GOP: Gentlemen Gentlemen this is a mental health issue which is we can’t ban 2A rights.
Everyone: Ok then give us better mental health?
GOP: Nope that’s commie talk. Just get Jesus. (Also shocked why people hate them)
I support the 2nd. I also support single payer healthcare, including dental coverage and expanded mental Healthcare services. Then again, I dont support Republicans.
If dems got off the 2A stuff they would get more voters ::cough cough:: Texas. I know people that are like yeah abortion is not a deal breaker for me but guns are. Mostly people who are too old to have kids anyway. I’m sure Mass shooting will go down once we have social nets to get people the help they need. Guns are like Cars. Fine when used by responsible adults baaaad otherwise. No one does these things because they have happy content lives.
If Dems focused on what actually would curb the violence, and dropped guns. They’d sweep the elections for decades.
Yeah this is how people get jaded or gets the conspiracy people out.
One problem was that the CDC was banned from studying the causes of gun violence from 1997 until 2018 due to the Dickey Amendment. We should have had big studies done to see just what the problems were (I’m sure it’s not just one) and what solutions might give the best results while infringing on people’s rights the least. Instead, even studying why gun violence was a problem was banned.
Thankfully, the Dickey Amendment was clarified (but not repealed) and gun violence research is allowed. Still, the studies aren’t allowed to call for gun control so they are still hobbled. So while new proposals based on studies can be made, gun control won’t be one of them even if it would be effective.
Our leadership has time and time again daid it’s mental health, they know it. No research is needed. Just expand mental Healthcare before the Joker movie becomes a reality.
No they where not, they weren’t ever banned from studying gun violence. They just weren’t allowed to use it as a way to sway public opinion…which is what the, at the time, acting leadership of the CDC wanted to do.
That’s downright fantasy talk. Voters minds have been so poisoned that they don’t give a shit about policy anymore. Republican politicians haven’t had an actual platform for at least a decade.
Their platform is only to stimie any progress and protect the rich. They may say lots of words but one need only look at the way they vote and yet are still consistently reelected.
They say they’ll fix things but never do even when they control both houses and the presidency. That should have been a republican free for all in 2016, but nothing of value happened for those two years. No immigration reform. No healthcare reform. No gun reform. Oh, but they did pass a tax reform bill and guess who that helped.
You said voters minds have been poisoned … … then went on a they they they rant proving your point. You get that, right?
My rant illustrated my point, yes, but I don’t think it’s the gotcha that you seem to think it is.
My point is that people are voting for politicians who are actively working against many of their constituents interests. And they’re tending to vote that way because they believe politicians’ words instead of observing their actions.
If you care to refute any of my points, feel free.
Watching beto shoot himself in the foot with the gun grabbing line should have been a bigger indicator. Theres plenty of room for pro 2a dems and dems with complex views on the issue. Gun ownership is rising in both parties, dems faster than republicans. Dems cant pass laws even if they win, they can’t afford to do stupid no chance moves that cost them seats.
Yesbabsolutely. They’d win the nation if they dropped the anti gun platform.
Same, well said
I support legal safe gun ownership, usage, and training. I believe the second amendment doesn’t apply anymore though. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” This is not true anymore. It was written in a time where standing professional armies weren’t the norm by people who never expected the US to reach a state to have one.
Gun ownership should be protected by the 9th amendment to an extent though, as abortion and all of our other traditionally held rights are.
certainly looks like you would need to protect yourself against a soon-to-be dictatorship though
Very well could be true, which is part of why I don’t mind (and appreciate when done properly) gun ownership. That doesn’t change the fact that the wording of the second amendment is for something that isn’t true anymore. Again, your rights are (or should be at least) protected by the 9th, which is much more important but most people haven’t even heard of.
The basis of the 2nd is just not true anymore. It’s like saying “physical currency, being necessary for the purchase of items, the right to possess coins shall not be infringed.” It doesn’t take into account the changes that may occur. We don’t need militias to protect the nation anymore, since we have a professional army, and we don’t need physical currency anymore, because most people don’t use it now anyway.
Kinda funny actually, since we’re starting to see a movement that looks to effectively ban physical currency by making it a headache.
Same motivation: surveillance and control.
I’m really happy with the level headed reasoning in this post and the replies. Feels like I’m not alone in thinking “gun bans are stupid” and “can’t we address systemically WHY people feel the need to flame out in a blaze of violence, to reduce violence?”
Also BTW there’s a “Socialist Rifle Association”, and I might not agree with them on 100% everything obviously, I just think it’s cool and they seem alright.
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Call me crazy, but maybe erring on the side of caution makes sense when we’re talking about the right to own tools designed to kill things.
I mean, when you’re talking about, essentially, “Hey just to be safe we’re going to permanently remove one of your constitutional rights without due process.” then it’s a no-go for me.
Imagine if anyone arrested just for being present at a protest that turned violent, whether that individual was violent or not…or even just made a social media post that they agreed with the protestors…well sorry, but just to be safe, we’re going to revoke your first amendment right to assembly for the rest of your life.
Erring on the side of caution, you know. Never can tell when those peaceful assemblies might turn violent and you’ve already shown a risk factor.
If you stand there telling people to go kill those guys, then you will be arrested and won’t be protected by the first amendment.
And the second amendment, until very recently (Heller 2008) and depending on which fucking commas you want to recognize, started with “A well regulated Militia (capitalized)” and even then the Supreme court said there can be exceptions to personal possession. Though the current joke of a court would probably put their dicks in that decision as well now.
This is a mix of the composition /division fallacy, slippery slope and the false cause fallacy.
False cause draws a comparison between two things that are not nessisarily connected. Constitutional gun rights and freedom of speech and association. There are a lot of countries where gun rights are non-constitutional that still have freedom of speech and freedom of association. Not all federal law is constitutional and there are a lot of freedoms and protections only actually protected beyond constitutional law.
The slippery slope is more well known. In this case it’s sketching out a senario that could have plenty of other possibilities. If gun ownership had limitations they wouldn’t nessisarily be each of the limitations mentioned here. It assumes no protections for this kind of thing would be in place despite an increasing world wide stance that this sort of thing is a violation of human rights.
The composition /division fallacy - that one part of something has to be applied to all or that the whole must apply to its parts. That if one part of the Constitution is rethought as an unnessisary and even harmful thing that the entire document will be treated that way.
There are a lot of countries which have rethought their rights charters and constitutional documents and updated them to suit a changing world. The US Constitution is particularly paranoid because it was written during a period when it represented a rather large democratic experiment that seemed incredibly tenuous. They even still modeled the President off of a King because Monarchy was still very much the norm and there wasn’t a lot of examples of government that didn’t just change who was the king. Not a hundred years prior England had decapitated their king, essentially replaced him with a guy who was basically a king for life in all but name and reverted to a constitutional Monarchy the second he died. It made sense to be paranoid that everything they worked for was temporary and needed to be protected with a show of force. Since then democracy has spread to become the majority system of government and variations on the 2nd Amendment are incredibly rare. Only Mexico, Guatemala and the US has constitutional gun rights. By contrast Freedom of Speech is granted protections by International Law, is considered a corner stone of Human rights and around 150 countries have freedom of speech protections. One of these things is not like the other.
A constitution is not a document that you never change. That’s just another fallacy - an appeal to tradition. The US has removed bits of it before too, you get to drink alcohol because somebody rethought your 18th amendment. Your freedom of speech rights aren’t going anywhere. Nobody wants that.
It’s really okay. You can put the guns down. Most of the world has.
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I just wish Dems would stop trying to ban any guns, and not because I’m against gun control, but because it’s a losing issue. It’s never passing through this Congress, and if it ever did, the Supreme Court would strike it down. Given that that’s fairly undeniable, why lose the people who organize and vote on this issue alone?
This has been said about many issues in the past. Effecting change isn’t easy but giving up doesn’t help. Americans support gun control. Only our crappy political system stands in the way.
On both sides, Republicans block any gun control, and Democrats only propose useless legislation
Americans support gun control. Only our crappy political system stands in the way.
What do you think the other person meant when they said, “It’s never passing through this Congress, and if it ever did, the Supreme Court would strike it down.”?
I disagree on giving up on a political issue only because it wouldn’t pass right now. Politics is compromise. If you only take positions which are already on the line of compromise you’ve already lost.
This has been said about many issues in the past.
Which issues? Civil Rights? Gay marriage?
Those are issues in which the American people were opposed, and then societal views changed. As you pointed out, that isn’t the case here. Americans already favor reform, but they aren’t going to vote these people out based on the status quo.
Newtown was the wake up call, if nothing changes after a bunch of small children get massacred, you’re not getting change. Not without wholesale changes. Proposing an AWB is political theater, nothing more.
If it’s popular, why wouldn’t the Democrats keep fighting for it?
Whether it will realistically happen anytime soon, yeah I’d say the odds are very low.
But let’s not just give up as it can’t ever happen.
Also “political theater” is like half of actual politics, so don’t knock it too easily :P
It’s the worst political theater. It makes it look like something is being done when it isn’t. Gun sales go up and liberals feel good. More kids die.
So the solution is what?
We could start prosecuting people for breaking laws.
https://www.newsweek.com/42-rejected-gun-background-checks-2020-had-felony-convictions-1603064
The solution is for law enforcement to properly enforce the existing laws that could have stopped countless shootings already.
My personal solution is not to worry about gun violence because it’s extremely rare and highly unlikely to affect me. America is quite safe to live in for the majority of us.
My personal solution is not to worry about gun violence because it’s extremely rare and highly unlikely to affect me.
Oh, well as long as it is unlikely to affect you…
I mean illegal abortion is unlikely to affect me, so why should I give a shit, am I right?
That’s really a bad comparison, because you’re arguing for the point of taking away rights from Americans, by making reference to a right that was taken away (since it was never properly added to the Constitution). I support all rights for all Americans - we should all have the rights to bear arms and to privacy + bodily autonomy.
So instead of arguing to take away more rights, you should be arguing to add more rights. Lobby for the rights to privacy and bodily autonomy instead.
I’m afraid at this point there’s no legislation that will survive the Supreme Court. The next realistic move is to mirror the federalist society. Get enough judges appointed with the idea that the second does not protect personal gun ownership and reach a critical state.
If I could waive a magic wand without breaking the character of the US, we’d ban external magazines, have universal background checks, and stop federal funds from going to states that don’t send information to the National Instant Check System. There’s so much low hanging fruit. But even when SCOTUS wasn’t busy boofing beers the Brady Campaign gave us shit laws designed to harass people, not reduce violence.
None of what you just proposed would reduce violence…
Frustrating the reload slows down active shooters. Solidifying the NICS means criminals can’t just go to the next state over. And Universal background checks takes away the secondhand market from criminals as well.
A program to groom judges on this just like the conservatives did with Roe V Wade will do the most in the long term because we’ll be able to have laws based on the actual amendment, not just a few words of it.
it’s a losing issue. It’s never passing through this Congress, and if it ever did, the Supreme Court would strike it down.
You know, that’s exactly what people said about Roe v. Wade and about banning abortion.
Turns out that you can keep losing on an issue for 50 years, yet winning only once will drastically change the trajectory of the entire issue.
That’s the opposite situation. Pro-life voters and pro-gin voters are the 2 largest single-issue voting groups in the country.
Look at it this way. If you swapped Trump and Biden’s positions on abortion but changed nothing else, how many pro-choice Democrats would have voted for Trump?
Basically zero, right. Meanwhile, millions of pro-life Republicans would have flipped because abortion is the singular issue upon which they base their vote.
Guns are in the same boat. Hundreds of thousands of voters vote strictly based on their love of guns. There’s no political advantage in the general election for being anti-gun, and the Dems are sacrificing a whole lot of seats to fight this losing battle.
pro-gin voters
I thought we resolved that with the end of Prohibition?
No he misspelled pro-gyn voters
Yeah nevermind that the constitution says “shall not be infringed”’ If abortion rights were in the constitution there would be no way of banning it, just as it is with firearms.
Actually it says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.* It says nothing about procuring them. Banning gun sales is totally on the table. Plus, “arms” is kinda a funny word. It doesn’t mean just guns. Yet most people would agree that I shouldn’t be allowed to build bombs in my basement. Isn’t that a violation of the second amendment?
Not to mention that whole well regulated militia part.
A reasonable interpretation would at the very least take that to mean a requirement to be eligible for the national guard and to consistently pass training and inspection with each action class of weapon you want to buy.
Hence the asterix on my paraphrasing of the Second Amendment. Ultimately, I think the founding fathers laid out general principles of society that we should adhere to, but that they expected us to care more about the intent of the Constitution than the actual exact words.
The founding fathers were slave oligarchs, fuck their opinions on anything to do with our country today
Throw out the whole constitution then. Human history is rife with suffering and hypocrisy. My ancestors chased people off this land at the point of a sword. Right now, we’re overlooking the horrible exploitation of other human beings in China, Africa, India and others, to make luxury goods. The lens of history should acknowledge the status quo at the time, but not excuse it, and celebrate those who worked to advance human rights and conditions before their time.
The well regulated part means functional and effective.
The reasonable interpretation is that the founders didn’t want a federal standing army because of the temptation towards tyranny such federal power would create, and instead expected the states to draft their citizens into militias in response to threats. These citizens were expected to arrive self-armed, knowing how to use their gun, with ammunition, and with initial rations. Citing the militia acts for this, you can verify that the government saw everyone of able body as members of the militia. The militias could then slot into a temporary federal army when needed, and then sent home after the threat has passed. The “shall not be infringed” was to prevent the federal and state governments from disarming their citizens, and the temptation of tyranny over a helpless population.
We have since become the world’s largest military power through constitutional amendment and stretching of interpretation, but there has been no update to the 2nd. It doesn’t matter that a citizen militia can’t match the US military today like everyone likes to argue, we shouldn’t selectively enforce constitutional rights. Full stop. If you want to change it, get a constitutional amendment passed modifying the 2nd. If you can’t pass that threshold, then you don’t have the support you think you do. If you want to guarantee people trained, offer free training and make it attractive to do this training or include it in our compulsory education system so everyone gets it by default. By the way, everyone is already eligible for the national guard, it is essentially the current active volunteer militia. What you can’t do is make people join the national guard to be able to keep and bear arms.
If you want to just scrap the country like your later comments on this thread indicate, go find uninhabited land and found your own country that doesn’t have a constitution and can be completely redesigned at your will. Or steal some from any current inhabitants if you can, and if you find that palatable or find a group you don’t think deserve their country.
No it’s not, everything the founders wrote about was directly designed to keep people armed and under no situation shall they be disarmed. Go read some of their papers. This has been chewed a million times and the anti-2a crowd still thinks regulated is the same meaning today as it was back then.
The founders were slave oligarchs, the tyranny they were keeping the citizens armed to defend against was Haiti.
What the fuck are you talking about…do you just make shit up in your head? They wanted everyone armed because they just fought and defeated the world’s strongest military at the time…
The article says guns should be ownable because they’re necessary in a militia. The language never implies that guns should only be owned by militia members. The militia line is a justification not a requirement.
You seemed to have missed the part where that’s the generous interpretation, the real interpretation is that since a militia is no longer necessary for the defense of our free state, civilian firearms ownership can just be banned entirely and that’s perfectly constitutional.
Unless you want to argue that the strongest military in human history is insufficient defense of this free state.
Militias are still necessary for free states, especially since the Army is federal in nature, not a state organization. Now the militia helps ensure the security of the states from federal forces that would otherwise be left unchecked without so much as a means to stop a military dictatorship, which is the reason they didn’t form a standing army when they wrote the constitution. The only thing that changed was who the militia would be fighting against, and that’s a common interpretation. It very much aligns with the spirit of the law, preventing military dictatorship, for it to continue to exist.
Imagine just for a second, that they drop the issue and gain control of all 3 branches and then actually do something about it rather than constantly struggling to win because of single policy voters.
The only thing tougher to imagine than dems winning supermajorities and all three branches is the dems doing something with it. Hard to imagine the people who fund splinter dems like Manchin wont just do the same thing to a dozen dems instead of two.
Roe had good results, but it wasn’t a good decision.
Casual observers of the Supreme Court who came to the Law School to hear Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speak about Roe v. Wade likely expected a simple message from the longtime defender of reproductive and women’s rights: Roe was a good decision.
Those more acquainted with Ginsburg and her thoughtful, nuanced approach to difficult legal questions were not surprised, however, to hear her say just the opposite, that Roe was a faulty decision. For Ginsburg, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that affirmed a woman’s right to an abortion was too far-reaching and too sweeping, and it gave anti-abortion rights activists a very tangible target to rally against in the four decades since.
Ginsburg and Professor Geoffrey Stone, a longtime scholar of reproductive rights and constitutional law, spoke for 90 minutes before a capacity crowd in the Law School auditorium on May 11 on “Roe v. Wade at 40.”
“My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum on the side of change,” Ginsburg said. She would’ve preferred that abortion rights be secured more gradually, in a process that included state legislatures and the courts, she added. Ginsburg also was troubled that the focus on Roe was on a right to privacy, rather than women’s rights.
“Roe isn’t really about the woman’s choice, is it?” Ginsburg said. “It’s about the doctor’s freedom to practice…it wasn’t woman-centered, it was physician-centered.”
Yes, there’s no way Roe would have been overturned by that Congress or that Supreme Court (50 years ago). Just like this Congress and Court will not allow significant gun control. Republicans gerrymandered districts and refused to seat a justice, thereby changing those things. Thank you for proving my point.
They kept pushing it as an issue they care about, and eventually they got through. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t.
Well, Democrats have been pushing the AWB in Congress for about 30 years now, the first 10 it was law, then it sunset, and they kept pushing…and they have lost a ton of ground in that fight, just like abortion. Because while they were introducing bills, Republicans were remaking Congress and the judiciary. But sure, let’s propose more pointless legislation… it’ll work this time.
That’s how politics generally works, you push for the issue for decades and if you’re relentless enough you either finally push through it or you die. You also can and probably need to do all other things but you never stop pushing.
Seriously. Pivot to mental health funding or something. At least that has a chance of passing and even if it doesn’t cut down on shootings it will still help people.
It’s also a lightning rod issue that turns more voters away than it attracts.
Sure there are staunch anti-gun people under the Democrats’ tent but they’re not the kind of people who will vote Republican if the party suddenly scaled back or ended its decades long futile efforts at gun bans.
On the other hand there are a ton of white working class voters on the suburban-rural fringes of swing states who would absolutely at least consider a Democrat if the party wasn’t so easily cast as “gun grabbers and job killers who only care about minorities”.
You get a pro-union, pro-legal-gun Democrat on a ticket who speaks on issues affecting rural whites as much as they do urban non-white voters (who are equally important), and you’d have a winner in many of these areas where they’ve been quite red, but not so rabidly Trumpy as other areas.
Even moreso if that’s a change that happened at the party/platform level.
I feel like from a campaign strategy standpoint, guns are just a lose-lose for the Democratic party. Playing to a base that would be loyal anyway for other reasons, even if the party dropped that position completely (which would not only eliminate a deal breaker issue for rural Democrats but also eliminate a cornerstone of the GOP platform in “protecting the second amendment”). Unless they did a complete about face and suddenly became as cozy with the NRA as Republicans, anti-gun voters might be upset, but they’re still voting blue.
After all there’s still abortion, electoral reform, racial justice, the environment, education, foreign policy, infrastructure, legal weed, LGBT rights, healthcare, and a host of other issues where the Dems are still their people.
Same thing with abortion and marijuana on the other side. If Republicans could lighten up on that stuff Democrats would never win an election again.
It cuts both ways.
The same can be said for literally every issue.
“Oh if only the Democrats stopped talking about abortion, electoral reform, racial justice, the environment, education, etc. they’d be more appealing to certain voters!”
Capitulating on a widely supported issue just to possibly attract a minority group of voters is a show of weakness.
It’s also known as Appeasement. Liberals that always compromise on everything, especial their core beliefs, are basically part of the problem.
I’d be fine with changes to all manner of healthcare and insurance coverage, including single payer.
What do you propose? Just accept the massacres?
Advocate for shit that would actually change things.
Enforce our ban on domestic abusers owning firearms. We already passed it, but no one enforces it. It would eliminate a huge chunk of gun violence in the nation, but its not as appealing to the mob as the “assault style” ban.
Or both?
One is favored by both sides of the aisle and has already been passed. There are yet more measures that are favored by a vast majority of the population and have data to support their effectiveness. We should start with the low hanging fruit before we start climbing the tree.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/
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Apparently so since we are currently focusing on laws that won’t pass when we could instead be focusing on the ones that will be easy to pass.
If you want to eat now then reach for the low hanging fruit. If you want to proceed to see people getting shot with no changes, then pursue a law that will get held up in the house for months or years before most likely not passing. No single one of these laws will fix the problem, but a collection of them will, there’s a long road ahead for gun control advocates and they need to atleast start building momentum
What do you propose?
I guess I’d ask you the same question. I don’t have a proposal because I don’t think any of it will make it through Congress. And if it somehow made it through Congress, the Supreme Court would strike it as unconstitutional.
Short of voting out these members of Congress and balancing the court, there’s no hope of reform. So drop the issue to appeal to more voters. Win more elections, balance the court, then you’re in a position to effect change.
Also, AWBs are pretty useless. They tend to grandfather in existing weapons and they exclude handguns, which are the weapon used most often to commit murder. Magazine limits, which were in the 1994 law, were the only piece to show a genuine reduction in violent crimes.
I guess my proposal would be to repeal and replace 2a. Probably won’t happen until the silent gen and the boomers are gone.
I strongly disagree with you, but I definitely give you credit for at least actually saying it.
Most that I’ve had this discussion with insist they don’t want to touch the second amendment and revoke the rights of law abiding gun owners… then most of their ideas both won’t solve gun violence while also stripping millions of people who’ve never broken a gun law of their rights without due process.
Guns are one issue where I strongly break with the Typical American Left™, but if you’re going to be anti-gun, I absolutely give you credit for having the wherewithal to just say what you really want.
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Well, I also said “replace.” Something that’s clearer and won’t be misinterpreted like the “well-regulated militia.”
Something that’s under control like they have in most other developed countries where you can still own a weapon in many instances, but it’s much safer and gun-related crime is way down.
I’m just, under no circumstance, willing to accept the massacres of children or other innocent people. And pretending it has nothing to do with the weapons is just disingenuous.
And pretending it has nothing to do with the weapons is just disingenuous.
Your virtue signaling aside, I feel it’s disingenuous to pretend it does come down to the weapons.
Americans have owned millions of guns throughout its entire existence. Why all the shootings in the news now?
I guess the guns finally got serious about their mind control plot to wipe out all the humans.
Why all the shootings in the news now?
Mental illness and easy access to weapons is a toxic combination not found in other developed countries. That’s why.
Some variation on this is the inevitable outcome. It’s same story as with say, universal health care. We already know the solution, we just have assholes and people stuck in the past preventing it. At some point, most of them will die off and society moves on.
Universal health care has been on the national stage since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912. Over a century and not much to show for it.
The problem with eventually is that there’s no measure of success, since you can never be wrong, it’s just not eventually yet.
How many countries have pulled it off? It’s laughable to think it is impossible here. Everything I’ve suggested has already been implemented elsewhere. It’s pretty logical to assume it can happen here too.
I assume you’ve pivoted now to universal healthcare…but I’m not sure. No one said it’s impossible, for that matter, no one said gun control is impossible. Just that it won’t pass a Republican controlled legislative body, and I assume it would be struck down by the Supreme Court…same as gun control. Change both of those (Congress & Court) and you’ve got a chance.
I don’t think any generation of 3/4 of the states is ratifying that.
Maybe, maybe not.
Or you know, actually interpret the way it was written. Most “gun enthusiasts” are not part of a “well regulated militia”.
A well stocked library, being necessary and proper for the literacy of a nation, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.
That wouldn’t limit the ownership of books to just librarians or people with library cards, it clearly applies to all people.
What if libraries stopped existing because they were completely replaced by something else? Militias stopped existing when we created a standing army. Or, if you want to be charitable, they’ve evolved into “National Guard” who are often armed. They are also well-regulated, as the amendment requires.
Also, this analogy is shit, you can’t take someone’s life in a split second, without a thought, with a fucking book. Give me a break.
The American/English language is awesome. We’ve got these great rules with sentence structure and grammar that makes things super easy once you learn the tricks.
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.
Little English trick for you. Remove the words between the commas and see if the sentence makes sense.
“A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed.” - Looks pretty good.
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, shall not be infringed.” - Still looks good and justifies the reason.
“A well regulated Militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” - Still looking good and provides context as to WHO the Militia is.We put it all together and get
A well regulated Militia (which is needed for security) (made up of people with guns) is a right granted to the State.If we add the missing comma to your initial statement before the word ‘shall’.
Yes, the way your statement is written it would contain books to libraries and would not EXPLICITY provide such protections (book ownership) to individuals. It does not limit individuals, but it does not grant them special rights either.If “the founders” had wanted everyone to be able to buy a gun they would not have included the word Militia. They’re authorizing States the rights to form their own National Guard. Keep in mind, they are NOT saying the average person cannot have a gun. It is my belief that during these times of ‘unrest’ that they wanted at least some form of local army to defend against invasion. Folks that get training on weapon use and military tactics.
Also some food for thought, nowhere in the 2A or Constitution is the word “ammunition”. So if the government so wished, they could simply make possession of primers illegal.
Read your statement again and now it makes sense why you think what you think. It’s the comma you either left off intentionally or conveniently. Commas matter.
Edit: The 2A does not GRANT or DIMINISH an individuals’ right to arms as it never addresses the subject. It only GRANTS the right to those members of the Militia.
A well regulated militia shall not be infringed sounds pretty meaningless to me. Can a well regulated militia take my car since they can’t be infringed? Can they openly kill anyone not in the militia? Can you not get speeding tickets if you join a militia? Adding being necessary to the security of a free state, does not clarify anything.
The actual subject in the sentence is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” If the Founders wanted it to be only members of a militia, they could have said members, militias, their, or almost anything other than the people.
As ass backwards as your understanding of sentence structure is and as intentionally obtuse an interpretation of the words “the people” as “the militia” instead of as “the people” like every other use of those words in the Bill of Rights, it doesn’t matter even if we agree with your assertion
The 2A does not GRANT or DIMINISH an individuals’ right to arms as it never addresses the subject. It only GRANTS the right to those members of the Militia.
10 USC: The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
Basically you are saying disarm only women and the elderly. That seems a little discriminatory, but you do you. Broadly speaking here, everyone is part of the militia. The militia is the citizens of the country. And if you want to argue that this doesn’t mean the people get to keep their arms when not actively participating in militia action like everyone seems to do when this is pointed out, please see the relevant legislation from the same time period as the 2nd Amendment.
Second Militia Act of 1792: How to be armed and accoutred. provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.
Clear intention that every citizen should arm themselves with military hardware, ammunition, and know how to use it. You didn’t use bayonets for hunting, this was “modern military hardware” for the day. This was not authorization to be allowed to arm militias. The US was not even allowed to have a standing army, only a permanent navy was allowed, the armed citizenry was the army as needed. And all this is moot because the premise of the 2nd being only for militia members is, again, faulty.
Sure but we’ve proven incapable of that. Repeal it and replace it with something that cannot be misinterpreted.
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Exactly.
Say it with me, “The State should not have a monopoly on violence.”
So, no suggestion other than just accepting the massacres?
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While I agree with all of those things, let’s remember that the same party that wants to do nothing about gun control will also not provide universal healthcare, a living wage, will provide no regulation of the labor market that could provide improved work-life balance, no family leave, no funding for universal college-level education.
All things that make it possible to live rather than just survive. And maybe people would be less desperate. Republicans say no.
Plus if they focused on mental health and preventive measures they could maybe bring over some fire arms enthusiasts, who otherwise vote republican or atleast get them to not vote.
Mind you the effectiveness may be scattershot at times since its alot easier to get the guy going postal than it is to get the an ideologically motivated shitbag.
Republicans block efforts for increased healthcare of any kind let alone mental health. They also block preventative measures like red flag laws.
It’s not a mental health issue. There are people with mental health issues all over the civilized world and those countries don’t deal with mass shootings weekly, even if the citizens are allowed access to guns. It’s the relatively unrestricted access to firearms with minimal to no oversight of gun owners, and no rules to secure said firearms.
Edit: well, here we go again.
Okay and? This was my point, ya aint gonna get a solid backing for any type of gun control due to the courts. I support firearms licensing, so long as its about as easy/hard as getting a drivers licence. The thing is though that going “its the guns” while technically true is about as helpful as going “its cause of capitalism” great youve found the problem now what practical solution do you have?
My point was moreso to give an example of what the Dems could do to syphon votes from the republicans. The current “lets ban guns” shtick clearly aint working so come up with a better solution. I think folks who make their identity all about firearms are stupid, but that also means they should be easy to be made apathetic on voting at minimum.
You’re both right. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. There are more guns than people in the US so to reduce gun suicide we must work both sides of the issue.
“minimal oversight and rules” he says. Tell us you’ve never bought a gun without telling us.
Please don’t speak about things you have no clue on. There are plenty of rules and restrictions. The fact that our federal government can’t or doesn’t enforce them properly means the law abiding citizen should suffer?
The fuck outta here with that nonsense.
Yeah. You don’t know anything about my firearms knowledge, and that’s fine with me. I don’t give a damn about some dick measuring contest over whatever is in someone’s arsenal.
What oversight? Most rural places you pass a nominal background check at best. Buy your gun, and nobody bothers you about it again. Urban areas? Yeah, more rules; but again, fill out the paperwork, pass the background checks, buy your gun and that’s it. The majority of rules apply to handguns. I can head on down to my local gun shop and pick up a deer rifle with almost no hassle at all. Or maybe you mean a tax stamp? Same story. Fill out the paperwork, pass the check, pay the money, get the gun.
Yet again, nobody pays attention to what you do with the gun once you have it. That’s the oversight part I’m talking about. Nobody is making you re-test for anything. There’s no license to maintain to own a long gun or even a handgun in the vast majority of places.
I’m not even going to touch CCW because that’s not buying a gun or owning a gun, that’s how you carry it.
What is apparent is that you haven’t a clue what real oversight is. Gun ownership in the rest of the civilized world is highly regulated, licensed, tested, and monitored. So is how the firearm is stored, where and when it can be transported and used.
So “get outta here with that nonsense” when you consider a single background check or a tax stamp “monitoring” your ownership.
This is the other side of the argument that I don’t really understand. There shouldn’t be “monitoring” of your ownership. A law abiding citizen going in, filling out a background check and proving they aren’t prohibited from owning a gun and then buying said gun and ending their involvement with the government from that point on is just normal. We are innocent until proven guilty. We have a right to privacy. We have a right against unwarranted searches. Exercising one of your other constitutional rights shouldn’t and doesn’t mean you give up others.
The government shouldn’t be monitoring it’s citizens with regular check-ins, making sure they are good worker drones. I don’t understand the desire for the government to dictate or arbitrate every action you take, because the government doesn’t care about you as an individual. Allowing the government to monitor your personal life is a distopian trope for a reason. I don’t want to live in a police state like the UK or China, and our own police state is already bad enough.
Well, law abiding citizens shouldn’t shoot up schools, concerts, or businesses. But that doesn’t matter when it’s a right to own guns, because somehow magically a law abiding citizen with guns suddenly isn’t so law abiding, but gun owners never really want to deal with that. Wash their hands and walk away.
Because it wasn’t the reauthorizing of the assault weapons ban, it was an entirely new version of… The same measures we had 2 decades ago…
The fuck are you talking about it would never pass Congress or the supreme Court, it’s the same damn thing we already had you muppet.
Are you under the impression the politics of 1994 are remotely similar to 2023? Have you read the Supreme Court cases of Heller (2008) or Bruen (2022)?
Name call all you want, but you’re the one tragically out of touch. This Congress, especially the Republican majority in the house would NEVER pass this bill. SCOTUS has completely changed gun rights in this country since 2008. First finding an individual right to gun ownership, then drastically reducing those gun limitations that are allowable under the 2nd amendment.
I suggest you do some reading before spouting nonsense. Your comment somehow states the bill is simultaneously “entirely new” and also the “same damn thing”. Muppet.
Those things will all vanish eventually. We currently have the most conservative SCOTUS in basically a century, and the Republican party is near-fascist politically. These are not sturdy foundations for a legal concept. The truth is, society has never accepted murder and cruelty as a necessary part of society. It’s always just a handful of elitists or bigoted fanatics holding society back.
Eventually, many of our current laws and customs will become viewed as the next version of Jim Crow or anti-LGBT laws, and become so unpopular they get repealed. Some take decades to go down, but they always go down. The concept of gun rights will be one of them.
Eventually, eventually, eventually…
Eventually a space alien from over 100 light years away will be named Steve and be president of Earth. You can’t prove me wrong, because… eventually!
Because everything today is exactly as it was when the US constitution was first ratified…
This is anti-progress thinking. It’s laughable that you actually think basic legal reforms can’t happen.
This is anti-progress thinking. It’s laughable that you actually think basic legal reforms can’t happen.
No one said basic legal reforms can’t happen, you’re creating a strawman. I said that this Congress and this Supreme Court will not allow gun control. If you disagree, by all means let me know where my error lies.
Also, let me know the path to passage rather than vague statements about eventually. Eventually is weasel language that means you have no confidence in what you’re saying; if you did, you’d tell me when and how that can be accomplished.
No one said otherwise. But you won’t have this congress and this SCOTUS forever.
And again, it is basic legal reform. It is not some hard problem. And since nearly every Western country has both universal health care and gun control, it is pretty feasible for those ideas to spread to the US at some point. All your doing is apologizing for the modern incarnation of racist violence.
The court’s opinion swung one way in 15 years. It can swing back in another 15. Three of the 4 oldest justices are Republicans and it only takes 2 being replaced with Democrats to flip the court. Totally within the realm of possibility.
Scalia’s vote in Heller (singled him out because it was openly against his so-called “originalist” school of thought) undid far more than just fifteen years of precedent.
Oh absolutely. Heller was exceptional in its stupidity. My point was just what the current court does, a future court can always undo.
You have to change Congress too. But you’re still talking about 15+ years, and multiple conservative justices dying, and being replaced by liberal justices, and the reverse not happening.
So can we agree that we can hold off on the AWB for like 20 years?
No, we can’t even agree on that unfortunately. This country is divided in several ways where there is no acceptable compromise and gun control is one of them.
Disagree. The solution is to push for as much gun control as possible, until eventually the dam breaks and the 2A dies. In the long run, gun ownership in the US will resemble how it works in other Western countries, which is to say not much at all.
Disagree. The solution is to push for as much gun control as possible,
That’s essentially nothing.
…until eventually the dam breaks and the 2A dies.
And I think elephants should fart rainbows, but both of our proposals lack any consideration of how we make that happen.
In the long run, gun ownership in the US will resemble how it works in other Western countries, which is to say not much at all.
Eventually? There are roughly 400 million guns in this country…how many generations is “eventually”?
I’m not even disagreeing with you, but hoping doesn’t make it happen. How do we get there? What are the steps? Does your projected path take into account the systemic impediments?
It’s the same story as every other form of cruelty or injustice in American history. People look abroad, realize that such a problem never existed or was solved elsewhere, and eventually will push for the same type of reform in the US.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes or how hard it is. It’s the same story as every other big accomplish of the past, whether it’s ending slavery or women’s voting rights. They took decades to happen, but they all eventually happened.
Again, that’s all great, but how does it happen? What are the steps to take? Saying it will eventually happen seems even more dismissive than saying it can’t happen given current conditions.
When half the country is literally fascist, sure you can admit it isn’t going to happen anytime soon. But that is a temporary phenomenon. Eventually, all of them will die. At some point, the US will be a country run by normal people. You’re going to have large-scale agreement for major reforms.
The US is getting more stupid and polarised as school funding is diverted and people sign their heels in against civil discourse. It will be a long time before it is run by normal people.
I wouldn’t cry if guns were banned entirely, but given the culture the US population has been sold for generations, common sense gun control that works handily in other countries simply won’t work in the US. We’re not wired that way.
The best chance we have is pulling the tug o’ war rope as hard as possible just to maintain the status quo. We’re not fighting for reform, we’re fighting not to backslide.
As the saying goes, “this too shall pass.” No one can say when, but major political shifts always happen after a while.
And now you have lost anyone who like me would be open to voting Democrat more often instead of third party, because I don’t want to flat out lose my 2A rights. I don’t want to vote Republican because I don’t want to lose other rights in the slide towards religious fascism either. If every side is running on a platform of pick which rights you least want to lose, at least I’ll have my guns for protection when the fascists do successfully pull a coup and society collapses.
Yeah, same pro-fascist shit as always. Seen your type a thousands times now.
Let me know how your Democrat recruiting pans out when you call everyone who disagrees with abolishing the 2nd amendment pro-fascist. Really winning hearts and minds, and doing that “big tent” proud. Worked great in 2016, definitely didn’t need any of those “deplorables” to join up and there were no lasting consequences.
God I hate our 2 party system. Can’t get universal modern healthcare and universal basic income while also keeping gun rights.
Same-old closet fascist shit you always hear. It’s pretty obvious you don’t care how many people die. So none of your rhetoric holds up to scrutiny.
Ok, this a a good reminder not to give possible trolling the benefit of the doubt. Even though it’s feeding the troll: gun rights are not only for the far right. Marx realized the need for robust gun rights, this is nothing new. “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” Don’t trust the state and the police to protect you, especially if you are a minority or revolutionary. The police have no legal duty to protect you.
We are not obligated to believe in Marx either. In fact, last I check nearly everyone agreed he was wrong on a lot of things. It’s all outdated extremist rhetoric, regardless of where it came from.
My feed:
All too often the sad but true story about the US of A.
Wow it’s almost like if you immerse yourself in nonsense and hyperbole then it will permeate every space you visit. Who would have thought?
It’s your feed and your preferences dude, false equivalency if I’ve ever seen one.
You wanna fix American politics and with that nearly all other problems with it?
Stop the “winner takes all” system you have right now.
You’ll get a hundred political parties that have to compete with eachother. People will start voting more because now there are parties they can actually agree with and you get rid of this “always nearly 50/50” bullshit and one big party that blocks any proposal to actually improve the country
Want to stop the bank on assault rifles? Good luck stopping 20 parties
It’s called First Past The Post system.
CPG Grey has a series of fun videos explaining why we have shity politicians. https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/
Banning specific guns is pure theater, even if it passes. There’s zero real safety in it.
Speaking on behalf of the rest of us, we think it would be cool if we tried to see if it would go differently before we just accept the opinion of random people on the internet with zero proven credentials to weigh in on the subject.
If that’s okay with you.
America had an assault weapon ban previously and during that time is when school shootings actually started.
You mean this?
Could you tell us exactly what shooting you believe “started” them all? Because according to the article, lives were saved ass a result of the ban.
Columbine was the start of the modern school shooting phenomenon. To this date mass shooters, even outside of school settings, follow the blueprint they started in the 1999 assualt of a school. The tactics, motivation, and planning for Columbine seperates it from more than most of the previous civilian gun violence, and the mass shooters that follow look more like the Columbine shooters than they look like the shooters who came before them.
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Really? Prove it. You’re statement is full of hot air. Pure posturing.
Is that why there are very few shootings in other developed countries where gun control is also infinitely stricter?
Like Mexico where the schools have been hardened since the 80s and there are millions of guns and criminals?
Try again. The “Western nation” schtick is incorrect and getting stale.
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other developed countries
Try again.
Ah yes, the famously developed and first world country of Mexico!
It’s not like Mexico is stuck in development hell thanks in large part to it’s larger northern neighbor exercising their significantly larger influence upon them or anything
You’re so insecure about shit that’s bad about the US, it’s kinda pathetic to see you on every comment thread poorly defending the US
Nothing will change until it’s their grandkids who get mowed down.
It doesn’t even change when they get shot. Just ask Steve Scalise.
Ask James Brady.
James Brady didn’t then go on to vote in congress against measures that would have prevented the man who shot him from having done so.
That was my point.
You said: It doesn’t even change when they get shot.
Oh, gotcha.
Sorry for the confusion.
Honestly, it was probably me. It usually is. :)
Wasn’t there some Congress Lady that got shot in the face and was still like “I support guns…” 🤦♂️
No, that was Giffords and she went on to found a gun control organization.
Absolutely not. That was Gabby Giffords, and Mark Kelly is her husband.
Their grand kids don’t go to the schools that get shot up.
you ever notice that when a vote is 49-51 conservatives win whether they’re the 49 or the 51? Or how if it looks like they’re gonna lose the vote by a large enough margin to actually lose that they can just prevent a vote from happening at all? You ever wonder how the government dare call itself “representative” and then ignore something that 92% of us want?
The Constitution was designed to make change difficult because the founders feared a strong government. It’s unfortunately a design feature. It’s why it’s harder to actually address a problem instead of preserving the status quo.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans moved to block a ban on assault-style weapons put forward by Democrats on Wednesday, as the United States recorded the highest number of mass shootings for the second year in a row.
The motion, put forward by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, would have reauthorized the Assault Weapons Ban, which first passed in 1994 and expired 10 years later.
The ban covers certain semi-automatic firearms and large capacity ammunition magazines, and ushered in a decrease of deaths from gun violence while it was in place.
“The American people are sick and tired of enduring one mass shooting after another,” Schumer said on Wednesday in a speech bringing the motion to the floor.
“Americans have a Constitutional right to own a firearm,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor, arguing that the bill was about “trying to label responsible gun owners as criminals.”
The most recent high-profile killing happened in Lewiston, Maine, where 18 people were shot by a U.S. Army reservist who committed suicide shortly after the shooting spree.
The original article contains 323 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 45%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Conservatives won’t stop standing in the way of progressive gun control until school shootings become a national attraction.
“Hey look kids! A school shooting! So glad we took this vacation to rural America!”
They won’t do it until one of their kids is a victim and suddenly it affects them personally. And even then, only one vote will change.
That’s their M.O. They don’t care when their policies are actively hurting other people so long as they aren’t affected.
So your stance is that only liberal kids get victimized?
Their stance is that conservatives are babies who took the miraculous and precious human ability to empathize with other beings and stunted it with with a bunch of half-assed morality stories about how the world is supposed to work that have nothing to do with reality.
All kids are victimized but most conservatives don’t care until it’s their kid specifically. Kind of like most political issues that people who have empathy care about.
So conservatives don’t care if the children of liberal parents are victims?
No they don’t. They immediately jump to “they must have deserved it.”
If you honestly believe that you are so full of hate your judgement is off.
I didn’t say I believe that, it’s what conservatives believe.
Then maybe they should do something.
Let me simplify this for you:
So conservatives don’t care if
thechildrenof liberal parentsare victims?That right there is my point. What are the deaths of a few children so long as there are zero restrictions placed on gun ownership? They won’t care until it affects them in a very personal way. The people with the capacity to change things are presently choosing not to. One has to wonder what would finally cause them to do something.
And I’m not even asking for anything crazy like the assault weapons ban that has been floated recently. We can’t even get the most reasonable legislation passed.
Our answer to “more gunmen” cannot be “more guns”. Or, rather, it can, but take a look around. How’s that working out for us?
Wow. Just wow. There was an attempt.
You’re seeing what you want to see my man, not what’s actually written. Try again.
For $150 a person, you can be taken through a school, wearing a bullet proof vest, during an active shooter drill!
The Republican party is a criminal and terrorist organization. At this point, this is literally political terrorism.
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As Putin requested/ordered.
How many more people have to be killed while going about their daily lives?
An unlimited amount, because nothing will make the US change. Kids being massacred in school, nothing. Concert-goers being plowed down from a hotel window, nothing. Bowlers killed while enjoying a game, nothing.
Apparently no price is too high and Americans will seemingly prioritize their weapons over everything else.
Freedom is paid for in blood, check your history.
The US must be very free then with all the massacred school children to pay for it. Enjoy your freedom, chump.
Why is it that my guns are the problem here? I’m a law abiding citizen and yet people think taking my guns away will stop mass shootings?
I fail to see any logic here. I’m not going to give up MY freedoms when others can’t behave properly. You’ll never catch me shooting at innocent people, so why is it that all these politicians want to restrict MY guns?
We need more responsible citizens carrying firearms, so if whacko decides to shoot at Innocent people they get readily clapped and the mass shooting is over.
Trained armed police, security, citizens, etc. the thug, thief, ought to fear quick and equal or greater force.
I would even say that I am pro-store owners dropping looters and mass thieves. A few of those instances, where people get dropped, and maybe the idea of such theft won’t be so appealing anymore.
100% agree
And harden schools. We piss money away to Ukraine and Israel. Bail large corporations out left and right…
Mexico has had hardened schools since the 80s. Lots of guns, lots of criminals.
If ever you needed any indication that both political parties do not give a flying FUCK about the average citizen and children; it’s the fact that hardening schools “costs too much.”
Disgraceful.
Because it’s never your guns until it is.
I’m sure the owner of every firearm that’s been used in a mass killing would have brought that exact question if they had been asked.
All of those guns proceeded to become part of the problem, why should we ever just take your word that yours won’t?
This isn’t about your guns. It’s about guns.
This isn’t about you. It’s about us.
It’s such an absurd argument to equate guns with freedom - most free people live without them just fine.
Why is it that not allowing you to own certain types of guns is an infringement on your freedom, yet the ability to drink alcohol before 21, or buy a manpad, or inject heroin into your veins not an equal violation of your freedom?
It won’t change until people fill the streets. The supreme court has interpreted a right to be in a state militia as the right to carry a gun anywhere. That kind of power bows to nothing less.
Good, anti 2A laws should be struck down.
Repeal and replace 2a.
No
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No one is “laughing” at the literal only global superpower. We are talking about the literal only entity protecting globilization. If you have a problem with having too many rights in the Land of The Free then move to China.
Trust me, we are laughing. Especially at people making comments like yours.
Keep laughing, the more the democratics prop up resolutions that wont pass but will scare voters, the closer the only party that wants to fund the war against Russian expansion gets to losing.
These people get to decide Europes future because Europes self defense is dependent on US intervention.
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Damn straight. Freedom is vastly more important than people’s efforts to obtain a pretense of security.
That why you lot are so willing to sacrifice everyone else’s freedom to expect to not be blown away while grocery shopping all so you can have the false pretense of security menacing the public with a security blanket rifle gives you?
I’m not doing any of that. You are choosing to be afraid, when you have the freedom to choose not to live in fear because it’s never going to happen to you or anybody you know, statistically.
Enjoy your freedom instead of being afraid to live.
You’re the one who can’t leave their house without a security blanket rifle to menace everyone else with scaredy.
Nope, that’s something you made up in your head about me. Most of the time I go out with zero guns and 1 knife, and I go wherever I want without fear because America is generally very safe.
Sure bub they’re laughing at what others have died to forge ie your freedom, even your freedom to be a dumbass on the Internet. Others around the world would kill for your freedoms, and have.
Go visit Hong Kong or virtually anywhere and ask if they laugh at one of the most critically and politically acclaimed documents in the entire free world.
Clown.
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Shut the fuck up right back to the country you came from then with your opinions dip shit.
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Good
