Gun control

[Mage246]

It's so frustrating trying to debate with people who have so little knowledge and understanding of military matters. Yes, what Jhessail said. Guerrilla warfare doesn't defeat occupations, it just makes occupations more expensive.

 

[Duke Daniel Milutin]

It also turns invasions into unsuccessful invasions, because the occupation force never gains full control over the occupied territory.

 

[Do not look here]

That's only if occupying forces are distracted and somewhere there's foreign force that one can hope on eventually fighting them of. In Poland we had plenty of uprisings during partitions - mind that those were the times when one guy with a rifle actually meant something military - it ended with later "freedom fighters" being handed to occupant by average Joes (or rather average Jans) that had enough of constant bleeding out and destruction it causes - not even mentioning possible repercussions.

 

[Mage246]

And there's a reason why nations do whatever they can to avoid being occupied - destruction of infrastructure, massive civilian casualties, severely diminished quality of living, the loss of an entire generation of productivity, destruction of cultural treasures, etc. if fighting a guerrilla war is the path to victory, it looks more like defeat to me.

Besides, any military powerful and brutal enough to do what would be required to defeat the standing army of the US wouldn't give two ****s about wiping out entire cities if they rebelled. Think of what we would have done to the Japanese after WW2 if they had fought to the last man to defend their homeland, as they threatened to. We were prepared to invade anyway.

 

[Splintert]

Someone just claimed that an insurgency wins against a conventional military? If you consider overwhelming loss of life, destruction of property, interruption of civilian life, years of fighting to be a victory then they need to readjust their definition of winning.

 

[Oyipggy]

Wouldn't you say more guns in a tense or stressful situation is just fuel to a giant deadly fire? Is it the fuel that would kill people? Not really. But would it be part of the problem? Yep. I'd say until there's extremely effective methods of training and arming vast portions of a population (such as teachers) it's not a great idea.

Also @2nd Amendment: Shouldn't we just take all our advice from the people who lived 200+ years ago? Probably best to be consistent. I feel that clause with regards to a militia means so much less due to what these past few posts say.

 

[Sir Saladin]

People who lived two hundred years ago along with Charleton Heston and Ted The Sledge Nugent. Listen to them, and learn.

 

[Splintert]

We better scrap all of algebra because it was discovered thousands of years ago.

 

[Austupaio]

I'm sorry, did you just compare Ted Nugent to Algebra?

 

[Anthropoid]

Studies in large-scale catastrophes, whether man-made or natural, have shown that about 10% of humanity are capable of fully functioning in a high-risk, high-stress situation. That means that they can lead others, think clearly, weight possibilities, do a quick risk-analysis, and so on. About a quarter-to-third of humans are capable of rote-action, in that they can (and will) act according to their training, but they are incapable of improvising or of leading others. The rest are sheep - able to follow simple orders but otherwise useless. Proper training can improve this situation, but even in the military, a lot of soldiers freeze when under fire for the first time. And military training is much more exhaustive than any civilian firearms training course. So this idea of arming everyone and expecting them to then operate coolly in a life-threatening situation is a fantasy, nothing more.

Anthropod, you might want to get your historical facts straight before you start lecturing anyone.

Al Qaeda is on a par with a "militia" and they have just about defeated the "most powerful military" on the planet.

No, they aren't, and no, they haven't. They have access to heavy weaponry, that "militia" typically doesn't. And every time they have met NATO forces - especially US forces - in combat, they have withdrawn with casualties. Just as happened to Vietcong. Being lucky and shooting down a transport chopper does not equate victory in combat. Mujahideen had the same problem during the Soviet occupation - whenever they faced Soviet troops, they got their asses kicked, aside from a few well-executed ambushes. Same in Vietnam. Same in Algeria.

You need to be able to separate military victory from a political one. That many guerilla/insurgency movements have been victorious, is due to politics, not their military prowess.

So are you telling me that the coalition has defeated Al Qaeda? Are you trying to say that (a) because they have a few pieces of heavy weaponry they are "a conventional military force" and not a "paramilitary' force, i.e., what I consider to be approximately the same thing as a militia.

If anyone is confusing military and political victory it is you. The point of the 2nd Amendment is not to transform the citizenry into a conventional military, capable of facing another conventional military on the field of battle and defeat it in a string of battles, thus leading to both military and political victory.

The point of the 2nd Amendment is to insure that citizens are not "disarmed,' whatever they hell we want to interpret that to mean at any given point in history subsequent to 1790s, and to thus retain the basic capacity to be ABLE to form into an effective militia, i.e., a paramilitary or guerrilla force. Why would the founders include a clause in the document bestowing a right upon the citizens that is explicitly intended to afford them the capacity to form into a paramilitary force? To resist oppression, from whatever source it may come from. In the 1790s that oppression was an overseas government that had grown increasingly disconnected from its colony and was increasingly imposing punishing economic burdens that particularly harmed the artisan classes.

Today or at some point in the future, that oppressive force could come from a myriad of sources; a local or regional separatist movement; an Executive branch turned tyrranical; organized criminal elements; an external power which largely overwhelmed the conventional forces for whatever reason.

The continued validity and merit of the "militia" portion of the 2nd Amendment is not contingent on contemporary citizens armed with the weapons actually available to them at this moment being able to crush the U.S. military, or any military, in open battle. Indeed, the persistent merit of the clause is not contingent on armed citizens being likely, much less assured of military or political victory over ANYTHING, much less the ability to win any specific form of combat. The fact that these issues get brought up at all is a clear demonstration that you do not actually comprehend the point of the clause, which is quite simply to avert a population that is disarmed and helpless before some oppressive force.

Hypothetical: if we airdrop a person into the fictional New York city of "Escape from New York" movie fame (i.e., a dystopian post-apocalyptic prison colony with complete lawlessness and violence) or alternative into a _insert despotic violent social context_  and say, "try to escape," presumably most people would prefer to have some modicum of weaponry rather than to be completely disarmed?

The natural human desire to be armed in the face of an existential threat is not contingent on "only if I have the training and weaponry that is 100% sure to achieve 'military and political victory'"! 

Next you'll likely attempt to repudiate the argument on the basis that it is fanciful and a reflection of delusions or paranoia, but that is not the case.

Irrespective of whether there is presently a zero percent chance or whether there will EVER be more than a zero percent chance of any real threat to American citizens where the "effective militia" clause ever proves to be useful in some practical and real way, the fact is that the clause, and the principles behind it are a foundational part of United States society. No amount of speculation, or empirically vacuous rhetoric can change that, especially when the continued manifestation of this American right has absolutely ZERO causal relationship with the various forms of suffering related to gun crime that the predominantly leftist, disarmament clique(s) so want to claim.

It's so frustrating trying to debate with people who have so little knowledge and understanding of military matters. Yes, what Jhessail said. Guerrilla warfare doesn't defeat occupations, it just makes occupations more expensive.

I think I understand the point you are making, and cannot disagree but I disagree with the statement the way you have formulated it . . .

A more accurate statement would be "There is no form of military nor any type of warfare which has ever been 100% effective at defeating occupations. However, any form of resistance, even a small number of partisans armed with the most rudimentary of weapons can cause problems for an occupation and make it more expensive."

Even so . . . Okay . . . so? This points salience to this debate or the merits of the "effective militia" clause of 2nd Amendment is, what?

 

[Splintert]

I'm sorry, did you just compare Ted Nugent to Algebra?

No, I completely misunderstood the above few posts and made a stupid statement 

 

[Mage246]

Honestly, Anthropoid, you should at least do some basic research as to how militias were structured in the 18th and 19th centuries before you go spouting off ignorantly about what was meant by "militia".

 

[Anthropoid]

I'm sorry, did you just compare Ted Nugent to Algebra?

The SINGLE hit from a Google advanced image search of exact string: Ted Nugent Algebra . . . voila ->

Wang, dang geriatric poontang . . .

 

[Anthropoid]

Honestly, Anthropoid, you should at least do some basic research as to how militias were structured in the 18th and 19th centuries before you go spouting off ignorantly about what was meant by "militia".

Honestly Mage, you should lose the arrogant condescending attitude, as it doesn't actually make you sound any more convincing.

And speaking of ignorance, just found this page which might clarify a few things for you and Jhesssail.

In particular

  "The Second Amendment, unusually for constitutional provisions, contains a statement of purpose as well as a guarantee of a right to bear arms." 1  This unusual attribute, some argue, is reason for courts to interpret the Second Amendment quite differently than they interpret other constitutional provisions -- perhaps to the point of reading it as having virtually no effect on government action. 2

My modest discovery 3 is that the Second Amendment is actually not unusual at all:  Many contemporaneous state constitutional provisions are structured similarly.  Rhode Island's 1842 constitution, its first, provides  . . . [examples, and reference to large set in appendix] . . .

These provisions, I believe, shed some light on the interpretation of the Second Amendment:

    They show that the Second Amendment should be seen as fairly commonplace, rather than strikingly odd.
    They rebut the claim that a right expires when courts conclude that the justification given for the right is no longer valid or is no longer served by the right.
    They show that operative clauses are often both broader and narrower than their justification clauses, thus casting doubt on the argument that the right exists only when (in the courts' judgment) it furthers the goals identified in the justification clause. 8
    They point to how the two clauses might be read together, without disregarding either.

              The provisions also suggest two things about interpretation more generally.  First, they remind us that the U.S. Constitution is just one of the at least fifty-one American constitutions in force today, and one of the dozens of constitutions that existed during the Framing era. 9  The legal academy's understandable focus on federal matters can blind us to some important details.

              Second, these provisions help show the value of testing interpretive proposals against a politically mixed range of texts.  On a topic as incendiary as gun control, it's obviously tempting for people to reach an interpretation based largely on their policy desires.  If we want to be honest interpreters, a broad set of test cases for our interpretive method is a good tool for checking our political biases . . .

II.  A Permanent Right

              Some people suggest the justification clause provides a built-in expiration date for the right.  So long as a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state (or so long as the right to keep and bear arms contributes to a well-regulated militia, or so long as the militia is in fact well-regulated), the argument goes, the people have a right to keep and bear arms; but once the circumstances change and the necessity disappears, so does the right. 12

              This reading seems at odds with the text:  The Amendment doesn't say "so long as a militia is necessary"; it says "being necessary."  Such a locution usually means the speaker is giving a justification for his command, not limiting its duration. 13  If anything, it might require the courts to operate on the assumption that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, since that's what the justification clause asserts. 14

              But the unsoundness of the "temporary right" reading becomes even starker when one considers the other state constitutional provisions.  Consider, for instance, the New Hampshire Venue Article:

    In criminal prosecutions, the trial of facts in the vicinity where they happen is so essential to the security of the life, liberty and estate of the citizen, that no crime or offence ought to be tried in any other county than that in which it is committed . . . . 15

Today few believe that the trial of the facts in the vicinity where they happen is essential to life, liberty, and property.  Perhaps this was so when most jurors were expected to rely on their personal knowledge about the facts or about the characters of the defendants and the witnesses, when travel was very difficult, or when cultural divides were primarily geographical. 16  Today, though, it's much more common to hear insistence on a trial being moved outside the vicinity where the crime was committed, on the theory that jurors in the area of the crime would be unduly inflamed against the defendant. 17  Even those who support local trials would probably only say that local trials are helpful, not "essential"; and even those who stress the importance of trial by jurors who come from a demographically similar place wouldn't care much about trial in the same county.

              We wouldn't, however, interpret the "is so essential" language in the Venue Article as meaning "so long as it is believed by judges to be essential."  Bills of Rights are born of mistrust of government:  The government is barred from prosecuting cases in another county because of the fear that some future government may not be attentive enough to "the security of the life, liberty, and estate of the citizen."  The provision's enactors doubtless contemplated that there'd be disagreement about the value of local trials. 18  It seems most likely that they mentioned the value of local trials in the constitution to show their commitment to this position, 19 not to leave the judiciary -- itself a branch of the government -- carte blanche to conclude otherwise, 20 and thus eliminate the operative clause's check on government power. 21  The trial-in-the-county provision must remain in effect whether or not a judge thinks it still serves the purpose; the provision was enacted by the people, and it's up to the people, not judges, to decide whether it's obsolete. 22

 

[Austupaio]

No, I completely misunderstood the above few posts and made a stupid statement 

I thought it seemed a little out of character.

 

[Magorian Aximand]

Honestly, Anthropoid, you should at least do some basic research as to how militias were structured in the 18th and 19th centuries before you go spouting off ignorantly about what was meant by "militia".

Honestly Mage, you should lose the arrogant condescending attitude, as it doesn't actually make you sound any more convincing.

Says the guy tho tried to appeal to his own authority on an irrelevant subject.

 

[Anthropoid]

Honestly, Anthropoid, you should at least do some basic research as to how militias were structured in the 18th and 19th centuries before you go spouting off ignorantly about what was meant by "militia".

Honestly Mage, you should lose the arrogant condescending attitude, as it doesn't actually make you sound any more convincing.

Says the guy tho tried to appeal to his own authority on an irrelevant subject.

Says the semi-professional forum troll. 

 

[Orion]

You seem to know more about Yeager than I do. What official documentation and "failure to perform" are you referring to?

Also, what makes you think that "thorough military training" is either sufficient or necessary to perform effectively in the context of acting as mercenary bodyguards protecting the election commissioners for a former despotic country, performing its first ever elections in the midst of an insurgency, much less necessary for civilians to carry?

My bringing him up was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, but I am aware that he has an impressive sounding resume, runs a tactical shooting school that is open to civilians and that he is controversial. Can you recommend a better candidate to serve as the program director for our prospective "train and arm the teachers" program?

There are gun clubs throughout the U.S. but shooting at a range is only the first step to being truly ready to operate in a tactical context, and Yeager's program is the only one I'm aware of for civilians.

That says something to me: we as a society are not manifesting the rights which the 2nd Amendment bestowed upon us particularly well. How the hell are we going to form an "effective militia" if only a few percentage of us who are not former military (actually who are not former specops or SWAT to be honest) are really in any position to act as militia!?

National civilian marksmanship program and similar programs aside, Yeager's 'school' is the only service I'm aware of that actually seems to be (a) in any position to actually help citizens live up to their 2nd Amendment rights and (b) seems to be trying to do so.

The AAR from Edinburgh Risk & Security Management (along with this video of the incident) shows that Yeager (which is the guy you can see running from the lead car on the furthest right all the way across the road and into the ditch on the far left side) broke SOP by engaging the parking brake of his car while they were stopped and shifting it into neutral gear. When they were fired upon, he panicked, and instead of disengaging the parking brake and shifting gears he tried to slam on the gas and go (obviously, he didn't go anywhere). Furthermore, rather than helping anybody in his car directly or by providing cover fire so they could get to safety, he hops out, takes a look, and then runs off to the ditch. The best thing that can be said for Yeager in that incident is that he didn't keep running, but he didn't come out of the ditch for a while, either.

**** hit the fan and he didn't react properly or professionally, so people died. It doesn't make him the world's worst anything, or a coward as some armchair generals on the internet like to call him, it just makes him another civilian in a bad spot. Like I said, he might run a great training program or he might not, I've never attended any so I can't say. What I do know is that some of his advice in his videos goes against what is taught in conceal & carry programs across the nation, and could make a bad situation worse in the civilian world.

As for other instructors, Massad Ayoob, Travis Haley, Chris Costa, to name a few.

Says the semi-professional forum troll. 

The only people I've seen call Mag a troll are people that can't handle being called out for their mistakes.

 

[Mage246]

Honestly, Anthropoid, you should at least do some basic research as to how militias were structured in the 18th and 19th centuries before you go spouting off ignorantly about what was meant by "militia".

Honestly Mage, you should lose the arrogant condescending attitude, as it doesn't actually make you sound any more convincing.

And speaking of ignorance, just found this page which might clarify a few things for you and Jhesssail.

In particular

  "The Second Amendment, unusually for constitutional provisions, contains a statement of purpose as well as a guarantee of a right to bear arms." 1  This unusual attribute, some argue, is reason for courts to interpret the Second Amendment quite differently than they interpret other constitutional provisions -- perhaps to the point of reading it as having virtually no effect on government action. 2

My modest discovery 3 is that the Second Amendment is actually not unusual at all:  Many contemporaneous state constitutional provisions are structured similarly.  Rhode Island's 1842 constitution, its first, provides  . . . [examples, and reference to large set in appendix] . . .

These provisions, I believe, shed some light on the interpretation of the Second Amendment:

    They show that the Second Amendment should be seen as fairly commonplace, rather than strikingly odd.
    They rebut the claim that a right expires when courts conclude that the justification given for the right is no longer valid or is no longer served by the right.
    They show that operative clauses are often both broader and narrower than their justification clauses, thus casting doubt on the argument that the right exists only when (in the courts' judgment) it furthers the goals identified in the justification clause. 8
    They point to how the two clauses might be read together, without disregarding either.

              The provisions also suggest two things about interpretation more generally.  First, they remind us that the U.S. Constitution is just one of the at least fifty-one American constitutions in force today, and one of the dozens of constitutions that existed during the Framing era. 9  The legal academy's understandable focus on federal matters can blind us to some important details.

              Second, these provisions help show the value of testing interpretive proposals against a politically mixed range of texts.  On a topic as incendiary as gun control, it's obviously tempting for people to reach an interpretation based largely on their policy desires.  If we want to be honest interpreters, a broad set of test cases for our interpretive method is a good tool for checking our political biases . . .

II.  A Permanent Right

              Some people suggest the justification clause provides a built-in expiration date for the right.  So long as a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state (or so long as the right to keep and bear arms contributes to a well-regulated militia, or so long as the militia is in fact well-regulated), the argument goes, the people have a right to keep and bear arms; but once the circumstances change and the necessity disappears, so does the right. 12

              This reading seems at odds with the text:  The Amendment doesn't say "so long as a militia is necessary"; it says "being necessary."  Such a locution usually means the speaker is giving a justification for his command, not limiting its duration. 13  If anything, it might require the courts to operate on the assumption that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, since that's what the justification clause asserts. 14

              But the unsoundness of the "temporary right" reading becomes even starker when one considers the other state constitutional provisions.  Consider, for instance, the New Hampshire Venue Article:

    In criminal prosecutions, the trial of facts in the vicinity where they happen is so essential to the security of the life, liberty and estate of the citizen, that no crime or offence ought to be tried in any other county than that in which it is committed . . . . 15

Today few believe that the trial of the facts in the vicinity where they happen is essential to life, liberty, and property.  Perhaps this was so when most jurors were expected to rely on their personal knowledge about the facts or about the characters of the defendants and the witnesses, when travel was very difficult, or when cultural divides were primarily geographical. 16  Today, though, it's much more common to hear insistence on a trial being moved outside the vicinity where the crime was committed, on the theory that jurors in the area of the crime would be unduly inflamed against the defendant. 17  Even those who support local trials would probably only say that local trials are helpful, not "essential"; and even those who stress the importance of trial by jurors who come from a demographically similar place wouldn't care much about trial in the same county.

              We wouldn't, however, interpret the "is so essential" language in the Venue Article as meaning "so long as it is believed by judges to be essential."  Bills of Rights are born of mistrust of government:  The government is barred from prosecuting cases in another county because of the fear that some future government may not be attentive enough to "the security of the life, liberty, and estate of the citizen."  The provision's enactors doubtless contemplated that there'd be disagreement about the value of local trials. 18  It seems most likely that they mentioned the value of local trials in the constitution to show their commitment to this position, 19 not to leave the judiciary -- itself a branch of the government -- carte blanche to conclude otherwise, 20 and thus eliminate the operative clause's check on government power. 21  The trial-in-the-county provision must remain in effect whether or not a judge thinks it still serves the purpose; the provision was enacted by the people, and it's up to the people, not judges, to decide whether it's obsolete. 22

Sorry, but nothing in there at all addresses my point. You were claiming that you understood what was meant by "militia", while displaying a total ignorance of militias of that time period. Try again.

 

[Anthropoid]

**** hit the fan and he didn't react properly or professionally, so people died. It doesn't make him the world's worst anything, or a coward as some armchair generals on the internet like to call him, it just makes him another civilian in a bad spot.

Ah, right. Cause a "trained soldier" would never make any such mistakes 

Like I said, he might run a great training program or he might not, I've never attended any so I can't say. What I do know is that some of his advice in his videos goes against what is taught in conceal & carry programs across the nation, and could make a bad situation worse in the civilian world.

As for other instructors, Massad Ayoob, Travis Haley, Chris Costa, to name a few.

Ah thanks. I find this stuff rather fascinating, though I'll likely never have the opportunity to followup on it. Will be interesting to read up on those guys too J

Says the semi-professional forum troll. 

The only people I've seen call Mag a troll are people that can't handle being called out for their mistakes.
[/quote]

He didn't call me out on a mistake. He vaguely asserted that I had mad an appeal to authority--which is unsurprising given that the use of specialized terminology related to logic and philosophy seems to be one of his favored tactics to undermine the arguments of those he disagrees with.

God knows which of the hundreds of sentences in the scores of posts I've made on this site he is talking about, much less that his reading of it is infallible, as your use of the term "only" would seem to imply.

But I guess since he has "called me out for my mistake" I should show penance and remain chastened henceforth . . .