• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

How would you amend the second amendment?

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
None of these considerations diminish the point: the people who wrote the US Constitution expected that private citizens would own significant weaponry, independent of membership in State-organized armed forces. This has implications for an understanding of the Second Amendment.
Click to expand...

These considerations diminish the point tremendously: the people who wrote the US Constitution expected that the kinds of weapons owned by private citizens would be the kind that wins wars. I hate to break it to you, but that´s no longer the case.
 
Chaos said:
These considerations diminish the point tremendously: the people who wrote the US Constitution expected that the kinds of weapons owned by private citizens would be the kind that wins wars. I hate to break it to you, but that´s no longer the case.
Click to expand...
True, we are far from the position where the courts and the population are comfortable with machine guns in the closet and a howitzer in the garage. We have moved from a universally armed population to the current position by a series of tiny steps. That does not invalidate the Second Amendment protection. The people who wrote the Constitution provided a procedure by which people could accommodate a changed situation. It's called "amendment". So far, the Second Amendment has not been repealed or altered.
 
Anybody who thinks a citizen militia can do more than die bravely against a modern professional army is insane. You can make an occupier miserable, but you cannot unseat a determined occupier who has a professional army and an intact supply chain.
 
(Malcolm): "The point is this: the people who wrote the US Constitution anticipated that the US government would hire private-sector firms to defend the country. A sea-bourne Blackwater Security, in effect."
Chaos said:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
BenBurch said:
...every single vessel of any note was armed at that era. You would not have been able to survive at sea otherwise.
Click to expand...
Okay. We agree. The people who wrote the US Constitution expected private shipowners to own vessels armed with antiship weapons.
Click to expand...
And back then, pretty much any civilian vessel could be transformed into one of these.
Click to expand...
Dancing David said:
Some had very small arms for the time, certainly nothing of note.
Click to expand...
BenBurch said:
This is true.
Click to expand...
Make up your mind. Which side of this argument do you want to support?
 
BenBurch said:
Anybody who thinks a citizen militia can do more than die bravely against a modern professional army is insane. You can make an occupier miserable, but you cannot unseat a determined occupier who has a professional army and an intact supply chain.
Click to expand...
Vietnam, 1974. Afganistan, 1989, Iraq (almost; if the Congressional Democrats had prevailed), 2004. I guess the Swiss are all insane, huh?
 
Last edited:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
True, we are far from the position where the courts and the population are comfortable with machine guns in the closet and a howitzer in the garage.
Click to expand...

A howitzer in the garage doesn´t cut it. Who volunteers to keep a mobile SAM battery in his garage? Who maintains a nuclear submarine instead of a fishing boat? Who shells out for an air superiority fighter?

And it isn´t just owning the stuff. You also need to train in their use, and keep training, not to mention stuff like discipline, tactics, logistics... there´s more to armies than just guys with guns.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Vietnam, 1974. Afganistan, 1989, Iraq (almost; if the Congressional Democrats had prevailed), 2004. I guess the Swiss are all insane, huh?
Click to expand...

None of these examples were citizen militias successfully resisting all by themselves. For one thing, they were extensively supported by foreign powers.

And the Swiss - not that such fancy facts would penetrate your patriotic certainty - actually maintain a standing army; theirs isn´t a citizen militia either.
 
The OP asked how I would amend the 2nd. I have two possibilities, and I'd be equally happy with either:

1. The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

or

2. The right of citizens to own weapons shall be regulated as the various states shall determine.

I am also fine with the current version. The 2nd confers an individual (but not absolute) right to both own and carry guns. It does not confer a right to complete freedom from regulations describing the types or numbers of weapons that may be owned, nor where they may be borne.
 
Chaos said:
None of these examples were citizen militias successfully resisting all by themselves. For one thing, they were extensively supported by foreign powers.
Click to expand...
So were the Colonials. They received substantial and indispensable aid from the French and Spanish during the Revolutionary War. The idea could not have been that the Second Amendment be rendered obsolete if the militia requires outside assistance.
 
BenBurch said:
I invite any of these "militias" to take on the 1st Infantry Division. I'll get a crew started on the mass grave we will put their bodies into.
Click to expand...
There'd be a lot of uniforms in that grave if the population is armed and predominantly hostile and the military is not willing to exterminate the population.
 
BenBurch said:
Anybody who thinks a citizen militia can do more than die bravely against a modern professional army is insane. You can make an occupier miserable, but you cannot unseat a determined occupier who has a professional army and an intact supply chain.
Click to expand...
Perhaps the expectation of misery would be enough. Anyway, consider this.
Hart's latest book, The Minuteman: Restoring an Army of the People, makes a strong case for bringing back something very much like the classical militia, or perhaps the 20th-century Swiss version, in this post-Cold War era. Hart's argument deserves far more attention than it will probably receive if defense and foreign affairs elites have their way.

Hart opens by noting that our current military posture could be described as "Eisenhower's Nightmare": a military-industrial complex so politically and economically powerful that it has taken on a life of its own. It is Eisenhower's nightmare because the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about was a creature of the Cold War, but its present-day version has survived the end of that struggle almost intact.
Click to expand...
 
RhodyDave said:
Simple - limit the arms to those available in 1789 and not later.
Click to expand...

Would you do the same with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights?

1st amendment. Allow Congress to control, restrict or ban any form of religion, speech or press that did not exist in 1789. That would put a halt to those pesky religions that popped up in the last two centuries. Or the government could tax all those recent religions to make money. If Congress decides that they do not like the internet or want to make money from it, they could put all kinds of restrictions on it as it was not around in 1789.

This is of course a stupid idea, just like limiting arms to those antiques that were around in 1789.

Ranb
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom