From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Thu Sep 21 2000 - 10:16:43 MDT
Joe Dees wrote:
A well-regulated militia was intended to protect the powers of the states
against federal usurpation (which is why states were supposed to be their
regulators); this was also the reason for the 10th amendment (that all powers
not specifically granted to the federal government should devolve to the
states). However, the Civil War proved that states could not exercise a right
to secede from the Union, and the state National Guards keep their weapons in
armories, unlike the militias, which depended upon the citizen-soldiers to
furnish their own.
I reply:
The Civil War was, in fact, a rather extra-constitutional action. It has never
been legitimately justified under the Constitution. I would be rather curious if
southern states filed a class action suit against the federal goverment for
violation of their rights at the time of the civil war, demanding the right to
secede, what would result.
I am glad, Joe, that you do recognise the difference between the National Guard
(which, being nationalized, is no longer a militia formed of the enfranchised
members of a community) and the militia. While Title X of the US code does
define the difference between the organized and unorganized militia, it does not
deal with the issue of National Guard units that are not under the direct
command of state Governors, but under the US Army, and which act as little more
than Army reserve units.
> >
> >Something well over 50 million state-sponsored deaths in various regions
> >
> >occured during the 20th Century as the direct result of gun control,
> >often within
> >a few years after a general confiscation. This 'experiment' has been run
> >enough
> >times to form a postulate:
> >Guns don't kill people, despotic governments do.
> >
>
Joe says:
But gun control was not practiced by those governments - citizen disarmament
was. There should be no argument that while sane and law-abiding citizens
should have the right to keep and bear, that the means to commit quick and easy
long-range mass murder should be, as much as possible, kept out of the hands of
kids, criminals and psychos, who cannot discharge the resposibilities
concomittant with such rights in a responsible manner. Certainly they should
not be able to simply walk into a Wal-Mart and legally purchase such killing
tools at a moment's notice. This is the type of gun control that I, and all
reasonable people, support.
I say:
Prior to the First Drug War (i.e. prohibition), machine guns, silencers,
howitzers, tanks, fighter planes, submarines, armed merchantmen, and bombers
were owned by private citizens to no ill effect. The first practical armed
submarine, built by a chap named Holland, were private vessels, which he
developed as a result of financing by Finian rebels in his homeland of Ireland.
His subs were armed with pneumatic steam cannon that could launch rather large
artillery shells a couple thousand yards. Only his most developed version was
ever sold to the US military (commissioned as the 'Holland'), which was its
first sub.
John Moses Browning's automatic rifles and machine guns could be bought in any
hardware store, and Browning silencers could likewise be bought, for the purpose
not of assasinating people, but to allow neighbors to practice with their
firearms in the backyards or basements without disturbing other members of the
household, farm animals, or neighbors.
It was only when the First Drug War heated up in Chicago that guerrilla armies
fighting for the individual's right to imbibe resorted to the use of automatic
weapons.
In Nazi Germany, contrary to Joe's claims, there was not citizen disarmament.
There was non-citizen disarmament (Jews were stripped of citizenship), then
there was restrictions on WHICH citizens could own guns (only those with
demonstrated loyalty by their membership in various state or Nazi
organizations). Trying to claim that confiscation is not 'gun control' is a
bogus argument, because when the government has confiscated the citizens guns,
it sure has control of them, now, doesn't it?
> >
> >>The issues we face today, difficult as they are to deal with, are only
> >>a taste of the problems ahead. We need to identify sound philosophical
> >
> >>principles which can guide our decisions on these matters, in order to
> >>chart a consistent course through the issues we will soon be dealing
> >with.
> >
> >See above, also Federalist papers, other writings of Jefferson, etc.
> >
> >I hope this is quite clear.
> >
> As I expect my points are.
No they aren't Joe, they are disengenuous.
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