Brest damn pro-gun editorial ever

I didn't really want to post this when it came out. The gun debate was dying down so it seemed unnecessary, but read it. It explains, in depth, just how progressives treat us conservatives.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/opinion/article_1c144792-b36d-11e2-8ac6-001a4bcf887a.html?TNNoMobile

The guy is a hypocrite. He spends all that time on his high horse, criticizing 'liberals' for hyperbole, then turns around and labels all liberals and all gun control advocates as 'anti-gunners' and equates us with the worst voices of that group (even after he passes off the equivalent on his side of the debate as fringe). He criticizes 'liberals' for poisoning the debate by labeling his crowd stupid, then turns around and uses the same epitaph for anyone who advocates any form of restriction on firearm ownership.

The founding fathers of this country didn't necessarily think armed rebellion against the Federal government was an acceptable thing. If you think so, I recommend you look into the Whiskey Rebellion (the rebels submitted when confronted, however the point being that then President Washington himself led an army against the rebels). Jefferson and a few others thought otherwise, however it doesn't appear that that was a common view. If anything, the Second Amendment is a defense of well armed and prepared state militias, the very thing Washington called upon to crush the rebellion!

All I can say is the author of that column is a hack and a hypocrite who lacks the ability to accept anything more complex than a bi-model distribution of views. You're either with him or you want to ban all guns. You're either a gun owning, America loving conservative or a lowly, evil liberal scheming to disarm the country. Never mind the fact the debate is in the middle and most views held on both sides are somewhere in the gray area he refuses to acknowledge. He, and those like him on both sides of the topic, are the reason why we cant have a healthy debate.

You do realize I was called a Nazi inside of LAX. I bought a Guns and Ammo magazine. I wasn't just one person either. The venom most progressives, and yes they are progressives and not liberals(you have seen me defend liberals), show towards a conservative is astonishing. Hell, I even caught crap from a right wing progressive right here on the forum. Knowing this, why blame the author for being pissed. It was a vent editorial that he wrote on his way out the door and it expresses my feelings towards them very accurately. I do agree that he mislabels them as liberals. Most today do.

Why would the framers treat one amendment different than the others??? They are written the same.

Regulated doesn't mean the same today, as it meant then....basically meant well practiced.

Militia doesn't mean the same today, as it meant then. The best word for it now is.....I dunno.....levy.

Jefferson said it best:

"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption--a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Address, 1801

"I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our present federal Constitution, according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the States, that in which it was advocated by its friends, and not that which its enemies apprehended, who therefore became its enemies." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799.

Basically, you can't think that you can interpret the document without realizing the frame of mind of the founders at the time. You must also realize that at the time, most ordinance, like cannon and warships, was privately owned and they wanted it that way. They did not want the overly large military we see today. They definitely did not want para-military police forces. They wanted the free men to resist these things. They wanted us to first used means like free speech and protest as well as representation in government.

Every single part of the Bill of Rights is for one thing and one thing only. It isn't to give us rights, those we are born with. It is to ensure that our government does not abuse its people. If one cannot protect one amendment as strongly as one protects the others, than that individual has to expect tyranny. We may not like freedom of religion when we deal with people like WBC, but we have to defend them. We may not like the idea of terrorists getting their day in court, but we have to defend them. We may not like those scary looking rifles, but we have to defend them. It is all supremely important.