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[Thestarider]

4 minutes ago, eagleb1 said:

I was curious about the CPRC which I assume is the Crime Prevention Research Center.  One look at their website and it's clear what their bias is.  Mass killings get attention, but don't define the total level of deaths due to guns.

I was suspicious of the statistics shown because it conflicted with what I understand happened in Australia after a horrendous mass shooting. You can read about it here: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/australia-gun-control/541710/

Here is a comparison of gun death rates from CBS (I know ----  "fake news"): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-u-s-gun-deaths-compare-to-other-countries/

I agree with you Eagle I am not in dispute here. Now if you would please do the research that shows what race is doing most of the gun killings ? And don't call me racist, as I am not. Just facts

[eagleb1]

4 minutes ago, Thestarider said:

I agree with you Eagle I am not in dispute here. Now if you would please do the research that shows what race is doing most of the gun killings ? And don't call me racist, as I am not. Just facts

Sadly, you are right about the racial element, but, still, they have to have the guns to do the killing.  Years ago, a national magazine (Time?) posted the pictures of everyone who had died from guns in a particular week.  The images were dramatic and sickening. 

There is a truism in statistics --- correlation doesn't prove causation.  I don't know much of it is due to poverty or living conditions prevalent among racial groups.

[Thestarider]

Crime and Guns

Basic to the debates on gun control is the fact that most violent crime is committed by repeat offenders.  Dealing with recidivism is key to solving violence.

• 71% of gunshot victims had previous arrest records.
• 64% had been convicted of a crime.
• Each had an average of 11 prior arrests. ^{1, 2}
• 63% of victims had criminal histories and 73% of that group knew their assailant (twice as often as victims without criminal histories). ³
• 74% of homicides during the commission of a felony involve guns. ⁴

Most gun violence is between criminals. This should be the public policy focus.

Myth: Criminals buy guns at gun stores and gun shows

Fact: One study ⁵of adult offenders living in Chicago or nearby determined that criminals obtain most of their guns through their social network and personal connections. Rarely is the proximate source either direct purchase from a gun store, or even theft. This agrees with other, broader studies of incarcerated felons.

Fact: Another city-wide study, ⁶ this one in Pittsburgh, showed that 80% of people illegally carrying guns were prohibited from possessing guns, and that a minimum of 30% of the guns were stolen.

Fact: Other common arrangements include sharing guns and holding guns for others. ⁷

Myth: Guns are not a good deterrent to crime

Fact: Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year or 6,849 every day. ⁸ Most often, the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.

Fact: Property crime rates are dropping (especially burglaries). The chart shows the legal handgun supply in America (mainly in civilian hands) relative to the property crime rate. ⁹

Fact: Every year 400,000  life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.

Fact: 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. ¹⁰

Fact: Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot. ¹¹

Fact: 59% of the burglaries in Britain, which has tough gun control laws, are “hot burglaries” ¹² which are burglaries committed while the home is occupied by the owner/renter. By contrast, the U.S., with more lenient gun control laws, has a “hot burglary” rate of only 13%. ¹³

Fact: Washington DC has essentially banned gun ownership since 1976 ¹⁴ and has a murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000. Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, gun ownership is less restricted. There, the murder rate is just 1.6 per 100,000, less than three percent of the Washington, DC rate. ¹⁵

Fact: 26% of all retail businesses report keeping a gun on the premises for crime control. ¹⁶

Fact: In 1982, Kennesaw, GA passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate dropped 89% the following year. ¹⁷

Fact: A survey of felons revealed the following: ¹⁸

• 74% of felons agreed that, “One reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime.”
• 57% of felons polled agreed, “Criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”

Myth: Private guns are used to commit violent crimes

Fact: 90% of all violent crimes in the U.S. do not involve firearms of any type. ¹⁹

Fact: Even in crimes where the offender possessed a gun during the commission of the crime, 83% did not use or threaten to use the gun. ²⁰

Fact: Fewer than 1% of firearms will ever be used in the commission of a crime. ²¹

Fact: Two-thirds of the people who die each year from gunfire are criminals being shot by other criminals. ²²

Fact: Cincinnati’s review of their gang problem revealed that 74% of homicides were committed by less than 1% of the population. ²³

Fact: 92% of gang murders are committed with guns. ²⁴ Gangs are responsible for between 48% and 90% of all violent crimes. ²⁵

Fact: Most gun crimes are gang related, and as such are big-city issues. In fact, if mayors in larger cities were more diligent about controlling gang warfare, state and nationwide gun violence rates would fall dramatically.

Myth: 40% of Americans have been or personally know a gun violence victim

Fact: This data was from an unpublished survey conducted by a political research organization. Their own footnote reads “Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the New Venture Fund (Aug. 2011). Note, this is not publicly available data.” ²⁶

Myth: Interstate transportation of guns defeats local gun control

Fact: The BATF reports that the average age of a traced gun is 11 years ²⁷, meaning that most guns moving from state to state were transported when legal owners moved.

Fact: Fewer than 5% of traced guns in California, many of which were not crime guns, came from neighboring Nevada and Arizona. ²⁸

Myth: High-capacity, semi-automatics are preferred by criminals

Fact: The use of semi-automatic handguns in crimes is slightly lower than the ratio of semi-automatic handguns owned by private citizens. Any increase in style and capacity simply reflects the overall supply of the various types of firearms. ²⁹

Myth: Banning “Saturday Night Specials” reduces crime

Fact: This was the conclusion of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Policy and Research – and it is wrong. They studied firearm homicide rates from Maryland after passage of a “Saturday Night Special” ban in 1998. It seems the firearm homicide rate has not subsided and remained between 68-94% higher than the national average through 2008. ³⁰

Selected Gun Facts Reading

Fact: Even banning guns does not slow down criminals. In the U.K., where private ownership of firearms is practically forbidden, criminals have and use guns regularly, and even build their own. One enterprising fellow converted 170 starter pistols to functioning firearms and sold them to gangs. Hundreds of such underground gun factories have been established, contributing to a 35% jump in gun violence. ³¹

Myth: Criminals prefer “Saturday Night Specials” ³²

Fact: “Saturday Night Specials” were used in fewer than 3% of crimes involving guns. ³³

Fact: Fewer than 2% of all “Saturday Night Specials” made are used in crimes.

Fact: “What was available was the overriding factor in weapon choice [by criminals].” ³⁴

Myth: Gun shows are supermarkets for criminals

Fact: Only 0.7% of convicts bought their firearms at gun shows. 39.2% obtained them from illegal street dealers. ³⁵

Fact: Fewer than 1% of “crime guns” were obtained at gun shows. ³⁶ This is a reduction from a 1997 study that found 2% of guns used in criminal offenses were purchased at gun shows. ³⁷

Fact: The FBI concluded in one study that no firearms acquired at gun shows were used to kill police. “In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study were obtained from gun shows.” ³⁸

Fact: Only 5% of metropolitan police departments believe gun shows are a problem. ³⁹

Fact: Only 3.5% of youthful offenders reported that they obtained their last handgun at a gun show. ⁴⁰

Fact: 93% of guns used in crimes are obtained illegally (i.e., not at gun stores or gun shows). ⁴¹

Fact: At most, 14% of all firearms traced in investigations were purchased at gun shows. ⁴² But this includes all firearms that the police traced, whether or not they were used in crimes, which overstates the acquisition rate.

Fact: Gun dealers are federally licensed. They are bound to stringent rules for sales that apply equally whether they are selling  firearms from a storefront or a gun show. ⁴³

Fact: Most crime guns are either bought off the street from illegal sources (39.2%) or through straw-man purchases by family members or friends (39.6%). ⁴⁴

Myth: All four guns used at Columbine were bought at gun shows

Fact: Each of the guns was either bought through an intermediary or someone who knew they were going to underage buyers. In all cases there was a purposeful criminal activity occurring and the actors knew they were breaking the law.

Myth: 25-50% of the vendors at most gun shows are “unlicensed dealers”

Fact: There is no such thing as an “unlicensed dealer,” except for people who buy and sell antique — curio — firearms as a hobby (not a business).

Fact: This 25-50% figure can only be achieved if you include those dealers not selling guns at these shows. These non-gun dealers include knife makers, ammunition dealers, accessories dealers, military artifact traders, clothing vendors, bumper-sticker sellers, and hobbyists. In short, 50% of the vendors at shows are not selling firearms at all!

Myth: Regulation of gun shows would reduce “straw sales”

Fact: The main study that makes this claim had no scientific means for determining what sales at the show were “straw sales.” Behaviors that Dr. Wintemute cited as “clear evidence” of a straw purchase were observational only and were more likely instances of more experienced acquaintances helping in a purchase decision. No attempts were made to verify that the sales in question were straw sales. ⁴⁵

Myth: Prison isn’t the answer to crime control

Fact: Why does crime rise when criminals are released from prison early? Because they are likely to commit more crimes. 67.5% were re-arrested for new felonies or serious misdemeanors within three years. Extrapolating, those released felons killed another 2,282 people. ⁴⁶

Fact: 45% of state prisoners were, at the time they committed their offense, under conditional supervision in the community – either on probation or on parole. ⁴⁷ Keeping violent convicts in prison would reduce violent crimes.

Fact: Homicide convicts serve a little more than half of their original sentences. ⁴⁸ Given that men tend to be less prone to violent behavior as they age, ⁴⁹ holding them for their full sentences would probably reduce violence significantly.

Fact: Los Angeles County saw repeat offender and re-arrest rates soar after authorities closed jails and released prisoners early. In less than three years, early release of prisoners in LA resulted in: ⁵⁰

• 15,775 rearrested convicts
• 1,443 assault charges ⁵¹
• 518 robbery charges
• 215 sex-offense charges
• 16 murder charges

Fact: In 1991, 13,200 homicides were committed by felons on parole or probation. For comparison sake, this is about half of the 1999 annual gun death totals (keep in mind that gun deaths fell from 1991 to 1999).

Myth: Waiting periods prevent rash crimes and reduce violent crime rates

Fact: The “time-to-crime” of a firearm is about 11 years, making it rare that a newly purchased firearm is used in a crime. ⁵²

Fact: The national five-day waiting period under the Brady Bill had no impact on murder or robbery. In fact, there was a slight increase in rape and aggravated assault, indicating no effective suppression of certain violent crimes. Thus, for two crime categories, a possible effect was to delay law-abiding citizens from getting a gun for protection. The risks were greatest for crimes against women. ⁵³

Fact: Comparing homicide rates in 18 states that had waiting periods and background checks before the Brady Bill with rates in the 32 states that had no comparable laws, the difference in change of homicide rates was “insignificant”. ⁵⁴

Myth: 86% of Americans, 82% of gun owners favor universal background checks

Fact: Those statistics came from a pair of surveys reported by gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, who has been caught stacking survey responses by polling left-of-center mailing lists.

Myth: Gun makers are selling plastic guns that slip through metal detectors

Fact: There is no such thing as a ‘plastic gun’. This myth started in 1980 ⁵⁵ when Glock began marketing a handgun with a polymer frame, not the entire firearm. Most of a Glock is metal (83% by weight) and detectable in common metal and x-ray detectors. “[D]espite a relatively common impression to the contrary, there is no current non-metal firearm not reasonably detectable by present technology and methods in use at our airports today, nor to my knowledge, is anyone on the threshold of developing such a firearm.” ⁵⁶

Incidentally, Glocks are one of the favorite handguns of police departments because it is lightweight, thanks to the polymer frame.

Myth: Machine guns ⁵⁷ are favored by criminals

Fact: In the drug-ridden Miami of 1980, fewer than 1% of all gun homicides were with machine guns. ⁵⁸

Fact: None of over 2,220 firearms recovered from crime scenes by the Minneapolis police in 1987-89 were machine guns. ⁵⁹

Fact: 0.7% of seized guns in Detroit in 1991-92 were machine guns. ⁶⁰

Myth: Corrupt dealers sell almost 60 percent of crime guns

Fact: Only 0.5% of the reported traces were for an original purchase of three years or less before the trace was conducted. ⁶¹ Thus, 99.5% of retailer sales had left their control long before the gun was traced (and many traces are not for crime guns).

Fact: The average “time to crime”, the time between the retail sale of a firearm and its use in a crime is eleven years. A firearm can change hands and travel far in six years.

[Guest]

Thestarider, you seem to be specialized in the right and glory of owning guns. Why is it so important to you that the U.S. citizens shall have guns with which they can shoot other people? If they did not have guns, they could not shoot.

[Thestarider]

Do you truly understand the 2nd amendment to the constitution of United States of America ? 

[SPYING 1]

14 minutes ago, kalevipoeg said:

Thestarider, you seem to be specialized in the right and glory of owning guns. Why is it so important to you that the U.S. citizens shall have guns with which they can shoot other people? If they did not have guns, they could not shoot.

If terrorist don't have guns, than they'll use, airplanes, trucks, bus, or fertilizer. 450 years ago there wasn't any guns & people were getting murdered 

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Thestarider said:

Do you truly understand the 2nd amendment to the constitution of United States of America ? 

Article [II] (Amendment 2 - Bearing Arms)

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.

No, of course I do not understand the right to keep and bear arms. And you don´t understand why I don´t understand. We are very far from each other.

 

 

[eagleb1]

1 hour ago, kalevipoeg said:

Article [II] (Amendment 2 - Bearing Arms)

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.

No, of course I do not understand the right to keep and bear arms. And you don´t understand why I don´t understand. We are very far from each other.

 

 

Gun lovers overlook that well regulated militia preamble.

[Thestarider]

13 minutes ago, eagleb1 said:

Gun lovers overlook that well regulated militia preamble.

What the supreme court wrote and determined:

Meaning of "well regulated militia"

The term "regulated" means "disciplined" or "trained".^[163] In Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that "[t]he adjective 'well-regulated' implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training."^[164]

In the year prior to the drafting of the Second Amendment, in Federalist No. 29 Alexander Hamilton wrote the following about "organizing", "disciplining", "arming", and "training" of the militia as specified in the enumerated powers:

If a well regulated militia be the most natural defence of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security ... confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority ... [but] reserving to the states ... the authority of training the militia ... A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss ... Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the People at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.^[76]

Justice Scalia, writing for the Court in Heller: "In Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 251 (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court construed the Second Amendment as protecting the 'natural right of self-defence' and therefore struck down a ban on carrying pistols openly. Its opinion perfectly captured the way in which the operative clause of the Second Amendment furthers the purpose announced in the prefatory clause, in continuity with the English right":

Nor is the right involved in this discussion less comprehensive or valuable: "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta! And Lexington, Concord, Camden, River Raisin, Sandusky, and the laurel-crowned field of New Orleans, plead eloquently for this interpretation! And the acquisition of Texas may be considered the full fruits of this great constitutional right.^[165]

Justice Stevens in dissent:

When each word in the text is given full effect, the Amendment is most naturally read to secure to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia. So far as appears, no more than that was contemplated by its drafters or is encompassed within its terms. Even if the meaning of the text were genuinely susceptible to more than one interpretation, the burden would remain on those advocating a departure from the purpose identified in the preamble and from settled law to come forward with persuasive new arguments or evidence. The textual analysis offered by respondent and embraced by the Court falls far short of sustaining that heavy burden. And the Court’s emphatic reliance on the claim "that the Second Amendment ... codified a pre-existing right," ante, at 19 [refers to p. 19 of the opinion], is of course beside the point because the right to keep and bear arms for service in a state militia was also a pre-existing right.^[166

The question of a collective right versus an individual right was progressively resolved in favor of the individual rights model, beginning with the Fifth Circuit ruling in United States v. Emerson (2001), along with the Supreme Court's rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago (2010). In Heller, the Supreme Court resolved any remaining circuit splits by ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.^[161] Although the Second Amendment is the only Constitutional amendment with a prefatory clause, such linguistic constructions were widely used elsewhere in the late eighteenth century.^[162]

 

[Thestarider]

Meaning of "keep and bear arms"

In Heller the majority rejected the view that the term "to bear arms" implies only the military use of arms:

Before addressing the verbs "keep" and "bear," we interpret their object: "Arms." The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity. Thus, the most natural reading of "keep Arms" in the Second Amendment is to "have weapons." At the time of the founding, as now, to "bear" meant to "carry." In numerous instances, "bear arms" was unambiguously used to refer to the carrying of weapons outside of an organized militia. Nine state constitutional provisions written in the 18th century or the first two decades of the 19th, which enshrined a right of citizens "bear arms in defense of themselves and the state" again, in the most analogous linguistic context – that "bear arms" was not limited to the carrying of arms in a militia. The phrase "bear Arms" also had at the time of the founding an idiomatic meaning that was significantly different from its natural meaning: "to serve as a soldier, do military service, fight" or "to wage war." But it unequivocally bore that idiomatic meaning only when followed by the preposition "against,". Every example given by petitioners’ amici for the idiomatic meaning of "bear arms" from the founding period either includes the preposition "against" or is not clearly idiomatic. In any event, the meaning of "bear arms" that petitioners and Justice Stevens propose is not even the (sometimes) idiomatic meaning. Rather, they manufacture a hybrid definition, whereby "bear arms" connotes the actual carrying of arms (and therefore is not really an idiom) but only in the service of an organized militia. No dictionary has ever adopted that definition, and we have been apprised of no source that indicates that it carried that meaning at the time of the founding. Worse still, the phrase "keep and bear Arms" would be incoherent. The word "Arms" would have two different meanings at once: "weapons" (as the object of "keep") and (as the object of "bear") one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying "He filled and kicked the bucket" to mean "He filled the bucket and died."^[167]

According to the syllabus prepared by the U.S. Supreme Court Reporter of Decisions,^[191] in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court held:^[191][192]

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. pp. 2–53.^[191][192]

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. pp. 2–22.^[191][192]

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The "militia" comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. pp. 22–28.^[191][192]

(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. pp. 28–30.^[191][192]

(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. pp. 30–32.^[191][192]

(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. pp. 32–47.^[191][192]

(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. pp. 47–54.^[191][192]

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller's holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those "in common use at the time" finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. pp. 54–56.^[191][192]

3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition – in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute – would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. pp. 56–64.^[192

[eagleb1]

4 hours ago, Thestarider said:

What the supreme court wrote and determined:

Meaning of "well regulated militia"

[...]

Justice Stevens in dissent:

When each word in the text is given full effect, the Amendment is most naturally read to secure to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia. So far as appears, no more than that was contemplated by its drafters or is encompassed within its terms. Even if the meaning of the text were genuinely susceptible to more than one interpretation, the burden would remain on those advocating a departure from the purpose identified in the preamble and from settled law to come forward with persuasive new arguments or evidence. The textual analysis offered by respondent and embraced by the Court falls far short of sustaining that heavy burden. And the Court’s emphatic reliance on the claim "that the Second Amendment ... codified a pre-existing right," ante, at 19 [refers to p. 19 of the opinion], is of course beside the point because the right to keep and bear arms for service in a state militia was also a pre-existing right.^[166

[...]

 

I'm not a lawyer but I respectfully disagree with many of Scalia's opinions.  In this case, Steven's dissent makes more sense to me.

The whole originalist concept is ridiculous when you consider two centuries of changes that couldn't possible have been anticipated by the founders.

[Foamy T. Squirrel]

The history of tyranny for does not merely live in the past.

Sadly, it often repeats itself when the citizens cede all their coercive rights to the coercive power of a centralized few.

In a Constitutional Republic, it is the citizens who are the ultimate sovereigns. If you do not have freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to publish, economic liberty and freedom to defend yourself, and you do as demanded by the government or mere gangsters, you are a slave, and if you are defenseless and considered a pest, then the Almighty Leaders will find some way to dispose of you.*

Remember --- In the United States, individual rights are not granted by the Government. Nor are they granted by the US Constitution. The Constitution only ACKNOWLEDGES these rights as being intrinsic to the natural state of human beings. Notice also, that the Constitution does not reference these rights as being granted by Allah, Jehova, Yahweh or the Cosmic Muffin.

*Foamy will bet 10 virtual pecans that none of you here know where the biggest concentration camp of World War II was located. Good luck with the historical research.