[lit-ideas] Re: Feeling Safe isn't safe
- From: "Paul Stone" <pastone@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 11:52:22 -0400
Phil Enns succinctly summed up Lawrence's argument
"And, no, the government has no right to restrict our right to keep and bear
arms. ... Some of us are babies who shouldn't be allowed to hold a gun."
Assertion 1: Government has no right to restrict the right to keep and
bear
arms.
Assertion 2: Government can restrict some people from keeping and bearing
arms.
and then:
Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You keep embracing your quibble. It's annoying. You think we must turn
off
our brains in order to keep and bear arms? We must let babies and
lunatics
have them or we give up our rights? Stop!
PS: How is this a quibble? If you shouldn't be able to restrict anyone and
then a few words later, you are talking about restricting someone, there
seems to be a distinct logical proglem with that.
So... if you agree that babies, lunatics, felons shouldn't have access to
weapons, why not just add "the average, klutzy, slack-jawed homeowner"? Why
not restrict people after a certain age? Why not preventatively outlaw
assault weapons for all but the actual people who "need" them, SWAT, Army
etc. ? Why not have [gasp] gunlaws?
The answer is simple "because goddammit, I have a right to keep and bear
arms". Well. you either do or you don't.
Going back to the religious parallel I made in an earlier post, I'm reminded
of George Carlin's early work on "Class Clown" when he's talking about how
silly the Catholic Religion seemed to him in "Special Dispensation":
"I think what made me most upset was that my church would keep changing the
rules: This law is eternal, except for this weekend! SPECIAL DISPENSATION --
magic words. Yeah, like eating meat on Friday is a sin, except for the
people in Philadelphia, they were number one in the scrap iron drive
YAY!!!...and of course I've been gone for a long time now and it's not even
a sin to eat meat on a Friday anymore. But I bet ya there are still guys in
Hell doing time on a meat rap... I thought it was retroactive? I just had a
baloney sandwich"
Any way... apart from being entertaining (to some people), I quote this
(probably slightly inaccurately, but I'm getting old enough to perhaps be
forbidden to own a handgun) to show that with something so damned 'secure'
as the 2nd ammendment -- or religion -- and especially the way you cling to
it, you can't just put little changes in it without changing the spirit of
it. As soon as you go to point TWO -- some need to be restricted -- you have
violated the spirit of the ammendment and then all bets are off and you must
start seriously admitting that maybe it's not a good thing for a WHOLE lot
of people to have guns. I don't see how you can call tha a "quibble."
paul
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