Will the Second Amendment survive?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And a rather interestingly subversive thought.

Personally I'd draw the line at private nuclear weapons. It's so very difficult to use nuclear weapons as designed and intended in a moral way. It's a lot easier with something a little less comprehensive. Like a B-25.

Now Queequeger, your opinions about arms in society are opinions I do not share -- because I have studied the matter. I used to agree with many of them, but then I actually started getting informed, and enlightenment followed. I'm pro-gun, and I'm really, genuinely, effectually antigenocide. If you're not pro-gun, you're not really antigenocide in any measurable way.

I recommend Stephen Halbrook's That Every Man Be Armed: the Evolution of a Constitutional Right for an education in the fundamentals. It's not only knowledgeable and comprehensive, it's very readable -- a classic in the field. It is also quite true, and never been refuted, that a society full of arms is a society that does not suffer genocide, whilst those societies that disarmed do. To make genocide possible, you prohibit armed self-defense by law. Such law may take many forms, but the most effective one is to forbid private guns. So you can see what the reverse situation results in: crime both retail and industrial-scale can be effectually resisted, and in the opposing, ended, to paraphrase Hamlet. This is too important to be left solely to officialdom, and it doesn't work very well if it is. Generalized, armed resistance to crime and oppression cleans up whole towns, and fast. Clean virtuous communities do more for mankind than all the hoplophobia in the world ever did. Ask Spexxvet what happened to him when he tried to convert the freedom-people on this board to his brand of hoplophobia, that the poor schmoe thought was so virtuous. It makes... instructive reading. It was a bit before your time. Search up the thread If You Own A Gun, or Do You Own etc., IIRC.

Thus saith the JPFO, and their argument has not been refuted, despite plenty of time to research since 1991, when the theory was propounded.

So what, we're just supposed to ignore the first half of the amendment? Why would they have even brought up the militia if that wasn't to imply the reason behind the right to bear arms?

Here being an example of misreading -- now mostly adhered to by non-gun people on the Left with no education in arms. That clause in the sentence does not and cannot restrict the rest of the Amendment. The Framers brought up the Militia as a national reason and a national security interest for not infringing on the right of the People to keep and bear arms. By no means was this the sole reason, merely the one they thought might be of greatest national interest. Subsequent Militia Acts -- say, the Militia Act of 1792 -- for some time specified in their texts what sort of armament the militia should bear to be at least minimally equipped sufficient for fighting.

A citizen's militia powers are nowadays primarily exerted in police matters, and depriving the citizen of these powers only empowers crime -- and that's at the best.

[deadbeater]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

A citizen's militia powers are nowadays primarily exerted in police matters, and depriving the citizen of these powers only empowers crime -- and that's at the best.

Just like what is happening in Iraq. The whole lot of guns they got over there is really preventing genocide, isn't it?

Also, to really have self-defense, every person should have a pocket nuke. And I mean every person.