Interesting article in this months Harper's Magazine. The author taking a hyper-liberal anti-gun view starts with the following astonishing (from such a source) claim:

"Liberals cannot bear to admit the truth about gun control: the right wing is right. The second amendment does confer an individual right."

He then goes on: "Could it be that the Constitution is not the greatest plan, that it contains notions repugnant to the modern sensibility?"

"Why must we subordinate ourselves to a 208-year-old law that, if the latest scholarship is correct, is contrary to what we want ?"

Reads like something out of the Nazi party platform!

-- Count Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), September 15, 1999

Answers

Count,

..."the latest scholarship", that's a joke in itself. Rarely do the intellectual elite ever fight for something they believe in unless it involves funding for there pet projects!!! Now there's an oxymoron, an armed intellectual???

Article, as you highlight, reminds me of the oft quoted line, " Tell the (sh)eople a lie often enough and they will believe it to be the truth. Adolf Hitler

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

-- patton (history buff@usa.com), September 15, 1999.

Count

What the Harper's writer failed to comprehend is this:

the United States is not a civilized society!

Switzerland comes close, but every able bodied man is in the national militia/army and is issued equipment to personally care for, up to and including heavy equipment.

A show of force is sometimes all that is needed to keep the dogs at bay.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), September 15, 1999.

Well they might not like the constition, but by god I do. You might be like those who don't like it, but you can go to hell far all I care! Don't mess with Me. I'm tired and werry an I mush yet along, please leave me alone. I just don't need the government at all, they harm not heal, just get out of my life.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), September 15, 1999.

Actually, this is not correct. The Bill of Rights does not confer rights, it protects them (or attempts to). Note that there is no amendment that says "the people are hereby given [a right]". What they say is that (in most cases) "Congress shall make no law abridging [a certain right]". In the case of the Second amendment, however, the language is even more protective of the right in question: this amendment says the right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed". In other words, this right shall not be infringed by anyone, whether Congress, a state Legislature, or anyone else.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), September 15, 1999.

I've read this, and many other articles that all make me hope that the world DOES end : so that maybe this incredible parody of what I think a decent world is will end.

Yet, as much as I am embarressed to even be a human being sometimes, after seeing or hearing about some new atrocity or scam on the less-informed and not as priviliged, I still see, that to have the whole structure of EVERYTHING, collapse, , , , would cause far greater pain and suffering, and still not give us a better shot at having a free world and decent lives for all. Where we are now is the best place to be.

So, I really really want everything to be OK. OK for Y2K!!! The fate for mankind is worse, than if we remain in this crazy techno-nuke etc. etc. world.

Yet, I have moved and done all the preps, for I too, can see no other hope. I rate Y2K a 5 at best, but think it will be 7-8. If it's a 10 it won't matter.

Just my thoughts.

-- Gregg Abbott (g.abbott@starting-point.com), September 16, 1999.

I was just over in Switzerland and I regret to inform you that everyone over there just died from mutually inflicted full auto gunfire. Also, all the teachers and students in Israeli schools too.

(Actually, I didn't just go there but I imagine this must be true by extension of the gun ctlrs' arguments because Switzerland and Israel are full of gun carrying people. So there!)

-- Ann Y Body (annybody@no.where.dis.org), September 16, 1999.

The numbers in this country strongly suggest that when an area passes concealed carry legislation, the violent crime rate goes DOWN (surprise, surprise). The numbers out of Australia, where they just went through a gun CONFISCATION, indicate that violent crime rates and raw incidences have gone UP, A LOT!!

night train

-- jes an ol footballer (nighttr@in.lane), September 16, 1999.

If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words! Everybody knows Criminals love gun control. It makes their jobs easier.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), September 16, 1999.

So this bozo figured out that "right of the people" actually means "right of the people". If he thought his way around the meaning of the 2nd amendment lie, perhaps he'll start to analyze the data on private firearms ownership on crime and see what really happens. It could happen. After all, Wright and Rossi were pro-gun control before their study. So was Gary Kleck before his.

The truth IS on our side.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), September 16, 1999.

The other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights all depend upon the 2nd Amendment, which should have been the 1st Amendment. If the citizen cannot defend his rights, and it takes guns to do that, then he won't have those rights very long.

Also, it is vital to understand that the Founding Fathers understood that people's rights exist as part of their nature as human beings; the Constitution and Bill of Rights only recognize, not confer, these rights. What government confers, it can take away, so if your rights are to be secure, they cannot be granted by government but must be acknowledged by government.

-- cody varian (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 16, 1999.

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."--Mahatma Ghandi What can you say?

-- Just Another (Skinhead@for.Peace), September 16, 1999.

"Latest scholarship" sounds like political correctness (PC) for

(1) making up our mind.

(2) Finding any facts (and logic!) that might be construed to support that position.

(3) Discarding and discrediting anything and anyone that does not support your position.

We saw a similar rash of "feminist scholarship" that ignored logic and scientific method. (Any time that you have to throw out over 50% of the experimental data, you have a problem!) The net result was to discredit a lot of what they were trying to prove. They may have done more damage to the credibility of the feminist movement than their detractors.

Based on this example, the author may be damaging his own cause...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 16, 1999.

Mad Monk:

Best description of "doomer scholarship" I have ever seen. You couldn't possibly have described, i.e. Gary North, any better.

Cody:

It seems clear that this relationship is commutative. Yes, what government confers, they can take away. It logically follows that what government can take away, they have conferred, whether you like to look at it that way or not. The people of Britain and Australia lost their guns because of a change in public policy, not because God changed his mind or the citizens suddenly became unnatural.

The 2nd Amendment is a statement of public policy. Essentially, it's what the people decided was best. We reserve the right to change our mind and override the 2nd Amendment with another amendment if we wish. From what I've read, those in Britain and Australia (or at least, enough of the right people) decided that it was worth being disarmed, *in exchange* for nutcases and criminals also being disarmed. What they are now learning is that in practice, that's not quite the way things work.

Don't expect the government honor those amendments just because the amendments are written down and our politicians and judges swear to uphold them. Government is amoral, and will do what looks like it will garner the most votes, if they can get away with it. In our system, we protect our amendments from erosion by voting. So vote.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 16, 1999.