Friday, June 27, 2008

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

More: here

In light of the Supreme Court's two most important decisions of the term, if a Git'mo terrorist released on Habeas Corpus review tries to break into my District of Columbia house, I vow to shoot him.

14 comments:

MaxedOutMama said...

Good for you, but it is Kansas that is worried. And they really are worried; both Kansas senators do not want Gitmo to show up at Fort Leavenworth.

Anonymous said...

Scalia ignored the first part of the second amendment switching the right of the people to the right of the individual and the happiness of the National Rifle Association and its members.

I hope Scalia is informed of the quantity and names of the people who will die as a result of his ignoring the clear intent of the Constitution in keeping a militia armed to protect the group of "We the people" rather than the individuals who will now possess guns to use according to their individual discretion.

Those Bush guys sure have dragged down the country in more ways than any of us can count.

MaxedOutMama said...

The Anons are always the ones who rant without having even read the decision. Lord Almighty, you are one stupid ass of an Anon.

The reason the right is individual is that the militia is individual; it is a non-organized body composed of average citizens. They have to have their own weapons and know to use them. They are self-organizing in case of disaster.

If you had ever been in a natural disaster you'd understand this. It is the average people who pick up the guns, distribute food, and keep things running for a few days.

I was in Gulfport after Katrina. I know. The reason they could throw open the Walmarts, which they did, and tell people to take the supplies they needed is that they had guys sitting out there with rifles across their laps. People could go in and take charcoal, food, ice in the beginning, canned goods, grills - anything like that - but not all the electronics. No money needed, because there was no effing way to get money. No banks, no ATMs.

There were average people everywhere patrolling their beats. It was relatively safe, and pretty orderly. The cops were few and far between. They couldn't have responded to anything to save their lives. They had no communications, and people had no way to call them. They had the Guard out in a few spots, but there was no way they could cover it all either. Nor could the cop cars or Guard vehicles get to most of the area - every street had to be cleared of rubble.

You stupid, ignorant sanctimonious fool. My prayer for you will be that you never find out firsthand just what a militia is. When everything else is gone, it is the people themselves who are the militia. And no, it is not an outmoded concept. If you ever find yourself in a moneyless economy, with people roaming the streets in nothing but their underwear, trying to find something to eat or drink, you'll understand what the militia is.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

anon, you are pretty sure of yourself that you can parse the 2A better than all 9 justices of the SCOTUS - who acknowledged some individual right, and that there will be an increase in homicide deaths, which hasn't been shown to be the case NEJM to the contrary. Since you are sure of things without evidence, I'm going to guess you're supporting Obama.

You can pile on if you want OBH, but it's been a nice change to get in before you.

OBloodyHell said...

> You stupid, ignorant sanctimonious fool. My prayer for you will be that you never find out firsthand just what a militia is

Hopefully, he DOES experience it, and survives it reasonably intact, with no major losses but his Damnfoolishness.

We need a lot more of that sort of thing. We've sheltered too many idiots for too long against the tigers of the world. They have begun to think tigers are like Tigger, and bears are like Pooh, that neither is like the ravenous, man-shredding things they are.

The claims are readily refuted, with something I pretty much keep as boilerplate:

The Federalist #46:
To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands

(This in a nation whose first census in 1790 estimated the population of the United States at 3,929,214 -- or more than one in eight at the least bearing arms (this is just the able-bodied ready to fight, and does not include the infirm, the elderly, and the women, a large percentage of whom, living at the borders of untamed wilderness, would also be armed)

In short -- Anon, your sheer, abysmal ignorance of this topic borders on the supernatural.

> You can pile on if you want OBH, but it's been a nice change to get in before you.

:oD

I'm sure anon won't be back to read or respond, he's a mindless troll splattering his idiocy bombs like diarrhea. But someone else might read and want to see the arguments.

To anyone seeking clarity on the subject -- James Madison wrote the Federalist Papers, along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, to convince the peoples of the USA to ratify the Constitution.

They is a clear and explicit definition of how the then-new Compact was supposed to work, and to address their fears of an overrreaching Federal government empowered by its grants of authority. It can be used almost singularly to devine what was meant in any specific passage, and why and how the Constitution was intended to be used and interpreted.

And Fed#46, linked above, is the key one associating with guns and the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms.

It is singularly evident from the statements therein (and I believe Madison is actually quoted explicitly elsewhere in his writings and letters) that "the Militia", as it is referred to by the Constitution, is nothing less than every able-bodied citizen of the United States of America.

The purpose of the right to keep an bear arms is indisputable -- they represent THE final check and balance against an overreaching, tyrannical government.

Or, more eloquiently:

"A Monarch's neck should always have a noose about it... It keeps him upright.
- Robert Heinlein, 'The Cat Who Walks Through Walls' -

For the USA, that noose is the right of the citizenry to keep and bear arms.

.

OBloodyHell said...

P.S.

> Those Bush guys sure have dragged down the country in more ways than any of us can count.

Uh, yeah, 'cause that 150 years of completely unfettered gun ownership until the first gun control laws in the 1930s -- they really put us all in such a bad state until we got rescued from such unlivable conditions.

To think that, thanks to Chimpy McHaliBushitler, we might be restored to the sort of rampant violence of the 1950s!!! How will we survive?

Damn him!! Dam him all to HELL!!!.

Soylent Guns are PEOPLE!!!

.

Anonymous said...

The National Guard, the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force satisfy my needs for a well-armed militia. It's okay to be wrong about things, Ass Village. Hillary Clinton is my choice for President of the USA. She is qualified. I guess the important thing is that the National Rifle Association is happy with this obvious violation of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution and that more crazies will have access to weapons and use them to kill innocent people. Come to think of it, if we kill all the sick people, we can then say our health system is working efficiently and effectively, since only healthy people will remain alive. Right on you righteous people! Solve problems by killing strangers. Brilliant.

bobn said...

Anonymous said...

Scalia ignored the first part of the second amendment switching the right of the people to the right of the individual and the happiness of the National Rifle Association and its members.

Here is a link to the syllabus (think of it as the Supreme Court's own Cliff notes to the decision - it in fact is part of the text of the decision, available here). Note about half-way down:

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
...
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.


That "prefatory clause" would be the "first half" of the 2nd Amendment to which you allude. So Scalia did not ignore or switch anything - he interpreted the unambiguous text of the amendment.


anonymous also wrote:

I hope Scalia is informed of the quantity and names of the people who will die as a result of his ignoring the clear intent of the Constitution

Well if you look at GunFacts , specifically pages 10 through 17, you will find that the vast majority of these that would die as a result would be criminals, killed by citizens protecting their homes and families. See also the Civilian Gun Self Defense Blog for more information - assuming facts and information are of any use to you.

Note that the Court also wrote:

The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of fire-
arms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or
laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
arms.


Too bad about the fun-free zones - those seem to be the most dangerous places to be. Funny how these mass-shooting things never seem to happen at gun shows - or even NRA conventions. Quelle Surprise!

bobn said...

Oops.

"Too bad about the fun-free zones " was supposed to be "Too bad about the gun-free zones"

Freudian slip?!?! lol

-bobn, proud AND peaceful handgun and assault rifle owner.

OBloodyHell said...

> he National Guard, the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force satisfy my needs for a well-armed militia.

It doesn't matter what satisfies "your" needs, moron. It's the compact this country was based on, so if you want to change it, you have to do it through a process called a "Constitutional Amendment", and not through judicial fiat.

And frankly, you're an idiot to even WANT to f*** with it since, of every vaguely major nation on Earth (excluding some smallish countries like San Marino, or whatever), it's produced the oldest, most stable government on Earth, and ONE of the oldest, most stable in human history.

I can readily demolish your idiotic idea further but since you don't grasp the slightest part of the very purpose of the Constitution, I'm not going to take the time.


I'm still looking for a rational response to how it is that this country survived for around 140-odd years without any gun control at all, yet somehow it's of massive importance now. I pretty much doubt if you're capable of a rational discussion of any kind, since your whole life is clearly based on making ignroant, unsupported assertions based on your own desperate fear of criminals. The ones who, of course, already have guns and don't hesitate to misuse them. Hey, you've got a GREAT idea, let's disarm their victims!! It's worked SO well for both GB and Austrialia, after all...

Fact is, you're an idiot studying hard to be a moron, and failing miserably...

@nooil4pacifists said...

I'm working on a reply to be posted Sunday midnight.

MaxedOutMama said...

Anon wrote "The National Guard, the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force satisfy my needs for a well-armed militia."

Well, here again you betray your ignorance. I do want to apologize for calling you an ass earlier. My only excuse is that the memory of Gulfport is always in present tense for me. It was a good experience in a way, because I walked away realizing that this country could withstand a pretty heavy nuclear strike. But it was also excruciating.

However, you obviously are a sanctimonious, ignorant fool. It's okay to be ignorant, but not to be self-satisfied about it.

For your edification, there is a unit called the CMP, which stands for Civilian Marksmanship Program. Use the link to learn if you want to. The purpose of this organization is to train civilians to shoot, especially to shoot military weapons. Among the other things they do is distribute the ammunition so that cost does not prohibit practice.

Nor is this program a useless limb. In fact, those who are highly skilled marksmen as proved by consistent performance in the competitions which are held have been invited to train, and are training, the soldiers who have been selected out of each combat unit to specialize as marksmen.

I know because one of my brothers is one of these men, and he takes weeks of unpaid leave from his job to go and train military personnel in how to really shoot. They do it in teams with military instructors.

You see, it is not enough to have the weapons. Even as we now are, there are simply not enough military experts to fully train the troops, and as designed, this program has served to augment the paid resources of the American military.

If there ever were a major war necessitating a mass call-up of troops, these people would be used to train them.

So if you feel that the current military and guard setup "meets your needs", you should also understand and acknowledge that the militia IS part of that military.

Or maybe you will wander off and have hysterics when you realize that all over the US, gun clubs and associations have whole divisions devoted to training people to use military weapons (especially the young), and that they hold regular matches, that there is an organized system of regional matches, service matches, and a national match. In the regional, service, and national matches civilians compete alongside the military shooters.

I'm going to repeat that you do not understand what the militia is, was and will continue to be. Hopefully you have learned something.

Anonymous said...

I continue to be proud of my "Junior Army Marksman" patch, earned at the age of 12 in an ROTC program at Louisiana State University.

ROTC rules!

Anonymous said...

You pick and choose facts to support your long-held prejudices.

Perhaps if you knew how to make love properly, you would not long for guns. Maybe, if your personal behavior was correct, you would not fear the behavior of others.

How many people were murdered by guns in the UK? How many people were murdered by guns in DC?