The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

brunians at brunians.org · 18 Mar 2009, 04:56 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:56:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
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>
> Brunians,
>
> You personally may want guns to protect you from the government,

Not just that: it was the stated intent of the amendment from the beginning.

>                                                                but it's
> much more commonly argued that self-defense or home/property defense is
> why we should have guns.

These are additional reasons, and good ones. But they are not the primary
reason why the amendment was considered necessary before the constitution
could be ratified.

>                       I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just
> saying that gun lobby

Which gun lobby? There are three that I know of.

>                     usually seems to push that idea in their vocal and
> public arguments more than that we have to fear an evil government.

Google: gun ownership defense tyranny

There are really a lot of people, I'd guess the majority of gun-owners,
who grasp this. I imagine that these vocal and public arguments are
addressed to the people on the fence.

> As for this:
>>>>
> Your further representations of what people on each side of the argument
> 'believe' seems to me to be somewhat inaccurate and reflective, in parts,
> of a high level of ignorance: semi-automatic weapons are in fact used for
> sport, both for hunting and for target shooting:

> http://hunting.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/tp_auto_rifles.htm
>>>>
>
> I'm not ignorant, thanks. I belong to the NRA,

I don't. The NRA are compromisers.

And anyway, whether or not the NRA makes the argument that guns are there
as a defense against tyranny, the fact of the matter is that that is why
they are there, which makes their compromising with the disarmers even mor
egregious.

The reason one uses a semi-automatic weapon for hunting, if I recall
correctly (I don't hunt) is that you don't have to take it away from your
eye to bring up the second shot, and so if you merely wound the animal,
you have a better chance of a second shot kill, which saves the animal
much suffering and you much time and trouble.

.

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