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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (1996)	10/10/2000 3:45:22 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Well I'm sure I'm not up for private arsenals. To what end? I believe all laws should have shelf lives and should be required to be re-enacted when they expire so that the code doesn't grow and grow. But that is another discussion. If you want to make sure that "the people" (whatever that means) are not infringed, then I'd say duly appointed 50 state Reserves meet the goal. After all if stormtroopers come, you could scurry off and join the Montana National Guard to fight it. But the big guns would still be in Washington's control. I don't think that a civil insurrection led by the National Guards of Montana joined by that of Colorado is much of a match for the heavy weaponry of the regular forces. So preparing for that event is impossible. If the government ever decided to go for broke against its citizenry, I don't think that our populace will have the weaponry, or the logistics to combat it. Nor do I think you want them possessing it in the mean time waiting for that moment. Nerve agents? Bio weapons? Nukes? If you're trying to minimize likely harm, terrorism, domestic and international, is far more likely to be our enemy. Since waves of immigration have made it difficult to tell "us" from "them" by obvious means, what you propose is simply unworkable as a defense to a truly committed authoritarian government taking control. And putting in place such cells of civil firepower is likely to attract the elements that we should fear most. You have to understand that, as good as they were, the framers had little insight into the ills of the 20th century, how mobile the populations of the world would become or the sheer firepower available to the leaders. We need to address those ourselves.