Michael Moore’s Idea to Repeal and Replace 2nd Amendment

found online by Raymond

 
From Saving Common Sense:

Today I came across this sadly bemusing article regarding Leftist film maker Michael Moore’s latest idea. Of course he misses the entire purpose of why our founders insisted that citizens must have the right to keep and bear arms, and it has nothing to do with sport or hunting. I suppose it would have been more astonishing if he had understood that fact.

What is truly sad is that there will be quite a few people that will look at his misguided ideas and think this newly proposed constitutional amendment of his is a really good idea.

– More –
 

5 thoughts on “Michael Moore’s Idea to Repeal and Replace 2nd Amendment”

  1. Another rousing defense for maintaining the status quo! Another idea put forth to deal with our gun violence. Not saying it’s a good or a bad idea, but it’s an idea. So let’s answer that idea by not countering it with a different idea… but by waving around an opinion of what we think the founders’ original intents were and off no ideas of your own.

    As an aside; I do not know what was bemusing about Michael Moore’s facebook post… his intention seemed pretty clear.

  2. Let me propose a hypothetical: If T. Paine became convinced that innocent lives would best be saved with more gun regulation, would he favor that regulation as a God given duty?

    I’m thinking of these words of wisdom:

    At the end of the day, we have a God given right, and I would argue a duty, to protect innocent lives from evil as best we are able.

    I also wonder about this:

    Of course he misses the entire purpose of why our founders insisted that citizens must have the right to keep and bear arms, and it has nothing to do with sport or hunting.

    If I read the beginning of the amendment correctly, the entire purpose is explicit. Has to do with well regulated militia. That entire purpose would not involve any other God given right.

    I like the phrase “well meaning.” It involves accepting the motivations of one’s debate opponents as they are presented. Not at all unusual for my friend T. Paine.

    I suspect most of those favoring more regulation will be swayed by persuasive evidence that regulation does not result in safety. The key word is persuasive. Pointing to the failure of gun regulation in cities or states which are surrounded by other states with little regulation would not qualify.

    Instead, Mr. Paine might try this approach, or most anything written at http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

    1. I don’t encounter much in the way of rational debate over gun control.

      Conservatives seem mostly concerned about repeating stupid slogans (“Guns don’t kill people, people do!”/”Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun!”), mocking big cities whose gun-related crime rates defy their stricter gun control laws, and attempting to apply their understanding of the country’s founders’ intentions regarding guns to modern weaponry. The first two behaviors are typical in politics: repeat the catchy lines you’ve heard and misunderstand the data. But the last is particularly egregious to me because of the way conservatives present the problem.

      They insist that our right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed, per the Second Amendment, but they are rather dishonest about it. Not even they think that every citizen is entitled to nuclear weaponry or other arms understood as “massively destructive.” This is a very clear restriction on our freedom regarding arms, but it’s treated as irrelevant, probably because the thought of any of us owning a nuclear missile and the means of launching it seems so absurd. What about something less destructive, like tanks, RPGs, and other weaponry unnecessary for hunting or typical self-defense scenarios? Some people believe that we should have access to them, but not many. This is also a very clear restriction. The point is that conservatives and liberals are both willing to draw lines on the matter of infringing this right, but conservatives refuse to actually see it this way, preferring instead their self-serving narrative that liberals hate the Constitution and want to rob us of our freedoms and that conservatives are loyal defenders of everything for which the country’s founders stood. If conservatives can’t even recognize that we all support restrictions to limit legal weapons’ destructive capability but simply disagree on where to draw the line, then we can’t hope to have a fruitful debate. The same applies to most other subjects where questions of constitutionality or religion come up. It’s the nature of dogma, I suppose.

      All of this is to say nothing of their fantasies about how our country would be if only everyone owned and carried a gun openly. Or their suggestion that, since people are the problem instead of guns, we must change people instead–somehow. Jesus?

      Liberals, on the other hand, are very quick after a shooting to demand action that wouldn’t have prevented anything. Whether or not that action is good for other reasons is really beside the point when it comes across as opportunistic. It’s hard enough to pass gun control legislation in a country so opposed to anything significant on that front, full of people who become politically rabid whenever the subject comes up, presently run by Republicans in every branch of government. Looking like you’re trying to score points doesn’t do you any favors.

      Looking like you don’t know what you’re talking about doesn’t do you any favors either. How can you hope to pass legislation in a government controlled by Republicans when you continue to make emotional appeals by referring to certain guns as assault weapons as if that literally means that they are intended for or only useful for actual assault? When you can’t speak intelligently about the firing rates of different weapons, especially if you talk about banning one but not another with the same potential? When you act like a suppressor actually silences guns?

      And don’t get me wrong: the data for other countries with tighter gun restrictions or bans does seem promising, from what I’ve seen. But it’s an altogether different matter to apply that data and those policies to our own country–and only partly because of how gun ownership is viewed here and because Republicans are in control.

      If I were to sum up the liberal approach to the gun control debate in one word, I suppose that it would be “impractical.” For the conservative approach, I might use “delusional.”

      Now, the two sides (except, of course, the perpetually paranoid far right) do seem to find agreement when the focus of the gun control debate becomes mental health and background checks instead of guns. That’s fine to the extent that this agreement can lead to meaningful and effective legislation (as opposed to just expecting the public to report strange behavior as if that would accomplish anything, e.g. Jared Loughner), but we can’t expect it to even come close to preventing gun-related crime. One doesn’t have to be mentally ill to kill, after all, and a background check won’t stop someone with a clean record who intends to kill. Stephen Paddock, for example, wouldn’t have been affected by any such policies unless they also banned people on anti-anxiety medication from purchasing weapons, which is hardly realistic. Furthermore, if the conservative position that dedicated criminals will always find a way to get guns (or, barring that, obtain some other destructive means like bombs) is true, then these policies would serve at best to merely postpone the violence.

      For these reasons, I am not at all optimistic about anything being done about gun violence in the near future. Fortunately, we can find solace in the decline of gun-related violence, especially if we factor out suicide, as I believe we should.

  3. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    Seems a lot of people forget about insuring domestic transquility, providing common defence, promotion general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty. We can never have this discussion because one side talks about doing something, anything about the violence and the other side immediately leaps to ‘WE’RE GOING TO BE DISARMED’.

    I’m still waiting on Obama to come knocking on my door to take my guns.

  4. The fact those “good guys with guns” in Vegas saved nobody with their guns directly contradicts the NRA’s master plan.

    If we didn’t have an industry of military-style weapons flooding the country, the death count would be lower in many mass shootings. This is simple reality. So much for wanting to “save innocent lives”.

    Their entire argument is, “More weapons of death mean more lives saved.”

    THAT is sheer lunacy, or loopy logic at best, and disproved by the fact that states with higher concentrations of legal gun ownership have higher rates of gun deaths.

    The more guns, the more people die. Period.

    Where is the “protection of innocent human life” when that reality is proven?

    “Look at Chicago!” will be their answer.

    See how all those weapons are protecting innocent human life? Let’s make millions more, so everyone has one, or a dozen. That’ll make it better. Just imagine all the innocent lives saved.

    Well, besides accidents, suicides, theft by criminals, and the occasional, permanently settled, domestic disputes.

    Smell the freedom! And it smells just like cordite.

Comments are closed.