[ExI] Upon pondering your freedoms

Amara Graps amara at amara.com
Sat Jul 5 22:32:50 UTC 2008


Damien B.:
>Is it even meaningful today, with the weapons and communication
>systems available to a national army? The kinds of depredations Amara
>listed just don't seem susceptible to redress via a popular uprising
>of furious citizens armed with handguns and rifles.

After ten years living abroad, I am more struck than ever by the
arrogant, power-trippy, gun-trigger-happy perspective that the local
police carry in the the U.S. This is a massively over-policed country
with police personnel that have an attitude. With ambiguous laws
stemming from the equally ambiguous 'War on Drugs', 'War on Terrorism',
'War on Pornography', let's just call it the the 'War on Asparagus', the
American police can enter one's home on any trumped-up charge and carry
off your possessions, and your children and You. My list of 'depredations'
show so many 'Acts', that it would be no problem for the police to find
something in their legal arsenal if they don't like you, in order
to make your life very miserable.

Would the American police be so arrogant if more 'citizens' protected
themselves with weapons at home?

There's a time-delay and trickle-down effect that would need to happen
first, but that is the reason that I said the Supreme Court ruling about
the Second Amendment was an important step forward. I myself, would
choose a different weapon than a gun, so I'm curious, does the ruling
apply only to guns?

Amara


-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado



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