Glad you guys chose to open up this thread again. I want to write first that I appreciate the good will and discussion here. I was hoping to find good discussion and debate in this forum, and it appears that I have. Many of you are quite knowledgeable on these issues. I'm only sorry I can't respond to every post- there's just been too many.
I'm glad you started this thread, and I wish to commend you for your forthright and honest desire to discuss an important issue like an adult. People
can disagree without engaging in childish, ad hominem attacks or imputing hostile motives to the opposition. Too often, however, too many of us are too happy to argue in a mean spirit. Thanks for acting like a grown-up here, and welcome to THR.
I also want to say that I am not a troll, and not a shill looking to "plant rhetoric" as Missileman accused me of. I certainly have my own point of views, and many of them probably disagree with many of yours. But there's no secret plot here. And if there was one, I don't think it would work. You guys don't strike me as stupid or easily persuaded.
Most of us don't think you're here to "plant rhetoric." We would probably all get more out of this discussion if you continue to ignore posts such as Missleman's, especially since there are already too many posts for you to reply to them all anyway. In fact, I started reading this thread within an hour of your first post last night, and it was all I could do just to catch up and read everything. (I try not to post in a thread unless I've read all--or nearly all--previous replies.) I had a reply ready last night, but when I clicked "Submit" the thread had been temporarily locked.
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.
Why do we vigorously defend the 2nd Amendment? Do we think we will need semi-automatic rifles and
standard-capacity magazines to resist a tyrannical government in our lifetimes? No, not really. The same way I don't think my house will be targeted for home invasion tonight...but I'm locking the doors and setting the security alarm anyway, just in case. Being prepared for bad things tends to deter those who would commit them. Even so, bad things do happen, and the consequences are always greater for the unprepared.
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.
I do not take such comments as an offense, though they do reflect a basic misunderstanding of world-views. Reasonable people do not
want civil war, but many would choose that over slavery (Ironic, isn't it?). Most of us don't expect it to ever come to that, but as many others have posted already in this thread, an unarmed citizenry is an invitation to dictators. It doesn't matter whether the government that takes our arms is a dictatorship, democracy or a republic. At that point a dictatorship will be no more than a generation away.
IMO, liberals and independents who consider such thinking to be paranoid have an incomplete understanding of Natural Law. Start
here, then maybe pick something by Mark Levin.
Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America is excellent.
I want a better life for my children and grandchildren, and allowing the erosion of our right to keep and bear arms now could rob them of that chance.
As for myself, I don't mind discussing the tyranny issue, but a warning: if my knowledge of guns is limited, my knowledge of history is pretty damn good. And I'm going to take to task anyone who makes false claims. Let me make three statements:
1. In modern history, no dictatorship has ever seized guns from private citizens as a means to impose the dictatorship- in the rare cases when it happened, it was usually an afterthought, and the seizure of those guns had no effect on the imposition of the dictatorship.
2. In modern history, there has never been a "slippery slope", in which modest gun laws led to seizure of all guns which led to a dictatorship.
3. In modern history, there has never been a situation where private ownership of guns was able to fight off a dictatorship.
I challenge any of you to contradict these points with real examples. If you can, I will of course change my mind, and I will come in here and acknowledge it. But I don't believe you can.
Several others have posted excellent responses to these points already. Not much point in repeating them. I would only like to add that, throughout history, some people have sought to control others, while most have no such desire. Most folks who would limit the 2nd Amendment are of the former, while most defenders of the 2nd Amendment are of the latter.
