[emphasis added]
The greatest people-killer of all has been government. Nothing has killed more people than government has killed. And so when you look at that, the Founding Fathers believed that the people should be able to have enough arms in place to be able to remind their government you don’t want to mess with us, you don’t want to come after us. Well, if all we’ve got is peashooters and they’ve got .50 caliber machine guns, that’s not the point of the [Second] Amendment.
I don’t want to see my neighbor stockpile nuclear bombs—I don’t want to see it—but I don’t care if he has one because he should have the same rights [as the government] . But you say, “Well, I don’t think private citizens should have nuclear weapons.” But if you’ve been trained with responsibility and morality and the concept of when and where you use them—the Founding Fathers were trained extensively and the concept of defensive warfare: You don’t start anything, [but] if somebody else starts it, you can take it on, but you don’t start it. I don’t care if my neighbor has a nuclear weapon as long as he has that defensive concept that he will never use that unless it’s being used against him.
22 comments
“Well, I don’t think private citizens should have nuclear weapons.”
Which is apparently becoming a controversial stance among your kind… SOMEHOW
The greatest people-killer of all has been government.
This is a true statement, yet I doubt you’re a big fan of The Hague for some reason.
Also, I support repealing and replacing the Second Amendment, but doing it to insert the word “nuclear” is probably a bad idea.
I don’t care if my neighbor has a nuclear weapon as long as he has that defensive concept that he will never use that unless it’s being used against him.
Nuclear deterrence relies on you being able to retaliate after a first strike. Now, that’s one thing to ensure if you are a nation with the territory and military to set up classified installations and chains of command for the event of your major cities and/or centres of command being wiped out - even better if you have allies/vassals and/or submarines so you can station your missiles far away from home -, especially since there is only a very limited number of potential attackers who you would have to plot counter-attacks for. I guess that, hypothetically speaking, a sufficiently powerful criminal organisation or terrorist network might be able to pull it off. But private citizens? I mean, even if a billionaire were to hire mercenary crews for the silos he built on various properties he owns*, would they remain loyal to their paymaster once he, his family and everything within a mile from him has been vaporised?
* which is not quite the same thing as he is seeming to describe, but probably the closest thing feasible, because, wouldn’t you guess, highly advanced high-tech devices using substantial amounts of fairly rare hazardous material refined to an exceptional quality are expensive, and also, you can’t miniaturise them beyond high-calibre artillery shells hundreds of times as powerful as blockbuster bombs, so they are not even remotely useful for personal defence.
“I don’t care if my neighbor has a nuclear weapon as long as he has that defensive concept that he will never use that unless it’s being used against him.”
So, would he own the fissionable material in his nuke? Because the military doesn’t. When i was in, we owned the missiles but leased the warheads. From the government. The Department of Energy owns all the fissionable material in the US.
If he owns it independently, your neighbor, he could then sell it to other nations. I don’t think the 2nd Amendment really intends that disaffected citizens have a right to ship nuclear resources to Iran or China or South Africa, whoever’s bidding highest.
But then there’s the problem if the government just leases his nuke. What if he can’t pay the fees? Do they repossess? Does he have the right to use his nukes to prevent the repossession of his nukes? Would the threat of using his nukes against the government be grounds for the government to revoke his lease and take their nukes back?
And what if he’s had problems paying his fees, but suddenly he has loads of cash and pays all his fees and penalties for the last ten years, in one fell swoop? Can the government inspect his nukes, to be sure he hasn’t illegally sold one or two off to some other country or terrorist organization?
This is not a well-thought-out idea. or grounded in reality.
But, you know…..Barton.
Have these chunkheads ever consider solving problems without blowing up stuff? Also, do they ever consider that the nuttier elements of 30% of the US population would be no match for the Armed Forces… especially since they’re not seasoned warriors who knew hardship like the VietCong or the Taliban (who managed to defeat our beefed-up military… although I think our problem is we focus more on firepower than strategy or befriending the locals)?
@SpukiKitty02 #105895
I regularly ask the 2nd-Amendment cheerleaders among my relatives what in Randy Weaver’s arsenal did him the most good in the long run. The rifles? Pistols? Or his lawyer?
They don’t tend to have a coherent reply.
Don’t laugh, on 1991 the US Libertarian Party debated the question of private nuclear weapons, and there were delegate supporting it.
And everyone sane is sure introducing MAD in private relations will make for a peaceful society. Or if Vault-Tec will eventually be created by fearful people.
Giving every nutjob (almost all of whom have shown cannot even be trusted with a simple pistol) access to nuclear weapons to use at will… Sure, what’s the worst that could happpen? /s
All joking aside, I wouldn’t even trust myself with a big red doomsday button(*), let alone you escaped mental patients!
(*)In case some asshole(s) makes me feel particularly misanthropic at just the wrong time.
<@KeithInc. > #105907
Exactly. It’s a shame that the Feds went totally overboard and slaughtered the whole family (not to mention botching the Branch Davidian thing) thus only fueling those dopey Militia-moron’s delusions and numbers. At least they learned their lesson concerning the Bundy’s dopey Wildlife Reserve takeover (‘Just wait them out and don’t give them the confrontation they crave’).
That said, your point is correct.
But if you’ve been trained with responsibility and morality and the concept of when and where you use them
That’s an awfully big IF. As the ridiculous number of school, mall and other mass shootings have shown us, far to many gun owners have not had the responsibility or morality to use them in any circumstances. It’ll be interesting to see how the prosecution of James and Jennifer Crumbley plays out.
@ChurchyLaFemme #105995
It’ll be interesting to see how the prosecution of James and Jennifer Crumbley plays out.
I hope it’s not like Kyle Rittenhouse, and that the law will make an example of them. This isn’t just negligent gun ownership anymore (of which Americans seem to be sadly desensitized), from what I have read so far, they deliberatly gave their underage kid with severe issues (which they ignored) a gun as a present!
Seriously, what more is it going to take for the NRA to lose its power? How many more school shootings and underage kids playing with loaded guns have to happen before americans will finally realize that GUN CONTROL IS NECESSARY!?
These people would cheer on the fall of Rome and the advent of the Dark Ages where people are too busy trying to survive to do things like educate everyone and write down all the cool stuff we’re up to.
Also we tried the weak national government under the Articles of Confederation. It lead to embarrassments like a Kentucky officer swearing loyalty to Great Britain.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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