The 2nd Amendment

The Founders could not have envisioned a 24/7 news cycle with blaring soundtracks, garish headlines, and a relentless, almost pornographic sensationalism.

The Founders also could not envision Walmart or a Bushmaster. They wrote an amendment that dealt with weapons that took 10-30 seconds to load between shots.

If there were the types of guns now available back then, do you think they would have written the 2nd the way they did?

I have a Mini 14 and a CX4 Storm, both with 30 rd mags among other capacities.

I could live with 10 round mags. Originally Posted by Munchmasterman

Yes I think the founders would be in favor of people being able to own assault rifles, with reasonable exceptions for the mentally ill and convicted felons.

The only reason we have a country is because the citizens were armed in the days of the founders. We won our freedom because we had guns. The founders intended that the people should have the right to bare arms in order to provide a safeguard against tyranny.

The Jews in Israel are armed to the teeth. The Jews in Germany and Poland weren't armed when the Nazi's dragged them off to the death camps.

So Russian tranny was overthrown because the population was better armed than the army? Originally Posted by essence

Your "presumption" is that the Soviet Army was distinct from the Soviet population, and that "presumption" is erroneous.

My recollection is that the economic circumstances in the Soviet at the time of the break up made it difficult, if not impossible, to pay the salaries of the population to serve in the military, which included those members of the population who maintained the mechanical elements of the military, as well as the materiel supply for the military, and the ability of the military to sustain any meaningful resistence to the population was limited at best ... it was also about that time ....

.. that the Soviet Union began to be "invaded" with international media sources, behind closed doors, and some of the bullshit being peddled was shown to be false ... and there were some unreported advances made by the Western military that effectively would neutralize much of the strength of the Soviet military that was already lacking in morale.

During that same period of time this country began having to support the Soviet obligations to the International Space Station ... which confirms the economic problems the Soviet was suffering.

"They wrote an amendment that dealt with weapons that took 10-30 seconds to load between shots." From Munch

Didn't the other guys have "weapons that took 10-30 seconds to load between shots"?

Also, although I didn't serve back then (just wanted to clarify that for the "nit pickers" ... and irrespective of what BT thinks, BTW) ....

.. I seem to recall there being "loaders" that could free the shooter up for shooting!

I think it was apples for apples and oranges for oranges with a slide edge to the government. It does seem clear that the intent was not to provide "hunting rifles" and "sporting rifles" ... but to make available to the average citizen a firearm that might serve to repel an attack from the government's soldiers who were intruding illegally upon the citizens.....with each household having a firearm to ban together as a community to resist those efforts.

...with reasonable exceptions for the mentally ill and convicted felons. Originally Posted by joe bloe

If the government is coming after us ...

..... I want the felons and the crazy MFer's to be in the fray.

It's all hands on, baby.

If the government is coming after us ...

..... I want the felons and the crazy MFer's to be in the fray.

It's all hands on, baby. Originally Posted by LexusLover

Most of the mentally ill and convicted felons are working for the government. Many of them are in Congress.

Most of the mentally ill and convicted felons are working for the govenment. Many of them are in Congress. Originally Posted by joe bloe

Good.

... keep 'em close.

Many of them are in Congress. Originally Posted by joe bloe

Yep, Boehner, Ryan and the rest of the Immoral House Majority.

Yep, Boehner, Ryan and the rest of the Immoral House Majority. Originally Posted by bigtex

Democrat Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr is literally crazy. He was recently in a sanitarium.

Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson is worried Guam may sink because there are too many people on it. I'm going to write that one off as extreme stupidity; but you can't rule out insanity. I've attached a link to the video of Johnson making a fool of himself in a congressional investigation.

Then there's Democrat Congresswoman Frederica Wilson. She may not be technically crazy, maybe just eccentric and really really stupid.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs23CjIWMgA

She may not be technically crazy, maybe just eccentric and really really stupid. Originally Posted by joe bloe

How ironic! Those are the exact same words I use to describe Joe the Bloehard.

Are you a "She?"

There was an interesting factoid on CSPAN Saturday. Approximately 35% of assaults resulting in death in the U.S. are committed with weapons other than firearms. Those assaults (those in the U.S. involving no firearms) also exceed the number of like assaults documented by other western nations.

Notice also that the deaths attributed to “other firearms” between 1994 to 2004. There was no appreciable decline during the period when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was in effect.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vio..._United_States

Actually, you weren't agreeing with him on anything. See your post #70 above. You were responding to MY post. The exchange went like this:

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Originally Posted by ExNYer
Well, that was are refreshingly short and honest answer. Unlike a certain somebody on this board, when the argument wasn't going your way, you at least didn't try to change the subject or take statements out of context to make it look like you were still right.

You are an arrogant and pretentious prick, ExNYer.
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So, I guess you did recognize yourself. Heh.

I hope that's not too arrogant or pretentious. Originally Posted by ExNYer

And you were quoting Little Timmy at #65, you arrogant pretentious prick. http://www.eccie.net/showpost.php?p=...8&postcount=65

You're probably right. And you're also an arrogant pretentious fucking prick who I would like to punch in the fucking face given the opportunity.

They're continuing to bury those kids today. Hope you feel good about your right to bear arms you smug fucking cocksucker. Originally Posted by timpage

When the founders drafted the Constitution the ultimate military rifle was the "Brown Bess" musket. Not really a rifle as it was a smooth bore, muzzle loading, .75 caliber weapon. It's accuracy beyond 50-80 yards was questionable but the British, the most powerful army in the world, used the Brown Bess as a mass fire weapon. A good British soldier could fire 3-4 shots a minute, and exceptional soldier could get off 5 rounds. A good many Americans carried their personal weapon into battle and that weapon could be a Pennsylvania or Kentucky long rifle. It was a rifled, .45 caliber weapon that could be fired once or twice in a minute. A leather patch around the ball took longer to load but the range was well beyond 100 yards. Depending on the marksman the range could be 300 yards. The afore mentioned Brown Bess was the assault weapon of the 18th century. Durable, effective as used, and a rate of fire twice of the typical weapons of the day. The founders had no problems with the Brown Bess, the Pennsylvania, or Kentucky rifles. A few Americans even owned cannon until after the Civil War. Many a cannon battery (four cannon) was privately owned in the south by rich men who raised their own military units.

English soldiers were trained to fire 15 rounds every 3.75 minutes. Colonial militia were similarly trained. Colonial militia consisted of every able-bodied male between the age of 16 and 60. The colonial militia had fought in King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, King George’s War and the French and Indian War. When the first shots on Lexington Green were exchanged, many colonials had more combat experience – having served in the French and Indian War – than their British rank and file counterparts. It was General Gage's attempt to seize colonial cannons secreted in private homes at Concord that brought about open hostilities between England and its North American colonies.

How ironic! Those are the exact same words I use to describe Joe the Bloehard.

Are you a "She?" Originally Posted by bigtex

I know you are, but what am I?

... they only had to "envision" that the weapons of the Government would change with time and so it was appropriate for those of the citizens to change as well .... Originally Posted by LexusLover

This is the bit I find outrageous.

It implies citizens should escalate their arms in line with government forces, so the citizens could fight a government if it became tyrannical.

A farcical argument.

LL demolishes it himself when he agrees with me that other influences were at hand in Russia, and that a government has to keep the support of its forces in order to exert power - look at Egypt, Pakistan, etc etc etc.

LL agrees with me that it is much more complex than a simple equality of arms.

LL agrees with all of my post, but prefers to tie himself into knots because of his pre conceptions (and post conceptions, maybe he was changing diapers when he was writing the post)

So LL is very conflicted. Not the first time.

As for trannies, I don't know how large their weapons are, but I have heard they are not quite as big as advertised. Maybe CoG can confirm.

Carry on drinking the Christmas spirit.

Bear with me. Long complex quote coming up. From Deleuze 'Difference and repetition'

It is relevant inasmuch as it relates to the main driver of civilisation game changes, like the formation of the US, relate far more to exceptional people with a vision for a 'difference', than any debate about comparative capabilities of arms. It is about leadership, about populations wanting to make a better world, about civilizations going through birth pains to a better future. Not about how many rounds a rifle can fire in a minute.


Deleuze is arguing against a Hegelian dialectic view of history, and makes a powerful statement at the end of this extract in celebration of difference and affirmation.

We may joke about how the US considers itself unique and disparate, but that is the driver which made the US what it is. If the US does not nurture that concept and self belief, it has lost.

Even if the 'World Series' is really just a local league played in part of one continent which nobody else cares about ha ha. (essence shooting himself in the foot again with irrelevances)

Deleuze:

[The third] illusion concerns the negative and the manner in which it subordinates difference to itself, in the form of both limitation and opposition. The second illusion already prepared us for this discovery of a mystification on the part of the negative: it is in quality and extensity that intensity is inverted and appears upside down, and its power of affirming difference is betrayed by the figures of quantitative and qualitative limitation, qualitative and quantitative opposition. Limitation and opposition are first - and second - dimension surface effect, whereas the living depths, the diagonal, is populated by differences without negation. Beneath the platitude of the negative lies the world of 'disparateness'.

The origin of the illusion which subjects difference to the false power of the negative must therefore be sought, not in the sensible world itself, but in that which acts in depth and is incarnated in the sensible world. We have seen the Ideas are genuine objectivities, made up of differential elements and relations and provided with a specific mode - namely, the 'problematic'. Problems thus defined do not designate any ignorance on the part of a thinking subject, any more than they express a conflict, but rather objectively characterise the nature of Ideas as such. There is indeed therefore a me on, which must not be confused with the ouk on, and which means the being of the problematic, and not the being of the negative: an expletive NE rather than a negative 'not'. This me on is so called because it precedes all affirmation, but is none the less completely positive. Problems-Ideas are positive multiplicities, full and differentiated positivities described by the process of complete and reciprocal determination which relates problems to their conditions. The positivity of problems is constituted by the fact of being 'posited' (thereby being related to their conditions and fully determined).

It is true that, from this point of view, problems give rise to propositions which give effect to them in the form of answers or cases of solution. These propositions in turn represent affirmations, the objects of which are those differences which correspond to the relations and the singularities of the differential field. In this sense, we can establish a distinction between the positive and the affirmative - in other words, between the positivity of Ideas understood as differential positings and the affirmations to which they give rise, which incarnate and solve them. With regard to the latter, we should say not only that they are different affirmations but that they are affirmations of differences, as a consequence of the multiplicity which belongs to each Idea. Affirmation, understood as the affirmation of difference, is produced by the positivity of problems understood as differential positings; multiple affirmation is produced by problematic multiplicity. It is of the essence of affirmation to be in itself multiple and to affirm difference. As for the negative, this is only the shadow cast upon the affirmations produced by a problem: negation appears alongside affirmation like a powerless double, albeit one which testifies to the existence of another power, that of the effective and persistent problem.

Everything, however, is reversed if we begin with the propositions which represent these affirmations in consciousness. For Problems-Ideas are by nature unconscious: they are extra-propositional and sub-representative, and do not resemble the propositions which represent the affirmations to which they give rise. If we attempt to reconstitute problems in the image of or as resembling conscious propositions, then the illusion takes shape, the shadow awakens and appears to acquire a life of its own: it is as though each affirmation referred to its negative, or has 'sense' only by virtue of its negation, while at the same time a generalised negation, an ouk on, takes the place of the problem and its me on. Thus begins the long history of the distortion of the dialectic, which culminates with Hegel and consists in substituting the labour of the negative for the play of difference and the differential. Instead of being defined by a (non)-being which is the being of problems and questions, the dialectical instance is now defined by a non-being which is the being of the negative. The false genesis of affirmation, which takes the form of the negation of the negation and is produced by the negative, is substituted for the complementarity of the positive and the affirmative, of differential positing and the affirmation of difference.

Furthermore, if the truth be told, none of this would amount to much were it not for the moral presuppositions and practical implications of such a distortion.
We have seen all that this valorisation of the negative signified, including the conservative spirit of such an enterprise, the platitude of the affirmations supposed to be engendered thereby, and the manner in which we are led away from the most important task, that of determining problems and realising in them our power of creation and decision.

That is why conflicts, oppositions and contradictions seemed to us to be surface effects and conscious epiphenomena, while the unconscious lived on problems and differences. History progresses not by negation and the negation of negation, but by deciding problems and affirming differences. It is no less bloody and cruel as a result. Only the shadows of history live by negation: the good enter into it with all the power of a posited differential or a difference affirmed; they repel shadows into the shadows and deny only as the consequence of a primary positivity and affirmation. For them, as Nietzsche says, affirmation is primary; it affirms difference, while the negative is only a consequence or a reflection in which affirmation is doubled.

That is why real revolutions have the atmosphere of fetes. Contradiction is not the weapon of the proletariat but, rather, the manner in which the bourgeoisie defends and preserves itself, the shadow behind which it maintains its claim to decide what the problems are. Contradictions are not 'resolved', they are dissipated by capturing the problem of which they reflect only the shadow. The negative is always a conscious reaction, a distortion of the true agent or actor.