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A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The first thing to be defined is what a well regulated militia is. There are two classes of militia according the US code: the organized militia consisting of the national guard and naval militia; and the unorganized militia consisting of males 17-45 that aren't felons or mentally ill and female members of the national guard. Are both well regulated? I would think that the organized militia is well regulated, as it is physically trained and has the ability to call up on the unorganized militia. (I believe sheriffs or state police have this duty, as well.)
While the idea that an armed populous would help stop an invasion, or the quote "Behind every American door is a shotgun", which that quote needs a citation, is used so often, would an armed populous be any used against tanks and jets and ICBMs and PETMANs? I don't think a gun would be of much use.
Is the right of the people referring to those in the militia? Seemingly not, as it pertains to the individual as per US vs heller, however, in US vs heller, it's interesting to note that the wording "arms" allows for restrictions as to what "arms" actually is. Defined when some supreme court justices way back when didn't realize that guns were really used in warfare. They had no experience in war, so the term "arms" back then meant something for hunting or lawful use, such as a hunting shotgun or a knife. The heller opinions states that "arms" should not be military grade. Cannons, back when, were noted as ordinances, so things such as nuclear warheads or tanks, aren't a god given right to own and carry.
So, would an armed populous, armed meaning non military weaponry, be able to take on modern military weaponry?
 
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I know what a bear arm is but what is a keep arm?
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
On February 07 2013 16:36 GnarlyArbitrage wrote:
So, would an armed populous, armed meaning non military weaponry, be able to take on modern military weaponry?
No, They would get rolled. Saddam Hussein had tanks and missiles and he still got rolled.
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Its completely irrelevant. Nobody is invading anyone, and they wont be, barring some sort of apocalyptic free-for-all scenario in which nations cease to exist and militaries and militias dissolve anyway. In which case they wouldn't be organized militias defending anything, and more just people trying to survive, some of which have guns. This does little to improve the situation.
The other point of the 2nd amendment was to keep the people an armed force who could in theory rise up against the government should it become tyrannical. This is also completely outdated, as the government becomes tyrannical very slowly nowadays, and even once it has arrived, the massive US population would be so splintered as to what to do about it and if it is in fact worthy of armed revolt that no such sort of unified action would ever be taken that could ever threaten the parties in control in any way shape or form.
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This amendment has been outdated since industrialized armies became the norm (post Civil-War in the US). No "organized militia" could do anything against an army of a first world country (whether it was invaders or the US army). They would be completely steamrolled in an embarrassing and unfortunate massacre. Coming out of the American Revolution, it is understandable why this amendment was put in, as this was the experience of the lot of people writing it at the time. However, they also made the constitution amendable, so we could change it later on, and this amendment should have been removed a long time ago.
It exists today for political and non-nonsensical reasons. There are people in the United States that live in fear of nearly everything, and they want to have access to guns because they "feel" (counter to any scientific evidence they might be presented with) it makes them safer.
I do believe some sort of firearms should be legal to own (for hunting and other sporting purposes) but they should be very restricted in their rate of fire capabilities and magazine capacities. There are even some places in this country that I think it should be legal to own a gun for personal protection (Detroit comes to mind), but these should all be the exception, not the rule. These sort of things should be licensed and regulated far more than they are today.
Gun ownership should be a privilege, not a right (one that few people would actually need), but unfortunately this law and the tradition it brings means the opposite in the US. At this point, however, guns are so pervasive in the population you could never really remove firearms for the populace, you could only hope to reduce the number and new purchases.
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Also remember that this law was written in a time where guns were comparatively prehistoric compared to the types of arms that we have and are capable of having today. All guns had a much longer reload time and were much larger, so it's not like you would walk into a school or a place of work without them noticing you brandishing a large gun.
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I think it's better to fight against something bad and have no chance of winning than to not resist at all.
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On February 08 2013 02:54 Ettick wrote:
I think it's better to fight against something bad and have no chance of winning than to not resist at all.
But not if what you're fighting for is *supposedly* causing more harm and deaths in the present than would happen if you only had access to "reasonable" weaponry (i.e. not assault weapons, I suppose), compared to the probability of ever being attacked by your government.
If I were to guess, I would suspect any large militia would get steamrolled by drones, aircraft, and tactical missiles (I don't think nukes would be used). But to be honest I think no one can really say what would happen. There are so many factors involved that we don't know about (degree of defection in the army, size of the resisting army, whether it is truly just authoritarian government or just a rogue element of the government, outside help or direct intervention from other countries?) to argue that the government would "win" is just kind of meaningless when we don't even know what the situation is. Basically there are so many ways things could play out, I don't think anyone can say what would happen with any certainty.
I mean more generally people are thinking about these things in such black and white terms. Either the government is totalitarian or supports the people. What if its somewhere in between, at the point where having guns to defend yourself against unlawful government activity is actually reasonable? At that point, at least its not ridiculously lopsided in favour of the military because the government isn't bombing people's homes, just illegally seizing people and putting them in jail (for example). I mean then guns could at least act as some temporary safeguard while massive protests can lead to a change in government.
Anyway I don't really know that much about it, but I figure people should at least consider more cases than the simplistic "government killing us with nukes, aircraft, and tanks" or "government is on our side" dichotomy.
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People need to learn there is a significant difference between an invasion, and an occupation. History is littered with cases of powerful occupying forces being whittled down by an armed populace.
In any case, individual freedoms are not predicated upon your subjective assessment of their effectiveness.
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If the populous being armed isn't considered necessary to the security of a free state, would that mean the it's actually advocating a police state? (Re: Austria, 1851) (If you're too lazy to look that up, I don't mean an oppressive state, so go look it up.) Are the police the necessary security to a free state? Certainly, military members can't act as police, unless it martial law, right? The national guard isn't set up to enforce laws like a LEO is.
I'm trying to come up with an argument that debunks this idea, but I haven't met a challenger that is up to it, yet.
Still feel like I'm tripping up on something, though...
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On February 08 2013 14:39 GnarlyArbitrage wrote:
Still feel like I'm tripping up on something, though...
"populace"
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More like cs_militia, amirite guys or amirite?
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On February 08 2013 14:45 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 14:39 GnarlyArbitrage wrote:
Still feel like I'm tripping up on something, though... "populace"
I guess you don't know what "populous" means, anyway, but that's alright.
Is it the militia's right to keep and bear arms? No, it is only the people's right. If the state, senate, congress, or president wished to call up on the entire militia, they could do so. When they do that, they are under the command and authority of whomever did the calling upon. At this moment, those who have been called upon must obey all commands or else they can be tried for treason. They can also make every able bodied male from 17-45, those past 45 who have been in service, and women who are in the national guard NOT be allowed to carry weapons.
This is my new development in this argument. I am finding that literally no one has any possible argument against this.
Note: I am not trolling, just to be clear here.
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'Populous' is an adjective
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On February 10 2013 02:19 sam!zdat wrote:
'Populous' is an adjective
Is it possible that you could come up with a slightly intelligent argument against as to why America isn't a police state? Or, are you only capable of shitposting?
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No, I think America IS a police state. All that's left is to fight a rearguard action against the degradation of the english language, my last remaining joy in a cold gray bourgeois world.
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I think you ought to streamline your grammar, syntax, and vocabulary before you start leveling the "shitposting" finger.
For example "Is it possible that you could come up with a slightly intelligent argument against as to why America isn't a police state?" is a garbage sentence. So I guess my question to you, OP, would be "Are you only capable of shitposting?"
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Please, if you can cite supreme court cases, legal opinions, and us documents as to why America isn't a police state, then you are shitposting yourself.
You want my sources? Because the constitution, the bill of rights, supreme court cases such as us vs heller, and the clarification of the term "militia" being split into two different groups, are some of my sources.
Go read the bill of rights, then go read every US militia code. Go read us vs heller and realize that arms literally means non military grade weapons.
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EPT
