Debate For All

You mean everyone doesn't own at least one mace & chain?

:smok:

 

No. Although I do own a D-guard Bowie knife.

 

I have a bowie knife my brother made. I used to have one I ade but it was stolen years ago when my truck was broken into.

A great knife!

:smok:

 

My knife has a D-shaped knuckle guard, similar to what you see on a sword. Many Confederates carried them in the early days of the Civil War.

 

Pictures!

 

I also have a 440 stainless steel Ninja sword but sorry Roel, no pictures.

I always wondered how effective these weapons were so one year, I took it hunting. I had shot a doe for camp meat and decided I would see if the sword was as effective as I had read.

I took a half swing at the neck and it was like a hot knife going through butter. Clean cut, head just fell off.

No question that these weapons can cut a man in half.

 

Since gun ownership has come up in other posts recently, I thought I'd bump this topic up to continue the debate.

My summary (please forgive any bias):

For: Gun ownership in America is Constitutional, the purpose being for the people to protect themselves against corrupt governments.

Against: The Constitution actually says you have the right to 'bear arms' as part of a 'well-regulated militia'. Plus gun crime is not a good thing to have.

My 'smart-arse comment': If citizens are armed to overthrow corrupt governments, why haven't they?
(note - this can be applied very easily to Britain, or pretty much any nation, so is not an anti-American statement :smok: )

 

American gun ownership is a historical leftover for a bygone age that causes more grief than it will ever prevent.


You many now exercise your democratic right to disagree with me.

 

america , is a gun candyland , that's where all the guerilla armies in the world get their weapons. Guns are just as easy to buy as chips in a convienance store in america. no wonder the crime rate is so high there.

 

Is it the Crime rate that is high in America or the murder rate? The two are different.
This debate is really a little pointless as we in Britain (and the rest of Europe) tend to find the American attitude to guns inexplicable, they think the same about ours and neither are likely to change their view.

 

Can I use it to agree with you?

 

America is gun candyland: totally agree!

that's where all the guerilla armies in the world get their weapons: I seriously doubt this. $5 AAK-47s in Africa don't come from the US. It looks like most guerilla armies are armed with ex-Soviet weapons to me.
US arms manufacturers go for the big bucks and sell to governments.

 

I have excercised my right to disagree with you. I have bought yet another gun. That takes me up to 23.

Guns are not that easy for law abiding citizens to get. Criminals steal them or buy them from other criminals and that is the case everywhere. Has strict gun control stopped crime in the UK?

Also, not every guerilla comes to America and buys a warehouse full of guns. If it were that easy, I'd have a million by now! You can't believe every word that biased news media puts out there. They need to have a controversial story to sell papers and air time. Heck, we hear that Canadian food and medicine isn't safe and that London has the fastest growing crime rate in the world. Is any of that true? Probably not.

As another poster said, it's a cultural difference and not likely to change.

 

A couple of points:

1. There is no serious doubt what was intended by the 2nd amendment to the Constitution. That is why it is in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights (1st 10 amendments) are rights of individuals that may not be infringed by the state. There are no states rights in the Bill of Rights i.e. the states right to keep a militia.

2. Several people have referred to the US as a democracy. It is not, Thank God, it is a Republic with democratically elected representatives.

3. I will be curious in the coming years to see how some of these European states that think that high crime is a peculiarly American phenomenon react. The rate of violent crime is rising in practically all of them.
Some would say in direct proportion to the degree of unlimited immigration. Some Dutch people have become quite alarmed after the recent high profile murder of the Dutch filmmaker Van Goch and some are calling for immigration restrictions, especially from Islamic countries. Neo Nazi and right wing groups are on the rise in Germany according to news sources and I have read that gun crime in Britain, while still rare is becoming more common. As the European nations become less homogenous they may begin to understand what difficulties a multicultural nation like the US has been facing for many decades.

4. I see a gun as a tool. It is no more dangerous or malevolent than electricity or gasolene in responsible hands. Why would you(as the state) treat any citizen as irresponsible until they have demonstrated their lack of responsibility? Do you feel that the state wields the ultimate power and the people serve the state? Or vice versa?

5. Someone commented why are there no instances of armed citizens overthrowing a despotic government? I cannot think of an armed citizenry that has ever had a despotic government imposed upon them. Perhaps you can think of one.

6. Someone commented on Americans living "below the poverty line"...lol..that is quite naive. The so-called poverty line like the homeless issue is a red herring that is used to advance Leftist political agendas. This may shock some of you but the simple fact is ; there is no real poverty in the U.S...that's right..none. The people supposedly living in poverty have nice cars, 150 dollar sneakers and cell phones with unlimited night and weekends. You want poverty try Africa or Asia..you're wasting your time trying to find it in the US. The homeless are either mentally ill or drug addicted self destrctive persons who would have in an earlier time been in mental institutions with very few exceptions.
I think many of the misperceptions about the US come from our own media. Most Americans are able to sift the wheat from the chaff..we know that Dan Rather and CNN seldom describe things the way that the average citizens sees them just as our overwhelmingly Leftist (by their own description) academic institutions are out of touch with the average citizen. It's no wonder that those on the outside looking in have a severely distorted view of the US.

ps. it would be nice if we could debate such political, philosophical and cultural differences without resorting to invective and vitriol...and certainly most of you in this thread have kept the blows above the belt..Cheers to those that make that effort 8)

 

Well, having arms was(and still is) quite common in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nearly every familiy has it's AK 47 in Afghanisztan, similar in Iraq.
But they did not overthrow their despotic governements.

 

My first reply - I'll continue later!

I'm always amazed by the number of people who assume that European countries are practically nation states who have until now experienced little or no immigration. Admittedly many in Eastern Europe are, but that is slightly different.
Britain has experienced many large influxes of immigrants - many during the days of Empire, many more since the end of WW2.
In just the top half of my street, for example (30 houses), we have English, Irish, Maltese, Jamaicans, Barbadons (is this the correct word?), Bangladeshies, Pakistanies, Indians, Albanians, Poles, and one house used by the government to house recent immigrants for a month or 2.
This is not an uncommon sample of my town, or of many towns in Britain. Yes, there are big areas where 'English' vastly outnumber 'immigrants', but that is true of every country.

Heck, if you want to get silly about this, 'England' is a nation of immigrants - the 'English' being Danes/Saxons/Jutes/Angles...
Sorry, the last paragraph is fairly irrelevant. I just could not resist.

Nobody thinks high crime is a purely American thing - but there is a difference between 'crime' and 'gun crime'. Yes, Britain still has 'gun crime', but very very little. Consider that every time something gun related happens, it is instantly national news, then think how often you hear about gun crime actually happening. The argument goes that if citizens can buy & own guns, citizens can use these on other citizens.
Guns may be a tool, but a tool for killing only. That is their purpose. Whether it is animals or people, they are designed to kill. Other potentially lethal materials (like petrol or electricity) generally have other, constructive uses as their primary purpose, and you do have to put a little effort & ingenuity into making effective killing machines out of them.

A further note, just to stop any potential 'Euro vs US' stuff -
I know Europeans who would dearly like US-style gun control.
I know Americans who would never want to own a gun, and would never even want one in their house (And they vote Bush, before anybody calls them Liberals! ).

 

The Swiss have I believe a greater number of guns per capita, but have I believe fewer killings, laws don't stop crime but punishes it. I do believe our guncontrol in conjunction with unarmed police has contributed to a lower death rate through gun crime.

 

The Second Amendment states:
"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

(from http://www.barefootsworld.net/article2.html which seems to have a good discussion on this)

It does contain this interesting quote:
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . .Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." - Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, VP of the United States 1813-1814, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

But anyway - basic conclusion seems to me to be that the purpose of the right to bear arms is the have a militia to keep your state free & secure. Outside of that (I would argue), gun ownership for private use only could be considered unconstitutional - except possibly in areas where guns are needed, for example to protect oneself from the larger examples of wild animal.
I have never yet heard a response to this - somebody please make one!

And no, Militia does not equal National Guard.

 

Ricky wrote:

Not sure what point you are raising here. The fact that people's individual right to keep and bear arms arises out of the desirability of maintaining a militia in no way negates the individuals rights argument. It strengthens it if anything. A militia is what? Armed citizens banded together. If ordinary citizens are prohibited from owning guns how would one form a militia?

Free and secure from what? There is ample evidence(too extensive for this forum..books have been written on the subject) that the framers of the constitution contemplated keeping the people secure from the possiblity oppression by a despotic state.

This simple statement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the US Constitution common to non Americans (and to many Americans as well).
The Bill of Rights is NOT about the rights of the state. It is clearly and explicitly about the rights of the individual vis a vis the state.
To say that "gun ownership for private use only could be considered unconstitutional" implys that the rights of citizens are limited by the Constitution rather than explicitly stated as to be not limited.
"The sole purpose of the so-called Bill of Rights was to expand the system of limited government established by the Constitution by placing additional restraints on the powers of the federal government.
Any right not enumerated in the first 8 amendments was placed beyond the purview of federal authority by the Ninth Amendment. Every power not granted to the federal government was reserved to the States or the people by the Tenth Amendment. "
It is a misunderstanding to think of the US Constitution as explicitly stating what the rights of the people are as though any power not listed then does not reside in the people but in the state. On the contrary, every power not explicitly granted to the state is reserved to the people.

"It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." ---- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson

Amen Brother.

 

Citizens owning arms does not make them a well regulated militia.

Yes, citizens need arms to form a militia, but if they are not in a militia, they should not have arms. Any militia formed on an ad hoc basis is not IMO a well regulated militia.

Militia:
a military force which only operates for some of the time and whose members often have other jobs:
( http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ )

Militia:
An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.
( http://dictionary.reference.com/ )

The constitution says nothing about having guns for personal use, or just because you like them. You have arms for a militia, and that's it.