Leftforge Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment...

I do not oppose gun ownership, and I actually feel people should be allowed to own guns and much more if they act with a degree of safety. You are a fucking dirty liar trying to put words in my mouth. I cannot be responsible for the reality that your arguments hapen to be ignorant and completely wrong, but that does not mean I disagree with the idea people can own weapons which I have stated very clearly many times. I just disagree with your conclusion that our forefathers were progressive and good thinking people compared to us. They were dirty racist, rum running, genocidal, sexist, bullies who happened to get a few things right. I am quite sure the whole lot of them would really wonder why we have let brown peop[le be educated, women have jobs, and are not using our children as indentured servants.

You really overestimate the potential of weekend warriors. They defeat themselves in most cases, and have too many prejudices to actually stand against the american military which is why we would lose bad.

Really, just because a lump can play call of duty and owns a gun does not mean he could offer up any bit of resistance to our military.

On Founding Fathers:

I'm sure plenty who fetishize them wonder the same thing.

That's two well-argued and fluidly written posts in a row. Keep up the good work!

OK guntards, if this does not show you your own hypocritical ass you are incapable of truly fathoming your own idiocy and contradictions.

Guntards argue that guns make us safer, and that it is a sort of civic responsibility to own guns because it keeps the government in check. So why don't we take that argument to it's logical conclusion. Why don't we have state issued guns and ammo for everyone? I am not talking your best weapon, but rather a standard gun that is given freely to people who need one. Please do not tell me about cost because we already give away 200 dollars a month in food to people who need it, and a gun would cost less to manufacture and would not need to be given out monthly. Why isn't the NRA putting their money where their mouth is and handing free guns out to people? As they say we would all be safer and better off, and it would certainly boost gun manufacturing which is their big donors. Once people are exposed to the guns I am sure they would want more because it makes us safer and more free, right? So why aren't we proposing it or doing it?

Look, water is so important that we try to make it available for people to drink for free with water fountains. food is so important to our country that when people cannot afford it we give them food. There are corporations giving out free antibiotics to those who cannot afford them because our communities are made healthier as we are healthier. We give out condoms to make our society better. We have arguments to give out free birth control because it makes things better. We give out free smoke detectors and require everyone have them in many places because it is so important. We pay taxes to maintain our roadways because everyone knows it makes things safer and better. So why don't we hand out guns to everyone when it is supposedly so true that more guns make us safer and our communities stronger?

Because if your bullshit was true we would be handing them out for free. But even the NRA and the biggest gun rights people understand the basic principle that if we did that it would be a monumental disaster of epic proportions. That is why we do not do it. So yes, even your biggest gun backers are smart enough to know we do not want everyone owning a gun, and it certainly would not make us safer.

I wouldn't mind seeing people in very vulnerable positions getting free guns and the training that should go along with it. That said they have to pass the standard criminal background check AND a psychiatric exam/interview administered by a board certified doctor. Sickly weak people living alone, single moms, anyone getting harrased but the "restraining order" doesn't do any good. People isolated a long way from any police protection - you get the idea of "vulnerable". I mean this is the US - bad guys have no trouble finding & getting guns illegally so it's not like anyone should freak out because Aunt Jill has access to a gun. They always had access, but maybe couldn't afford to buy one or knew how to use one. Here's an interesting question regarding the NRA - has any NRA member ever been a suspect in a mass-shooting? Anyone have the stats on that by chance? Share them with the class please.

Why not require anyone getting a gun to undergo a psychiatric exam/interview?

Does the state pay for it? If so, then no problem. But I also think anyone getting a driver's license should undergo a psychiatric exam.

Since you kept this relatively short and sweet and to the point, I feel more obliged to engage you even though it most likely will result in an even longer rant/reply that I won't feel like replying to. Despite that, here goes nothing.

So you've decided to double down on the fail despite two videos and overwhelming evidence put forth in this very thread that completely destroys your claim, OK, that's fine.

Here's what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the right to bear arms which ties into the argument that the right in part is meant to keep the government in check.

"what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure."
Thomas Jefferson to William Smith
Paris Nov. 13. 1787.
Look at the date, it's around the time of the constitutional convention. No doubt Thomas Jefferson knew much of what was being said at the convention. Don't believe me? Here's a quote from a letter written to James Madison where Jefferson is discussing some of what he likes about the newly adopted Constitution.

"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
Paris Dec. 20, 1787.

Here's a quote by Thomas Jefferson on the individual right to bear arms which has no connection to the militia, but states the basic purpose of the right.

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – quoted from Enlightenment philosopher Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishment, 1764; translated by Jefferson and copied into his Commonplace Book of great quotations.

Here's a quote from Patrick Henry on the militia.

“No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state.... Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.”

Here's another one.
“...a well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government.”

Here's what John Adams had to say about the individual right.

“To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense...is a dissolution of the government.” – A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States of America, 1788, questioning the utility of private arms for the defense of the State but accepting the private right of self defense.

Here's Sam Adams on the militia.
“The Militia is composed of free citizens. There is therefore no danger of their making use of their power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them.”

Here's what Alexander Hamilton had to say about the militias.

“...an excellent body of well trained militia ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens.” Federalist #29.

George Mason.

“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state...” – Virginia Declaration of Rights (drafted by Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, with others)

I mean I can go on and on, but I think I've made my point. Many of the founding fathers and framers of the constitution believed in an individual right to bear arms for their own protection as well as a collective right as far as the militia goes. They believed that the militia was necessary to the security of a free state and to fight against tyranny should it ever arise. Not one of those several quotes from several different founding fathers and framers of the Constitution ever mention slave patrols as the reasoning for creating the militia, not even Patrick Henry. You used Patrick Henry as a false example to prove your claim and now you are doubling down on it. I've provided ample prove that your claim is complete utter bullshit. You go ahead and continue believing that all you want and that would make you extremely delusional. You're wrong. It's abundantly clear that the militias were created to preserve liberty and so is the individual right. We can go back and forth until the sun explodes, but it still makes you completely full of shit. If they created the militia to stop slave rebellions, it would have been mention by more people other than the one misused quote by Patrick Henry. all of these quotes make it very clear what the militias were for and what the second amendment is truly about. Just because some militias, which were mostly private and not state and could be closer to law enforcement than militias, were used for slave patrols, doesn't mean that was their sole purpose.

Now you're just inferring things without any proof of anything. It also seems that you think there was a big conspiracy that the framers just said the militia was for protecting the free state, but they really secretly meant was they needed it to keep the niggers at bay. The reason they kept the real meaning a secret is? What, they figured some day in the future slavery would be abolished and people would frown on it so they had to make the reasoning sound just and noble, but really it was sinister and unjust? Christ, you really are delusional. All we can go by is their writings and not what you think they secretly intended. The writings suggest that militias were created to protect the free state from tyranny, and not to secretly keep the niggers at bay. So, just to reiterate, you're once again full of shit and just pulling shit out of your ass.

Your failure here is assuming that the framers granted us these rights, they did not, they only affirmed them. The universal right has always existed and existed prior to the Bill of Rights. Just because some of the framers didn't recognize the right for slaves, doesn't mean it hasn't existed the whole entire time. You even mentioned that free black men were allowed to bear arms, so it would seem that the right was recognized by some states, though not all and it didn't extend to all. None the less, I doubt it would be in the best interest of slave owners to arm their slaves. It should be pretty obvious of why you wouldn't want to do that even if you did believe that the right was universal.

I don't really give a shit what you call me or why you call me that, so fuck off.

Yes it is and the notion that the individual right is connected to the militia was completely rejected.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampag...field(DOCID+@lit(sj0011)):#0010001&linkText=1

Just because the facts don't fit your narrative, doesn't make them any less true.

If it is that important to have one than you need to imagine the dumbest person you know having one. How about giving guns to the black panthers? I am sure there are some of them who are law abiding citizens. We could give them guns because it keeps them safe from a police state. We can go down to the ghettos where there is all sorts of violence and just start handing them out. We can go to your neighborhood and give them to the people who do not like you. I am sure a bunch of them don't have criminal records. I bet we could find some people you would not want to have guns.

If free speech is there to protect the most vile of speech then freedom to own guns must be there for the most vile of people top own a gun. We can give them to the pedos who have to live in neighborhoods where people want to kill them. How about we give all the gays guns because people pick on them.

That does not say what you are implying it says. Perhaps it would be good if you weren't so fucking stupid so you would not need to parrot what other idiots claim and fail to support. But please do explain in your own words how what you just quotes dupports your point. Go ahead, write it oput for all of us to see and explain it to us. If you are so smart and your point is so clear then you can do a lot better than copypasta.

Then why don't you tell the class what you think it says since you're such a fucking genius. I know exactly what it says, but I want to see what you think it says first, then I will be happy to explain what it really says. Go on, tell us.[/quote]

Yes yes, we have heard these romantic cherry picked arguments before. but they really do not add up when you realize they created a government that would be imposing laws upon its citizens. It is ultimately contradictory to at one time say having weapons protects you from the govenment while at the same time having treason as a crime. Those great words about freedom and liberty were only regarding european forces who wanted to make the rules. They never applied to the citizens in such a romantic and poetic way. No, the people were to pay taxes, have laws, and have a government which would kill or punish them for treason and disobedience. But if I am wrong about all of that, please do take your gun and go out and speed down the road and tell the cop that pulls you over that you are a free man because your gun makes it so. Any day you wish to actually back your argument up with action will be the day the government gives the smackdown to your so called freedoms. If I am wrong, then your gun gives you the authority to disobey any law you do not agree with. I am sure you disagree with a few. Until then your argument is a bunch of hot air because you know as well as I do the US government has never recognized a right for every perosn to own a weapon because it guarantees freedom from the government.

You are still a fuck up, and relying on children like your guntard buddies and captain x is not going to help your fail argument. Even you have a line where you would restrict gun ownership or else you would be passing them out since you are such a great believer in their benefits.

You neither understood my post, nor @Paladin's post, nor the minutes you just posted, did you?

[/quote]

You are the one who claims it says something, and it is your proof. So you will be the one to explain your bullshit to us because I say it is bullshit and until you can prove me wrong, it remains bullshit.

This is the problem with your intellect. You have absolutely no idea how to form a rational or logical argument. You have no idea what that passage above implies. You were told by someone else that it meant something it doesn't and you were too stupid to figure out they were full of crap. I am telling you that it does not say what you are implying now please do prove me wrong with an explanation that shows you have an understanding of the argument you present or shut the fuck up because you are federal fuck up. You see I get sick and tired of having to muddle my way through your piss poor reasoning as to why people who work hard and obey the laws and safety regulations should be allowed to own a firearm simply because they are decent people who we can trust with them. I am even willing to accept a certain amount of societal danger to myself due to people lying and manipulating the system as long as we make a good effort to be safe with firearms. Your arguments are bunk made out of propagandist lies, romanticized hero worship, and a need to compensate for your limp fucking dick.

Sorry, but the argument that your AR-15 is going to help you violently overthrow the government is moronic nonsense. I for one will laugh at you fucktards as an air strike takes you all out while you are hiding on the bundy ranch chanting death to America (or at least it's elected government).

Straw man argument is strawey. You're a completely delusional retard. Nobody is arguing that a gun gives you the right to disobey the law. Despite your claim, it's been proven time and time again that the second amendment is partially in place to protect us from a tyrannical government, not just foreign, but domestic too. Anyway, I expected a longer diatribe, but this will do. To sum things up, you are simply butt-hurt over the fact that we do have a right to bear arms and there' s nothing you can do about it. Do keep up the fail though.

You are the one who claims it says something, and it is your proof. So you will be the one to explain your bullshit to us because I say it is bullshit and until you can prove me wrong, it remains bullshit.

This is the problem with your intellect. You have absolutely no idea how to form a rational or logical argument. You have no idea what that passage above implies. You were told by someone else that it meant something it doesn't and you were too stupid to figure out they were full of crap. I am telling you that it does not say what you are implying now please do prove me wrong with an explanation that shows you have an understanding of the argument you present or shut the fuck up because you are federal fuck up. You see I get sick and tired of having to muddle my way through your piss poor reasoning as to why people who work hard and obey the laws and safety regulations should be allowed to own a firearm simply because they are decent people who we can trust with them. I am even willing to accept a certain amount of societal danger to myself due to people lying and manipulating the system as long as we make a good effort to be safe with firearms. Your arguments are bunk made out of propagandist lies, romanticized hero worship, and a need to compensate for your limp fucking dick.[/quote]
You're the one claiming that it doesn't say what I'm implying it says, you're the one who needs to prove otherwise. Prove me wrong fucktard or shut the fuck up.

You're the one who can't get it through your thick fucking skull what the second amendment means after over 500 posts and multiple people explaining it. I know exactly what I posted mean, if you want to claim it means something otherwise, then fucking do it or shut the fuck up.

I guess somebody hasn't heard of treason. What Federal dumbass might call tyranny, others might call benevolence. His statement is pretty good proof that either he is retarded, or he believes that moral authority only comes from the gun. "It's tyranny because the gun enables me to call it that!" But to everybody else, the would be rebel is simply a criminal on a shooting spree. The ultimate tyranny is one that says a well armed mob can make the decisions.

That is OK, I knew you did not understand your own argument and you were simply parroting someone else who you thought was smart. Guns were there to protect our liberty from slaves, and even if you want to argue the militia angle you are way behind the times. Perhaps you could have made that argument back then when a person with a gun was on par with a soldier with a gun. Today that argument doesn't stand because your gun is not going to save you when they could easily kill you without you ever being physically able to stop them with your gun.

Will you be laughing if the "fucktards" are hiding in your garage awaiting the air strike? That would be pretty fucking funny I will admit.

Dude, I do not need you in the equation if I am going to make your argument for you. I am quite capable of arguing with myself on my own, You posted a bunch of blithering you have no idea what it means, and it does not support your point at all, therefor mine is still standing. I am not going to try and pretend those words meant anything to your point or try to rationalize why they are important when you do not even know why they are important. You did not make an argument, you copied a picture of some words. That is not an argument, that is a picture. It is not even a good picture. Now, when you have a point to make I will address it, until then fun with picture editing time is over my dimwitted friend, and your are done. I win, you cannot even make an argument against what I have to say.

Any time you want to you can post evidence that slaves, who are men, had a right to own guns because that right is so universal and important to our founding fathers. It is a hard argument to make because they never wanted everyone to have a right to arms, and that is why even they restricted them. Words do not equal actions. I can say I am driving to california, but until I get into the car and do it there is no truth in the words. You claim they said all men have a right to arms, but they never actually gave everyone that right. You can bring up all the quotes in the world when they never put it into action you will always be wrong.

No, I would be kicking them out into the open so that the military could shoot them more easily. I am not really up for protecting the rights of the racist jerkoffs at the bundy ranch to steal from the government.

Would you care to make a claim that could possibly be falsified? You seem to think that my interpretation of the Second Amendment--which, again, is supported by plain text understanding, history, common sense, tradition, legal precedent--is somehow deficient because there's some other more correct meaning to be gleaned from the text. Well, I haven't seen it.

And even if you're right--even if I'm totally closed-minded to interpretations I don't like--it's totally irrelevant UNLESS you can show how mine is flawed and/or some other interpretation is more correct. I could be pig-headed about my interpretation...and still be correct.

However, I maintain I'm only closed-minded to interpretations that are WRONG.

Sample Sentence: "Bob gave Mary an apple."
Me: "I think this sentence means a person named Bob had an apple, and then he gave it to a person named Mary, and then Mary had the apple."
You: "You're not interested in other interpretations beyond checking whether it contradicts your own belief."
Me: "Okay. Prove it by showing how my interpretation is wrong, or provide an alternate interpretation that is better."
You:

If you're going to take issue with my interpretation, stop attacking me personally, and show how my interpretation is flawed, or provide a better one.

I did.

Nope. Not at all. I think your interpretation of the 2nd amendment is of little interest to you,because when asked for it, you bring up other stuff rather than an interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

Which is how my claim can be verified or falsified to a certain degree: It is reasonable to assume that if you had some interest ina topic, you would join in a conversation about it when offered, and know enough about it to recognize whether you are talking about it or not.

Actual You in this thread: "That sentence does not contradict the idea that John has a banana, and in fact, this other source says that the speaker believed John to have fruit."

Actual Me in this thread: "That's not an interpretation of the sentence, except in the vague, remote negative way."

Indeed. , and: That wasn't the question.

@Packard

You seem to think I'm reading things into the text that aren't there, or that aren't necessary and/or obvious implications of what is there. I dispute this.

There is a right of the people to keep and bear arms mentioned in the text. It's what "shall not be infringed." By any reasonable understanding, this means that the people do have the right to possess (keep) and carry (bear) small arms. For what purpose do individuals--and "keep" means this right is individual in nature--bear arms? For their own defense. For what other purpose do individuals bear arms? I'm not reading more into what's there; that's what those words actually mean. If you want to claim those words actually mean something other than that, the burden is on you to show it.

Why is infringement prohibited? Because armed citizens--that's what a militia is--are necessary to the security of a free state. So, what reasonable connection do armed citizens have to the security of a free state? Does duck hunting provide security? Is a collection of shiny antique dueling pistols a bulwark against tyranny? Does one procure liberty by skeet shooting? Of course not. This clause is a premise that the people have the right to armed defense against threats to their freedoms, even against the state itself.

So I don't see how you can claim I'm reading more into the Second Amendment than what's actually there.

There's my argument. This is the discussion. Tell me why any of what I said above is wrong.

With what will you be kicking a group of armed men out of your garage?