From: veal@utkux1.utk.edu (David L. Veal)
Subject: Re: democratic platform
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 21:41:11 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.220230.1941@PacBell.COM> rjwill6@PacBell.COM (Rod Williams) writes:

>> "dal" <p00056@mail.psi.net> writes:
>>> kenk@sdc.com (Ken Konecki) writes:

>>>Poppycock.  The 2nd amendment was never intended to allow private citizens
>>>to "keep and bear arms".  If it had, there would have been wording such as
>>>"the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
>>
>>Excuse me .... Why dont you get stuffed? Why is it that most of the 
>>signers of the Bill of Rights have written about the right to bear arms
>>as a personal right? In what flim flam reality do you exist? The domain of
>>our Bill of Rights is entirely and utterly the province of the individual.
>>Because of sickening rationalizations like yours, our lives are slowly being
>>dictated, decided and determined by the few and not the will of the individual. 
>>The hell with the courts, the law, idiot politicians and especially you...
>>Ill will defend my right to exist as a free man, and not a slave to ignorance.
>>
>>We are men, not chattel for you amusement.

>Oh give me a fucking break.  As if the Founding Fathers knew
>anything about *six-guns*, much less Uzis and rocket-launchers
>and personal nuclear devices.  

     As has been mentioned by others, with the exception of nuclear weapons,
and I am unaware of anybody selling "personal" versions, and the brand name 
of Uzi, the founding fathers were quite aware of the direction modern weapons
were heading.  Weaponry had advanced considerable during their own lifetimes.
     Further, this is totally irrelevent.
 
     Not only do I claim that the Second Amendment covers modern weapons, 
and was intended to ("living" document, don'tcha know) that 
the Bill of Rights also covers such things as electronic data transmission,
DNA and drug testing, and other things that would constitute a violation of 
our rights that the founders never knew of.

     But I'm funny that way.

>To claim that their 1789 view of
>"arms" and "people" have any conceivable relevance to the social
>conditions we live in, and the weapons of mass destruction that
>are tearing our society apart today is truly to live in a "flim
>flam reality".  The tragedy is that your obsessive ranting is
>actually taken seriously by our idiot lawmakers.

     Neither the definiton of "arms" nor the defintion of "people" has
changed dramatically.  They still mean pretty much what the founders thought
they did.
 
     But *please* don't take my word for it.  I've never asked *anyone* to
take my word for these things.  *All* I ask is that you look it up for
yourself.

===========================================================================
|David Veal  PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  University of Tennessee             |  
|                                     Division of Continuing Education    |
| Statistics are any data which can be twisted to support your posititon  | 
===========================================================================

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