If you were to magically add a RKBA to some country´s constitution, which one?

[crotalus01]

Australia, because I like the people and country and as a bonus to spit in the face of Soros and Peters...

 

[phast12]

China, I think it would be really interesting to see what would transpire if the people could be armed.

 

[Mk VII]

This would require a true separation of Scotland from the UK but it's the one place I want to move to before I die. Scotland needs to develop a true sense of self-defense.

You'd better hope they don't separate. Scottish National Party is very antigun. Makes the present lot look like moderates.

 

[Grey_Mana]

I'd extend my constitutionally protected right to privacy to firearms. I know the Founders were much more concerned with documenting my rights to commit intrauterine euthanasia than my right to own and use a firearm, and I'd like to see that fixed.

 

[RPCVYemen]

Without the other rights in the BoR - free speech and due process come to mind almost immediately, the RKBA is darn near useless.

Mike

 

[Stevie-Ray]

It would be hard for me to choose brtween Britain and Australia.

 

[jahwarrior]

Without the other rights in the BoR - free speech and due process come to mind almost immediately, the RKBA is darn near useless.

huh? quite the opposite, i believe. in fact, the others wouldn't exist without RKBA.

 

[FLA2760]

England

 

[Erik Jensen]

I'd have to say.... Chicago or New York.

yes, I know the OP said countries, but I'd love to live in both those cities, except for the fact that they seem to operate under the laws of some other country.

 

[Zoogster]

Probably Mexico, they need it the most and I would like to travel there more often.

Mexico has it, was put in place inspired by the 2nd Amendment of thier northern neigbor's constitution. They put it in place after thier last civil war, meant to protect all arms. Unfortunately it allowed the government to infringe, and the end result is only a couple puny weapons and calibers are legal, and only a few thousand licenses (required by thier law) to own them in a country of many millions exist.

So they have one, it just serves no purpose.

Without the other rights in the BoR - free speech and due process come to mind almost immediately, the RKBA is darn near useless.

huh? quite the opposite, i believe. in fact, the others wouldn't exist without RKBA.

They are all very important. Consider that we have prohibited classes (an infringement.) Now imagine no due process for those prohibiting offenses. The right would be meaningless as government could simply charge and prohibit anyone at will without due process. So those with arms would still be chosen. Any potential trouble makers would just be charged with a prohibiting offense, and subsequent possession of arms by them would be a criminal offense.

Without free speech the individual ideas that both promote values, morals, rights, and other things that are then defended with arms cease to exist.
If the government controls the media with regulations, prohibits people from expressing ideas or certain beliefs, then there is eventualy only one 'truth', the one desired by the government. A few generations of that and the population really wouldn't have a solid foundation to even know what to defend with thier arms. You would just have patriotic brain-washed masses.
A small minority might still have differing beliefs, but they couldn't speak about them, so they wouldn't even find other likeminded individuals on a large scale. Spreading thier beliefs would be illegal, and speaking openly about them illegal.
The only official 'truth' would be the one taught by the government funded schools, places of higher education, and all media abiding by thier rules.
All 'educated' people would believe that 'truth' and anyone else would be viewed as a nutjob expressing illegal propoganda and punished.
In that atmosphere most of the intelligent people that applied themselves in society would end up being the most brainwashed as they would attend the most lengthy formal indoctrination.
So people would possess arms to do what? Back the government mandated beliefs?

The founding fathers got it right. The most important right is free speech, otherwise you eventualy have no beliefs or ideology to defend.
The second most important right is arms to defend your other rights. Without arms the peoples' voice is only as loud as the people that do have arms allow it to be.

 

[ZeSpectre]

Canada

 

[NonConformist]

America, because we've almost lost ours!

 

[JImbothefiveth]

I would have Mr. Scalia re-write ours, make it more clear.

For a foreign country, I'm leaning towards China, but maybe Canada or the U.K.. In all honesty, I wouldn't mind a trip to northern Canada, as I like the cold.

 

[RPCVYemen]

huh? quite the opposite, i believe. in fact, the others wouldn't exist without RKBA.

Nope - they all work together. If the government can imprison a citizen without due process, then there are no rights - RKBA or otherwise. Without due process, who forces the government to respect the rights specified in the Constituion? If the DC government could throw Heller on unspecified charges interminably, what rights does he have?

If you don't have the right to free speech or assembly to complain that the government is abridging your rights, then the government will surely take them away. And on and on and on. The Founding Fathers got it right - the BoR all work together.

Oops Zoogster beat me to it.

Mike

 

[20nickels]

Mex-e-co!

 

[John-Melb]

To all those that said Australia, thanks for the moral support.

I cant see it happening anytime soon, the people who lobby on the gun owners behalf in this country often aren't real bright. There's a few stars among them, but too few.

I remember a few years ago getting a "how to vote" card from the "Combined Firearms Council of Victoria", in one electorate they suggested shooters vote for the Liberal candidate (that was John Howard's party), who had been in Parliament when the 1996 gun laws were passed and voted in support of them, instead of the sitting Labour member, who's husband was a long term Sporting Shooter's Association of Australia member ! :banghead::banghead:

 

[chriske]

Easy : mine (Belgium)

 

[ridata]

Canada

What I was going to say. That way we can get all the way to Alaska without being disarmed. Besides, the Canadians always seemed like decent folks to me.

 

[Old Grump]

Great Britain. Our enumerated rights were based on English Law and their loss of their natural rights has spread like a cancer to the rest of the English speaking world. If by some miracle they ever came to their senses and rolled back their draconian gun laws and restored the peoples rights they might influence the big English speaking countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It would also take the wind out of the sails of the anti-gun proponents who use Great Britain as an exemplary example of how gun control laws should be administered.

 

[barry960]

My first intuition is to wish for a country that I really would like to go to and could possibly consider as a home away from home.(the hotness of the women could really factor in here) Secondly, it would be a country that has shown they are worthy by having an inkling of citizens who speak out about such an inalienable right being something they understand and stand up for. My first instinct was Australia, but I think they fail on the latter. Brazil I think is my pick. I've been interested in going there for quite a while, and they had a national addendum around a year ago, I think, that salvaged the 'privilege?' of the people to at least be able to own some kind of arms. The addendum was basically an attempt to blanket ban all private firearm ownership, and if I remember, that 'mierda' was slapped down hard.

 

[Creature]

Adding a paragraph to a constitution doesn't mean spit if the People aren't willing to fight for it. See my signature below.

 

[PaladinX13]

For those who keep saying "the Chinese like their government"... they need to go back a handful of years to see all the compromises their government has had to make to keep the desires of the people in check. The Chinese people have risen up against their government repeatedly leading to one of the most capitalistic "Communist" nations in history... essentially, the government bribed them with economic prosperity in exchange for freedom.

But once you hand over the power of the purse, it's only a matter of time before more demands- and the power to make them- come. This is, of course, in urbanized China. In rural China, there is practically no law or enforcement of law... there's an active slave trade out there because centralized gov't can't afford to spread out across such low population density areas. In places like that, the RBKA might be boon... or it might be like the wild west.

 

[Zoogster]

or it might be like the wild west.

The 'Wild West' didn't exist as created by Hollywood.
Per capita people were safer in the wild west than in most large American cities today. Imagine that, you had a lower chance of being shot in the wild west than in a place like Los Angeles today (where carrying a firearm or having one ready for use in a vehicle is illegal for 99.99% of the population.)
That is just the raw per capita statistics, but if you look even closer it was even safer than that. Most people involved in shootings chose to live a gambling, saloon drinking, brothel visiting life. They then would get in testosterone based challenges that resulted in mutal decisions of combat.

So most people faced very little danger. You can look up the crime statistics and the wild west was safer than modern cities, not just in total crimes, but per capita (which adjusts for population differences.)
Yet firearms were the norm.

The famous outlaws and lawman (some of whom were as bad or worse than the outlaws) heavily written or talked about today were in fact the exception.
They were famous even back then because they were so rare.
Compare that to today when a gang banger shooting another is simply a drop in the bucket and you wouldn't even remember thier name at the end of the week. When an officer killing a suspect or being involved in a shootout is just local news for a short time.
It's nothing.
Yet in the "Wild West" and especialy back East were they liked to talk about the "Wild West" such events would make national headlines.

So don't imagine the wild west of hollywood were gunfights were constant among the inhabitants. They really were not that common. There was no prohibited classes at the time. People would get locked up for a night or two for fighting, doing drugs/drinking (which were both legal at the time) and being a nuisance in public etc, and then be given thier guns and released. Yet it was a safer time. Imagine that.

They didn't even have a tough on crime approach for many things that would be crimes today.
Of course a robber, horse thief etc the career violent criminals of the day would be put to death. So they were tougher on certain crimes, and much more lenient on others. It was simply a different time, when freedom was the most valued thing. Those who made a life infringing on others' freedoms through criminal actions were severely punished. But those that did despised things without infringing on the rights of others were simply avoided by the church going folk that held themselves to different standards.
The modern existance of organized crime and by association corruption of officials was created when those standards were then applied to the entire public through law. When prohibition, and drugs were made illegal and large profits were to be made in supplying the demand of such a simple product.
The common thug and criminal commiting crimes to support more expensive habits involving such illegal products was also created at the same time.
The "Wild West" though was pretty safe by comparison, both for people and thier property.

 

[PaladinX13]

The problem with your thesis is that the historical west is irrelevant to whether a modern day cultures elects to adopt a fictitious one. It's like saying a coin turned up heads three times in a row must turn up heads the fourth time. With an surplus of frustrated young males, many turn to crime... which in many ways is an inherently irrational choice... but it's the adoption of a fictional culture- dreaming to succeed as a gangster. Under such a mindset, these criminal bring the wild west to life where none ever existed.

The law and law enforcement is an important check on arms. Certainly African nations at civil war have a great proliferation of weapons without safety as a norm. Rural China is effectively lawless and the crime out there is by brute force. If the villages decide to step up against snakeheads and slavers, certainly, in theory, they could... but hardly any do even without guns in the mix. Slavers are simply willing to be violent and the farmers are not. Adding guns wouldn't suddenly result in freedom... it just means slavers already willing to be violent will have a better way to do it and an already passive population will have a tool they're unwilling to use.

That's why "Arm Everyone In The Nation" initiatives (to reduce crime, as opposed to national defense) are stupid if the populace is already passively inclined, it just arms criminals.

RBKA always say, "Guns don't kill people, people do" recognizing that guns are an inert object, a tool that simply magnifies the will of a living being. Likewise, "Guns don't grant freedom, people do." "Guns don't drive down crime, people do." etc. The ability to fight back might be a boon, as I said... but it's not like they were lacking that ability to being with, just not to the same effect... you can't be sure if that outweighs what giving criminals guns would do in the same situation.

 

[Zoogster]

If the villages decide to step up against snakeheads and slavers, certainly, in theory, they could... but hardly any do even without guns in the mix. Slavers are simply willing to be violent and the farmers are not. Adding guns wouldn't suddenly result in freedom... it just means slavers already willing to be violent will have a better way to do it and an already passive population will have a tool they're unwilling to use.

You speak of slavers, but most slavers exist by purchasing from willing sellers, such as parents of those sold to slavery. So the crime is wrong, but it exists because parents are willing or 'forced' to sell the children (girls are not valued in many parts of China and are viewed as a burden.) So that crime is not usualy one that would result in self defense anyways at is would require the willing sellers, the parents to use that force.
If the people had firearms they would only put up with what they were willing to put up with. The tool itself would not fix all problems, it just allows those inclined to have a voice against those who do not want to listen and already have existing methods of force.
It still takes morals and values to apply those tools in a way that creates a better society.

With an surplus of frustrated young males, many turn to crime... which in many ways is an inherently irrational choice... but it's the adoption of a fictional culture- dreaming to succeed as a gangster.

Most criminals do not come to exist to use force and regularly be shot at. That would be a very short career. They come to exist to supply a demand that supports a glamorized lifestyle, and then occasionaly use force against those that attempt to interfere.
When everyone is armed a young man choosing actions that will get them shot at regularly does not live long enough to promote that lifestyle to others and glamorize it. So fewer frustrated young men turn to that lifestyle as a valid option.
They are more inclined to turn to self abusive things like drugs, drinking etc when things that abuse others are extremely dangerous.
When abusing others is not extremely dangerous, then they are more inclined to abuse others and get involved in organized crime that makes a good living abusing others.

Personaly I think a minority population that abuses themselves is much better than one that abuses others. So I am fully supportive of the population having tools that can enable them to make lifestyles based on abusing others very short lived.

It still takes people with those tools willing to stand up for themselves, thier loved ones and thier neighbors. The tool does not resolve the issues, the people do.
So yes when change first happens it can be violently opposed by the criminals trying to keep the status qou and the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to. Once enough of the population stands up against them though they can no longer exist. If all households are armed, and 5% of the population says they won't pay the next guy that comes around to collect the "protection money" and will instead shoot him, then it becomes an excessively dangerous job. Nobody wants the job of going around and being shot by 1 in 20 households. It ceases to be an effective criminal business.
But as long as the entire population is afraid to be the one that stands up and gets retaliated against, then it remains a successful business and continues to attract new young men.

So guns don't solve the problem, they give a tool to the average person who is willing to. They allow the average person to make many criminal lifestyles too dangerous to pursue, and the choice to pursue those lifestyles a choice to commit suicide.