Man owns guns and NOTHING happened

[rushmc 23]

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>>The Constitution was meant to be a living and breathing thing.

>No, it was and is not

If you truly believed that, you would support slavery, the rules of which are listed in the Constitution.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do not support slavery, and thus support the amendment (change) to the constitution that abolished it. Which means you DO agree that it was meant to change with the times.

Nice straw man sir

It is not a living breathing doc to be changed and masaged by the courts or the halls in congress. there is process set to change it. That was the forthought of those who wrote it. Same goes for slavery. When is was written they knew that if the union was to survive slavery would have to be made illegal because no country could survive a person owning another person. But, they also knew that they could not get it ratified at the time with slavery outlawed. They were brillant in their thought, process and contruction of the document.

So no, it is NOT a living and breathing document meant to be adjusted at the whims of lawmakers and courts. It CAN be adjusted by consent of the people

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 3,120]

>So no, it is NOT a living and breathing document meant to be adjusted at the
>whims of lawmakers and courts. It CAN be adjusted by consent of the people.

No popular vote is needed to amend the constitution. The most common way to do it is:

1) 2/3 of the House and Senate approve the amendment
2) 3/4 of the States ratify it via their legislatures.

That's all lawmakers. (Of course, we can surely elect the lawmakers that make such decisions.) Thus, it can (and has) been adjusted by the whims of lawmakers, as provided for by the original Constitution.

[JohnRich 4]

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During the founders time warfare progressed very slowly. A farmer with a weapon was close to a soldier in ability to fight. Today a citizen with a high powered deer rifle is formidable….but against a platoon of normally equipped soldiers? A machine gun in the house is not going to create parody.

I think the word you want is "parity".

Your first flaw is in changing the apples & oranges aspect of your scenario. At first you compare one farmer to one soldier - that's apples to apples. But then you switch to one civilian against a whole platoon of soldiers, to try and discredit the machine gun. That's apples & oranges, and fails. You did a bait-and-switch thing there, that invalidates your machine gun comparison. A civilian with a machine gun is very close to the equal of a modern soldier, just like the minutemen were the equals of the British troops.

Second, you presume that the citizens would be fighting alone. Believe me, if the government ever starts sending platoons of soldiers out to attack citizens, the citizens will organize their own platoons. And there are more military veterans in the civilian populace, then there are active duty soldiers. If things ever get that bad, then all hell will be breaking out. Even active duty units may flip sides and turn against the government.

In 1775 a bunch of farmers whipped the British, the best trained troops in the world, at Concord, Massachusetts. That's what parity does for you.

[mirage62 0]

Very rarely do I support Bills views, although I certainly like him as a person but he has explained the HOW the constitution does live and breath better than I can.

The founder DID give us a vechical to change it, you may not like it but it is in place. FWIW at times I don't like it either!

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[rushmc 23]

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>So no, it is NOT a living and breathing document meant to be adjusted at the
>whims of lawmakers and courts. It CAN be adjusted by consent of the people.

No popular vote is needed to amend the constitution. The most common way to do it is:

1) 2/3 of the House and Senate approve the amendment
2) 3/4 of the States ratify it via their legislatures.

That's all lawmakers. (Of course, we can surely elect the lawmakers that make such decisions.) Thus, it can (and has) been adjusted by the whims of lawmakers, as provided for by the original Constitution.

If you call whims of the lawmakers and state ratification the same thing then fine. I dont see it that way. It is a slow deliberate process

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[mirage62 0]

Sorry John your grammer is better than mine. If you think a citizen with a machine gun has parity with a platoon that is artillery back with air support ect, ect.....well thats your right. IMO the farmer against the British was a closer match than today. And I don't believe you can arm yourself to reach parity.

To your second point, for the most I agree. Should the American military turn on the population I believe that many of the military would revolt.

I don't believe I need a machine gun to protect myself or my family from the goverment, I believe that voting is the best way to do this.

I support your right to disagree.

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[JohnRich 4]

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I don't believe I need a machine gun to protect myself or my family from the goverment, I believe that voting is the best way to do this.

The government can be changed by using any of four "boxes":

The first is the soap box, which is what we're doing right here, discussing things in public, and possibly affecting people's opinions on issues. This leads to the second, which is the ballot box, where people vote for issues and representatives which reflect their views. But if bad laws are passed by those representatives, then we have the third, the jury box, to overturn the bad laws through the legal system. And as a last resort, if all else fails, the citizenry can resort to the fourth box, the cartridge box, to overthrow with armed force a government grown tyrannical. The founding fathers designed all four of these boxes into the Constitution, to ensure that America remains free.

[Ron 10]

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If you think a citizen with a machine gun has parity with a platoon that is artillery back with air support ect, ect.....well thats your right. IMO the farmer against the British was a closer match than today. And I don't believe you can arm yourself to reach parity.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam all prove you wrong.

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To your second point, for the most I agree. Should the American military turn on the population I believe that many of the military would revolt.

Making things even more equal.

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I don't believe I need a machine gun to protect myself or my family from the goverment, I believe that voting is the best way to do this.

Voting is the best way... But what if your Govt ignores your vote? Never forget that the US was born from an armed revolution against a tyrannical Govt.

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence" George Washington

"You must understand, therefore, that there are two ways of fighting: by law or by force. The first way is natural to men, and the second to beasts. But as the first way often proves inadequate one must needs have recourse to the second." Machiavelli

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334