The "we need the 2nd amendment to fight tyranny" argument is amusing.

[Direckshun]

This thread is reserved specifically for the pro-gun argument, claiming that most (if not all) forms of gun control are unconstitutional because the 2nd amendment is intended to protect us from governmental tyranny. I believe it is a hollow argument made by hypocritical people.

This argument almost altogether surfaces from the conservative movement and DC conservatives. The argument goes as follows: if we enact a bunch of gun control measures, the government will have a much easier pathway towards installing tyrannical rule by force.

And yet this same conservative movement has been on the front lines arguing for limits to amendments much more crucial to protecting us from tyranny. Friedersdorf, proving once again that he's one of the best commentators on the internet, cites specifically the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments, all of which have been weakened through various legislation in the 21st century, with conservatives cheering every time.

I think there are various arguments to be made for gun proliferation, and protection from tyranny may be one of them. But coming from a bloc of folks who've supported suspending habeus corpus, attacking privacy, and embracing enhanced interrogation... it's sure as shit a hollow one to make.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...lution/266711/

The Strangest Conservative Priority: Prepping a '2nd Amendment Solution'
The Bill of Rights offers much smarter, more effective ways to safeguard liberty than preparing for armed insurrection.
By Conor Friedersdorf
Jan 2 2013, 6:00 AM ET509

In the National Review, Kevin Williamson argues that nearly everyone calling for gun control either doesn't understand or refuses to address the actual purpose of the 2nd Amendment. They talk, he says, as if there's no legitimate reason for an American to have military grade weapons, as if the 2nd Amendment protects mere hunting and home security. "The purpose of having citizens armed with paramilitary weapons is to allow them to engage in paramilitary actions," Williamson writes. "There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny."

Walter E. Williams makes a similar argument in a Townhall column. "There have been people who've ridiculed the protections afforded by the Second Amendment, asking what chance would citizens have against the military might of the U.S. government," he writes. "Military might isn't always the deciding factor. Our 1776 War of Independence was against the mightiest nation on the face of the earth -- Great Britain. In Syria, the rebels are making life uncomfortable for the much-better-equipped Syrian regime. Today's Americans are vastly better-armed than our founders, Warsaw Ghetto Jews and Syrian rebels. There are about 300 million privately held firearms owned by Americans. That's nothing to sneeze at. And notice that the people who support gun control are the very people who want to control and dictate our lives."

What do I think about this relatively common argument within the conservative movement? For now, I'll refrain from answering. If you're looking for considered objections, read Matt Steinglass in The Economist. In this item, we're going to proceed as if the arguments above are correct -- that there is a real danger of the U.S. government growing tyrannical; that the people must preserve checks on its power; and that the Framers best understood how to do so.

I respect that general reasoning.

What I can't respect are the conservatives who invoke it during political battles over gun control, even as they ignore or actively oppose so many other important attempts to safeguard liberty.

Their inconsistency is incoherent.

Let me explain at greater length what I mean.

Even if we presume that the 2nd Amendment exists partly so that citizens can rise up if the government gets tyrannical, it is undeniable that the Framers built other safeguards into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to prevent things from ever getting so bad as to warrant an insurrection. Federalism was one such safeguard; the separation of powers into three branches was another; and the balance of the Bill of Rights was the last of the major safeguards.

If a "2nd Amendment solution" is ever warranted, it'll mean our system already failed in numerous ways; that "solution" is also easily the most costly and dangerous of the safeguards we have.

It would probably mean another Civil War.

Yet the conservative movement is only reliable when it defends the 2nd Amendment. Otherwise, it is an inconsistent advocate for safeguarding liberty. Conservatives pay occasional lip service to federalism, but are generally hypocrites on the subject, voting for bills like No Child Left Behind, supporting a federally administered War on Drugs, and advocating for federal legislation on marriage. (Texas governor Rick Perry is the quintessential hypocrite on this subject).

And on the Bill of Rights, the conservative movement is far worse. Throughout the War on Terrorism, organizations like the ACLU and the Center of Constitutional Rights have reliably objected to Bush/Cheney/Obama policies, including warrantless spying on innocent Americans, indefinite detention without charges or trial, and the extrajudicial assassination of Americans. The Nation and Mother Jones reliably admit that the executive power claims made by Bush/Yoo/Obama/Koh exceed Madisonian limits and prudence informed by common sense.

Meanwhile, on the right, The Heritage Foundation, National Review, The Weekly Standard, and sundry others are more often than not active cheerleaders for those very same War on Terror policies. Due process? Warrants? Congressional oversight? You must have a pre-9/11 mindset.

It's one thing to argue that gun control legislation is a nonstarter, despite tens of thousands of deaths by gunshot per year, because the safeguards articulated in the Bill of Rights are sacrosanct. I can respect that... but not from people who simultaneously insist that 3,000 dead in a terrorist attack justifies departing from the plain text of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth amendments, and giving the president de-facto power to declare war without Congressional approval.

The conservative movement has a broad, textualist reading of the 2nd Amendment... and nothing else.

I don't understand a subset of the rank-and-file either.

If you're a gun owner who worries that gun control today could make tyranny easier to impose tomorrow, I get that, and if you worry about federal excesses generally, I have no argument with you.

I think law-abiding Americans should always be allowed to own guns.

But if you're a conservative gun owner who worries that gun control today could make tyranny easier to impose tomorrow, and you support warrantless spying, indefinite detention, and secret drone strikes on Americans accused of terrorism, what explains your seeming schizophrenia?

Think of it this way.

If you were a malign leader intent on imposing tyranny, what would you find more useful, banning high-capacity magazines... or a vast archive of the bank records, phone calls, texts and emails of millions of citizens that you could access in secret? Would you, as a malign leader, feel more empowered by a background check requirement on gun purchases... or the ability to legally kill anyone in secret on your say so alone? The powers the Republican Party has given to the presidency since 9/11 would obviously enable far more grave abuses in the hands of a would be tyrant than any gun control legislation with even a miniscule chance of passing Congress. So why are so many liberty-invoking 2nd Amendment absolutists reliable Republican voters, as if the GOP's stance on that issue somehow makes up for its shortcomings? And why do they so seldom speak up about threats to the Bill of Rights that don't involve guns?

In the National Review piece I quoted at the beginning of this article, Kevin Williamson approvingly quotes "the words of Supreme Court justice Joseph Story -- who was, it bears noting, appointed to the Court by the guy who wrote the Constitution." Here's the quoted passage:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

Conservatives love to invoke passages like that while defending a broad individual right to bear arms. Do they ever notice that its third sentence says, "It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace"? They love to invoke Madison. They are seldom if ever guided by his warning to the Constitutional Convention:

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

The conservative movement may be right or wrong about any number of things, but it doesn't agree with Joseph Story or James Madison when it comes to the best way to safeguard liberty.

It's time to admit as much.

I believe in an individual right to bear arms, and I have no problem with Americans who advocate on behalf of that right. If the feds start rounding up innocents to slaughter I have no problem with an armed citizenry fighting back. But folks who want to guard against a tyrannical government are foolish to focus on the 2nd Amendment while abandoning numerous other rights for fear of terrorism. The right to bear arms is the costliest liberty we have, in terms of innocent lives lost as an unintended byproduct; it is very unlikely to be exercised against the U.S. government in the foreseeable future; and its benefits are less important to securing liberty than habeus corpus and due process, as the experience of other free peoples demonstrates. I understand why people advocate on behalf of the right to bear arms, despite the costs; I don't understand why so many behave as if it is the most important safeguard against tyranny to maintain.

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

...everyone is a hypocrite unless you've found the person that is totally devoid of self-interest...

Scientifically, someone would have to be completely devoid of the ability to produce dopamine in order to be totally devoid of self-interest. Even someone like Mother Teresa gets a shot of dopamine for doing something that makes her feel good.

It's basic animal nature to be self-interested.

[RNR]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Scientifically, someone would have to be completely devoid of the ability to produce dopamine in order to be totally devoid of self-interest. Even someone like Mother Teresa gets a shot of dopamine for doing something that makes her feel good.

It's basic animal nature to be self-interested.

You could find a much better example than Agnes Bojaxhiu~

[Bump]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Actually, he makes some great points. The truth is, the Republican party is lost and doesn't know what it's doing. It's not cohesive enough to protect our liberties - and frankly, doesn't really care to. The only thing the Republican party cares to do is win elections - which is why they've been losing so many of them. About the only good news they've gotten lately is that Hillary Clinton is sick and probably not fit to be president. Pretty sad when your good news is the mortality of your opponent. Even still, the Democrats have proven that they can win elections with ideological nobodies.

The only way the Republicans ever find their way back to the light is through the path of liberty. But they will have to sacrifice a lot of sacred cows to ever get there. I don't see it happening.

I agree. The republican party is all about making money for themselves and that's basically it, but they throw a few "amens" to everyone and they have a following who follows them without question, anything they say is the best thing they've ever heard and everything they do is perfect and righteous.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Scientifically, someone would have to be completely devoid of the ability to produce dopamine in order to be totally devoid of self-interest. Even someone like Mother Teresa gets a shot of dopamine for doing something that makes her feel good.

It's basic animal nature to be self-interested.

Behaviors are not soley the function of neuro-transmitters. Even a person with Parkinsons, which is believed to be caused by a lack of L-dopa production, have self-interests or a survival instinct.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by alnorth

Direckshun, the problem with your thread is that, with a few exceptions, most people on this particular board (including myself) who make the "protect from tyranny" argument, are NOT in favor of the Patriot Act or of torture.

So, your thread is pretty much rendered useless.

or of assasinating american citizens while making sure we grant our rights to non-citizens

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by alnorth

Direckshun, the problem with your thread is that, with a few exceptions, most people on this particular board (including myself) who make the "protect from tyranny" argument, are NOT in favor of the Patriot Act or of torture.

So, your thread is pretty much rendered useless.

You're wrong, bro.

I've faced steep opposition just about every time I make pro-civil liberty arguments or arguments against torture. I have no idea what barometer you're using.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Taco John

I don't know if I agree with this. I'd say that most of the Republican voters on this forum favor the patriot act and other "terrorist nabbing" acts that violate our liberties. Look at the death of the 16 year old Al-Alwaki kid. Not too many around here rallied around the principles in that case - and that's the straight up killing of an innocent kid without any bother for due process. And that's not mentioning the killing of his father without any due process. If that's not tyranny, then what is?

Yup.

[Exoter175]

I'm not even going to read the stuff posted in this thread, I'm just going to say this.....

This country was founded on the idea that we as citizens, should have the right to have our own arms so that we can Hunt for food, Hunt for profession, to defend ourselves against intruders both foreign and domestic, and to protect ourselves as a whole from anyone or anything we deem threatening.

At no point is it smart, logical, or wise to remove that liberty from the people. There isn't a single argument that will ever come up in the history of man kind that will definitely prove one way or the other that Guns should not be owned by the people with a justifiable reason.

More people are killed by more commonplace means than guns yearly. More people are killed by blunt weapons than guns yearly. More people are killed by cars and/or drunk driving than weapons yearly.

That being said.

There has never been a time in the world where an innocent bystander was saved from Rape, Murder, Robbery, or otherwise, due to a drunk driver.

There are by and large, more accounts of armed citizens "doing good" for others, than there are for armed citizens committing a "massacre".

After all, this is what the country is up in arms about. Not a single **** is given if one bad guy kills another bad guy with a gun. Doesn't even make the news. But some sick **** who happens to steal guns from someone else goes and kills a whole bunch of children, and the first thing we want to argue about is whether or not citizens should be allowed to own a firearm?

Talk about jumping to irrational solutions here.

Perhaps maybe we should be more strict in mental evaluations of the generalized population so that we can do more studies, more research on mental illness and start finding ways to help the sick and disenfranchised.

Did that ever ring a bell with anyone? Noooooooooo

Talking heads on TV drive the sheep of America to fear "Semi-automatic Assault Rifles", when they cannot even tell me what makes a gun semi-automatic, how it works, and how we define an "assault rifle".

[mnchiefsguy]

Originally Posted by Exoter175

I'm not even going to read the stuff posted in this thread, I'm just going to say this.....

This country was founded on the idea that we as citizens, should have the right to have our own arms so that we can Hunt for food, Hunt for profession, to defend ourselves against intruders both foreign and domestic, and to protect ourselves as a whole from anyone or anything we deem threatening.

At no point is it smart, logical, or wise to remove that liberty from the people. There isn't a single argument that will ever come up in the history of man kind that will definitely prove one way or the other that Guns should not be owned by the people with a justifiable reason.

More people are killed by more commonplace means than guns yearly. More people are killed by blunt weapons than guns yearly. More people are killed by cars and/or drunk driving than weapons yearly.

That being said.

There has never been a time in the world where an innocent bystander was saved from Rape, Murder, Robbery, or otherwise, due to a drunk driver.

There are by and large, more accounts of armed citizens "doing good" for others, than there are for armed citizens committing a "massacre".

After all, this is what the country is up in arms about. Not a single **** is given if one bad guy kills another bad guy with a gun. Doesn't even make the news. But some sick **** who happens to steal guns from someone else goes and kills a whole bunch of children, and the first thing we want to argue about is whether or not citizens should be allowed to own a firearm?

Talk about jumping to irrational solutions here.

Perhaps maybe we should be more strict in mental evaluations of the generalized population so that we can do more studies, more research on mental illness and start finding ways to help the sick and disenfranchised.

Did that ever ring a bell with anyone? Noooooooooo

Talking heads on TV drive the sheep of America to fear "Semi-automatic Assault Rifles", when they cannot even tell me what makes a gun semi-automatic, how it works, and how we define an "assault rifle".

Congrats noob for destroying Direckshun's pitiful argument to take away our 2nd amendment rights.

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

Congrats noob for destroying Direckshun's pitiful argument to take away our 2nd amendment rights.

Is this a hifive or a facepalm moment? I'm unsure. I was ranting.

[rockymtnchief]

I'm sure it's been brought up already but...."323 counts of death-by-rifle — and 496 people killed by hammers and other blunt objects".

So why the push to ban "assault rifles"? Because they're scary?

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by rockymtnchief

I'm sure it's been brought up already but...."323 counts of death-by-rifle — and 496 people killed by hammers and other blunt objects".

So why the push to ban "assault rifles"? Because they're scary?

Because it is a universal symbol for change, good or bad. It is scary, liberating, oppressing, joyful, prideful, and deadly.

Just like Bows and Swords before it.

There's a reason the AK47 happens to be on a number of nations flags.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Exoter175

I'm not even going to read the stuff posted in this thread, I'm just going to say this.....

This country was founded on the idea that we as citizens, should have the right to have our own arms so that we can Hunt for food, Hunt for profession, to defend ourselves against intruders both foreign and domestic, and to protect ourselves as a whole from anyone or anything we deem threatening.

At no point is it smart, logical, or wise to remove that liberty from the people. There isn't a single argument that will ever come up in the history of man kind that will definitely prove one way or the other that Guns should not be owned by the people with a justifiable reason.

More people are killed by more commonplace means than guns yearly. More people are killed by blunt weapons than guns yearly. More people are killed by cars and/or drunk driving than weapons yearly.

That being said.

There has never been a time in the world where an innocent bystander was saved from Rape, Murder, Robbery, or otherwise, due to a drunk driver.

There are by and large, more accounts of armed citizens "doing good" for others, than there are for armed citizens committing a "massacre".

After all, this is what the country is up in arms about. Not a single **** is given if one bad guy kills another bad guy with a gun. Doesn't even make the news. But some sick **** who happens to steal guns from someone else goes and kills a whole bunch of children, and the first thing we want to argue about is whether or not citizens should be allowed to own a firearm?

Talk about jumping to irrational solutions here.

Perhaps maybe we should be more strict in mental evaluations of the generalized population so that we can do more studies, more research on mental illness and start finding ways to help the sick and disenfranchised.

Did that ever ring a bell with anyone? Noooooooooo

Talking heads on TV drive the sheep of America to fear "Semi-automatic Assault Rifles", when they cannot even tell me what makes a gun semi-automatic, how it works, and how we define an "assault rifle".

This doesn't really address the OP.

Far as I know, nobody serious is advocating a repeal of the 2nd amendment. It's astonishing to me any time you make any sort of gun control argument, someone will pop up like clockwork to defend nonexistent proposals to repeal the 2nd amendment.

For the record, I would disagree with your post, as irrelevent as it is to the thread as it is, on two scores:

1. The United States actually has a pretty good record on mental health, compared to most other countries in the western world. That doesn't mean it can't stand to be improved, but let's not pretend like this is some neglected part of public policy.

2. To regard the US's rate of gun violence as low, simply because it kills fewer people than car accidents, is misguided. Our rate of gun violence is ridiculously high, something like 25 x's worse than the rest of the West. That's criminal.

That's not to say some of the point you made weren't valid, but they were mostly in defense against a repeal against the 2nd amendment, which again, nobody that I've read on this forum has suggested at any time.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Exoter175

Is this a hifive or a facepalm moment? I'm unsure. I was ranting.

Heh. It was a high five, I'm guessing.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by rockymtnchief

I'm sure it's been brought up already but...."323 counts of death-by-rifle — and 496 people killed by hammers and other blunt objects".

So why the push to ban "assault rifles"? Because they're scary?

Here you go.