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Armed 1776 vs 2012 | 337 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Who Is Too Unbalanced to Be Armed?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 07:30 AM EST
Thus has the greatest fools in human history spoken!


[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man
Authored by: SilverWave on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 08:09 AM EST
Interesting...

Does this not only apply if most citizens are armed most of
the time?

Also how about being attacked from ambush? Being armed would
not help in the case of being shot in the back.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed
Authored by: SilverWave on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 08:12 AM EST
Interesting...

Are most Citizens failing in this duty?

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Wherever standing armies are kept up,
Authored by: SilverWave on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 08:14 AM EST
Interesting...

So is a standing army bad?

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might
Authored by: SilverWave on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 08:28 AM EST
Interesting...

In the present day how realistic is this?

Private citizens owning an F16 or Artillery is obviously
absurd.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Exactly - Remember when Al Haig said that he was "in charge" (he meant/might have dreamed of it)
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 08:45 AM EST
There are those, who dream of power. It is a human trait,
only with an equal power, can there be a balance of power.

Why no new world war, cold war balances are still in effect.

Just that the crazy folks (suicide bombers) might also be
the same class of crazy folks running around here getting in
the news...I wonder if anyone has done a psychological
profile on them (oh-hard to do where they already pulled the
trigger on C4 strapped around themselves). In an area of
the world where unemployment is high, for some, it can be a
well paying job to be an "officer" in a terrorist
organization, as what other jobs are there then those in
some areas? Like the IRA in Ireland of old, the faithful in
the US were sending them money to buy guns..., same might be
true in the middle east, that others who are "supporting"
the cause, also send money (Remember that Arafat, died a
very very very wealthy man). Who said there is not a career
in the terror "BUSINESS". So, if there is a money motive,
the guns and C4 will get bought, then handed off to the
crazy folks that they "recruit" to use the stuff.


[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Armed 1776 vs 2012
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 10:54 AM EST
Compare the weapons available in 1776 to the ones available
now. There were no semi automatics, no clips, hard to
conceal hard to use.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Founding Fathers and their Single Shot Weapons
Authored by: hardmath on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 11:44 AM EST

Nice quotes. I'm a fan of the Founding Fathers (as also of Douglas Adams). They were farsighted folks, and the impetus of the Constitution was the considered history of failures of previous forms of government (notably the Roman Republic and our original Articles of Confederation) and ways to mitigate against them. Granting that, it turned out many crucial developments they did not foresee (e.g. the system of political parties).

The invention of the repeating (flintlock) revolver by Elisha Collier still lay in the future (1814) when the 2nd Amendment was drafted (1789), and further still was Colt's invention of the first mass-produced repeating shot weapon (1836).

Jefferson called his election in 1800 "the second American revolution". Using ballots rather than bullets to change governments is certainly an innovation we can proudly attribute to the Founding Fathers, loser Adams as much as the victor Jefferson.

Unlike the First Amendment's call for government not to legislate speech and religion, the Second Amendment passingly addresses "a well-regulated militia". So government regulation of arms was on the mind of the Founding Fathers, long before peacetime deaths by gunshot escalated to modern levels. Although death by gunshot in the US has about a one-in-9000 chance (comparable to death by car accident), medical science has dramatically improved chances of surviving gunshot wounds.

So take the insights of the Founding Fathers for what they're worth, but remember the world we live in is quite different technologically as well as politically.

---
Recursion is the opprobrium of the mathists.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Unless they actually try to use it that way...?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 04:49 PM EST
I see that a lot of those qutes are about protecting oneself against government
or others that suppress them.
But during those Occupy protests when citicens were abused by teargas and
violence, I did not hear anyone call on them to defend themselves with said
arms, least of all those generally in support of it.

I'm not saying they should have, as it could have lead to cival war. But I am
just wondering; what kind of scenario would be realistic for those ideas to
work?
What percentage of population would have to support the cause for it to be
justified revolution rather then criminal rebbellion?
And how high a casualty rate is acceptable for that goal, buth during the battle
as in the quiet period inbetween?

MBB

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Who Is Too Unbalanced to Be Armed?
Authored by: PJ on Thursday, December 27 2012 @ 05:54 PM EST
But stop and think at all that has changed.
To fight the government with arms, you'd need
to have nuclear weapons and drones and airplanes
and bombs, etc.

Surely you don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry
to have those kinds of weapons, do you?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Who Is Too Unbalanced to Be Armed?
Authored by: cricketjeff on Friday, December 28 2012 @ 05:12 AM EST
"So you believe a fictional story by Douglas Adams should carry more weight
than
the carefully thought out opinions of our founding fathers? "

Short answer?

Yes

Longer answer
Your founding fathers, well they weren't really your founding fathers, they were
well down the list after the United States were formed, but they were in at the
secession I suppose, but that's the point, they were around 200 years ago, now
nobody in America, save a few nutters, believes they need an army to oppose the
Government, last time anyone over there tried any such thing you got into a
little bit of a barney and started slaughtering each other on an industrial
scale!
All the statistics show that those who own guns are much more likely to be
harmed by guns than those who don't, therefore buying a gun for self defence is
madness and mad people should not be allowed to own guns!



---
There is nothing in life that doesn't look better after a good cup of tea.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Who Is Too Unbalanced to Be Armed?
Authored by: odysseus on Friday, December 28 2012 @ 06:00 AM EST
I'm pretty sure I could compile a list of quotes from most if not all of those
august gentlemen in favour of the continued ownership of slaves and the
exclusion of women from the vote.

Just because they were right about some things doesn't mean they were right
about everything.

Just because they were right about something in the context of their times
doesn't mean they were right in the context of our times.

Times change, societies progress, to permanently tie yourself to the words and
thoughts of one group of men at one point in time to the exclusion of all else
is foolishness.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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