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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skipper who wrote (13495)	11/4/1997 10:58:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 108807

Skipper, the actual intent of the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was to ensure that each state within the United States would have a trained, official, "well-regulated" fighting force in place in order to prevent the federal government from becoming overly powerful. This actually has absolutely nothing to do with the citizenry itself having weapons on a private basis. Another important historical consideration is that in Colonial days, it was fifty years before even large cities had organized police departments to protect the citizenry. The times were entirely different. My own personal opinion is that if an American revolutionary could time travel into my living room, and see all the damage guns do in American society, which is significantly more violent than civilized societies with fewer guns, that revolutionary would agree that the argument, and the amendment, are irrelevant to modern-day life. Revolutionaries are by definition free thinkers and futurists. I think this body of very gifted men would have a cow, so to speak, at the way their words have been perverted to make parts of our society a real mess. The Third Amendment is also hopelessly passe and useless. I think that proves that not every one of the Bill of Rights was designed to last several centuries. These are historical documents, not guaranteeing obscure rights necessarily into the space age, in my opinion. Do you really think that you can out-shoot the U.S. government? Do you think your attempt to do so is one of your protected rights under the Constitution? I am not sure that I think it is. I value my freedoms, and consider them impinged upon considerably when I have to avoid whole neighborhoods, and stay in at night, because so many criminals are armed. I have absolutely no objections to shooting as a sport, having been an avid archer as a child, but how about having shooting ranges where your weapons are stored? If you assume that the right of ndividuals to bear arms is ironclad in our Constitution, you should at least read the following tract with an open mind and then maybe we can discuss it some more: handguncontrol.org

To: Skipper who wrote (13495)	11/5/1997 1:31:00 PM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Skipper, Michael Kinsley (at one time the "left" on Crossfire) wrote an essay on the 2nd Amendment, in which he concluded that if it were read in the manner in which moderns read the 1st Amendment, that not only would you be able to possess your own gun, you would be required to own one. "The Militia" in 18th century parlance was every able bodied man. The thinkers of that era did not want a "standing army" because they had read their Roman history, and remembered how Caesar turned his army on the Roman Republic. And they had just experienced the British Governours' attempts to gather all privately owned guns. The writings of the founders concerning the right of individuals to be armed are prolific, so the tactic of today's progressives is to never address those writings. Instead they tell you "what the founders would think if they were alive today", or to declare by fiat that whatever amendment they dislike is no longer in effect. The American experiment in Constitutional government is a failure. The 9th and 10th Amendments are routinely ignored, as they would prohibit the vast expansion of centralized government intrusion that we have experienced in our lifetimes. We might not have HUD, the Dept of Education and many of the other wonderful alphabet bureaucracies that rule our lives. The 2nd Amendment is hated by the touchy-feelie fascists, so it will soon mean "The Right of Police Departments and the Army to Keep and Bear Arms Will Not Be Infringed". And I guess the 3rd Amendment has just been declared null and void by CGB, so it must go too. The Bill of Rights will have to become a more modern document. We should enshrine the new, relevant rights in the Constitution, and get rid of the outdated ones. The Right to Outlaw Tobacco. The Right to Smoke Matrijuana. The Right of Redwoods to Live. The Right of Animals to Live. The Right of the Elderly To Die. The Right of Lives Unworthy to Be Lived To Die. Sieg Heil.