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another day, another shooting

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Ichinisan said:
Maybe you didn't realize...

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

See how it's worded? It's deliberately worded such that the right is NOT granted by the government.

Same with this "endowed by our creator" stuff. It was very intentional. Even the secular founders understood and agreed with the reasoning behind it.
Click to expand...

... but like, you realize those are just words and that the right is certainly granted/not granted by the governing body, right? As I said earlier, it conveys "spirit," but that's just emotional. The founders (and by extension the constitution) are granting the right by speaking it into existence.
 
TheVrolok said:
... but like, you realize those are just words and that the right is certainly granted/not granted by the governing body, right? As I said earlier, it conveys "spirit," but that's just emotional. The founders (and by extension the constitution) are granting the right by speaking it into existence.
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Sure. Whatever. I am answering woolfe9998's off-base criticism of Paladin3.


woolfe9998 said:
How is the right to own firearms a "natural" right? Did God give it to us, or was that evolution?
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Back to the actual thread topic -

According to several reports I read, the shooter held a dinner party a few days before the shooting at which he and 3 others watched films of US mass shootings. One of the 3 others videotaped outside the building while the shooting was taking place and the other 2 sat in a car nearby and watched.

It doesn't say if these 3 are among the missing Saudi students.

Looks a lot less like a one-off event and much more like a form of organized terrorism.

 
Why aren't the Democrats hammering Trump on the narrative Trump let a Saudi terrorist into the country and he killed US citizens. Trump was quick to absolve SA of blame even before we know all the facts. SA also had a US resident killed (Khashoggi) assassinated.

Remember when Trump hammered Mexicans when someone was killed by an undocumented. If this happened during the Obama administration Trump would repeat this narrative 500 times by now.

Democrats are really bad at playing hardball.
 
Jaskalas said:
Do we just hand foreign nationals guns in this country?

Is there no distinction, anyone can own any gun at any time?
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"He obtained a hunting license, which allows a non-immigrant on a non-immigrant visa to purchase a gun, the source said."

If that is a Florida thing, someone might want to look at revising it.

www.cnn.com

FBI presumes Pensacola base attack was an act of terror; no motive identified | CNN

At least one Saudi national filmed the deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed on Sunday.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
 
WelshBloke said:
Thats not an answer. That right is quite obviously given to you by the government.
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...with wording that specifically denies them the power to rescind it. They can't justify the amendment necessary without admitting that they want to take away a right the Constitution specifically says they have no right to take away... a right the Constitution officially admits exists regardless of what else the Constitution says... even if the Constitution itself did not exist.

Words or not: It's official. It binds. Ties their hands.
 
Fanatical Meat said:
Can someone please explain to me how a foreign National was able to go to a gun show and buy a gun from a dude........legally......
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Uhh... because he didn't?

No, really: He didn't.

He got a hunting license and used it to buy a gun from a gun shop. Not much different than big game hunters going to other countries for their "sports" in regard to how he obtained it. This wasn't some gun show loophole. If anything, it shows that licensing didn't stop it any more than licensing pilots stopped 9-11 or licensing drivers stopped the 2017 London Bridge attack.
 
Ichinisan said:
Rights are referred to as "natural" or "god-given" specifically because they are supposed to be implicit and universal - not granted by any government, institution, or individual. That wording was intentional. If governments define what our rights are, governments can take them away.
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Yet our rights were given to us by men, who wrote a legal document defining said rights. All such rights are repeatedly infringed on and/or taken away, or never given, depending on which part of the world you live in. The idea that such rights were conferred by a deity is a joke.

Natural rights is a fiction created by man. A useful fiction, perhaps. But a fiction nonetheless.
 
woolfe9998 said:
Yet our rights were given to us by men, who wrote a legal document defining said rights. All such rights are repeatedly infringed on and/or taken away, or never given, depending on which part of the world you live in. The idea that such rights were conferred by a deity is a joke.

Natural rights is a fiction created by man. A useful fiction, perhaps. But a fiction nonetheless.
Click to expand...
*woosh*
Regardless of whether or not you or I believe in a deity, the way it's written denies the government the authority to change that aspect in the same document that grants them any authority at all, so it isn't about whether or not God is real. It gives them no more authority to ban it than you or I, no matter what amendments they make. While they have more ability to change all that than you or I since, you know, they have the military and law enforcement at their disposal... that's precisely the kind of tyranny it was written to prevent by ensuring that the public could arm itself too if it ever came to that. The intent was clear.

The intent was not to say "God is real and you can't remove a God-given right because GOD!" so "God isn't real" has no bearing on whether or not they have the authority to just change it. The intent was to conclusively deny governing powers the authority to change that.
 
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CZroe said:
*woosh*
Regardless of whether or not you or I believe in a deity, the way it's written denies the government the authority to change that aspect in the same document that grants them any authority at all, so it isn't about whether or not God is real. It gives them no more authority to ban it than you or I, no matter what amendments they make. While they have more ability to change all that than you or I since, you know, they have the military and law enforcement at their disposal... that's precisely the kind of tyranny it was written to prevent by ensuring that the public could arm itself too if it ever came to that. The intent was clear.

The intent was not to say "God is real and you can't remove a God-given right because GOD!" so "God isn't real" has no bearing on whether or not they have the authority to just change it. The intent was to conclusively deny governing powers the authority to change that.
Click to expand...

Any "right" set forth in the Constitution can be changed by a process set forth in that same document. Tomorrow, we could in theory pass an amendment to nullify the First Amendment. The Weimar constitution granted certain rights. Hitler removed them with the stroke of a pen. What rights were conferred by man can be taken away by man.

Jefferson used the language of "creator" because it was how people spoke in that age. But he believed in a non-interventionist God, so it seems unlikely he believed that any rights were conferred by God. He probably used the word creator to emphasize what he saw as the importance of these legal rights. But it has created the impression among many people that somehow we're born with these rights and they can't be taken away, which is false.

And to illustrate that this discussion isn't about gun control per se, I would also point out that I disagree with liberals claiming that healthcare is a right. Because it isn't a right unless we decide to make it one, and we haven't done that yet.
 
CZroe said:
*woosh*
Regardless of whether or not you or I believe in a deity, the way it's written denies the government the authority to change that aspect in the same document that grants them any authority at all, so it isn't about whether or not God is real. It gives them no more authority to ban it than you or I, no matter what amendments they make. While they have more ability to change all that than you or I since, you know, they have the military and law enforcement at their disposal... that's precisely the kind of tyranny it was written to prevent by ensuring that the public could arm itself too if it ever came to that. The intent was clear.

The intent was not to say "God is real and you can't remove a God-given right because GOD!" so "God isn't real" has no bearing on whether or not they have the authority to just change it. The intent was to conclusively deny governing powers the authority to change that.
Click to expand...
whoosh yourself,

wolfe said it better than I can,

Any right granted by the constitution can be removed, or else we'd still have prohibition on the book. If enough federal and state legislatures vote to change the constitution it will be changed.
 
dawp said:
whoosh yourself,

wolfe said it better than I can,

Any right granted by the constitution can be removed, or else we'd still have prohibition on the book. If enough federal and state legislatures vote to change the constitution it will be changed.
Click to expand...

I didn't think this would even be a debate. Look no further than the Volstead Act
 
woolfe9998 said:
Any "right" set forth in the Constitution can be changed by a process set forth in that same document. Tomorrow, we could in theory pass an amendment to nullify the First Amendment. The Weimar constitution granted certain rights. Hitler removed them with the stroke of a pen. What rights were conferred by man can be taken away by man.

Jefferson used the language of "creator" because it was how people spoke in that age. But he believed in a non-interventionist God, so it seems unlikely he believed that any rights were conferred by God. He probably used the word creator to emphasize what he saw as the importance of these legal rights. But it has created the impression among many people that somehow we're born with these rights and they can't be taken away, which is false.

And to illustrate that this discussion isn't about gun control per se, I would also point out that I disagree with liberals claiming that healthcare is a right. Because it isn't a right unless we decide to make it one, and we haven't done that yet.
Click to expand...

Of course they "can be." They "can be" taken away by anyone with force no matter what the constitutions says. The difference here is that they can't be taken away with constitutional/legal means. The wording ensures it.

dawp said:
whoosh yourself,

wolfe said it better than I can,

Any right granted by the constitution can be removed, or else we'd still have prohibition on the book. If enough federal and state legislatures vote to change the constitution it will be changed.
Click to expand...

You're still not getting it. "Any right granted by the constitution can be removed" is no, duh, territory. You think a conquerer aiming to subjugate Americans and destroy the government is concerned with the Constitution? Of course not. The problem is that repeating "any right granted by the constitution can be removed" fails to address the other relevant point about this specific wording.

The relevance is for the people granted constitutional authorities (our government) explicitly defined in the Constitution. Just like prohibition, we established that they are allowed to add/remove constitutional rights through amendments... "words" that they have the Constitutional authority to change. That's the "duh" part again. The difference here is that the "God-given" wording doesn't allow for this one aspect to be legally changed by amendment. It isn't about whether or not God is real. The Constitution explicitly says neither it nor anyone amending it has the power to change that aspect, which is the important part everyone dismissing it as "just words" has failed to address.

Those "words" ensure that anyone changing them does so without constitutional authority just like a foreign conqueror or warlord since it grants them no authority to do so. It's a pretty significant impact on the feasibility of changing it legally and can't be dismissed with "just words" or "God's not real." The wording makes a reversal of that part an overreach of constitutional authority by defining it as beyond the purvue of government authorities/powers granted by the Constitution. To deny that this complicates any attempt to repeal the 2A just because "God isn't real" is just playing dumb. By attributing the right to "God," it expressly denies them and itself the authority to make such a change.

Bringing up Prohibition shows you're still ignoring how conferring the authority to God complicates things, which is the only thing I'm trying to convey here. Prohibition or drinking alcohol were never defined as God-given rights which makes it completely irrelevant to the argument about whether calling these "God-given rights" complicates anything.
 
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CZroe said:
Uhh... because he didn't?

No, really: He didn't.

He got a hunting license and used it to buy a gun from a gun shop. Not much different than big game hunters going to other countries for their "sports" in regard to how he obtained it. This wasn't some gun show loophole. If anything, it shows that licensing didn't stop it any more than licensing pilots stopped 9-11 or licensing drivers stopped the 2017 London Bridge attack.
Click to expand...

So how did a foreigner get a hunting license that allowed him to buy a gun.
I thought foreigners didn’t have the same constitutional rights? What benefit is there to allowing foreigners hunting rights? We now know the risk.
 
Why should the country feel good about Saudi Arabia killing Americans and a President who rushes to their defense even before we get details.

Anyone have an inkling Trump is looking out for HIS interests and not the countries?
 
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