Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

I am a M*****a of One, major, and NO, the NG are NOT THE "well regulated m*****a."

AuntiE Loc: 45th Least Free State

To all of the individuals who have answered Rumitoid's question so aptly, your efforts have been for naught. The subject of gun control and all the attendant anti-gun rhetoric has been issued forth by Rumitoid on several occasions before. It is unlikely little attention will be paid to the information you each have provided as the information does not conform to the individual's position. In point of fact, several weeks from now, yet again, a forum on this topic will emerge presented in a slightly different fashion but in the same anti-gun rights vein.

There is a line oft repeated from the movie Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." The point is we could "communicate" until there is ice skating in hades, and it would not matter a pinch of salt. Our communication does not impinge on the position held by Rumitoid.

Your efforts have been valiant.

styxs

Try an get the nation guard to march on washington,when marshall law has been declared,not going to happen,it's we the people that need's to stand up for our rights,an march on washington an take back our goverment,THROW THEM THE HELL OUT!!!

styxs

Try an get the nation guard to march on washington,when marshall law has been declared,not going to happen,it's we the people that need's to stand up for our rights,an march on washington an take back our goverment,THROW THEM THE HELL OUT!!!

Confused

Snatching the root beer ? That is harsh . Lower your weapons and step back from the Ruby Red Squirt . ;-)

AuntiE Loc: 45th Least Free State

Would that be my PPK you want lowered? :twisted:

grey gringo Loc: South Texas

In the days of the founders, a m*****a was a group of citizens banding together(on the local level) They provided their own arms, elected their officers and were unpaid, choosing service to their local communities. These m*****as were not regulated by a central power but regulated themselves and if you look at what happened to the British Army, they did a pretty good job. Everyone should remember that the second amendment insures that the other rights enumerated in the "Bill Of Rights" will remain with us as long as a few M*****a Men remain loyal to the constitution. All of the constitution not just those parts they agree with. In 1972 I swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic. I intend to uphold that oath.

Loki Loc: Georgia

I've been saying this for months. Who knows? Maybe someone will believe you.

AuntiE Loc: 45th Least Free State

As I stated in a "Reply" as opposed to a " Quote Reply", the person who started this forum chooses NOT to believe anything put forth. :hunf: :XD:

Papabear

Revision of Constitution dated 1910 M*****a
17-Section 1- "That the m*****a shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen of the respective states, and every able-bodied male of foreign birth who has declared his intention to become a citizen between the ages of 18 to 45 years of age."

Letter to the House of representatives on the 2nd Amendment from 1,100 SF Operators signed and delivered in February 2012:

TO: The House of Representatives of the United States of America
FROM: The Quiet Professionals (de oppresso liber)
Just in case someone doesn't understand; a letter from a group of your fellow citizens to a much maligned congress, may explain a few things. If you're too lazy to read it; you are undeserving of any say in the matter!

"We are current or former Army Reserve, National Guard, and active duty US Army Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets). We have all taken an oath to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.…” The Constitution of the United States is without a doubt the single greatest document in the history of mankind, codifying the fundamental principle of governmental power and authority being derived from and granted through the consent of the governed. Our Constitution established a system of governance that preserves, protects, and holds sacrosanct the individual rights and primacy of the governed as well as providing for the explicit protection of the governed from governmental tyranny and/or oppression. We have witnessed the insidious and iniquitous effects of tyranny and oppression on people all over the world. We and our forebears have embodied and personified our organizational motto, De Oppresso Liber [To Free the Oppressed], for more than a half century as we have fought, shed blood, and died in the pursuit of freedom for the oppressed.

Like you, we are also loving and caring fathers and grandfathers. Like you, we have been stunned, horrified, and angered by the tragedies of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Fort Hood, and Sandy Hook; and like you, we are searching for solutions to the problem of gun-related crimes in our society. Many of us are educators in our second careers and have a special interest to find a solution to this problem. However, unlike much of the current vox populi reactions to this tragedy, we offer a different perspective.

First, we need to set the record straight on a few things. The current debate is over so-called “assault weapons” and high capacity magazines. The terms “assault weapon” and “assault rifle” are often confused. According to Bruce H. Kobayashi and Joseph E. Olson, writing in the Stanford Law and Policy Review, “Prior to 1989, the term ‘assault weapon’ did not exist in the lexicon of firearms. It is a political term [underline added for emphasis], developed by anti-gun publicists to expand the category of assault rifles.”

The M4A1 carbine is a U.S. military service rifle – it is an assault rifle. The AR-15 is not an assault rifle. The “AR” in its name does not stand for “Assault Rifle” – it is the designation from the first two letters of the manufacturer’s name – ArmaLite Corporation. The AR-15 is designed so that it cosmetically looks like the M4A1 carbine assault rifle, but it is impossible to configure the AR-15 to be a fully automatic assault rifle. It is a single shot semi-automatic rifle that can fire between 45 and 60 rounds per minute depending on the sk**l of the operator. The M4A1 can fire up to 950 rounds per minute. In 1986, the federal government banned the import or manufacture of new fully automatic firearms for sale to civilians. Therefore, the sale of assault rifles are already banned or heavily restricted!

The second part of the current debate is over “high capacity magazines” capable of holding more than 10 rounds in the magazine. As experts in military weapons of all types, it is our considered opinion that reducing magazine capacity from 30 rounds to 10 rounds will only require an additional 6 -8 seconds to change two empty 10 round magazines with full magazines. Would an increase of 6 –8 seconds make any real difference to the outcome in a mass shooting incident? In our opinion it would not. Outlawing such “high capacity magazines” would, however, outlaw a class of firearms that are “in common use”. As such this would be in contravention to the opinion expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court recent decisions.

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Moreover, when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban became law in 1994, manufacturers began retooling to produce firearms and magazines that were compliant. One of those ban-compliant firearms was the Hi-Point 995, which was sold with ten-round magazines. In 1999, five years into the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Columbine High School massacre occurred. One of the perpetrators, Eric Harris, was armed with a Hi-Point 995. Undeterred by the ten-round capacity of his magazines, Harris simply brought more of them: thirteen magazines would be found in the massacre’s aftermath. Harris fired 96 rounds before k*****g himself.

Now that we have those facts straight, in our opinion, it is too easy to conclude that the problem is guns and that the solution to the problem is more and stricter gun control laws. For politicians, it is politically expedient to take that position and pass more gun control laws and then claim to constituents that they have done the right thing in the interest of protecting our children. Who can argue with that? Of course we all want to find a solution. But, is the problem really guns? Would increasing gun regulation solve the problem? Did we outlaw cars to combat drunk driving?

What can we learn from experiences with this issue elsewhere? We cite the experience in Great Britain. Despite the absence of a “gun culture”, Great Britain, with one-fifth the population of the U.S., has experienced mass shootings that are eerily similar to those we have experienced in recent years. In 1987 a lone gunman k**led 18 people in Hungerford. What followed was the Firearms Act of 1988 making registration mandatory and banning semi-automatic guns and pump-action shotguns. Despite this ban, on March 13, 1996 a disturbed 43-year old former scout leader, Thomas Hamilton, murdered 16 school children aged five and six and a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. Within a year and a half the Firearms Act was amended to ban all private ownership of hand guns. After both shootings there were amnesty periods resulting in the surrender of thousands of firearms and ammunition. Despite having the toughest gun control laws in the world, gun related crimes increased in 2003 by 35% over the previous year with firearms used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the preceding 12 months. Gun related homicides were up 32% over the same period. Overall, gun related crime had increased 65% since the Dunblane massacre and implementation of the toughest gun control laws in the developed world.

In contrast, in 2009 (5 years after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired) total firearm related homicides in the U.S. declined by 9% from the 2005 high (Source: “FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Master File, Table 310, Murder Victims – Circumstances and Weapons Used or Cause of Death: 2000-2009”).

Are there unintended consequences to stricter gun control laws and the politically expedient path that we have started down?

In a recent op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, Brett Joshpe stated that “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes.”We agree with Kevin D. Williamson (National Review Online, December 28, 2012): “The problem with this argument is that there is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment right that excludes military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear.”

“The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny. Consider the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story”: ‘The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The m*****a is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic i**********ns, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.
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The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.’

The Second Amendment has been ruled to specifically extend to firearms “in common use” by the military by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v Miller (1939). In Printz v U.S. (1997) Justice Thomas wrote: “In Miller we determined that the Second Amendment did not guarantee a citizen’s right to possess a sawed-off shot gun because that weapon had not been shown to be “ordinary military equipment” that could “could contribute to the common defense”.

A citizen’s right to keep and bear arms for personal defense unconnected with service in a m*****a has been reaffirmed in the U.S. Supreme Court decision (District of Columbia, et al. v Heller, 2008). The Court Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion: “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a m*****a, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.“. Justice Scalia went on to define a m*****a as “… comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense ….” “The Anti-Federalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ m*****a, enabling a politicized standing army or a select m*****a to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ m*****a would be preserved.” he explained.

On September 13, 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban went into effect. A Washington Post editorial published two days later was candid about the ban’s real purpose:“[N]o one should have any illusions about what was accomplished [by the ban]. Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control.”

In a challenge to the authority of the Federal government to require State and Local Law Enforcement to enforce Federal Law (Printz v United States) the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in 1997. For the majority opinion Justice Scalia wrote: “…. this Court never has sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations When we were at last confronted squarely with a federal statute that unambiguously required the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program, our decision should have come as no surprise….. It is an essential attribute of the States’ retained sovereignty that they remain independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of authority.”

So why should non-gun owners, a majority of Americans, care about maintaining the 2nd Amendment right for citizens to bear arms of any kind? The answer is “The Battle of Athens, TN”. The Cantrell family had controlled the economy and politics of McMinn County, Tennessee since the 1930s. Paul Cantrell had been Sheriff from 1936 -1940 and in 1942 was elected to the State Senate. His chief deputy, Paul Mansfield, was subsequently elected to two terms as Sheriff. In 1946 returning WWII veterans put up a popular candidate for Sheriff. On August 1 Sheriff Mansfield and 200 “deputies” stormed the post office polling place to take control of the b****t boxes wounding an objecting observer in the process. The veterans bearing military style weapons, laid siege to the Sheriff’s office demanding return of the b****t boxes for public counting of the v**es as prescribed in Tennessee law. After exchange of gun fire and blowing open the locked doors, the veterans secured the b****t boxes thereby protecting the integrity of the e******n. And this is precisely why all Americans should be concerned about protecting all of our right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment!

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Throughout history, disarming the populace has always preceded tyrants’ accession of power. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all disarmed their citizens prior to installing their murderous regimes. At the beginning of our own nation’s revolution, one of the first moves made by the British government was an attempt to disarm our citizens. When our Founding Fathers ensured that the 2nd Amendment was made a part of our Constitution, they were not just wasting ink. They were acting to ensure our present security was never forcibly endangered by tyrants, foreign or domestic.

If there is a staggering legal precedent to protect our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms and if stricter gun control laws are not likely to reduce gun related crime, why are we having this debate? Other than making us and our elected representatives feel better because we think that we are doing something to protect our children, these actions will have no effect and will only provide us with a false sense of security.

So, what do we believe will be effective? First, it is important that we recognize that this is not a gun control problem; it is a complex sociological problem. No single course of action will solve the problem. Therefore, it is our recommendation that a series of diverse steps be undertaken, the implementation of which will require patience and diligence to realize an effect. These are as follows:

1. First and foremost we support our Second Amendment right in that “A well regulated m*****a being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.

2. We support State and Local School Boards in their efforts to establish security protocols in wh**ever manner and form that they deem necessary and adequate. One of the great strengths of our Republic is that State and Local governments can be creative in solving problems. Things that work can be shared. Our point is that no one knows what will work and there is no one single solution, so let’s allow the State and Local governments with the input of the citizens to make the decisions. Most recently the Cleburne Independent School District will become the first district in North Texas to consider allowing some teachers to carry concealed guns. We do not opine as to the appropriateness of this decision, but we do support their right to make this decision for themselves.

3. We recommend that Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) laws be passed in every State. AOT is formerly known as Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC) and allows the courts to order certain individuals with mental disorders to comply with treatment while living in the community. In each of the mass shooting incidents the perpetrator was mentally unstable. We also believe that people who have been adjudicated as incompetent should be simultaneously examined to determine whether they should be allowed the right to retain/purchase firearms.

4. We support the return of firearm safety programs to schools along the lines of the successful “Eddie the Eagle” program, which can be taught in schools by Peace Officers or other trained professionals.

5. Recent social psychology research clearly indicates that there is a direct relationship between gratuitously violent movies/video games and desensitization to real violence and increased aggressive behavior particularly in children and young adults (See Nicholas L. Carnagey, et al. 2007. “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence” and the references therein. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43:489-496). Therefore, we strongly recommend that gratuitous violence in movies and video games be discouraged. War and war-like behavior should not be glorified. Hollywood and video game producers are exploiting something they know nothing about. General Sherman famously said “War is Hell!” Leave war to the Professionals. War is not a game and should not be “sold” as entertainment to our children.

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6. We support repeal of the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it obviously isn’t working. It is our opinion that “Gun-Free Zones” anywhere are too tempting of an
environment for the mentally disturbed individual to inflict their brand of horror with little fear of interference. While governmental and non-governmental organizations, businesses, and individuals should be free to implement a Gun-Free Zone if they so choose, they should also assume Tort liability for that decision.

7. We believe that border states should take responsibility for implementation of border control laws to prevent illegal shipments of firearms and drugs. Drugs have been illegal in this country for a long, long time yet the Federal Government manages to seize only an estimated 10% of this contraband at our borders. Given this dismal performance record that is misguided and inept (“Fast and Furious”), we believe that border States will be far more competent at this mission.

8. This is our country, these are our rights. We believe that it is time that we take personal responsibility for our choices and actions rather than abdicate that responsibility to someone else under the illusion that we have done something that will make us all safer. We have a responsibility to stand by our principles and act in accordance with them. Our children are watching and they will follow the example we set.

The Quiet Professionals hereby humbly stand ever present, ever ready, and ever vigilant."
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NOTE: This letter is a copy of the Original Letter that was written and signed by 1,100 Active, Reserve and Retired Special Forces Soldiers and was sent to the House of Representatives several months ago, not sure if you received it SO HERE IT IS minus the signatures some of these soldiers serve today and are in harms way.

RetNavyCWO Loc: VA suburb of DC

Good stuff, Papabear! I especially like the above.

It is interesting - and maybe unfortunate - to note how that has shifted over time. Was it the Civil War? WWI? WWII? I don't know. But today, federal law takes precedence over conflicting state laws when it comes to things governed by the feds. I see it all the time when it comes to things like state divorce laws that divide military retired pay and other benefits in unique ways, but if those ways don't comply with federal laws (Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act of 1982 and its numerous subsequent amendments), they are not enforceable. Over time, the federal government has said to the states, "You're not the boss of me!"

I don't agree with it, but I don't see any way to return the relationship back to what it was originally intended to be, or even if it is a good idea in this day and age, considering how we must interact with the rest of the world.

Interesting! Thanks! Good food for thought!

:thumbup: :thumbup:

angery american Loc: Georgia

This is a very accurate response to all the myths about gun violence. But it doesn't matter what the true facts are, most of these highly educated liberals will never, ever, change their viewpoints about guns. The reason for this is that they all live in a fairy tell land where everything is suppose to be all happy, peaceful, just every thing hunky dorey >IF ONLY NO ONE HAD GUNS.>. I wish we could pass a law that would require everyone over the age of 18 to own and carry a gun.....I wonder how the liberals would feel a about that....LOCK AND LOAD,,,angery outtt

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

I guess you ignored the previous posts which spelled out what I said. That's ok. You are no different than anyone else who only read/hear what agrees with their "thinking".

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Money, it's always about the money. How does the National Guard get it's weapons and equipment? The Fed owns the NG because they paid for it. Any time the Feds want to take control of something, they don't have a right to by law, they buy it. State legislators LOVE money. " look, I got a grant from the Fed's for $xxx!" makes a law maker look good to the deaf/blind masses.
The States sold their rights piece by piece. Once an individual leaves his or her home State and gets swallowed by the monster in DC, they become addicted to POWER. You know that addicts would sell their own mothers for another fix so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they sell out their own States for the same purpose.

angery american Loc: Georgia

Great post papabear. Thanks for sharing it with us. LOCK AND LOAD angery outttt