Rednecks can recite only one amendment to the US constitution,
there is only one that they care about, the second amendment, because
it is the one which makes them into heroes of the American Revolution
- just by owning guns.
I would like to see that amendment replaced. The reason for that is
not that I want to see Americans disarmed, theirs is a democratic country
so the decisions about policy should be down to the people who live
there. The reason I would like to see it replaced is because as it now
stands it gives succour and support to the most objectionable aspects
of American society and culture, the selfishness, the distrust of outsiders
and the paranoia about government.
The American constitution has been copied many times around the world.
More than half the nations on the planet owe some of their constitutional
arrangements, or at least the vague shape, trappings and labels, to
aping the US constitution. Throughout the world there are bicameral
parliaments with an upper and lower house, with the upper house often
called the senate. There are elected executive presidents with formal
limits on the number of terms they can serve. There are even special
federal capital districts carved out of other states in a federal system.
There are numerous examples of supreme courts. There are many bills
of fundamental rights. The American model is widely admired and widely
copied, but with one major exception. Nobody has ever sought to copy
the Second Amendment.
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.
The idea that defence of a country should be down to the private ownership
of weapons is quaint, but it does not match modern reality. You can
organize a defence force around privately held guns, but to be efficient
this requires national service, training and issuing of standard weapons
and ammunition. Switzerland requires its citizens to engage in national
service and to be trained in the use of military equipment. This works
fine for Switzerland, a small land-locked nation surrounded by non-hostile
neighbours with no designs on invading. It is not a model which is applicable
to the world's only military hyperpower with enough weaponry to take
on and probably beat any or all major military powers combined. America
does not need a citizen militia for the same reason Queen Elizabeth
doesn't need to know karate – she already has ample protection
and taking such precautions insults her real defenders and makes her
look absurd.
To mount an invasion successfully requires superior fire-power, superior
numbers of troops, ideally a three to one advantage or more and most
importantly of all air superiority. Without air superiority an invasion
would be horrendously bloody. That is why Hitler cancelled his plans
to invade Britain – it is one thing to have superior numbers of
troops and tanks but if they are the wrong side of a stretch of water
that you have neither air nor naval superiority over they cannot be
used effectively. An invasion of the United States would be the biggest
and most audacious military operation in human history. It is not going
to be thwarted by cousin Billy-Bob with a minigun mounted to an army
surplus armoured car and sixteen deer hunters with seventeen different
kinds of assault rifle. The idea of defence by citizen militia is cute
but it is unrealistic. Of course back in the day the citizen militia
and the right to bear arms was nothing to do with protecting the people
from foreigners at all, it was actually all about protecting immigrants
from the native Americans. This is another aspect of gun owning traditions
in America, there is a strong element of racism involved.
The last time Americans successfully used privately-owned weapons to
protect their rights against a tyrannical government was at the Battle
of Little Bighorn. Since then whenever Americans have used weapons against
their government the citizens have come off distinctly second best to
the shame of everybody involved. The right to armed revolt to throw
off tyranny is not something that needs to be enshrined in a constitution.
I have that right as an Englishman. It is a right which comes from English
common law. It is an inalienable human right. More than that, it is
an inalienable right even for aliens too, just ask Obi-Wan Kenobi ,
Yoda or the Doctor. Nobody needs a piece of paper to tell them that
they have a right not to ruled by tyrants. Anybody who understands what
freedom is knows it is something they should have and have a right to
fight for. Because it is a right that does not need to be stated stating
it should be avoided unless it achieves something positive. The second
amendment as currently drafted does not achieve anything worthwhile.
The constitution would be improved by being filleted down and many
of its clauses recast as simple statutes or removed altogether. Besides
the second amendment which I have argued for other obvious candidates
for removal on the grounds of being anachronisms are the amendments
enacting and repealing the prohibition of alcohol and the provisions
of the amendment which makes Franklin Roosevelt exempt from the limit
to two presidential terms. Constitutions should live and breathe, not
be fossilized. A quick pruning every couple of centuries with a full
plebiscite to ratify the newly trimmed results would do it a power of
good. By what right is gun law policy better regulated
by men who have been dead for two hundred years than by the people living
in the states today?
What harm does the second amendment do?
The second amendment allows people who have no redeeming features at
all to cast themselves as all -American heroes and defenders of essential
liberties just by owning weapons which they fantasize about using on
mythical enemies of freedom and their family and values. By owning weapons
they see themselves as defending the constitution and the rule of law,
even if they are tax-evading crystal-meth-toking potential lynch mob
members who would happily prevent Jews and atheists from voting and
shut down CNN for being too damn liberul. That's why. Without
the special protection of the constitution gun owners would be more
aware that their antics have consequences and that the downsides of
their actions need to be justified. When the myth of the people's militia
is exploded they will be aware that the ownership and use of weapons
is something which the community allows rather than something
which the community has no damn business being interested in at all.
In Britain handguns have not been
regarded as legitimate tools for self defence for fifty years or so.
The idea that a householder could keep a gun to point at burglars has
come to be as old fashioned and anachronistic as nigger minstrel shows
and wife beating as the socially acceptable norm. Gun ownership was
very much a minority behaviour and nobody was very open about it – rather
like homosexuality in the nineteen fifties, everybody knew there were
out there somewhere but very few of them were particularly visible so
nobody expected to meet one or live next door to one. Because gun ownership
was so low key nobody made a living out of scaring people into owning
guns, there was no powerful gun lobby and nobody saw gun owners practising
to be guerilla fighters as being heroes or particularly sane.
I have removed my video Guns and Americans because my views have
moved on and I want to clarify my position.
The first thing I have to say is that I do not advocate any changes
to American gun laws which will have American gun enthusiasts retreating
to their prepared positions and hunkering down for a fire fight.
I am not American, I have no say in American policy and I can clearly
see that Americans want to keep their guns for what they believe
are sound reasons. I am not going to argue with them for several
reasons,
1 ] of course is that they're crazy
and have guns,
2 ] I think they are right to have
guns
3 ] if I lived there I'd have a couple of guns too
4 ] I think owning guns is something which is perfectly
reasonable
for free people to do and should be no major concern of
the state, including my own state.
I want to see the second amendment abolished but I don't want to
see Americans stripped of their guns. Please do not bother to give
me any arguments about guns, I am sick to death with them. Most
of them are stupid and lame, almost all of them are tired beyond
belief. Please, if you want to discuss the pros and cons of guns
go away and do that somewhere that
welcomes such tired debates, there are forums with thousands of
people on them which exist to do nothing else and there are people
for whom debating guns is their primary interest in life. Please
go and seek them out and leave me alone. I have better things to
do with my life than argue the same damned points over and over
and over.
Also please go away if all you want to do is say how wonderful
America is and how every other country's people are slaves to their
government. It's not true, it's silly, I've heard it all before
and if you leave a message of that kind it will simply be deleted.
I will also delete any comments about Britain's gun laws. I didn't
write them and I am not defending or debating them here.
Hitler did not take guns off people as his first step in government.
This is an American myth. Look it up. After he had been in power
for several years, changed the flag and national anthem and declared
a one party state he significantly liberalized the gun laws for
Germans. He only disarmed the Jews AFTER effectively declaring war
on them on kristalnacht. The idea that disarming the people inevitably
leads to tyranny has not a single shred of history to support it.
Tyrants disarm the people AFTER imposing tyranny, not as step one,
unless they are foreigners, in which case it is usually simultaneous with invading and seizing power.
My beef is with the second amendment, one of the relics of the
paranoia of America's anti-democratic
founding fathers.
It is absolutely ridiculous that the citizen's right to own guns
is enshrined in such an absurd piece of law.
The citizens of a free
republic should be allowed to own guns
That's it. Amendment 2
A. The citizens of a free republic should be allowed to own guns.
This right has nothing to do with fighting tyranny or forming
militias to safeguard against federal tyranny. I have a right to
fight tyranny with force of arms and I am English. That right is
inalienable. Why would anybody need inalienable rights to be listed?
You can't take them away from me no matter what your law says.
If there was a tyranny in my country of course I would feel I had
a right to take up arms against it, and if it really was a tyranny
of course it would try to stop me. If they win they call me a traitor
and try me for armed sedition. If I win I get the new government
to call me a hero, maybe get a holiday named after me. It was ever
thus. Why would anybody need to write that down in case they forgot
it? What good would writing it down do? That's my point. In most
countries of the world that inalienable right is not laid down in
the constitution and they seem to get along just fine without it.
The list of democratic free countries which continue to be both
democratic and free without a constitutional statement of the right
to resist tyranny continues to grow.
Where in Europe would you go to find a tyranny? No European country
has anything remotely like the second amendment. In fact outside
of America the only country that has anything like the second amendment
is the Philippines, probably because they had their constitution
written for them - by American imperialist tyrants. Yes, quite ironic
that, isn't it?
The link between the second amendment and freedom is BOGUS. The
people of Afghanistan and Somalia have lots of weapons but their
freedom is constantly being curtailed, by various armed factions.
Laws, when applied, make you free, guns are for shooting. Why is
this so hard to grasp?
By having the second amendment in place sociopathic idiots who
like guns get to pose as the defenders of American liberty, rather
than, as is really the case, being an unfortunate part of the price
of freedom.
Having the second amendment in the constitution as it currently
stands is rather like having your future wife show you a prenuptial
agreement which details under which circumstances she's likely to
murder you. Some things are better not even implied. I suppose that
there must be conditions under which my marriage might end in the
divorce courts or worse, but what possible good is done by dwelling
on them or enumerating them?
The sign says do not pull the chain to stop the train except in
emergency. It might mention a fine. It does not mention that if
you don't pay the fine and fight like a total cock eventually you
will find yourself in solitary confinement for the rest of your
life. Sometimes, often indeed, it does no good to dwell on the what
ifs. Including a clause in your constitution which implies that
the citizen has the right to shoot back and kill as many law officers
as he feels like is hardly sensible. Why not just replace that horrible
corrupting clause with a simple right for the law abiding citizen
of good character to own a reasonable number of guns? The individual
states could then decide what constituted law abiding, good character
and a reasonable number.
As for the exact wording of Second Amendment 2: This time it's
Sensible I leave that to Americans, after all you do have 75% of
the world's lawyers. Just make it simple and sensible and try not
to allow it to let gun owners make out that they are the sole guardians
of every and all liberties, because that is just absurd.
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