blast away whenever they feel like it

if that's the purpose of the 2nd, than the 4th and 5th only exists to protect the guilty. it would be much easier to solve/prevent crime if we allowed law enforcement to invade your privacy, and got rid of due process.

who seem to be all-in to fighting a destructive (to progressive causes) culture war-by-proxy.

This I believe is self-evident: The powerful, deep and widespread pro-2A activism WOULD NOT EXIST without this harsh, mean-spirited culture war effected by well-placed elites and the MSM.

I support the Second in an active way in the same manner I support the other BOR rights: when threatened. But with the other rights my activism was time-to-time; ordnances against peaceable assembly, restrictions on the right to choose, free speech restrictions, etc. With the Second, on the other hand, the threat is specific and constant; as if Infringement was now merely a policy concern, and an individual right has somehow become a kind of dead letter, or a "communal right" where such does not exist anywhere else in Constitutional theory.

I see the attacks on the Second as a bitter holdover from the days of very necessary and effective EXPANSION of civil rights for minorities, women, LGBTQ community, and now immigrants. It seems a small, well-placed elite has tried to hijack a genuine movement by grafting onto stereotypes of Americans the "gun issue" and thinking it can pull off some quick-change social reform. But it ain't that way. It's the same old orthodox prohibition whereby (this time) liberals become oddly ill-liberal, and think no one else will notice.

But there are millions of American who have noticed. And they are willing to grind out a scorched earth campaign. By any means necessary.

You buy all of it, or you don't buy any of it.

The constitution can be amended.

That is part of the beauty of this document. However, it is an all-or-nothing deal. We don't get to pick and choose the parts we like and ignore the other parts.

No. 2, shooting well is a very frangible skill; it requires constant practice to stay good.
No. 3, I no longer hunt since my knees went bad, but I got my start with my dad at the NRA kids safe shooting program back in the day, and I taught my daughters enough for them to survive if they had to.
No. 4, I will always possess and maintain the skills required to protect my family from critters, whether the no-legged (Jake No-shoulders or snakes to the uninitiated), four-legged of whatever type, and the two-legged kind. I am equal opportunity: I will shoot whatever threatens my family.

could't agree more.

Really? So how is it that I can go two years or more without laying eyes on my guns and pick one up and make 3 inch groups at 100 yards? Am I just that much better than you?

No, if you can shoot it's because of muscle memory.

Admit it, you like the noise and the feeling of power it gives you which is all right. Just don't try to delude the rest of us.

to a one-time training session for people who wish to carry?

Do you think police should save money by canceling annual re-qualification?

You assume a great deal with your final line of your post, one I find frankly insulting. Please refer to my avatar. That is the service ribbon for Desert Storm. It means I was in the service and saw combat at least there.

You are getting a 3" group at 100 yards with a rifle of unknown sight-type. I try to shoot 3" groups at 300 meters using iron sights. I'm a retired Combat Arms NCO from the Army. Shooting was a big part of my life for a very long time. You are by definition an amateur. I am a former soldier, where shooting well meant my life. Our sniper training was regularly over 850 meters (essentially 930 yards) with a scoped Remington 700 ADL type rifle.

Nowadays, I shoot almost more pistol than I do rifle. I try to maintain decent skills, by MY definition.

As for "noise and feeling of power," I was a Combat Engineer detonating charges of up to 2000 pounds of High Explosive (HE) at once. Small arms fire is nowhere near the same. I get and got one hell of a rush from detonating HE just about each and every time.

I don't believe I made any statement in my original post that should lead you to your comment:

Admit it, you like the noise and the feeling of power it gives you which is all right. Just don't try to delude the rest of us.

and you're an dead-eye marksman for the remainder of your life. Sigh, to think all that time I spent on the various ranges while in the USMC was wasted, not to mention the countless rounds fired before and since.

Muscle memory helps...but that memory is vague if you don't practice.

It is completely irrelevant to me as shooting isn't a hobby for me. I am not fighting to eliminate it per se, but if the rkba were repealed, I wouldn't care one bit.

The reason I am particularly vocal about the RKBA is that I am a Democrat, but too many other Democrats are all too willing to dismiss this one.

I would like my party to support Civil Rights, rather than dismissing some of them - dismissing Civil Rights is a much more Republican stance.

Much like your childish attempts at insults being more commonly seen from Republicans than Democrats...

Those of us who lean leftward in our political stances tend to use actual arguments in discussions. Perhaps you should try it sometime, as well. Adult, substantive discussions are so much more rewarding than juvenile taunts.

Edited to react to the fact that I can't type well on my phone.

...isn't a discussion. Too bad a Democrat has more interest in bashing than in having a discussion.

We are free to bash and dismiss radical RW gun views here.

If you feel RW views are worthy of discussion, perhaps you should seek out other venues.

...about you.

...if all it takes to freely bash a view is the assertion (with neither proof nor argument) that a view is right wing, you have a free-for-all.

What else can be said about an argument against the freedom to argue, reason and discuss and to merely bash by assertion?

Notice how on DEMOCRATIC Underground, gun control related discussions are generally prohibited in the site's main forum. Further, you'll notice that GC&RKBA is more active than GCRA. All on Democratic Underground. What does this tell you? It tells me that gun control lacks both traction and focus, even amongst Democrats.

Thoughts?

I know lots and lots of my fellow far-leftists that are pro-gun. It's simply false that defense of gun rights is "right wing."

Is that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. Are there other rights protected from government interference by the Bill of Rights that you'd like to take away? I'd say that since your position on gun confiscation directly conflicts with the party's official platform that you are on the wrong website.

...but I can certainly see why you try to falsely portray it that way - you can't come up with a coherent argument to support your stance.

Didn't know that. What kind of rights does the BOR contain?

...certain rights are wrong.

Last edited Sun Apr 17, 2016, 10:42 AM - Edit history (1)

which no government should infringe on. Those politicians who say otherwise, like former DC public safety director Paul Quander who believes it is better to be scared and injured, are complete hypocrites. They say to YOU, but HE had his gun, people with guns took HIS kids to school every day, and people with guns drove HIS wife wherever she wanted to go.

are wise to provide protection for themselves and their family members.

I thought it was the gang violence in DC. Or maybe Bloomberg's MAIG mayors, who lost more members to the criminal justice system than elections, an average of five to eleven a year. Most of them for garden variety corruption, but some for violent, including gun, crimes and a few liking them REALLY young.

Guns for protection? We constantly hear how guns "go off." Having a bunch of armed guards around is really taking a risk; any one of their guns could "go off" and hurt the person they are protecting.

What about a "Bad Day"? We've been told people just have a "Bad Day" and snap when they have a gun in their possession and start shooting people. What do they do to prevent one of their bodyguards from having a "Bad Day"?

It seems that if politicians who speak out against the NRA / gun lobby need protection they should choose this from the same options they say the single mother who has to take the bus home at 2 in the morning from her second job also should choose from.

20 years I watched thousands of guns fire millions of rounds. In that time the number of them I saw just "go off" could be counted on one hand.

With a single exception, the reason the gun "went off" was because some knucklehead put his finger on the trigger when he was not supposed to.

all who are threatened are wise to provide protection for themselves and their family members.

it just so happens that firearms are the best tools to offer that protection. why else would all those Politicians who speak out against the NRA/Gun Lobby own one?

From the Civil rights paragraph "Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life and safety

Not that you wrote the wikipedia, but I don't get how ensuring "life and safety" is so separate and distinct from "self-defense" that it falls into your 'right wing/NRA' talking point outrage.

I think many RKBA folks are well aware, actually, much more aware than anti-gunners, of how gun laws and regulations have been used to restrict and remove civil rights from targeted groups.

Correct? At least in America.

there are several amendments protecting the right to vote.

You were saying?

My only point.

For me, that would be like trying to read the world's great religious texts in their original languages.

You sound very certain.

Are you sure that you haven't missed some?

Are you absolutely sure that the world's constitutions are even consistent on these matters, if you are going to rely on them to do your thinking for you?

Consistency will be especially important if you are going to rely on them for Arguments From Authority.

the Constitution stands at the pinnacle of our legal system. There is nothing above it.

What is an "actual right" and how does it relate to the Constitution?

From the US State Department:

What then are the basic human and fundamental rights? And how are they determined?

What the hell is a 'higher right'?

Now that we're on the subject, maybe you can list them in order of 'highest' to 'lowest'.
That would be handy information.

I just used the word "higher" because it appeared in the post I was responding to.

Get over it.

Or don't.

Fortunately, your approval isn't necessary.

...that the rest of the world doesn't consider this topic a hobby speaks volumes.

You cherry pick a single constitution from a single cherry picked country with a right wing Supreme Court doing the interpretation for you, and then try to use argument from authority to dismiss anybody who might disagree with you as "wrong".

And may have missed something, but why do we care what the constitution of some other country says? As a US citizen, the US Constitution is the one that matters, and the Second Amendment to that Constitution prevents the government from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms (which of course existed before the Constitution or Bill of Rights were enacted). I really don't care what any other country's constitution states.

Appeared in the original Bill of Rights, and is a "REAL" civil right, according to the people who drafted the Bill of Rights. Are there other constitutionally protected rights you dislike?

And Wikipedia's editors are not the most unbiased people in the world.

Elsewhere, in the real world, it is a natural or human right, one that exists independently of any political system.

Ya gotta love the classics, I suppose.

I mean, here's a link to a poll from last October in which 72% of respondents opposed a ban on private possession of handguns. http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx. That tells me a lot of Dems polled think that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms.

The 2nd is the only right that has a significant number of people actively campaigning to rid us of it, for now anyway.

In the end, the right to self defense is just that. A right. I don't believe for one second that the baby fascists who'd try to rid us of it would be content to stop with the second. After all, religion, speech, gathering, being out on bail, defending one's self in court, voting, and other various right are just as scary to those sort of people. It's not about guns, it's about contro the person who can stand thd idea of you having a gun today wont be happy with you speaking out against them tomorrow. Never forget that.

If I'm willing to roll over on the 2A, why not all the others? Why not just let the 1%ers choose a king for us?


How can we even claim to be progressive democrats if we're willing to give up rights for the fun of it.


I'll fight to keep the ability to protect myself and family, it's the moral thing to do.

this. It's what the Taibo government did to some of my relatives in South Dakota a century ago.

what/who is the Taibo government?

= white man.

from the white man is a good reason to keep and bear arms.

i say this as a white man. there's a lot of racist assholes out there.

...when they rounded us up for the rez was disarm us. Not happening again.

Robbers, rapists and carjackers deserve immediate and fatal consequences, period. Someone who would violate my person or property does not register, to me, as a human being, merely vermin to be extinguished.

if every asshole breaking into a house, mugging someone or carjacking a vehicle knew they had a very high probability of dying from a gaping chest wound this vastly overpopulated world would be a much better place.