On Sun, 17 Jun 2001, Dean Forster wrote:
> So we both agree that the bulk of their work at the
> time outside of the Constitution had a main thrust in
> supporting personal firearms ownership?
No, not really. I'd be surprised if there was much discussion at all of
personal firearm ownership for its own sake (the way the NRA
discusses the issue, say--arms ownership as a fundamental right, like
speech)...I think it was taken for granted in a frontier
nation that it was ok for people to own guns if they could afford them. I
do suspect that most discussion of the issue was probably centered on the
issue of the militia and who should control it, though.
At least, I've never seen the gun lobby trot out documents by Madison,
Adams, & Hamilton et al. arguing that owning a gun is a right on the order
of freedom of speech. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems to me
that the arguments all seem to be extrapolated from things like the
Declaration of Independence (e.g. the right to resist tyrrany implies the
right to be armed), for example. I'd be interested in seeing documents
from framers of the Contitution in which being armed is discussed as a
fundamental right for the individual in itself, if you know of them.
(Please note that here I'm not declaring you wrong, as such...I've just
never seen any historical evidence that actually supports your opinion
above. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist--but I've never seen it.)
> I'll take your word that a few of the federalist papers
> disagreed.
Please bear in mind that those few Federalist papers were the ones dealing
with the disposition and control of the army and militia, and, being the
Federalist papers, were written by several of the Constitution's chief
architects.
> Perhaps it's a failing of mine, but I like to step
> back and look at the big picture to evaluate how
> specifics effect it. I must ask you, do you dismiss
> other people's arguments so unilaterally when they try
> and put into words their thoughts on a particular
> legal or social climate? I believe I deserve better,
> and if there's something that i've said which you
> don't believe follows the tenants of civilized debate,
> let me have it.
Perhaps I was unclear: I wasn't unilaterally dismissing your opinion. I
just didn't understand the gist of it.
> Are you making a general statement or intimating that
> I would like to obligate everyone to buy guns? You
> would be incorrect even if you were accusing the NRA
> themselves. And if I saw commercials like what you
> describe, I might very well suddenly feel that i'm not
> on the productive side of the equation.
I'm not inferring your personal position on this or any issue. Rather,
I'm making a general statement, mainly as a counterexample to wit: to
try to work for social change through the government--of which we are all
supposed to be a part by virtue of citizenship--is not the same as
abandoning, or advocating that people abandon, their private
responsbilities. (Any more than helping one's church help the poor is an
attempt to excuse the poor of responsibility for themselves.)
In other words, the fact that we use the government to try to help
some of the poor f*cked up souls in the world doesn't imply that we
wouldn't rather those souls were independent and responsible for
themselves; it also doesn't imply that I (bleeding heart liberal that I
tend to be) don't want to be responsible for my own self.
> I think you may be on to something. But is it a
> realistic goal in today's society?
Was republican democracy realistic in a world dominated by despotic
monarchs and their international colonial corporations?
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
