Keep Your Powder Dry
What the hell is going on? The city with the strictest gun laws in the country having the most heavily armed and quick to fire police forces (plaural) in the country is under a state of emergency because they can't control petty crime.
I never understood how a city or a state could get away with passing laws, especially gun laws, that directly conflict with the Constitution of the United States. What's to stop someone from founding and incorporating their own township and passing a law making black slavery legal?
I guess there really is nothing in the Constitution addressing "hunting" directly. To the men and women of the 18th century "hunting" would have been as natural as breathing while running or swimming if you fell out of a boat. It would never even have occured to them that there would be a time where people hunt simply for the enjoyment of the sport.
Hunters, by the way, are the group of sportsmen who would have more self education then any other group of gun owners. Forcing them to further 'training' in order to obtain a license is simply harassment and a barrier to new participants from joining the sport.
Don't forget, just because the condominium in Cambridge or Brookline doesn't have a yard or even parking doesn't mean that there aren't wild animals in the state that we may need to defend ourselves against.
Maybe we need to remind those limosine liberals behind the Crimson Curtain who only strap on their Tevas to go hiking down to Starbucks why they might need a gun someday. Perhaps a night in Orange or Stockbridge, covered in Doe Scent would clue them into the numerous creatures that consider them a tasty if not 'gamey' snack.
No Marty, I'm not talking about you. I know you don't like coffee.
I never understood how a city or a state could get away with passing laws, especially gun laws, that directly conflict with the Constitution of the United States. What's to stop someone from founding and incorporating their own township and passing a law making black slavery legal?
I guess there really is nothing in the Constitution addressing "hunting" directly. To the men and women of the 18th century "hunting" would have been as natural as breathing while running or swimming if you fell out of a boat. It would never even have occured to them that there would be a time where people hunt simply for the enjoyment of the sport.
Hunters, by the way, are the group of sportsmen who would have more self education then any other group of gun owners. Forcing them to further 'training' in order to obtain a license is simply harassment and a barrier to new participants from joining the sport.
Don't forget, just because the condominium in Cambridge or Brookline doesn't have a yard or even parking doesn't mean that there aren't wild animals in the state that we may need to defend ourselves against.
Maybe we need to remind those limosine liberals behind the Crimson Curtain who only strap on their Tevas to go hiking down to Starbucks why they might need a gun someday. Perhaps a night in Orange or Stockbridge, covered in Doe Scent would clue them into the numerous creatures that consider them a tasty if not 'gamey' snack.
No Marty, I'm not talking about you. I know you don't like coffee.
posted by Dean ASC at 10:07 AM
9 Comments:
Actually, "hunting" has nothing to do with it. The Constitution provided the arms provision so that we could rise up against our government, should it become as "tyrannical" as the British government had been.
I find it ironic that many right-wingers who scream for guns are also the last people who would acknowledge that the government might possibly need forced change someday.
That's just the point though. And thank you for falling into my trap. The guns the Constitution of the United States provides for are for the very violent overthrow of a government that brings increasing tyrany. They never even considered that small arms for hunting or personal defense would have been first to be outlawed. To them the idea of disarming a man's ability to provide game meats to feed his family or protect his life against savage uprising would have smacked of the kind of lunacy that no rational man would stand for. Surely a rational person must understand that it's their responsability to protect and feed themselves.
That Americans in any state but particularly my beloved Commonwealth have allowed local laws to trump the supreme law of the land shows how undeserving of freedom we really are. The round up of registered handguns in Louisianna after hurricane Katrina shows the tyrany that a government afraid of it's citizenry is willing to stoop to.
Many Americans think that the military would overwhelm and crush any individual who tries to hold off the Federal Government. What they forget is that it only takes a handful of brave souls with pistols to hold off the Nazi's. If every town had a few brave souls with small arms willing to stand up to tyrany we wouldn't need to have this discussion. Instead we have embarassing crimewaves in places like WashDC, Detroit, Denver, Chicago and Boston. Each being a city where personal ownership of firearms is nearly impossible to experience legally and the criminals not only know that, they're emboldened by that fact.
Also emboldened are the mountain lions, coyotes and bears wandering around suburbia. A farmer still has the right to shoot any animal, endangered or not, that threatens his crops or livestock yet suburbanites don't have the right to shoot the pitbull that digs under the fence and mauls their child playing in her own backyard. I know in that situation, only the best shot would try to put a bullet just off to the side of their baby from the porch but nothing says they couldn't hold the gun closer.
If gunsafety is so important why don't we teach it in schools? Maybe then the gangbangers would lose their fascination with bustin' caps in asses. It will be just like when they don't care about calculus and geometry.
"They never even considered that small arms for hunting or personal defense would have been first to be outlawed."
Let's talk about small arms. In the time of the founding fathers, small arms did exist -- much to Alexander Hamilton's ultimate regret -- but etiquette and decorum were so valued during that era that the idea of one simply shooting someone else over a disagreement was unheard of. (Unless you made it known to your intended victim and they agreed -- Hamilton again.) Highwaymen were called that because they preyed on people well outside of the cities. And the lower classes (since the era was more class-bound than it is now, at least on the surface) could never shoot any gentleman of privilege or they wouldn't be around for long. (If the poor shot each other back then, as now, it's not recorded in the history books, because they were, you know, poor.)
I have no problems with large rifles or any guns that can't be easily concealed. But small arms, stripped by the least two centuries of the decorum that required they be only used with formal duels, should be against the law because they make it so easy. So if I go camping in Stockbridge, I better bring my rifle. The coyotes aren't going to taken any more by surprise if I have a rifle at my side or a handgun in my pocket. And isn't one of civilization's main selling points the fact that you really don't need to worry about coyotes in Harvard Square? One Channel 5 website link does not make an epidemic. You can, if you want. You can compare walking down a city street to being out in the wilderness, but if you're that paranoid about unlikely, unsubstantiated issues, I've got a handful of covert government agencies I have for sale, cheap.
The problem with outlawing small guns, in an attempt to stem the tide of non-societal-etiquette-observing violence, is not that the laws are wrong, but that they are either not enforced or impossible to enforce. It may be the latter, although I suspect that the fact that it is, as I mentioned, overwhelmingly poor-on-poor violence has something to do with the lack of progress. And the fact that the current American mindset and current war is violence-fetishistic. Don't mess with Texas. Or we'll sic Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald on your ass. And remember, mandatory set belt usage is just the first step to them taking away our cars.
Always go out shooting. I'm going to Starbucks.
Then again, maybe I'm just a little touchy about this subject today.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/07/13/1_slain_1_stabbed_in_separate_attacks/
Jelena had to walk the long way around the block to get home last night because of this.
Jelena wouldn't have to walk around the block if there was the possibility that she or any other good citizen of the Commonwealth could be in posession of a small handgun. However as it stands, criminals know that in all probability they only need a knife to rob and murder someone because their victim is disarmed by the state. In otherwords wouldn't you rather be the one bringing the gun to the knife fight.
My one channel 5 link was just that one link. I know the family of the girl down on the south shore who's daughter was attacked by a coyote two years ago.
I also know hunters who have guns that only chamber one shell and do not want to face a bear without a side arm. That means a pistol.
In any event, then for the sake of argument, lets say pistols are gone from polite society... Why then should the government get all pissy about the .50cal hunting rifle? It chambers one shell at a time, and can only clip 10 shots. It's barrel is 4 feet long so it's hardly conceilable. It has a sholder stock and no bayonette lug. I'll tell you why. It can penetrate the cheap kevlar panels they put on the limousines congress rides around in.
But that's beside the point. A well armed populace has little to fear from King George, George Bush or the poor.
No, she wouldn't. Because she'd be dead.
I simply don't buy the idea that if most law-abiding citizens carried handguns and used them responsibly, that it would result in greatly decreased assaults due to apprehension in the criminals' minds. The urge to commit crime is because of desperation or anger; not rational states, so rational deterrents would be ineffective. In the case of someone whose mind is in the state that it takes to commit a crime or murder, you think they would say to themselves, "I'd better not rob or shoot this person because I might get shot, and I'm afraid of that." I think they'd say, "I have no doubt I'm a better shot than this person. And I'm invincible. Or maybe I'm just simply so fucked up right now that I don't care."
And they probably are a better shot, too.
So in this admittedly complicated (like everything else) debate, guns for everyone is not a perfect solution, and no guns whatsoever isn't a perfect solution. I just can't accept that the "all guns" solution would ultimately work out better.
(Probably shouldn't mention this guy at all, but) See also "Bowling for Columbine": Why do Canada's and Britain's illegal guns strategy work so much better than ours? Lots of people hate the politicians there, too.
As for the .50 caliber rifle problem, I have no idea. If it has gotten to the point where congressmen are scared of someone carrying around a conspicuous rifle to take them down, then I don't know. Maybe the administration shouldn't give everyone a huge lesson in how preemptive violence is an acceptable way to solve problems.
The Globe again: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2006/07/14/violence_at_home_on_rise_in_wartime/
I guess us loony liberals think this way because we have to believe that there could be a world without this insane violence. Where stabbings and other violence still exist, but are made much more difficult, and therefore much rarer, because eventually people will get tired of their children being killed quickly and easily. You may have a more realistic viewpoint about it, but at the root, one philosophy embraces death and one doesn't. Maybe sometimes you have to balance being realistic against your own moral code.
Air horns, man. Air horns.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/07/08/MNGP8JS3U41.DTL&o=0
And never mind about bears, coyotes and criminals. I'm scared of kangaroos with frickin' fangs!
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13825566/
The hilarity is in the field & stream link. The call for photos requests "lady anglers." They'll send you a flashlight worth $99 if they run your picture. If I was a lady (and while I may be a woman, I am no lady) I would just don my bikini and show off my hot body holding a fish I just pulled out of the cooler at my local fish market (see 17 of 21). Talk about easy prize!
(ironically, the fish are the focus of the photos... joke's on me.)
***
(while this comment may seem off topic, you did link to field & stream. If you have a problem with that I'll pull out my homemade potato cannon and put a a big dent in your car.)
I'm full of all sorts of off topic these days. Don't worry about it. Hope the vacation was recharging. Can't wait to hear about the bus over on your site.
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