[David R Leifheit]

Originally Posted by jbgroby

Hello All,
I’ll be the first to admit that Founding Fathers (FF) of our great nation could not envision the leaps in weapon technology or in our communications technology– but they DID foresee the Govt. could abuse their power.

I have gotten into some very heated arguments with some associates (stick any title you need to in there) that feel that the time has come to limit the access to personal firearms, they base their argument on the above that the Founding Fathers could not foresee machine guns or other weapons of multiple cartridge capacity and because of such the Second Amendment should not apply!

One of the arguments I have also heard, when talking about religions, is that the founders could not have foreseen what the Muslims were capable of, or else there wouldn't be freedom of religion.

Which is sad since the founders most certainly understood what religion is capable of, which is why none is allowed to be recognized as an official country religion and why no religion is allowed to be over the government. Since Jefferson owned a Koran, I think he understood the religion (especially since he -agreed- that Jesus was just a prophet, not son-of-God). Plus we had trade dealings with foreign countries of various religions (the trade agreement which states we are not a Christian nation for instance).

The argument against weapons, when they say that the founders couldn't imagine the type of weapons we have now, or that they didn't mean military weapons, falls flat when you understand that they -did- mean all weapons, especially military ones. If you could afford it, you could own a cannon if you wanted to.
-I am not saying everyone should have an atom bomb, however-

The founders were quite adamant, that the government should not have a standing army (because standing armies lead to tyranny) which is why there is only an authorization to call up the militia of the states to defend the nation, and why there is a limitation of 2 years on any funding for the army. Knowing the safety of trade across the ocean was important is why a navy was authorized.
We seem to have standing armies today, and no militias. And we have been accusing the government of tyranny. go figure.

The FF, knew based on their past collective histories, that a Government without checks and balances, is a government that is dangerous. That’s WHY they structured the Constitution and Bill of Rights the way they did.

Exactly.

What many in Congress have seemly forgotten is that ANYONE who devises/offers/attempts to act AGAINST our citizens or our country should be treated as an enemy combatant (whether it be a US Citizen or outsider). The slippery slope comes into play as to WHO are those persons to DECIDE what defines who an enemy combatant is? – Is it simply someone who speaks about govt. injustice? Or someone who speaks up in order to incite a plan and carry out an attack? I believe the latter. This question is much harder to answer than you can imagine.

True.
So, where do you stand on the "no-fly list" issue (or is that what you were talking about...)? The President has asked that those people be barred from being able to purchase guns. Congress has said no, they should be able to.
Both reasonings appear sound, if we think they are terrorists so they are not allowed on planes, why are we allowing them weapons, but since the list -may- include people who are not terrorists then we shouldn't ban them from having weapons?

I would think that keeping them from weapons would be prudent, but also really investigating the list and maybe removing people who shouldn't be on it would also be prudent.
-=Not that it would stop things like the San Bernadino shooting, where the man was a US citizen and had never been in trouble nor had any ties to any organization... and bought the rifles before he met his wife.=-

However, as has been pointed out, our methodology tends to be extreme, such as the internment of US citizens during WWII. The US policy seems to be "go overboard on everything".

I don’t have any answer, but I can tell you this; limiting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms of a free society IS NOT THE ANSWER. Besides, no one has devised a fool proof plan to keep weapons out of the hands of Criminals - therein lies the rub.

Especially when we, the US, are often the guilty party when it comes to creating the hate groups which fight us. Often they are the ones we helped previously, to get their country back and -surprise- they didn't want us to rule them either (ie. Al Qeada and their predecessors, and likely the Daesh since they were part of the Syrian rebels we were supporting)

Jake[/QUOTE]

-<edited down to address specific comments, although everything I said could easily apply to the entire, well written, "speech">-