Simon, since you don't seem to have enough sense to know when to leave well enough alone, I think that a more detailed response is in order.
For one thing, I think you need to try to write thoughtful posts when you're sober. I mean, you tell me:
: Alan, with respect, you are talking cobblers:
How is it that you say you can recognize when someone is "talking cobblers" but can't do so when you do it? Intellectual myopeia? Or too much alcohol?
: You said:
:::: but to be able to protect themselves from nasty governments such as the British
: Then you claimed you said:
No, I didn't claim I said that. I said that.
:: Didn't I even say, "I also seem to recall reading that a related motivation was that people could protect themselves from their own nasty government
: So, to answer your question ... NO, You didn't say that at all !!
Of course I did. Read my post dated "08-May-05 14:29". And don't go messing with the posts -- I've recorded everything. Perhaps by the time you read this response, you'll be sober enough to understand it.
Now let me explain what I had in mind in my first post, in more detail, so that now that (hopefully) you're sober, you can understand my intent.
My intent, along with seriously answering Eman's post, was to slip in a fun poke at governments generally, by using the term "nasty" for the two I mentioned. By using that term, I had two things in mind: First, I thought it was obvious that my comment could be viewed as being from the viewpoint of the people who wanted to "protect themselves" from the entities they viewed, or could view, as the two nasty governments. Second, I thought it was obvious that my comment could be taken as my own view of the two governments. But I didn't say one way or the other. In other words, I played on what I thought was almost trivially evident ambibuity. I also played on what I thought were common views of the British and American governments, respectively under the administrations of Blair and Bush, i.e., that they are now, and often have been, "nasty" in any number of ways. In other words, I attempted to introduce some dry humor through obvious ambiguity into my serious answer to Eman.
How is it that you, a Brit, have so little sense for dry humor?
God, I hate having to explain humor to someone!
Now, as for the points you made:
I fully agree that the 2nd Amendment needs some common sense interpretation. However:
: It was never meant to mean that some red-neck can own assault riffles and carry consealed weapons but it did refer to having an armed populace to defend against nasty governments ... their own.
No one can know what the intent of the Constitution's writers would have been if assault rifles were available back then. After all, standard military weapons were rifles and pistols -- and they put no limitations on the kind of weapons covered by the 2nd amendment. Indeed, I think it can be reasonably argued that if assault weapons were the typical military weapons of the day, the founding fathers would have demanded that all those who fought against the British have them. As for concealed weapons, I don't think this was an issue until much later in the history of the U.S., when many became alarmed at the havoc created by use of them, and government sought ways of limiting the carrying of weapons without violating the 2nd amendment.
But I think that your outrage is not limited to carrying concealed weapons or assault rifles. I think you'd be equally horrified at the thought of people today carrying unconcealed pistols, say, like is portrayed in American Westerns and in the Italian Spaghetti Westerns, right?
: Like the freedom of speech though it becomes corrupt and people start trying to use it to allow anything - swearing, hate speech, advocating pedophilia and the like.
I tend to agree.
: None of the things that it was meant for (politcial expression).
Again, what the founding fathers of the Constitution would have had in mind if they had access to knowledge of what exists today is unknowable. To claim to know is just talking out of one's ass.
AlanF
