A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


The framers were talking about keeping a musket in the barn.

No, they were most emphatically not. In fact, in many of the Colonies,
male
citizens were *required* by ordinance.to bring their firearms and
militia
kit to church on Sundays for inspection and militia drill after
services.

Because they didn't have a massive amry, navy, air force, marines!

We don't have a "massive" standing army in the US. We're not supposed to,
precisely so that military coups can be avoided. That's the purpose of the
Militia provisions of the Constitution.

Um. Do you feel that the current standing army is comparable to the
minutemen?!?!? It's, uh, kind of big!

But then so is the population of the US and indeed the planet. Comparatively
speaking, our standing army is quite small, even as compared to some other
contemporary nations.

There's at best only a couple of million in the regular army, while there
are about 360 million citizens and 380 million privately-owned guns in about
110 million households. That makes the ratio, at a minimum, 50 to 1 in favor
of armed citizens. At best, it makes a ratio of about 140 to one of citizens
who *can* be armed to standing military. And this presumes that all two
million regular army troops would obey orders to subjugate their own
countrymen.


Are you so stupid that you can't see the difference between a sparse
population of people defending a huge amount of territory and the modern
day
juggernaut that is the US armed forces?

Only in degree

Like, 1000 degrees?

not as applied to the philosophical underpinnings of our
nation. In fact, a larger standing army actually militates for more and
better arms in the hands of the citizenry, since one of the points of the
2nd Amendment is to ensure that the armed citizenry always greatly
outnumber
the standing army.

Really! Please post the exact quote that says "the armed citizens of the US
should always outnumber the military forces of the government"

False dilemma. I did not say that such a direct quote existed. However,
there is ample evidence in the record that those who actually wrote the
Constitution intended this precise result. I refer you, Mr. History Person,
to the Federalist Papers for a start.

"Thomas Jefferson said, "No free man shall be debarred the use of arms."
Patrick Henry said, "The great object is, that every man be armed." Richard
Henry Lee wrote, "To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of
people always possess arms." Thomas Paine noted, "[A]rms . . . discourage
and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the
world as well as property."

Prominent Federalist Tench Coxe asked, "Who are the militia? Are they not
ourselves?. . . Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords,
and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an
American. . . . [T]he 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
ever remain, in the hands of the people."

In introducing the Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives, James
Madison noted that the amendments "relate first to private rights." Sen.
William Grayson observed that they "altogether respected personal liberty."
Tench Coxe wrote, "[T]he people are confirmed by the next article [of
amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms.""

Source: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=83


There was no
armed forces.

Are you really this stupid? Of course there were armed forces. Ever hear
of
the "Minutemen?" Every hear of the Continental Army? How about George
Washington?

LOL. Yes, with his rowboat, no doubt outfitted with nuclear weapons.

Evasion. You said "There was (sic) no armed forces." This is simply wrong.
Whether it's a lie or mere ignorance I cannot tell.

The armed forces of the day were insignificant in comparison to the US army
of 2005.

Yet more ignorance from a purported "history major."

It is as irrelevant as saying that a fleet of rowboats is the same
as a fleet of nuclear submarines.

You attempt to evade the implications of your own words. You said, and I
quote, "there was (sic) no armed forces." That is a lie.


There were no assault weapons.

The Brown Bess was the "assault weapon" of the time. Tempus fugit and
technology advances. That doesn't change the nature of the rig
Um. Indeed it does.

Um. No it doesn't.

Perhaps you don't understand that the usual result of change is...change.

Clearly you don't understand that the right protected does not change based
on some technological calculus.


And there weren't more than
30,000 Americans killed by guns each year at the hands of their
neighbours.

There still aren't. Most of the gun-related deaths in the US are a)
suicides
and b) criminal attacks. The incidence of accidental shootings is very
small
and getting smaller every year.

Wow, you must be so proud! The guns are mostly used for people shooting
themselves or deliberately shooting someone else! Great!

You misconstrue...deliberately I suspect. Guns of every stripe are mostly
used to punch holes in paper and tin cans, along with punching holes in
game
animals. Less than 0.01% of all guns in the US are ever used unlawfully
against another human being. And that fraction is continuing to drop every
year.

And yet more than 30,000 (THIRTY THOUSAND!!!!) US citizens die every year
from them.

"Gun accidents account for only 0.7% of accidental deaths. Most accidental
deaths involve motor vehicles or are due to drowning, falls, fires,
poisoning, medical mistakes, choking on ingested objects and environmental
factors."

Source: Centers for Disease Control.


FBI crime reports, combined with BATFE gun ownership records prove
conclusively that 99.99 percent of guns in the US are never used
unlawfully
or unsafely.

Maybe the total number of guns should be reduced so that the .01 does not
account for so many deaths!

Motes and planks. The actual number in 1994 was 38,505, which amounts to
0.0001 percent of the population. Given the massive number of deaths that
would inevitably result if guns were banned and confiscated in this country,
that number, while unfortunate, is acceptable.

Moreover, between 1962 and 1994, 94 percent of gun deaths were caused by
suicide and homicide.

Suicide is a fundamental human right, and I would not presume to interfere
in someone's ability to end their own life if they so choose, and homicide
is not reduced by gun bans, it is radically increased.


That's an admirable safety record by any metric.

Swimming pools and five gallon buckets are more dangerous to children than
guns are, by far.

Did you have over 30000 swimming deaths last year?

Nope, just 3,281 in 2000 for all groupings. But that was not my claim.

According to the CDC, In 2002, 775 children between 1 and 14 drowned and
2,208 were killed in motor vehicle accidents. By comparison, in 2002, only
59 children between 1 and 14 died from unintentional firearm injuries.

Children in that age group are thirteen times more likely to drown than be
accidentally shot.

Firearm deaths don't even make it into the top ten causes of death by
unintentional injury for children age 1-14

Source: CDC WISQARS database "2002 United States Unintentional Injuries,
ages 1-14, All races, Both sexes." Total deaths=4359.


FYI, that's a silly argument, since pools are not built to be used to kill
people.

Neither are guns, but your argument is fallacious because it attempts to
link the purpose of the object to the factual incidence of death associated
with that object. This fallacy merely attempts to "demonize" guns because
they may be used deliberately for lethal purposes. It matters not what the
"intended purpose" of the object is...it's merely an object with no
independent will or ability to act. What is done with that object is up to a
human being.

The point of my statement, which you obviously missed...probably
deliberately...is that you're looking for motes while ignoring planks. If
your real concern were preventing deaths, of children or anyone else, you
would be concentrating on motor vehicle safety, drowning, poisoning, fires
and suffocation before worrying about firearms.

But you don't, which indicates that you are merely an anti-gun hoplophobe
trying, as usual, to demonize gun ownership.


Still, even if it weren't, banning guns only results in MORE gun related
deaths, not fewer. Just ask Britain, Australia and, yes, Canada.

Um. You mean we have more gun-related deaths in Britain, Australia, and
Canada?!?!?

More than you did before you banned guns.

Well geezus christ you idiot, we live next to the US!!!!!!

What's the cause/effect relationship you're trying to show with this obtuse
statement?


But our gun deaths in Canada are MINISCULE compared to the United States.
Even in cities that are just minutes away from major US centers.

But what is happening to the RATE of gun (and criminal) violence in Canada
since you banned guns? That's what's important, because it is directly
related to the effectiveness of gun bans in protecting society.

In other words, because you are so slow, it means that you ought to consider
whether banning guns is a good thing, because it inevitably results in MORE
people being victimized, injured and killed by violent criminals than before
the gun ban, and it also results in MORE injuries and deaths as a result of
criminal violence than were caused by gun accidents before the ban.

That has been the experience in the US. There is no doubt whatever that what
I say is true, and will continue to be true for Canada, Britain and
Australia. Gun bans KILL MORE PEOPLE than ubiquitous gun ownership EVER HAS.


Violent crime in Great Britain,
for example, is running rampant. In all three places, violent crime has
jumped markedly and continues to rise at record rates BECAUSE your masters
in government banned the ownership and possession of defensive firearms by
law-abiding citizens. You see, criminals LIKE gun bans, because it ensures
that they can pursue their criminal careers with impunity. Moreover,
criminals don't care a fig for gun bans, because it's already illegal for
them to possess a firearm with the intent to use it in a crime.

Ridiculous.

No, fact. Go look it up.

The world is a more violent place, and (thanks in large measure
to the US) guns are more readily available.

And yet you CANNOT prove a causal link between the ready availability of
guns and an increase in violence. This is because, in point of actual fact,
precisely the opposite is true. The more guns there are in a society, the
less crime there is.

But you don't hear citizens in
the UK or Canada looking to have more assault weapons on the street so they
will feel safer, because, well, only a nut like you would argue that.

Actually, I've heard any number of Canadians arguing for exactly that. In
fact, even your own provinces are refusing to enforce the gun
registration/ban programs imposed by your government masters. British
Columbia, for example, has told Ottowa to pound sand.

Seems you have a few "nuts" up there. Good for them.

The opposite is true in the US, where violent crime rates continue the
dramatic reductions that began back in the 80s when the trend towards
lawful
concealed carry started to spread across this country.

Where'd you get that loony idea?

Well, from the Home Office, actually.

It seems to me like you've had 30000 - 35000 gun deaths every year for about
the past 20 years. No?

Evasion. Can you disprove my claim?


You really are a full on nut!

Pot, kettle, black.

What's my nutty attitude? That more guns does not create safer communities?

Indeed. Our "experiment" in putting more guns in communities, via lawful
concealed carry in more than 40 states over the last 20 years, proves you to
be utterly wrong.

Then call me Mr. Planters!

You're Mr. Planters.

If the framers could have foreseen that nuts like you would have
interpreted
that "right to bear arms" phrase to mean "the right to carry a multiple
clip
semi-automatic easily converted to fully automatic military assault
weapon
and fire it into a McDonalds when I lose my temper" I'm pretty sure
they
would rethink the whole thing.

Fortunately you don't get to second guess them. And they were perfectly
aware of the potentials of firearms.

Actually, the constitution has undergone quite a lot of amendments, for
example, a black person is now consider equal to a white person in value.
At
least on paper. The framers obviously had no idea what the USA of 2005
would
be like. They didn't know about nuclear weapons. Crack houses. Assault
weapons.

The genius of the Framers is that they created a system that can both
respond to public need while protecting fundamental rights.

The problem on America's "crack house" streets is not too many "assault
weapons," it's too FEW. A few hundred good, law-abiding citizens resolved
to
drive crack dealers from their community by force of arms would have
things
cleaned up in a hurry.

Yup, and don't worry about the baby that gets shot in the head by accident.

Urban warfare is dangerous, it's true. However, by and large, crackheads and
drug dealers are cowards and they fold up like a house of cards when
confronted by superior armed force.

Or the house that wasn't really a crack house.

Oh, I think the people who live on the block have a pretty good idea of
which houses are crack houses...a far better idea than even the police.

Or the anarchy and everyday
violence that comes from shooting your gun at whoever is bothering you.

The only one making any such suggestion is you.



Another bit of misinformation you spout that needs debunking: No legal
semi-automatic firearm in the US can be "easily converted" to fully
automatic fire. In fact, one of the requirements of the BATFE regarding
semi-automatic firearms is that to be legal, it must NOT be "easily
convertible" to fully automatic fire.

Factually, any semi-automatic firearm, including shotguns, CAN be made
to
fire more than one round per trigger pull, but doing so is a serious
federal
crime, and it's done quite infrequently. Moreover, in every mass killing
event in the US, no weapon used by an assailant was "fully automatic."
They
were all, at best, semi-automatic.

It's good to know (?) that it's not necessary to bother with the
conversion
to fully automatic in order to commit a mass slaying.

True. What really facilitates mass slayings is the lack of legally carried
firearms in the hands of law-abiding, responsible (and proficient)
citizens.
It's much harder to "spray bullets around" when someone is shooting back
at
you. That's why, for example, no Israeli school has been attacked by
terrorists in more than 20 years. Today, Israeli citizens carry
fully-automatic military firearms, often issued to them BY the military,
which they use to defend themselves against terrorists...pretty
effectively
too.

So if you want to feel safe, you would suggest moving to Israel?

No, I suggest obtaining and carrying defensive firearms where you live.


Nor do people randomly shoot up McDonalds because the "lost their
temper."
Mass killings are very rare, that's why they make the news. But the
single
common factor in EVERY mass shooting, worldwide, is that the shooter was
the
ONLY PERSON with a gun. In almost all cases, had there been one or more
good
citizens who were lawfully armed, the mass killing likely would not have
occurred.

Ah yes, if only we all had a gun.

Indeed.

Scary that your ideal would not be that no one had a gun.

Only to a hoplophobe like yourself. I'm a realist. It is utterly impossible
to collect up all the guns on the planet, and so long as any guns are still
in circulation, criminals will obtain them. When you limit the supply of
guns only to criminals, who ipso facto don't care if they are illegal, all
you do is create a pool of defenseless, unarmed victims for the criminals to
prey upon with impunity.

That's PRECISELY what's happening in GB, where the incidence of violent
assault has skyrocketed, and the incidence of "hot burglaries" (which is to
say burglaries committed while the occupants are home...not infrequently in
broad daylight) are also very high.

By comparison, the incidence of "hot burglaries" in the US is extremely
small, and burglars go to great pains to be sure nobody's home BECAUSE they
fear getting shot to death by an armed homeowner.

In GB, however, not only do good citizens not have firearms for self
defense, they get PROSECUTED if they use physical force against an intruder,
even if he's got the family jewels in his hands and is threatening you with
a knife. You're supposed to just let him escape rather than risking hurting
him in any way. What a bunch of dumb fu*ks!!

Around here, you intrude into my house illegally, and I so much as THINK you
are going to use ANY degree of physical force, no matter how slight, and I'm
legally empowered to use deadly physical force. And if I do, I'm immune from
both civil and criminal liability.

That's why burglary rates keep dropping around here.

Then every office argument, domestic
disagreement, incorrect tally on a grocery bill, bumper tap in a parking
lot, etc could easily turn into a bloodbath and we'd all be happy (?)

This is typical hoplophobe rhetoric. You falsely presume that the vast
majority of citizens will somehow be driven into insane, killing rages
merely because they possess a firearm. Problem is that your tripe is
simply
not true, as the 40+ states that have authorized lawful concealed carry
prove. Anti-gunners like yourself routinely predict "bloodbaths" and
"blood
running in the gutters" and "dead police officers at routine traffic
stops"
as a result of lawful concealed carry.

Unfortunately for you folks, it simply doesn't happen.

It doesn't? What are those 30,000 DEATHS PER YEAR all about? Oh, right, they
are all suicides?

Not all, but the majority of them are. Most of the rest are homicides.

According to the CDC, in 2002, there were 11,829 firearm homicides and
17,108 suicides by firearm.

That's 28,937 of your "30,000 DEATHS PER YEAR" accounted for.

There were 762 accidental firearms deaths in the US in 2002.

Next specious argument please...

People who are likely to use a gun to kill someone over a petty
disagreement
in an office are unlikely to be dissuaded by gun control laws in the first
place, and factually speaking, the only way to stop such things once
they've
begun is with firearms. Waiting for the police is not an option, as
Columbine proved. Thus, it is incumbent on all citizens to provide for
their
own safety in such situations by carrying their own gun that they can use
for self-defense.

Yup. If only all the kids at Columbine had been carrying guns.

Or even one teacher or visitor. As it was, we had science teachers using
fire extinguishers and a lot of dead kids.



Total up all the Americans killed in every
war since 1775 and it is less than the total killed in gun deaths
between
1979 and 1979.

Now total up the number of human beings killed by tyrants and murderous
thugs BECAUSE they were disarmed by their government, starting with the
Jews
of Germany circa 1939 and continuing right on down to Rawanda and beyond
and
you'll have hundreds of millions of times the number of US citizens
killed
by firearms since 1776.

So your theory is that we simply need to arm every single person in the
world and we'll all be safer? You are not just a nut. You are a SCARY
nut.

Facts are often inconvenient to gun-banners like you, but that doesn't
change the facts.

Um, there's no facts that indicate more guns = safer society, since you have
30,000+ deaths per year every year.

False logic. The existence of some specific number of deaths per year caused
by firearms is unrelated to the question of whether society is safer with
more or fewer guns.

That question has already been answered, and it is in fact true that more
guns make a safer society. Homicide and violent crime rates drop an average
of 8% in the first years in all jurisdictions where concealed carry is made
lawful, and the declines in violent crime rates continue to climb over the
years to as much as 15%.

The facts prove you wrong.



That's NOT what the framers had in mind.

Of course not. The Framers did not intend that people be killed with
firearms

Haaaaaaaalleeeeeeeloooooya. Halelloya. Hallellooooooo-ooooo-ooooo-ys!

but they DID recognize that taking the firearms out of the hands
of good, law-abiding citizens WOULD result in tyranny and wholesale
death...because that's exactly what happened to them...and the Irish,
and
the Scots, and every other population of disarmed citizens on the
planet.

Hm. Does the average Irish person wish they had more guns around?

Probably.

Maybe you should run for head of state there on that platform.

I'm not Irish.


Keep in mind that the Irish were disarmed by their generational
enemy, the British, who did so specifically so that they could oppress the
Irish.

Which has little to do with what we are talking about.

It has everything to do with it. It's why we, when we formed this country,
resolved to NEVER allow our government to disarm us. Any attempt to do so is
treason and the perpetrators need to have their heads on spikes along the
Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, as a warning to other
would-be tyrants.


I think
they are pretty happy to be getting past the days when parts of Ireland
were
best known as places to get shot.

Once again, the problem in Northern Ireland is not too many guns, it's too
few guns in the hands of good, law-abiding citizens. I'd bet that if you
lived in Belfast, and the kneecappers came busting in YOUR door, that
you'd
wish fervently that you had an AK-47, as a preference to being nailed to
the
floor through the knees.

I'd wish fervently to live in a society where the ideal is not to shoot
someone else before they shoot you.

That's a good thing to wish. However, as the Arabs say, "Trust in Allah, but
tie your camel."


They absolutely understood that bad people would use guns to kill good
people, and they knew that the only way for the good people to protect
themselves was to be armed.

You really have no clue about American history, do you?

Other than my university degree in History, not much.

Your university degree in Ultra-Left-Wing Socialist History? I'd have to
agree.

It's pretty hard to get a left-wing history degree. Historians tend to be
rather dry old conservatives.

Well, that proves you're lying. Clearly you have no experience in academia.


Apparently you learned
all your history from the NRA sponsored texts.

No, I learned it from reading the actual writings of the Framers, who
wrote
extensively on their intent and purpose, and the Constitution, and the
majority of Supreme Court cases touching on the RKBA since the founding of
the nation.

Your claim to have a degree in history is highly suspect

I'll be happy to prove it to you if that would be important to you.

It's a waste of my time to bother. I judge you on what you write, not what
you claim your credentials are. As Ward Churchill proves, any nutjob can get
a college degree if he picks the right college...or diploma mill. That
doesn't mean squat to me. You could have a PhD in history for all I care,
but if your arguments here are on a tenth-grade level, then I will conclude
that you're a tenth-grader pretending to be an adult. I so conclude.


and if you do have
one, you don't deserve it, because you clearly learned nothing about
American history during your matriculation.

What you mean is that I was not indoctrinated by whatever forces have messed
up your own ability to think.

Whatever. Go watch Spongebob, little boy, and leave the debates to the
adults.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser