Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 05:33:33 -0700 (PDT) From: mark@unicorn.com To: extropians@extropy.com Subject: Re: Guns [was Re: property Rights] Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> Craig Dibble [craig@slob-squad.freeserve.co.uk] wrote:
> >1) What possible extropian/ transhumanist merit can this pointless slanging
> >match have?
>
> Ask Joe; he's the one who's throwing the insults around, most of our replies
> have been considered, reasonable and rational.
>
Only by the self-serving and lying standards of the repliers.
>
> But more to the point, a society which can't handle people owning a few wimpy
> little guns is not a society which will let people have really dangerous
> technology like nanotech. The things we talk about routinely on this list
> will be demonized and restricted just as much as guns if we let the control
> freaks have their way.
>
It is precisely because i do not wish to cede control over whether I
live or die to the armed deranged that I wish to deny them gun
possession.
>
> >2) Have you pro gun activists got any idea how completley mad you sound to
> >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.
>
> >but just because something is written in your
> >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?
>
To change it when times dictate (see the anti-slavery and women's
sufferage amendments for examples). I'm not advocating the
repeal of the 2nd amendment (a chunk of straw bullus shittus the
gun nuts try to bean any advocate of reasonable restrictions with),
but, as I said before, and am willing to say 1000 times more, if
necessary, gun ownershp should be denied to violent criminals, the
mentally deficient and/or deranged, children, and spouse and/or
child abusers (I've filed that list so I can copy and paste it
when/wherever appropriate).
> >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...
>
> >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?
>
> >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
>
>