Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

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Daedalus X
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Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

Post #1

Post by Daedalus X »

In another thread a member made the following claim.
Danmark wrote: You continue to demonstrate your misunderstanding of the Constitution. The 2d amendment was not created to facilitate armed rebellion against the very country the Constitution created. As it says itself, it was created so a 'well regulated militia' could protect the State.
Question for debate, why did the founders create the second amendment?

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Post #21

Post by Clownboat »

Gracchus wrote: [Replying to post 17 by Clownboat]

"Slaying me with irony I see.
Guns are a problem!
We need men with guns to take care of this problem where men have guns!
"

More specifically, we need well-regulated, well-trained, disciplined persons with guns to take care of the problem violence until it can be taken by well-regulated, well-trained, and disciplined persons without guns.

A terrorist with a knife killed one and stabbed another before being killed by police. A terrorist with a semi-automatic weapon would almost certainly claimed more victims.
Just because we can't get a utopia doesn't mean we can't make things better.


:study: :study:
To the bold:
Now that is something I am not arguing against!
Just the pipe dream that we need to pass a law and our gun problems will soon be solved.

Words by Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)
Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness.

There would be no violence from me if we get rid of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. I'm not the gun owner we need to worry about though. I fear that the violence that you are aguring for will be met with violence (some will drink beer and watch football).

What if the violence gets so bad that I wish I still had my guns around? I don't feel any need to own them for protection reasons like I said (others do), but what if the criminals do go to war with your well-regulated, well-trained, disciplined persons with guns? Not a scenario I would own a gun for personally, but more likely than a zombie appocolyps or alien invasion. And here we are, having stripped guns from wrong people.

If the well-regulated, well-trained, disciplined persons with guns has really, really good equipment at there disposal, criminals would be silly to try to go toe to toe. Consider a scenario where it is beneficial to make your attacks from the home of law abiding citizens (again, not going to go toe to toe).

Similar to what the Colonists did to the British during the battle of Lexington.
"As the British force retreated to Boston, the colonists, armed with their own civilian weapons, sniped at their antagonists from behind fences and trees rather than confronting the professionals in formal lines of battle."

Learn your (generic your) history or you will be doomed to repeat it.
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Post #22

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Gracchus wrote: A terrorist with a knife killed one and stabbed another before being killed by police. A terrorist with a semi-automatic weapon would almost certainly claimed more victims.
Just because we can't get a utopia doesn't mean we can't make things better.


:study: :study:
Your points are completely devoid of self-defense. You have mentioned nothing to show that you care about good citizens being able to defend themselves against violent crime and that's the weakness of your position.

It is true that a bad guy with a gun can kill more than using a knife, but the issue there would not be to ban guns because then you take away an effective means of self-defense. Your plan punishes the good with the bad. We should only be focused on keeping guns away from the bad population and you can do this by putting effective/reasonable standards in place. There is a good model of these standards in police and military which is why you don't hear about there being a big problem of cops going on mass shooting sprees.

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Post #23

Post by Purple Knight »

Clownboat wrote:Consider guns. Law abiding citizens like myself would give up our guns. I fear that those committing drive-bys will be unaffected by taking away my hunting rifle and shotgun though. I would think that they will continue to do what they already do even though it is currently not allowed.
This is an argument that people usually use. While I am generally on your side, I don't like it.

I dislike it because it attacks a flaccid law that is not enforced instead of a horrible tyrannical law that is.

Obviously banning guns would have to take into account that criminals will not surrender their guns and simply raid everybody's home (especially criminals' homes). As horrible as this is, the argument that criminals will not simply surrender their guns only defeats a straw man of a law that relies on voluntary surrender of weapons.

(Also: How do criminals get guns? Ultimately, from the law-abiding. The seedy gentleman at the pawn shop may be voluntarily enabling a criminal, but the person who sold it to him was law-abiding, otherwise that gun would not appear in that glass case for purchase to begin with.)
Clownboat wrote:I fear that those committing drive-bys will be unaffected by taking away my hunting rifle and shotgun though. I would think that they will continue to do what they already do even though it is currently not allowed.
While I'm not debating that it's an impingement on freedom to do so, always criminalising one or more steps before the crime can prevent the crime, while criminalising the crime itself unfortunately cannot, since by the time the crime is committed, someone is already dead, and all you can do is punish the criminal, post facto.

If a person can be arrested for simply having a gun, that's an opportunity for prevention. (Nevermind how many times you have to take someone's stuff away that would not result in crimes, and I of course concede that, so I'm not arguing that.)

If they cannot be arrested until they have shot someone, it is a logical certainty that you cannot prevent them from shooting someone. (Unless they're simply inept about hiding what they're going to do.)

We could prevent all murders by keeping everyone in separate jail cells throughout their lifetimes. The question is whether or not we should (and again, there I concede to you; I'm just not a fan of the can't-prevent argument or the straw man that only works against flaccid laws).
AgnosticBoy wrote:We should only be focused on keeping guns away from the bad population and you can do this by putting effective/reasonable standards in place. There is a good model of these standards in police and military which is why you don't hear about there being a big problem of cops going on mass shooting sprees.
To be fair, allowing the government to have say-so (the founding fathers would probably worry) allows them to hoard physical power. I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying that if we adopt a bunch of standards and they want to, they could easily just start saying everyone is crazy.

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Post #24

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Purple Knight wrote:
Clownboat wrote:Consider guns. Law abiding citizens like myself would give up our guns. I fear that those committing drive-bys will be unaffected by taking away my hunting rifle and shotgun though. I would think that they will continue to do what they already do even though it is currently not allowed.
This is an argument that people usually use. While I am generally on your side, I don't like it.

I dislike it because it attacks a flaccid law that is not enforced instead of a horrible tyrannical law that is.

Obviously banning guns would have to take into account that criminals will not surrender their guns and simply raid everybody's home (especially criminals' homes). As horrible as this is, the argument that criminals will not simply surrender their guns only defeats a straw man of a law that relies on voluntary surrender of weapons.

(Also: How do criminals get guns? Ultimately, from the law-abiding. The seedy gentleman at the pawn shop may be voluntarily enabling a criminal, but the person who sold it to him was law-abiding, otherwise that gun would not appear in that glass case for purchase to begin with.)
Here is one thing to consider...it's too late for a gun ban. The US has more guns in circulation among civilians, some hundreds of millions, than any other country. A full scale ban would not have any immediate effect in the near future.

In Norway, guns are banned yet one bad guy was able to get his hands on one and he shot/murdered 77 at a summer camp (here). How much more easier would it be to get a gun in a post-gun ban America given we have way more guns? Fairly simple, I'd say.

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Post #25

Post by Purple Knight »

AgnosticBoy wrote:In Norway, guns are banned yet one bad guy was able to get his hands on one and he shot/murdered 77 at a summer camp (here). How much more easier would it be to get a gun in a post-gun ban America given we have way more guns? Fairly simple, I'd say.
I would agree, but now his gun is gone and confiscated and that is at least one gun that can't be used to commit murder anymore.

Unless you're going to allow huge manufacturing and/or smuggling rackets to thrive, every gun crime reduces available guns, especially when the perpetrator is a mass shooter who doesn't care if he's caught.

And again, I'm on your side. I don't think you can steal peoples' guns because of what they might do with them. What would you do to a superpowered mutant with pyrokinesis? You would either have to drug him until he couldn't use his powers, keep him unconscious forever, or kill him. If you and I agree that this would be an unacceptable course of action against someone who has yet done nothing wrong, and if we also agree that taking peoples' stuff is wrong, we agree that guns should not be banned, and for the same reason.

koko

Re: Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

Post #26

Post by koko »

"Well regulated" was understood in the 1700s to include the meaning of "well armed":

https://constitutioncenter.org/images/u ... Aug_11.pdf


There is plenty of historical evidence to prove the Founders did not believe in a standing army. This means they would not have tolerated the Pentagon or military industrial complex. Further, it meant that every person would have access to weaponry in order to protect themselves and the community.

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Re: Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

Post #27

Post by Grunt0311 »

Many simply do not understand the clause “shall not be infringed”. My constitutional rights are not based nor depend on others fears.

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Re: Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

Post #28

Post by Miles »

Grunt0311 wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:53 pm Many simply do not understand the clause “shall not be infringed”. My constitutional rights are not based nor depend on others fears.
"Fears"? What do fears have to do with “shall not be infringed”?


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Re: Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

Post #29

Post by Grunt0311 »

The first thing the left cries when a felon is locked up is no bail just release them. Then when the felons that the left wants on the streets commits a crime with a weapon the left predictably attacks the gun rights of legal gun owners. It is called the bill of rights not the bill of the lefts preferences.
Last edited by Grunt0311 on Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Why did the founders give us the 2nd amendment?

Post #30

Post by Miles »

Grunt0311 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:16 am The first thing the left cries when a felon they made it easy to be released from jail uses a weapon is more gun control.
Which makes no more sense than:

.lortnoc nug erom si nopaew a sesu liaj morf desaeler eb ot ysae ti edam yeht nolef a nehw seirc tfel eht gniht tsrif ehT

Please try again. Maybe this will help: Grammar Check


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