Rob's 2nd Amendment Thread

[yondermtn]

What is interesting is most gun owners talk about their wife needing protection etc from creeps entering the home.

"Most" gun owners talk about this? Got a link? It's not all about you and your experiences, Bleyseng. Celebrate diversity, dude!

[Bleyseng]

Ok, I watch TV, read the blogs, facebook and in a "general way", this is what I see and hear. It's not about my experiences or me, how in the hell can I talk about you unless you post something I can have a opinion on.
Protection, protection is what I hear whether its from some bad guy robbing your wife at gunpoint or Obama is a tyrannical government we have the right to "overthrow" as its written in the 2nd amendment.

Again this is it-"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I see nothing about overthrowing having the right to shoot someone you feel threatened with with a semi-auto weapon written in plain black and white.
I see that the People have the right to keep and bear arms. What arms is up to Us to decide with laws. A well regulated Militia was how the States protected themselves from Indians, escaped slaves, cowboys, etc BEFORE there was a Standing Army. We don't need a bunch of so called militia's running around today unless its the National Guard, Police, FBI, Federal Marshal's. We got that covered 10 times over so Billy Bob and Elmer who have machine guns and RPG's can just go to jail.

I do think its the right of people to choose to have a gun/rife/shotgun in their home for protection, hunting or committing suicide. My concern is that these legal guns aren't kept in a gun safe, with trigger locks etc and there are too many accidents or these crazys getting ahold of them to kill mass people.
Just like driving a car, a gun should be to a person who passes a test, pays a license fee, has a background check etc. Its a right with strings because the constitution was written as framework so laws could be changed as the country changed. No one could foresee the semi-auto rifles when all they had in 1790 was flintlocks. If we don't change or add to the laws what happens say in 20 years when then invent a laser weapon for personal protection?

[BellePlaine]

Its not a "knee Jerk" reaction, it was a law before and it did help. Bans do to that.

Help how?

Allow me to suggest that we could never pull off a successful ban that would be popular and efficiently enforceable. If its not popular enough then the law will be ignored, and then it becomes expensive to enforce then we have to think about trying a different way.

A ban would not be popular (besides that i don't think that it would work) because the advocates for the ban base their arguments on what someone may or may not "need". If we start telling people what they don't need and then ban that stuff, then we have to have a another discussion about where does it end and at what cost?

[Randy in Maine]

Well I am open to any other ideas that will allow us to avoid most if not all of these needless deaths from guns.

What can you come up with that achieves that goal? I am listening.....

[Amskeptic]

Its not a "knee Jerk" reaction, it was a law before and it did help. Bans do to that.

Help how?

Allow me to suggest that we could never pull off a successful ban that would be popular and efficiently enforceable. If its not popular enough then the law will be ignored, and then it becomes expensive to enforce then we have to think about trying a different way.

A ban would not be popular (besides that i don't think that it would work) because the advocates for the ban base their arguments on what someone may or may not "need". If we start telling people what they don't need and then ban that stuff, then we have to have a another discussion about where does it end and at what cost?

Democracy is sloppy. Look at how we had to be all over cigarettes before the social consciousness arrived at a point where the Old Reality was actually shouted down in favor of the New Reality. Remember? If a 2013 person went up to a 1966 someone smoking in a restaurant and said, "I really resent you smoking in here! What about my child's right to breathe??" the mystified mirth of 1966 someone would be supported by the entire restaurant, with an invitation for 2013 person to perhaps step out. Now look. People feel free to rebuke someone smoking on a park bench in the Big Outdoors.
Remember how the cigarette manufacturers went to extreme lengths of mocking ridicule and hiding research?

It is going to be messy to change our social consciousness, but we must do it. We must ask clearly what the obsession with guns is such that we even have these conversations about extended clip AR-15s as "self-defense in the home" like that NRA lady suggested, "I would hate to run out ammunition if there were five or six masked men in my home."

Really?

How about maybe just a couple of currently legal shotgun blasts might make them think twice about going any further?
Colin

[JLT]

I don't see the relevance of the reason why there are military style weapons in most the homes, as a special case.

I guess I didn't make myself clear. Switzerland is a special case because, despite the large number of firearms in the house, they usually aren't there for the purpose of self-defense, sport, or hunting, as they are in the US. And AFAIK, not many of them are handguns. So while there are a higher number of guns per capita than in other European countries, there isn't the "gun culture" that Americans have. Maybe we should be thinking, "The Swiss seem to be handling their gun problem quite well. How can we make our system more like theirs?"

Isn't that the point? So my wife has a chance against three guys with machetes in the living room at 3 AM?

No argument there. But I was trying to explain why guns are more lethal than other weapons. If your wife is accosted by three guys with machetes in the living room at 3 AM (and, by the way, does that happen a lot in your neighborhood, Rob?), then I would hope she has a handgun. Or better yet, a shotgun. Double barreled. Easier to aim, makes a big boom, alerts the neighbors, etc. It may be a little harder on the wallpaper, but life is full of trade-offs.

I’ll admit this was an anecdotal case, but the fact remains that far more lives are saved by the presence of guns in the hands of the potential victims, than are ever discharged.

If you're talking about criminal activities such as robbery or assault being thwarted, then maybe you've got a case, although it would be tough to really quantify that, i think. My own impression is that those guns aren't really effective unless they're actually brandished and the would-be assailant doesn't have the firepower to match it. If you have statistics that bear out what you say, from a source that doesn't have a vested interest in promoting handguns, I'll be happy to say I'm wrong.

We were talking about risks in the home, not on the street. Very few people suffer fatal automobile accidents in their homes...

What is the motivation for narrowing the accident discussions to the home? My point remains valid.

Because the original comment that I was responding to was about a health survey about potential dangers in the home (of which the presence of handguns was one). I felt that your reference to car accidents and car ownership, whatever its merits, fell outside the range of that comment.

Well, I'll be traveling for a few days, and probably won't be able to access the Internet from where I am (I am not the most "connected" guy you've met). I hope that this discussion continues and that y'all will do your best to see that it doesn't degenerate into the sort of name-calling and finger-pointing that has marked most of the Internet's discussion of guns and gun control. I'm counting on you guys.

[Bleyseng]

Its not a "knee Jerk" reaction, it was a law before and it did help. Bans do to that.

Help how?

Allow me to suggest that we could never pull off a successful ban that would be popular and efficiently enforceable. If its not popular enough then the law will be ignored, and then it becomes expensive to enforce then we have to think about trying a different way.

A ban would not be popular (besides that i don't think that it would work) because the advocates for the ban base their arguments on what someone may or may not "need". If we start telling people what they don't need and then ban that stuff, then we have to have a another discussion about where does it end and at what cost?

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence examined the impact of the Assault Weapons Ban in its 2004 report, On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapon Act. Examining 1.4 million guns involved in crime, "in the five-year period before enactment of the Federal Assault Weapons Act (1990-1994), assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of the crime gun traces ATF conducted nationwide. Since the law’s enactment, however, these assault weapons have made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF has traced to crime."

A better than 3% reduction in use of these guns in crime during this period. I wonder now that these types of weapons are so popular what the percentage would be?

I am with Colin on this, its just like the tobacco issue and how that "culture" was changed by laws. The paranoid gun culture will slowly go away if we enact sensible laws for gun ownership. The NRA/Gun manufacturers will fight this tooth and nail but it has to be done just as it was for tobacco.

[Hippie]

I see that the People have the right to keep and bear arms. What arms is up to Us to decide with laws. A well regulated Militia was how the States protected themselves from Indians, escaped slaves, cowboys, etc BEFORE there was a Standing Army. We don't need a bunch of so called militia's running around today unless its the National Guard, Police, FBI, Federal Marshal's. We got that covered 10 times over so Billy Bob and Elmer who have machine guns and RPG's can just go to jail.

If we have the right to change the laws as you say, and I agree we do, then there is benefit to hvving some tooth to the means, should the government decide to declare martial unjustly. Bush has done a lot of this with Homeland Security, that I disagree with. Unlike CBS News, which ignores the fact that "we the people" have due process mechanism in place to change the constitutional ammendments, I will not support just ignoring the that due process for constitutional change...as they (CBS) says, and I paraphrase here, "violating the Contitution is as American as apple pie" and "It's our country, and we have the right to make it the way we want to." Of course this was referring to gun control, and not the freedom of the press or anything else.

The courts and the commonly accepted meaning, indeed, disagree with your point of view that these governmental agencies you mention are our defense against a government run amock.

from http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#constitution ...and be sure to read the cited sources.

"* In the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment to the Constitution reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.[160]

* Gun control proponents have argued and some federal courts have ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to individual citizens of the United States but only to members of militias, which, they assert, are now the state National Guard units.[161] [162] In 2002, a federal appeals court panel ruled that "the people" only "have the right to bear arms in the service of the state."[163]

* Gun rights proponents have argued and some federal courts have ruled that the Second Amendment recognizes "an individual right to keep and bear arms."[164] In 2001, a federal appeals court panel ruled that the Second Amendment "protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms...."[165]

* James Madison was the primary author of the Bill of Rights,[166] is known as the "Father of the Constitution" for his central role in its formation,[167] and was one of three authors of the Federalist Papers, a group of essays published in newspapers and books to explain and lobby for ratification of the Constitution.[168] [169]

* In Federalist Paper 46, James Madison addressed the concern that a standing federal army might conduct a coup to take over the nation. He argued that this was implausible because, based on the country's population at the time, a federal standing army couldn't field more than 25,000-30,000 men. He then wrote:

To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence."

[Hippie]

JLT, Travel safe.

This is from the same site.

* Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms.[11]



* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 0.5% of households had members who had used a gun for defense during a situation in which they thought someone "almost certainly would have been killed" if they "had not used a gun for protection." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 162,000 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."[12]



* Based on survey data from the U.S. Department of Justice, roughly 5,340,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2008. These include simple/aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders.[13] [14] [15] Of these, about 436,000 or 8% were committed by offenders visibly armed with a gun.[16]



* Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18]



* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun "for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 1,029,615 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."[19]



* A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.[20]



* A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:[21]



• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"

• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"

• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"[22]



* Click here to see why the following commonly cited statistic does not meet Just Facts' Standards of Credibility: "In homes with guns, the homicide of a household member is almost 3 times more likely to occur than in homes without guns."

[Hippie]

Well I am open to any other ideas that will allow us to avoid most if not all of these needless deaths from guns.

What can you come up with that achieves that goal? I am listening.....

Oh I wish life worked that way. If there is anything we can do, that will not unjustly deprive freedom without meaningful benefits, or make things worse "on the back end." as I mentioned before, I think we need to start holding the news media responsible for reporting in the name of their own politics, and for rating, the type of thing that encourages copycat crimes. I think we should hold the rest of the entertainment industry, including video game publishers, responsible for the influence that is poured upon our youth, a few of them unstable, 24/7.
I think we need to look at mental health care, school security, and public education about keeping guns responsibly with safety training.

Remember though, the news lkes to report certain things, and not others. When we are inundated with it constantly...and it is a big country and a big world, so it is not difficult to find shootings, bombings, or other killings to report almost daily...it seems the sky is falling. But our children are in more danger of life and limb getting to and from school by means of accident, than being shot in school, by a rampage killer.

[Hippie]

PS, I don't buy the double barreled shotgun approach that Biden puts forth, either. As delightfully British as it sounds (and perhaps he would be happier living there instead of trying to screw up things over here... ) A pump shotgun is far better. However, since Biden is not a self defence expert, he also neglected to mention the downsides of any long gun in a close quarters situation like a home.

Why, I'll bet money that the guys with guns that surround him 24/7, to make him feel safe, carry high capacity full auto rifles and handguns.

"While today's news media can be entertaining, ask yourself, "Does it give me the information I need to make quality decisions in my life and in the voting booth?"

Make the effort to gather credible facts and ponder their implications. Your views and your vote impact not only your life, but the people around you. Refuse to allow misinformation and bias to restrict or manipulate your thinking. Form your own opinions based upon serious thought and broad knowledge."

I think we are running over the same old ground here by now, and I will probably step out and get busy with other things.
I stated before that you often cannot change a persons's point of view, when they have pre-decided on an emotional level, what that is point of view going to be, and they will never let facts get in the way of that. That is the sad history of making the same mankind making the same mistakes over and over again and too often costing others dearly. I have been called a pessimist about this aspect of human nature...but I am accurate most of the time. Good enough for me.

[BellePlaine]

Well I am open to any other ideas that will allow us to avoid most if not all of these needless deaths from guns.

What can you come up with that achieves that goal? I am listening.....

I think that maybe a mass shooting is a form of communication. Are we, as a country, dissfunctional in our communications? I think so. More of us (US citizens) have opinions but we are proverbially yelling at each other; some automatically forward disrespectful Facebook posts, etc. Hardly any of it is positive. I think that a mass shooting is a way for someone to be heard over the clutter. Lets start by stop spitting venom at each other.

[Bleyseng]

Here is an interesting take on American culture from MLK in 1963.

"Shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that it was time for our nation to do some soul-searching, and while the question “Who killed President Kennedy?” was important, answering the question “What killed President Kennedy?” was even more critical. Dr. King believed the answer was that “our late president was assassinated by a morally inclement climate”: “It is a climate filled with heavy torrents of false accusation, jostling winds of hatred, and raging storms of violence. It is a climate where men cannot disagree without being disagreeable, and where they express dissent through violence and murder. It is the same climate that murdered Medgar Evers in Mississippi and six innocent Negro children in Birmingham, Alabama.” Dr. King further noted that the undercurrents of hatred and violence that made up this morally inclement climate were fueled by our cultural embrace of guns: “By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.”

We as a country have grown more polarized since then and the gun culture or cultural violence is rampant.

[Amskeptic]

Here is an interesting take on American culture from MLK in 1963.

"Shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that it was time for our nation to do some soul-searching, and while the question “Who killed President Kennedy?” was important, answering the question “What killed President Kennedy?” was even more critical. Dr. King believed the answer was that “our late president was assassinated by a morally inclement climate”: “It is a climate filled with heavy torrents of false accusation, jostling winds of hatred, and raging storms of violence. It is a climate where men cannot disagree without being disagreeable, and where they express dissent through violence and murder. It is the same climate that murdered Medgar Evers in Mississippi and six innocent Negro children in Birmingham, Alabama.” Dr. King further noted that the undercurrents of hatred and violence that made up this morally inclement climate were fueled by our cultural embrace of guns: “By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.”

We as a country have grown more polarized since then and the gun culture or cultural violence is rampant.

I like Martin Luther King. He comes from deep true places that I wish I could find in myself more often.
Colin

[RussellK]

We as a country have grown more polarized since then and the gun culture or cultural violence is rampant

I like Martin Luther King. He comes from deep true places that I wish I could find in myself more often.
Colin

I admire Dr King too. But I think he's mistaken. Somewhere in all the noise behind the gun vs antigun discussion I have this needling feeling we are missing the obvious. Maybe something important. I know gun owners and wouldn't characterize any of them as violent or hateful. Most of their guns sit benignly with more usefulness as a poor hammer than a lethal weapon. And yet I keep hearing its the guns! Its the guns! What if it's not the guns and we miss this opportunity to do something important to really bring about meaningful change.