conflict, I was backing Israel there.
If I think the cause is just (or at least if one side is more just than the other) and that the situation has deteriorated to the point where violence is necessary and (here's the key part, Michigan Man) WILL ACTUALLY BE REALISTICALLY EFFECTIVE TO THOSE EMPLOYING IT, then I'll back it.

There's a difference between that, though, and the thought (which you don't share, apparently, Draug, but many still do, as seen by this debate) that "if only" the Jews had had some guns to "fight back," the Holocaust might have been averted.

That's not realistic, and in that instance, it IS better for you to try and flee with your children to safety than to stay and fight in what is a doomed cause.

There is NO SHAME in saying "It's a whole army against us, and the kids are scared, let's exercise the better part of valor and try and escape and save our kids because, quite frankly, this isn't a fight we can win, and I want to give my kids a chance to live."

I challenge ANY parent here to dispute that.

I challenge anyone here who is a parent or who aspires to be one to honestly say they'd rather fight a hopeless fight, die, and risk the lives of their kids on a "principle" than admit the truth, that even someone as classically braver and skilled a fighter as Hector or Sirs Lancelot or Gawain or Aeneas would risk their children's lives for a hopeless cause.

Hell, Aeneas does just that--

He, the great hero of "The Aeneid" who fights for Troy and later helps "found" the Roman civilization, realizes that Troy is burning, the day is lost, he's hopelessly outnumbered by the Greeks, and so he escapes from Troy with some Trojan refugees and, yes, his son, rather than go out in "a blaze of glory" and see his son die.

What parent wouldn't do the same?

"And where in that language do you read "And you may secure that liberty by means of assault weapons and armor-piercing bullets and other such weapons which We Founders, whom you all love to quote in an attempt to back your attempts, have no clue about and could not have known about--nevertheless, be our guest!"

In the second amendment -- duh. :)

But really, it's not in the preamble, you're right. The point is....

"That's a vague, flowery, idealistic platitude, NOT any real or concrete-worded justification or defense for your SPECIFIC stance."

Sure, but another part of the preamble was being taken and used for a substantive point by... let me think, who was that again... OH YES! YOU! The point is, if you focus on only the "tranquility" part of the preamble, you'll be able to justify things that you might not if you also remember the "liberty" portion. You're right, of course -- once you realize you can't justify very much of anything specific from the preamble, you have to leave it and go back to other things. But my preamble point was a corrective to yours.

"He, the great hero of "The Aeneid" who fights for Troy and later helps "found" the Roman civilization, realizes that Troy is burning, the day is lost, he's hopelessly outnumbered by the Greeks, and so he escapes from Troy with some Trojan refugees and, yes, his son, rather than go out in "a blaze of glory" and see his son die."

Hi, classical scholar here, just want to make a small correction here. Aeneas would not have died in the Trojan War, whether he stayed on the battlefield, fled, was captured, or other. He was destined to live, it was what the Fates had measured out for him. The Romans considered this his Genius (hard g, gin-ee-us), the divine destiny that descended on him at birth. Twice in the Iliad he is saved by the gods (once from Achilles, Iliad 20.291-340). He didn't just leave, he was being direct by fate. He fought godlike Achilles, greatest Greek warrior. He was dead to rights if not for fate.

^Yes, I know he was destined to live according to the story...

My point was that from a humanist perspective, the man chooses to leave and not go for some "bold" Alamo-style stand and risk his child.

You're right, in the story he's directed by fate, my point is more figurative and thematic than literal...in any case, I think we can agree even sans the fate Aeneas wouldn't have stayed and risked his child and his men in a lost cause, that's my point.

(As a complete and total aside, I also think that whole "fate" aspect of "The Aeneid" is one of its weaker features, I think it robs some of Aeneas' heroic agency if taken too far, and in any event, the work really begins to feel overly-repetitive when a character decides to mention for the umpteenth time that he's fated to do this...)

"Sure, but another part of the preamble was being taken and used for a substantive point by... let me think, who was that again... OH YES! YOU!"

So far the only portion of the Constitution *I* recall quoting is the 2nd Amendment...

When did I quote The Preamble to the Constitution?

Well, technically, you requoted and +1'ed it, and then built a point on it.

The OP of this thread has been bothering me for ages. Is it me being Dutch or are these sentences all ****ed up? The "Not wealthy" I don't quite get, the double "seem" literally hurt my eyes the other day.

I also think it's funny how "outside.)" should be "outside)." Is it just me?