Agnostic.com

13 19

N the United States and its constitution, militias were seen as armed groups initiated by an entire local community or state, and controlled by that local and/or state government. They were never intended to be privately assembled and armed by narrowly ideological groups, factions or tribes. Note what has happened throughout the entire world when tribal or factional militias have been allowed to flourish. Almost all of those regions are failed or failing states. We do not want that to occur in the United States of America.

We need Congress to pass a law banning private and factional militias, and forbidding such groups from amassing arms or conducting military style training. The mere existence of these threatens the well-being and even the existence of our constitutional representative democracy. The so-called private militias give extremist groups an exaggerated sense of power and feeds insurrectionist tendencies. All such private militias in our country serve rabid reactionary extremist ideologies. Their simple existence feeds the sense of power of Trumpets beliefs and actions.

Such a law should forbid (1) the amassing and collective use of military-style weapons (2) group military style training/.It should include strict and stiff penalties for any attempts to evade the law. We need this action in the United States of American for the well-being of our people and nation.

wordywalt 9 Oct 26
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

13 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Every country has an Achilles heel.

Ours is unrestricted religion and gun ownership…

Ungod Level 6 Oct 28, 2021
1

Even passing the most basic gun control laws in the U.S. is an uphill battle against the NRA, gun lobbyists and manufacturers, and the pro-gun zealots. The cancer has spread to much and human lives have too little value here. Ask people to wear a little cloth mask and they will march in protest and become violent. Ask people to help curtail gun violence and mass shootings and you'd think they were being asked to do have their teeth extracted with a crowbar.

1

Just a dream, unfortunately.

I don't thiink so.

0

Sounds good, but do you really think there's even the slightest chance Congress is going to ban militia groups?

If deomocats get a stronger majority, yes.

@OldMetalHead I dojn't think so.

@OldMetalHead This "issue" highlights a tension which has always been there that maybe our external enemies, like Russia, are working to exploit, by weakening the bonds holding us together (the Democratic ideal of collective cooperation), and strengthening (by any means available to them) the forces turning us against each other (the Republican ideal of individualistic self-interest). Once the balance between the two is upset in favor of the "freedom" of the individual, over his or her responsibilities to respect the needs and rights of the group as a whole, then democracy ceases to be able to provide the necessary balance between the two.
Maybe the Russians (or whoever "they" are) recognize that corporations have a built-in organizational advantage, so work to further strengthen their hand (through the Republican party writ large), reasoning it would hasten the fulfillment of the Marxist doctrine that laborers will eventually, inevitably, rise up and overthrow their masters. Anything to defeat capitalism, they may think.
Was this why Putin was so helpful to the Republicans?
So maybe it's not mainly about guns and militias or any other single issue; maybe not even about politics per se at all, for that matter,, but more about protecting our core ethos of protecting and enhancing the rights of the individual through collective agreement and cooperation. If too-sizable a percentage of our citizens lose their belief in the ability or desire of our government to uphold this principle, all that's left is either anarchy or dictatorship.
Just a.disjointed, dispirited,, off-the-top-of-my head thought. There are obviously many other external and internal groups and/or forces at play, which together or separately, knowingly or not, are tearing our country apart.
It would be helpful to identify most or all of them..
Maybe we need a McCarthy-like Senate committee to do the job.
By comparison, any one issue is merely a symptom of a much larger, more serious problem.

@OldMetalHead I understand, the militias are intimidating, but mostly as a sign of an underlying rot eating away at the foundations of our system of government. The only way they'd pose a threat is if someone like Trump--but not necessarily only him--mobilized them to disrupt elections, either at polling stations, or at election offices where they count the votes They might not even WAIT for a command from on high; it could all be organized and mobilized through the internet.
But not as a force capable of toppling the federal government. State governments? I don't know, I guess it's possible if the REAL militias--the National Guard, police, U.S. troops stationed at military bases, etc.--were sympathetic and either stood down or actually joined them, but that seems like a fantasy right out of white supremacist handbook! But hey, anything seems plausible these days!
If you ask me, we should call a constitutional convention to abolish our hopelessly flawed two-party system in favor of a parliamentary one, IF we could be sure it wouldn't spiral out of control with potentially catastrophic results. Of course, that's impossible.
Let's face it, we're stuck with what we have.
If you ask me, we're on the defensive and the best we can hope for is keeping at least one house of Congress in 2022, and of course the presidency in 2014, but both of those things are far from certain.
Scary.

4

Most of the pro-trumpety, white nationalist ones about now are little more than glorified lynch mobs who want to be able to legally murder people they hate.
So long as stairs or anything more vigorous than a shuffle trot for a few yards is not involved.

4

Well good luck to that notion.

3

It is generall accepted that our constitution provides the people, in theory, the right to revolt against our own government. What you suggest would remove that protection and would most likely be deemed unconstitutional. Heck, Congress can’t agree on anything that doesn’t put money in their pocket, much less a change to the constitution. Every states national guard units can be considered the militia until federalized or called to active duty…All the little private groups are just thugs playing soldier…different set of rules apply.

NO, IT DOES NOT! No person who is fully familiar with our constitution and its provisisions can say that.

Accepted by whom? What kind of government puts the right of others to take military against itself!?

It says a "well-regilated militia," which the Supreme Court agrees allows regulations like background checks, closing the "gun show loophole," a ban on assault weapons, etc., so the exact wording is irrelevant; it's obviously self-contradictory and makes no sense.
The real problem is political, not literal.

Please quote the section of the US Constitution that allows revolt against the USA…🙄

2

Thanks for the well thought-out and articulate post.
I agree with every word.

1

This seems pretty redundant since such groups are very few and have few members, they also operate within the law. It seems like you are getting ahead of yourself here. In my opinion it's more likely that our government will grow more and more tyrannical to a point where private militias may be the last line of defense protecting freedom. Making changes to the constitution can be a slippery slope and may in fact do more harm than good. What if Christians had their way in the constitution and turned our country into a Christian nation like they've always wanted. I see you say the national guard is our nation's militia, but don't seem to realize the national guard is controlled by the government.

Tejas Level 8 Oct 26, 2021

Such groups are more numerous than you seem to believe. They are dangerous.

Most of the private militias I've heard of are rooted in some twisted religious ideologies.
They aren't remotely interested in "saving" the country.
They're far more interested in changing it to suit their agendas.
In that respect, they are no different from any jihadist or other terrorist group.

They are useless to democracy. Period.

@wordywalt maybe but most of what you are proposing here is already law. Arsenal hoarding is already illegal. The ATF have used this law against gun collectors in the past, making the collector a felon and no longer legally allowed to own firearms. This happens more than you may believe. Sounds like tyrannical government to me.

@Tejas Sounds like common sense to me.

@Tejas if shit ever hits the fan, there will be no time for you to go to anyones house for supplies.

What @KKGator said. They are practically all Christian Fundamentalists. They want a theocracy, not democracy. They think they are saving the country while they are in reality ready and willing to destroy democracy and the rule of law. January 6 was not about saving democracy, yet that's the sort of action that militias here embrace.

@Gwendolyn2018 Well stated!

1

There's no such thing as an unfettered right, lots could be done to reduce our insane levels of gun violence without taking away responsible citizens' gun rights. Won't happen though, at least a third of Americans seem determine to make America a failed state instead of a modern nation. Damned shame.

I do not advocate taking away the rights of citizens to own non-military weaons, I am advvocating the abolition of primvate groups collecting and amassing weapons.
There is ahuge difference.

3

That is an often-proposed and often-opposed argument.

Repubs AND Dems own guns and want to keep them.

I am not opposed to private individual ownership of shotguns and rifles for personal use not related to threatening and hurting other people. I am opposed to group ownership and use of guns.

3

Without any doubt, the 2nd Amendment needs to be re-written and clarified. The critical question is: Do we re-write before or after the revolution?

2

Before the Civil War, the U.S. had no standing troops for national defense. Defense was to be carried out by calling up local militias. After the Civil War, the U.S. had a standing army and has ever since.

The second amendment of the constitution is outdated, as we no longer need local militias for our national defense. Shortly after the Civil War, local militias were still used in addition to the standing army, but eventually the local militias became the National Guard, which is called out when needed locally, or since George W. Bush, called up to fight internationally. Bush did this because he started two wars in the Middle East, but didn't want to use the draft to cl up citizens to fight his wars

We do need state initiated militias such as the National Guard. Any other form of militias should be outlawed.

@wordywalt Well maybe not totally outlawed, but definitely denied any kind of official capacity or recognition.

@snytiger6 Not outlawing such groups would grant them some legitimacy.

@wordywalt Well, the problem seems to be where to draw the (legal) line, and drawing in such a way to keep freedom(s) in tact.

Write Comment More
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:630380
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.