Slog Comments
Gun Ownership Is 21st Century America's "Peculiar Institution"
2
I was called a traitor, a moron, a first-class idiot, and had wished upon me a violent death with no way to defend myself for saying something less radical (though I do agree with you) on a former friend's' Facebook page by her family.
All I suggested was that Obama was not comin to take anyone's guns, that even if the ban passed In Congress that it would not be a call to turn in currently owned assault weapons.
For this I was personally attacked.
These people are batshit insane. They do not want to talk about this issue, their gunshots will be their retort to reasoned debate. Abrupt, terse, loud, and effective. That is their voice, the voice of their gun. It will say everything for them.
Comparing, in any way, gun-ownership to slavery (even by qualifying it that you mean it only in the sense of HOW it is discussed, and not comparing the morality of the two) will not sway them. It will only further enrage them, because in their eyes, they are the slaves, and their guns are their freedom papers. To them, gun-control is slavery.
No need for critical thinking when you can mow down those who voice disagreement with your opinion.
All I suggested was that Obama was not comin to take anyone's guns, that even if the ban passed In Congress that it would not be a call to turn in currently owned assault weapons.
For this I was personally attacked.
These people are batshit insane. They do not want to talk about this issue, their gunshots will be their retort to reasoned debate. Abrupt, terse, loud, and effective. That is their voice, the voice of their gun. It will say everything for them.
Comparing, in any way, gun-ownership to slavery (even by qualifying it that you mean it only in the sense of HOW it is discussed, and not comparing the morality of the two) will not sway them. It will only further enrage them, because in their eyes, they are the slaves, and their guns are their freedom papers. To them, gun-control is slavery.
No need for critical thinking when you can mow down those who voice disagreement with your opinion.
3
Slavery was about money. The British built an entire ship industry for shipping slaves to us. The landowners in the south needed a lot of cheap labor to harvest their product.
And the real issue with guns is the corporate greed and power to influence the public dialogue. The same people who call themselves strict constitutionalists never mention the fact that it was written when people had muskets. A very primitive gun that was difficult to load and aim. Or the fact that it states gun ownership was for a "well regulated militia" .
And the real issue with guns is the corporate greed and power to influence the public dialogue. The same people who call themselves strict constitutionalists never mention the fact that it was written when people had muskets. A very primitive gun that was difficult to load and aim. Or the fact that it states gun ownership was for a "well regulated militia" .
4
I dunno. Gun ownership and slavery are two very different issues. The arguments might sound somewhat similar, but they're really not. I mean, you could just as easily say that people who are pro-choice are using the same arguments that pro-slavery used, and that abortion is our generation's "peculiar institution."
These are different issues and different times. Calling the arguments in favor of gun ownership as being essentially the same as the arguments in favor of slavery is simply off target.
These are different issues and different times. Calling the arguments in favor of gun ownership as being essentially the same as the arguments in favor of slavery is simply off target.
8
One point: slavery was never enshrined as a right in the Constitution. The slave trade was allowed to continue at the states' discretion until 1808, and Article 4, Section II provided for the return of slaves (or others held in service or labor) escaping from one state captured in another.
These were political necessities to ratify the Constitution. But it never defined any right specifically to own slaves. In fact, the first mention of slavery per se was in the amendment which abolished it.
These were political necessities to ratify the Constitution. But it never defined any right specifically to own slaves. In fact, the first mention of slavery per se was in the amendment which abolished it.
9
Way back when I was at a horrible conservative religious school I remember the discussion of Al Gore as a presidential candidate. One of my classmates said something about how he wanted to make the Constitution a living document. She was one of the smarter and better-informed among them, but she still spoke these words in tones of utter horror. Change the Constitution? But it's meant to stand as a light eternal!
To these people, the Constitution really is a sacred text. If it wasn't divinely inspired it was the next best thing. The pragmatists among them acknowledge that it got slavery wrong, but seem to believe that even at the framing of the Constitution they were already trying to grant rights to slaves--that the whole purpose for allowing amendments was so that eventually the institution of slavery could be overturned. And there is always the traditional apologist's fallback: "You're looking at it with modern eyes, and it wasn't written in modern times. You're ignoring the context." Suddenly in order to suggest that maybe slavery has always been wrong you have to write a dissertation on the entirety of Western culture in the eighteenth century, by which point your original point that maybe the Constitution isn't perfect will be lost in the details.
They will probably point at Prohibition as an example of the dangers of ever changing the Constitution (though they would happily amend it to ban gay marriage), even though it was done by the Constitution's laws. It is a religious document to them--if it's in the Constitution, it is justification enough for anything. And like most religious documents, the bulk of them don't even care what it says, so much as what they think it says (constitutional jurisprudence be damned).
To these people, the Constitution really is a sacred text. If it wasn't divinely inspired it was the next best thing. The pragmatists among them acknowledge that it got slavery wrong, but seem to believe that even at the framing of the Constitution they were already trying to grant rights to slaves--that the whole purpose for allowing amendments was so that eventually the institution of slavery could be overturned. And there is always the traditional apologist's fallback: "You're looking at it with modern eyes, and it wasn't written in modern times. You're ignoring the context." Suddenly in order to suggest that maybe slavery has always been wrong you have to write a dissertation on the entirety of Western culture in the eighteenth century, by which point your original point that maybe the Constitution isn't perfect will be lost in the details.
They will probably point at Prohibition as an example of the dangers of ever changing the Constitution (though they would happily amend it to ban gay marriage), even though it was done by the Constitution's laws. It is a religious document to them--if it's in the Constitution, it is justification enough for anything. And like most religious documents, the bulk of them don't even care what it says, so much as what they think it says (constitutional jurisprudence be damned).
10
@4
"The arguments might sound somewhat similar, but they're really not."
They sound superficially similar because they follow the same format.
Person A wants to remove or restrict a right or privilege of Person B.
That right or privilege is based upon prior law or tradition.
So when Person B objects to losing/restricting the right or privilege it will always sound, superficially, the same.
Whether the topic is
gun control
slavery
abortion
Prohibition
etc
"The arguments might sound somewhat similar, but they're really not."
They sound superficially similar because they follow the same format.
Person A wants to remove or restrict a right or privilege of Person B.
That right or privilege is based upon prior law or tradition.
So when Person B objects to losing/restricting the right or privilege it will always sound, superficially, the same.
Whether the topic is
gun control
slavery
abortion
Prohibition
etc
11
yes, an individual right; no, that right is not unlimited and it has contours, conditions, limits, and exists in a world of other rights, including...a right to safety.
I have private property right. but in a fire, the public can freaking destory my house without due process for public safety needs.
i have right of free speech. but that right is limited, does not include obscentiy, agreement to commit a crime, etc. Defamation. Other limits on speech are well known to deadbeat dads who spoke the fateful words "I do" -- i.e., a lifetime of child support from exercising speech rights. See? They're fucking limited and conditioned.
Now, right to bear arms. Nukes are arms, but you have no right to bear them, ditto mustard gas, ditto tanks, ditto...automatics...must register....it's so restrictive it's almost a ban...so yes we can ban knives more than 3.5 inches in seattle, they're arms too dude...we can ban a class of arms, you still have a right individual right to OTHER arms you don't have a right to ALL arms. cuz rights are limited, have their contours.
so conceding it's an individual right doesn't mean we can't make you do background check or that we can't ban assault weapons.
btw our constitution was written by some who viciously and cruelly owned slaves, I wouldn't venerate them all that much.....and when did any NRA members go fight jim crow by the way?
I have private property right. but in a fire, the public can freaking destory my house without due process for public safety needs.
i have right of free speech. but that right is limited, does not include obscentiy, agreement to commit a crime, etc. Defamation. Other limits on speech are well known to deadbeat dads who spoke the fateful words "I do" -- i.e., a lifetime of child support from exercising speech rights. See? They're fucking limited and conditioned.
Now, right to bear arms. Nukes are arms, but you have no right to bear them, ditto mustard gas, ditto tanks, ditto...automatics...must register....it's so restrictive it's almost a ban...so yes we can ban knives more than 3.5 inches in seattle, they're arms too dude...we can ban a class of arms, you still have a right individual right to OTHER arms you don't have a right to ALL arms. cuz rights are limited, have their contours.
so conceding it's an individual right doesn't mean we can't make you do background check or that we can't ban assault weapons.
btw our constitution was written by some who viciously and cruelly owned slaves, I wouldn't venerate them all that much.....and when did any NRA members go fight jim crow by the way?
12
You're fine with disarming the police of their "peculiar institution" as well? Or are some people more equal than others?
13
http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/bogus2.htm
"Slavery was not only an economic and industrial system," one scholar noted, "but more than that, it was a gigantic police system."[123] Over time the South had developed an elaborate system of slave control. The basic instrument of control was the slave patrol, armed groups of white men who made regular rounds.[124] The patrols made sure that blacks were not wandering where they did not belong, gathering in groups, or engaging in other suspicious activity.[125] Equally important, however, was the demonstration of constant vigilance and armed force. The basic strategy was to ensure and impress upon the slaves that whites were armed, watchful, and ready to respond to insurrectionist activity at all times.[126] The state required white men and female plantation owners to participate in the patrols and to provide their own arms and equipment, although the rich were permitted to send white servants in their place.[127]
Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia all had regulated slave patrols.[128] By the mid-eighteenth century, the patrols had become the responsibility of the militia.[129] Georgia statutes [Page 336] enacted in 1755 and 1757, for example, carefully divided militia districts into discrete patrol areas and specified when patrols would muster. The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search "all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition" and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds.[130]
"Slavery was not only an economic and industrial system," one scholar noted, "but more than that, it was a gigantic police system."[123] Over time the South had developed an elaborate system of slave control. The basic instrument of control was the slave patrol, armed groups of white men who made regular rounds.[124] The patrols made sure that blacks were not wandering where they did not belong, gathering in groups, or engaging in other suspicious activity.[125] Equally important, however, was the demonstration of constant vigilance and armed force. The basic strategy was to ensure and impress upon the slaves that whites were armed, watchful, and ready to respond to insurrectionist activity at all times.[126] The state required white men and female plantation owners to participate in the patrols and to provide their own arms and equipment, although the rich were permitted to send white servants in their place.[127]
Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia all had regulated slave patrols.[128] By the mid-eighteenth century, the patrols had become the responsibility of the militia.[129] Georgia statutes [Page 336] enacted in 1755 and 1757, for example, carefully divided militia districts into discrete patrol areas and specified when patrols would muster. The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search "all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition" and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds.[130]
14
@5 I use "em" for italics. So, "italics on" is < e m > (no spaces) and "italics, off" < / e m > (no spaces). You're not the first person on SLOG to forget a "/".
17
The second amendment and slavery may be more closely related than we all believe, if there is legitimacy to this Thom Hartmann post, stating that the protected "state militias" were actually patrols to control slaves:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/s…
http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/s…
18
@7 - No kidding. You don't hear about landlords using the 3rd amendment to exclude military personnel as tenants.
Maybe it's because that last bit actually qualifies what precedes it, rather than serving as filler to get the amendment to a predetermined word count.
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.If those who think the 2nd amendment grants them an unqualified right to bear arms can ignore the qualifications before the first comma, why can't a landlord wanting to exclude soldiers ignore everything after that last comma? After all, the first bit is pretty goddamn clear: "no soldier shall."
Maybe it's because that last bit actually qualifies what precedes it, rather than serving as filler to get the amendment to a predetermined word count.
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