Wednesday, February 13, 2013
the basics of "gun control"
Possibly alternately titled "gun control for dummies" or "simplicity of gun control"
To start, the phrase "gun control" is misleading. Historically, gun control has been associated with attempts to disarm populations. The United States, having the right to keep and bear arms enumerated in the Constitution, has had a harder time disarming their people.
Disarming Americans is complicated by a number of factors. The states would have to all agree at the same time to ignore or rewrite the constitution. Considering that there is a mixture of red and blue states, that has not happened. Additionally, Americans are aware of the fact that their natural right to defend themselves happens to be enumerated in the founding documents of the country.
More to the point, Americans are aware of the OBVIOUS attempts to INFRINGE the natural rights enumerated in the Constitution. Given that, there is national murmuring about what to do should the government turn on its citizens. The general consensus is that military and police would never go along with it and the citizens would be safe from that particular tyranny.
Considering this, there are a few things about gun control that seem to be commonly misunderstood. For one, the militia is not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. The militia is "the people". Also, the weapons protected by the constitution would be those sufficient for defending a person or the people from threats to themselves or their country.
Of course there are certain shoe horned legislations which ban some of these weapons. Right or wrong, it happened and the people have not found a need to stand up and make an issue of it. That is one of the reasons that political currents push towards further limitations. Politicians understand that their agendas will usually not be realized with one piece of legislations, but rather chipped away over time.
- insert tragedy here: we must ban guns in order to prevent this from happening again.
sadly, this is an opportunistic use of tragedy twisted to attack the innocent by comparing unrelated concepts. this was made obvious in the recent senate hearings and subsequent followup comments by various people iincluding joe biden.
- nobody needs an ar15: the largest problem with this statement is that its not consistent with the subject at hand. there has never been a requirement that a person "need" to exercise a right in order to exercise it. most popularly as of late, Rosa Parks didn't "need" to sit in the front of the bus. in summary, we don't need to need an ar15 in order to have one. the government, if it wishes to take them, does however, "want" to take them away.
- nobody needs more than 7 rounds: this is a recently popularized statement. the biggest problem with this statement is that it falls back to the subjective term "need". who determines need? at what point does a third party defining need become infringement? defense experts, including police and military, have acknowledged that the more rounds available to a defender, the less that defender has to interact with the weapon beyond using it directly for defence.
- assault weapons should not be available to the public: this is the most frustrating argument. weapons are identified with a term easily marketed as FUD to those that have no knowledge on the subject allowing quick uninformed opinions to be formed. The weapons classified as "assault weapons" are so classified based on looks. their function is identical to other semi-automatic weapons, but they "look" scary. More to the point, considering that the 2nd Amendment was for defense against anything, modern weapons were required to provide defense.
Sadly, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), misinformation, outright lies, and political bullies seem to be twisting an important part of our Constitution against the people.
To start, the phrase "gun control" is misleading. Historically, gun control has been associated with attempts to disarm populations. The United States, having the right to keep and bear arms enumerated in the Constitution, has had a harder time disarming their people.
Disarming Americans is complicated by a number of factors. The states would have to all agree at the same time to ignore or rewrite the constitution. Considering that there is a mixture of red and blue states, that has not happened. Additionally, Americans are aware of the fact that their natural right to defend themselves happens to be enumerated in the founding documents of the country.
More to the point, Americans are aware of the OBVIOUS attempts to INFRINGE the natural rights enumerated in the Constitution. Given that, there is national murmuring about what to do should the government turn on its citizens. The general consensus is that military and police would never go along with it and the citizens would be safe from that particular tyranny.
Considering this, there are a few things about gun control that seem to be commonly misunderstood. For one, the militia is not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. The militia is "the people". Also, the weapons protected by the constitution would be those sufficient for defending a person or the people from threats to themselves or their country.
Of course there are certain shoe horned legislations which ban some of these weapons. Right or wrong, it happened and the people have not found a need to stand up and make an issue of it. That is one of the reasons that political currents push towards further limitations. Politicians understand that their agendas will usually not be realized with one piece of legislations, but rather chipped away over time.
- insert tragedy here: we must ban guns in order to prevent this from happening again.
sadly, this is an opportunistic use of tragedy twisted to attack the innocent by comparing unrelated concepts. this was made obvious in the recent senate hearings and subsequent followup comments by various people iincluding joe biden.
- nobody needs an ar15: the largest problem with this statement is that its not consistent with the subject at hand. there has never been a requirement that a person "need" to exercise a right in order to exercise it. most popularly as of late, Rosa Parks didn't "need" to sit in the front of the bus. in summary, we don't need to need an ar15 in order to have one. the government, if it wishes to take them, does however, "want" to take them away.
- nobody needs more than 7 rounds: this is a recently popularized statement. the biggest problem with this statement is that it falls back to the subjective term "need". who determines need? at what point does a third party defining need become infringement? defense experts, including police and military, have acknowledged that the more rounds available to a defender, the less that defender has to interact with the weapon beyond using it directly for defence.
- assault weapons should not be available to the public: this is the most frustrating argument. weapons are identified with a term easily marketed as FUD to those that have no knowledge on the subject allowing quick uninformed opinions to be formed. The weapons classified as "assault weapons" are so classified based on looks. their function is identical to other semi-automatic weapons, but they "look" scary. More to the point, considering that the 2nd Amendment was for defense against anything, modern weapons were required to provide defense.
Sadly, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), misinformation, outright lies, and political bullies seem to be twisting an important part of our Constitution against the people.
The Mortgage Crisis
The mortgage crisis could not have been an accident. The people that "approved" the mortgages KNEW that:
- Were going to have prohibitive payments in 12 to 24 months
- Were going to be on property worth far less than what they sold for within 12 to 24 months
- Would be forclosed on because they couldn't sell for the amount of the mortgage
Bankers blame it on homeowners making bad decisions or not having foresight. However, those bankers get very uncomfortable when you point out that these mortgage were all approved by bankers that get PAID to know the market and it's trends.
When you point out that regular people like you and I saw this coming back in 2004/2005, they start to tap their fingers and look around nervously.
The short answer is that they set us up and we don't know "why".
Mortgages traditionally require people prove they can make the payments even when the market is not headed down. The banks knew exactly what they were doing...
The Media On It's Knees
Why is it that the mainstream media is clamoring on their knees in front of Obama as if their unwarranted affection will somehow lower his zipper and give them what they so desperately seem to want?