Finally, a solution to the 2nd Amendment

[Smuckatelli]

....the answer to extremism on both sides

I still feel guilty for throwing snowballs at him...... :'(

[LongBlade]

....the answer to extremism on both sides

I still feel guilty for throwing snowballs at him...... :'(

Who Windy? He probably deserved it.

[Smuckatelli]

Who Windy? He probably deserved it.

No, Fred, he used to drive in his VW Beetle to the station where he filmed his show every morning. Just so happened to be right next to the smoking area at our high school. We would pelt the car with snowballs and try to escape before the school Prefect would catch us and beat the poop out of us.....

[LongBlade]

Who Windy? He probably deserved it.

No, Fred, he used to drive in his VW Beetle to the station where he filmed his show every morning. Just so happened to be right next to the smoking area at our high school. We would pelt the car with snowballs and try to escape before the school Prefect would catch us and beat the poop out of us.....

Wish I'd been there.

To help the Prefect. ;)

[son_of_montfort]

You are going to Hell. Pelting Mr. Rogers with snowballs... what a degenerate!

[LongBlade]

You are going to Hell. Pelting Mr. Rogers with snowballs... what a degenerate!

I was was nerdy enough to have been rather sore those boys were breaking the rules.

[Smuckatelli]

Wish I'd been there.

To help the Prefect. ;)

He didn't need help, he was a Chosen Reservoir bubba, we also weren't allowed to wear clip on ties......do the math... 8)

There where many days that the prep school boys left the school with black eyes, bloody noses, and lumps on their heads without getting in a fight.

[LongBlade]

Wish I'd been there.

To help the Prefect. ;)

He didn't need help, he was a Chosen Reservoir bubba, we also weren't allowed to wear clip on ties......do the math... 8)

There where many days that the prep school boys left the school with black eyes, bloody noses, and lumps on their heads without getting in a fight.

I didn't mean help him beat you - I was a wimp.

I just mean help him catch you. :p

[Smuckatelli]

You are going to Hell. Pelting Mr. Rogers with snowballs... what a degenerate!

No, we went to confession...eveything is a okay we also had catechetics and no girls so no BC issues... :)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Catholic_High_School_(Pittsburgh,_Pennsylvania)

[Windigo]

Korean War Vets are absolutely a breed apart. Giants among a group of giants.

[Smuckatelli]

Not sure if this is going to work

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=40.446606&lon=-79.945595&z=19&r=0&src=msl

North of the football field you have the main building running east to west on 5th avenue. On the east side of that building was the smoking area. Just east of that; across the driveway and small strip of grass you have WQED's parking lot...that is were Fred used to park his beetle.

[Jarhead0331]

Toonces...seems like you are confused about the meaning of the term "well-regulated militia," and the term "the People," as used in the Constitution. 

The Second Amendment was enacted to protect the people from the tyranny of an overbearing government PERIOD. The inalienable right of individuals to keep and bear arms as a check on a tyrannical government predates the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  The term "well-regulated" meant something completely different two centuries ago.  Today, one might define it as "controlled,""limited," or "restricted".  Two hundred years ago it meant "having proper kit and provisions" or in the case of objects or machinery, "properly maintained and kept in good repair." 

The militia issue was extensively debated during the 1787-89 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and today has sadly been ignored by both sides in this issue.  Founder George Mason explicitly wished to have it clearly spelled out that the militia was "of the whole people," in effect, a "general militia" that was affirmed in the Second Amendment and the 1792 militia Act.  Mason and his supporters feared the development of "special militias".  Special militias are nothing more than state-sanctioned paramilitary groups--witness the German Nazi SA and its successor the SS as well as the Italian Fascist "Blackshirts." In those cases, Nazi/Fascist Party membership was strictly required to join them, as well as to legally own a firearm of any kind in either of those countries at the time.  These two groups were little different than standing armies.  The difference is that they were created and used by the German and Italian governments to bypass any laws against using the military domestically against the people (or in the absence of such laws, to forestall the military's unwillingness to do so)—in order to crush dissent and terrorize opponents.  Distressingly, we now have a lot of special militias in the USA—the Secret Service, FBI, BATF, DEA, IRS, the National Guard and today's "near federalized" status of most state and local police departments--to name but a few. 

One could make the argument that the above are all unconstitutional, if the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment and the 1792 militia Act is correct. George Mason's fears about them were well placed.  Even the courts are beginning to revive this long forgotten but crucial "general vs. special" militia distinction. The 1990 Supreme Court case Perpich vs. Department of Defense is a case in point. Then Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich claimed the DoD violated the Constitution when it ordered the Minnesota National Guard (which he claimed was the 'state militia') to duty outside the state without his consent or that of the state legislature. The Supreme Court ruled against Perpich. It held the National Guard is an integral component of the US Army Reserve system (it has been since 1916). It further supported its ruling by specifying the difference between the "special militia" (in this case the Minnesota Guard) instead of the "general militia" (citizens with privately procured and owned arms) as expressed in the 2nd Amendment. Also in 1990 the Court in another case affirmed the definition of"the people" expressed in the Bill of Rights as meaning individual persons, not a group. So the statist left has its "militia" and the rest of us have ours.  No wonder so many of them can't free themselves from the false but mesmerizing aura of the "militia=National Guard" equation. The statist left doesn't want to because it's interested not in the right of individuals to protect their lives and liberty against a tyrannical federal government, but in giving that tyrannical federal government a blank check, figuratively and literally, to indulge in state-sponsored terror under the tautological trinity of "crime prevention," "anti-terrorism" and "national security."

[Jarhead0331]

With that being said, what sidearm do you guys use; the 1911 or the M-9?

I'm trying to figureout what Jarhead is going to give her for her High School graduation present in June.

I know a guy on the Navy pistol marksmanship team who says they are using 1911s.  Lucky bastage.

i guess that makes my gift shopping dilemma somewhat easier.

[LongBlade]

Toonces...seems like you are confused about the meaning of the term "well-regulated militia," and the term "the People," as used in the Constitution. 

The Second Amendment was enacted to protect the people from the tyranny of an overbearing government PERIOD. The inalienable right of individuals to keep and bear arms as a check on a tyrannical government predates the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  The term "well-regulated" meant something completely different two centuries ago.  Today, one might define it as "controlled,""limited," or "restricted".  Two hundred years ago it meant "having proper kit and provisions" or in the case of objects or machinery, "properly maintained and kept in good repair." 

The militia issue was extensively debated during the 1787-89 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and today has sadly been ignored by both sides in this issue.  Founder George Mason explicitly wished to have it clearly spelled out that the militia was "of the whole people," in effect, a "general militia" that was affirmed in the Second Amendment and the 1792 militia Act.  Mason and his supporters feared the development of "special militias".  Special militias are nothing more than state-sanctioned paramilitary groups--witness the German Nazi SA and its successor the SS as well as the Italian Fascist "Blackshirts." In those cases, Nazi/Fascist Party membership was strictly required to join them, as well as to legally own a firearm of any kind in either of those countries at the time.  These two groups were little different than standing armies.  The difference is that they were created and used by the German and Italian governments to bypass any laws against using the military domestically against the people (or in the absence of such laws, to forestall the military's unwillingness to do so)—in order to crush dissent and terrorize opponents.  Distressingly, we now have a lot of special militias in the USA—the Secret Service, FBI, BATF, DEA, IRS, the National Guard and today's "near federalized" status of most state and local police departments--to name but a few. 

One could make the argument that the above are all unconstitutional, if the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment and the 1792 militia Act is correct. George Mason's fears about them were well placed.  Even the courts are beginning to revive this long forgotten but crucial "general vs. special" militia distinction. The 1990 Supreme Court case Perpich vs. Department of Defense is a case in point. Then Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich claimed the DoD violated the Constitution when it ordered the Minnesota National Guard (which he claimed was the 'state militia') to duty outside the state without his consent or that of the state legislature. The Supreme Court ruled against Perpich. It held the National Guard is an integral component of the US Army Reserve system (it has been since 1916). It further supported its ruling by specifying the difference between the "special militia" (in this case the Minnesota Guard) instead of the "general militia" (citizens with privately procured and owned arms) as expressed in the 2nd Amendment. Also in 1990 the Court in another case affirmed the definition of"the people" expressed in the Bill of Rights as meaning individual persons, not a group. So the statist left has its "militia" and the rest of us have ours.  No wonder so many of them can't free themselves from the false but mesmerizing aura of the "militia=National Guard" equation. The statist left doesn't want to because it's interested not in the right of individuals to protect their lives and liberty against a tyrannical federal government, but in giving that tyrannical federal government a blank check, figuratively and literally, to indulge in state-sponsored terror under the tautological trinity of "crime prevention," "anti-terrorism" and "national security."

Anyone not see this coming? :)

[Jarhead0331]

^When you have the same argument over and over and over again, it just sort of becomes automatic.  My approach to 2nd Amendment intellectual combat has been refined like L.I.N.E.  I attack autonomically.