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> the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. Tha

by pg314 9y ago

> the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. That is an appeal to authority. Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. They wrote down what they thought was best at the time. They were not infallible (see the amendments), what they wrote down was not unambiguous (or the supreme court wouldn't be necessary), and society and technology has changed in the intervening 200+ years. Do you think they would come up with exactly the same text if they were alive today, with the benefit of hindsight?

leereeves 9y ago
> Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. No, they wrote down rules to prevent the forms of oppression and protect the means of opposition that they knew from experience. Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no.
- pg314 9y ago
  > Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no. As your Afghanistan example illustrates, you don't need a right to bear arms enshrined in the constitution, nor 101 guns per 100 inhabitants as in the US. Afghanistan has an estimated 4.6 guns per 100 inhabitants. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...
  - leereeves 9y ago
    > you don't need a right to bear arms enshrined in the constitution, nor 101 guns per 100 inhabitants as in the US You need armed people, however you get them.
0x445442 9y ago
> Do you think they would come up with exactly the same text if they were alive today, with the benefit of hindsight? With respect to property rights and a citizen's right to arms, yep pretty close.
phil21 9y ago
> That is an appeal to authority. Isn't that kind of required if we are to live under rule of law? There must be an end-all authority, and in this land it tends to be the constitution and it's assorted related documents. I have no problem with that appeal to authority. It may be the sole legitimate time to use it. The rules were written down and hard to change precisely because of threads like this. If parts need to be updated, there is a mechanism to do so. Therefore, appealing to the Constitution as the ultimate authority of the land sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Perfect? Of course not. But the founding fathers certainly were prescient about the whole "slippery slope" slow erosion of rights - the entire last 100 years (at least) has been a story of the slow erosion of personal liberty. I imagine that would have gone much faster without such hard to change "final rules" of the land.

by pg314 9y ago

leereeves 9y ago

> Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. No, they wrote down rules to prevent the forms of oppression and protect the means of opposition that they knew from experience. Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no.

pg314 9y ago
> Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no. As your Afghanistan example illustrates, you don't need a right to bear arms enshrined in the constitution, nor 101 guns per 100 inhabitants as in the US. Afghanistan has an estimated 4.6 guns per 100 inhabitants. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...
- leereeves 9y ago
  > you don't need a right to bear arms enshrined in the constitution, nor 101 guns per 100 inhabitants as in the US You need armed people, however you get them.

0x445442 9y ago

> Do you think they would come up with exactly the same text if they were alive today, with the benefit of hindsight? With respect to property rights and a citizen's right to arms, yep pretty close.

phil21 9y ago

> That is an appeal to authority. Isn't that kind of required if we are to live under rule of law? There must be an end-all authority, and in this land it tends to be the constitution and it's assorted related documents. I have no problem with that appeal to authority. It may be the sole legitimate time to use it. The rules were written down and hard to change precisely because of threads like this. If parts need to be updated, there is a mechanism to do so. Therefore, appealing to the Constitution as the ultimate authority of the land sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Perfect? Of course not. But the founding fathers certainly were prescient about the whole "slippery slope" slow erosion of rights - the entire last 100 years (at least) has been a story of the slow erosion of personal liberty. I imagine that would have gone much faster without such hard to change "final rules" of the land.