On 12/19/2014 4:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 3:32 PM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 19 December 2014 at 23:02, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 9:24 AM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
They also failed to foresee that hand-held weapons would become so
powerful.
Are you sure that more powerful hand-held weapons would change their
minds about
the need to keep a balance of power between the government and the
citizens? I
suspect it would just reinforce the idea.
I'm not sure of anything. However I doubt they could foresee a 9 year old
girl being
shown how to fire an Uzi.
Kids drown in pools all the time but that doesn't mean adults should be forbidden from
swimming.
That was such a moronic thing to do that I can't really feel it was a huge
loss that
she accidentally shot and killed her instructor (indeed a Darwin award
could be on
its way - but it's indicative of the incredible stupidity that is
exemplified by the
NRA (I think it's called) which seems to think it's a good thing that
America has
way more gun related deaths and accidents than any other country in the
first world
(and most in the third world).
It probably has far more lives saved and defended with guns than any other country in
the first world (estimates range from 500,000 - 2,000,000 defensive gun uses per year).
But news agencies are less interested in reporting tragedies that didn't happen.
Wishful estimating by the NRA. News agencies love stories like that: "Little old lady
routs burglar with revolver."
Something else that I doubt the writers of the constitution foresaw, along
with the
entire society that goes with it.
Still, if the US government really believes in the principle behind the
right to
bear arms they should nowadays - going by your argument that there should
be a
"balance of power" - have no problem with a citizen constructing a nuclear
bomb in
their garden shed.
Nuclear bombs have no defensive utility. A good rule of thumb might be that citizens
should be able to own any weapon police departments have access to.
Actually I think the police should have shotguns and side arms with silencers. But the
idea of the 2nd amendment, to provide citizens for a militia, means the citizens should
have whatever the army issues to individuals (which would be an M16 now).
Also, making nuclear bombs illegal won't stop their nefarious use. It is an illusion tho
think that laws (paper) can stop bullets (or nuclear blasts for that matter).
So we shouldn't have laws against theft and murder and fraud because, well laws are just
paper.
In the early history of the united states, battle ships were privately owned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer
But they were authorized by the government to engage in warfare on its behalf (letters of
marque). So they fell under the rules of war and when the warring nations made peace they
were subject to the terms.
Brent
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