Laws restricting the sale or possession of firearms affect only those willing to obey those laws. Witness the home invasions and killings that are now much more common in Australia since private ownership of firearms was restricted.

The first act by any repressive government is to restrict the ability of the populace to resist.

Very well and succintly put, Warhead.

I'm amazed at how the American media simultaneously paints paranoia over owning a pistol, yet saturates the television and movie screens with the romanticized adventure of its use.

Just like any major corporation, the media is out there, first and foremost, to make money off of your purchase of their newspapers, advertisment, movies, etc. Media executives don't have a clue. Those romanticized adventures make them lots of money. Bad news makes them money. I must be the only person who actually recognizes that.

At any rate:


Let's see the specifics on those facts, shall we? What kind of weapons were restricted? Who was restricted from it? How long has this law been in effect? What about the killings, do you have specifics on those? We can't really judge the weight of this statement without knowing the facts behind the facts.



This has been our little topic of discussion for a while.

Ever thought of peaceful demonstration? Look at what Ghandi did to the British. Now, imagine that he was a guerilla warfare specialist. I think I'll take the peaceful Ghandi.

I know you're not going to buy that one. But maybe the communist fairy will come down and magically construct upon us an opressive communist regime run by Stalin's cousin's brother's grandson's son-in-law. Are you getting my point here? OUR CONSTITUTION HAS MORE BUILT IN DEFENSES AGAINST COMMUNISM THAN YOUR ASSAULT RIFLE DOES.

checks and balances.
voting system.
impeachment system.
constitution amendment system with more roadblocks than a SWAT barracade.

If this magical communist regime is powerful enough to make it through our legal system without collapsing and giving way to our democracy, then nothing's going to stand up to it.

Because, I want military-grade weaponry. They look cool, and can destroy stuff in a really big way. Machismo, maybe?

While I'm explaining why I want military-grade firearms, why do YOU want to eat dinner at a restaraunt instead of at home? Do you need a good reason? And, who is to judge your reason, to be a good reason or not? Maybe we should ban restaraunts, as well?

How easily pacified the masses are...

X2f01, you are absolutely right, the constitution IS the best defense against communism. I present to you, for examination, the ultimate Constitutional defense against Johnny RED and his nanny-state:

Amendment II, adopted in 1791:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

"SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED". Hmmm... Seems pretty hard to reinterpret that one, without a serious overhaul of the english language.

The Supreme Court, the Federal Government, and the Media can deliberate all they want, there's nothing to "interpret" from the statement. It's wording is quite clear, and any government secure in its authority would have no reason to fear an armed citizenry, anyway.

You have more to fear from a can opener than you have to fear from an educated and armed citizen.

Techi : because im a complete fool at cooking ? its edible, but hardly interesting (hey, still working on it) and to try something different rather than the same old (insert meat form here) Pasta/Potato/rice mix i normally make, i dont see how your desire for Military grade weaponry and my habit of going out to restruants even fall close to each other.

and lemme get this right, you wanna feel macho ? err, wow. thats a great reason aint it ? try weighting the potential concequences up against the benfits. im pretty sure you'd end up with a awfully one sided scale there.

Techi and XF201 : heellooo, we are writing the year 2004 now, not 1954 and communism never really worked outside the paper, and given our nature, such a extreme form of socialism will NEVER work anyway.

Remember that the right to bear arms was in the 2nd Amendment. It's an amendment, and another one could be passed to change that as well, can it not? Did you know that you can take someone to court over something with a $20 value? Why don't people do that now? Because it was written for that time, not for now. Your little debate using the Constitution can be considered flawed. How do you know they didn't mean the people of the state or individuals? It says "the people" not "individuals." The 9th Amendment also states, in terms most might understand, that other rights aside from those listed may exist, and just because they are not listed doesn't mean they can be violated. What about the peoples right to feel secure in public while not having to worry about a shoot out going down on the bus or at McDonalds?

Shall not be infringed isn't the part that needs interpreting....it's the people (state or individual?).

LOL Assault weapons! What ya think it takes more the one bullet? Thats all I would need I am not going to pop you with some .380 Auto or even a 9 MM I have a .45 Super that I keep under my pillow and hope to hell that I never have to use it. Pain in the ************ to clean up the mess that it makes.

nutlink, do keep in mind that some states ratified the constitution only after being promised that the bill of rights would be added immediately afterwards. I think the amendments were likely constructed with more of an eye to the future than the housekeeping you are referring to.

However, I can't agree with tenchi's statement that there is nothing to be "intepreted." The amendment starts off with the phrase "a well regulated militia." I am curious what the definition and purpose of a well regulated militia was to those who wrote the amendment.

Prefacing the amendemnt with the phrase reads to me almost like a condition. If the first amendment started out with "A free press, being necessary for fair political elections...", the way I read it, it would imply only the press has a right to the protection that follows. In both my hypothetical and the actual phrasing, the press has free speech, but the actual phrasing puts no restrictions parties not mentioned (ie everyone besides the press). Thus you might read the 2nd amendment as maintaining the right of citizens, as parts of militias, to possess firearms. But using it as a blanket statement that all citizens may possess firearms require intepretation.

Sadly my history from the era is not very good, so I'm not entirely sure what was meant by "a well regulated militia," or what the intent was. I also don't know if the founding fathers had a large quantity of writings that makes it clear the current pro-gun ownership intepretion is correct. I was just somewhat suprised by your statement that "there is nothing to intepret." It doesn't read like an explicit edict to me, and would require more than the single sentence to put into a useful context.

There is also a question of if the same arguements that supported it then still hold now. And I'm very much curious if the founding fathers felt that groups that could not influence the government through majority support should retain enough power to overthrow the government if it runs amuck. The declaration gives plenty of moral justification for revolts, but in some conversations I've seen it read as some kind of overthrow clause in which the people must be sufficiently armed to take on the government and its military.

hmm... too many questions. it's 12:12 where i'm sitting, night everyone.

You guys still at it? You sure do seem to be passionate about your guns.

On a side note: Why are you Americans so paranoid/scared of commies? I'm thinking most of you don't even know what communism is. Is it some remnant of the cold war propaganda your government fed you?

Last time I checked, most criminals aren't exactly smart. A recoil for a 7.62X51 NATO will kick like a mule on crack, and without a decent stock, you'll at least bruise yourself. On those, single shot is almost the only practical situation.
A G3 is going to have limited effectiveness against level IV body armor.
7.62X51 will probably penetrate the strike face, but...
it's thicker than some vehicle hulls, to put it this way. It's probably tougher.
After you take one, wouldn't you be SHOOTING at the other guy?
And two won't penetrate if they don't hit fairly close, which, without good aim, will almost never happen.
Admittedly, body armor isn't effective against heavy-caliber rounds, but it will generally stop most projectiles.

Would you? The only people I know who been shot are cops so they aren't running around in fancy military grade vests, but after being shot with relatively low cal weapons they were both down, one with minor injuries but enough pain to keep him out of the action and the other with a ruptured spleen. The first survived because the shooter ran, and the one with the ruptured spleen because his partner killed the shooter (who was ironically carrying a one-shot derringer, but I'm not particulalry sorry for him).

But I don't keep up on the high-end hardware you guys are chatting about, so maybe you would be able to shoot back.

Very true, but the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were given very loose definitions. That's why laws can keep changing, everything is interpreted differently by everyone at different times. What about the ban on alcohol? That was an amendment, yet that was changed around. Don't you think that that particular amendment was constructed with an eye to the future? That was changeable. Even if guns were banned and it didn't work out it could be changed back. And again witht he regulated militia. Who's regulating it? The state? The people? Who? A well regulated militia isn't going to be just a bunch of slicks with their guns saying "screw the government!" Maybe it's meant to be something like the reserves? Who knows, it's all up for interpretation.

Let's think about this. We have freedom of speech, right? Well, why can't I just copy down Pete Rose's book word for word and then sell it for tons of cash? There's a limit to everything.

So what about thermo-nuclear devices? Shouldn't everyone be allowed to have one? Obviously, the line falls far before that. Our discussion is about where this line falls.


Exactly my point! I was trying to prove to everyone else that the magical communist regime is not going to roll around and restrict our rights, and therefore we won't need assault weapons to defend ourselves from them. We're not in danger of being enslaved by our government.