mark@unicorn.com wrote:
> The things we talk about routinely on this list
Quite.
>>2) Have you pro gun activists got any idea how completley mad you sound to
Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh, but it was more the dogmatic refusal to
accept there may be alternative view points I was alluding to
> will be demonized and restricted just as much as guns if we let the control
> freaks have their way.
>>non Americans?
>
> Odd. I know plenty of non-Americans who are also pro-gun activists, or at
> least sympathisers; most of them are irate gun-owners disarmed by good old
> Tony Blair. Modern anti-gun Brits, of course, would have sounded completely
> mad a century ago when anyone could carry a gun -- and many did -- and the
> government's ideal was a rifle in every home to protect against invasion;
> a policy whose end would have proved fatal if Hitler had a clue about war.
>>precious constitution or your bill of rights does not mean that it is the be
>>all and end all, that it is simply the only thought worth entertaining and
>>no alternatives shall be brooked.
>
> So the government employees who swore to uphold the Constitution are free
> to ignore it at will when they see fit?
No, of course not....
>>As such, situations have arisen
>>which the constitution was never designed to contend with and it has had to
>>be modified.
>
> Indeed. So all the anti-gun fanatics have to do is repeal the Second
> Amendment; the mechanism is quite clearly elaborated in the Constitution,
> they just have to do it. They refuse, and prefer just to ignore it...
>
My point exactly.
>>But excuse me if I am stepping on your
>>constitutionally protected toes here, I mean no harm, I'm just curious as
>> to
>>how you can rationalize this.
>
> I'm curious as to how anyone can rationalise ignoring the very law that the
> US government was created under whenever they see fit? You'd be happy if
> T.B. just declared himself dictator and refused to hold any more elections
> because the British 'constitution' is outdated?
Again, no, of course not, but a system must be able to change as needs arise, and the process of change must be open to reasoned debate. Clinging to an outdated system and/or refusing to allow for the possibility of change can only end up doing harm. If we can't or won't allow the systems under which we must live to evolve, how can we hope to step up the evolutionary ladder ourselves?
>>As for the merit of this discussion on the list, is it something along the
>>lines of:
>>*I'm looking to the future, but I'll shoot you if you get in my way.
>
> Yeah, Joe is pretty fanatical about disarming us at gunpoint, isn't he? Why
> is it that the disarmers are so desperate to kill anyone who disagrees with
> them?
>
> Mark
>
>
Craig Dibble.