*armless
But you get my point.

Redhouse, can you give any examples of governments like Australias who have decided to massacre their own people?

I was being sarcastic, I find the second amendment and its implications to be absolutely barbaric, but it's the Americans that like it that way, and it's their country.

"but it's the Americans that like it that way"

No, it's 48% of Americans that like it that way according to the Presidential election. I assume it's significantly less now. All it takes is 10 or 15 massacres of children and we'll be gun free!

Bo Sox, the election was not run on 2nd amendment, so stop, ok?

Show me ONE time during the election that Obama or Romeny talked about Gun Rights.

2nd amendment did not even make the top 10 of 'most important things' to Americans during the election, becausenobody dared to touch it.

Had obama went there, he probably would have got dusted badly, but he is smart, and stayed the hell away from it.

Stressed, for the large majority, party lines ends up determining your stance on things like that...

In ohio, before the election it was over 50% support of CCP in Ohio, which was higher than when Obama was elected the first time.

aS OF RIGHT NOW, today, only 26% of Americans woudl support a hand gun ban. Majority, really? 80- million homes have a gun in them, that is roughly half, so I am sure those americans support it, and tehre are plenty of people who do not own guns, who still support the 'right' to own them.

As a matter of fact, since Clinton and obama started trying to push this 'Arms Trade Treaty' from the UN, support for the 2nd amendment is going UP, not down.

If you want it changed, there is a path to revoke the 2nd amendment, feel free, although you and I both know it will not make it, or get even CLOSE.

I know plenty of Union guys here iN tennessee, who voted for Obama, but are AVID Gun owners. They would throw him under the bus in ONE second flat if he tried to take the guns.

and Bo Sox, the Democratic Party is a coalition of a lot of different groups, who are not all in step with each other.

gay groups
Enviormental Groups
Progressive/Liberals
Different minority groups
Unions

These people all want something different, but I promise if Obama attacks something that is deemed very important to one group, they will not just keep voting.

Example, West Virginia. Once a Democratic Stronghold. Now, because of the attack on Coal, they never vote for Democratic Presidents, and the Democrats they vote in at the state level, tend to be very much "Blue Dogs' and are fisical conservatives usually, which is nothing like a Liberal.

Dont think that all these grousp votes are certain things, and such a big attack on something like the 2nd amendment, will have a profound effect on the voting.

You are discussing banning handguns… I am discussing limiting semi-automatics. That's all I care about. Not a ban of anything. I find that a compromise, but in the way of the United States today, compromise doesn't seem to work.

No you were not. Ylu replied to redhouses quip about "americans like the 2nd amendment" with "not the majority of us.

It was because of the British government's policies in America that we American's adopted the 2nd amendment. It's had to not quarter troops when they have weapons and you don't.

As far as governments masacring their own. Ask the indians in America, even though they weren't "citizens" until 1924. The Kurds in Iraq and Turkey. The Israelis in Palestine and pick any African nation that has a "civil war" in the past 50 years.

had=hard

They quartered troops in empty stables. Let's get real.

You should know, you were there.

In any event, the argument that "gun laws don't work" can be safely dismissed from now on.

Both the second and third amendment are outdated. Their interpretation is at question, not their intent.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

Homicide rate and armed robbery went up after the the guns where banned. Sure mass shootings went down, but overall you were more likely to get shot in Australia after the laws where passed then before.

Australia has been used by both the right and the left to prove that gun laws do/don't work (depending on what side you're on).

The 2nd and 3rd Amendments are not outdated unless you're saying the others are too.

Well Fasces,
If you can provide a more updated version of that website, that would be very interesting..

Bo sox. Thankfully people much m
Smarter and wiser than you (thomas jefferson and george washington) to name a few disagreed with you enough to make the constitution the way they did

I don't know, if you're worried about housing soldiers in times of war and having arms in order to combat the government in case it attacks its own people, you're missing something.

Washington had little to do with the Constitution other than signing it… credit Madison, Franklin, and Jefferson. In fact, credit Madison alone for the Bill of Rights. That's his doing.

I am discussing his comments and input into it. Madison was not the only contributor to it he was simply the author/architect

Fact is all the men you mentioned do not support what you are saying and reading their memoirs will 100% leave no room for 'misinterpreting anything' .

BoSox is right.

The Bill of Rights was an afterthought in order to get the Anti-Federalists on board with what was a subpar document. People like us care about it much more than it was ever intended. The 2nd Amendment was meant to maintain and keep up militias which were never kept up, and prevent the estabilishment of a standing army which was quickly established because militias were inferior fighting forces. The quartering soldiers bit again was about standing armies and deemed irrelevant once permanent military bases were created.

redhouse did you not read my article? Half of what is says agrees with you. The point is you can spin the facts of what happened in Australia however you want.

Also Australia is not America. There are 300 million guns in the US right now, and there are so many pro-gun people that any gun control would be, in my oppinion, unsuccessful.

Fasces, does your ideology have anything to offer besides despair & defeatism? Let me know.

what are you talking about, I am more optomistic about the future then most of you guys, I just like to point how how retarded most of the ideals people have are.

I am a conservative because I am rather satisfied with the status quo. I like the way the world works right now, and innovation in our current free market makes it better.

Sure there is a lot we are doing wrong and I sometimes bitch about that, but for the most part, we are freer and better off then any generation preceding us.

"The Bill of Rights was an afterthought in order to get the Anti-Federalists on board with what was a subpar document. People like us care about it much more than it was ever intended. The 2nd Amendment was meant to maintain and keep up militias which were never kept up, and prevent the estabilishment of a standing army which was quickly established because militias were inferior fighting forces. The quartering soldiers bit again was about standing armies and deemed irrelevant once permanent military bases were created."

To add onto that, it wasn't only to get the Anti-Federalists on board, it was to make sure they voted Madison into Congress. He said that he'd get a Bill of Rights done first thing if he got in, and voila, he did, and he wrote the Bill of Rights. It was originally excluded because the framers didn't want to limit the rights of the people, but the people asked for it, so in reality, it was nothing more than a political move.

" It was originally excluded because the framers didn't want to limit the rights of the people, but the people asked for it, so in reality, it was nothing more than a political move."

This doesn't follow at all. Whenever the people want something and they're given it, it's "just a political move"? The fact is, many of the leading thinkers of the time wanted a bill of rights (some didn't sign the Constitution because of it), and as for the people, there are reasons why THEY wanted one. Those are the reasons it's there -- those are the reasons there was a political move to be made.

And it wasn't just an afterthought. It was a promise made to antifederalists to gain sufficient support for ratification. It was kind of a matter of honor that they actually pass it ASAP. Where do you get this stuff?

Hey semck welcome :-)

So are the Dutch people in danger with 22 times less guns per capita and, interestingly, a 22 times lower chance to be the victim of homocide with a firearm?

My fav youtube channel just released a video on gun control, encase people were interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRjxEAWwagc

I have a question for the gun grabbers. Obviously there are a lot of people - even a few on this forum - who will not take kindly to having their firearms seized. Many Americans will indubitably resist confiscations with force, which would certainly be handled with force in return. My question is this: how many people are you all willing to bury to get to your final objective of an America where only the government has the guns?

I never doubted the timeline of it Putin, simply what they intended when they wrote it.

"This doesn't follow at all. Whenever the people want something and they're given it, it's "just a political move"? The fact is, many of the leading thinkers of the time wanted a bill of rights (some didn't sign the Constitution because of it), and as for the people, there are reasons why THEY wanted one. Those are the reasons it's there -- those are the reasons there was a political move to be made."

It was done to make the anti-Federalists happy. Madison was working on getting himself reelected - the country had been around 11 years at this point - and said that a Bill of Rights would be first on his agenda if he got reelected. My point is that the only reason it happened is because Madison used it as a political talking point to get support.

The Constitution was going to be ratified without it. There's no dispute over that. The question is where you are getting whatever you are talking about from… mine is from what actually happened. All you have to do is look at a few dates and it becomes clear.

Most of the whole damn Constitution is outdated, every fool knows that. It's just that it's our Bible these days.

The founding fathers wouldn't know what the fuck to do with the 21st century. It's time we stopped taking their every word as sacrosanct.

I don't understand why the concept of "a well regulated militia" isn't simply redefined in 21st century terms. Everyone gets to keep their guns, except you have to be in some kind of healthy social context to own it and only people within such structures may have access to guns. That way the nutters never have access because they don't function in social contexts and there is a form of social control on gun control.

^That is also the closest you can stay to your constitution, without, you know, people getting killed all the time.

Redhouse. I hope we can find a way to define 'healthy social context' without a slippery slope scenario

I have guns. Always have had guns. Will the government find an interesting way to say Icant have them under your scenario?

You'd probably have to set an extremely loose definition for it that filters out the lone wolfs easily. I think men and women of a certain age and who have been in touch with the sentiment of having responsibility for a child of their own still make up an incredibly broad group of people, while easily filtering out the typical "lone wolf" (young, frustrated men who are essentially alone in the world). Obviously, once you have obtained the right to be in the "militia", the death of your child shouldn't mean that you lose that right. Anyways, it's none of my business, I don't even know why I'm arguing this. Sorry again.

That's what I mean redhouse. It's silly to freak out about staying inside a constitution that was set up to be changeable.

The 2nd amendment should be repealed. Failing that, we need to have a talk about how the right to own *a weapon* is not a right to own *any weapon*.

"My question is this: how many people are you all willing to bury to get to your final objective of an America where only the government has the guns?"

So you threaten to wage terroristic insurrectionary violence against those enforcing the law while simultaneously blaming those enforcing the law for the insurrectionary violence. The blood would be on your hands. And since we already know you're perfectly happy to allow children to be mowed down by gunfire every single year so that you can preserve your stupid fucking hobby, we know you have no problem wasting hundreds of thousands of more lives rather than comply with the law of the land. But don't pretend the bloodthirsty ones are us.

"I don't understand why the concept of "a well regulated militia" isn't simply redefined in 21st century terms. Everyone gets to keep their guns, except you have to be in some kind of healthy social context to own it and only people within such structures may have access to guns. That way the nutters never have access because they don't function in social contexts and there is a form of social control on gun control."

Boy, redhouse, if you want to deal with the lawsuits stemming from that, you're free….

Read the correspondence between Madison & Jefferson on the subject. It is clear that Madison himself did not think the Bill of Rights important.

I find this passage interesting:

"I have not viewed it in an important light 1. because I conceive that in a certain degree, though not in the extent argued by Mr. Wilson,(6) the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted. 2. because there is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude. I am sure that the rights of Conscience in particular, if submitted to public definition would be narrowed much more than they are likely ever to be by an assumed power. One of the objections in New England was that the Constitution by prohibiting religious tests, opened a door for Jews, Turks & infidels. 3. because the limited powers of the federal Government and the jealousy of the subordinate Governments, afford a security which has not existed in the case of the State Governments, and exists in no other. 4. because experience proves the inefficacy of a bill of rights on those occasions when its controul is most needed. Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State. In Virginia I have seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current."

>Homicide rate and armed robbery went up after the the guns where banned. Sure
>mass shootings went down, but overall you were more likely to get shot in Australia
>after the laws where passed then before.
Here's another data point based on australian bureau of statistics data:
http://guncontrol.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1995-2006-1.png
Correlation isn't causation, but it's another view of the data to consider.

Coming from a UK/Aus background I can't really comment on the US politics, many seem attached to gun ownership in a way that seems really weird to most people here.


One thing to highlight though is that we haven't actually banned guns in australia; if I wanted a gun I could still get one. You can get them for shooting as a sport, hunting (I think), if you're a farmer / professional who needs one, or if you're a collector.
Self defense isn't considered a legitimate reason though.

My point is tightening gun control laws doesn't mean no guns; there's a huge spectrum.

Putin, considering that both Jefferson and MAdison had their own doubts about what's actually written in the Bill of Rights, that passage seems to tell it straight.

"The founding fathers wouldn't know what the fuck to do with the 21st century. It's time we stopped taking their every word as sacrosanct."

Exactly right. The original Constitution is hardly relevant anymore.