Summations Only

But they weren't allowed to do anything. Unless, of course, are they still in power?

Does your question make any sense? Is your comment even rational?The Wilmington Massacre resulted in a successful overthrow of the local government by a minority faction for reasons anyone ought to find repulsive. Neither the state nor the federal government intervened. No punishment or justice of any kind was ever meted out to the murderers. There's a @#$% park in Wilmington named after one of the perps to this day.Of course all the perps are now dead what with the massacre being finished 100 years ago.

Why, if they were a minority, were they not overthrown by the majority that supposedly didn't agree with their point of view?And the purpose of a democracy isn't to appease NoNukes. Why?

Are you serious?You initially asserted that the insurrection was a democratic in action. Now you are asking questions that demonstrate that you knew absolutely nothing about the Wilmington Insurrection/Massacre. I can come up with a few explanations for why you could sport off like this. Perhaps you consider all insurrections against the government to be democratic actions. More likely though, its simply that your position that you must have guns just like the feds in order to live in a democracy is unsupportable.Following the massacre and the running out of town of black businessmen and the Republican (black and white polititicans), the minority installed their own government the same afternoon.While blacks were a majority in the town of Wilmington, they were a decided minority in the state of North Carolina. In theory that should not have prevented them from exerting power locally, but that isn't how things worked back in 1898.Many of the black politicians and business men were unable to return with their rifles because they were dead. But given the disenfranchisement of blacks that occured shortly afterwards by state adoption of Jim Crow laws, the effort would have been futile anyway.It's no disgrace not to know anything about the Wilmington incident. I only learned about it in law school. The topic isn't included in history books even in North Carolina. But what is pretty hard to understand are your unfounded assertions. You could at least have looked up the topic on Wikipedia.But why don't you pontificate on the outcome of the majority Wilmington citizens getting their guns and defending themselves against the minority supremacists.ABE: You cannot possibly be this obtuse. At this point you ought to have a few ideas why the state did not intervene, and anyone familiar with Civil War and Reconstruction history could make some good guesses at why the federal government stayed out of it.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

to keep the government honest, to keep some power with the people. To live in a way that is completly oppostie to how they were living as a british colony, and to make sure that it never happened again. I think they are called RPGs in todays vernacular.My guess would be, because they did not exist at the time of the writing of the constitution, and by the time they did exist the government was already too tyrannical and the population too passive to fight for the right to have RPGs (aka Bazookas).I really enjoyed this topic it is a shame it is getting shut down. I am quite suprised that this topic would even exist on such a liberal website, but it was the pleasant sort of suprise. I find it extremely interesting that liberals fully support certain states to regulate firearms (something in the constitution), but deny those same states to regulate marriage (something that is not in the constitution), or science education, or displays of religion; I find the double standard very interesting, and quite illogical.I hope to continue to participate in interesting threads like this one, thank you EvC.cheers!

Hi Chaoticskunk This is standard operating procedure on all threads. It used to be that the software had problems after 300+ posts, and it also helps control for off-topic dilution.If a topic is deemed interesting, followup threads can be started (ie Gun Control II). It seems to me that liberals in general are more open-minded than conservatives and have fewer fundamental tenets .... but that would be my liberal bias .Enjoy.

Is it illogical? Truly inexplicable without assuming a double standard?What if people value certain rights for reasons other than the fact that they are enumerated in the constitution? Maybe some types of regulations (such as who to marry or what claptrap gets taught to their kids as science) are more personal to a given person then whether or not their neighbor gets to wear his gun in a movie theatre. Maybe historically, the state government has abused certain powers and not others. After all, none of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are applied without limitation, and a few of them don't even apply to the states at all.People who disagree with your aren't always mentally deficient or illogical. They may simply have different values than you do. Some of them may be considering facts that you don't find important.

I find this entire argument that a citzenry should be armed to the point that it can remotely hope to match the firwepower of it's own government bewildering, bizzarre and (more to the point) unrealistic to the point of nonsensical.The US government has a trillion + dollar annual military budget. It has entire research establishments designing cutting edge weaponry to kill people in the most effective ways imaginable. Jets, tanks, submarines, missiles, bombs, chemical and biological capabilities etc. etc. etc. As a military superpower the US has the capability to wipe out whole cities, nations - even continents full of people.Yet the same people (broadly speaking) who support a superpower strength US military capable of taking on the combined armies of most of the rest of the world simultaneously claim that Joe the Plumber and his buddies need to have the firepower resources to take on this same superpower strength military.It just isn't possible or realistic. In fact it's just silly.Of course if you are really concerned about the strength of the government military as compared to that of the US citizenry you could drastically downgrade US government military capabilities.......

So they weren't actually as much in the minority as you make them out to be, eh? Where is your evidence that the people represented a minority point of view?

Please learn to read. I never stated that I support a 'superpower strength US military'. Nor have I argued that any single individual should hold power equal to that of an entire nation's military forces.

I said the supremacists, and whites in general, were in the minority in Wilmington, which is the government that they overthrew. Did I make them out to be anything else?Stop trying to defend the indefensible, Jon. How about the fact that their faction had lost both the 1894 and 1898 local elections in Wilmington despite the employing intimidation tactics to discourage black voters?

Acting condescending looks better when you are right about something. Straggler addressed some other alternatives, like downgrading the US military in his message. He also said "Joe the Plumber and his buddies" and not just a single individual.

Why didn't that big voting majority stand up against those rag-tag racists, then?

So which group is it that has the right to bear arms? The voting majority or the rag-tag dissidents? Or is it both? Are you advocating the use of arms to solve all political disputes?

As I already said:"All people should be equally empowered." Peaceful means are always preferred.