dagblog - Comments for "Gun nut's disarming discourse"

It is as Peracles pointed out

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:09:34 +0000

In reply to A dissenting opinion is not

It is as Peracles pointed out to you.

The soundness of the argument is what I found appealing, whether others agree.

Most of the time, many lazy readers don't care to review the evidence, their minds are already closed.

Besides I provided the link; do I have to do all the work for you?

In this case there might not

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:00:49 +0000

In reply to Yeah, the Rwandan bloodbath

In this case there might not have been a blood bath if the victim or both sides had been armed. Many people say a few armed US or French troops could have stopped the massacre, no? As it was, one side was utterly defenseless, sitting ducks.

Really, you're traipsing into Abusrdistan, taking the line that weapons never helped anyone, never provided a defense?

Yeah, the Rwandan bloodbath

acanuck — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:45:27 +0000

In reply to I didn't pay attention to who

Yeah, the Rwandan bloodbath would have been so much more efficient if both sides had been better armed. Reread my third paragraph, please. That's the point.

A dissenting opinion is not

acanuck — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:34:42 +0000

In reply to what's cited about above is a

A dissenting opinion is not always wrong; the U.S. Supreme Court is notable for disregarding its own previous rulings. But it does mean the dissenter's argument failed to persuade his fellow judges, so it sets no precedent.

It would have been honest to make the nature of the quote clear in your original comment.

what's cited about above is a

Resistance — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:45:53 +0000

In reply to First, Peracles, what's cited

what's cited about above is a dissent

So what? I hope your not implying that dissent, is always wrong; because if you are, you prove the point, of why "WE " need the 2nd amendment.

Is this acanuck's position "Dissent is to be ignored or prohibited in the National debate "??

As the dissenting view proved, the wording was clearly ignored and the dissenting view proved it. But it is expected from Judges who ignore the Constitution and favor "constitutionalize "their own personal preferences

"But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there……not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences……..we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny.

Case in point

If the dissenting view point had been adopted, It is possible the Civil War could have been avoided,

In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories.

The dissenting view should have prevailed.

It’s obvious to those, who’ll defend the 2^nd amendment; that people like acanuck or Chief Justice Roger B. Taney; when they are “none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee,” we they can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

Or just ignore the evidence, thinking themselves the wiser without it?

IMHO acanuck, you don't know the Law, nor do you want to, because it goes contrary to your agenda.

I didn't pay attention to who

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:43:06 +0000

In reply to First, Peracles, what's cited

I didn't pay attention to who wrote it (didn't realize now it was a court dissenting opinion) - doesn't matter to me - either it holds up or doesn't - though a bit strange to cling to a losing position, sometimes the dissenters like in 2000 Gore v. Bush have some extremely valid points. In any case, I made my objections.

I don't know that the Hutus had guns or they would have used them. Even if they had them, if Tutsis had them too, it would have been a fight, distinctly different from having armed Hutu gangs going door to door seeking out undefended Tutsis to hack to pieces.

Even if we don't like the spread of guns, we don't have to take a ridiculous position that there's no place they can save someone's skin. I gave enough caveats and opposite examples to make the point clear that I don't think guns are a cure-all or even wise most of the time. Still, there are historical examples where I'd be happy to have that Glock or Gatlin gun.

First, Peracles, what's cited

acanuck — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:00:43 +0000

In reply to Item 12 is very

First, Peracles, what's cited about above is a dissent in an an appeal case that was denied. It's one judge's opinion.

Second: "Guns would have saved Tutsis against machetes in Rwanda." Except the Hutus wouldn't have used machetes, would they? They'd have used their guns.

The whole American gun-loving culture is built on the flawed premise that your side (the "good guys") can be safe because you have more firepower than the "bad guys." It's not always obvious who's on which side. And people can switch sides in an instant.

Item 12 is very

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:28:16 +0000

In reply to Second Amend a Doomsday

Item 12 is very misleading.

The Germans had already sent 300,000 Polish Jews to death camps.

The armed Jewish uprising did cause some disorientation in the German response, but within a month, the Germans had just gone to razing the buildings one by one. The Warsaw Ghetto and almost all the 100,000 remaining inhabitants were smashed.

There's a horrifying apocalyptic scene at the end of Polanski's The Pianist where we see the resulting demolition and devastation.

The actions of perhaps 750 Jews was heroic, and had effects far past their size, but in the end, it did little except bolster pride and determination to survive at whatever cost.

If the Germans had been in a hurry, it's quite likely they wouldn't have taken a month, though demolition on that scale probably required some planning.

#13 gets to the crux of the matter - totalitarian movements divide and conquer. Whether armed or unarmed, it doesn't take much for a gang to surprise and overwhelm a smaller cadre. Yes, it's possible that everyone could be armed, such as when Shiites and Sunnis turned on each other during the Iraqi civil war, but at that point, there was no moral of "those who were right will win" - it was down to logistics, which kinds of weapons, numbers, opportunity, and who's the most ruthless/best at playing chicken.

Guns would have saved Tutsis against machetes in Rwanda. They were ineffective in the Blitzkrieg, and would have done little against Pol Pot, who was using the same techniques that kept the US & South Vietnam in stitches. Stalin would deported Ukrainians no matter what. Hitler came into power as much by the voting booth and controlling the police & Bundestag laws as he did by illegal means. Native Americans had a moment of respite at Little Big Horn, but every other time they were slaughtered.

There simply is no universal rule on how useful the 2nd Amendment is. Against terrorists, they'll slit your throat in your sleep. Against a less than consolidated movement, they might buy time or full freedom. If it's a flash uprising, it might help, or as in the Indian-Pakistani post-independence riots, it might make the problem just worse. Marauding bands of dudes with guns has been a terror in Latin America, but occasionally allowed a progressive Bolivarian revolt. It's easy to make slogans, it's hard to identify universal application.

Oh I had no idea Foreign

artappraiser — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 07:27:31 +0000

In reply to I have a general rule that I

Oh I had no idea Foreign Policy had registration requirements, I must have done it long ago, I suspect they just want a quick email address without the confirmation rigamarole, because I just looked and I see it says I am logged in, but don't ever remember doing it, it never logs me out (over a time span of years) I get access to everything and I never get junk email from them or on foreign policy in general (unlike The Nation's for one egregious example, grrrrr on their spamming for subscriptions and "support"). You should do it, it's a fabulous site, written in a style for laymen, by wonks but not wonk style at all (is actually making foreign policy more "popular" because of the style) and I suspect it will take a second--if it didn't, I can't imagine myself having done it.

Anyhow, in case there is the confirmation rigamarole, I will paste the whole piece here, FAIR USE--we are after all, having an intellectual discussion on the topic and it is just a short blog entry and I have promoted to his work plenty of times. He's making a simple point that there's no longer any correlation between personal gun ownership and getting rid of dictatorships or having democracies or people power or "freedom" or civil rights, if there ever was:

Guns don't kill dictatorships, people do

Posted By Joshua Keating Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - 2:35 PM

As he's wont to do, Matt Drudge has kicked up a fuss today by plastering photos of Hitler and Stalin above the headline "White House Threatens 'Executive Orders' on Guns." FP contributor Michael Moynihan has a good piece at Tablet looking into what's accurate and inaccurate in the commonly cited narrative that Nazi laws curtailing Jewish gun ownership were a prelude to the Holocaust. But Godwin's law violations aside, I was curious about whether there's any evidence in the modern world for the old notion that a well-armed populace is the best defense against tyranny. Do countries with high gun-ownership rights tend to be more democratic? Or more likely to overthrow dictatorships?

I haven't been able to find any published academic studies to this effect (if readers know of any, please post in the comments), but from a look at the Small Arms Survey's international rankings from 2007, it's hard to detect a pattern. (I wrote about this data in greater depth here.)

The top 10 gun-owning countries in the world (after the United States) include both democracies like Switzerland and Finland, as well as authoritarian countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

With 34.2 guns per 100 people, Iraq is ranked eighth on the survey. More to the point, the country already had a well-established gun culture and a high rate of gun ownership before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. We can't know for sure if a well-armed population could have stopped Hitler's genocide, but it certainly didn't stop Saddam's.

Given the advanced deadly weaponry available to governments these days -- as opposed to the late 18th century -- most tyrants aren't all that threatened by citizens with conventional weapons. Like the Iraqis, Libyans were fairly well armed under Muammar al-Qaddafi -- 15.5 guns per 100 people as of 2007 -- but it still took an assist from NATO air power to finally bring him down.

On the other extreme, the country ranked last on the survey -- with only 0.1 guns per 100 people -- is Tunisia, which as you'll recall was still able to overthrow a longtime dictator in 2011. With only 3.5 guns per 100 people, the Egyptian population that overthrew Hosni Mubarak was hardly well armed either. On the other hand, Bahrain, where a popular revolution failed to unseat the country's monarchy, has 24.8 guns per 100 people, putting it in the top 20 worldwide. A relatively high rate of 10.7 guns per 100 people in Venezuela hasn't stopped the deterioration of democracy under Hugo Chávez.

I don't mean to suggest there's a negative correlation between dictatorship and gun ownership. The countries where there are virtually no guns in private hands include places like North Korea and Eritrea along with places like Japan and Lithuania. I'd love to see a more sophisticated analysis on this, but from looking at the data, it's hard to see a trend either way.

Second Amend a Doomsday

Resistance — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:43:20 +0000

In reply to Gun nut's disarming discourse

Second Amend a Doomsday provision,

@13

328 F.3d 567

https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/328/328.F3d.567.01-15098.html

"But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

The majority falls prey to the delusion — popular in some circles — that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth — born of experience — is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks' homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process.

In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence. Id. at 341-42. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist. See Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 417, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1857) (finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went"). A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble.

All too many of the other great tragedies of history — Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few — were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. See Kleinfeld Dissent at 578-579. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

As Blackstone describes the "natural right" of an Englishman to keep and bear arms, the arms are for personal defense as well as resistance to tyranny. ………….. A substantial part of the debate in Congress on the Fourteenth Amendment was its necessity to enable blacks to protect themselves from White terrorism and tyranny in the South.53 Private terrorist organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, were abetted by southern state governments' refusal to protect black citizens, and the violence of such groups could only be realistically resisted with private firearms. When the state itself abets organized terrorism, the right of the people to keep and bear arms against a tyrant becomes inseparable from the right to self-defense."