timmy4 said:
That being said: it strikes me that about 80% of the discussion in this thread has been devoted to the question of a tyranny, and how gun restrictions would either help lead to a tyranny or prevent you as private citizens from combating a tyranny or both. People have brought up Nazi Germany, the Warsaw Ghetto, slavery, and other examples. I want to emphasize that, among my friends who support forms of gun control, this subject never comes up except as a matter of derision towards you folks. It makes liberals and independents believe that you guys are extremist and paranoid. I hope I'm not insulting anyone, but I'm trying to be honest here. In terms of trying to convince people like me, you are much more convincing when you argue the ineffectiveness of the proposals. Even if I disagree with some of those arguments as well, they are rational arguments that people on the "other side" can wrap their heads around.
Look, I don't care if it never comes up among your friends in a discussion. That's not on it's face evidence it's never happened; not happened to people we know - even if your friends don't know them; and think it won't ever happen again.
OK, you threw your Jewish heritage on the table for discussion.
Allow me to throw my Irish heritage onto the table for discussion.
My ancestors fled Northen Ireland after British political and religious differences, enforced by military oppression, starved our families out and they spent what little money they had to buy sea passage to come here, to America.
They arrived here after a 2 month trip across the North Atlantic. They were forced by an unwelcoming nation to settle in Western PA. We were oppressed by those who ran the local governments to either accept menial, even deadly jobs, to make a living when we got here, or go someplace else to eat. American's didn't want the Irish coming here to take jobs at rates less than the current rate that most "native Americans" would accept, so they went West, into the frontier, which at the time was Western PA and Indians were still raiding communities here.
So my ancestral family farmed. Some of my family did well. Decades later my Godmother - it's a Catholic thing you might not appreciate - my Dad's sister, opened a gas station/conveniece store with her husband in the 70's in a very rural village in Western PA that she and her husband raised my cousins on.
One night someone came in to rob that store. He used a shotgun, and shot my Godmother in the robbery.
Now you might think we'd become gun control advocates, right?
You'd be wrong.
One of her sons opened a gun store in Western PA that sold all kinds of guns, and did it very successfully. To this day my 80 year old aunt doesn't blame access to guns as the reason she was shot. She blames the person who decided to be a criminal. She was proud of her son, and my cousin, who owned a successful gun shop.
Gun owners are not the problem. Criminals are. And you cannot control criminals through gun control laws because criminals will do what they do and will not care about a law that says they cannot have a gun when they go victimize people.
So, my ancestors fled from Ireland - not very far removed ancestors I might add, I can speak with an Irirsh accent if I chose to because my Dad's father spoke with it - they came here to flee political oppression. And they armed themselves when they got here vowing to never let it happen again.
Now my mother's family is also part Irish. However - her step-father fled from Germany in the 1940s, came here, and eventually married my mother's mother. He saw what happened to his family who couldn't leave.
I have a very strong connection to oppression, and oppressive governments through my family, and they vowed they would never again experience that when they got here. They armed themselves to the teeth.
Don't be fooled by thinking we're special. Don't be fooled that America can't go through what my family went through. Germany and Ireland are modern nations, and they endured very oppressive governments.
All of Europe did during the 30's and 40's. And those caught behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union suffered terribly for 50 years if they weren't part of the establishment and agreed to their political goals.
It's hubris to think history cannot repeat itself in "your country". My ancestral family never thought they'd be subjugated like they were, either. But they were. First in their homelands, and later when they arrived in America.
We are not so special to expect that something a bunch of dead guys 250 years ago write will be respected by a tyrant sometime in the future. Only gullible people think that way.
Consider the third Amendment -
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
The dead white guys who wrote that, and got it accepted by a majority of states, did so because that was how oppressive a tyrannical government could become. That was how oppressive a tyrannical government
had become. And I can show you citation after citation where
both British and American units forcibly occupied homes during the Revolution, killed and ate the livestock to survive the winters, and those homeowners got paultry recompense, if any at all.
Often they were told, "which side do you support?" And if you supported their side, you "gave" your resources to the cause. If you didn't, they were seized so you couldn't use them to "aid the enemy's cause".
That should give you some insight as to what was on their minds when they debated the language over the second Amendment.
