http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/06/25/rethinking-my-hatred-of-the-second-amendment Comments On: Rethinking My Hatred of the Second Amendment by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:45:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by pointy]]> Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:38:05 -0700 The Stranger Saudi Arabia increasing production four-fold in the 80's and plunging the price of oil to record lows. The USSR, heavily dependant on oil for currency, was dropped to it's knees.
Considering the economic mess we're in now, AND the rest of the world's vested interest in seeing the US dollar removed as the world's standard currency (and only oil-purchasing currency...), there's no guarantee that we won't see a collapse here anyway. Cross our fingers it doesn't, but really, there's only so-much that debt-backed-currency can do before everyone is saddled with more debt than all the money that exists.
Posted by treacle]]> Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:11:42 -0700 The Stranger
Ghandi-style peaceful resistance is the only viable solution. The history of revolutions bears this out. Yes, it will take a long time, but it is the single most effective method to ensure freedoms in the face of an unresponsive government.

Second: Typically, gun-control laws are about getting more dangerous automatic weapons off the streets. They are not written to take a man's rifle or carbine away. That is the NRA's old chesnut they rattle around to drum up membership and righteous indignation.
Posted by treacle]]> Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:54:38 -0700 The Stranger
Outlasting an oppressive regime in the US, however, would take a very long time. The regime will only collapse after it runs out of money(as it did in the USSR), which will at best take three or four generations. Until it starts collapsing, if you're going to go out and wave your guns around as a form of resistance, expect to be killed.
Posted by pointy]]> Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:21:59 -0700 The Stranger
;)
Posted by Rev.Smith]]> Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:30:00 -0700 The Stranger enough.

Regarding Iran: The Green Revolution remains a protest, which is to say it is attempting to continue political change within (or at least while preserving) the structure of the state. It hasn't been entirely peaceful since protesters have already been throwing rocks, which incites a response escalation, but the chaos has served as leverage used by the Sea of Green to compel the Guardian Council to give it consideration. Should the Council reject the Revolution's demands, it will either turn into a resistance effort or an outright insurrection. But until it does, the protest should not involve guns, or really, even rocks.

Regarding the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights: Its primary function continues to be protection of the people from threats, both domestic and abroad, especially including the rise of tyranny, and encroachment by the state into human rights.

As the US Occupation of Iraq and the Global War on Terror continue to prove, the might of the US military is not immune, or necessarily even effective in the conditions of asymmetrical warfare against partisans or a resistance effort. Granted, we have the power to kill the enemy with unmatched precision and magnitude, when we know where the enemy is. It is, however, a lot more difficult to destroy an enemy that has infiltrated a civilian populace, especially when our greater priority is the preservation of that populace. Like terrorists, the more the occupying state encroaches on the rights and comfort of the common people, the easier it is for the resistance to recruit.

This is, incidentally, why there is no military solution to the War on Terror.

Guns are not necessary to preserve this power of the people, but they do accelerate the resistance when it needs to happen. And they do serve as a reminder of Napoleonic law to our representatives: that they rule only so long as we consent.
Posted by Uriel-238]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:29:12 -0700 The Stranger
oh, you've got a big rifle? If you had a fucking M1A1 tank I would place my bets on the US military. I would place my bets on one trained soldier armed with a 9mm pistol. They spend a trillion dollars a year on weapons and training.

Unfortunately, protecting our rights from our government is immensely more complicated than having a big gun in your basement.
Posted by emor]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:13:34 -0700 The Stranger
The operative phrase being "their right". I've said for years that if you want to see wingers do a 180 on the right to keep and bear arms just watch when liberals start arming themselves.

There's a gay gun group..."Pink Pistols". Long long ago I used to be on their mail list, but it got to be too much like reading alt.fan.rush.limbaugh. Then they invited a notorious Usenet homophobe, Clayton Cramer...a guy who kept insisting among other things that homosexuals were child molesters...to speak at one of their conferences, and I dropped out.

Posted by Bruce Garrett]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:28:39 -0700 The Stranger
Armed insurrection is a ludicrous fantasy. Don't talk to me about Thomas Jefferson; talk to me about Oklahoma City and Waco and Ruby Ridge and the Montana Freemen; hell, talk about the Whiskey Rebellion if you want. Black Panthers? The Black Panthers were PATHETIC, laughable, feeble-minded nothings parading around in total fakery.

Armed insurrection is quite simply not part of the picture in the modern world. People who think it is are living in a movie version of reality, which is closely allied to a movie version of masculinity. It's a MENTAL ILLNESS. If the government goes in a totalitarian direction, armed insurrection doesn't stand a prayer against them. Popular democracy does. It's the ONLY thing that does.

The notion that the Iranian protesters would be in a better position if they took up arms is the most incredibly stupid and wrongheaded thing I've heard in quite a while. They may not succeed; they may be another Tienanmen Square. But if they brought in guns they'd be massacred on the spot, every last one of them.

Your way leads to mindless brutality and savagery, to the American Civil War, to war in Congo, to the car bombs of Baghdad, not to freedom. The notion that guns play any role at all in our freedom is insane and anti-historical. There's an argument for private ownership of guns, but that ain't part of it.

Taking up arms to protect yourself against the United States, IN the United States, is always, always, always going to put you on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, the wrong side of your neighbors, and the wrong side of a hole in the ground. The world doesn't work that way. High Plains Drifter isn't real.
Posted by Fnarf]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:24:46 -0700 The Stranger Posted by memorex]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:01:19 -0700 The Stranger
In the "Turner Diaries" fantasy scenario the wing-nuts envision, the U.S. government is engaging in all-out war with its own citizenry, in which case what one would expect to occur would be much more akin to what's currently happening in Iran, namely, that a totalitarian government isn't going to worry all that much about offending "world opinion" when it comes to violently suppressing their own population.

Which leads me to -

@37:

I'll see your .50 BMG & 20 mm and raise you one GBU-12 "Snakeye" 500 lb. laser-guided smart-bomb dropped on your basement "bunker" from an F-16.

Problem solved. On to next delusional gun-nut.
Posted by COMTE]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:54:30 -0700 The Stranger Posted by kim in portland]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:48:04 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Westside forever]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:27:39 -0700 The Stranger
You've been peeking in my gun safe, haven't you? But you must have missed the .50 BMG and 20 mm.
Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:07:51 -0700 The Stranger
220 years ago this argument might have made sense, when citizen militias and the military were on a more-or-less equal footing in terms of the type of ordinance each carried. However, the notion that an armed citizenry in this day-and-age would stand even a snowball's chance against a massively equipped modern military force is simply ludicrous to the point of delusion.

Seriously, what do you think your chances are going to be when you pit your Glock 17 or Sig Sauer and four or five boxes of ammo against a platoon of highly trained soldiers sporting a standard issue of body armor, M16A2 or M-4 rifles, M249 SAWS, M9 pistols, flash-bang, frag & smoke grenades, bayonets, and probably at least double or even triple front-line ammo reserves?

Oh, right, and THEN they bring on the machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, IFV's, ACV's, M109 Paladins, tanks, and air support.

Any nut-job militia type who thinks their piddly arsenal is going to be anything more than a temporary annoyance in the (admittedly rather unlikely) event of a committed, sustained, determined military incursion on their "territory" will discover that Ruby Ridge was a veritable picnic compared to what they're going to encounter.
Posted by COMTE]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:53:11 -0700 The Stranger
Referring to everyone who enthusiastically owns a firearm as a gun nut is inconsiderate and lowers my opinion of you, Dan. Is it really necessary to paint all of those who participate in the culture of guns as being mentally unstable? (which is a disqualifying condition for carrying a gun in some circumstances, btw)

As someone who has sworn an oath to defend the constitution of the United States, I consider it my duty to exercise the rights guaranteed by that document. This includes owning and carrying a firearm as well as speaking freely supporting others in doing so. I would prefer to live in a world without violence where gun ownership was unnecessary, but I consider that a greater fantasy than that described by Fnarf@10
Posted by GlibReaper]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:52:03 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:47:17 -0700 The Stranger
Not for you to have the right to take your gun into public parks and start firing randomly or to serve your own justice. I've always said the original purpose was so that if the government got too big we could fight back, then the IRS got machine guns and it's been pretty much over from there.
Posted by watchout5]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:46:32 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Andy_Squirrel]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:41:27 -0700 The Stranger Posted by kresblamania]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:34:10 -0700 The Stranger
But enjoy life in your little fantasy world. Say hello to the flowers and all those characters from the Disney movies who live there from me.
Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:29:41 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Westside forever]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:20:05 -0700 The Stranger Posted by kresblamania]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:17:25 -0700 The Stranger
Posted by dirge]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:16:04 -0700 The Stranger Posted by kresblamania]]> Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:14:11 -0700 The Stranger