It may be in the constitution, but I doubt the founding fathers envisaged that you'd all be such fuckwits.
It isn't in there. What is in there is a legal provision allowing states to quickly raise an army to deal with a crisis.
I'm not American, so I could be wrong, but wasn't it something about a well-regulated militia?
It was, those three words aren't there by mistake.
Standing domestic armies were controversial at the time. They needed a way if a state was a facing a crisis it could grab a bunch of armed citizens, declare it a militia, and deal with the issue. Most of the signers were lawyers and they knew that there had to be a legally established procedure for this.
This is me being nice to them btw the issue was slavery and the fear of slave revolts.
And a few decades ago it got reimagined as a civil liberty. Which is clear from the text that it is not and is clear from the debates around the amendment at the time.
I was always under the impression that the militia bit was because they didn't want the USA to form a government army. The army instead would be all citizens, armed, that would act in case of a national threat, then like... go back to farming or whatever.
Yeah a standing army was controversial at the time.
Regulation had a different interpretation back then. It had to do with training and equipment. It's why professional soldiers were called "Regulars." They wanted civilian militias to be equipped and have the ability to train on their weapons.
In order for civilian militias to exist, be effective, and be able to respond instantly the citizens need to have weapons.
Somebody who doesn't have a gun and has never used one isn't going to be effective in civil defense.
Yet there is little to no training before people are allowed to own guns. Seems to me like it doesn't follow either the modern definition or the supposed definition of old.
Why can't you people just admit you don't like guns so you're trying to desperately to pretend the 2nd amendment doesn't mean what it has literally always meant?
You're just like republicans with how disingenuous you are in your rhetoric.
And you know it.
That's a lot of assumptions you're making. I don't know who "you people" are in this context, but if you want to know my personal beliefs, I think that gun ownership is fine, it just needs regulation.
It has regulation.
Clearly not sufficient regulation, considering how many cases of improper usage there have been.
If you end your argument with "and you know it", you've already lost. Which is unfortunate since in this case I happen to agree with you. But you're not going to convince anyone of anything with the shitty attitude.
If you have to make up new rules to support your argument, it’s invalid to begin with.
Not really.
I could say everything right and most of you would just believe whatever you want.
And you know it.
EXACTLY! Well Regulated meant TRAINED IN ARMS back in the day which means we should NOT train ANYONE today! And ALSO, ARMS means the EXACT weapons we have today and has NOTHING to do with the Arms they had back in the day!
Sorry bud, that's not how the real world works.
Yeah, but dumbasses think that part is optional (not joking)
WELL REGULATED back in the day meant something DIFFERENT then it does today! But ARMS back in the day refers to the EXACT ARMS we have Today!
He's trying to re-write history and every academically and officially accepted interpretation of the constitution because he doesn't like it.
You'll only see ridiculousness like his taken seriously on forums like these.
Worse, we seem absolutely proud of our stupidity.
Evidence?
Here's the laugh though. Read "Democracy in America" by Alex de Tocqueville. A large part of it is observations amounting to "these fuckwits need to be aware of what they're doing and in many cases they are not"
I have read it and have a copy on my bookshelve. Where did you get that impression?
It's all through the book. I also have a copy on my bookshelf and have read it.
I guess to be clear, I'm not referring to America alone in my response and even though his observations were largely on America what he writes about can be applied generally.
One simple example is how he states something like "I don't know if America would vote the best people if they ran for office. We know they exist but they clearly don't enter politics."
It's an extremely polite way to say "we aren't getting the best or brightest running for office but that's ok cause we're so fucking dumb we probably wouldn't vote for them anyways."
It sounds like the man was writing in English, no? Why assume his meaning was other than what he said?
The constitution should be changed. Or better: Thrown out and written from scratch
Maybe we could ammend it or something. Just spitballin here
No, because the Founding Fathers were so scared of tyranny of the majority, we have tyranny of the minority instead, and they will never let it change.
The founding fathers are much worse then this guy. founding fathers owned slaves, this dude only traumatized one person.
It may be in the constitution, but I doubt the founding fathers envisaged that you'd all be such fuckwits.
It isn't in there. What is in there is a legal provision allowing states to quickly raise an army to deal with a crisis.
I'm not American, so I could be wrong, but wasn't it something about a well-regulated militia?
It was, those three words aren't there by mistake.
Standing domestic armies were controversial at the time. They needed a way if a state was a facing a crisis it could grab a bunch of armed citizens, declare it a militia, and deal with the issue. Most of the signers were lawyers and they knew that there had to be a legally established procedure for this.
This is me being nice to them btw the issue was slavery and the fear of slave revolts.
And a few decades ago it got reimagined as a civil liberty. Which is clear from the text that it is not and is clear from the debates around the amendment at the time.
I was always under the impression that the militia bit was because they didn't want the USA to form a government army. The army instead would be all citizens, armed, that would act in case of a national threat, then like... go back to farming or whatever.
Yeah a standing army was controversial at the time.
Regulation had a different interpretation back then. It had to do with training and equipment. It's why professional soldiers were called "Regulars." They wanted civilian militias to be equipped and have the ability to train on their weapons.
In order for civilian militias to exist, be effective, and be able to respond instantly the citizens need to have weapons.
Somebody who doesn't have a gun and has never used one isn't going to be effective in civil defense.
Yet there is little to no training before people are allowed to own guns. Seems to me like it doesn't follow either the modern definition or the supposed definition of old.
Why can't you people just admit you don't like guns so you're trying to desperately to pretend the 2nd amendment doesn't mean what it has literally always meant?
You're just like republicans with how disingenuous you are in your rhetoric.
And you know it.
That's a lot of assumptions you're making. I don't know who "you people" are in this context, but if you want to know my personal beliefs, I think that gun ownership is fine, it just needs regulation.
It has regulation.
Clearly not sufficient regulation, considering how many cases of improper usage there have been.
If you end your argument with "and you know it", you've already lost. Which is unfortunate since in this case I happen to agree with you. But you're not going to convince anyone of anything with the shitty attitude.
If you have to make up new rules to support your argument, it’s invalid to begin with.
Not really.
I could say everything right and most of you would just believe whatever you want.
And you know it.
EXACTLY! Well Regulated meant TRAINED IN ARMS back in the day which means we should NOT train ANYONE today! And ALSO, ARMS means the EXACT weapons we have today and has NOTHING to do with the Arms they had back in the day!
Sorry bud, that's not how the real world works.
Yeah, but dumbasses think that part is optional (not joking)
WELL REGULATED back in the day meant something DIFFERENT then it does today! But ARMS back in the day refers to the EXACT ARMS we have Today!
He's trying to re-write history and every academically and officially accepted interpretation of the constitution because he doesn't like it.
You'll only see ridiculousness like his taken seriously on forums like these.
Worse, we seem absolutely proud of our stupidity.
Evidence?
Here's the laugh though. Read "Democracy in America" by Alex de Tocqueville. A large part of it is observations amounting to "these fuckwits need to be aware of what they're doing and in many cases they are not"
I have read it and have a copy on my bookshelve. Where did you get that impression?
It's all through the book. I also have a copy on my bookshelf and have read it.
I guess to be clear, I'm not referring to America alone in my response and even though his observations were largely on America what he writes about can be applied generally.
One simple example is how he states something like "I don't know if America would vote the best people if they ran for office. We know they exist but they clearly don't enter politics."
It's an extremely polite way to say "we aren't getting the best or brightest running for office but that's ok cause we're so fucking dumb we probably wouldn't vote for them anyways."
It sounds like the man was writing in English, no? Why assume his meaning was other than what he said?
The constitution should be changed. Or better: Thrown out and written from scratch
Maybe we could ammend it or something. Just spitballin here
No, because the Founding Fathers were so scared of tyranny of the majority, we have tyranny of the minority instead, and they will never let it change.
The founding fathers are much worse then this guy. founding fathers owned slaves, this dude only traumatized one person.