Civil War

[Penn]

Last evening, I lost a loyal client, someone who lives within walking distance of the restaurant. She is sophisticated, highly accomplished, articulate, middle aged, and has wrap herself in a new social cause, that for all intent and purpose, will begin redefining her and the political landscape in America. She wants to form a community movement to repeal the second amendment, or radically change it, and that is quite a departure for her, and how gun control, in general, has been discussed in public.

Gun control, at least in my world, has been argued in private, among friends or people in private, not in public space outside a political forum. The argument, mostly centered on state issues and to challenges before the SOTUS interpreting 2nd amendment diction.

While we can sit back with some comfort that amendments require the approval of 38 state legislatures, let us not forget that the voting act social movement to change age eligibility to 18, occurred in 3 months and 8 days.
Considering the last six amendments (1947-2002) to the Constitution, or 26% of all amendments, occurred in less than 4 years, or one election cycle. Save the last, the 27th, which took 202.7 years, public opinion is not that complex an issue with regard to money and marketing.

That said, in the past week Bloomberg, Ted Turner, CNN, and MSN have begun the campaign to change public opinion. It truly disturbs me as I witnessed firsthand, the explosive emotional buttons these forces are unleashing.

The issue is not just guns, though the above are leading the charge that it is just guns, and that all of the most harmful societal issues are the result of guns, is the developing campaign framed as a child safety social problem to attack the 2nd Amendment by the ruling elite.

The ruling class purpose is nothing more than a tactic to distract the mob, the voting public, from the real issues perpetuating racial inequality, access to education, and quality of life. Issue which always address power.

The issue is not their failure in addressing these malignant social issues, or inability, it’s the conscious resolve to preserve the inequality, preserving the issues in order to divide the public and remain in power, by creating a continual set of competing needs among groups for limited resources.

The spirit of the Arab Spring isn’t confined to a geo-ethnic setting. The uprising was able to root, organize, and has continued, tracks to the evolution in communication. The mainly Illiterate populace connects readily, the information age has revealed all forms of tyrants. Be they kings, dictators, or elected officials. Who knowingly fear an informed educated public, and in our nation, long ago turned their attention to monitoring our communications and begun the process of disarming the public is no longer a question of why.

Failure to recognize and act against this modern march to a totalitarian state is inexcusable.

Passive action and resistance to looming social controls will not work, nor will membership campaigns to recruit a march on Washington, the problem is not a Civil Rights Movement, contingent upon our cultural emphasis on civil rights, it’s a fundamental rights issue, as divisive as slavery, and like that great dividing issue, will have to be fought for to remain free men.

[mark46th]

Just like Thomas Jefferson warned and the reason for the Second Amendment... The reason to have a fire arm is to protect ourselves against would be tyrants within our own borders...

[sinjefe]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Just The reason to have a fire arm is to protect ourselves against would be tyrants within our own borders

Bottom line. Cuts through all the stupid, red herring arguments for gun control.

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by Penn

While we can sit back with some comfort that amendments require the approval of 26 state legislatures,

38 state legislatures are required to ratify an amendment.

[Barbarian]

...will have to be fought for to remain free men.

The time is quickly approaching, it seems.

[JimP]

"movement to appeal the second amendment"

Penn - did you mean "repeal" the 2d amendment? This would change your post dramatically.

This is just another attack on "fundamentally transforming our Country".

The FCC in the newsrooms;
The IRS hounding conservatives;
The failure of the media;
The "gimmedats" voting themselves largesse from the public treasury;
The total failure of transparency in important matters (Benghazi; IRS; fraud; corruption; F&F; etc);
Crony capitalism;
Manipulation of our currency.

Remove the 2d amendment and it's game on.

I've about had enough and it is not going to take much more of a push before the citizens start to push back.

[tonyz]

The political elite know this...

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States" (Noah Webster in 'An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution', 1787, a pamphlet aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification, in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at 56(New York, 1888))

The USA is not magically immune from despots - but the Constitution explicitly memorializes our God-given right to fight despot on equal or better terms.

"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people" (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788)

Take away the 2A and I shudder to think what will happen to this country.

[sinjefe]

Originally Posted by tonyz

Take away the 2A and I shudder to think what will happen to this country.

Revolution

[Richard]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Just like Thomas Jefferson warned and the reason for the Second Amendment... The reason to have a fire arm is to protect ourselves against would be tyrants within our own borders...

This quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

http://www.monticello.org/site/jeffe...arms-quotation

Richard

[Lan]

Originally Posted by Penn

...and in our nation, long ago turned their attention to monitoring our communications...

And it's because of this that some things cannot be said publicly without fear of reprisal. We're individually relegated to voicing opinions online in a subdued, filtered manner.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by Lan

And it's because of this that some things cannot be said publicly without fear of reprisal. We're individually relegated to voicing opinions online in a subdued, filtered manner.

Just wait until there are, um, "monitors..."

...or was that "researchers"



...or was that apparatchiks...

[sinjefe]

Originally Posted by Richard

This quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

http://www.monticello.org/site/jeffe...arms-quotation

Richard

While it may not, one can look under the "famous quotations" link (as opposed to spurious one) on that same website and find many inferences to freemen needing to be armed for that very reason.

[cbtengr]

Originally Posted by tonyz

Just wait until there are, um, "monitors..."

...or was that "researchers"



...or was that apparatchiks...

Wait ? I think that ship sailed a long time ago, I hope that I am old enough that I will not survive to see the total collapse of the United States.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by cbtengr

Wait ? I think that ship sailed a long time ago, I hope that I am old enough that I will not survive to see the total collapse of the United States.

We've got agitators, community organizers and certainly watchers...but not yet apparatchiks.

Who's to say you won't witness the defeat of the Statists !

The cultural divide is undeniable as the OP illustrates - but the outcome is far from certain.

[Pericles]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

Revolution

You may depend upon it. And that is the ultimate failure of understanding of gun control proponents. A guiding principle of this county is the limits of power, and the powers of government in particular. Passing a law is meaningless, unless the overwhelming majority of the population support that law as just.

There is a percentage of defiance which renders any law, and potentially the government that imposed it meaningless. Just as any competent officer or NCO will never get himself into a position of giving a order that will not be obeyed, a legislature that passes a law that will not be obeyed, is not going to be the legislature for long.

"Good arms and good laws go together, where the people have recourse to good arms, no Prince dare make a bad law." - The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli