What is your opinion of the Second Amendment now?

[kentuck]

Now that we see firsthand the actual presence of fascism? Now that we see the danger in a right-wing government? Will there come a time that we may need guns to defend ourselves? Or do we simply go quietly to the camps? Or do guns just make the situation worse?

[chicagojoe]

1. I'm not happy about it, but I've begun arming myself.

[DenverDem]

2. Arm yourself to protect your family from fascists.

Thank God for the Second Amendment!

If it comes down to it, I'll fight. Do not go gentle into that BAD NIGHT!

[On the Road]

12. That's What the Amendment Was Meant For

We're the "well-regulated militia." Or could become one under the appropriate circumstances.

[Bat Boy]

14. Just out of curiosity...

How are we "well regulated?"

[SheilaT]

3. My opinion of it hasn't

changed. Why should it?

[kentuck]

6. What is your opinion?

:)

[SheilaT]

24. My opinion is

that it allows individuals to own rifles and guns, but it's not a free pass to obtain automatic weapons and so on.

The part where it refers to a well-regulated militia was not there by accident. And those who think that an individual or small group can possibly be well-enough armed to fight off a determined government-backed military lives in Fantasy Land.

[lcordero]

4. I want to see

the GCA of 1968, NFA of 1934, along with all state legislature repealed permanently.

[Mike L]

5. I supported it 100% before.

[sui generis]

7. bullcrap

if the gummint turns its baleful eye on you there is no possible amount of armament you can amass that will save your ass.

If you want to be a martyr for the cause, go out in a blaze of glory - it's your life, and the second amendment will just help you get dead quicker while the rest of us are moving our asses out of the line of fire.

And besides who is going to lead these various militias with their various ideas of right and wrong and morality? I sure don't want one parked in my neighborhood demanding billets by eminent domain.

If that happens, you would soon realize that gun laws were made JUST for people like me.

[kentuck]

9. Enough reality !

Enough ! So you don't think your 12-gauge shotgun will hold off that helicopter gunship? So you think they would actually use those weapons on American "insurgents"?? :)

[sui generis]

11. okay you got me

I've been accused of editorializing before. Happens when you type faster than you think and I usually think at a pretty good clip.

:hi:

[TwentyFive]

8. I agree. I'm Liberal/Progressive and support the second ammendment

I think many critics forget history and what happens when fascists take over the government. Also many people live in rural areas. Owning a gun (and knowing how to use it) to protect yourself is a way of life...the nearest cop is maybe 45 minutes away.

[sui generis]

10. I have no problem with rural gun ownership

and it's not crime I'd be worried about on the farm in Washington state, more like coyotes and bears.

But militias fighting the fascist government? That's so absurd and fairytale and nobody has thought it even through to the beginning.

Are you going to recruit all men of fighting age? Or else? How would that make you different? If you don't, how would you expect to win? Many militias are worse than the so-called "fascists" they'd be trying to overthrow. What makes you think the rest of America would let you take up arms against the government?

History has shown that bloody coups inevitably lead to bloody regimes. If it's that bad here before you start, I sure won't want to be here after you finish.

[el_gato]

13. nobody is talking about a coup

seems like people are mostly concerned with a krystal nacht type situation

[cattleman22]

21. I support banning all free speech in cities

is just as wrong as saying you only support gun rights in rural reas.


""History has shown that bloody coups inevitably lead to bloody regimes""



Condemning the US as a bloody regime will not help to get dems elected.



c

[sui generis]

26. you pegged me wrong

I did not say I "only" support gun rights in rural areas, I just didn't expand the discussion. For the record, I am for making it as difficult to own a gun as possible, but if you pass the tests I have no problem with gun ownership. Let me forestall your response: nothing you can say will change my mind, and having that opinion doesn't mean I'm weak or evil or naive or feebleminded.

NUMBER 2: I didn't say anything about the U.S. BEING a bloody regime. I said if militias are used to overthrow the government it will (would) be bloody, and it would only create as many problems as it tried to fix.

-sui

[cattleman22]

29. You said bloody rebellion results in bloody regimes

The US is the result of a bloody rebellion, yet it is not a bloody regime. Why do you think another bloody rebebellion in the US would have to resullt in a bloody regime?

[sui generis]

34. it absolutely would

First of all, we woudn't be a bunch of colonials uniting against a common imperial enemy of oppressive taxation. We would be a ragtag bunch of militias whose reasons for participating would be everything from democratic idealists to people who think that America isn't white enough and that there isn't enough god in government and too many homos, and people like me who think that most ultra conservatives and Michelle Malkin should be rounded up and put in concentration camps to manufacture license plates and atone for their sins.

There would be power struggles, conflicts of interest, and every conceivable problem that any standing militia or army has ever faced: supply, supply chains, and territory.

The two situations don't even remotely compare on geography alone, much less the fact that if you could raise a militia to overthrow the government, Rush could certainly raise a militia to shoot us in the back.

It's science fiction and a waste of brain tissue to even consider.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. One problem with all the guns -- they make people stand and

fight, and die, when they should run and hide. There's no way that a bunch of AK semi-auto knockoffs are going to stand against helicopter gunships, air-to-ground missiles, tanks, satellite observation, and everything else a fascist government can mass against us. Could the mujahadin have stood against the soviets if we hadn't given them stingers and other heavy weaponry? Could the insurgents in Iraq do even the damage they do now, if not for the unguarded weapons depots Saddam left behind?

2nd amendment was perfectly reasonable when the most powerful weapon was a cannon that could lob a shell a half mile, and when the frontier was under constant threat from Native Americans and hostile colonial powers. As a modern right, it is a lot better in theory than in practice. Just ask David Koresh.

[Q]

16. If the Bushie government finds an excuse to...

...carry you off to a 'camp'...a gun or two won't make any difference. They will simply blow away any who resist.

That said...I don't think it will ever come to camps. Such a thing isn't needed when the fascists control the majority of the media and a 'time of war' means an ongoing national emergency. They already have everything they need or want. We are of no danger to them.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[yellowcanine]

18. Well - it is a good amendment but it doesn't say what the NRA says it says

Amendment II

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.

It doesn't say that guns can't be regulated, just that they can't be banned outright. In fact, the well regulated militia is cited as the ideal. If that doesn't mean when and how to carry guns, what else could it mean?

[KoKo]

19. Guns don't work against Napalm and Tanks, Missiles and Bombs. They

have more power than each of us owning a pistol, rifle or assault weapon. So...what difference does it make? Unless folks decided to get into the "illegal arms" trade. And, I for one don't plan on that.

[NEEDLE DRIVER]

23. Second Amendment

Heavy weapons have more power than an individual with a firearm. What difference does it make? What do you do when things get bad enough that the US Government needs to and is willing to use heavy weapons on its own people? David Koresh was cited above. Look at the backlash from that operation. That was one localised event, and the outrage it inspired still reverberates.

The Government wants a monopoly on the use of deadly force. The Government *does not want* citizens to be able to defend their rights. The essential rights - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of worship - are toothless unless you have the right to keep and bear the tools needed to ultimately defend those rights. One person with a rifle may not prevail against heavy weapons. A community armed with rifles /can/ prevail. A nation of armed citizens *will* prevail.

Our Government has been systematically chipping away at our right to keep and bear the tools we need to defend our rights. The fellows who wrote the Bill of Rights had just fought a war against a Government that was trying to do that, and they had first hand knowledge of the need to empower the citizens of their new country to defend their rights against tyranny from all quarters.

Our need to defend our rights today is no less urgent. Our right to keep and bear arms is no less valid.

[Comicstripper]

20. Support it 100%

A local militia has the right to arm itself. Not individuals with automatic weapons.

[cattleman22]

22. Who makes up the milita? Individuals? n/t

[hollowdweller]

25. Gun Control Issue gives the GOP the thin margin to win!

Take that off the table and we win! So there's a large block of union blue collar workers who are a natural Democrats, and always voted that way. But with the corporate free trade policy that the Dems have supported these guys are voting their guns since the Dems and the Repubs are the same economically.

[robbedvoter]

28. Silly me! I thought it was Diebold!

[robbedvoter]

27. It refers to militias, not individuals. The SS is already armed.

My fight will not be with guns.

[Killarney]

30. No thanks.

I'm not going to turn into one of those gun-toting, gun-rubbing, gun-loving, gun-worshipping rednecks like all the nutjobs on www.imnotsorry.com just because we have a right-wing government.

When we all turn into gun-loving nutjobs, then the right-wing will have truly won.

Count me out.

[Bush was AWOL]

31. The right has been stocking up on arms for hundreds of years

it's time we start doing the same...cause if it ever came down to it they'd have us outnumbered in gun owners.

[MrBenchley]

32. My opinion is that

it's ridiculous to pretend that you can do by force what you couldn't do by persuasion. And that reason and truth will win out in the end.

And for the record, all the Second Amendment does is guarantee the right of states to have a well regulated militia. As the courts have affirmed again and again and again.

"Will there come a time that we may need guns to defend ourselves?"
Ask Ted Nugent. Or Larry Pratt. Or Trent Lott. Or Tom DeLay. Or David Duke. Or any other gun rights politican.

[gratuitous]

33. If I need a gun to guarantee my "rights"

Then my rights aren't worth a plugged nickel anyway.

[jarab]

35. They won't tolerate us as a "militia"

so it comes down to individual rights as gun owners in a self-defense/hunting condition.
I do not for the life of me know how, why or when the Democrats became the anti-gun party. Doesn't make sense. While we've "killed" ourselves fighting that battle on the Second, we've quite likely allowed the oppositions to make ill-advised inroads into the protections provided by all the others.
Guns specific for self-defense and hunting are OK in my book - always have been. Democrats like the senior NY senator have hurt our greater causes severely on this issue. mho
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