How can we regulate guns ... ?

In the US, it is highly unlikely.

I rather think that in many ways it already has and guns didn't stop it.The PATRIOT Act, as just one major example, trashes the Constitution...and guns didn't stop it or reverse it. Indeed, nothing has been done to undo it, with or without guns. You can't go much further than National Security letters that allow a person's rights to be simply ignored with no court oversight and a legal penalty for even seeking recourse or informing the target. And that's just for starters.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Reset signature formatting after touch up.

Rahvin doesn't seem to agree with you. I'm with Rahvin here. We already have a tyrannical government albeit not as bad as most around the world.Edited by foreveryoung, : No reason given.

And Rahvin is wrong. What is your point?What we see in history are tyrrants who were put in position with mobs carrying guns. The Bolshevik revolution was a revolution by the people, and the result was Stalin and the gulags. Anything like that in the US right now? No. There aren't any purges going on, and there won't be.

Did everyone in russia favor the revolution by your reading of history?

I think that depends entirely on the threshold for acceptable usage of the rather vague term "tyranny." I tend to define "tyranny" as a government's systemic removal of rights like the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure or the right to due process. That includes concentration camps, but also includes lesser offenses like the PATRIOT Act. I agree that the US will not likely experience a "purge" or any sort of tyranny on that scale. But that doesn't mean that extraordinary rendition or torture are not forms of tyranny. They are. And as you yourself mention, it's the people with guns (the military, CIA, NSA, etc, in this case) who are doing it. And the citizens with guns are unwilling and unable to prevent it, because in modern America political change can only be achieved through the political and legal process, not through violent revolt.

The founders are NOT "just as fallible as we are" if by "we" you mean the posters on this forum who are a bunch of complete ignoramuses by comparison. The founders were steeped in history and their documents were meant to embody the wisdom learned from that history. We here are all a bunch of naive ignoramuses by comparison who have never learned a hundredth of the lessons of hstory they applied to their writings.Yes they included METHODS for changing it, but your attitude is that nothing they did is of any value anyway so why not just ignore it altogether, why bother following their rules at all, we're all so much wiser than they were.

That is right, but the citizens can make life a living hell for the government by first non violent means like a nationwide stop work or stop your car in the middle of the highway type methods. The guns come in handy when the government INEVITABLY steps in with heavy handed methods to stop it.Remember tianammen square? When the government stepped in to squash the peaceful revolt, the people were smashed. Think of what the result would have been had the people been armed. The government would have its hands full trying to tamp it all down if the MAJORITY of its citizens were armed.Edited by foreveryoung, : No reason given.

Americans haven't shown a willingness to actually participate in large-scale civil disobedience like that in...do the 60s even count? The government did use some rather heavy-handed tactics on anti-Vietnam protesters (a massacre of unarmed college students comes to mind)...but of course guns didn't prevent any of it. Nor would they have. They simply would have guaranteed that more of the nonviolent protests escalated to armed confrontations - because soldiers are not trained to let people point guns at them and then not open fire.The closest we've come in 50 years to the sort of protests you're talking about would be the Occupy movement...and we did have some heavy-handed arrests, even tear gas canisters causing skull fractures. But do you think guns would have helped? if the Occupiers had pulled guns, don;t you think the cops would have simply opened fire on the crowd, and/or called int he National Guard?Guns are no longer an effective means of political change or resistance in the US, or the rest of the First World.Nowadays you stop tyranny in the voting booth and the courtroom. Personally, I like that method better anyway - fewer people wind up dead.

Ahh, so people like you, Crash and faith are going to fight the US government (which would be you fighting the US Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force. Good luck)? You're going to wait until so many of your rights are stripped away that the government takes arm against it's own citizens? You realize 1984 was a ficticious book, not a documentary, right? If you are waiting until they round you up for the gulags, it's too late. Your little arsenal is no match for the US military now, what use do you think it will be with all the money that is poured into the war machine in the future?

Can the government round up the totality of its citizens? Do you really think everyone in the armed forces and the police are going to take up arms against their own citizens? Some probably will but not all.

People talk as if the Second Amendment is the only part of the constitution that deals with bearing arms. It isn't. See Message 1:

quote:

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http://congressionalconstitutioncaucus-garr.../...nstitution

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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.

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Article I Section 8 - The Congress shall have Power ...

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To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

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To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

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Article II Section 2 - The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, ...

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Amendment II - A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

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The state militias are separate from the armed forces, they are trained by the state with officers appointed by the states, and they are armed by congress.The National Guard meets these criteria, so if you want to carry military grade weapons you can join the National Guard, get proper training, discipline and psychological evaluations.Three people with their own automatic weapons is not a militia under the terms of the Constitution.Thirty people with their own automatic weapons is not a militia under the terms of the Constitution.Three hundred people with their own automatic weapons is not a militia under the terms of the Constitution.And if they attacked a federal facility under the impression they were defending their freedom, they would be regarded as an insurrection, with the National Guard legally and constitutionally bound to suppress. I agree. It is also not necessarily a freedom for people of unsound mind (whether a temporary or permanent condition), and this is the major concern when we come to mass killings.If you want to use military grade arms, then join the National Guard and get the training, discipline, and psychological evaluations that ensure that you are of sound mind and know how to properly use the equipment.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : subt

Are you enjoying your misrepresentation of your opponents? I know I am - it's always entertaining to watch you have a meltdown into Founding-Father-Worship hysterics. Hey, aren't you supposed to be a monotheist? Why do you keep worshiping the Founders?And why do you only prop them up on an altar when you agree with them? I mean, you don't have this same reaction when we bring out Founder quotes about how America is not a Christian nation, or just about anything Jefferson said.But seriously, nobody is saying that the Founders were morons, or that all of their work should be thrown out. They were smart men, but they were just men, and they were the product of their times. Re-evaluation is not the same as throwing it all out - it just means that sometimes, as with slavery or women's suffrage, we do find ways to improve upon what the Founders set down...and that's why they included the mechanism for change, because even they acknowledged their fallibility.It's really entertaining that you get so worked up in your agreement with the Founding Fathers that you disagree with them. It's like you talk about how wonderful and awesome and practically God-inspired they were, and then in the same breath say something that runs counter to everything they did.

You are talking about rather small scale protests. I am talking about nationwide protest with not just a minority of citizens involved.
Even though the presence of citizens pointing guns would indeed invoke a massacre, the massacre would not go unnoticed by the rest of the citizenry who actually gave a damn. I would unless an even more pronounced nationwide protest and eventually a violent and bloody revolution.

Actually we still have well regulated state militias -- they are the state National Guard units, highly trained and supplied by congress with military grade arms.So one can always join the National Guard.Enjoy