ACLU sues library for blocking SAF website

The ACLU's argument is problematic for a few reasons. Firstly, it's a lousy slipperly slope--if you concede that some restrictions are reasonable, why aren't ALL restrictions reasonable? They make no clear distinction between acceptable and unacceptable restrictions.

The bazookas and nukes argument is tired, they should be embarassed for even thinking it would fly. No real need to rehash here, but presumable the readership here can discern between "arms" and "explosives". Arms were clearly meant to mean handheld devices for projecting force and protecting oneself. Today's AR15 is yesterday's musket.

Indeed, if the SHTF, very few would likely argue we don't have the right to put explosive devices together to protect ourselves from tyrants.

They conspicuously ignore the salient parts of Miller, S.397 from a couple years ago (I personally lend more creedence to what elected legislatures have to say anyway, don't you?), the 5th ckt's Emerson, the Moore case, some other cases that have mentioned in dicta the RKBA as an individual right, etc.

They're also wrong that you don't have the right to an M16 or an M4--you do, you just have to front the $$$$$$$$$$ for the Class 3. I could have bought an M4 with the grenade launcher last weekend at the gun show...but I didn't have $24,500 with me that day. Bummer...guess I need to liquidate that Swiss bank account.

The point I'd take away is this--there are reasonable restrictions on the 1st A as well--you can't threaten the the POTUS, threaten to kill your wife, yell fire in a theatre, etc. The fact that there are such strictures in place hardly means your 1A rights don't exist. The same is true for the 2A--just because society at large has largely accepted that the govt can impose some reasonable regulations (most of which aren't all that reasonable when you look at them closely, I'll grant you) doesn't mean the core principle conferred by the 2A doesn't exist.

If the Founders wanted the 2A to say "the states have the right to form a militia"....it would have bloomin said that. :banghead: :banghead:

 

The problem is less the ACLU than it is RKBA believers who insist on ideological purity with the white, Xian, conservative agenda. That, in the long run, is what is going to be used to beat us down on guns. If it isn't already this way, there will reach a point where most gun owners aren't white, Xian, and conservative. If we insist on tying the RKBA to that agenda, then we are going to lose. This thread illustrates that beautifully. The ACLU is defending a somewhat 2A related case, but since they lack ideologic purity, they get nothing but negative criticism anyway. I hope y'all believe it is better to maintain goodthinkfullness and lose than it is to cross party/ethnic lines on RKBA and win.

 

Unless you're looking for either very current information, or specialized information.

You read in the paper that a "gun safety" bill was proposed in Congress two days ago. You want to find out what it contains so you can write your congresscritter. You won't find that info in a book or magazine, and your newspaper will only give you a puff piece summary written by a gun-404 AP reporter. But on the Internet...

Or, say you want to find out detailed background info about the latest Wierd Al Yankovic album that you heard hit the Top Ten. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/"Weird_Al"_Yankovic

The Internet is a FANTASTIC information resource, but you have to know how to search it and how to evaluate sources.

 

"The problem is less the ACLU than it is RKBA believers who insist on ideological purity with the white, Xian, conservative agenda. That, in the long run, is what is going to be used to beat us down on guns. If it isn't already this way, there will reach a point where most gun owners aren't white, Xian, and conservative. If we insist on tying the RKBA to that agenda, then we are going to lose. This thread illustrates that beautifully. The ACLU is defending a somewhat 2A related case, but since they lack ideologic purity, they get nothing but negative criticism anyway. I hope y'all believe it is better to maintain goodthinkfullness and lose than it is to cross party/ethnic lines on RKBA and win."

This forum is actually a pleasant exception (comparatively) from some other gun forums I know of. I used to be a member of Florida Shooters Network--some very nice, helpful people there; some real cretins also. If you read the persistent race-baiting posts (particularly after Katrina) it was clear people were comfortable posting such things because they just presumed everybody there was white, Christian (or at least not some OTHER religion) and almost exclusively male--and there was really no inclination to be more inclusive. Alleged "moderators" would happily toss in their own very thinly (or not-at-all) veiled racism. There was a pervasive fear (and loathing) of "the other" (actually they made room for Hispanics, just so long as they made damn sure they were the type to habla ingles solamente). Things seem to have gotten a little better over there recently, but that is not saying much from where they started.

Well, people can constitute themselves into any little private club they like, but that mindset--and image--is an absolute stone-cold loser in the long run for the RKBA cause. The emerging demographics are what they are and, no, contrary to the copies of The Turner Diaries they sell at the local gun show, there is not going to be a race war (usually charmingly called a "Second American Revolution" or some other euphamism) to undo them (sorry, fellas, most of you are going to croak from too many cheeseburgers, not from jack-booted UN thugs descending from black helicopters). We need to be as agressively inclusive as possible, which means, among other things, shunning the idiots among us who seem to have no problem wearing their prejudices on their sleeve. THEY are screwing things up for the rest of US in the long run.

Again, I give much credit to the moderators and participants here for largely doing that.

 

+1 Zundfolge. My grandfather taught me the exact same thing.

 

I assume this is Warsaw. I could be wrong I guess.
My pastor has a small book on anti-semitism. He mentioned that he Polish resistance refused to help the Jews in rebelling. Later when the Russians were almost at the city, the poles rebelled and fought the Germans. The Russian army refused to help them and took the city after the resistance was wiped out.

I like the idea that the ACLU defends the Bill of Rights. I sometimes disagree with the cases they choose to get behind. I don't completely trust their motives sometimes, but I am not going to criticize them unless they deserve it.

 

The big problem with defending rights, is that people will attempt to quell the rights of undesirables, first. Nobody wants to hear about racial sepratism, child molestation, or creepy end of the world cults. If we want to defend our rights, we have to defend EVERYONE's rights. We have to defend the Randy Weavers, and the David Koresh's rights, as well as the NAMBLA and the KKK's rights.

The bill of rights applies to everyone, including complete A-holes. I wish the ACLU would fight for 2-a rights, but there are many more effective orgs that fight for 2a, so I let it go.

 

Boy... it seems that a lot of people don't much care for the ACLU.

Which reminds me of a joke...

How does the ACLU count to ten?

Answer: 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

 

All:

I care for the ACLU. I've been a member for years. I worked for the anti-affirmative action ballot proposal which recently passed here in Michigan, which the ACLU opposed.

I was nominated for the ACLU board and I ran as an NRA member opposing affirmative action. I came in dead last.

Dispite these differences, I will leave the ACLU money when I die and support them while I live. They guard against George Bush's complete ignorance of the Constutution.

Kowboy

 

Nitro, if that statement was directed at me be advised that I was not commenting on the ACLU. I was commenting on a court decision contained farther down in the article that was posted.

 

Comparing the effectivness of the Iraqi insurgency against the US military is like comparing a fight between Napolean Dynamite and Tito Ortiz, if Ortiz happened to be hogtied.

We are not losing that war militarily, but politically.

 

As Clausewitz said - war is an extension of politics. We won every battle in VietNam, but lost the war because their overall strategy incorporated politics more effectively. Unfortunately, the same is happening in Iraq. Sure, if we had a WWII-type level of political support of the the war in Iraq, and every healthy male was volunteering to go, we could win. But until then, they are going to go on winning because Bush misread the local politics, the regional politics, US politics, and the level of military commitment necessary to suppress an insurgency. Oh, and they also blew it with the de-Bathification program (local politics, again).