Imagine how batshit the Bobs of America would be going if Obama had done this to second amendment protesters.

See, "real" Americans were raised to obey the LAW, and that should amount to the same as obey the police more often than it is. The divergence between those two things has a lot of people mad, and so they are letting the leaders of the nation know they aren't happy to see the police and leaders that are supposed to uphold those laws, to instead being the ones breaking them and ironically the ones that civilians now need protection from.

That shouldn't be foreign, or even contrary to you. I'd have thought you'd be eager to jump in exercising the second amendment in protection of the first?

LOL, I amended my post right after to say any "legal" means... Impeachment, 25th amendment at at the very least on election day. If Trump gets elected again this country deserves everything it gets...

Let's not forget his executive order due this morning, drafts of which now released show him contradicting the first amendment to the constitution and directing the FBI, FTC, FCC, and DOJ to harass, punish, fine, and censor private businesses if they fact check HIS lies on their private platforms in any way....or apparently if the Whitehouse makes any complaints about them...and directed all federal agencies to not advertise on any platform the Whitehouse deems "unfair" (so soon the government will only advertise on OAN).

Where are the right wing 2a nutjobs now? They often claim the 2a exists to protect the other amendments...get to it people. If you don't go armed to the Whitehouse to protest this direct violation and decimation of the constitution, you are admitting that argument is bullshit and so is the 2a. You people went armed to state government buildings to forcefully protest public health orders because you were told they might violate your rights somehow. This time there's no "might" about it, Trump declared an executive order that is a direct, blatant, undeniable violation and attack on the constitution so clear even you can see it without Glen Beck telling you it is one.

see that press conference yesterday? It was a doozy. let me summarize (quotes paraphrased):

He starts with a detailed outline in his propaganda commercial video 'yes we knew about it in January and how dangerous it was, then we did absolutely nothing for the entire month of February, and then we declared an emergency in March'

reporters - 'you say you bought yourself a month's time, why didn't you do anything in February?'

and then what follows is pretty insane

I have never heard someone sound so much like a dictator. 'all the information needs to come from me and everyone knows all of you are fake (talking to the room). I have all the power. The president's powers are limitless.'

A lot of explanation about how he has the ultimate authority and can choose to do whatever he chooses;
Governor's of states should have known this was coming and stockpiled their own ventilators

Is pressed again: What did you do during this time yo help lower the number of cases ?
'YOU ARE FFFFFAAAAKEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee NHHHEEEEWWZZZ'


Edit: I almost forgot the best part where he gets called on his "absolute power" and the 10th amendment is brought up

This is an exact quote "WHEN YOU SAY MY AUTHORITY? THE PRESIDENT'S AUTHORITY. WHEN SOMEBODY IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, THE AUTHORITY IS TOTAL AND THAT IS THE WAY IT'S GOT TO BE. " from that cspan transcript, you can click the play next to it to hear him say it.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?471160-1/white-house-coronavirus-task-force-briefing

2 things:

1. Looks like a 600,000$ pay day coming soon to this family thanks to the cops of Santa Rosa, Ca..

2nd. This is why you don't want to let liberals fuck with the 2nd Amendment.

Potential.
Historically; freedoms, rights, and opportunities, both economic and social.
Until recently, governmental system.
Wealth (per capita).
Military might (although I accept the argument that this is more often a net loss, not a net gain).

Yes, it swings both ways, as you also have the freedom to be as terrible as you like, to hate as irrationally as you like, to be as ignorant and dumb as you like, to be as spiteful and self serving as you like. Before we allowed our system to be purchased by the deepest pockets for purely personal gains of the powerful few with Citizens United, our system was well designed to serve the people, which while imperfect was still better than almost all others. There is still the possibility, however slight, that that democracy killing decision can be remedied with an amendment and we can get back on the right track. Most other systems are lacking in such self correction.

I'm not claiming perfection, far from it, but our overall potential outweighs any other nation's (at least it used to). Yes, we have bigots, but less than many nations by far. Some countries still allow murder of improper worshippers or don't allow certain races to become citizens.
Yes, we have more than our share of loudmouth ignorant morons, but there are other nations that beat us there too. We (as a whole) don't believe aids comes from homosexuals eating each other's poop, for instance, or that women's brains are 1/2 the size of men's. The opportunities for educational advancements are better here than most countries, but not all I admit, and far too many don't avail themselves of said opportunities, granted.
Yes, we have poor people, but fewer per capita than many if not most others, and the opportunity for ethical advancement both financial and social are still good, but admittedly that's changing.
Equality under the law, while far from perfection in that respect, we are (or were) still moving in the right direction.

We have a long hard Sisyphusian slog towards perfection, but overall, historically, we have been crawling towards justice more than away.

That said, New Zealand has been nipping at our heels for a while, and arguments could be made that they presently are ahead in all meaningful ways besides size and weather.

Please don't misconstrue my abhorrence of today's republican party as an endorsement of the democratic party....but there's no question which is worse imo. I've said for decades that I would vote republican if only they would. I didn't leave the republican party, it left me.

'They weren't the only ones sticking it to democrats' isn't an argument, defense, or excuse...it's a dodge imo. Americans are allowed to participate in political propaganda (if they do it legally), other nations aren't. Russian intelligence hacked democrats at Trump's public request to help him. Period.

As for who is G2, "Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-lone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-slipped-up-and-revealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer?ref=scroll

https://www.businessinsider.com/dnc-hacker-guccifer-confirmed-as-russian-agent-after-forgetting-to-conceal-identity-2018-3

I totally agree citizens United (i mean the court ruling bearing that name) put a poison pill in all of our political cups. I would support any candidate who I believed would make a constitutional amendment fixing that priority one, for any and every office high to low. Sadly i don't know of one from any party.
Selling our political system to corporations and billionaires can only end in it's demise.

Sweet Zombie Jebus....make that 6.
This morning, while under impeachment investigation for the same thing and to try to normalize his criminal collusion attempts, he publicly asked China to investigate Biden for being on the board of a company that may have had a few Chinese investors....a repeat of "Russia, if you're listening, help me in our election."
Imo, that itself should trigger the 25th amendment and impeachment.

Thank you for your reply Harlequinn.

I beg to differ: The rate of gun deaths in the USA is only low when compared to countries that are either active (civil-) war zones or basically run by drug cartels. When compared to other, similar developed countries, it is at least 4 times as high (when excluding suicides/accidents) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
I would call that a significant deviation from the norm and stand by my use of "staggering".

You compare gun deaths to deaths from car crashes. Others have already pointed out that one of the main differences is that cars are not tools for killing that are put into public hands and furthermore, since I asked you the question (that you did not answer): "Is the reason for the Second Amendment worth the amount of gun violence in the USA?", my follow up question would be: I can show you the (financial, societal, etc.) benefits of cars (i.e. individual travel by car) for the society, what exactly are the benefits of private gun ownership?
(Whether cars are really worth it, is a whole other discussion.)

Regarding suicide rates, this seems to be a compelling argument until you notice that suicide rates in some, equally developed countries and some lesser developed countries are higher than in the USA and that the number of gun killings that are not suicide is still way higher than in comparable countries (see above).

I do not think that gun violence in the USA can be blamed on mental health issues though <irony>unless you count gun/power fetishism among mental illnesses </irony>.
Edit: Saying that whoever commits an act of gun violence must be mentally ill is tantamount of saying that any criminal must be mentally ill and thus not responsible for his/her actions.

<aside>
One nice observation about this gun fetish (not by me, I think it was Bill Burr): Another common argument pro guns is that people are in it only for home security, if that were the case you would have tons of photos of people with their new door locks or magazine-covers with girls in bikinis in front of security doors.
</aside>

I applaud your stand on public (mental-) health policies though.

Now to your main question:
Have I ever encountered interpersonal violence against me or others?
Yes, but not on a level that bringing lethal force to the situation ever seemed warranted. Thankfully. One obvious reason for that is that I live in a country where I don't need to expect everyone else to carry a gun.
Would it be possible that I would think otherwise, if it would have been the case? Yes.
Would I be correct in thinking that way? No.

To explain: I am not a friend of passive aggressive "stand you ground" thinking. The sane response chain is: 1. Try not to let yourself be provoked, 2. try to de-escalate, 3. try to evade/flee, 4. try to defend yourself.....And of course: CALL THE COPS!

Does that harm my male ego? Yes.
Does that matter enough to me for me to risk killing another human being? No.

You "warned" me by calling me dumb for assuming something that I didn't assume, at all, in any way, shape or form.

If the second amendment prevents the government from doing anything relating to bearing arms then why have they repeatedly been able to do things related to gun and weapon control?

You're going to hazard a guess, seems a bit like assuming something to me...

"it would be dumb to make any assumptions"

At best that leaves only the rare pre 1986 automatics already in private hands, only in some states (totally illegal under any circumstances in many other states), only if you can first pass an expensive background check more stringent than the one federal agents must pass. Sounds like some serious regulation to me.

What you, me, or others consider firearms means nothing. I gave you the law as written, it includes those, they are illegal, so there are effective regulations on firearms already....that doesn't mean they're sufficient. Those words are different words, that's why they're spelled and pronounced differently. Speed limits are effective laws, but not sufficient to regulate vehicle use.

Why do so many firearms lovers fear being on a registry? I've always found that insane, like every other purchase you make isn't tracked or something. There's no purchase privacy anymore, for anything.

It doesn't take any money to ban certain firearms, certainly not a boatload, and not the ocean of cash health care costs. That's a red herring. All it takes is for representatives to vote the way their constituents want them to by 98%.
Perhaps in that sense it would take money, because in order to get them to vote as the people want, campaign finance reform is necessary, and that will cost money, but it's the best thing our country could possibly spend money on.

I support a slightly modified second amendment and universal health care. My interpretation allows for regulations, registration, universal background checks even for family transfers, bans of certain types, seizure from violent convicts and mental patients (impossible without a registry, btw), etc. Yes, I understand that's not how the constitution is written today, but the constitution is a living document. In California, we have most of that as state law already, including an outright ban on fully or selectively automatic weapons.

Btw, you suggest....Try to make people feel welcome.
I was responding in kind to your off hand assumption that, without your derisive "warning", he would be "dumb" enough to make an assumption about you. Then you go on to say making assumptions is dumb. Care to rethink? Had you been more thoughtful and less derisive in making that point I likely would have ignored the hypocrisy.

@harlequinn:

Putting the legal concerns (It is in the constitution, so we have to heed it) aside, what do you think about the Second Amendment?

Was it meant to enable the people to
a) defend against foreign incursion (in lieu of a standing army)?
b) defend against an oppressive government (as a militia)?
c) assume police duties?
d) defend themselves (in absence of police)?
e) none of the above? (Please state what you think its intended meaning was.)

For your selected reason/s given above, does it/do they still apply today?

What do you think is the reason for the staggering amount of gun violence/deaths in the USA when compared with other countries?

Is the reason for the Second Amendment worth the amount of gun violence in the USA?


Full disclosure:
I am genuinely interested in your answers since you seem to have given this some thought (an impression I frankly do not have about bobknight33) .
I am not from the USA and against any form of private gun ownership except under some very rare circumstances.

Following on from above.

I didn't say you quoted me or anything about me. It was a "warning". My argument might have lead people to believe that I was against gun control. I gave the warning that it would be dumb to make any assumptions. I can't quite see how you missed this.

If you think it is not dumb to make assumptions, please let me know.

The 2A specifically says "arms". There is plenty of debate and case law regarding what arms they meant. Suffice to say there isn't a shadow of a doubt that it means firearms (long and short) of all varieties commonly available.

"doesn't mention anything about not restricting the types of armaments people can use"

It does restrict the government from making laws in this regard. The 2A is a law restricting government, not the people. "shall not be infringed" literally means you shall make no law that affects this right in any way.

You don't know whether advocates care if other arms are regulated. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say you are very wrong.

Gun control means whatever the group in control wants it to mean. Anything else is false. If they want it to mean taking away all of your guns, then that is what it is.

Constitutional amendments can indeed be changed. It is very, very difficult to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution

Except for the times where they have regulated arms without having to change the 2nd amendment.