I am a liberal who believes in the right to bare arms, are there any more like me?

Question

The technology exists, they are out there to make there ownership ilegal would dissarm the law abiding populace and leave them at the mercy of an armed crimminal element or a police state. Do I have any fellow liberals that see this?

I am tired and spell check didn't catch bare, I meant bear of course

Answer 1

I consider myself pretty liberal.
I do not own a gun.
But, were I ever to feel the need to get one I would like to be able to.
If the government denied the people their right to bear arms they would be making a HUGE mistake cause AMERICANS plain and simple would not stand for it.

TOO MUCH RESPECT FOR THE LAW IS UN-AMERICAN

AND...anybody with one eighth of a brain knows that denying the citizens the right to bear arms is a big step towards establishing a police state.

The right to bear arms is not about keeping us safe from criminals.
It is about keeping us safe from the GOVERNMENT.

Answer 2

I'm not particularly a liberal, and I don't particularly believe the right to bear arms has any current relevence. nonetheless, you'll probably lump me in with you.

this is really two separate issues:
guns vs crime
guns vs government power.

in the area of crime, those countries that have always severely limited guns have *much* lower crime rates, esp violent crime. this is a matter of long-established record.
The problem is, once a population is armed, its nearly impossible to disarm, and inevitably when you try, you disarm the law-abiding ones much faster than the trouble-makers (see Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, etc..)

In the area of gov't control.. well, disarmed populations in Europe and elsewhere currently have far more representative governments than we do now in the US (cases in point: Gerrymandering; Electoral college distorts & sometimes defeats popular vote; Narrow, corrupt, enforced two-party system is as much like the narrow, corrupt, enforced one-party system in China as like the free multi-party systems in all the developed countries) so that premise has been pretty much disproved by the same force that discredited communism: history.

This shouldn't be a big surprise. the idea that of arming a population to make it harder to subdue is from a time when there was no strong central US gov't and no standing federal army (the US then looked much like the EU does now) and strength was all drawn from the state militias - ie common citizen volunteers.

Two centuries later, US citizens aren't 'armed' in the sense that its government is. The US mil is far and away the most heavily armed force in the history of the planet. With its automatic weaponry, armor and air support, any possible militia with the shotguns and rifles currently available would be summarily mowed down by any serious US gov action. (see the Gulf Wars if you have any doubts. The Iraqi army was far better equipped and trained than any US citizen militia could be) you might as well be armed with slingshots..

So, the idea that an "armed" population is currently having any effect on US policy in any way -or ever will again- is laughable at best, suicidal at worst.
In the age of the monolithic military and the atom bomb, the way of Gandhi and MLK, Welesa, Mandela and Abbas is now the only effective path to curbing police state power.

The reality is that Europe and the US both stopped the arming of the population as new technology came available - just at two different points. Europe stopped it when rifles were becoming available, the US stopped it when automatic weaponry became available.

US civilians now are 'armed' just enough to hurt each other, not enough to make a dent it its military, or even its national guard. But as much as we'd probably be better off if it were possible, its likely not possible to comb out every handgun on a continent, and therefore any attempt to outlaw handguns will just mean criminals are better armed than their victims.
In addition, current prohibition laws make a majority of the population ‘criminals’ (including the last two Presidents, who both admitted to using illegal drugs). Until this changes, they’ll never vote to disarm themselves.

History has long since passed by the relevence of the original intent of the "right to bear arms". But the genies out of the bottle, and its unlikely now that it will be put back any time soon.

Answer 3

I was about to say that after a very athletic life, I love to walk around with my bare arms; ladies like to see my biceps. Heheheh... (I'd like to send Dubya out on a hunting trip with Cheney da Dick).

Insofar as the Right to Bear Arms, many Liberals agree but... hey, fella, there are a few too many guns running around in the streets and the "bad guys" have them and those that do not believe in having guns are at a disadvantage.

Too many crimes are being committed by illegal weapons. We need to do something about the ILLEGAL weapons, don't you think?

Criminals WITH weapons is the problem... not the weapons themselves.

I also believe that if the children of those that own weapons were taught how to handle them, there would not be accidents; kids that grow up around weapons do not have accidents.

AND home-invasions do not occur when the bad guys suspect that the homeowner may have a weapon to defend him/herself; they only invade or break in when they know the homeowner is defenseless.

Do your homework, you'll find that countries with tyrranical or despotic dictatorship governments (and/or Communist) forbid and prohibit the citizenry from owning guns and/or weapons... and the upper classes usually own guns but want to prohibit the lower classes from owning guns... ever wonder why? I support the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution

Answer 4

I'd keep that to myself. They might shoot you for that.

And maybe you aren't really a liberal. Then what are you? I don't know. But consider this: Adolph Hitler murdered around 40 million human beings. A lot of people would say Hitler was a fascist (no doubt true) and place him on the 'right'. Josef Stalin, it is estimated, murdered perhaps 60 million of his own people. Stalin was a communist, which a lot of people would say places him on the 'left'. Yet Hitler and Stalin were essentially the same guy. The only meaningful difference is that, unlike Stalin, Hitler was not in the habit of murdering every single person who ever worked for him.

I am suggesting that the labels are meaningless. If we can't even understand that Hitler and Stalin were the same guy--not even mirror images, but practically twins in not only their actions, but their politics (National Socialism--naziism--is socialism, after all) then obviously our labels are both meaningless and false.

You might be pro-gun (whatever that means, think about even that label), pro-abortion, fond of the Sopranos, hate C.S.I.--but these labels, even if there are a dozen of them, do not tell us much. So certainly, the all-encompassing labels of LIBERAL and CONSERVATIVE must be found to be verging on the stupid.

Your gun argument should not even need to be discussed since it seems to me that our Constitution is pretty clear. What people forget is that the men who formed this nation had a healthy distrust of government. They knew that there would be times like now when we have a Congress which is fallen down on the job and has been in a do-nothing mode for decades. It is in times like these when our liberties can be found to be in danger. And what 'they' don't tell us is the obvious--In the end, those folks in Washington know that there are 200 million firearms in circulation among the common citizenry. Believe me, an American government tempted to do something very bad to its citizens would have to take that into account.

Answer 5

Millions agree with you.

As a former hunter safety instructor, I'd like to see firearms safety and marksmanship taught in the schools. Those who want gun "control" generally fall into two categories, the would-be despots and the uninformed.

Once everyone has the training to protect themselves with their firearms, they may want to follow up on shooting as hobby or sport, but defense against a police state was the core intent of the second amendment.

Answer 6

I believe in the right to bear arms, because even though I don't really like guns, I realize that an unarmed society is vulnerable to the tyranny of a police state!!! I believe that this is the main reason that the right to bear arms is included in the Constitution!!!

Answer 7

LOL If you are going to spend much time in the sun, be sure to wear sunscreen. :) The right to bear arms is in the Constitution for a good reason, as it is based on a genuine suspicion of power and government mixed. The Constitution even says we have the obligation to keep a "sharp eye" on the government, something we are very neglectful in doing these days.

Answer 8

Gun control = being able to hit your target.

We need guns by law abiding citizens,we have the military overseas and we can defend the country if we need to....maybe have a government run militia.

We may be on the Virge on another world war.

I am not a liberal though.

Answer 9

While I am all for others having bare arms, mine are too fat, and I like to keep something over them even in the summer.




Guns, though, I HATE!!! I wish we could ban them like many other countries have done--like Canada and England. They have much, much lower rates of violent crime if you read the statistics. And, illegal guns must be quite a cash cow for someone (govt.?, mob?, drug traffickers???). Who looks the other way when they come into the US?

But, I feel you...I am a Liberal, too, and I dislike legal abortion! Just goes to show, we are NOT all a bunch of lemmings as our critics like to say.

Answer 10

I agree... but this really appeals to my more libertarian side... I'm kind of in between liberal and libertarian...

I don't like the government making up rules on what I can and can't do... be it abortion, owning a gun, or telling me where to worship... and America is pretty good on all three counts as far as I can tell...