I've always hated the wording of the 2nd Amendment. I know that Tim thinks it and its history are clear as day, but that's not even vaugely true. I just wish it had been written plain and simple. Ah well.
That being said, I've always felt that the purpose of guns in the hands of citizenry is to ensure the possibility of armed revolution should the government get out of hand. The trouble with that is that weapons have gotten so much more complex and powerful over the ensuing centuries that the differential between what the government has and what the common citizen has is ridiculous. At the time of the founding of the country, the primary difference between government forces and irregulars was organization, training and numbers, all of which could be overcome without too much trouble. Now we have tanks, planes, sattelites, phone tapping, atomic bombs, guided missles, land mines, etc. In order to truly mount an effective armed resistence, we'd have to really pull together an assload of military gear and people that have received training in order to use it. Which makes it much less likely to happen. So in effect we have a bunch of people that end up armed with guns that seem to cause problems within society (the weapons, not necessarily the people) while not actually achieving the original goal of being able to withstand/overthrow government tyranny. The 2nd amendment is problematic. I don't want to toss it entirely but its clear to me that it isn't working the way it ought to and I don't know what to do about it. Judah On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 7:47 PM, Loathe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Civil war, terrorism, collapse of the federal government, riots, invasion > > Fun > > Lets not forget about fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:279817 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
