Gun ban back on Obama’s agenda

[Kulindahr]

If this is about the inherent right to life, I am entitled by way of right to have the government regulate any instance of the manufacture, acquisition, transport, storage, or operation of a firearm in equal measure to the degree of risk posed to my life by that firearm.

You may argue that the risk is close to zero.

The risk is zero. Firearms just sit there; only people do actions.

You have no right to restrict the legitimate actions of others, regardless of any perceived risk. Your argument here leads to unrestricted government authority over anything anyone at all maintains is a risk. Under your reasoning, I could demand that all aftershave be banned, because the vapors harm my lungs; that peanuts be heavily taxed because I'm allergic to them....

[Kulindahr]

Because. There is. No. Single. Factor. That. Defines. Crime. Rate.

There are factors that influence it. And freely obtainable guns are obviously one of these factors.

No, it isn't: gun ownership has been increasing substantially, while crime has been decreasing.

[Stardreamer]

I find it very dishonest to smugly say "you can't find certain proof that gun restrictions and lower death rates are related, so your argument is invalid".

Guns are the easiest way - both physically and psychologically - for one individual to kill another.

Countries with strict gun control have much fewer murders per capita.

Ergo, it follows - logically, by that pesky razor thingy - that strict gun laws equate fewer murders.


But no, says the gun nut, those countries are not like the US, so it's impossible to say that. Guns killing people is just a theory!

Well, friends, then it falls to YOU to give examples of those particular differences that you see as responsible for the lower death rate. Because, your argument is a double edged one. You think in terms of "America and everyone else", but all those countries are drastically different FROM EACH OTHER as well! In fact, Japan, Norway and the UK are perhaps much more different from each other than from the US which they've all helped create and been influenced by culturally in the last century.

So, a common denominator is tight gun laws. What ELSE can YOU suggest as the reason for their better record on murders?

One, I'm not a gun nut, never owned one or even know much about them beyond my military training and what I read.
Two, I don't rule out gun regulation/laws as a factor only point out that it is not a consistent factor and therefore other factors are involved.
Three, Kuli and I have both suggested one significant factor, the cultural differences between those groups, given what little I know of the differences between the culture in the US and Japan I have no doubt that if the gun laws/regulations were the same Japan would still have a much lower murder rate than the US. That is not to say that the murder rate would not be higher than it is now, it likely would be (I have a sneaking suspicion that folks who 'snap' under pressure in Japanese society would be more likely to go 'postal') but gun ownership alone is not the only relevant factor. Just as you can't ignore the weather patterns when measuring air pollution in countries next to China, just so you should not ignore the other factors in the violence equations.

[xbuzzerx]

No, it isn't: gun ownership has been increasing substantially, while crime has been decreasing.

Are you implying cause and effect? The crime rate's been dropping for years btw.... the burst in gun sales around election time is not responsible for it.

[Kulindahr]

Well in a way that's exactly the point we're making. The founding fathers did not conceive of weapons you could take out entire rooms of people with instantly by holding your finger on a trigger, or obliterate a city block with. We have, sanely I think, restricted ownership of weapons based on public safety considerations-- and that includes firearms.

Again, I'm not making an argument for banning. I took exception to a massively broad claim that no treaty or law signed by the U.S. would ever have the right to even limit private gun ownership, and that simply isn't reality.

They didn't have to conceive of it -- the principles don't change. The idea was that the people should be able to face down the army and win.

BTW, recall the Clinton gun ban? It had nothing to do with public safety and no effect on it. It was based on aesthetics, and nothing else.

[xbuzzerx]

One, I'm not a gun nut, never owned one or even know much about them beyond my military training and what I read.
Two, I don't rule out gun regulation/laws as a factor only point out that it is not a consistent factor and therefore other factors are involved.
Three, Kuli and I have both suggested one significant factor, the cultural differences between those groups, given what little I know of the differences between the culture in the US and Japan I have no doubt that if the gun laws/regulations were the same Japan would still have a much lower murder rate than the US. That is not to say that the murder rate would not be higher than it is now, it likely would be (I have a sneaking suspicion that folks who 'snap' under pressure in Japanese society would be more likely to go 'postal') but gun ownership alone is not the only relevant factor. Just as you can't ignore the weather patterns when measuring air pollution in countries next to China, just so you should not ignore the other factors in the violence equations.

And that's just pulling things out of thin air. He asked you to explain what the heck places like Norway, UK and Japan all have in common as common denominators in terms of this "different culture" argument to explain why they all SHARE lower murder rates. I promise UK and Japan are really, really, really different cultures. And btw Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world--- so it's definitely not because they have some infinitely higher cultural value on life or whatever than the west or America does.

[Kulindahr]

Read more carefully. I didn't say poverty. I said unequal distribution of wealth. I also mentioned lack of opportunity and I also mentioned concentrated or systemic discrimination. Those are all factors. You're minimalizing into bite sized pieces an issue that is more complex than you apparently want to deal with.

This is absolutely true. Disparity in wealth distribution is a major factor in the rate of civil unrest, and to an extent that includes crime. Restricted opportunity is another major factor, as is restricted social mobility.

Which is why it's good that Romney lost; he would have altered all those factors for the worse.

[Kulindahr]

You probably could make the argument that prohibition caused crime. But it wasn't because of poverty, it was greed. After we were all able to get a drink, crime didn't increase exponentially caused by poverty. We weren't all too drunk to pull the hook. So poverty apparently isn't the cause of crime.

Was it because everybody was broke and there was nothing to steal?

LOL

It's undeniable that Prohibition caused crime! Within a couple years of the start, crime rates doubled, then tripled, and onward; within two years of repeal, crime plummeted to less than a tenth of what it had been.

Poverty is a contributing factor to crime, and not a really big one.

[bankside]

The risk is zero. Firearms just sit there; only people do actions.

You have no right to restrict the legitimate actions of others, regardless of any perceived risk. Your argument here leads to unrestricted government authority over anything anyone at all maintains is a risk. Under your reasoning, I could demand that all aftershave be banned, because the vapors harm my lungs; that peanuts be heavily taxed because I'm allergic to them....

Permit me to rephrase then:

If this is about the inherent right to life, I am entitled by way of right to have the government regulate the actions of any person manufacturing, acquiring, transporting, storing, or operating a firearm in equal measure to the degree of risk posed to my life by that person's manner of manufacturing, acquiring, transporting, storing or operating the firearm, which as we all agree, would otherwise be just sitting there.

[Kulindahr]

No it doesn't. It points out that government recognizing rights is the practical reality. You don't have any universal global currency of human rights. You leave this country and not only will laws recognize different rights but people's perceptions of rights and what "human rights" are will vary, whether by degrees or by large bounds.

You're having a philosophical argument about what you believe to be your inborn human rights and no one is trying to dispossess you of that belief. But we're talking about the practical reality of laws and government-- and our government doesn't recognize a holy sanctity laissez-faire absolutely NO restriction NO regulation stance on firearms. That's simple fact.

Human rights are the same everywhere. If that's not a fact, then we're all just sheep and should shut up and let the governments herd us. You're talking about the effect that artificial structures have no how rights may be exercised -- but unless rights are a fact, that's no discussion at all, just blather about which shepherd is nicer to the sheep.

Then your stance is falling apart because you'd need all those things and more to ever hope to oppose a tyrannical Federal Government on a battlefield.

Huh? My stance is fine; you and others keep confusing things. The right to keep and bear arms means individuals can have individual arms, that militias can have crew-served arms. The two are different matters, which is why bringing up nukes in a discussion of the right of a citizen to keep and bear arms is not just silly but ignorant.

That's your interpretation. And as it's been pointed out a thousand times, there's a TON of things the founding fathers could not possibly have foreseen regarding the future, and in fact, is patently clear they didn't foresee. I'm sure any one of them if shown a future where a 16 year old walked into a theater and gunned down everyone in it, you would have seen their tone on certain elements of the topic different than it was.

Their view would have been the same: for the security of a free republic, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed. The point of it all on the individual level was that when someone threatens the security of one's Republic by attacking its citizens, those very citizens must be able to respond right then and there with appropriate force to end it right then and there.

I disagree and so do the courts. You're entitled to your opinion but as someone else pointed out a few posts back... you present it as if it's the one correct set in stone universal truth of the situation, and I see very clearly that it isn't.

Look up "infringed" in a dictionary of the period.

[Stardreamer]

And that's just pulling things out of thin air. He asked you to explain what the heck places like Norway, UK and Japan all have in common as common denominators in terms of this "different culture" argument to explain why they all SHARE lower murder rates. I promise UK and Japan are really, really, really different cultures. And btw Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world--- so it's definitely not because they have some infinitely higher cultural value on life or whatever than the west or America does.

One of the common factors is amount of guns in the populations (I did note that I am NOT saying that gun regulation is not a factor) and that factor was drastically different from the start which complicates the issue of making comparisons. The culture in those countries (though I can't say for sure about Norway) is largely more polite and conformist than American culture which is a factor. Which was one of Kuli's points about American society. But honestly if I knew all the factors to the equation, it would hardly be necessary for me to point out that we don't know all the factors to the equation.

[Kulindahr]

Here's the American Exceptionalism. None of those things happen in any other culture right? Cultures where people set a street on fire or break every window on it after losing a soccer match? We're just especially more angry and more violent, therefore, there's no sense controlling firearms at all because we'll just find some way to bludgeon each other to death anyway?

This is the paranoid negative viewpoint I don't get and which is endemic with the gun community.

You don't get it because you're addressing a view you and others have made up that has nothing to do with reality.

If there's any "exceptionalism" here, it's that Americans have an exceptional level of antagonism in all things.

And it has nothing to do with "there's no sense controlling firearms", it has to do with the fact that citizens are not prey, and the government saying they should be doesn't make it so. The fact is that citizens get attacked, and any government that says they can't be armed has said their lives are worthless -- because if someone's life is worth somewthing, then it should be protected, and since government has no duty to protect it, it must allow the citizen to do so.

And I'd much rather wear my Ruger right where it can be seen -- because that's what has prevented me from being bludgeoned to death.

[Kulindahr]

it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to say that "firearms should be hands off, it's okay to restrict everything else" is the logical conclusion from that. Any and all weapons we'd need to overthrow our own government would technically be fair play, in fact even necessary. So why do you settle on firearms and not push for more?

b e c a u s e
t h a t ' s
w h a t
t h e
w o r d s
m e a n

[Kulindahr]

Again, if I am the Emperor of My Own Rights, then if I choose to defend myself with firearms, so be it. If I choose to defend myself with a superior alternative, in my judgement as Emperor of My Own Rights: compulsory disarmament of all. Why is that invalid?

Because it has negative consequences for your rights? Tough. The choice of guns has negative consequences for my rights.

No, it doesn't. The choice of actions of a criminal has consequences for your rights.

And your alternative fails because you're claiming to own other people -- you don't. in fact that's the real belief behind all "gun control", that somehow the 'enlightened' own everyone else and thus have the authority to tell them to be sheep.

[Kulindahr]

I find it very dishonest to smugly say "you can't find certain proof that gun restrictions and lower death rates are related, so your argument is invalid".

Guns are the easiest way - both physically and psychologically - for one individual to kill another.

Countries with strict gun control have much fewer murders per capita.

Ergo, it follows - logically, by that pesky razor thingy - that strict gun laws equate fewer murders.

Logic fail. It follows if and only if all other things about the countries are the same.

[Kulindahr]

That is actually precisely what you appear to be doing. One moment you acknowledge that a huge part of the founding fathers' reasoning in the 2nd amendment was militias to defy federal tyranny, but then you turn around and say somewhere somehow that also meant completely unrestricted weapon ownership at home... but not with the big stuff, it's okay if that's limited. It's the 2nd part that you're entirely making up as convenient, and is not consistent with the overall intent of the bill.

By the way-- neither of us have proposed blanket gun ban. I said very early on that I was not an advocate of that. We are arguing with you on YOUR extreme viewpoint that ANY regulation/restriction of ANY sort is in your words "illegal and immoral." Yours is the fundamentalist position for which you are fashioning the reasonings to fit the outcome-- not us.

No, what I'm saying is based on several hundred hours of research on what the words mean. Fundamentalists don't care what the words actually mean, they assign the meaning they like -- which is what the "restrict them" folks in this thread keep doing.

[Kulindahr]

Kul, can you re-read this post and sorta see... even a little bit... how this sounds like arguing with a religious person about their social beliefs?

No. I have yet to meet a fundie who has ever actually studied the materials he claims mean he's supposed to oppress other people over issues that don't affect him in the least, or who even understands that there are such things as basic principles that are relevant to the subject.

I'm trying to get the basic principles settled, and everyone else is arguing about symptoms that occur due to some intruding factors.

[Kulindahr]

Are you implying cause and effect? The crime rate's been dropping for years btw.... the burst in gun sales around election time is not responsible for it.

No -- Rolyo claimed cause and effect, and I refuted it.

[Kulindahr]

Permit me to rephrase then:

If this is about the inherent right to life, I am entitled by way of right to have the government regulate the actions of any person manufacturing, acquiring, transporting, storing, or operating a firearm in equal measure to the degree of risk posed to my life by that person's manner of manufacturing, acquiring, transporting, storing or operating the firearm, which as we all agree, would otherwise be just sitting there.

No -- you only have the right to have the government regulate the misuse of those things, or more properly, the actions of people who are actually misusing those things.

[xbuzzerx]

This is absolutely true. Disparity in wealth distribution is a major factor in the rate of civil unrest, and to an extent that includes crime. Restricted opportunity is another major factor, as is restricted social mobility.

Which is why it's good that Romney lost; he would have altered all those factors for the worse.

I'm glad we agree on something in this topic. lol

[xbuzzerx]

One of the common factors is amount of guns in the populations (I did note that I am NOT saying that gun regulation is not a factor) and that factor was drastically different from the start which complicates the issue of making comparisons. The culture in those countries (though I can't say for sure about Norway) is largely more polite and conformist than American culture which is a factor. Which was one of Kuli's points about American society. But honestly if I knew all the factors to the equation, it would hardly be necessary for me to point out that we don't know all the factors to the equation.

Since you do not discount the element that gun prevalency plays, I don't see you and I as having a disagreement.

[xbuzzerx]

You don't get it because you're addressing a view you and others have made up that has nothing to do with reality.

If there's any "exceptionalism" here, it's that Americans have an exceptional level of antagonism in all things.

And it has nothing to do with "there's no sense controlling firearms", it has to do with the fact that citizens are not prey, and the government saying they should be doesn't make it so. The fact is that citizens get attacked, and any government that says they can't be armed has said their lives are worthless -- because if someone's life is worth somewthing, then it should be protected, and since government has no duty to protect it, it must allow the citizen to do so.

And I'd much rather wear my Ruger right where it can be seen -- because that's what has prevented me from being bludgeoned to death.

When you or anyone tells me "oh you can't consider the OBVIOUS difference that firearms are controlled to greatly different degrees between the U.S. and countries with vastly lower murder rates, it's all actually the CULTURAL differences explaining most of it and so gun control won't change a thing.." you are asking us to buy into American Exceptionalism in reverse. That there's something bad/worse about us compared to other countries that makes us behave worse, and that the prevalence of guns plays absolutely no role in the fact that our crimes result in multiple times more deaths than in those other countries.

Yes, I fundamentally reject the notion that there's just something bad and foul in our culture itself that drives us to kill each other more than in other countries. Yes, I think culture does play some role everywhere, but I think when you hold up the vague banner of "culture" next to the more tangible elements like poverty and inequalty, its role is secondary at best, and doesn't explain the ENORMOUS difference between us and countries with gun control. And in the interest of fairness Rolyo already asked your side of this argument to EXPLAIN to us how culture itself creates this huge difference if that is what you really believe... I haven't heard anything persuasive before and I am not holding my breath I will now.

[xbuzzerx]

No, what I'm saying is based on several hundred hours of research on what the words mean. Fundamentalists don't care what the words actually mean, they assign the meaning they like -- which is what the "restrict them" folks in this thread keep doing.

I'm very sorry, are you saying you know better than multiple series of judges and courts which have ruled on these regulations? They're all out just willy nilly urinating on the Constitution whose meaning and interpretation is clear, singular, undeniable and yours?

[xbuzzerx]

Human rights are the same everywhere. If that's not a fact, then we're all just sheep and should shut up and let the governments herd us. You're talking about the effect that artificial structures have no how rights may be exercised -- but unless rights are a fact, that's no discussion at all, just blather about which shepherd is nicer to the sheep.

Do you sincerely believe you could get people from every corner of the world to agree on one list of shared universal human rights? We could most certainly get some basics, things along the lines of U.N. agreements and such. But I do think it's a little naive to think if you plunked the people of the world down together in one think tank what they'd come up with would be a mirror match of a libertarian interpretation of the U.S. constitution. Certainly there'd be similarities and overlaps but you're laying claim to one universal set of human rights which I doubt you could even get everyone in the forum to agree on, let alone the human race.

Huh? My stance is fine; you and others keep confusing things. The right to keep and bear arms means individuals can have individual arms, that militias can have crew-served arms. The two are different matters, which is why bringing up nukes in a discussion of the right of a citizen to keep and bear arms is not just silly but ignorant.

How about landmines? Technically you'd have two laws that support their use in theory: the right to bear arms and the right to self-defense in your home. Yet they're illegal.

Their view would have been the same: for the security of a free republic, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed. The point of it all on the individual level was that when someone threatens the security of one's Republic by attacking its citizens, those very citizens must be able to respond right then and there with appropriate force to end it right then and there.

You're going to fight off a Chinese tank division with handguns?

[Rolyo85]

It's what the words mean. That's where anti-rights people like you are the fundamentalists on this issue: you don't care what the words mean in reality, you don't care about researching them, you only care about what you want the words to mean, without having to exercise any thought on it.

I do in fact care, but I'll post a separate post about it.

The problem is withe the environment -- and that environment has nothing to do with guns. The US has more violent crime than many other countries regardless of state or local laws about firearms, which proves that it isn't the firearms.

Your last phrase doesn't even make sense. Arming citizens reduces violence.

Except, it was pointed out by buzzer that when guns are freely available in most of the country, the isolated places where they are not, are a poor basis for this argument. And my last phrase makes sense. A gun is a tool for violence, even when used in its "deterrent" capacity. The only effective deterrent after all, is one that is being shown on occasion to be effective.

Any population which has surrendered its ability to fight back against a tyrannical government has accepted the state of being owned by that government. They have surrendered their rights, allowing them to be replaced with privileges granted by those who do hold the means of force. They have assented to "might makes right", because they allow those with the monopoly on force to make the decisions.

Political power has always come from the point of a gun. That the system has temporarily hidden the fact does not negate it.

So the UK government - which doesn't even arm its own police force - is TYRANNICAL? That's a weird opinion of "our closest ally", don't you think? Furthermore, it behooves me to tell you that you are ABSOLUTELY powerless against the US government, gun or not. Both as an individual, and in your capacity to gather a group of - even well trained - likeminded people. Your government has the capacity to turn your entire city into glass with the push of a button. It has the strongest military machine in the world, and that machine WILL fight for it. No amount of personal arms could ever make you even remotely a threat to your government. So your entire premise is kind of... false.

No, people just ignore the evidence: in the US, the places with the highest per capita violent crime continue to be the ones with the strictest gun laws. By the evidence, making it harder to get guns increases crime.

Refer again to buzzer's air pollution comparison.

Huh? There's nothing unrealistic about it: no sane criminal is going to venture into a neighborhood where every household is armed and ready to respond. It's common sense.

Yes, and I'm sure this common sense works wonders in Bizzaro World, but in our reality, households are NOT "ready to respond". I know you imagine some armed nation ready to be turned into a fighting machine with the snap of a finger, but it only exists in your mind. Gun owners are NOT trained professionals. They're normal people with normal personalities, normal flaws and normal lives. But with guns.

[Rolyo85]

I AM talking about reality -- the same reality on which every advance in rights has been founded: that rights belong to, because they arise from, individuals. Without that fact, one has already conceded that one has only privileges granted by one's masters.

You've descended into Randism here, turning the struggle for rights into one of selfishness, people just trying to satisfy their urges for things.

If people don't realize they own themselves, they'll never be free. Only if they own themselves will the people of Uganda or elsewhere stand up and throw off their chains. Self-ownership is the solid reality on which people stand to reach for what is theirs -- not for what they selfishly desire, but for what belongs to them already and they're not being allowed to have.

I am sure homosexual Ugandans just didn't know they need to only stand up to their governments. Let me express this to you in a truly offensive way:

Your thinking is coming from a dead age. It comes from centuries ago. It comes from a place that the First World has LEFT. It is paleolithic and primitive, and it envisions some evil government takeover of the freedoms of the people that the people have to be ready to counter. Like I already said - the US government can do that any time and you are helpless to even slow it down. With modern weapons of war, ANY government can do that to its people any time it so chooses. The reason why Western governments don't do that is because two world wars and the industrialization taught us that oppression is INEFFECTIVE. The government does not want an oppressed people because an oppressed people is unproductive. And while gun nuts in the US cling to their arms because of paranoid ancestral memory and because having a gun gives them a boner, other countries have learned that weapons kill, and more weapons kill more, and it is in the best interest of the people, if those aren't freely available.

That's what this is all about. Government is not your enemy. Government is YOU. You elect every single cell of its body, and you have the opportunity to remove it at every election. It is not some Cthulhu that should be prevented from rising from R'lyeh, it's a group of people working under a set of laws for those who elected them. I really wish Americans would grow up and realize that.

[opinterph]

You're going to fight off a Chinese tank division with handguns?

Or maybe something more powerful than a mere handgun.

[Stardreamer]

You don't get it because you're addressing a view you and others have made up that has nothing to do with reality.

If there's any "exceptionalism" here, it's that Americans have an exceptional level of antagonism in all things.

And it has nothing to do with "there's no sense controlling firearms", it has to do with the fact that citizens are not prey, and the government saying they should be doesn't make it so. The fact is that citizens get attacked, and any government that says they can't be armed has said their lives are worthless -- because if someone's life is worth somewthing, then it should be protected, and since government has no duty to protect it, it must allow the citizen to do so.

And I'd much rather wear my Ruger right where it can be seen -- because that's what has prevented me from being bludgeoned to death.

You address here the natural right of self defense which many consider to be one of the basic principles in enumerating the second amendment. Which sort of leads me to an odd tangent on this issue. Would you say that even if it could be conclusively shown that gun violence can be reduced by banning gun ownership, that it would still be wrong for the government to do so on the basis that it is essentially telling those people who could have used a gun in self defense that your life must be sacrificed in the name of the greater good? In other words does the government have a right to restrict your natural right to self defense if allowing you to die is beneficial to society?

[Rolyo85]

Logic fail. It follows if and only if all other things about the countries are the same.

You say it's logic fail. I say it's pure logic. You have ample opportunity to prove me wrong, by responding to my question about the cultures from an hour ago.

[xbuzzerx]

I am sure homosexual Ugandans just didn't know they need to only stand up to their governments. Let me express this to you in a truly offensive way:

Your thinking is coming from a dead age. It comes from centuries ago. It comes from a place that the First World has LEFT. It is paleolithic and primitive, and it envisions some evil government takeover of the freedoms of the people that the people have to be ready to counter. Like I already said - the US government can do that any time and you are helpless to even slow it down. With modern weapons of war, ANY government can do that to its people any time it so chooses. The reason why Western governments don't do that is because two world wars and the industrialization taught us that oppression is INEFFECTIVE. The government does not want an oppressed people because an oppressed people is unproductive. And while gun nuts in the US cling to their arms because of paranoid ancestral memory and because having a gun gives them a boner, other countries have learned that weapons kill, and more weapons kill more, and it is in the best interest of the people, if those aren't freely available.

That's what this is all about. Government is not your enemy. Government is YOU. You elect every single cell of its body, and you have the opportunity to remove it at every election. It is not some Cthulhu that should be prevented from rising from R'lyeh, it's a group of people working under a set of laws for those who elected them. I really wish Americans would grow up and realize that.

That's exactly how I feel as well, and well said.

Kul, you're harkening to the Minuteman era where guys could put on a coat and hat and grab a musket and be ready to fight the British. It has absolutely no relevant translation today. You're not going to stop the Federal Government with a handgun. You are not in imminent and daily danger of destruction by your government if you leave that gun at home or even if you chuck it.

[Rolyo85]

And while we're at it (or a few pages too late), let's look at the actual text, which Kuli says he's studied for hundreds of hours:

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

First of all, let me say that I welcome explanations as to why I am wrong in interpreting it the way I'm about to. I am not a Constitution scholar, obviously, so I just go with what passes for common sense for me, and logic.

So, with that in mind, there is absolutely NO distinction between the need for militias, and the right to keep and bear arms. It is one sentence, all of it. So to say that the militias are only one reason for gun ownership, and self-defense is another, is - to me - false. Self-defense and the responsibility of such are NOT part of the second amendment.

Also, the right to keep and bear arms can be infringed upon ONLY if guns are banned completely. Nothing in the text gives any indication that there can be no regulation as to WHICH arms can be kept and carried by WHOM. If you are not allowed to own a gun, you are STILL free to carry a knife, or hell - a SWORD. Your right to keep and bear those arms has in no way been infringed.

Which is very biased reading on my part of course, but I am giving it as an example of why this is not clear-cut, and as absolute as Kuli imagines it. And CLEARLY someone more important than me has held a similar position, because guns ARE regulated, and it has been deemed constitutional that they do. Regulation is not infringement. There is no person that is forbidden to keep or carry ANY sort of arms.

[TX-Beau]

Or maybe something more powerful than a mere handgun.

That didn't work now did it.

[andysayshi]

Don't fall too deeply in love. Lott was vindicated.



So, Levitt initially presented what he claimed to be an objective peer review of Lott's work while failing to reveal that he was on of the reviewers. Levitt, the Freakonomics clown, engaged in academic misfeasance in order to support his view. Another epic fail by the anti-gun losers.

If you love Levitt, then you love dishonesty.


http://www.openmarket.org/2007/07/31/lott-vindicated/

How on Earth is this vindication for Lott? Lott sued Levitt for libel, and lost. He then appealed, and lost again. Two courts of the land say Levitt did NOT misrepresent Lott or the greater opinion of his work.

The matter you've mentioned here was a secondary part of Lott's initial case, which is ultimately just a technicality. Levitt apologised for it. But the issue itself - that Levitt was one of the reviewers of one of Lott's cases, says nothing about the methodology, the accuracy, or the ability to substantiate Lott's claims with verifiable statistics.

To this day, Lott has NEVER shown a shred of evidence that he oversaw the polling of 2000+ Americans to derive the statistics that make his paper factual. Any investigation into the study have found dead ends, bar one lone NRA member who claimed he was called after the fact.

But he has publicly admitted to creating a fake persona to drum up fake affirmations and reviews of his books. This is the guy you want us to believe, right?

[bankside]

No -- you only have the right to have the government regulate the misuse of those things, or more properly, the actions of people who are actually misusing those things.

That's like saying you only have the right to life via a gun when someone is actually coming at you. i.e. "I see you're attacking me. I now have justification to go out and purchase a firearm. Please wait here." Of course we both have the right to plan proactively.

[Rolyo85]

That was well said. When statistics are against you, talking about morals, and lofty ideals that you somehow put guns in, doesn't really do it. And giving examples with places in America, where gun control is strict, is also a cop out, considering that those places are surrounded by others where gun control isn't strict.

[xbuzzerx]

That was well said. When statistics are against you, talking about morals, and lofty ideals that you somehow put guns in, doesn't really do it. And giving examples with places in America, where gun control is strict, is also a cop out, considering that those places are surrounded by others where gun control isn't strict.

I think what most bothers me is you take this thread as a representation (and honestly it was a fairly good representation) of the pro gun arguments, they really do believe the stats back them up that more guns / less regulation = more safety. And most of the fielded stats could be shot down by someone taking a first year stat class. I mean in this thread alone people put up tons of stats like "x city made more strict regulations and killings went up!"... does it not perhaps more logically follow that they put stricter regulations in place because violent crime and murders were on the rise rather than immediately deducing that the regulations by themselves immediately flung more people out into the street to murder everyone?

And it works in reverse too, like mentioned on the previous page... right now crime is going down, and gun nuts have gone absolutely ape-crap buying up guns because of Obama/leftie/black people fear and paranoia--- but one is not causing the other, at all. The crime rate has been going down steadily for quite some time before the election. But this is the type of stat generally used by the pro gun side, casual ipso facto.

[rareboy]

Just sayin'

[bankside]

Apparently "common efforts" and "shared responsibility" are tyranny.

[xbuzzerx]

Apparently "common efforts" and "shared responsibility" are tyranny.

Well yeah that was kinda my point I was trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to get across was... how is it tyranny if firearms are regulated but it's not tyranny that you can't live in a live-armed tank or put landmines around your house or own a nuke just in case?

I don't actually think there is a solid hard tangible statement in the Constitution itself that what was meant was "completely unrestricted personal holster weapons of any kind, it's okay to regulate everything more than that though" which is the logical leap here.

[bankside]

The problem comes from constitutional fetishism. Instead of thinking about what makes sense, being mindful of precedent, history and principle, people get reduced to hunting through the constitution to find support for their predetermined position, divining the "original intent" of its authors like some ancient soothsayer looking into a pile of animal entrails.

[Laufey]

How is the constitution in the US changed? Just curious.

[opinterph]

That didn't work now did it.

I suppose that depends on how you measure success. It accomplished something significant that a handgun could not.

‘Tank Man’ still unidentified more than 20 years later (NYDailyNews.com, June 05, 2012)

[TX-Beau]

So there was revolution in China?

Missed that.

He's probably dead, and they just don't want to admit it.

[xbuzzerx]

I suppose that depends on how you measure success. It accomplished something significant that a handgun could not.

‘Tank Man’ still unidentified more than 20 years later (NYDailyNews.com, June 05, 2012)

That's a salutory example of how changing a modern military-wielding government is not going to be done by having a handgun, though. Not the opposite.

[opinterph]

So there was revolution in China?

Missed that.

In a fundamental way, yes there was a revolution in China. Sorry you missed it.

[Stardreamer]

That's a salutory example of how changing a modern military-wielding government is not going to be done by having a handgun, though. Not the opposite.

Considering China heavily restricts gun ownership, it is not exactly a good example.

[xbuzzerx]

Considering China heavily restricts gun ownership, it is not exactly a good example.

It is a good example. Do you think that scene would have played out better if the guy had pulled out a handgun and shot at the tank?

[Stardreamer]

It is a good example. Do you think that scene would have played out better if the guy had pulled out a handgun and shot at the tank?

No but most revolutionaries aren't going to take on tanks head on with just handguns. So I guess you going to say as long as one side has tanks it is impossible to have a revolution or insurgency, I'm sure the governments that are or did deal with the popular uprising in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan are glad to hear that.

[xbuzzerx]

No but most revolutionaries aren't going to take on tanks head on with just handguns. So I guess you going to say as long as one side has tanks it is impossible to have a revolution or insurgency, I'm sure the governments that are or did deal with the popular uprising in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan are glad to hear that.

I think you missed my point which is that saying unrestricted handgun ownership is essential to the "in order to overthrow a tyrannical government" reasoning of the 2nd Amendment, while acknowledging & respecting that there are legal limits on owning anything more serious than that (like tanks, landmines or nukes) is archaic and obsolete. You're not going to overthrow the U.S. government with handguns.

[Stardreamer]

I think you missed my point which is that saying unrestricted handgun ownership is essential to the "in order to overthrow a tyrannical government" reasoning of the 2nd Amendment, while acknowledging & respecting that there are legal limits on owning anything more serious than that (like tanks, landmines or nukes) is archaic and obsolete. You're not going to overthrow the U.S. government with handguns.

Then your are saying there has been no successful revolutionary civil wars since the invention of modern warfare?