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Article V Convention

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Sandhillian:
The resolution (LR35) was sent back to the committee, so it's dead for the session.

Mntnman:
Firearms capable of repeating fire also existed during the drafting of the Constitution.

hilowe:

--- Quote from: depserv on February 23, 2016, 10:54:39 AM ---Then of course there's the problem that weapons exist today that did not exist when the 2nd Amendment was written, and the original intent of the authors did not allow for what are now called reasonable restrictions, like laws against owning nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons for example.

--- End quote ---

Sorry for going off topic.

I've heard this line of logic before, and it scares me.  The way I read this, is similar to the argument that guns today are so much more powerful than the founding fathers could have imagined, therefore, the constitution can't apply to it.  If you take that argument a step further, though, does the first amendment then apply to radio and TV, because those didn't exist when the constitution was written? Or, can the government search your phone without a warrant, because the founding fathers couldn't imagine a computer in your pocket when the fourth amendment was written?

depserv:

--- Quote from: hilowe on February 23, 2016, 05:57:54 PM ---Sorry for going off topic.

I've heard this line of logic before, and it scares me.  The way I read this, is similar to the argument that guns today are so much more powerful than the founding fathers could have imagined, therefore, the constitution can't apply to it.  If you take that argument a step further, though, does the first amendment then apply to radio and TV, because those didn't exist when the constitution was written? Or, can the government search your phone without a warrant, because the founding fathers couldn't imagine a computer in your pocket when the fourth amendment was written?

--- End quote ---
I'm well aware of the argument that new technology makes the Second Amendment obsolete and so it should only apply to weapons that existed when it was written, and have argued the case you make here many times.  But the fact remains that weapons do exist today that are so terrible it makes no sense for civilians to be able to legally own them.  I wouldn’t want a rich traitor like George Soros to be able to have an arsenal of nuclear warheads, for example, or nerve gas to be sold over the internet.  The question is, how would reasonable and honorable men set an upper limit on power a civilian can have. 

I've tried to start a conversation a few times on how limits that truly are reasonable might be determined.  If traitors like Obama and Feinstein could be kept form corrupting the law, what limits would be set by loyal Americans, and how would those limits be arrived at?  My opinion is, reasonable and honorable men can find the means to do that, but for now the well of reasonableness has been poisoned by traitors, who will use any excuse to disarm us to the greatest extent they can.  All gun control laws currently being offered, and most currently on the books, are clearly on the unreasonable side of any realistic interpretation of reasonable.  But that does not mean that there can be no limits whatsoever.

To find what limits truly are reasonable first you have to throw out all the lies used by traitors, and remove from the discussion those who have taken part in the big lie campaigns because all they will do is corrupt the process.  Then I would take a realistic look at the relative lethality of weapons and the effect civilian ownership of them has, and compare it to other lethal things.  Like auto accidents for example.  Americans as a people could save multitudes of lives by voluntarily stopping all nonessential driving; far more than could possibly be saved by civilian disarmament, even in the wildest liberal fantasy (though that might be underestimating the wildness of liberal fantasies).  Everyone knows that by driving a car they are increasing the risk that someone will die, either the one driving or someone else who might be involved in an accident with them.  But nobody avoids driving for that reason.  So it's clear that the American people are willing to accept a certain risk of untimely death for something that isn't even a right.  And that means there is no valid reason to take away a right or infringe on the right to save a substantially smaller number of lives (and that's assuming that those killed with guns would not have been killed if guns were outlawed, which is one of the lies I referred to above). 

Numbers of death by gun would have to be looked at realistically.  Instead of the total being counted, it would make sense to only count the ones that show a risk to the general public by civilian gun ownership.  And that number is a small fraction of the total number that's typically given by anti-gun bigots.

Lives saved by civilians bearing arms would have to be part of the formula.  And so would mass murders committed by governments; the fact that governments have murdered more people than civilians would have to be taken into consideration, rather than assuming government to be a caring big brother that can never be a risk to the public.

In any discussion of disarming civilians to supposedly stop a person from committing mass murder, the (very remote) possibility of being a victim of mass murder would have to be taken into account, the increased risk caused by disarmed victims would too, and other things used to commit mass murder would have to be considered.  For example, the biggest mass murders in America have all been committed with things other than guns.  One example is an arson fire in NYC that killed 87 people, far more than have been killed with a so-called assault weapon.  In the African nation of Rwanda a million people were butchered in about a hundred days in spite of that nation having disarmed its civilians of guns.  With these things (among others) taken into consideration, laws against so-called assault weapons are easily shown to be so unreasonable only a fool or a liar would even consider them. 

But how about a rocket launcher that could bring down a passenger plane?  Or a stockpile of nerve gas?  Or how about a mosque cultivating massive amounts of botulism, and a devout multitude of food workers attends that mosque, giving them the power to kill tens of thousands of infidels; would we want that to be legal?  And would we want George Soros to be able to buy an atom bomb?  Or maybe have a stockpile of nuclear warheads?

I think patriots should to take control of the reasonable restrictions argument, by showing how restrictions that truly are reasonable could be arrived at.  But in today's climate with so many traitors in high office and in control of so much media that doesn't seem likely.  But it still doesn't do us any good to claim that there can be no such thing as a reasonable limit on power.

Let me add that Mntnman is correct in saying that chemical and biological weapons existed when the 2nd Amendment was written; they go back to ancient times, and I knew that when I made reference to them in my post.  But weapons of those types exist today that are so terrible we would not want them to be generally available to civilians.  That was my point.  I didn't say no weapons of those types existed in the past. 
   

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