Comment by chris_mahan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chris_mahan | Hacker News Reader

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I agree with you.

I see the main problem as this: Many people want to keep firearms to keep the power of the government in check, and the government wants to write the rules on who can keep arms. This causes a friction. Either the people give up the right to bear arms and trust the government fully, or the government should not be allowed to make rules on who can keep arms. Anything short of that will continue to cause the friction.

I'm of the opinion that the founders of the United States did not envision a government that people should fully trust, and that mistrust in the government's actions and motives by the populace would actually be healthy for the government. I'm further of the opinion that the founders did not envision a medical profession that could, with a diagnosis and the stroke of a pen, be able to essentially enforce such government full trust, by removing a person's constitutional right to own a firearm, and that without a crime having been committed, and the person not having been convicted of such a crime in a court of law.

If you ask me, that's exactly what the movie Minority Report foretold: "We think you are going to commit a crime, and therefore we will pre-emptively curtail your freedom."

Is this the America the Founding Fathers envisioned when they signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776?

"Many people want to keep firearms to keep the power of the government in check,"

Really?

Are you sure its not just a case of guns being ingrained in American culture and make the owners feel all macho and strong, and that any old excuse is good enough to argue that they should be allowed to keep huge pointless arsenals of weaponry?

I mean, from what I can tell, such people are generally on the right of politics, and at the same time they argue that they need guns to protect against a threat from within, they believe Obama is a non American, communist, Muslim. Well, er, wouldn't that be a great threat from with in to the US? Where were these citizen protectors of American freedom when Obama the commie Muslim took office? Shouldn't they have been using their arsenals to protect America? Or do such people actually know they are taking nonsense?

On top of that, when in the last, say, 100 years has the US government posed a threat to American citizens, such that they citizens needed to break out the weapon to protect them selves?

Frankly I think its more to do with male machismo, culture and being stuck in the 17th century. They have always had guns, and what ever logic you argue with, they simply don't want to change. If you managed to convince then that the government isn't out to get them, they'd just find another excuse.

It reminds me of fox hunting in the UK, or bull fighting in Spain. All these things defy reason, logic and decency, but we all want to hang on to them, simply because they have always been there. Heh, its kinda like saying you can have music any more.

I'm sorry, people may claim they want guns for the reason you cite, but I honestly don't believe them at all.

"when in the last, say, 100 years has the US government posed a threat to American citizens"

I'll name one -- Japanese internment camps during WWII. Forcibly imprisoned over a hundred thousand citizens against their will, depriving them of their liberty and property.

But I suppose in your world view the government has final say over your life and property, so being able to deter or resist attacks like this is unnecessary.

So in your mind, it would be better then if a hundred thousand armed Japanese would have started fighting back on mainland US? How about, instead of permanently distrusting the government, try to make it more democratic. There shouldn't have to be rebellions in a democratic country, then you talk it out and try to convince everybody else. If you can't, then touch luck, you're in the minority. That doesn't mean you have the right to start a damn rebellion and carve yourself a new country by force.

Read the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transc...) It seems indeed that he has the right, nay, the duty, to do exactly that. I quote from the above: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

While the Declaration states that they (Jefferson et al.) see it as their civic duty to fight an oppressive government (a fairly Lockean view, pretty much lifted from the Second Treatise), again, it was mostly an inflammatory document, written not for the benefit of Parliament and the King, but for other nations who might consider joining the fight.

Analogically using the Declaration today doesn't really work, there aren't any of the great political thinkers of yore around, and we don't have any comparatively great thinkers (in the same sense). We're too founded on our two party system at the present to move anywhere.

Plus, today's government would refuse to accept any rebellion, regardless of what historical document they cite. Technically, politically, the Union never recognized the Confederate States of America as a sovereign nation, but a rebellion. That's the largest and longest instance of such a 'rebellion'. It's likely going to remain such.

Of course, that's due to the fact that there really wasn't any way for the Confederacy to win. They couldn't have taken and held the north. If they did, they would have assimilated the culture they were fighting against, and would be in the same situation as before they rebelled.

That actually leads me to a slight tangent, but my favorite fact about the Emancipation Proclamation is that it didn't technically free the slaves. It freed the slaves only in rebelling states. Northern slave-holding states could remain as-is.

Moving back on topic: the Declaration of Independence continually cites 'Him' and 'He' in reference to George III. George III had no power. Okay, he had a little power, but he wasn't really calling the shots any more (he never was, his reign started almost a century after the fall of the Commonwealth and slightly less after the Glorious Revolution, which cemented Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy). One could argue the use of He and Him are due to George's refusal to intervene with Parliament (something he really couldn't do).

Again, it goes back to they saw an opportunity to start something new, even though if they worked slightly harder at getting representation, they could have.

Right, peasants are allowed to plead while their rulers chain them and ship them off to interment camps.

Your attitude suggests that government can do no wrong, that the Japanese had no right to defend their liberty against unwarranted aggression.

"If you can't, then touch luck, you're in the minority." I don't agree with the tyranny of the majority. Perhaps that's why this country was actually founded a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

  How about, instead of permanently distrusting the government, 
  try to make it more democratic.

One does not preclude the other. Helps it, in fact.

Note: while I disagree with the parent, I gave it an upvote, because the parent was grayed out and I did not find anything in it that would be a good cause for a downvote.

It is sad that the sort of bigoted opinions you're espousing here are what us firearms enthusiasts have to endure. It has nothing to do with machismo, nothing to do with Obama, and nothing to do with birther garbage.

The right to bear arms is a right of last resort. Its the right that protects all others and, as such, it is the _most_ essential right.

As for naming incidents in the last 100 years where armed resistance to the United States government would have been productive or useful, I recommend you look up the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2. I also recommend that you read about the Black Panthers standing up to corrupt Oakland police and marching on government buildings, loaded guns in hand.

You don't have to be a crazy conspiracy theorist or a right-winger to realize the thought that "something like that couldn't happen in America" is naive at best.

edit: I omitted an "n"

An issue facing firearm enthusiasts is that the most vocal (or at least the ones getting the most press) are in those camps. It's the same problem that faces many other groups, the extremists and zealots are the loudest and the ones people outside the group see. Any reasonable voice gets drowned out.

> The right to bear arms is a right of last resort. Its the right that protects all others and, as such, it is the _most_ essential right.

I'm going to have to disagree with this statement though. The 1st amendments's protections on speech, assembly and the press strikes me as a more important collection oy rights. It's what prevents us from needing to pull out our weapons and go to war against our government. Especially these days, with our technology and ability to disseminate information. I won't make the claim that many of the travesties of the past couldn't be repeated today in the US, but they'll be a lot harder to accomplish. Also, given the relatively short period US presidents and congresspersons stay in office, the voters actually have a chance to accomplish something if they'd show up in greater numbers and vote along something other than party lines.

No less a hacker than Eric S. Raymond has recently written thought-provoking blog posts about this not long ago:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4912

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4939

Alas, the information needed to vote intelligently is hard to come by in today's America.

If the 2nd is intact, the 1st will follow. Not so the other way around.

Note: That is essentially what the Boston Bombers were doing. If Robin Hood were alive in Nottingham today, I'm sure he'd be called a cop-killer.

Regarding Boston Bombers: I do not see how this is true. Explain?

Regarding Robin Hood: he was a cop-killer and a bandit, but when we read a fiction novel, this can be overlooked for a better literary presentation.

When somebody says "The right to bear arms is ... the _most_ essential right.", he or she is repeating that claim from the US Founding Fathers.

If America were being ruled by some sort of King George and the Founding Fathers had their revolt today, the Founding Fathers would be called "terrorists", just like the Boston Bombers are.

Americans have had this stuff drummed into their heads as a result of nationalist propaganda for over 200 years, because history is written by the victors.

If history were different and King George had won, they'd instead have been hearing about how gun control was the foundation of their liberty and how it protected loyal subjects of the Crown from those nefarious pro-French traitors.

The same goes for Robin Hood: he isn't given a better presentation because we are reading fiction but because King John lost. And John was a tyrant, by the way, who was made to submit to Magna Carta by force.

According to media accounts of the Boston Bombers that I have seen, they claimed to be fighting America because of America's injustice to Islam.

Apart from its increased plausibility, how is this different from the claims of American gun-nut militias who are worried about being forced to give up their liberty and their Christianity because of plots by the United Nations, an organization led by the anti-Christ?

If you're a "gun enthusiast", then you're not in it to protect yourself. You're only fooling yourself.

Just a little reality check: the entire rest of the world thinks that Americans are utterly, raving insane on this issue.

I agree, but will also add, access to guns is not the only issue. The US has a culture of gun fetishism you just don't see anywhere else in the first world. That's not something that will change with legislation.

Not the entire rest of the world - or at least, not completely.

> The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

I'm curious how you suppose armed conflict would have helped Americans of Japanese descent during World War 2. Even in Los Angeles and San Francisco they were a minority, and were viewed with suspicion by much of the rest of society (Americans of German descent mostly gave up speaking and writing in German, despite being a plurality). It would have been almost trivial for the government to eliminate sympathetic feelings in the rest of the population by simply issuing propaganda saying that resistance by Japanese-Americans was actually a guerrilla campaign on behalf of the Empire of Japan.

So then what? Japanese-Americans give up all their possessions and live the hills? Where would they get food, guns and ammunition? After the war, there would be no way for them to reintegrate into society.

As for the Black Panthers, I would argue that images of them carrying weapons in the media did more harm than good to their cause. Today few people remember them as a community service organization and most remember them as a sort of quasi-terrorist death squad. A recent presidential candidate was even intimated to have had some sort of nebulous association with them as a way of tarnishing his reputation (though I hear he won anyway).

So I'm underwhelmed by arguments that guns are going to stop a tyrannical government. They may stop one that is completely inept, but a government with even modest propaganda resources will have no trouble playing one group of citizens against the other. Firearms enthusiasts aren't going to be portrayed as 'freedom fighters' by the media: They will be called 'terrorists' or 'cop killers.'

Not that I'm against gun ownership (though I don't personally own one). I just don't live under the misapprehension that it's going to magically 'solve government.'

I don't think his point was that firearm ownership by Americans of Japanese descent during WW2 would have been effective. I think his claim was that injustices have happened in America of the sort for which armed resistance is proportional and potentially warranted from the perspective of those whose rights were infringed.

> Japanese American internment was the World War II internment in "War Relocation Camps" of about 110,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the Pacific coast of the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

Not sure I understand your point here...

Are you suggesting that on a national scale things would have turned out for the better if Japanese Americans started shooting anyone who tried to intern them? Or if Black Panthers started shooting cops in the street?

It seems to me both those scenarios end up in a bloodbath. One which both minority groups would have little chance of surviving. And when the massacre is over, the government will say "Look - we were right all along! They were violent terrorists and we had no choice.".

> If you managed to convince then that the government isn't out to get them, they'd just find another excuse.

It's interesting you think I need an "excuse" for owning a firearm. As if it's our natural place in this universe to require permission from said "authorities". Here's an excuse -- I want one. You don't want me to? Come and take it.

When 40% of women in the U.S own a firearm it isn't all about being macho. Also only 55% of males own a firearm. The machismo factor is played up in the media and in Hollywood but most free thinking people question such motives and at least attempt to see through propaganda.

Regardless I find your position to be a bit naive and fails to fully realize how governments progress and the impacts they have on their citizenry. Just because a government isn't actively out to get you ATM doesn't mean they don't possess the overwhelming means to do so and that people should have the means to defend themselves against that if such an occasion arises.

> Shouldn't they have been using their arsenals to protect America?

Rebellion is a last resort. Things haven't gotten bad enough yet.

> when in the last, say, 100 years

This number is conveniently chosen to be just below the Civil War.

> they'd just find another excuse

Self defense? If we were some European country that's historically always had only a few gun owners and tight control of guns since firearms were invented, then gun control would make some kind of sense, it would be possible to control the small number of firearms that exist. But the US started out as a frontier country where firearms were necessary for survival, and gun ownership has always been part of the American way for a large number of people. So there are millions of guns already out there -- too many to possibly control.

If the massive supermajority necessary to repeal a constitutional amendment and outlaw firearms magically materialized tomorrow, those millions of guns would still be out there. Presumably drug dealers, rapists, bank robbers, stalkers, and other criminals would keep their guns, and there would be enough remaining in underworld circulation to supply future members of those professions. If a person wants a gun badly enough, he'll always be able to get one. Gun control wouldn't significantly reduce the number of bad people who have access to guns, it would just curtail access for responsible, law-abiding citizens.

Guns -- and in particular concealed carry laws -- also act as a deterrent for criminals. If someone's in a desperate situation and contemplating crime, it seems to me that the possibility of a hole in the head from an armed bystander would make them hesitate a lot more than if the worst-case scenario involves getting a roof and three square meals a day at taxpayer expense (even if they get the death penalty it'll be many years before the appeals are exhausted and the sentence is carried out).

At least to me, these considerations don't sound like "excuses," but well-reasoned arguments. Please point out the holes.

> > when in the last, say 1-- years > > This number is conveniently chosen to be just below the Civil War

Which was 150% the original number, not "just" below the Civil War. The Civil Wars was closer to the signing of the Declaration than today.

>and there would be enough remaining in underworld circulation to supply future members of those professions

Not to mention eventually you'll be able to 'print' a gun from a 3d printer or use your personal affordable CNC mill. Its just going to get easier and easier to make your own weapons.

I would say that the framers did envision a government that people didn't fully trust.

Most of them came with a healthy distrust of government, and wrote in all of the checks and balances because they didn't trust governments, and the checks helped allay their concerns.

I agree on the revocation of constitutional rights by, they probably didn't want a system which would let a single diagnosis revoke a right. But, based on their goals in designing our current government, multiple, corroborating reports would probably be accepted by them.

Well the 2nd amendment was written in a time of muskets and militias. If the spirit/intent were fully what some people say, why don't we each have a 2nd amendment right to an attack helicopter, nukes, chems, bios, and UAVs? (Because assault rifles instead of muskets doesn't add much to the equation.) Since that would be clearly insane, reductio ad absurdum. Right?

I think you would find that there are a subset of people, myself included, that don't find that notion so insane. If you accept the idea that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the citizenry to overthrow their government then having the government restrict what citizens can and cannot purchase is somewhat nonsensical.

Historically speaking, government restriction on firearm ownership is a relatively new thing. "Weapons of war" like ships and artillery were privately owned in this country as recently as the civil war.

Believe it or not, the country didn't degrade into people waging private wars against each other, mass murder, etc...

To make sure I understand, you're saying we should have a constitutional right to own attack helicopters, armed UAVs, and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons?

(And since the SCOTUS has opted to interpret that corporations are people, too, presumably they would have this right as well?)

Although tyranny would be unquestionably bad, the proposed prophylactic for that hypothetical scenario is worse.

Possibly I'm biased because I live in Boston and recently saw first-hand what a homemade IED can do. I am not eager to see people have the right to upgrade that kind of musket to the pro version.

Cannot corporations already own heavy duty weaponry? Aren't these the companies we are "contracting" to fight our wars for us?

Regardless, being in favor of particular interpretations of the 2nd Amendment does not mean that you are automatically in favor of considering corporations people.

> recently saw first-hand what a homemade IED can do. I am not eager to see people have the right to upgrade that kind of musket to the pro version.

Weren't those bombs packed with the same stuff that you buy if you want to shoot your musket? There was a lot of misinformation going around at the time and I haven't kept up on that story so I honestly am not sure, but I am pretty sure the word is that they were pressure cookers with gunpowder (which you can buy "loose" to load your own rounds for modern guns, or use to load muskets). I am not sure that it makes sense for you, coming from your perspective, to be pushing something that would make buying loose gunpowder more mainstream.

I can't help myself on this one, but...

> Believe it or not, the country didn't degrade into people waging private wars against each other, mass murder, etc...

We did have a civil war (which is the end bound you placed on your time line). It wasn't a private war, it technically wasn't mass murder, but, it was a war.

Again, sorry, I couldn't help myself on this one.

What was happening to the Native Americans at this time?

They were spending their time being shot, primarily by the federal government.

Alas, you are right. At the time, muskets were the best infantry weapons, and the British soldiers were armed with them, and the colonials got cannons as soon as possible.

I don't think it would be clearly insane.

My assumption is that the US political landscape would look a lot different if the citizens of the United States were indeed allowed to own any weapon they chose and paid for. I don't know if things would be better; they would definitely be different.

Not necessarily. The power of the government stems not only from it's ability to inflict violence against groups (e.g. bombing a city) but also individuals (e.g. arresting a single person). Against the latter, ordinary weapons are still very effective. When police overstep their legal rights, it is even lawful in some states to use force to defend yourself.

I think the usual rebuttal by analogy is that the 1st amendment was written before the internet and most other electronic means of communication and therefore, analogically, should not be applicable there.

(A better rebuttal, from the substance, has already been offered in the rest of the thread.)

Your second paragraph is a perfect explanation of the conflict at the core of the gun control debate. Well said.

Thank you.

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