strangegrey wrote:Since 78 wrote:Just found this on Yahoo, didn't check the stats:
Vermont... no gun laws lowest crime rate in US. Anyone can concealed carry, with no permit.
DC...strictest gun laws in US. Virtually no ownership yet HIGHEST crime rates in US. That goes for NY, California, NJ (Newark and Camden are war zones, yet NJ has strict gun laws.)
It's probably fairly acurate. You can walk into a gas station in Burlington, Vermont (or any other city in VT) with a somewhat concealed, holstered hand gun. In fact, I've seen a customer in a gas station with a holstered 38. He wasn't a cop.
There's one thing that the liberals don't want you to conceptualize....would-be criminals don't like the possibility that someone's going to return fire. Simple as that.
SF-Dano wrote:Calbear94 wrote:we no longer need an absolute right to bear arms</b> to protect ourselves from our own government or an invading imperial power.
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Totally disagree with this statement. In fact, this is one of the main reasons we still need the right to bear arms. When "our" government finally denies law abiding citizens to own guns, that is when "our" government will find it very easy to become dictatorial. In many ways, the US government is already no longer "our" government. At least as far as heeding the majority of the people's wants and desires pertaining to issues both foreign and domestic.
Agree with you Dano, whoeheartedly. Thomas Jefferson said the safest and surest way to enslave the people is to disarm them. The fact of the matter is that the second amendment interpreted correctly, is a way to ensure that the government stays honest. The 'militia' was a people's army, during revolutionary times. We also had an 'american' army during the revolution. The militia was not part of that. The concept here, is that a militia is not the 'national guard' as nancy pelosi or harry reid would try to have you believe....the modern day equivalent of the 'militia' is your tom's, dick's and harry's across america protecting themselves, their families and their liberty.
Someone that doesn't believe in the second amendment, is not a patriot. I would go on further as to say that someone who wants to argue it's validity in today's day and age or worse, subvert it (like our friend above who picks and choses his/her stats from liberal university book reports) is guilty of high treason.
Your historical facts are askew here. And if these inform your opinion regarding the right to bear arms, then perhaps you should re-evaluate.
Fact:
1.) Today's national guard is far more organized than the colonial militias ever were. In the revolution, the Continental Army superceded the militias from various colonies. Washington inherited many of these militia members and he himself remarked that they were drunken, slovenly, underarmed, and prone to desertion. They were undisciplined and unruly. Washington had to whip them into shape, which is remarkable because he had to keep them from passing out drunk and to maintain their equipment properly (i.e. not to barbecue meat on their bayonettes). Check out 1776 by David McCullogh.
2.) Jefferson saw through the sham of "virtual representation." He understood that the American colonists, were basically voiceless subjects of the British crown. Therefore, any laws or taxes passed upon the colonies were without the consent of the governed. The right to bear arms would later be included in the Bill of Rights, because some of the founding fathers (the Republicans) feared that the new republic (based on the Constitution) would fail and thus the people would again be subjected to a tyranny.
3.) The Constitution has worked for over 200 years. In terms of voting rights and personal freedoms, we are far more free today than perhaps even the founding fathers could have imagined. Poor white males (i.e. without property) could not vote in most states until the 1820s, Blacks could not vote until 1870 and women until 1920. Public school education is a right for all. The civil rights act of 1963 precludes discrimination on the basis of race, gender, creed, etc.
4.) We don't need armed individuals to defend us from foreign powers, either. We have a professional army made up our own citizens from all the states in the Union.
The report above shows the very real problem faced in Washington, DC. It is based on comprehensive statistical evidence, not liberal opinions. To just dismiss it out of hand shows irrational bias.
Lastly, let's not forget that the recent ruling by the Supreme Court (which is a conservative court now) struck down the handgun measure that was voted on and approved by the citizens of Washington, D.C. whom I am sure do not have to be convinced with reems of statistics. Their experiences living in the community shows just how out of control the handgun situation is. Least needing to be convinced are those that have lost relatives or friends due to gun violence.
It is almost contradictory to be supporting the right to bear arms, while opposing states' rights (OK, technically Washington D.C. is not a state, but its citizens deserve to have the same rights as other citizens in the fifty states, and besides this case is just a test case...Chicago's handgun restrictions are soon to be overturned). Jefferson saw states' rights, more than anything else, as the bulwark against a tyranny by our national government.
A rule by the majority is the bedrock of a democracy. If the people of a state, or U.S. territory, vote to restrict, but not deny guns altogether, then that should be their right. If you believe that the right to own guns is absolute, then let's do away with licensing requirements altogether and return to lawlessness, not unlike the wild west. By strictly interpreting the Constitution, the court is denying of the right of a democratic electorate to say that some guns are just not OK. If we had adhered strictly to the founding father's definition of a republican citizen, then only propertied, white males would enjoy full rights and freedoms granted under the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I for one would not want to live in a world like that, just like I wouldn't want to live in Washington, D.C. since the reversal of the handgun ban.
