Help Me Understand Gun Rights

[The Resister]

If you answer to all of those is yes, then you are simply an anarchist. Societies have laws to prevent people from selling you poisoned food, keeping you from starving because no one will employ you after you've been smeared and prevent the breakdown in social fabric from conditions that can't be maintained. Free speech doesn't exist the moment you sign a contract, because you can't later claim you didn't mean it and it is your right to lie.

But if you believe, in a system where people are innocent until proven guilty, that anyone suspected of being petty thief has lost their inalienable rights because of the accusation of another - then you don't believe it was a right. Period.

I hope that made more sense to you than it did to me. Having unalienable Rights has nothing to do with anarchy. I can scream whatever I like without a background check, license, etc. It is when a Right is abused that you have legal recourse against an individual. Maybe you could read the rest of this thread from where you started posting from and then give it another shot.

I believe that all men are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers. That's it. No caveats, exceptions, etc. To the balance of your criticisms, I don't understand them well enough to comment.

 

[The Resister]

If this wasn't a troll thread before ...

I don't know what is meant by that. I didn't troll anyone; felt like that other poster might be trying to misrepresent my positions; didn't get much from his accusations since they do not reflect the sentiment shared throughout this thread. Was he trolling me?

 

[RX-79G]

Here is an example of a government "policy" that is advocated for some presumed, probably bogus, benefit to society, that may or may not be true, and where the the offenders are presumed to have evil intent and/or bad results. Show me the studies where a human society that allows polygamy has resulted in the denial of marriage to bachelors.

You can study the history of Mormon society on your own, but polygamy numerically is impossible because there aren't four women to every man. This worked in the past only because of mass slavery of young men, human sacrifice or mass violence keeping the unwed men under control. It isn't just a choice - it's an unsustainable system that leads directly to warfare or slavery.

Incarceration itself is an act that could be interpreted as infringing on the rights of someone who is presumed to be innocent. So do you assert that someone who murders another should not be incarcerated until they go to trial?

Incarceration itself isn't a violation any named Constitutional right. It is part of due process, and you still get to practice your religion, etc. Being in jail just means you can't leave, which doesn't necessarily imply that you can't be armed while there.

But if it does imply that there are inappropriate places and people to exercise gun rights, it certainly suggests there might be others. I'm personally more concerned about someone having an ND on a pressurized plane than in a jail. But that's just me.

 

[Dinglenutz]

polygamy numerically is impossible because there aren't four women to every man.

Yeah.

Gotta keep them wimmin under control and rationed out 'properly', or else!

 

[The Resister]

I want to pause and thank those of you who have participated thus far. I'm still trying to reconcile what gun owners believe with what the founders and framers intended.

We are going off on tangents with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. My disconnect is due to the fact that the founders and framers were unequivocal in their reasoning for protecting the preexisting Right to keep and bear Arms. Today not so much.

If you watch tv, it is entertainment, but reflects the values of the times. If you watch really old tv shows, you would have seen Rin Tin Tin. It featured a boy of about 11 that carried a .22 caliber rifle. There was the Cisco Kid, a Mexican do gooder with his sidekick in tow. They wore their six shooters and did good deeds in the good old USA. Even up until recent times, the town sheriff on many shows (Maverick and Guns of Paradise come to mind) used to be a gunfighter - some had done time and seen the errors of their ways. That's not the way we see it today.

People who serve time now become second class citizens; they get locked out of the job market; they are ostracized, vilified, and cannot "legally" defend themselves or their families due to the current American thought (illogical in my opinion) that government is the grantor of unalienable Rights. Liberals fret over high capacity magazines, "scary" features on weapons, etc. Succinctly put: in my mind, this is about how you obtain the Right that determines how much external influence others should have over your unalienable Rights.

 

[Dinglenutz]

My disconnect is due to the fact that the founders and framers were unequivocal in their reasoning for protecting the preexisting Right to keep and bear Arms. Today not so much.

Many philosophers of the enlightenment period covered this ground pretty thoroughly. I'd recommend reading them a bit, as a good groundwork. I could also brush up on their ideas, if I'm honest, but I do remember being impressed with the depth and effort they put into this topic, and the more general topic of individual natural rights, the social contract, and related topics.

 

[RX-79G]

I hope that made more sense to you than it did to me. Having unalienable Rights has nothing to do with anarchy. I can scream whatever I like without a background check, license, etc. It is when a Right is abused that you have legal recourse against an individual. Maybe you could read the rest of this thread from where you started posting from and then give it another shot.

I believe that all men are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers. That's it. No caveats, exceptions, etc. To the balance of your criticisms, I don't understand them well enough to comment.

You can scream whatever you like, but you are restrained by the legal penalties to doing so. If you had unlimited free speech, you couldn't be criminally or civilly prosecuted. There really is no important line between the legal restraint of a prior requirement or a post-penalty: Both are legal impediments to the expression of rights. And both are demonstrations that rights are never unlimited.

 

[Dinglenutz]

An individual's natural right is properly limited when exercising it infringes upon the rights of another. I can swing my arms as I wish, so long as I don't break your nose. Classic example. Preventing me from swinging my arms with my eyes closed just in case your nose might get in the way unnoticed is probably wrong. Perhaps your sticking your nose where it's not wanted is the problem in this case.

 

[RX-79G]

Yeah.

Gotta keep them wimmin under control and rationed out 'properly', or else!

No, you need to allow men and women the ability to choose mates. The Chinese screwed that up with the unintended consequences of the One Child policy. There is a huge population of Chinese men that will never date or marry - and that is not going to make for a stable society.

 

[Dinglenutz]

No, you need to allow men and women the ability to choose mates.

The fact that someone thinks this is something that needs to be allowed, rather than something that people simply have a right to do, is sort of telling IMO. Choosing who one wishes to associate with is not something that should need to be explicitly approved, it is an intrinsic natural right that 3rd parties should have no say in.

If you start trying to make this about parties that cannot consent again I'll know you're not serious and you will be the first person on my ignore list.

 

[RX-79G]

We are going off on tangents with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. My disconnect is due to the fact that the founders and framers were unequivocal in their reasoning for protecting the preexisting Right to keep and bear Arms. Today not so much.

The Founders wanted rights and supported slavery. There is the very real possibility that their simple articulation of a general right to arms isn't necessarily a consistent and complete law, but a guideline to write legislation.

 

[The Resister]

You can scream whatever you like, but you are restrained by the legal penalties to doing so. If you had unlimited free speech, you couldn't be criminally or civilly prosecuted. There really is no important line between the legal restraint prior requirement or a post-penalty: Both are legal impediments to the expression of rights. And both are demonstrations that rights are never unlimited.

I don't understand why you are over-complicating a simple subject. You have Rights. I have Rights. Sometimes if both of us tried to exercise our Rights at the same time, we'd both be denied such Rights. Example: You have a Right to keep and bear Arms. I have a Right to the quiet enjoyment of my property. If you're shooting in a manner that is dangerous or too noisy (because you shoot at a distance too close to my property for me to have the quiet enjoyment thereof) there is a problem. So, have government to balance it out. You retain your Rights and I retain mine.

I feel like you are nitpicking the issue to death. Even pure silver is not 100 percent. In the abstract, this is my best answer to your criticisms. Thomas Jefferson wrote that:

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild,(sic) and government to gain ground."

My objective would be to expand Liberty and again I defer to Jefferson:

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it. The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

IF I understand you right, you are making a case for incremental infringements. Would that be a fair statement?

 

[RX-79G]

The fact that someone thinks this is something that needs to be allowed, rather than something that people simply have a right to do, is sort of telling IMO. Choosing who one wishes to associate with is not something that should need to be explicitly approved, it is an intrinsic natural right that 3rd parties should have no say in.

If you start trying to make this about parties that cannot consent again I'll know you're not serious and you will be the first person on my ignore list.

If you fail to see the similarities between a lack of legal consent and the lack of consent that comes when religion is used to coerce young adults to conform to the wishes of a powerful minority, then there isn't anyway for us to have a discussion.

 

[The Resister]

The Founders wanted rights and supported slavery. There is the very real possibility that their simple articulation of a general right to arms isn't necessarily a consistent and complete law, but a guideline to write legislation.

You are conflating issues there. Not all of the founders supported slavery. Slavery was simply a fact of life NOT limited to the United States. Slavery was never legalized in the United States.

 

[The Heretic]

You can study the history of Mormon society on your own, but polygamy numerically is impossible because there aren't four women to every man. This worked in the past only because of mass slavery of young men, human sacrifice or mass violence keeping the unwed men under control. It isn't just a choice - it's an unsustainable system that leads directly to warfare or slavery.

I am not advocating polygamy as a system to be adopted by society - you are making invalid assumptions here. Indeed, I recommend against polygamy for other reasons that we don't need to get into for the purpose of this discussion. In the same fashion, I don't recommend that people take drugs for recreational purposes, or that people ride bicycles or motorcycles without helmets, and so on.

But I do advocate that there should not be laws against such practices.

Just because something is not wise does not mean there needs to be a law prohibiting it.

As for your assertions regarding polygamy and history/etc., you are making unsupported assertions (i.e., I see no supporting evidence or cites for your assertions).

 

[RX-79G]

I don't understand why you are over-complicating a simple subject. You have Rights. I have Rights. Sometimes if both of us tried to exercise our Rights at the same time, we'd both be denied such Rights. Example: You have a Right to keep and bear Arms. I have a Right to the quiet enjoyment of my property. If you're shooting in a manner that is dangerous or too noisy (because you shoot at a distance too close to my property for me to have the quiet enjoyment thereof) there is a problem. So, have government to balance it out. You retain your Rights and I retain mine.

I feel like you are nitpicking the issue to death. Even pure silver is not 100 percent. In the abstract, this is my best answer to your criticisms. Thomas Jefferson wrote that:

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild,(sic) and government to gain ground."

My objective would be to expand Liberty and again I defer to Jefferson:

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it. The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

IF I understand you right, you are making a case for incremental infringements. Would that be a fair statement?

You are misunderstanding me entirely. I haven't made any such case for incremental anything.

What I have pointed out is that declaring gun rights absolute is a losing philosophy. Not only does it have no basis in law, but it isn't what the majority want. In the face of that, we have a duty to come up with tactics to preserve the important part of those rights by engaging in the legislative process. As in the example of CC laws.

 

[Dinglenutz]

If you fail to see the similarities between a lack of legal consent and the lack of consent that comes when religion is used to coerce young adults to conform to the wishes of a powerful minority, then there isn't anyway for us to have a discussion.

If the people in question are adults, they have the right to choose to associate as they wish. The reference to "young" adults specifically - well a discussion on raising the age of majority is a different discussion.

 

[Dinglenutz]

Just because something is not wise does not mean there needs to be a law prohibiting it.

This.

 

[RX-79G]

I am not advocating polygamy as a system to be adopted by society - you are making invalid assumptions here. Indeed, I recommend against polygamy for other reasons that we don't need to get into for the purpose of this discussion. In the same fashion, I don't recommend that people take drugs for recreational purposes, or that people ride bicycles or motorcycles without helmets, and so on.

But I do advocate that there should not be laws against such practices.

Just because something is not wise does not mean there needs to be a law prohibiting it.

As for your assertions regarding polygamy and history/etc., you are making unsupported assertions (i.e., I see no supporting evidence or cites for your assertions).

If you don't want to believe polygamy is destabilizing, that's fine. Pick any law that regulates rights related practices: Free assembly during a plague, free speech with the necessity for state security, taxation of unrepresented minors and foreigners, whatever.

The reason we have government at all is that it is understood that it is impossible to have absolutely free expression, unlimited religious practice, completely free markets and that we actually want a government to set and enforce laws that stabilize society against breakdown and protect citizens from the coercion of power or the mob. Laws put the brakes on so people aren't constantly dying of listeria in the food or dealing with a market crash every other year. This is true for ALL aspects of society, not just the ones we find convenient.

 

[RX-79G]

If the people in question are adults, they have the right to choose to associate as they wish. The reference to "young" adults specifically - well a discussion on raising the age of majority is a different discussion.

And in so choosing, those societies will fill up with violently disaffected males who's natural access and desire to one of the strongest natural instincts has been subsumed by the coerced (but legal) choices of 18 year old religious women and the powerful old men that are first in line for their hands. As SCOTUS found, law can't restrict religious belief, but it can restrain damaging actions based on religion - which is how the practice was banned.