"A little complicatd of a position for you? I'm not surprised, most people have trouble understanding it, especially the gun nuts."
No complicated at all, weird yes. Just because you were able to mentally form a disjointed missive like this: "My belief about gun ownership has nothing at all to do with my beliefs about gun ownership rights.", doesn't impart wisdom or even rationality to it. You'd be a rare bird indeed if you were able to toss about platitudes like you have and not have it affect how you view many aspects of life and personal liberty.
"See, there is this idea that if you support gun ownership rights, you have to want to own guns."
No there isn't. There are MANY who, for one reason or another decide not to own a firearm, who are capable of understanding there place in a free society.
"Nobody can understand why someone who doesn't really see the need to own a gun would support the rights of other people to own guns."
Can you talk without the grand, sweeping generalities?
"The fact that this sort of attitude is the basis of our country seems to escape these people."
MOTS
"Right...because anyone who doesn't own a gun must be afraid of them."
"Guns are stupid, mostly!" Cars, and the idiots who drive them, kill 10's of thousands in the US every year. Are cars "stupid" too?
"The issue may seem simple to you, but the amount of debate over this issue leads me to believe a lot of people don't agree with you."
"I wouldn't "like" to believe anything, as I said, *I* don't think this issue is super-complex."
Yet this is exactly what you've said, several times. Hmmmm?
"I was just saying that I'd be foolish not to realize that many people DO consider this a complex issue."
And they're wrong. The urge to defend one's self is evident in almost every aspect of human and animal nature. The "complexity" you're so eager to see is nothing but a masquerade, created from spit a bailing-wire by those who think that either of us owning a firearm conflicts with their idea of an "orderly society." Here's one of my favorite quotes from any anti-gunner: "No one in Chicago needs to own a gun. They can just wait until the crime is over and call a cop!", Richard Daley, the honorable mayor of Chicago. Now Rainsford, suppose the crime in question is a rape\murder? How would calling the police after the fact even be possible? There isn't ONE anti-self defense organization who wants anything less than our complete disarmament. There injection of "complexity" in this issue is meant to do NOTHING but muddy the waters. This is a FACT.
More:
"Power And Responsibility
Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you wrong -- since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so -- but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it? Because your life is of incalculable value, but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon another to do so for you?
Do you believe that you are forbidden to protect yourself because the police are better qualified to protect you, because they know what they are doing but you're a rank amateur? Put aside that this is equivalent to believing that only concert pianists may play the piano and only professional athletes may play sports. What exactly are these special qualities possessed only by the police and beyond the rest of us mere mortals?
One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance. Let's not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence.
Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitually, lethal, but unlike the knife or sword, not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the "great equalizer." Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively by the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by the one against the many.
The handgun is the only weapon that would give a lone female jogger a chance of prevailing against a gang of thugs intent on rape, a teacher a chance of protecting children at recess from a madman intent on massacring them, a family of tourists waiting at a mid-town subway station the means to protect themselves from a gang of teens armed with razors and knives.
But since we live in a society that by and large outlaws the carrying of arms, we are brought into the fray of the Great American Gun War. Gun control is one of the most prominent battlegrounds in our current culture wars. Yet it is unique in the half-heartedness with which our conservative leaders and pundits -- our "conservative elite" -- do battle, and have conceded the moral high ground to liberal gun control proponents. It is not a topic often written about, or written about with any great fervor, by William F. Buckley or Patrick Buchanan. As drug czar, William Bennett advised President Bush to ban "assault weapons." George Will is on record as recommending the repeal of the Second Amendment, and Jack Kemp is on record as favoring a ban on the possession of semiautomatic "assault weapons." The battle for gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common man. The beliefs of both our liberal and conservative elites are in fact abetting the criminal rampage through our society."
And this:
"The Tyranny of the Elite
Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted, barbaric citizenry. This is demonstrated not only by the ineffectualness of gun control in preventing crime, and by the fact that it focuses on restricting the behavior of the law-abiding rather than apprehending and punishing the guilty, but also by the execration that gun control proponents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality, the NRA. Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated, paranoid rednecks fascinated by and prone to violence, i.e., exactly the type of person who opposes the liberal agenda and whose moral and social "re-education" is the object of liberal social policies. Typical of such bigotry is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's famous characterization of gun-owners as "hunters who drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend." Similar vituperation is rained upon the NRA, characterized by Sen. Edward Kennedy as the "pusher's best friend," lampooned in political cartoons as standing for the right of children to carry firearms to school and, in general, portrayed as standing for an individual's God-given right to blow people away at will.
The stereotype is, of course, false. As criminologist and constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former HCI contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out, "tudies consistently show that, on the average, gun owners are better educated and have more prestigious jobs than non-owners.... Later studies show that gun owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of police brutality, violence against dissenters, etc."
Conservatives must understand that the antipathy many liberals have for gun owners arises in good measure from their statist utopianism. This habit of mind has nowhere been better explored than in The Republic. There, Plato argues that the perfectly just society is one in which an unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding their own business in the performance of their assigned functions, while the government of philosopher-kings, above the law and protected by armed guardians unquestioning in their loyalty to the state, engineers, implements, and fine-tunes the creation of that society, aided and abetted by myths that both hide and justify their totalitarian manipulation."
No sir, this topic isn't complex AT ALL.
"You shouldn't CARE that people think this way, just be aware of it when you are "taking steps to defend your life and property."
This isn't how individual liberty works, Rainsford.
"I'm not sure I agree with them either, I'm just saying the DEBATE is getting a little complicated."
"The debate about gun control...you know the one, right?"
Now you're just being flippant, feel better?
"It's a complex DEBATE (not issue) because there are many different positions and many different ideas about what constitutes a legal attitude towards guns."
Wrong again. There's only one "legal attitude", and that's the 2A. Just because its been distorted by arrogant asses who think they KNOW what's best for me doesn't change anything.
"Issues with only two sides (gay marriage for example) are usually a lot easier to resolve, while issues with a hundred different groups all looking for different things becomes a lot more complicated.
DO SOME READING! There are only two sides to this issue. Those who know that they have the right to own firearms and those who think they should be able to decide who owns them.
"I didn't say they were, it's pretty clear they don't consider it their fight."
No, but you have been jumping through hoops trying to explain their inaction on what is clearly a consitutional argument.
"Fair enough, but considering how fanatically they defend other rights, I was simply curious as to why they backed out of this fight."
I've heard it described as an over-dependence on the 1A. The theory goes that as long as we can speak freely to power we can right any wrong. Under these conditions, why does anyone need the power to potentially right said wrongs themselves? The flaw in this argument is that a LOT of people can be "wronged" before authorities decide to do something about it. That's just one of the reasons why the 2a was included in the BOR. Firearms in the hands of free people was seen by the framers as a "defensible bottom line" to all forms of tyranny.
"Hell, I don't know what their motives are, I'm just throwing things out there."
"And seeing what sticks? I can see why you'd want to stay away from anything substantive under these conditions."
"Sure, if you want to put it that way. I'm not advocating my personal opinion here, just trying to figure out what the ACLU is thinking."
I hope I've offered at least some assistance in this. Remember, I did mention that I sought the ACLU's help in a 2A case.
"Hey, I'm just responding to your posts."
No you aren't. What you're doing is pitty-patting around, trying to seem very liberal and inclusive.
"I'm here trying to figure out the ACLU's motivations, and you're acting like a ranting lunatic."
Now THIS is a perfect example of what I meant by you trying to tell me how I "feel." Please desist in this, unless your incapable of adult discussion.
"Remember, the topic is the ACLU, or rather their position on gun control, but for some reason you keep attacking me over something only you seem to be reading into my posts. It's not there, really."
Wow, you really can tilt at windmills, can't you! :laugh:
"If it matters, I think gun control is mostly a waste of time."
But you think the supposed "complexity" of the issue is?
"I don't think Walmart should sell anti-tank missles or anything, but I don't think most of our current gun control laws are a good idea either, practically or legally."
How magnanimous of you.
"Given the ACLU's rabid defense of the rest of our rights, their absense from the gun control issue is rather puzzling to me."
It shouldn't be now.
"Maybe it's something as simple as an anti-2nd amendment agenda, maybe they don't see a need to step in on the issue, maybe it's something else. Anyways, it's interesting to look at. That's all I'm trying to say here.
As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter what the ACLU is about. Pro-self defense folks have done very well without them.