So I went to this debate on the second amendment this afternoon. Turns out it was two professors going toe to toe on the issue, opening it up to questions from the audience after each made their point? One, a professor of philosophy, argued the point for repeal, while the other, a geology professor, argued against repeal. The guy arguing for (I will refer to as the lefty), was a British born and educated individual with an accent that made it hard not to take him seriously, even though he was off in the weeds in my opinion. He had all these convenient figures and stats comparing Europe with the U.S. with respect to “gun violence”. His presentation was cogent and finished in about 10 minutes. The geologist on the other hand, whose side I was on of course, started in a way that had me scared for a moment until I realized what he was trying to say. It turned out to be a good point to start with. First of all, you had to be there, but let me try to explain briefly from my point of view; I was walking up the steps into the building when I noticed blood spattered on the floor. I didn’t notice any panic on anyone’s face so I shrugged and proceeded to find a seat in a surprisingly packed room. The blood was a thing of the past. The liberal professor finished his argument and sat down to the sound of applause. At this point I was really hoping my guy was going to bring it. That’s when the geologist stood up, with his white shirt and pants covered in blood spatter and his finger cloaked in a thick impromptu looking bandage. He proceeded to tell the story about how he had been outside eating peanuts while waiting for the debate to begin. He noticed a squirrel, getting so close to him that he decided to hand the creature a peanut. It was at that point that, rather than taking the peanut, the squirrel proceed to sink its teeth into his finger before fleeing into a tree. There were a few laughs of course and I was wondering ‘what the hell?’ Then he explained (and I’m paraphrasing here); ‘there is an inherent right of all creatures to defend themselves. I cannot blame the squirrel as he may have felt threatened by my gesture and bit in self-defense. But nevertheless, when the constitution states that RIGHT to bear arms shall not be infringed, implicit is that a RIGHT, not a privilege, is inherent to all creatures from their conception. Thus, what the government hath not giveth, the government cannot taketh away’. He went on to explain that the wordage “god given rights” is meant to convey that our rights are endowed not by government but by whatever force of nature or creator has set life into motion. Therefore, if a gun is NECESSARY to defend your life, then it IS lawful. He continued from there to make more and more sense, speaking for a good 20 minutes before resting his case. By that time, I felt like he basically addressed every point I could have hoped that he would. Included was his explanation that during WWII, the Japanese considered attacking the west coast Of the U.S. only to conclude that the American people were simply too well armed and familiar with the terrain to risk it. One other note, I was somewhat surprised and pleased to see that the crowd was overwhelmingly conservative. When the speakers finished and opened it up to the students for questions, only one person was actually in support of any kind of second amendment restrictions. The other 7 or 8 questions were all in rebuttal to the Liberal professor’s perspective. So in conclusion, it was absolutely fascinating and encouraging. And while I could certainly give a much broader explanation of the argument, I really just wanted to tell you about what I found most interesting. Happy Constitution Day!
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 23:51:42 +0000
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