Posted by Bob Janova at 3:04pm Jun 29 '10It's not 1942 any more. You can clearly see, in Iraq and Afghanistan, even a pre-armed populace can't drive off a modern occupying force (that's us). Sure, they can kill some soldiers here and there, and incur great retaliatory wrath on themselves and their countrymen, but it's not effective.
I'm not sure why you went off on your cherised 'militia' tangent because I carefully didn't go there. Though as you acknowledge, the term doesn't mean now what it meant then, so that's another reason to at least rewrite the amendment in modern language.
The "militia clause" in the 2nd Amendment is what's called a "justification clause". Its purpose is to describe some of the reasoning behind the guarantee of the right.
Um ... yes, exactly, that's what I said. The reason that the people who wrote that amendment wanted it was because they wanted to protect their (new) nation, and having people with guns seemed a good idea at the time. The history lesson is interesting in its way but it's hardly an argument that it's relevant today.
So you are advocating simply ignoring laws that are inconvenient to modern day life?
Well, actually, yes (who here rigourously obeys laws on speeding, jaywalking, drugs, alcohol age limits etc?). But you should really read the thread before responding so aggressively, because I explicitly said I think the law should be changed, not just ignored.
I'm not sure why you went off on your cherised 'militia' tangent because I carefully didn't go there. Though as you acknowledge, the term doesn't mean now what it meant then, so that's another reason to at least rewrite the amendment in modern language.
The "militia clause" in the 2nd Amendment is what's called a "justification clause". Its purpose is to describe some of the reasoning behind the guarantee of the right.
Um ... yes, exactly, that's what I said. The reason that the people who wrote that amendment wanted it was because they wanted to protect their (new) nation, and having people with guns seemed a good idea at the time. The history lesson is interesting in its way but it's hardly an argument that it's relevant today.
So you are advocating simply ignoring laws that are inconvenient to modern day life?
Well, actually, yes (who here rigourously obeys laws on speeding, jaywalking, drugs, alcohol age limits etc?). But you should really read the thread before responding so aggressively, because I explicitly said I think the law should be changed, not just ignored.
Here's some news for you - Bob Janova