--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "uns_tressor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard J. Williams" > <willytex@> wrote: > > > > uns_tressor wrote: > > > The danger of the Apaches galloping > > > over the horizon is relatively low > > > nowadays, I am told. > > > > Were you also told that many Brit invaders > > had guns that caused the Apaches to gallop > > over the horizon to defend the right to > > their land? If you weren't told this in > > history class, that would be perverse. > > You miss the point. > > The threat which underlay the original tolerance > of guns is gone. And guns should go along with it. > Lesislation along with ferocious policing would > sort it if, and only if, there was the will.
Uns, just to clarify for a Brit, the purpose of the original "right to bear arms" language in the U.S. Constitution was *not* to allow the people to fight off "Indians" if the need arose. It was to fight off THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT if the need arose -- to be able to keep a tyrant from taking over and turning the country into the very type of absolute monarchy they were rejecting with the Constitution. *That* was the reasoning of the founding fathers of America. I'm no fan of guns in the hands of those who don't have the know-how to use them sanely, but one could make a case that there is more of a need for this kind of "preventive" gun ownership now in the U.S. than there was in Jefferson's time.
