Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests • Hacker News Board

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#941

Post by solidsnack9000 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #913

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am asking you to clarify and support your position — to say what the problems you are referring to actually are, and how, in your view, they went away — not to give me a history lesson.

> What were the problems the 2nd Amendment was written to solve, and what happened to them? Google this. Get a factual basis under your feet and our conversation can continue. Figure out what Britain was trying to do at the time to the then-colonies, what laws it was passing. Go read federalist paper #46, understand Madison's contemporary writings of the time to get a better view of the mindset of the author of the S…

Please present your position in a verifiable way, that someone can inquire after.

Where you say, “The problems the second amendment was written to solve don't exist anymore, so the second amendment shouldn't exist anymore.”, you present a claim in a vague way, difficult to argue for or against, because you don’t say what the problems were or how you know they were solved.

This is not about me doing my homework or lacking necessary knowledge — my unwillingness to fill in the gaps in your argument is not indicator of some insufficiency on my part. Telling me to “Google this” and get a “factual basis under my feet” is simple rudeness, and besides the point.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#942

Post by diminoten » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #941

diminoten wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What were the problems the 2nd Amendment was written to solve, and what happened to them? Google this. Get a factual basis under your feet and our conversation can continue. Figure out what Britain was trying to do at the time to the then-colonies, what laws it was passing. Go read federalist paper #46, understand Madison's contemporary writings of the time to get a better view of the mindset of the author of the S…

Please present your position in a verifiable way, that someone can inquire after. Where you say, “The problems the second amendment was written to solve don't exist anymore, so the second amendment shouldn't exist anymore.”, you present a claim in a vague way, difficult to argue for or against, because you don’t say what the problems were or how you know they were solved. This is not about me doing my homework or lac…

It very much is about you doing your homework. You need to have a certain level of prerequisite knowledge about history at the time of Madison et. al., and you seem to lack that.

The only reason you perceive what I've written as rudeness is because you're bringing your ego to bear on this conversation, not your intellect.

Further, what you are attempting to do is akin to a zip bomb. "Spend hours crafting a response for me so I don't have to do any research or provide any understanding of my own, please!"

Gladly, but my rates are ~$500/hr. Let me know how you'd like to proceed!

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#943

Post by diminoten » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #941

diminoten wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What were the problems the 2nd Amendment was written to solve, and what happened to them? Google this. Get a factual basis under your feet and our conversation can continue. Figure out what Britain was trying to do at the time to the then-colonies, what laws it was passing. Go read federalist paper #46, understand Madison's contemporary writings of the time to get a better view of the mindset of the author of the S…

Please present your position in a verifiable way, that someone can inquire after. Where you say, “The problems the second amendment was written to solve don't exist anymore, so the second amendment shouldn't exist anymore.”, you present a claim in a vague way, difficult to argue for or against, because you don’t say what the problems were or how you know they were solved. This is not about me doing my homework or lac…

Preempting your next reply with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8

If you do nothing else, please watch.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#944

Post by ChrisLomont » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #350

ChrisLomont wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2A applies only to militias This is untrue, and the Supreme Court has ruled several times on it. The states, which mostly modeled their Constitutions on the Federal ones, have a significant majority of them giving the people explicit individual right to bear arms. Or read the Federalist Papers, or look at common law leading up to the constitution, or realize that the Bill of Rights was added at the states request to…

> This is untrue, and the Supreme Court has ruled several times on it. This is a pretty weak appeal to authority. My rejoinders are Dred Scott and Korematsu (or anything about the idiotic "right to contract"). The Court isn't always right. > or realize that the Bill of Rights was added at the states request to protect individual rights, not collective govt sanctioned rights Well, 9A protects individual rights not enu…

>This is a pretty weak appeal to authority.

This is not appeal to authority. You keep misusing that term in this thread to belittle things you dislike. Appeal to authority would be to say an argument is right solely because an expert said so. No one has made that argument. The things people are pointing out to you are quotes and historical facts. There is no other evidence than these to demonstrate the point.

So much of what you say is wrong. A good source with a lot of historical references is the 1982 Congressional Research Office report on the matter, with hundreds of citations for you to check. Some quotes:

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)

"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)

Yet you claim "2A is absolutely not about individual rights. No Founder ever talked about it in this way."? I just gave you two Founder quotes; there are many more. There's a lot more in that report that proves you wrong. The state constitutions they wrote also prove you wrong.

The research report traces the right to bear arms from around 800AD through many places that formed the right as the founders understood, and provides ample quotes from Founding Fathers to show that they did intend individual rights. It's also why the vast majority of the states, when copying the bill of rights into their own constitutions, also give individual rights. As evidence, here are a few of the state constitution rights from the original 13 colonies. All states are covered in [2]:

Connecticut: Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state

Delaware: A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use

Georgia: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne

Massachusetts: The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

New Hampshire: All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.

Pennsylvania: The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

Rhode Island: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

So either all these states didn't understand the original intent, even though many of them had constitutions written by the same people, or the modern interpretation is wrong.

[1] https://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/87senrpt.pdf [2] http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/statecon.htm

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#945

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

justsubmit wrote: post #511

Sandman wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ability to defend yourself against a tyrannical dictatorship made sense until the government developed better technology, now it's pointless so just give up your guns? Basically, yes. Do you honestly think people would have any chance against probably the most powerful army in the world? Sure, they could try fighting a guerilla warfare, they'd even inflict some casualties against the enemy but it's unlikely tha…

> Sure, they could try fighting a guerilla warfare, they'd even inflict some casualties against the enemy but it's unlikely that in the end they'd succeed against an army that is professional, highly skilled, better equipped, has better offensive and defensive capabilities, knows a lot more about tactics and logistics and has trained for this type of situation on a daily basis. Have you heard of the Viet Cong?

> Have you heard of the Viet Cong?

The one that got basically wiped out despite foreign backing (though the regular army that was their most direct supporter—the North Vietnamese Army—intervened and ultimately won the war after they were crushed)? Yeah, heard of them.

They kind of prove (or at least demonstrate) the point the grandparent post was making, though.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#946

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

c0nducktr wrote: post #491

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, that's probably a hugely underappreciated factor that would make fighting a war like that even harder. The CIA also has a document (sorry, I don't remember the name) detailing ways that civilians can sabotage efforts by doing things like holding extra meetings, etc. I wonder if anyone would stay in the military to better thwart it.

I believe this is the document. Page 28 of the book, (18 of the PDF) "General Interference with Organizations and Production" https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...

That's it!

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#947

Post by jki275 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 11:10 PM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #884

jki275 wrote: post #870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an appeal to authority. The Supreme Court is literally the last word on the Constitution in the United States, therefore they are the authority on it. Scalia's opinion is the law of the land, and the reasoning is sound. Unless you're a SCOTUS justice, your opinion on the matter isn't really relevant.

I agree, which is why I actually haven't given my opinion on 2A. I know that because it involves a discussion on whether Americans have a constitutional right to own nuclear weapons. I've only summarized relevant bits of the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, law (The Militia Act of 1792) and Supreme Court precedent. I concede I'm not likely to convince you. But I implore you not to be taken in by one of the most h…

You mischaracterize the founding fathers and the Constitution.

First, the founding fathers did not ensure that slavery would be allowed in perpetuity. In fact, the slave trade had already been outlawed (and later the US Navy even sent ships to Africa to interdict slavers leaving the continent -- I wrote a paper years ago on the USS Constellation's involvement there), and the seeds of the civil war were sown in the 3/5ths compromise, which ensured that the south would never be able to muster the power to keep slavery legal.

No one holds up pre colonial times as bastions of freedom and enlightenment. We fought a war then, and there is no question that many things that were not good happened then.

But it's also not sophistry to analyze the intent of the framers of our country's original documents in ensuring that we follow the law. The Constitution is the law of the land, and it means exactly what it says -- which is that the right to keep and bear arms is a natural and individual right. It does not say that having a militia is a right, it does not say that owning handguns is for self defense. It says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. There is only one statement stronger in the Bill of Rights, and that is "Congress shall make no law" in the first. The militia clause isn't dependent on the right. The militia clause gives a reason for this right (and keep in mind that 10 USC 246 is still in effect to this day), but the right is not dependent on it.

Scalia clearly lays this out, gives the proper English lesson, and explains why the amendment means precisely what it says. That's not sophistry. Oddly enough, your argument above actually is the exact definition of sophistry.

If you don't like the Constitution, it has a mechanism to change it. Try it if you feel it's necessary, but don't make up stories about how it doesn't mean what it means.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#948

Post by jki275 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC

kristiandupont wrote: post #894

jki275 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's correct, and it means exactly the opposite. The armed citizen is a deterrent to rolling tanks at all.

Well we clearly can't know how China would react, but I personally doubt that statement.

History bears against you.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#949

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #942

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please present your position in a verifiable way, that someone can inquire after. Where you say, “The problems the second amendment was written to solve don't exist anymore, so the second amendment shouldn't exist anymore.”, you present a claim in a vague way, difficult to argue for or against, because you don’t say what the problems were or how you know they were solved. This is not about me doing my homework or lac…

It very much is about you doing your homework. You need to have a certain level of prerequisite knowledge about history at the time of Madison et. al., and you seem to lack that. The only reason you perceive what I've written as rudeness is because you're bringing your ego to bear on this conversation, not your intellect. Further, what you are attempting to do is akin to a zip bomb. "Spend hours crafting a response f…

You said the problems that the 2nd Amendment addressed are no longer relevant; but you did not say what you think those problems are. If it took hours for you to clarify that...it would be strange.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#950

Post by CompanionCuuube » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #939

CompanionCuuube wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they represent authority and the law just like in any other country. The fact that LEOs carry guns is because they are surrounded by a lot of other individuals who are unable to take smart decisions while wielding a deadly firearm. Even in locations where firearms are heavily restricted from the civilian populace, the police remain armed. The funny thing is that individuals wanting bodyguards hire armed bod…

> the police remain armed [...] armed bodyguards The police and bodyguards are there specifically to deal with dangerous situations and attractive targets. You are not authority, not trained, and not a target that attracts attacks. You don't need the gun, you want it "just in case", makes you feel "bigger". What else must you be allowed to use just because someone else is? There are bigger hurdles to clear for many o…

Are you even willing to waive your extensive list of gatekeeping items even when we do have the improvements in education(and income inequality) you claim to care about?

Your argument regarding surgeons and scalpels looks superficially reasonable at first, but no one has proposed restricting scalpels to ordinary people. We shouldn't prohibit external defibrillators or occupant firehoses because these are items "for professionals".

The comment about "the talk" is also a huge strike on your position. That statement was about the policy positions of candidates for the highest elected office. If you're this out of touch, then hopefully you do not participate in the presidential election(if you are a legal US voter). The country is better off without you.