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Originally Posted by Taltarzac725
Yellow journalism - Wikipedia
I watch a lot of different channels for news and usually they are quite professional when dealing with mass shootings. Some channels aren't because they have to fill a 24 hour news day and they just repeat the same stories with small variations. Usually interviews of various talking heads who mostly share the same viewpoints with small variations. They might bring someone in as a counterpoint but that is usually to just make themselves look good in comparison.
There are rifles, shotguns, and the like that should not be sold at all to the general public. Some criminals always get around laws but as far as home defense there are many options available that will work very well. Some criminals will get access to weapons that the general public does not.
And the view of the 2nd Amendment creating some kind of right to create a revolution through arming of men and women of sound mind and with righteous motives, etc., I do not buy that the Founding Fathers wanted that. Roman history is full of armies fighting to put their own emperors on the throne and who work to make themselves rich and powerful off their own connection with this chosen emperor. You get endless civil wars through that or someone who claims to be chosen by God.
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Our third President, Thomas Jefferson would disagree. He was not present for the debates and drafting of the Constitution because Congress had sent him to Paris. He was indeed aware and eventually received a copy in Paris. Below is his letter to John Adam's son-in-law, William Stephens Smith.
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To William Stephens Smith
Paris Nov. 13. 1787.
Dear Sir
I am now to acknolege the receipt of your favors of October the 4th. 8th. and 26th. In the last you apologize for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here. It is so far from needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine. I endeavor to shew civilities to all the Americans who come here, and who will give me opportunities of doing it: and it is a matter of comfort to know from a good quarter what they are, and how far I may go in my attentions to them.
—Can you send me Woodmason’s bills for the two copying presses for the M. de la fayette, and the M. de Chastellux? The latter makes one article in a considerable account, of old standing, and which I cannot present for want of this article.
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I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying.
The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets?
And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness.
God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion?
And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.—You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of S. America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the extinguishers.—The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform. Present my respects to Mrs. Smith, and be assured of the sincere esteem of Dear Sir Your friend & servant,
Th: Jefferson
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I've bolded the pertinent parts. I'm not advocating for a rebellion or revolution but would never suggest we surrender our ability to do exactly that. When I hear talk of banning firearms that We The People have had for 65 years in our private possession, I begin to wonder about motive. When statistics are manipulated to instill panic ignorant, I begin to wonder about motive. By ignorant, I mean the very definition of the word "to be lacking in knowledge or awareness".
I see people lament that AR styled rifles are the weapon of choice for mass shooters, but when you educate them as to the facts, according to the authorities, and the next day they are back to their previous claim it goes beyond ignorance. When I educate someone and they continue to ignore the facts, that is a blocked mind with an opinion not worth the effort to hear or read. Brainwashed is what some people say.
Bans on such rifles have absolutely nothing to do with keeping We The People safe.
Our Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were writing when they wrote "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". The men in that room weren't talking about the next Turkey Shoot or 3 Gun Competition. They were talking about how to keep their posterity free and ensure Liberty for generations. Regardless of whether or not you choose to exercise a Right, you should never surrender it.