The US paradox

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Why hasn't the right for civilians to bear arms been recognised by other attempts to "guard rights"? It is in the English Bill of Rights (the father of the American equivalent) but gun ownership is now tightly controlled- the original "right" was merely ensuring that Catholics weren't the only ones allowed to access guns. It isn't in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I don't doubt that adrenaline and determination could do wonders, but mere firearms would struggle against armed helicopters or smart bombs. This hypothetical force has either already defeated the US Army, or it IS the US Army. That means it has access to incredible technology. I don't think it makes the slightest difference whether people own guns in such a situation.

Clearly, not every American does agree with the constitution.

Religion does not have a monopoly on absolute morality. In any case, a reasoned debate, considering Kantian ethics, utilitarianism and Virtue, or any other ethical theories that are preferred, and then compromising between the different conclusions these theories tend to reach, will reach a more moral conclusion than appealing to "what's in the constitution".

How other nations handle human rights isn't relevant to how we handle them.

The UN has no credibility when it comes to human rights. They only care about human rights when it suits their goals. We don't participate in the UN for the sake of defining human rights. Like all the other members, we participate in the UN in order to manipulate other nations.


You have some misconceptions about warfare. Small arms are a significant factor and would be even in a nuclear exchange.


The constitution doesn't take away rights -- it protects them. Anyone who disagrees with a document that tries to protect freedoms rather than take them away doesn't deserve to live here.


This has nothing to do with the answer I gave your question. I don't care where you get your morality. My point was that it's a subjective benchmark. Your idea of morals is not the same as mine.

Your original question was:

Was this actually a question or were you simply stating indirectly that you don't like how we do things?

well there is that so it is mentioned

as for the UN, an organization of tin pot dictators has no credibility to talk about human rights

None of this is relevant to our own constitution tho.

Would that argument stack up if China tried to use it? Or Iran? Or North Korea?

Even in a nuclear exchange?

Given how little use they were in the only nuclear exchange we've had so far, I don't think there's any reason to believe that statement.

Some people might (do) think that some of the rights it protects shouldn't be considered rights at all.

Let's say the the constitution protected the right to keep slaves. Would you "not deserve" to live in a country if you disagreed with that "freedom"? Are you against freedom?

Perhaps people think that freedom FROM guns is more important than freedom TO OWN a gun.

It does. You said secular morality was subjective. I said it didn't have to be. Look up Kantian Ethics. Look up Natural Law (ignoring the theological ramblings and the insistence on worship, Aquinas maintained that you didn't have to make any metaphysical commitments to follow Natural Law).

Despite that, what's the problem with subjectivity?

Yes, that was actually a question.

Kinda like this thread, isn't gun control just a diversion to what happened in Conn. Makes us feel good during a time when we fell bad. The gun control debate is what it is, it's important and complicated, and actually pretty boring getting into the details. It definitely takes you far away from mass murder, and the events leading up to the act of murder, the person, their life, etc....

It's like a pacifier being shoved into our mouths, "forget about what happened in Conneticut, lets talk about gun control.....that's what it feels like to me.


How about every school in America should be organizing retired police officers to offer security for their neighborhood school. They can carry weapons, they're trained and have experience, no need to pay benefits, and maybe these guys and gals will do it for free, or have the PTA cover their operating costs. You can prevent these mass murders fully, but you can potentially reduce the amount of violence, maybe deter it.

Generally, retired police officers are retired for a reason.

Yes. China, Iran, and North Korea don't care one bit how we define human rights. We may feel that how we define human rights should affect them, but it doesn't unless we instigate conflict.


We didn't invade them.


I'm not going to waste my time on this kind of argument. It's like saying that you can have an individual right to kill anyone you want. It has nothing to do with our constitution. This is why I challenged your initial question. This is combative, not intelligent discourse.



No, I did not say that secular morality was subjective. I said that morality was subjective. In saying that morality is more questionable now that religion is waning, I implied that religion historically provided a benchmark for this country.

In language, we use a dictionary as a benchmark. If we stopped producing dictionaries, we would have increasingly varying opinions on definitions.

I'm not religious, but I won't discount the value of religion for setting moral standards any more than I will discount the value of a dictionary for providing definitions.


Again, combative. It should be abundantly clear why subjectivity isn't acceptable when defining rules for a society.


Did you understand the answer? Your diversion to all these side arguments is suggesting that either you didn't understand it or you don't care.

The primary reason for retirement of police officers in the US is completion of the 20 year requirement. That's not a good reason to discount them as potential security personnel.

Wait, after 20 years you can do nothing and still get half pay? And people say Britain is socialist.

I would suggest that if somebody accepts that deal, they are less likely to be willing to start working again.

China, North Korea and Iran might not care how other countries define human rights. That doesn't mean that there aren't human rights abuses in these countries.

Ok, I'll give you that small arms could play a role if the opposing army had troops stationed in an area due to invasion and so didn't want to nuke it. I don't think the American people could hold off an invasion that had got past the army etc., though guerilla warfare would be an option. Having said that, if you had to resort to guerilla warfare then really you've already lost, quality of life would drop and the invaders would effectively be ruling. Of course, this is idle speculation.

My use of reductio ad absurdum was merely to illustrate that you can't look to an absolute standard list to tell you what to do (this is the Euthypro dilemma- look it up if you are not familiar as that will help explain where I am coming from). You claimed that the constitution "protects freedoms" and implied that to oppose it was to oppose freedom, I turned that argument around to expose that. If you don't think that is intelligent discourse, we'll have to disagree. Again: could it not be argued that freedom FROM guns is more important than freedom to OWN a gun? Much like freedom of/from religion.

Morality isn't necessarily subjective. Again, I cite Kantian ethics as a possible absolutist ethical theory.

Again, does there have to be anything wrong with subjectivity? Could we not have an acknowledgement that things are subjective, then find a consensus on which we agree to base our laws? Of course, as the consensus changed, so would the laws, and we would not keep laws on the basis of past consensus.

If you don't want laws to be based on attempts to be moral, what do you want laws to be based on? If you are going to say "the constitution", then pretend we don't have the constitution and you have been tasked with writing it- how would you determine what to include?

As for whether I understood your answer to my question: I believe your answer was either "The constitution is the baseline for our legal system. The idea is that we all agree to it." The first part of that answer is circular ("we base our legal system on the constitution because that is the baseline for our legal system.") and the second part is demonstrably false (there are Americans who want the second amendment repealed).
Alternatively, your answer may have been "The constitution enumerates "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as unalienable rights." But that doesn't mean that everything it contains must be correct. It also doesn't demarcate the constitution from dozens of similar documents (like the English Bill of Rights or the Universal Declaration). Besides, isn't the recognition of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" a moral statement of sorts?

Just make a new amendment that says that the whole gun thing was crazy and not really an inalienable right.

Our right to life in inalianable and absolute. Self defense is an unconditional right. If that be the case than we must be permitted the means of implementing that right. So we should have the right to bear weapons of self defense. That includes firearms Or a phasor one can set to stun.

ruveyn

Ah, so you are pro free health care. I see.

Who is anti-health care? Christian Scientists maybe

The second amendment didn't really mention personal defense, sport or hunting. It was talking about tyranny.

It also didn't specify that you could have your own private arsenal.

You could argue that you should be able to lay land mines around your house, and keep mortars, RPGs, heavy artillery, some chemical weapons, and possibly a small nuclear warhead.

To guard against tyranny and self defense no less.

However none of that was mentioned it simply said you had a right to have some arms, not lots of arms, just arms. It doesn't preclude restrictions. Pitchfork and musket sort of thing.

In any event we are talking about a historical document, without a pinch of salt. The forefather's made some clever choices, but they were not immune from stupidity, and the also didn't anticipate everything.

Also realistically what are we talking about with regard to tyranny, it has happened time and again that certain groups don't like the government, so they try it on. But really they are no better, they just happen to think they are justified.

If it really does have come to it, and there is broad consensus for an uprising the warfare is asymmetric not conventional anyway. It is to do with subterfuge, sabotage, wasting resources. It doesn't take much to cause instability, if there is consensus.

In reality the gun ownership has nothing whatsoever to do with this.

Again, this has nothing to do with how the US defines human rights.


You don't have to give me anything. I know how small arms are used in warfare. It's part of my job to know how weapons are used in warfare. There are no weapons available today that eliminate the necessity of men on the ground with small arms.


Trying to declare freedom from objects or viewpoints is unintelligent. That opposes the meaning of freedom.

You're not exposing anything. You're sounding more and more like you don't listen and you don't understand half of what you say.


I don't think you understand the meaning of subjective.


Yes, this is how we got the constitution, which includes facilities for changing it. However, it does not function based on concensus. It functions based on defined majorities. Concensus doesn't scale.


Where did I say that laws shouldn't be based on attempts to be moral? The constitution establishes a baseline of morality.


I didn't say "we base our legal system on the constitution because that is the baseline for our legal system". We base our legal system on the constitution because that's what we all agreed to use as a basis when we founded this country.

Our constitution doesn't care about you or the brits or the UN. It was written for us, not for you.

free health care?