False. You're using semantics to cloud the obvious.
No. I was clearing up the semantics to reveal the actual historical reasoning. Did you read what I wrote carefully? It doesn't seem so.
The general militia was ALL the people. However, the founders foresaw that at times it might be necessary to have a "well-regulated" militia -- a real army -- for defense.
The general militia -- The People -- were not "well regulated". Get a history book. Look it up.
Most of what you state is true, but it is you who are confused.
The Militia Act of 1792 clearly indicates the militia is composed of citizens who own a gun and not a standing army. Here is the most telling part of the act:
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the militia employed in the service of the United States, shall receive the same pay and allowances, as the troops of the United States, who may be in service at the same time, or who were last in service, and shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war:
Correct. Militia who are EMPLOYED in the Army were to receive pay just like all the rest of the "Standing Army"... the well regulated militia. This does not contradict me at all.
Further, you contradict yourself here:
To use Jefferson's own words:
that the militia would "be our best reliance in peace and for the first months of war until the Regulars may relieve them
And who were "the Regulars"? What did Regulars mean? The professional, WELL REGULATED militia. The regular -- regulated -- army.
Pardon me. That was probably incorrect. The figures may not have been from Scotland Yard. They were published by the Government of England, but I don't recall what ministry or branch of the government it was, and I'm not going to bother to dig up the papers tonight.
I'm not about to mod you down, but you certainly aren't telling the plain truth. At least as it exists in the United States.
In the U.S. it is very far from "casual hotheads" causing firearms crime. On the contrary, the vast majority of firearms crime in the U.S. are by gangs and drug dealers (who are often the same people) shooting each other. When you remove those figures, firearms crime here is very much comparable to other first-world countries. Possibly even less.
Here's a plain truth for you: in the UK, after the gun ban of 1998, firearms crime doubled and remained elevated for at least 8 years. It did decline after that, but it declined at a rate comparable to the U.S., which kept its guns.
but the second amendment is about long guns, community action, and rural hinterland
Nice theory, but it's hilariously wrong. The historical record is very clear what it was about: being able to protect yourself from the standing army of your own government.
The Supreme Court has ruled, at different times, that (A) the Second Amendment specifically applies to military-style arms (because it's purpose is for protection from military-style arms), and (B) that it is an individual right.
Irrelevant. The point was in response to the GP's ridiculous assertion about the "current understanding" of gun rights in the United States. It is not and never has been an "understanding" in the United States that everybody should or can have firearms.
Utterly ridiculous. Every place in the Constitution that says "the people" meant just that: every able-bodied person. Are you trying to say that the 2nd Amendment is the SOLE exception? The Supreme Court disagrees with you. In fact they ruled as much just three or so years ago.
From TFA, it seems that Liu has more of a leaning to the utopian Star Trek. Has he pushed that anywhere new? Or even how humanity will be different in the billion years of his story?
Not to mention, the idea that "capitalism" is the bane of humanity is so hilariously false it's difficult to even find words. If it weren't for capitalism intruding into China's once-red-totalitarian-socialist economy, he'd still be digging up beets for a living, not working in a power plant or writing science fiction.
That's rich, coming from a troll who's written over a thousand comments here about climate science with nearly nothing of substance in hundreds of pages worth of your nonsense.
In reality there wasn't supposed to be a standing army at all. In the powers of congress they congress is given the power to:
You are contradicting yourself.
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
That's a standing army. It only says that FUNDS can't be appropriated for more than 2 years at a time. That just means they have to vote on it every 2 years.
If they meant you couldn't have an ARMY for more than 2 years, they would have said that instead. They were hardly stupid.
You only answered half of the previous poster's question.
Bollocks.
Conservatives say the Communications Act of 1934 can't work for regulating the Internet simply because its an "old law" that predates the Internet.
Those same conservatives say the 2nd amendment is perfect, simply because its old, and that it applies to any weapon invented since and any weapon we might invent in the future.
I did not attempt to answer a "conservatives vs whoever" question. I replied to one demonstrably false thing GP said there is a difference.
If someone says "I believe in unicorns AND mermaids", I am justified in debunking the unicorn claim even if I don't know or care about mermaids.
You like the "infantile interface they refer to. I want control of my browser, Safari gives none, Firefox gives little, so I'm downloading VIvaldi and giving it test run.
What kind of control are you looking for that Firefox doesn't give you? I am genuinely curious.
Your real story is false. The FCC has the discretion to release the 8 pages or the 332 pages. It didn't, which begs the question:
You are confusing two issues: the decision to keep quiet BEFORE the vote, and the publication of the rules AFTER the vote.
The reason for the non-disclosure BEFORE the vote was to prevent undue political influence, which is the reason for the existence of the FCC in the first place. Immediately AFTER the vote, the actual text of the regulations was released to lawmakers. The PUBLICATION of the regulations to the public is waiting for the final comments from the last 2 Commissioners to be added.
Those are facts. You can argue about them all you like. Doesn't change anything.
This is a false interpretation of the Second Amendment, even according to the Supreme Court.
The well-regulated militia meant "standing army".
The People are guaranteed arms (as opposed to the "well-regulated militia), BECAUSE of the necessity of having a standing army. The Founders considered a government army to be the single biggest THREAT to the Republic, and guaranteed that THE PEOPLE should therefore also be armed.
History is very clear on this. The other interpretation -- the claim that only the army is to be armed -- contradicts the actual historical proof so outrageously that it can be nothing but propaganda.
Point being, nowhere in the United States does the "current understanding" of gun rights say anyone should have firearms.
False. All the conditions you give above, are circumstances under which people are considered to have waived their rights as ordinary citizens. Except:
4.Are an unlawful user of any controlled substance.
5. Are addicted to any controlled substance, even one lawfully proscribed.
8. Are the subject of an order of protection.
These conditions were wholly made-up by the government, and people have been arguing ever since that these conditions are blatantly unconstitutional.
And I could be wrong, but item 8, as I understand it, is a State issue, not Federal.
I think it's pretty clear that the intent behind the second amendment was the perceived need to have a well regulated militia. In other words, if you want to carry a guns, sign up to join the national guard.
And you would be wrong. According to historical documents and the debates surrounding ratification, it was exactly the opposite.
The Founders were terrified of the necessity of having a "standing army" for defense. They had just fought a war against the "well regulated militia" of their own country! They considered a standing government army to be the single biggest threat to the Republic. Thus, (emphasis added):
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...
"... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The People are to be armed, to protect the country (which is The People), AGAINST its own army, if need be.
There were considered to be TWO militias: the common militia, which consisted of all the people, and a "Well Regulated Militia", which was the standing army. The accepted definition at the time of "well regulated" was "ordered, disciplined." That's a trained army.
But The People are not a "well regulated militia". They are NOT trained and disciplined. Yet as recently as a few years ago, the Supreme Court ruled again that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed arms to The People.
But in the arena of gun laws, applying a law from the late 18th century to modern assault rifles and the like is considered to be completely reasonable.
AND... what has changed to make it UNreasonable? You appear to be trying to make an argument here, but you haven't actually made one.
According to the US Supreme Court, the 2nd Amendment does specifically apply to military-style arms, and with good reason. It ain't about shooting that raccoon in your back yard with a pellet gun.
The guns you refer to as "assault weapons" (which is an inaccurate propaganda term; they aren't assault weapons at all) aren't even "military style" weapons. Here are 2 facts that might surprise you:
(A) Those "assault weapons" you refer to are legal for hunting whitetail deer, as well as smaller game, in some states. And they are very well suited for doing so. They perfectly legal for hunting smaller game in many more states.
(B) It has never, at any time, been illegal in the United States to manufacture a gun for your own use.
(C) There is no demonstrable connection in the United States between prevalence of guns, and crime. In fact, over the last 30 years per-capita gun ownership and concealed carry has gone way UP, while crime, including violent crime, has plummeted. It is now less than half what it was then.
A 5 page summary is not what was voted on. What was voted on was a draft 332 page set of regulations. But nice try.
No, it wasn't. As mentioned elsewhere, the actual regulation is only 8 pages. The rest consists of comments by the Commissioners. So this argument doesn't hold water.
While it might not be the entire thing, it's a pretty good summary. Here's the real story: the FCC is not allowed by the rules to issue the regulation until all the comments are in. Two Republican holdouts are dragging their feet and haven't delivered their comments. THEY are the ones to blame, not "the FCC".
If you get into an accident that wrecks a car but harms no humans, then how is the owner of the car going to get to work to feed his family?
His family gets to keep the Darwin Award. So sad.
I do NOT believe in or endorse laws designed to protect people from themselves. That is NOT the proper role of government. That's what Mommy and Daddy are supposed to teach you about. If that doesn't work, it doesn't work.
So as the parent AC stated, we were renting phones from AT&T for over 80 years.
Actually, GP AC was wrong, and here is why. Pardon the long explanation, but it's not a simple subject. It all has to do with why "Ma Bell" was broken up in the first place.
When AT&T (Ma Bell) was essentially granted "regulated monopoly" status, that monopoly applied to its status as a "common carrier". As such, its job was to deliver signals from one phone to another. (That's what Title II Common Carriers do.) It was NOT supposed to be in the business of making and selling telephones.
Eventually (I'm skipping a lot of history here), Ma Bell leased (not rented) telephones for use on its telephone system. The rationale for leasing was actually pretty reasonable: the telephones were built to last (and they did! solid durable Cycolac plastic around a solid metal frame), and when the customer was done with the phone, it would be returned for refurbishing and re-issued to some other customer. The benefits were cost, and 100% compatibility with the phone system throughout the United States. Which was no small accomplishment when you compare to, say, some countries in Europe at the time.
However, people complained of problems with this scheme: if you tried to use any other manucfature telephone on "their" system, you could not install it yourself. They charged you an exorbitant fee to have a technician come out to your house to install a "compatibility" device between your phone and "their" wires, and charged you a (rather high) fee every month to have it there.
After complaints that this was an anti-competitive practice (which, indeed, it was), a Federal court enjoined Ma Bell from being in the hardware business. However (it is not clear to me actually how), Bell got away with ignoring that Federal injunction for a full 20 years. Which is to say: they were basically breaking Federal law. Western Electric, which made virtually all telephones in the United States, was a wholly-own subsidiary of AT&T. So how they could claim "they" weren't in the phone business for those 20 years, and maintain all their old anti-competitive practices in that regard, is something I do not understand.
In any case: the complaints again became too big to ignore, and the Federal government broke AT&T up into its separate (but pretty much already-existing) subsidiary companies, which were in turn enjoined from participating in the business of manufacturing and selling telephones. Again, the whole idea was: they are in the telephone signal business, not the telephone manufacturing business.
In any case, contrary to popular belief, that's why it was broken up. And that's when manufacturers started selling more and different kinds of telephones in the U.S.
And further, that's the principle behind Title II Common Carrier status for Internet companies: they are in the business of delivering the signal. Nothing more. They are not in the business of controlling the content of that signal, any more than telephone companies were.
except that I have it installed on my Android right now. By "mobile devices" did you mean crApple by any chance, fanboi?
I agree with GP way up above: almost nothing in OP is correct.
One of the first things I did when I got my Android phone was take Chrome out of the shortcuts and install Firefox.
I've been using Firefox browser since it was still Netscape. With very few exceptions, the only time I use other browsers is when I have to check the CSS in web pages for cross compatibility. It's not a matter of not being exposed to other browsers. I am. I have all the major browsers except Opera, which doesn't have enough market share to bother checking against.
And still I use Firefox. Among other things, I like the customizability, the plethora of available add-ons, and their focus on security and privacy. Particularly the latter.
There's nothing "conservative" about it. And I don't think the personal views of a CEO are at all relevant to the quality of the product.
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False. You're using semantics to cloud the obvious.
No. I was clearing up the semantics to reveal the actual historical reasoning. Did you read what I wrote carefully? It doesn't seem so.
The general militia was ALL the people. However, the founders foresaw that at times it might be necessary to have a "well-regulated" militia -- a real army -- for defense.
The general militia -- The People -- were not "well regulated". Get a history book. Look it up.
Most of what you state is true, but it is you who are confused.
The Militia Act of 1792 clearly indicates the militia is composed of citizens who own a gun and not a standing army. Here is the most telling part of the act:
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the militia employed in the service of the United States, shall receive the same pay and allowances, as the troops of the United States, who may be in service at the same time, or who were last in service, and shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war:
Correct. Militia who are EMPLOYED in the Army were to receive pay just like all the rest of the "Standing Army"... the well regulated militia. This does not contradict me at all.
Further, you contradict yourself here:
To use Jefferson's own words:
that the militia would "be our best reliance in peace and for the first months of war until the Regulars may relieve them
And who were "the Regulars"? What did Regulars mean? The professional, WELL REGULATED militia. The regular -- regulated -- army.
Don't include me in your "we".
The point wasn't about "revolution" anyway. The second amendment was about PREVENTING a military takeover, not creating one.
Pardon me. That was probably incorrect. The figures may not have been from Scotland Yard. They were published by the Government of England, but I don't recall what ministry or branch of the government it was, and I'm not going to bother to dig up the papers tonight.
now mod me down for stating the plain truth
I'm not about to mod you down, but you certainly aren't telling the plain truth. At least as it exists in the United States.
In the U.S. it is very far from "casual hotheads" causing firearms crime. On the contrary, the vast majority of firearms crime in the U.S. are by gangs and drug dealers (who are often the same people) shooting each other. When you remove those figures, firearms crime here is very much comparable to other first-world countries. Possibly even less.
Here's a plain truth for you: in the UK, after the gun ban of 1998, firearms crime doubled and remained elevated for at least 8 years. It did decline after that, but it declined at a rate comparable to the U.S., which kept its guns.
Those are figures from Scotland Yard.
but the second amendment is about long guns, community action, and rural hinterland
Nice theory, but it's hilariously wrong. The historical record is very clear what it was about: being able to protect yourself from the standing army of your own government.
The Supreme Court has ruled, at different times, that (A) the Second Amendment specifically applies to military-style arms (because it's purpose is for protection from military-style arms), and (B) that it is an individual right.
Irrelevant. The point was in response to the GP's ridiculous assertion about the "current understanding" of gun rights in the United States. It is not and never has been an "understanding" in the United States that everybody should or can have firearms.
Utterly ridiculous. Every place in the Constitution that says "the people" meant just that: every able-bodied person. Are you trying to say that the 2nd Amendment is the SOLE exception? The Supreme Court disagrees with you. In fact they ruled as much just three or so years ago.
From TFA, it seems that Liu has more of a leaning to the utopian Star Trek. Has he pushed that anywhere new? Or even how humanity will be different in the billion years of his story?
Not to mention, the idea that "capitalism" is the bane of humanity is so hilariously false it's difficult to even find words. If it weren't for capitalism intruding into China's once-red-totalitarian-socialist economy, he'd still be digging up beets for a living, not working in a power plant or writing science fiction.
Also, while I'm not inclined to be a grammar Nazi, the word in OP should be "wean". Ween is something altogether different.
I thought T'Sync was Spock's aunt.
No, that's Spock's aunt's other nephew, the only Vulcan HipHop artist.
That's rich, coming from a troll who's written over a thousand comments here about climate science with nearly nothing of substance in hundreds of pages worth of your nonsense.
We know who you are, and why are you lying?
The whole thing is inherently silly. Laptops have ALWAYS "approached" desktop performance. Then desktops get better.
Nothing to see here. Move along now.
In reality there wasn't supposed to be a standing army at all. In the powers of congress they congress is given the power to:
You are contradicting yourself.
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
That's a standing army. It only says that FUNDS can't be appropriated for more than 2 years at a time. That just means they have to vote on it every 2 years.
If they meant you couldn't have an ARMY for more than 2 years, they would have said that instead. They were hardly stupid.
You only answered half of the previous poster's question.
Bollocks.
Conservatives say the Communications Act of 1934 can't work for regulating the Internet simply because its an "old law" that predates the Internet.
Those same conservatives say the 2nd amendment is perfect, simply because its old, and that it applies to any weapon invented since and any weapon we might invent in the future.
I did not attempt to answer a "conservatives vs whoever" question. I replied to one demonstrably false thing GP said there is a difference.
If someone says "I believe in unicorns AND mermaids", I am justified in debunking the unicorn claim even if I don't know or care about mermaids.
Wow. This is the longest exchange on Slashdot I have seen in a long time in which all participants managed to say nearly nothing of substance.
You like the "infantile interface they refer to. I want control of my browser, Safari gives none, Firefox gives little, so I'm downloading VIvaldi and giving it test run.
What kind of control are you looking for that Firefox doesn't give you? I am genuinely curious.
Your real story is false. The FCC has the discretion to release the 8 pages or the 332 pages. It didn't, which begs the question:
You are confusing two issues: the decision to keep quiet BEFORE the vote, and the publication of the rules AFTER the vote.
The reason for the non-disclosure BEFORE the vote was to prevent undue political influence, which is the reason for the existence of the FCC in the first place. Immediately AFTER the vote, the actual text of the regulations was released to lawmakers. The PUBLICATION of the regulations to the public is waiting for the final comments from the last 2 Commissioners to be added.
Those are facts. You can argue about them all you like. Doesn't change anything.
This is a false interpretation of the Second Amendment, even according to the Supreme Court.
The well-regulated militia meant "standing army".
The People are guaranteed arms (as opposed to the "well-regulated militia), BECAUSE of the necessity of having a standing army. The Founders considered a government army to be the single biggest THREAT to the Republic, and guaranteed that THE PEOPLE should therefore also be armed.
History is very clear on this. The other interpretation -- the claim that only the army is to be armed -- contradicts the actual historical proof so outrageously that it can be nothing but propaganda.
Point being, nowhere in the United States does the "current understanding" of gun rights say anyone should have firearms.
False. All the conditions you give above, are circumstances under which people are considered to have waived their rights as ordinary citizens. Except:
4.Are an unlawful user of any controlled substance.
5. Are addicted to any controlled substance, even one lawfully proscribed. 8. Are the subject of an order of protection.
These conditions were wholly made-up by the government, and people have been arguing ever since that these conditions are blatantly unconstitutional.
And I could be wrong, but item 8, as I understand it, is a State issue, not Federal.
I think it's pretty clear that the intent behind the second amendment was the perceived need to have a well regulated militia. In other words, if you want to carry a guns, sign up to join the national guard.
And you would be wrong. According to historical documents and the debates surrounding ratification, it was exactly the opposite.
The Founders were terrified of the necessity of having a "standing army" for defense. They had just fought a war against the "well regulated militia" of their own country! They considered a standing government army to be the single biggest threat to the Republic. Thus, (emphasis added):
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...
"... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The People are to be armed, to protect the country (which is The People), AGAINST its own army, if need be.
There were considered to be TWO militias: the common militia, which consisted of all the people, and a "Well Regulated Militia", which was the standing army. The accepted definition at the time of "well regulated" was "ordered, disciplined." That's a trained army.
But The People are not a "well regulated militia". They are NOT trained and disciplined. Yet as recently as a few years ago, the Supreme Court ruled again that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed arms to The People.
But in the arena of gun laws, applying a law from the late 18th century to modern assault rifles and the like is considered to be completely reasonable.
AND... what has changed to make it UNreasonable? You appear to be trying to make an argument here, but you haven't actually made one.
According to the US Supreme Court, the 2nd Amendment does specifically apply to military-style arms, and with good reason. It ain't about shooting that raccoon in your back yard with a pellet gun.
The guns you refer to as "assault weapons" (which is an inaccurate propaganda term; they aren't assault weapons at all) aren't even "military style" weapons. Here are 2 facts that might surprise you:
(A) Those "assault weapons" you refer to are legal for hunting whitetail deer, as well as smaller game, in some states. And they are very well suited for doing so. They perfectly legal for hunting smaller game in many more states.
(B) It has never, at any time, been illegal in the United States to manufacture a gun for your own use.
(C) There is no demonstrable connection in the United States between prevalence of guns, and crime. In fact, over the last 30 years per-capita gun ownership and concealed carry has gone way UP, while crime, including violent crime, has plummeted. It is now less than half what it was then.
A 5 page summary is not what was voted on. What was voted on was a draft 332 page set of regulations. But nice try.
No, it wasn't. As mentioned elsewhere, the actual regulation is only 8 pages. The rest consists of comments by the Commissioners. So this argument doesn't hold water.
While it might not be the entire thing, it's a pretty good summary. Here's the real story: the FCC is not allowed by the rules to issue the regulation until all the comments are in. Two Republican holdouts are dragging their feet and haven't delivered their comments. THEY are the ones to blame, not "the FCC".
If you get into an accident that wrecks a car but harms no humans, then how is the owner of the car going to get to work to feed his family?
His family gets to keep the Darwin Award. So sad.
I do NOT believe in or endorse laws designed to protect people from themselves. That is NOT the proper role of government. That's what Mommy and Daddy are supposed to teach you about. If that doesn't work, it doesn't work.
So as the parent AC stated, we were renting phones from AT&T for over 80 years.
Actually, GP AC was wrong, and here is why. Pardon the long explanation, but it's not a simple subject. It all has to do with why "Ma Bell" was broken up in the first place.
When AT&T (Ma Bell) was essentially granted "regulated monopoly" status, that monopoly applied to its status as a "common carrier". As such, its job was to deliver signals from one phone to another. (That's what Title II Common Carriers do.) It was NOT supposed to be in the business of making and selling telephones.
Eventually (I'm skipping a lot of history here), Ma Bell leased (not rented) telephones for use on its telephone system. The rationale for leasing was actually pretty reasonable: the telephones were built to last (and they did! solid durable Cycolac plastic around a solid metal frame), and when the customer was done with the phone, it would be returned for refurbishing and re-issued to some other customer. The benefits were cost, and 100% compatibility with the phone system throughout the United States. Which was no small accomplishment when you compare to, say, some countries in Europe at the time.
However, people complained of problems with this scheme: if you tried to use any other manucfature telephone on "their" system, you could not install it yourself. They charged you an exorbitant fee to have a technician come out to your house to install a "compatibility" device between your phone and "their" wires, and charged you a (rather high) fee every month to have it there.
After complaints that this was an anti-competitive practice (which, indeed, it was), a Federal court enjoined Ma Bell from being in the hardware business. However (it is not clear to me actually how), Bell got away with ignoring that Federal injunction for a full 20 years. Which is to say: they were basically breaking Federal law. Western Electric, which made virtually all telephones in the United States, was a wholly-own subsidiary of AT&T. So how they could claim "they" weren't in the phone business for those 20 years, and maintain all their old anti-competitive practices in that regard, is something I do not understand.
In any case: the complaints again became too big to ignore, and the Federal government broke AT&T up into its separate (but pretty much already-existing) subsidiary companies, which were in turn enjoined from participating in the business of manufacturing and selling telephones. Again, the whole idea was: they are in the telephone signal business, not the telephone manufacturing business.
In any case, contrary to popular belief, that's why it was broken up. And that's when manufacturers started selling more and different kinds of telephones in the U.S.
And further, that's the principle behind Title II Common Carrier status for Internet companies: they are in the business of delivering the signal. Nothing more. They are not in the business of controlling the content of that signal, any more than telephone companies were.
Sure. And here's what a couple of minutes on Google had to say:
FCC ADOPTS STRONG, SUSTAINABLE RULES TO PROTECT THE OPEN INTERNET
Admittedly, it was an unusual move to block access to the regulations before the vote. But they're no secret now.
except that I have it installed on my Android right now. By "mobile devices" did you mean crApple by any chance, fanboi?
I agree with GP way up above: almost nothing in OP is correct.
One of the first things I did when I got my Android phone was take Chrome out of the shortcuts and install Firefox.
I've been using Firefox browser since it was still Netscape. With very few exceptions, the only time I use other browsers is when I have to check the CSS in web pages for cross compatibility. It's not a matter of not being exposed to other browsers. I am. I have all the major browsers except Opera, which doesn't have enough market share to bother checking against.
And still I use Firefox. Among other things, I like the customizability, the plethora of available add-ons, and their focus on security and privacy. Particularly the latter.
There's nothing "conservative" about it. And I don't think the personal views of a CEO are at all relevant to the quality of the product.