Guns, Guns, Guns.
POSTED BY: FREMDFIRMA
UPDATED: Monday, June 30, 2025 05:56
VIEWED: 46757
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This as a topic in and of itself, because it needs to be.
Yes, American society and culture is awash with guns - it always has been, and it always will be.
Frankly, that's a large part of WHY it is American culture, and not British Colonial culture, in that the major incidents leading to revolution STARTED with "hand over your guns", and ended there.
At Lexington and Concorde, at Kings Mountain, and many others, because what always, always follows "hand over your guns" is "or else", and what follows THAT, is massacre.
The founders of this country, for all their flaws, were well advised of history, certainly better than we are, and not a single one disagreed even in principle with the essential right to defend oneself to the point where they downright assume it as much as the right to wear clothing - but Governments are dangerous things, and because of this and the dread of too much assumption of good faith, those founders laid down a Bill of Rights to ensure and codify the freedoms they felt needed to be both ironclad and absolute.
1. Religion - despite it being responsible overall for more deaths than any weapon in the world before or since, this right was and is, meant to be both ironclad and ABSOLUTE.
Nobody with any sense argues for banning a religion, regulating how a religion operates, what does and does not constitute a religion, or for preferential treatment - despite two hundred plus years of (failed) attempts to legally mandate the Christian religion upon us, this right remains invoilate, and ABSOLUTE.
2. Speech - also responsible for much violence and the incitement thereof, and like the former, considered to be both ironclad and ABSOLUTE.
Despite every attempt to criminalize dissent, to sneakily encroach or usurp upon this right, in the end this has always been challenged, and in the end always falls, because without the freedom to speak, violence becomes inevitable - Jefferson knew this, commenting on such after Shays Rebellion, and Kennedy knew it too, stating that when peaceful change becomes impossible, violence becomes inevitable, many others, for the right to speak freely is critical to civil discourse.
And while always under assault and at many times not inviolate, this right is also, ABSOLUTE.
I could go on - but the essential argument is satisfied here that the "rights" within the Bill of Rights were intended to be IRONCLAD and ABSOLUTE.
Which brings us to one "right" in particular - the Right to Bear Arms.
Quote:
The power of the sword, say the minority..., is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but where, I trust in God, it will always remain, in the hands of the people.
Tench Coxe*
The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
And yet, I see here, people arguing that well, all the OTHER rights are ironclad and absolute, but they don't LIKE this one, or do not LIKE the way others might make use of it and so lets just us make a wee little exception here, and there, and over here, and another one here...
And do not see that this is exactly how the Fourth Amendment has become a tattered rag, a faded shadow of its former self offering little if any protection at all and all but ignored as a matter of course.
They also do not realize they are arguing an impossibility, no more viable or possible than depriving a Russian of his Vodka, a staple of our culture so i
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Whatever.
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Quote:Yep.
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
And the LAST thing we need, is one more problem pretending to be a solution.
-----
Don’t waste your life not making amazing things with equally amazing people.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:Yep.
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
And the LAST thing we need, is one more problem pretending to be a solution.
-----
Don’t waste your life not making amazing things with equally amazing people.
Such as "arm everybody" or "we need MORE guns". Those are problems pretending to be solutions, too.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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I'm sorry, Frem, but until we have widespread private ownership of bombs and RPG's, fighter planes and weaponized drones, your entire point is mute. The State has its standing army in precincts all over town and all the guns you could carry aren't gonna mean shit when the State wants in. The War on Tyranny has been lost. Time to seek solutions that don't kill people.
Just as drugs are properly a public health issue, so too, is tyranny.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Such as "arm everybody" or "we need MORE guns". Those are problems pretending to be solutions, too.
Well aware of that Mikey - soundbite solutions are idiotic in either direction, and unrealistic... yet the kneejerk resorting to them has caused infinately more problems than it solves, and folks who should be aware of that seem not to be.
HKCav, ain't *just* the State that one can and should defend themselves from, there's also each other - I favor, as you well know, working towards a sane society in which the personal tools of violence will become naught more than curios and relics of a time gratefully past, but that time is not yet.
And even so, sometimes the act of opposition is as important as whether it is carried off or not - have you so soon forgotten Maryanne and Arianna Godboldo ?
-Frem
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No, Frem, but your point gets lost in the shouting. You and Anthony have won exactly no one to your cause with all your "not from my cold, dead hands" rhetoric. It turns folk (notably genius, scientifically minded womenfolk, of whom we have more than our fair share on this board) off. Wouldn't you like SOMEONE besides the gun lovers and your fellow anarchists to grok the fullness?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
No, Frem, but your point gets lost in the shouting. You and Anthony have won exactly no one to your cause with all your "not from my cold, dead hands" rhetoric. It turns folk (notably genius, scientifically minded womenfolk, of whom we have more than our fair share on this board) off. Wouldn't you like SOMEONE besides the gun lovers and your fellow anarchists to grok the fullness?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
Hello,
If you know of a way to convince someone that something they despise is valuable, especially when they can't make the mental leap to comparing it to anything they do consider valuable, what is there to do?
You just keep saying no when they ask to take your rights away, and stand up for them when someone asks to take their rights away.
--Anthony
Note to Self:
Raptor - woman testifying about birth control is a slut (the term applies.)
Context: http://tinyurl.com/d6ozfej
Six - Wow, isn't Niki quite the CUNT? And, yes, I spell that in all caps....
http://tinyurl.com/bdjgbpe
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.
Context: http://tinyurl.com/afve3r9
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -T. S. Szasz
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^ What HKC said.
Less rhetoric, more down to earthiness.
ETA: Atticus Finch comes to mind. Also KISS.
======================
A man's gotta know his limitations. ~Dirty Harry
KISS: Keep It Simple, Sweetheart.
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I like you Frem, but you are wrong on every point in your orijinal post.
I do hav a solution to the gun problem.
Shift the full expense uv all gun incidents to gun ownerz and proponents, add a full retail price buy back, no questions asked program to that, and start a class action lawsuit against the NRA and all other gun proponent organizationz.
The main thing woud be GIT (Gun Incident Tax). It woud be a monthly bill every gun owner and NRA member would recieve to cover the expensez created by all the previous months shootingz. This alone woud put the whole mess into a deth spiral.
Buying back gunz at full retail, with no questionz about where they came from woud quickly deplete the inventory in slumz.
Getting all the grieving relativez together to seek restitution frum the NRA, ALEC and any other organization with its fingerprints on the rediculous lawz we hav woud drain them to oblivion and keep anybody else from getting ideas about watering down any of this in the future.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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