To put it another way 'The American people wouldn't countenance a repeal of their sacred 2nd amendment without a fight.'
A David and Goliath style fight. With David equipped with broken slingshot; Goliath, a bag of hand grenades.
Posts from Rice in thread „Is the Second Amendment a sacred cow?“
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The NRA has subverted the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment, and it has paid off richly for their sponsors, the gun mfgrs and dealers. People rabid on the subject cannot seem to grasp the difference between the right to own firearms for hunting and protecting one's household, and the right to own weapons meant to bring down an entire herd of stampeding armored tanks.
While I greatly admire the Florida students attempting to change America's culture of gun violence, they have a steep uphill climb to get legislative changes on even the most egregious abuses. And a possible repeal of the Second Amendment is sheer fantasy.
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As a gun-owning Texan, I can assure you that semi-automatic is not necessary. Single-shot will work a treat. Unless you miss, then you’ll need to reload and start over.
Please feel free to ask for more tips as needed.
Your Honor, I rest my case.
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You’re right - the self-proclaimed ‘busethicsdude’ IS drunk with his own eloquence, but makes a fair point.
However much I would love for the US to return to civil discourse and cross the great divide, it seems that even the most innocent comment by someone on the OTHER side of the divide brings about a disproportionately pugnacious response.
Vulgarity, lying and bullying at a level once unthinkable among the commonest of men is now the coin of the realm from the lowest to the formerly loftiest.
To quote the good professor:
Samuel Johnson observed, "When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency." Let us endeavor to rediscover the lost art of civil conversation and regain hope.”
[See — I’ve just hijacked my own thread, from the fantasy concept of repealing the 2nd amendment, to the lost land of civil discourse. If I had a semiautomatic weapon, I’d shoot myself.]
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A retired US Supreme Court Justice, nominated by (republican) President Gerald Ford, has commented that the students demonstrating in favor of gun safety legislation should, in fact, go further.
Justice John Paul Stevens has recommended that the Second Amendment should be repealed.
"Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of separate states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that a 'well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,'" Stevens wrote. "Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century."
Stevens pointed to District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 landmark case that protected an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected to a militia, as a turning point. The ruling — of which Stevens was a dissenter — overturned "long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment's limited reach," he said, and gave the National Rifle Association "a propaganda weapon of immense power."
"Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the NRA's ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option," he wrote.
While it would be hard to argue with his conclusion regarding the effect of breaking NRA control, he is certainly an optimist in thinking that overturning the DC v Heller decision through a constitutional amendment to deep-six the amendment most worshipped by some, would be simple!
