Threat to use 2nd Amendment remedy

[Lanikai]

Guys, need yr help. Maybe this is clearer to american members.
What people mean when they threat to use the 2nd Amendment
remedy? I know the Amendment is about protecting the rights
of the people to keep guns and all, but I don't get this "remedy" thing.
They mean they are going to shoot people?
Why would that be a remedy? Tks for any help.

[honeykid]

I'm not an American and I've not heard the phrase used, but that's what it sounds like from what you've said.

[Yoda]

I am American and I've never heard that phrase, but yes, it sounds like an in-your-face way of describing violent action. The "remedy" part would presumably apply to whatever problem is being described. IE:

"I'll try to reason with him. And if he doesn't listen we'll have to use the 2nd Amendment remedy."

[Godoggo]

I have read the phrase used by Tea Party members. And yes, they were talking about shooting someone. Congress, I believe.

[Lanikai]

I have read the phrase used by Tea Party members. And yes, they were talking about shooting someone. Congress, I believe.

When I googled the expression, it came up in articles written
about the shooting of senator Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. It arose a national debate about political rhetoric and all. From what you said, I guess it means to apply the 2nd Amendment "in full"...

[Yoda]

I don't think so. The Second Amendment is applied "in full" by people merely owning guns; a shot never need be fired to consummate the right.

Unless of course the quotes were sort of in jest. :)

[planet news]

Sounds almost like it's supposed to mean "the 2nd Amendment is my license to kill". That, of course, depends on the situation.

[Lanikai]

I don't think so. The Second Amendment is applied "in full" by people merely owning guns; a shot never need be fired to consummate the right.

Unless of course the quotes were sort of in jest. :)

But I guess itdoes refer to people who have guns.
I'm translating a Law & Order episode. (LOLA - Hayden Tract).
There was a shooting and a politician got killed. When the police
talk to one of the politician assistants, the dialogue goes like this:

Meech: Those maniacs killed her.
TJ: Which maniacs are those?
Meech: Take your pick. The right-wing
nuts who ran ads .with a bull's eye on
her district. The left-wing kooks who threatened to use a "Second Amendment remedy" if she cut union pensions. Those stupid bastards..."

From what I read, this stuff - or similar - really happened
at the time of the real shooting (senator Giffords).
I don't know that he means by "a remedy"...

[Yoda]

I believe the person who shot Congresswoman Giffords (Jared Loughner was his name) said something like that, yes. The idea of it as a "remedy" comes from the idea that you're fixing something by shooting someone.

[Lanikai]

I believe the person who shot Congresswoman Giffords (Jared Loughner was his name) said something like that, yes. The idea of it as a "remedy" comes from the idea that you're fixing something by shooting someone.

I guess that's it. Except I would have expected some right-wing
radical to make this threat, not a lefty... (refering to episode dialogue) Maybe I'm misinformed...

[Deadite]

Sometimes violence does work, in this sad busted world. Maybe more often than we'd like to admit.

[Yoda]

I guess that's it. Except I would have expected some right-wing
radical to make this threat, not a lefty... (refering to episode dialogue) Maybe I'm misinformed...
That's the cliche, but Loughner was pretty left-wing. The most generous assessment would have to characterize him as having elements of both. Mostly he was just crazy, though.

[Deadite]

This might seem off-topic but I just want to add this observation: most people like to view violence as the result of failed politics because it's comfortable for them to do so, but the truth is more like violence and politics often go hand in hand.

[Godoggo]

When I googled the expression, it came up in articles written
about the shooting of senator Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. It arose a national debate about political rhetoric and all. From what you said, I guess it means to apply the 2nd Amendment "in full"...

This isn't where I know the term from though.

[linespalsy]

I googled "2nd Amendment remedy" earlier today and didn't get around to posting anything (I was at the library) but the first thing that came up was this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/16/sharron-angle-floated-2nd_n_614003.html) which quoted it from a Tea Party candidate named Sharon Angle, who seemed to be implying that armed revolt should be used to overthrow her opponent Harry Reid (sounds crazy but I didn't look much more into it and this seems to at least be the source of the phrase since it was apparently said sometime before 6/16/2010, placing it at least six months before the Giffords shooting). Sounds like she was interpreting the 2nd amendment as a "remedy" for tyranny but with a very loose and reactionary/opportunistic definition of "tyranny" (at least from that article, which was the first that came up).

[Deadite]

I googled "2nd Amendment remedy" earlier today and didn't get around to posting anything (I was at the library) but the first thing that came up was this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/16/sharron-angle-floated-2nd_n_614003.html) which quoted it from a Tea Party candidate named Sharon Angle, who seemed to be implying that armed revolt should be used to overthrow her opponent Harry Reid (sounds crazy but I didn't look much more into it and this seems to at least be the source of the phrase since it was apparently said sometime before 6/16/2010, placing it at least six months before the Giffords shooting). Sounds like she was interpreting the 2nd amendment as a "remedy" for tyranny but with a very loose and reactionary/opportunistic definition of "tyranny" (at least from that article, which was the first that came up).


Yeah that's where I heard it from. It was on the news awhile back. I think Bill Marr or some other tv type talked about it.

[John McClane]

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot 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 lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty...And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the 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 its natural manure."

Now you know why they put the 2nd Amendment in there, and I have a feeling that a "2nd Amendment remedy" is along those same lines.

[rufnek]

Guys, need yr help. Maybe this is clearer to american members.
What people mean when they threat to use the 2nd Amendment
remedy? I know the Amendment is about protecting the rights
of the people to keep guns and all, but I don't get this "remedy" thing.
They mean they are going to shoot people?
Why would that be a remedy? Tks for any help.

I've never heard the "remedy" claim, but I've known and am related to people who have talked abstractly about armed uprisings against the government. Fortunately, they can't find a night when a favorite CIS or Law & Order program isn't on TV so they can coordinate the uprising.

There are some people who think we have the right to bear arms so that no government, not even our own, can make us do something we don't wanna do. I think the provision of a well-armed militia being essential to public safety refers to the fact that at the time the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written and enacted, a lot of US residents lived on the frontier where a militia of neighbors with their own weapons was the prime if not only protection against thieving "white men" and raiding Indians.

A militia of inexperienced kids with no military training and fat old men armed with hunting rifles and shotguns today would play hell going up against professional soldiers with tanks, artillery, aircraft, bombs and automatic weapons. Not to mention drones and smart bombs.

Most people who talk of armed action against our own government have never even seen dead people, much less a war. They're like the Southern "Fire-eaters" in 1860 that were encouraging the South to secede from the Union. They downplayed the risk that the "money-grubbing store clerks" up North would give up a day's profit to go to war against the South over secession. And if they did, the war would be short and a total victory for the South since any Southerner could whip 10 Yankees. One of these loudmouth propagandist claimed he would "drink all the blood spilt" in a war between the North and South.

Well, our Civil War ended once and for all the practice of slavery in this country and it also settled the debate over whether a state can lawfully secede from the Union--it can't. It also should have taught US citizens another major lesson: We must never again go to war against each other because we're too damn good at it. More Americans died in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 than in all of the other wars this country ever fought all put together.

[rufnek]

I have read the phrase used by Tea Party members. And yes, they were talking about shooting someone. Congress, I believe.

Talk of slaughter is cheap. Even Shakespeare advised in one of his works, "First, kill all lawyers."

[rufnek]

I guess that's it. Except I would have expected some right-wing
radical to make this threat, not a lefty... (refering to episode dialogue) Maybe I'm misinformed...

Don't put much faith in stereotypes. A communist killed JFK.

[rufnek]

As for the Thomas Jefferson quote, you should remember that his contemporaries claimed that Jefferson never spoke or wrote a word that wasn't aimed at his political advancement. So it's always important to note to whom Jefferson was speaking, to whom his remarks were actually adressed (beyond the person to whom he was talking or writing), what sort of political events were occuring at the time, and what were Jefferson's motives. Remember this is the man who used the alien and sedition laws to imprison critics of his administration, including newspaper editors who opposed him. At another time Jefferson said something to the effect that if it came down to a choice between newspapers and the Constitution as the most effect protection for US citizens, he would unhestantly chose the newspapers, but he would also require that all citizens be able to read them.

Bottom line: You can find support for almost any argument among Jefferson's quotes.

[DexterRiley]

I guess that's it. Except I would have expected some right-wing
radical to make this threat, not a lefty... (refering to episode dialogue) Maybe I'm misinformed...

radicals are radical

left, right or any other kind.

same shite different pile.

the victem doesn't particularly care what the political leanings of the assailant was i imagine.