Summations Only

He can't. The Constitution has no mechanism for dissolution. It is more right wing bluster.

5Hi Faith,2/3rds of the States can call a constitutional convention.It takes 3/4's of the states to ratify an amendment to the constitution.So, 3/4's of the States could call a constitutional convention and offer an amendment to repeal all references to the congress.They could offer an amendment to repeal all references to the Judicial branch.They could offer an amendment to repeal all references to the executive branch.The 39 States could then ratify all three amendments and the Federal government would not exist.That would make a mess wouldn't it?They could then propose and ratify amendments to set up a similar system as we have today but limit the powers each branch had specifying what the Federal government was to do and what it could not do.That is the way it was until power hungry people began to maneuver things around the constitution by giving themselves power the constitution did not give them.God Bless,

ICANT writes: Has anyone else here looked at nomic?From the site:

the notion that an armed civilian militia could somehow stop the force of the US army under the control of the "Tyrannical" goverment It makes a huge difference if that constitution is out dated and out moded, then the law is not working to the benefit of the citizens. er... right...

Listen to yourself Faith. You are getting ever more hysterical and increasingly irrational. For heavens sake calm down. Nothing you or I say here is going to have any practical effect on policies in the US (or indeed anywhere else) Your hyperbolic, fear-laden, conspiracy-implying reaction is exactly what would be expected from someone immersed in the mindset fostered by a culture of fear. No it's not. You can look it up on Wiki. LinkAs a term it is more commonly applied to those who demand ever more militaristic spending and security powers to confront the doom of some impending but faceless terrorist threat. But the mindset involved applies just as much to your advocacy of ever more guards and guns as the solution to perpetually impending threats of tyranny and criminality. Throw in the suggestion of God's abandonment and some sort of apocalyptic doom...... I have a couple of very simple, very specific and very direct questions for you regarding this link you make between guns and God.1) Does God want there to be gun carrying teachers in my son's school?
2) Has God already abandoned the UK?
3) With regard to your answers above - How do you know?

That last one's what I've been wondering about throughout this religious diversion. Faith seems to believe she's chosen the exact right religion with the exact right interpretation of God's will, which is that in our dangerous fallen world we must arm ourselves in order to go about our lives in safety, and that if our nation restricts access to guns He will punish it.Hopefully we'll soon conclude this examination of the religious beliefs behind Faith's position on gun control and can return to discussing actual gun control.--Percy

Well how is it working so far? In our discussion we have already clearly shown that there are more lives lost due to the ready access to guns than have ever been saved by armed citizen’s protecting themselves. I challenged you to find in total the number of people saved from having guns as compared to the one recent incident in Connecticut where 27 lives were lost due to the guns being kept in the home of one highly disturbed youth. You didn’t and couldn’t respond. Jesus lived in a country that had been captured by the Romans, where the citizens lived in fear of them and in even more fear of the Herodian puppet government that the Romans used to do much of their dirty work. Herod the Great executed his own wife and children who he believed were plotting against him. He ordered that at his death his army was to put to death many of the leading citizens of Judea so that there would be mourning at the time of his death. (Fortunately those orders weren’t carried out.) We have the Biblical account of the slaughter of the innocents. Jesus and His fellow Jews had every reason as individuals to fear the authorities. So yes Jesus was talking to them as individuals but a nation as always is simply the sum total of it individual citizens. Taking your argument to its logical extreme I would think that you would be fully supportive of Iran have nuclear weapons. It is not an emotion driven argument against guns. It is simply the factual argument that the proliferation of guns causes far more deaths, whether it be at the hands of crazed individuals such as in Connecticut, or as a result of well meaning people like yourself maintaining these weapons in the home. Why look at a commentary. Why not look at the Bible and look at the context. As a backdrop we can use the Beatitudes where Jesus says that blessed are those that mourn, the meek or gentle, the merciful, the peacemakers as well as those who are persecuted for following Him and His message. Now, I’ll re-quote the passage that you used to support your position that Jesus has no problem with the idea of guns in the home.

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35 Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" "Nothing," they answered. 36 He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37 It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment." 38 The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That is enough," he replied.

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In this quote the reference that Jesus makes in verse 37, (And he was numbered with the transgressors) is Isaiah 53 verse 12. That statement is made at the conclusion of the passage of The Suffering Servant. Verse 9 from that passage says this:

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9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth (emphasis mine)

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This passage is about non-violence and the fact that Jesus is saying that they didn`t need a sword before so why would they need one now.Jesus is saying this right before, and as part of the story of His entry into Jerusalem. So let`s look at this passage in context of what He has said and done earlier and what He was about to do. I talked about His non-violent message in the Beatitudes and as we see at the beginning of the quote from Luke that their mission had been peaceful. Jesus constantly used the non-violent image of Himself of a shepherd watching over the lambs. That is part of the back-drop to His entry into Jerusalem. In Matthew`s account we have already talked about Jesus saying to Pater that ``that those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword``.Jesus consistently refers back to the Hebrew Scriptures in order to make the point that he is the messiah the prophets talked about and at the same time referencing the scriptures that refer to the messiah as being a man of non-violence and peace. He obviously references the peaceful message in Zechariah 9 by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Here is that passage:

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9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

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Jesus by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey is not only making a messianic claim but is at the same time proclaiming a message of conquering evil by peaceful means. He isn’t riding in on a war-horse claiming a victory but is proclaiming the message that the weak will be made strong and that it is the meek who inherit the earth. The whole message is that we are to exhibit the same kind of courage that Jesus had in overcoming the fear that is expressed in his prayer at Gethsemane when He went into Jerusalem. The kind of meekness and non-violence that Jesus advocates requires true courage, and that is what God through Jesus is asking of us. We aren’t to give into fear by arming ourselves with swords or guns.Let’s look at part of Jesus’ conversation with Pilate from John 18 :

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36 Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.

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Once again Jesus is saying that if we are to be members of His Kingdom that we are not to take up the sword.We can next look at Jesus on the cross asking the Father to forgive those that crucified Him. He doesn’t do what the Maccabees did in calling for those that put them to death to be punished by God. He doesn’t call for his followers to gain revenge for his death.Also of course the message of the cross is that death as we know it is not the final answer. We don’t have to live in fear by arming ourselves. Jesus took this message to the cross and God vindicated and confirmed that message for all time by resurrecting Jesus.We can also in the epistles see that the early Christians understood this message as well. We don’t see them arming themselves militarily but by arming themselves as Paul writes about in this beautifully put allegory of how God wants us to arm ourselves. I know I quoted this before but it is worth quoting again from Ephesians 6.

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10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

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I suggest that it is not a good idea to allow our political and sense of nationalism to form our Christian beliefs. It should be the other way around.

Hi xong, Cool game isn't it.The problem is our politicians have been playing this game for a very long time.Such as the president making laws by executive orders, the Supreme court making laws by ruling that the penalty congress voted for in the health care bill was a tax instead of sending it back to the congress to fix. The congress changing the rules and letting the president become a dictator. The congress, president, and Supreme Court changing the rules and usurping the authority of the States.So it is time the States got in the game and reverted the rules back to the original rules. Or to change all the rules by making a new agreement between the States.The Federal government was created by the States and made provisions to reserve to themselves the means of controling the entity that it had created.That is the reason that 39 States could dissolve the rules and start all over. Will they is the question? I doubt it as there are not enough people with enough backbone that has not drank the cool aid.And because of that the once great nation known as the United States of America will be a bankrupt country. The programs that are being pushed at the present ruined many a country.But to be able to continue on the course of tax and spend it is necessary that the people be relieved of their weapons with which they can protect and feed themselves with.Vladimir Putin in 2008 stated: In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state role absolute In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly.Russia today has a 13% flat tax and is growing. Estonia has the highest flat tax rate (21%) of any of the Russian block countries.By the way, with high income taxes and value added taxes (a national sales tax), why are Greece and Spain both bankrupt and insolvent?We are presently pushing for the same things that caused their problems.Why does our politicians think we can do the same things and come out with a different result?Raul Castro, is a proud communist. Yet Cuba recently passed the most sweeping reforms in its history. Castro is slashing more than 1 million government jobs, cutting entitlements, encouraging more private sector entrepreneurship, giving more power to private companies and reducing state spending.Seems like Raul has woke up to the fact he can't spend more than the country has coming in. Their tourist trade had been decimated by the problems in Greece, Spain, and other european countries that have been supplying the majority of the country's income in the last couple of decades.So it is time for the American people to rise up and take their country back from the politicans and special intrest groups that control those politicians.It can be done but must be done at the state level.You say why can't we just vote them out and send new people to Washington to do our bidding. That will not work as there is a monster that has been created that is devouring our country. We have to destroy the monster of greed and absolute power that is runnig Washington at present.That monster now wants our guns so it can control us without resistence.God Bless,

Hi GDR, A study was done in the run up to the first assault rifle ban.

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There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

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Located Here. This study was last updated 7/18/2010.The lowest survey showed 800,000 people used a gun in self defence in a year to protect themselves, their family or another individual.

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Forty-six-year-old Joyce Cordoba stood behind the deli counter while working at a Wal-Mart in Albuquerque, N.M. Suddenly, her ex-husband — against whom Ms. Cordoba had a restraining order — showed up, jumped over the deli counter, and began stabbing Ms. Cordoba. Due Moore, a 72-year-old Wal-Mart customer, witnessed the violent attack. Moore, legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon, pulled out his gun, and shot and killed the ex-husband. Ms. Cordoba survived the brutal attack and is recovering from her wounds.

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This raises a question. How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? We know that in 2003, 12,548 people died through non-suicide gun violence, including homicides, accidents and cases of undetermined intent.

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UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2-and-a-half or 3 million. We don’t know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it’s not a trivial number.

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Source

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Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney David P. Koppel studied gun control for the Cato Institute. Citing a 1979-1985 study by the National Crime Victimization Survey, Koppel found: "When a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery — from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing — produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success."

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SourceThat should refute your assertion you made to Faith.You could have googled "how many times guns are used in self defense" and debunked your own myth. Present your facts instead of your assertions.God Bless,

Hi Heathen, But it can not be changed by presidential executive order.It can not be changed by congress passing a law signed by the president.It can not be changed by a Supreme Court ruling.It can not be changed by popular vote.The Constitution can be changed by 39 States amending the Constitution.Until it is changed by the States it is the law of the land regardless of what you think of it.The second amendment forbids the government (shall not) from infringing up the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.It does not say they shall not be infringed, 'except the government can limit what type of gun they may possess or how large their magazines can be or how many bullets they can have in their possession'.If those who want to infringe my rights to possess and bear Arms want to do so they must get 39 States to repeal the second amendment.God Bless,

Hi ICANT,The goal isn't the thwarting of crime but the reduction of gun deaths. The actual number of defensive uses of guns is likely something we can never reliably know, but whether it is 10 or 10 million per year, the fact remains that gun ownership increases the risk of gun death for you and those you know.If we actually did live in so dangerous a country that there was a significant risk of being murdered just in the course of daily life then carrying a gun for self-defense would make sense, but we don't live in such a country. Because the risk of being murdered is so incredibly low, just owning a gun increases, not decreases, the risk of gun death. As incredibly low the probability that one will make one's brother-in-law so angry that he'll go home and get his gun, or that one's retired father shoots a suspected burglar who is actually just the neighbor walking his dog in the alley, or that a boyfriend gets drunk and shoots a girlfriend, or that one gets depressed and takes one's own life, they're all still more likely than getting murdered just going about your daily business.--Percy

You're just repeating your position while ignoring the rebuttals. Your message needed more on the end, beginning with, "Now I know it's been argued..."--Percy

Hi Percy, The way the Constitution can be changed is not an argument. It is spelled out in the Constitution precisely how it can be changed.I was not arguing anything.I was replying to the statement "er... right...". Which was concerning how the constitution could be changed.I mearly explained how the Constitution could be changed and how the second amendment could be changed.If you disagree with the way I said the constitution could be changed please present your argumentation.God Bless,

ICANT are you seriously suggesting that there would been an additional 800,000 homicides in the US per year but for the defensive use of guns?The number of actual homicides per year in the US in recent times has been around the 15,000 mark. The claim that an additional 800,000 homicides would have occurred per year without guns being present in civilian hands is quite a wild claim isn't it?

The statistics that you are shown here are misleading and here is CNN article written by a former speech writer for President George W Bush named David FrumDo guns make us safer? | CNNHere is a wiki article on gun violence in the US. One of the statements made in this report is this:

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States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership. Non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership.

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I agree. That is a fair comment but the truth is that anyone on this forum will be able to find statistics that back up their position so in the end all any of us are making are assertions.Just for the record I am very pro-American. I’ve always lived in Canada but my wife is a true Yank, (a New Englander from Boston,) and I have several American grand-kids as I have son who married one of you and moved down there. I love visiting in the US and I very much enjoy the friendliness and openness of the American people. This is not attack on your wonderful country which in many cases has done so much more than any other country ever to bring relief and aid to the rest of the world. When assistance is needed you guys are virtually always the first ones there and I for one am grateful.I will say this though. Our Prime Minister is a big hockey fan and we often see him sitting along with his kids in the stands at hockey games. Do you see your President being able to do that? I humbly suggest that readily available guns are one of the reasons for that.