On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 10:32 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 19 December 2014 at 23:02, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> >> On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 9:24 AM, LizR <[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. >
Some of them were both highly intelligent and highly educated people. I find it hard to believe that they couldn't foresee at least that more powerful version of existing technologies would appear. They still placed their hopes on individual freedom. You could also let a 9 year old girl operate a nail gun, or a chainsaw or a wrecking ball. > 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). Something else that I doubt the writers of the constitution > foresaw, along with the entire society that goes with it. > Other countries in the world have equally liberal gun ownership laws without high percentage of gun related deaths. At the same time, Germany has some of the most restrictive gun ownership laws in the world and there are school shootings in Germany (that go under-reported in anglo media, I guess because they don't fit the narrative). > > 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. > I will grant you that nuclear weapons are indeed the sort of technology that make things quantitatively different (unlike Uzis). In my view they fall into the category of things that a state has to do to protect itself from the outside. They have zero impact in the balance of power between the government and the citizens at a local level. They have zero impact when it comes to police abuses for example. I think it's good that the police is afraid of entering into people's houses without a warrant, least they be shot. It's good that the government risks facing a militia when they decided to confiscate private goods. How can you use an atomic bomb in this case? Even if there's a revolution to overthrow the government, atomic weapons are not a vlid strategic deterrent at this level. Cliven Bundy (whatever you think of him, I would rather not get into that discussion), showed that it is possible to win an armed stand-off against the feds. What are they going to do? Atomic bomb his farm? > > I'm guessing the reality would be different, however. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
