Tempests in Teacups
Strange little things enter my head every day. Today, the right to bear arms popped into my head. Much ado has been made in the past ten years about carrying handguns and owning semi-automatic rifles but they have all been tempests in teacups.
Any fulfillment of the Constitution's framers' intent with the Second Amendment was lost decades ago. Those men knew that the only way to keep a government from being an oppressive government was to keep the governmental officials in constant fear of armed rebellion. To fight the oppressive British, the rebels needed cannon, musket, pistol and horse. Those items comprised the totality of the weapons of war.
To extrapolate the necessary weapons necessary to overthrow the government today would require tanks, helicopters, fighters, missiles and myriad other weapons which cannot be legally bought by the average citizen. Imagine attempting to acquire enough weapons to take on the local-yokel volunteer police department of some rural town let alone the entire U.S. military. You'd have the ATF on your doorstep sometime between buying the grenades and the claymores.
I don't think the U.S. government needs overthrowing, yet. In fact, I think were perhaps one of the best countries in all of history. I'm merely speaking to the framers' intent with the Second Amendment. So, for the NRA to cry that they are losing their Second Amendment rights or for Sarah Brady to say that Americans' Second Amendment rights haven't been curtailed enough is to ignore the fact that those rights, as conceived by the framers of the Constitution, were lost long ago.
What does it matter? The forces of the right have long tried to use the issue of handguns and semi-automatic rifles as a paper façade to divide Americans. Their supposed "stance" to protect the Second Amendment has been a hurricane in a wash basin used to whip their constituents in to a frenzy over the most miniscule and useless of items. Who thinks any citizen who pulls a gun on a police officer the citizen thinks is oppressing him would live to tell his side of the story? Who thinks a store owner who mows down a handful of rioting teenagers for looting his store would find any pity when his prison sentence is handed down?
The framers knew a little something about throwing out an oppressive government. They may have been smarter than me. But, since I can see how the right has perverted their legacy into one of the more divisive issues of our time, that is why I'm say smarter than you.
Any fulfillment of the Constitution's framers' intent with the Second Amendment was lost decades ago. Those men knew that the only way to keep a government from being an oppressive government was to keep the governmental officials in constant fear of armed rebellion. To fight the oppressive British, the rebels needed cannon, musket, pistol and horse. Those items comprised the totality of the weapons of war.
To extrapolate the necessary weapons necessary to overthrow the government today would require tanks, helicopters, fighters, missiles and myriad other weapons which cannot be legally bought by the average citizen. Imagine attempting to acquire enough weapons to take on the local-yokel volunteer police department of some rural town let alone the entire U.S. military. You'd have the ATF on your doorstep sometime between buying the grenades and the claymores.
I don't think the U.S. government needs overthrowing, yet. In fact, I think were perhaps one of the best countries in all of history. I'm merely speaking to the framers' intent with the Second Amendment. So, for the NRA to cry that they are losing their Second Amendment rights or for Sarah Brady to say that Americans' Second Amendment rights haven't been curtailed enough is to ignore the fact that those rights, as conceived by the framers of the Constitution, were lost long ago.
What does it matter? The forces of the right have long tried to use the issue of handguns and semi-automatic rifles as a paper façade to divide Americans. Their supposed "stance" to protect the Second Amendment has been a hurricane in a wash basin used to whip their constituents in to a frenzy over the most miniscule and useless of items. Who thinks any citizen who pulls a gun on a police officer the citizen thinks is oppressing him would live to tell his side of the story? Who thinks a store owner who mows down a handful of rioting teenagers for looting his store would find any pity when his prison sentence is handed down?
The framers knew a little something about throwing out an oppressive government. They may have been smarter than me. But, since I can see how the right has perverted their legacy into one of the more divisive issues of our time, that is why I'm say smarter than you.
posted by John @ 9:11 PM
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