Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 18:02:07 -0600 (CST) From: Jay Nelson <noslenj@swbell.net> To: cjclark@home.com Cc: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, Mark Ovens <mark@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Guns and freedom [Was: Re: On "intelligent people" and "dangers to BSD"] Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10003281740240.541-100000@acp.swbell.net> In-Reply-To: <20000327221634.A11538@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com>
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On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Crist J. Clark wrote: >On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 12:35:20AM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: >[snip] >> > One of the things the Founding Fathers >> > did get right (even if some ammendments about bearing arms were >> > written too vaguely), give Congress the purse strings. >> >> I don't find it vague: >> >> 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. >> >> >> Even putting aside the tyrrany argument about "regulate", and >> whether the militia should be accountable to an ideal or to a >> government, regardless if that government becomes an oppressive >> regime... "shall not be infringed" is pretty unambiguous. > >Not so fast, you say it yourself. It says that the right to bear arms >in order to sustain a well regulated malitia will not be infringed. To >a certain extent, the militias of that era are what we would consider >the National Guard now-a-days. Whoa, bucko. It says, "...since we need a militia and have to call them, no one's right to preserve and bear _arms_ will be infringed. Arms is recursively defined as weapons or _anything used in a fight_. Ergo the "sporting" criteria" doesn't hold up. There are only "sporting" purposes to arms becaus, sane, good people don't want to harm anyone. They were more careful with language then. Title 10, Section 311 USC defines "militia" as consisting of two groups: the active militia, able bodied men who currently serve in the State Guard and the inactive militia, which is _every_ able bodied man and the women serving in the guard. That means that, you, too, Crist, are a member of the inactive militia. If you don't believe it, the Selective Service stands by to correct your misunderstanding;) >Even if you won't read it in that sense, it by no means says, "the >right of anyone to keep and bear any darn weapon they could ever Yes, unfortunately, it does. >want." Personally, if you have not picked it up yet, I'm all for >people bearing rifles, shotguns, and "sport" weapons, but handguns, >assault weapons, etc. really serve no legitimate purpose in society at Wrong again -- but that's a long discussion that has no place here. >large and there is no reason that they cannot be tightly >regulated. Rights in the amendments aren't absolute. We have free Yes, those rights _must_ be absolute, or you've functionally destroyed the 1st, 3rd and 4th as well as the 10th. >speech and press, but you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, nor >is slander in speech or writing protected. They all have limits that >can and should be imposed by the legislative and judicial branches. The same is true of the right to bear arms. That right in _no_ way gives me the freedom to violate _any_ other tenent of common law. Vermont got their gun law right. It is essentially, "don't commit a crime with a gun, harm or threaten anyone else." It's amazing how peaceful Vermont is today. It's also amazing how few "accidents" or crimes of passion there are in Vermont. It is also amazing how rarely anyone in Vermont has to use a weapon to defend themselves. -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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