California Shooting: The spin begins

[TX-Beau]

And you are pointing this is why? I'm not saying that guns are not and cannot be regulated, I'm simply pointing out that using the example of how cars are regulated is not a good comparison. There are some similarities that can be drawn though, as long as the right is taken into consideration the state can regulate use on public property and owners can regulate on private property.

Sorry, I misread your first post.

- - - Updated - - -

Mea Culpa....

[frankfrank]

the constitution DOES NOT MENTION GUNS!

It does mention the right to bear arms, though; close enough. "Bearing arms" has not been understood to mean wielding a knife or a baseball bat; "arms" usually refers to machines which propel projectiles at lethal velocity.

Attachment 1047536

**WEST** Germany? How old is this poster, anyway?

The current GOP is an excellent example of why we still need the full depth of the Second Amendment -- they are bound and determined to turn this country into a plutocratic oligarchy. When politicians are owned by corporations, "democratic procedures" become meaningless.

Unfortunately, the "right to bear arms" may not be a remedy at all, if this scenario were to fully come to pass. "Second Amendment remedies" against a totalitarian, Talibangelical GOP in absolute control would likely be futile, because many of the people who have the guns would be sympathetic to the whims and mindsets of those who are ruling, and those who would use arms to overthrow the repressive government would simply be overwhelmed by the hordes of many gun owners who would like the government precisely as it is at that moment. The Second Amendment would, more than protecting against tyranny, be used instead to PROTECT and strengthen that tyranny.

I wish the Kuli's of this nation were in the majority; you do not tolerate tyranny but I hate to think that there are many who do, when the tyranny is in a form which allows tens of millions to have their way. Tyranny used to mean that virtually 100% of the population were screwed by the ruling forces.

The Founding Fathers never imagined that there would ever be a time that the militia would mostly want to PROTECT an absolute authoritarian tyranny, because things had never worked that way before, but I think that would happen now.

[Kulindahr]

Paranoid libertarianism succinctly expressed: militaristic and anti-democratic.

So what are you and your libertarian friends going to do? Surround some corporate headquarters with your guns and threaten them to mend their ways?

My position is pro-liberty and pro-democratic. And there's no paranoia involved: even the Tea Party people who went to Washington have been bought by corporations.

The rest is just reality.

[Kulindahr]

Ummm... ...that's the standard definition of "brandish."

No, it isn't -- not in legal terms, anyway. And the way you use it shows that you don't understand the legal definition: carrying a firearm, however openly, is not brandishing.

You keep referring to me as "dishonest" because I cite published facts. You keep insisting that the scientific literature is all wrong, that the entire scientific community worldwide is out to get you because of some agenda you cannot describe, and you keep insisting that you are right simply because you know you are right and it is therefore not permissible for anyone to challenge you with facts.

No, I call you dishonest because you continue to lie about what other people have said, and make shit up like the above.

I appreciate that you have a disdain for evidence, reason, and scholarship. But most people regard objective data as more honest than somebody's biased opinion

I rely on evidence, reason, and scholarship. Everything that I've seen from medical people about guns is lying with statistics -- like your favorite one, which would mean that millions of Americans are killed annually by firearms.

Why should it be a hundred times that?

We're talking about data here. We draw conclusions based on the available data - not what you think the data should be.

No, you're lying about data -- or lying with it. If the danger from carrying a firearm is what your figures say, then there must be millions of Americans killed annually by their own weapons. Even if you take the lowest figure for people using firearms to protect themselves, then the death toll would have to be in the mid-to-high hundreds of thousands.

It's simple arithmetic. Of course the people lying to you with those statistics don't want you to think for yourself and do the arithmetic, so you don't, so they get away with their lies.

Yeah. That says quite a lot, doesn't it?

Yes -- it says that firearms make the world democratic, because they strengthen the weak.

[Kulindahr]

My curiosity involves his proposed solution. What are the key elements of legislation he proposed?

That there should be mental health care available to everyone. He stops short of allowing the professionals to pass on warnings, though, which pretty much guts the whole idea (though it's a good one all by itself).

[Kulindahr]

I’m not sure ostentatious is the best word. The specific definition varies by state, though not all states include the word “brandish” in their code or legal definitions.

California law requires that the weapon be drawn or exhibited in a rude, angry, or threatening manner, so in the context of this discussion, just having one visible isn't brandishing. Further, it excludes the context of self-defense. It is possible to be convicted of brandishing even if the other person didn't see the weapon, but that happens when an individual makes it very clear that he has such a weapon and does so in a threatening manner.

I can't find it online, but there was a case some time back when someone shouted "I have a gun" while trying to stop a violent situation, and it worked; people backed down. He wasn't lying; he had a gun-- at home, not with him. They couldn't get him for brandishing, because the weapon wasn't present, and they couldn't get him for disturbing the peace, because he'd made things more peaceful.

[Kulindahr]

And since you seem to want to get technical, the constitution DOES NOT MENTION GUNS!

If you want to get technical, yes it does. What the frak do you think "arms" means?

[Kulindahr]

30,000 gun deaths each year seem to suggest that whatever regulations DO currently exist are not doing a very good job.

That's because they're trying to regulate firearms, which isn't constitutional, instead of using the authority specifically given to Congress to provide for the discipline of the militia -- in other words, "regulating" behavior instead of objects.

It's criminal that the mental health profession can't send a warning to the NICS, criminal that Congress has not required safe and secure storage, and even more criminal that they have passed laws which depend on ignoring the Fifth Amendment in order for them to work (criminals cannot legally be required to admit they have a firearm).

Sometimes I'm tempted to suggest Congress require everyone with a firearm to belong to an organized militia (which would mean one registered with the state government), and anyone found using a firearm improperly would be subject to military tribunal, and anyone making illegal use and not being a member of such a militia would be considered an enemy combatant. That would founder on the fact that they're not under federal jurisdiction when not having been called up for federal service, though.

[Kulindahr]

Amazingly enough that is what the NRA says too. Unfortunately, how to reform the existing laws and create effective ones that don't infringe on the protected right is difficult when neither side of the gun debate trusts the other.

So long as La Pierre and his PR firm are running the NRA, there's not going to be any dialogue anyway --dialogue doesn't make the money flow, and that's all he cares about. The only way to deal with the issue is for Congress to exercise its Article I Section 8 authority to provide for the discipline of the militia. We need a new Militia Act defining every able-bodied person as a member of the militia, and then requiring simple common-sense discipline such as safe and secure storage and providing for mental health professionals to suspend the qualification for purchasing arms or ammunition of anyone judged to be a danger to self or others.

[Kulindahr]

As Tx-Beau mentioned in an earlier post, the constitution does not define what 'arms' are or aren't. As such, there is no constitutional weight behind the right to bear a firearm, beyond what is 'understood' at any given time to be meant by the amendment. The right is already restricted, due to its fundamental point conflicting with good sense, so rocket launchers and missiles and bombs, despite being arms, are not allowed. This is the result of current understanding. It is determined that the common man has the right to bear arms that the common soldier possesses. This suggests that it would be very easy to ban handguns, simply by disarming soldiers from having them. It cannot be argued that the government are trying to deny your precious right either, since you already recognize that they have a responsibility for rules regarding the arming of the militia, and that in banning handguns, they are effectively arming you with the kind of firearms they want, i.e, shotguns and rifles, in the same vein that your tax credit incentive allows for them to do, except, this way, its cheaper, and saves lives by cleaning up the streets of weapons.

The Second Amendment means what the people who wrote it meant by it -- nothing else. Otherwise, there's no point in having a constitution, if you can change the meaning. "Common sense" has nothing to do with not allowing ordinary citizens to have "rocket launchers, missiles, and bombs" -- that restriction is inherent in the concept of militia. The only thing individuals are authorized to keep and bear are the common weapons of the regular soldier, not crew-served or specialized weapons. The tax credit was an illustration of the authority Congress is given. It has nothing to do with how practical it might be. For that matter, the Second Amendment isn't interested in practicality; the Founding Fathers and Framers were quite aware that some people would misuse arms, but understood that the fact that some abuse a right is not a reason to take away the right or impose a burden on those exercising it.

[Kulindahr]

... you couldn't legally brandish them like you can today.

What's with this lie? You cannot legally brandish a firearm anywhere I know of. Carrying a firearm is not brandishing. Wearing one openly is not brandishing. Biking down the street with one over your shoulder is not brandishing. Brandishing means to draw or exhibit openly in a threatening manner. That's not legal anywhere.

[Kulindahr]

Unfortunately, the "right to bear arms" may not be a remedy at all, if this scenario were to fully come to pass. "Second Amendment remedies" against a totalitarian, Talibangelical GOP in absolute control would likely be futile, because many of the people who have the guns would be sympathetic to the whims and mindsets of those who are ruling, and those who would use arms to overthrow the repressive government would simply be overwhelmed by the hordes of many gun owners who would like the government precisely as it is at that moment. The Second Amendment would, more than protecting against tyranny, be used instead to PROTECT and strengthen that tyranny. I wish the Kuli's of this nation were in the majority; you do not tolerate tyranny but I hate to think that there are many who do, when the tyranny is in a form which allows tens of millions to have their way. Tyranny used to mean that virtually 100% of the population were screwed by the ruling forces. The Founding Fathers never imagined that there would ever be a time that the militia would mostly want to PROTECT an absolute authoritarian tyranny, because things had never worked that way before, but I think that would happen now.

In other words, fascism is on the march. The FFs expected the populace to be educated. Neither the reactionaries nor the liberals want that, though liberals are certainly more tolerant of it in some ways. They would have expected us to rally and stand up against the military-industrial complex long ago, and then against corporations which buy politicians to serve them instead of the people. We have truly become, as the book title says, a nation of cowards, content to let our freedoms be whittled away so long as we have our toys and games.

[lambdaboy]

I am more shocked that there are people who quote Fox that means they have to watch it !

[EastMed]

My position is pro-liberty and pro-democratic. And there's no paranoia involved: even the Tea Party people who went to Washington have been bought by corporations.

The rest is just reality.

In what way would a militia bring to task corporate malfeasance or a corporate takeover of government?

Freedom is the product of orderly democratic governance and the rule of law. Popular militias are overwhelming likely to foster not democracy or the rule of law, but warlordism, tribalism and civil war.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ.../gun-control-1

[MakeDigitalLove]

Yes -- it says that firearms make the world democratic, because they strengthen the weak.

Who is the weak here? And how does it make the World more democratic?

Because to me it said that you consider people who own guns weak and they need Guns to compensate for that fact.

[vulgar_newcomer]

So long as La Pierre and his PR firm are running the NRA, there's not going to be any dialogue anyway --dialogue doesn't make the money flow, and that's all he cares about. The only way to deal with the issue is for Congress to exercise its Article I Section 8 authority to provide for the discipline of the militia. We need a new Militia Act defining every able-bodied person as a member of the militia, and then requiring simple common-sense discipline such as safe and secure storage and providing for mental health professionals to suspend the qualification for purchasing arms or ammunition of anyone judged to be a danger to self or others.

Do you know how hard it is to get a Doctor to write a prescription for Oxycontin unless hospitalized? They are afraid of the legal ramifications should there even be the slightest hint of abuse by a patient that very well may have a direct need for it.
Putting more legal pressure on mental health providers over saying which of their patients/clients should be allowed gun will be the same. They will protect themselves and deny the majority just in case someone decides to pop someone in a movie theater.

You and these militias. There time had passed even before some of the founding Fathers. Men weren't attending because they had things to do, lives, responsibilities. There were attendance problems for certain.
There was a reason in 1912 when the government tried to send militias to Mexico that finally it was decided to squish the militia and start a new National Guard, which is basically a Federal force with a tiny bit of State input.

Along with that we have professional police for law enforcement on the homelands.

How in the world living in the 21st century can you continue to believe that a militia would solve the complicated gun issues that have plagued this country since the vague creation of the 2nd amendment.
Outside of the nut bags that already belong in far right wing militas who would join? People are busy trying to pay there power bills and keep their head above water they don't have time for that 18th century bullshit. Damn back then when it got dark there was nothing to do but sleep, now we are 24/7.

[Kulindahr]

In what way would a militia bring to task corporate malfeasance or a corporate takeover of government?


http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ.../gun-control-1

Have you ever heard of a little thing called the American Revolution? It started when the Crown tried to disarm the militia. It ended badly for the Crown.

That site won't let me read. But from the quote above, it's plain he doesn't know what he's talking about. How can something that's under the authority of a state governor lead to "warlordism"?

[Kulindahr]

Who is the weak here? And how does it make the World more democratic?

Because to me it said that you consider people who own guns weak and they need Guns to compensate for that fact.

Try reading the NRA's monthly collection of self-defense stories called The Armed Citizen. The weak are the grandmother in New York that three muggers tried to kick to death, but she was armed; the dad who told the home invaders to take what they wanted but not to go up the stairs to where his kids were -- they tried, but he was armed; the gal shoved into a corner by a rapist with a knife -- but she had a revolver; and anyone else who is threatened with violence and is not a trained fighter.

That makes the world more democratic, because it means the strong can't just have their way with anyone they feel like picking on.

[Kulindahr]

Do you know how hard it is to get a Doctor to write a prescription for Oxycontin unless hospitalized? They are afraid of the legal ramifications should there even be the slightest hint of abuse by a patient that very well may have a direct need for it.
Putting more legal pressure on mental health providers over saying which of their patients/clients should be allowed gun will be the same. They will protect themselves and deny the majority just in case someone decides to pop someone in a movie theater.

You think that a mental health professional who has already told a college or other institution that a person is dangerous isn't going to be willing to make that call to the NICS, too? There probably aren't that many, actually, so there's no burden except a phone call. And every mental health professional I've ever known (except perhaps the one who violated confidentiality without a blink) would be relieved to be able to tell the NICS, "This person should not be allowed a firearm at the present time".

You and these militias. There time had passed even before some of the founding Fathers. Men weren't attending because they had things to do, lives, responsibilities. There were attendance problems for certain.
There was a reason in 1912 when the government tried to send militias to Mexico that finally it was decided to squish the militia and start a new National Guard, which is basically a Federal force with a tiny bit of State input.

The militia was never "squished". The National Guard is an organized militia drawn from the general militia, which when called up by the federal government ceases to be militia.

Along with that we have professional police for law enforcement on the homelands.

The cops don't do anything to prevent crime or protect specific people. At best they're a general deterrent, but that doesn't do a person any good when someone has decided to ignore that deterrent.

I know three people who would be dead if gun-banners had their way. No matter how good the police, their response time isn't going to get there before the knife or bullet or tire iron. To tell people to rely on the police is to tell them that the bad guy gets it all his way until after the fact.

How in the world living in the 21st century can you continue to believe that a militia would solve the complicated gun issues that have plagued this country since the vague creation of the 2nd amendment.
Outside of the nut bags that already belong in far right wing militas who would join? People are busy trying to pay there power bills and keep their head above water they don't have time for that 18th century bullshit. Damn back then when it got dark there was nothing to do but sleep, now we are 24/7.

There's nothing vague about the Second Amendment -- it's a plainly stated individual right with a supporting reason given for protecting that right.

The fact is that the people are already the militia. Congress has neglected discipline for the militia, and that's why we're in the situation we are, where people known to be dangerous can still buy firearms, or walk into someone's house and just walk out with firearms. So there's no question of "joining", there's only a question of whether Congress is going to require that the militia which is all of us is a disciplined militia.

[Kulindahr]

Quite obviously, there are those who believe the Founding Fathers and Framers were wrong to include keeping and bearing arms as a right in the first place. It is an extension of a fundamental right (self-defence), and is not considered a right in itself (to those who so believe, which is pretty much most people outside of the US).

That aside, can you address my point about the banning of handguns. It can not be an infringement on your right to keep and bear arms, if the government has the legal right to prohibit certain types of weapon. Arguing what constituted as a legal prohibition, on the basis of whether common soldiers were equipped with certain weapons, at the time of the Founding Fathers and Framers, means that you can't prohibit the restriction of ANY arms if the US armed forces 'common' soldiers are also unequipped. What is your position on that interpretation?

Where in the Constitution is Congress assigned the authority to "prohibit certain types of weapons"? Remember that Congress has only that authority it is granted; it has no rights, and no powers that have not been delegated to it by the citizens.

As for those people outside the US, the practical result of their belief that you reference is that criminals are protected from private citizens -- they only have to worry about the police. Laws that deny the means to actual self-defense make the people just livestock.

[bankside]

Where in the Constitution is Congress assigned the authority to "prohibit certain types of weapons"? Remember that Congress has only that authority it is granted; it has no rights, and no powers that have not been delegated to it by the citizens.

As for those people outside the US, the practical result of their belief that you reference is that criminals are protected from private citizens -- they only have to worry about the police. Laws that deny the means to actual self-defense make the people just livestock.

Democracy provides robust controls over public officials. Letting government become so corrupt and dangerous that shooting them is the only way out is a form of civic laziness that may appeal to you and your countrymen, but it is an example of carelessness to be ignored in the rest of the world, and even pitied.

As far as your constitution, you have already said that the second amendment does not apply to personal ownerships of tanks or yellowcake uranium. If it is proper for the government to enact against tanks or yellowcake uranium, then the constitution assigns the authority "to prohibit certain types of weapons" to that government.

[T-Rexx]

No, it isn't -- not in legal terms, anyway. And the way you use it shows that you don't understand the legal definition: carrying a firearm, however openly, is not brandishing.

It is "brandishing" to everyone who is faced with the threat of being killed by your firearm.

Which is, of course, everyone in the vicinity of the bearer!

No, I call you dishonest because you continue to lie about what other people have said, and make shit up like the above.

You insist, over and over again, that ALL of the objective data is biased, and that only your opinions matter.

I do not have the luxury of choosing which facts I will accept. Facts are facts. You can make up whatever numbers please you. I am obligated to accept the truth.

I rely on evidence, reason, and scholarship. Everything that I've seen from medical people about guns is lying with statistics -- like your favorite one, which would mean that millions of Americans are killed annually by firearms.

It used to be thousands. Now, "millions" of Americans "should" be killed every year.

Why do you think that millions of Americans should be killed every year? Do you think guns are really that dangerous?

The data disagree with your opinions. The data show that slightly more than 30,000 Americans every year are killed by guns - most of them killed by their own guns or the guns of friends or family members. If guns are saving so many lives, how is it that most of the people being killed are the people "defending" themselves?

No, you're lying about data -- or lying with it. If the danger from carrying a firearm is what your figures say, then there must be millions of Americans killed annually by their own weapons.

Data does not lie.

Data is data. It is not sentient. It is not capable of making judgments.

You keep saying that "millions" of Americans should be killed every year by firearms. You seem to think firearms are more deadly even than the data indicate. How do you arrive at these numbers?

Even if you take the lowest figure for people using firearms to protect themselves, then the death toll would have to be in the mid-to-high hundreds of thousands.

And what would that "lowest figure for people using firearms to protect themselves" be? How many lives are saved by guns every year? I guess we'll never know, since you gun people will not permit those studies to be done!

You fabricate a "mid-to-high hundreds of thousands" death rate out of the air (and what happened to the millions of people you just said should be killed?). You invent numbers without any evidence or data whatsoever. It is astoundingly dishonest.

It's simple arithmetic. Of course the people lying to you with those statistics don't want you to think for yourself and do the arithmetic, so you don't, so they get away with their lies.

You say they don't "want you to think for yourself and do the arithmetic."

Yet, you gun people prevent the studies and arithmetic from being done. You are afraid of the truth.

Why are you so afraid of evidence, reason, and scholarship? If you are so certain of your opinions, why do you not want anyone to prove your case for you?

Yes -- it says that firearms make the world democratic, because they strengthen the weak.

We agree on this one thing, at least. That gun people perceive themselves as weak and in need of a talisman that will make them equal to the rest of us.

[TX-Beau]

Obviously, we already regulate, the constitutional argument is bunk. A nice rallying cry for the small penis crowd. There there's the delusion that a pistol is going to stop the "government" when it comes for you.

[Kulindahr]

Democracy provides robust controls over public officials. Letting government become so corrupt and dangerous that shooting them is the only way out is a form of civic laziness that may appeal to you and your countrymen, but it is an example of carelessness to be ignored in the rest of the world, and even pitied.

As far as your constitution, you have already said that the second amendment does not apply to personal ownerships of tanks or yellowcake uranium. If it is proper for the government to enact against tanks or yellowcake uranium, then the constitution assigns the authority "to prohibit certain types of weapons" to that government.

No, it doesn't provide any such authority -- it has to be specified, and it isn't. The right to keep and bear arms is protected, and no authority is anywhere granted to limit it.

[Kulindahr]

It is "brandishing" to everyone who is faced with the threat of being killed by your firearm.

Which is, of course, everyone in the vicinity of the bearer!

Both are lies.

You insist, over and over again, that ALL of the objective data is biased, and that only your opinions matter.

I do not have the luxury of choosing which facts I will accept. Facts are facts. You can make up whatever numbers please you. I am obligated to accept the truth.

Picking and choosing "facts" is exactly what you do. You cite figures that if taken seriously mean that millions of Americans are killed by firearms annually. I'm just asking where the bodies are.

It used to be thousands. Now, "millions" of Americans "should" be killed every year.

Why do you think that millions of Americans should be killed every year? Do you think guns are really that dangerous?

The data disagree with your opinions. The data show that slightly more than 30,000 Americans every year are killed by guns - most of them killed by their own guns or the guns of friends or family members. If guns are saving so many lives, how is it that most of the people being killed are the people "defending" themselves?

But that number isn't possible, according to your figures. You say that anyone trying to defend themselves with a firearm is many times more likely to be killed with it than to succeed. That means that millions of Americans are killed annually by firearms -- so where are the bodies?

Data does not lie.

Data is data. It is not sentient. It is not capable of making judgments.

You keep saying that "millions" of Americans should be killed every year by firearms. You seem to think firearms are more deadly even than the data indicate. How do you arrive at these numbers?

Those numbers come from your claims. If your claims are true, then show me the millions of bodies. They have to be somewhere!

And what would that "lowest figure for people using firearms to protect themselves" be? How many lives are saved by guns every year? I guess we'll never know, since you gun people will not permit those studies to be done!

Those studies are done regularly. They're done by people who actually are professionals in the field. The studies you cite lie with statistics, as is proven by the fact that there are not millions of dead bodies every year from firearms.

You fabricate a "mid-to-high hundreds of thousands" death rate out of the air (and what happened to the millions of people you just said should be killed?). You invent numbers without any evidence or data whatsoever. It is astoundingly dishonest.

I fabricated nothing. People defend themselves with firearms anywhere between 600k and 2.5 million times per year. You claim that when someone draws a gun to protect himself, he is many times more likely to be killed with his own weapon -- so it is indeed simple arithmetic: if he's five times more likely to be killed, then you just multiply the number of defensive uses by five, and get a number between three and twelve-and-a-half million.

Where are the bodies?

You say they don't "want you to think for yourself and do the arithmetic."

Yet, you gun people prevent the studies and arithmetic from being done. You are afraid of the truth.

No, we don't. We want them done by qualified people. When someone's studies come up with statistics that if true would mean millions of Americans are being killed by firearms annually, that someone is plainly either incompetent or lying -- and if they're lying, they're incompetent.

Why are you so afraid of evidence, reason, and scholarship? If you are so certain of your opinions, why do you not want anyone to prove your case for you?

I'm not -- I thrive on evidence, reason and scholarship. That's exactly why I don't want the government doing such studies -- so far, all they've done is abuse evidence, reason, and scholarship.

We agree on this one thing, at least. That gun people perceive themselves as weak and in need of a talisman that will make them equal to the rest of us.

Nice of you to come up with yet another lie.

I got tired of benvolio's lies. I really don't need yours, either.

[Kulindahr]

Obviously, we already regulate, the constitutional argument is bunk. A nice rallying cry for the small penis crowd. There there's the delusion that a pistol is going to stop the "government" when it comes for you.

And you think "conservatives" don't have any respect for the Constitution. You're demonstrating just how right I am: neither side cares about the Constitution.

In a free country, the government should fear the people. That they don't, that they regard us as livestock to be herded, worth only the attention required to run a circus and get some to vote their way, shows how far from freedom we really are. Obama is a nice example of that, actually -- he was elected as a progressive, but he's gone on to act as a conservative and especially as a corporate tool.

[Kulindahr]

Democracy provides robust controls over public officials.

Maybe in an actual representative democracy, but the US hasn't been one for generations.

If we had "robust controls", then Tea Party candidates who got elected to Congress with net worths around $100k would not now be millionaires due to the fact that Congress has exempted itself from insider trading rules. If we had "robust controls", corporate lobbyists wouldn't be writing legislation. If we had "robust controls", we wouldn't be stuck with the same two sorry faces of the "re-elect us" corporate-owned single entity pretending to be two parties.

[Kulindahr]

And where in the constitution does it specify what constitutes arms?

In the Second Amendment. The inclusion of the militia concept tells us what arms are meant: the common arms of a regular soldier.

This business of taking words out of context and thus pretending they don't have meaning is idiocy.

Remember Bankside saying:

Yeah -- he was engaging in the idiocy I mentioned above.

Lawmakers have every right to dictate to you what can and cannot be used as arms. The 2nd amendment only guarantees an inherent right to self defence through the use of them.

No, they don't. And the Second Amendment most certainly does NOT "only guarantee an inherent right to self defense through the use of them" -- though SCOTUS said it does do that.

And actually their scholarship was off on that: at the time of the Bill of Rights, the right to self-defense with the means of your choice was so taken for granted that no one conceived it would ever be questioned. It was considered the mark of a free man, and any government which didn't honor it was regarded as a tyranny.

Let's not forget that the debate as to the legality of banning handguns was incredibly narrow in SCOTUS, (5-4) with only the dissenting argument representing bi-partisan opinion. The result is hardly a reflection on sound democratic values, that a right has been secured through an imbalance of political ideology within SCOTUS whose arguments were too weak to convince the opposition, despite the reverse being true.

The votes in favor of government authority to ban handguns were based mostly on utterly dishonest scholarship, the sort that lawyers from Yale love: you throw out the actual meaning of words, and then marshal arguments to make them mean what you want. The discussion of the Second Amendment at the time of ratification leaves absolutely no room for considering it a "state right" (an argument invented by racists in the time right after the Civil War, in order to justify disarming blacks) -- both those for it and those against understood it as an individual right. Use of the term "the people" shows that; nowhere in the Constitution or in any discussion about it is the term "the people" used to mean "the state"; it always means the individuals in the country all taken together.

The honest justices were the ones who understood that and voted accordingly.

BTW, using "bipartisan" the way you did is dishonest: it implies that the truth is determined by whatever compromise can be worked out. That really means there is no truth but what you want it to be.

Firstly, the practical result of banning handguns, is as much that the private citizen is protected from criminals, not to mention protected from the good ol law abiding postman who is yet to go postal, or from in fact themselves in a moment of futility in their life which makes suicide that much easier. The consequence of this is a far greater reduction in loss of life.
Secondly, no law banning a specific 'arms', is infringing on the right to self defence. You can make the case that such a ban impedes your ability to enact your right, but this is counterbalanced by two points. One, that it actually does not, it simply affects the outcome, and two, that the criminal is impeded by such a ban also.

The result of banning handguns is that criminals would be able to kill people without worrying about them fighting back -- it informs all law-abiding citizens that it is their duty to be victims.

Again, the Constitution does not grant any authority to ban any type of arms. That would have to be in Article I, and it just isn't there.

<sigh> Criminals will not be impeded by laws against handguns. They aren't impeded when it's harder to buy those, and they won't be impeded of no one is allowed to buy them. As has been pointed out, it's easy to make them.

On a further point also. The current allowance of handguns can be argued to be protecting the criminal from the private individual, and from justice. I raise you George Zimmerman.

Zimmerman is a case with no real bearing on the issue. "Stand Your Ground laws would horrify the Founding Fathers: they had a phrase, "to the wall", meaning that a citizen was expected to retreat from violence until his back was "against the wall".

[bankside]

kulindahr, you're so driven by ideology you don't even recognise the parts of my argument where i agree with you.

you're the one who time and time again has pointed out, or agreed, that the american right to arms does not extend to advanced military weaponry.

congress may say "no you may not own your own stealth bomber" and the reason it may thusly make a distinction between a musket and a stealth bomber is because it is constitutionally proper for it to do so.

[Kulindahr]

you're the one who time and time again has pointed out, or agreed, that the american right to arms does not extend to advanced military weaponry.

I have never said such a thing. I have pointed out that the type of weaponry the citizen may keep and bear is defined by the militia concept, since it is given as a reason for the right being protected. The right as envisioned pertains to all military weaponry, however advanced, of the common weapons of the regular soldier. So what is excluded is not any level of technology, but weapons reserved for specialists and crew-served weapons -- though those could belong to an organized militia.

congress may say "no you may not own your own stealth bomber" and the reason it may thusly make a distinction between a musket and a stealth bomber is because it is constitutionally proper for it to do so.

No, it may not. The types of weapons permitted are already set in the Constitution. Congress doesn't get to decide them -- it has no say in the matter, save the option of providing an effective subsidy for some specific type of weapon it would like to see pretty common among the militia. It doesn't have the privilege of excluding any kinds, because its only authority that pertains is to arm the militia, a right positive in its effects only.

[T-Rexx]

Picking and choosing "facts" is exactly what you do. You cite figures that if taken seriously mean that millions of Americans are killed by firearms annually. I'm just asking where the bodies are.

You keep saying that the data "should" show things that it does not.

Why do you keep inventing numbers when the real numbers are well known?

Your point that guns make us safe be being only devastatingly more bad than good - when they could be horrifically more bad than good is ridiculous.

But that number isn't possible, according to your figures. You say that anyone trying to defend themselves with a firearm is many times more likely to be killed with it than to succeed. That means that millions of Americans are killed annually by firearms -- so where are the bodies?

You keep making this horrific statement - that guns are wonderful because they could be killing far more people in the USA than the 87 people per day that they kill now. You seem to think it great that the USA has a death rate from guns that is only 4x greater than any other developed nation on earth.

That's a bit like celebrating our high infant mortality rate - because, you know, it could be even worse if we were a third world country without any functional government. I refuse to champion the fact that we compare favorably to lawless states.

Those numbers come from your claims. If your claims are true, then show me the millions of bodies. They have to be somewhere!

The numbers come from the coroner's reports of every county of every state in the USA. They have nothing to do with "me." The numbers are readily available, and not contested by anyone I know except you.

You keep insisting that guns are so dangerous that it is remarkable that only ~32,000 people every year (87 people per day) die of gun violence in the USA every year. You keep commenting on how good it is that gun deaths in the USA are so high, compared to the rest of the developed world. You keep saying that we should be pleased, given our gun culture, that more people are not dying. That we should be pleased that we have by far the highest gun death rate in the developed world!

Those studies are done regularly. They're done by people who actually are professionals in the field. The studies you cite lie with statistics, as is proven by the fact that there are not millions of dead bodies every year from firearms.

Please cite these "studies" which disprove the scientific literature on guns.

I fabricated nothing.

You fabricate everything.

You have not one shred of objective evidence to support your claims.

People defend themselves with firearms anywhere between 600k and 2.5 million times per year.

No, they don't. Those numbers are bogus, and demonstrably so.

The problem is: The 2 million figure — often inflated to 2.5 million in N.R.A. literature — is bogus. Defensive gun use is actually quite rare.

A new paper from the Violence Policy Center states that “for the five-year period 2007 through 2011, the total number of self-protective behaviors involving a firearm by victims of attempted or completed violent crimes or property crimes totaled only 338,700.” That comes to an annual average of 67,740 — not nothing, but nowhere near the N.R.A.’s 2 million or 2.5 million.


http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable.pdf

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/...nsive-gun-use/

The V.P.C. also found that in 2010 “there were only 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm” reported to the F.B.I.’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Compare that with the number of criminal gun homicides in the same year: 8,275. (That’s not counting gun suicides or unintentional shootings.) Or compare it with the number of Americans killed by guns since Newtown: 3,458.


http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/...nsive-gun-use/

"There were only 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm” in 2010. That's 230 out of 31,076 firearm deaths for the year 2010. In other words, carrying a gun is more good than bad for the bearer about 0.7% of the times that the gun gets used.

You claim that when someone draws a gun to protect himself, he is many times more likely to be killed with his own weapon -- so it is indeed simple arithmetic: if he's five times more likely to be killed, then you just multiply the number of defensive uses by five, and get a number between three and twelve-and-a-half million.

Where are the bodies?

Your numbers are bogus. Hence, so also are your conclusions.

See above.

No, we don't. We want them done by qualified people. When someone's studies come up with statistics that if true would mean millions of Americans are being killed by firearms annually, that someone is plainly either incompetent or lying -- and if they're lying, they're incompetent.

That's true.

And, as the data clearly show, the people who are lying are the NRA.

Hence, the NRA's reluctance to allow anyone to study the issue.

I got tired of benvolio's lies. I really don't need yours, either.

Almost everything you say about guns is a lie.

That's not my opinion. I can cite genuine data, from dozens of real studies. You can't.

[Kulindahr]

You keep saying that the data "should" show things that it does not.

I have not said such a thing.

Why do you keep inventing numbers when the real numbers are well known?

I'm not inventing any numbers.

Your point that guns make us safe be being only devastatingly more bad than good - when they could be horrifically more bad than good is ridiculous.

I haven't said anything resembling that.

You keep making this horrific statement - that guns are wonderful because they could be killing far more people in the USA than the 87 people per day that they kill now. You seem to think it great that the USA has a death rate from guns that is only 4x greater than any other developed nation on earth.

That's a bit like celebrating our high infant mortality rate - because, you know, it could be even worse if we were a third world country without any functional government. I refuse to champion the fact that we compare favorably to lawless states.

Please stop making crap up -- nowhere have I said anything like that.

The numbers come from the coroner's reports of every county of every state in the USA. They have nothing to do with "me." The numbers are readily available, and not contested by anyone I know except you.

Coroners reports deal with statistical claims about how likely someone is to get hurt by a firearm? Wow.

You keep insisting that guns are so dangerous that it is remarkable that only ~32,000 people every year (87 people per day) die of gun violence in the USA every year. You keep commenting on how good it is that gun deaths in the USA are so high, compared to the rest of the developed world. You keep saying that we should be pleased, given our gun culture, that more people are not dying. That we should be pleased that we have by far the highest gun death rate in the developed world!

You've learned the Brady bunch methods well: lie, lie, lie. Seriously, do you have to work to make this crap up, or does it come naturally?

Please cite these "studies" which disprove the scientific literature on guns.

You haven't cited any scientific studies -- just deception with statistics.

But here:

“Self-defense can be an important crime deterrent,”says a new report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The $10 million study was commissioned by President Barack Obama as part of 23 executive orders he signed in January.

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,” the CDC study, entitled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” states.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...rime-deterrent

Sort of blows your claim that the NRA is stopping any studies out of the water, 'cause here's one Obama ordered done -- which just happens to show that if you draw a firearm for defensive use, you're safer than people who don't.

No, they don't. Those numbers are bogus, and demonstrably so.

You're citing the VPC? Seriously?

They're at least as bad as the Heritage Institute, dependably churning out "studies" put together to reach a predetermined "conclusion".

"There were only 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm” in 2010. That's 230 out of 31,076 firearm deaths for the year 2010. In other words, carrying a gun is more good than bad for the bearer about 0.7% of the times that the gun gets used.

Good God -- this is an error in statistical analysis explained in the first term of a college statistics course. WTF do justifiable homicides have to do with it? That's only a minor subset of the figure of proper comparison, which is how many times a firearm deters, stops, or captures the criminal!

Your numbers are bogus. Hence, so also are your conclusions.

the National Crime Victimization Survey, which yields estimates in the neighborhood of 100,000 defensive gun uses per year. Making various reasonable-sounding adjustments, other social scientists have suggested that perhaps a figure somewhere between 250,000 and 370,000 might be more accurate.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...n-self-defense

Using the low figure, by your claim about defensive gun use, there are a minimum of half a million bodies ever year that are somehow being hidden -- and more likely well over a million.

See, this is something from a basic college statistics course: to check the results of a comparison, project the results and see if they match reality. If they don't, you goofed. Since there clearly aren't half a million or more dead bodies dropping each year, then the results of the "study" you reference are wrong.

Almost everything you say about guns is a lie.

That's not my opinion. I can cite genuine data, from dozens of real studies. You can't.

The "studies" you're basing your arguments on are bogus. I keep trying to make that clear, and it's just simple arithmetic, but you're not getting it.

According to the federal government, your numbers for defensive use are 'way low. And according to the CDC, the claim that defensive firearms use overwhelmingly means the defender is going to get shot is flat out false.

[T-Rexx]

^ You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

I have recently been carrying on a "discussion" of evolution with someone on another gay site. This person reminds me of you, Kuli. She refuses to accept any of the scientific evidence for evolution. It is ALL bogus and manufactured by a biased scientific community, which has some kind of secret agenda against her religious beliefs.

It is not possible to "argue" with people who do not accept facts.

I leave you to your fantasies.

[Kulindahr]

^ You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

I have recently been carrying on a "discussion" of evolution with someone on another gay site. This person reminds me of you, Kuli. She refuses to accept any of the scientific evidence for evolution. It is ALL bogus and manufactured by a biased scientific community, which has some kind of secret agenda against her religious beliefs.

It is not possible to "argue" with people who do not accept facts.

I leave you to your fantasies.

I've shown why at least one study you love to reference is bogus. And I posted the evidence that the CDC says that position is incorrect.

So now that you're faced with sound data, you bow out. Figures.

[Kulindahr]

So we are to understand then, that the anti-federalists, who were fearful of a threat to state security, insisted on having a militia concept included in the constitution, not merely because of that fear, but to define what arms they were allowed to keep and bear?? Get real Kuli. You're applying an interpretation that fits your thinking, and one that is quite odd when you look at it, as why would they (anti-federalists), the ones who pushed to have the amendment included in the first place, leave a big gaping hole of insecurity from a federal force with far heavier weaponry, i.e cannons and anything else 'not' of the common soldier. Either, this is because they did not consider the parameters of arms at all, just the defensive protection they were seeking, OR, they were not thinking of the militia as individual citizens, but a group of such, who could be equipped equally with the federal government, i.e. weapons of the common soldier limitation, not applicable. Either way, your interpretation doesn't add up. Likely due to the fact, ironically, which you accuse me of in a later point, you have adopted the interpretation that suits, rather than the truth. Naturally, this is the interpretation of past SCOTUS decisions, but not even supreme court justices are beyond erring, or corruption, or ignorance.

My thinking was formed by scholarship. Scholarship begins with the proposition that words have meaning, and that meaning can be determined by analysis.

There was no "hole" left in the Amendment: the people can also have all the specialized and crew-served weapons -- just not as individuals.

Have you seen pictures of a cannon or a courthouse lawn? The reason the courthouse had a cannon was that the cannon was part of the arms of the militia.

So the federal government would have had no advantage in weaponry -- the militia was entitled to it all.

The very fact that the 2nd amendment stems from an English Common Law which assured the rights of the 'protestants' to keep and bear arms, to protect them from catholic tyranny, whilst providing no inclusion for catholics (or any other), shows that the law was designed to protect a group of people, not individual people. The fact that SCOTUS adopted an individual rights view, does not validate their position as one of truth. The case for individual rights was partisan and unconvincing.

But that's not what the Second Amendment says. In order to get "a group of people" out of it, you have to maintain that the Framers of the Constitution were sloppy in their language in the foundational document for their nation! "People" in every case in the Constitution means all the individuals, not as a group but as individuals -- and there's no reason at all to believe it means anything different in the Second.

Nor is it what the people who argued over the Constitution and the amendments said it meant. It's worth noting that the Amendment was almost written to require every able-bodied male citizen to have the appropriate weapons for the militia, not merely to protect the right to do so.

As for the Protestant aspect, part of the debate on adoption of the amendments concerned excluding anyone by reason of his faith -- and the response was to point to the First Amendment, and conclude that restrictions on the basis of religion were not acceptable.

"Partisan and unconvincing"? Hardly. One of the often overlooked bits behind that decision was the fact that the Supreme Court, in over a dozen different cases in the nineteenth century, listed the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right, right there besides freedom of speech and of religion and the rest. That was never questioned until racist in the South came up with the notion that only members of the militia could be armed, i.e. that it was protection of a state's rights, in order to disarm blacks. And that, BTW, was the critical element that got the Fourteenth Amendment passed -- and in the debates, it was always stated as an individual right, because it would guarantee that individual blacks could keep and bear arms just like whites.

WOW!!!. Firstly, i didn't know that SCOTUS came to that conclusion. I came to that conclusion ON MY OWN, by reading up on the history of the 2nd in relation to English Common Law, which i mentioned previously. It makes sense. Looks like SCOTUS doesn't always get it wrong. Secondly, Nelson Lund, University Professor at George Mason University School of Law disagrees with you too, they DO have the power to define what weapons the militia are allowed to bear. Again, this probably stems from English Common Law, where the militia were allowed to be armed, in accordance with weaponry permitted by law. And this is why rocket launchers and cluster bombs don't count, because the law decided they don't. And no interpretation of 'arms of the common soldier' makes the case above what is the truth, that these types of weapons are banned because of the destructive nature of them and the devastating effects being detrimental to the 'GREATER GOOD'. It is the greater good that is the key, not any 'interpretation' used to justify the course of action.

The Second Amendment isn't about self-defense -- or rather it wasn't until SCOTUS added that. In colonial law, the right to self defense was so firmly accepted that no one suggested any amendment to protect that right. The Second was meant to sit alongside, to allow arms not just for self-defense, but of the latest military weaponry.

Or at least that's how it was framed in the whole discussion back then, and I dare to presume that the people at the time knew what their words meant.

Poppycock. Their scholarship is contemporary. They are looking at things with the purpose of answering questions raised. At the time of the Bill or Rights, they did not have the foresight to envisage what may come, in order to address potential 'problems'.
And if those problems render a modern nation to change the constitution, or any interpretation of it, for the greater good, to circumvent those problems unforeseen, its common sense to do so. To stand firm to a position, simply because it started that way, makes you a fundamentalist does it not??? And we kinda know how great fundamentalism is for the world right....

So you believe in changing the meaning of things to fit your views.

Contemporary scholarship, given the way you present it as being allowed to change the meaning of the Constitution by invoking new conditions, is bogus. That isn't scholarship at all, but its opposite.

Sorry, but this doesn't add up. If we are talking about amendments being secured, prior to forming a union, and creating a federal power, i think its almost inarguable that the contents of the Bill of Rights were there to protect people of individual states from federal supremacy, affording the states to reside over its peoples without federal interference.

Why do you insist on this distortion? Are you suggesting that people actually thought it was okay for individual states to restrict the freedom of speech, or of the press, etc? How is it that every single right guaranteed is an individual right -- or are you going to suggest that individuals have no protection against unreasonable search and seizure? -- but you want to make the Second different?

It was NOT an accord between individuals and the government, it was an accord between the States and the federal government. Thus the use of 'the people' refers to the States people, in relation to federal government.

So the right to free speech was for the states, not the citizens?

Over and over and over the Supreme Court has noted that "the people" means the individuals, that when it says "the people" can peaceably assemble, that doesn't mean only if it's the majority? That doesn't work, because in the debates it was always considered the right of individuals.

Firstly, that a contemporary view differs from a fundamental one, does not render the contemporary one wrong. As what you seem to be implying is that the truth or anything is that which is set out first.

It most certainly renders the contemporary one wrong. The reason for that is that words have meaning, and the meaning is the one used by the one (or ones) who spoke or wrote them. The truth is what the words mean -- and of course that's "set down first", because it's the original.

Your approach would mean that Congress and the President could decide that only people with college degrees were allowed free speech, only property owners were safe from arbitrary search and seizure, etc. Why? Because you're allowing people to change the meanings of words.

Indeed you're using the same sort of thinking by which Bush and now Obama have been handed the authority to run the country as a police state, that was used to allow torture in Iraq, and now American citizens to be assassinated without trial: they just change the meaning of the words to fit the contemporary situation.

And secondly, in any case, your interpretation of the truth is disputed anyway (which means the bi-partisan view is likely correct on both counts).

That something is disputed has no bearing on its meaning.

[Kulindahr]

Would you like an honorary UKIP membership? Your scaremongering is sensational. Let's look at the fact here, that criminals are having seemingly no difficulty killing people in the USA, as is. So to argue that taking guns away from people (of which criminals are too, however much you like to apply the 'animal' mentality to them) is going to have that effect is stupid. You already have that effect!!!
And far from informing the law-abiding citizen that they have a duty to be a victim (pure unadulterated scaremongering), its actually a reflection of a government that cares about making society safer. A safer society is the greater good. And please spare me the whole spiel about being treated as a statistic, because it is no different within the status quo, where it seemingly doesn't matter how many people die in order to make you feel safer personally.

Logic is not "scaremongering". At present, with citizens allowed to exercise the right to acquire arms to keep and bear, a criminal has no idea if the person he's planning to make a victim is armed. So he doesn't know if the person will be easy prey or not, so he's more cautious.

But if the right is infringed by a ban on handguns, then the criminal knows there's not likely to be any effective opposition. That just gives the situation, as evidenced by all the mass shooters going to places where they know guns are banned: law-abiding citizens are required to be victims.

A "safer society" is NOT a "greater good"! Anything a government might want to do, anything at all, can be justified in the name of "safety".

And this isn't about me "feeling" safer, it's about being safer. As the CDC study showed, people with a firearm to deter criminals end up with fewer and less sever injuries than those without. That means that firearms do, in fact make individuals safer -- and since society is made up of individuals, it makes society safer.

And as has been pointed out, making them is rare. In the states, only half of all burglars carry a gun, despite the availability. Every restriction reduces that number of criminals having them, and for those that insist on using them to commit a crime, have to commit a crime in order to obtain them, which is an extra opportunity to get caught before they commit their original purpose.

Every restriction condemns people to be victims, because it becomes harder for them to have a useful defense.

Making guns at home is rare now, but so were thousands of back-room stills before Prohibition. The change in the law inevitably brings a change in the demand for a service.

[T-Rexx]

I've shown why at least one study you love to reference is bogus.

Nonsense.

You accept the results of an unpublished telephone survey from 20 years ago, in which there were as few as 196 responses to some of the questions. But you reject official national crime statistics.

I have no idea which study you are referring to that I "love to reference." There are many dozens of them. Which one are you referring to?

And I posted the evidence that the CDC says that position is incorrect.

So now that you're faced with sound data, you bow out. Figures.

Sound data? That's laughable. You accept only a single telephone survey from 20 years ago that you agree with. One that has been laughed at by people who actually study this issue. Gary Kleck never published his telephone survey in a peer-reviewed journal, because he could not find one that considered his "data" acceptable to their standards. Yet he is your sole source of information, because he spouts the nonsense you want to hear.

I bow out only because I cannot argue with someone who refuses to accept facts. Isaac Asimov once said that, if you let him pick and choose among the data available, he could prove a connection between sun spots and the pattern of burping of cows along the Nile.

You have proven a connection between sun spots and the pattern of burping of cows along the Nile. I can't argue with that with mere facts.

[Kulindahr]

You accept the results of an unpublished telephone survey from 20 years ago, in which there were as few as 196 responses to some of the questions. But you reject official national crime statistics.

I have no idea which study you are referring to that I "love to reference." There are many dozens of them. Which one are you referring to?




Sound data? That's laughable. You accept only a single telephone survey from 20 years ago that you agree with. One that has been laughed at by people who actually study this issue. Gary Kleck never published his telephone survey in a peer-reviewed journal, because he could not find one that considered his "data" acceptable to their standards. Yet he is your sole source of information, because he spouts the nonsense you want to hear.

I bow out only because I cannot argue with someone who refuses to accept facts. Isaac Asimov once said that, if you let him pick and choose among the data available, he could prove a connection between sun spots and the pattern of burping of cows along the Nile.

Yet again you fill a post with lies, and crap you've made up.

I gave you facts. And I have no idea what "telephone survey from 20 years ago" you're talking about.

[Kulindahr]

*You insist on arguing your point as if modernity means nothing. 'the founding father's meant', or 'that's how it's always been'. Past generations and governments do not have a right to bind current or future governments, so it is far less relevant to determine what those of the past may or may not have been thinking. Contemporary views are the progressive ones. Of course, can't really blame you for taking that angle, as you've only got the shield of the 2nd amendment to protect your own interests, as the reality of your position isn't strong enough to make your case in the debate otherwise (imagine trying to argue why you SHOULD have guns if you didn't have the 2nd). I lead you to:-

Totally false, both philosophically and legally. Your position rests on denying that words have meaning, and that the US Constitution is some frivolous document you can make say what you want.

*The statistics for gun crime outside of the US do not support your 'homemade gun-making' as a consequence of gun restriction. Nor are the death tolls of any of the other 31 developed nations (with the exception of Mexico) anything remotely as high per 100,000 population as they are in the states. Nor are the statistics for 'spree' killings remotely as high as in the States. Nor does the argument that criminals are more cautious about committing a crime in a gun-wielding society stack up, since such a notion is counter-balanced by guns in criminal hands, allowing them to be more brazen. Nor does the argument that you are personally safer stack up, as this is counter-balanced by the statistically higher propensity to be murdered, involved in an accident with a firearm, or take your own life with greater success (ease).

Statistics from outside of the United States are not applicable to the United States. For starters -- and this is a disease that's infecting the US -- the rest of the world has a system based on "the elite know best", and at root rest on the unfounded notion that governments can give and take rights.

And the CDC's results contradict your assertion about personal safety.

*You can claim as much as you like, with all the support of past SCOTUS decisions, that the word people refers to individuals. This will remain disputed, and the most recent vote is the more telling. The word people is used not to refer to individuals, but to the collective of individuals (people of the State).

SCOTUS has listed the Second Amendment as an individual right since the beginning. That is important in determining what it means.

And the word means the same in the Second Amendment as it does in the rest of the Constitution: the rights designated as belonging to the people are always individual rights.

You try to bolster your argument on the basis that it only takes a single person of those people to exercise a right, thus it must refer to individuals, which is simply distorting plain english. People means group of individuals. The dissenters recognize that. If individuals were meant, 'person(s)' would have been a more logical wording. When it comes to analyzing each right, you've opted for the individual view, in conflict with that which is recognized by the dissent, because if you took any other position, you'd lose your handguns. Just because it only takes one person to speak, or one person to pray, or one person to petition et al, does not automatically establish that the 2nd amendment's (or necessarily any other) also refers to an individual. You're looking at it perfectly logically, but the problem is that logic isn't always the right answer. Its like saying blue is a colour, red is a colour, green is a colour, so black must also be a colour. Which brings me onto my last point:-

I haven't "opted" for any view but what the words mean -- and that is what their authors and those who put them in the Constitution intended for them to mean. One comment arguing for adoption of the Second Amendment is telling: that the goal of the Amendment was "that every man be armed".

Congress and the country understood it as an individual right when they embarked on passing the Fourteenth Amendment, which was primarily propelled by the post-bellum South inventing the position that it only applied to official members of a state militia in order to take firearms away from blacks. The aim of the Fourteenth was to secure the rights of individuals.

You argue as though the Framers of the Constitution were schizophrenic an sloppy, changing the meaning of words within the foundational document for the country. That's dishonest.

*It IS scaremongering to use logic, when that logic does not tally up with the evidence.

You have no idea what human rights are, do you? They are not derived from evidence, but are inherent in individuals. The rights of groups are rights because they are derived from the rights of individuals. The authority of government is derived from delegation of the exercise of certain rights as authority -- but the delegation of exercising certain rights on one's behalf does not negate the retention of that right.

No individual has the right to disarm another at will, unless the one being disarmed is threatening him. So there can be no government authority to disarm individuals.

[MakeDigitalLove]

Statistics from outside of the United States are not applicable to the United States. For starters -- and this is a disease that's infecting the US -- the rest of the world has a system based on "the elite know best", and at root rest on the unfounded notion that governments can give and take rights.

They are applicable when making a comparison.

[Kulindahr]

They are applicable when making a comparison.

They're no more useful for comparison than looking at injury rates between full-contact sports and golf: the nature of the beast is entirely different.

[T-Rexx]

Yet again you fill a post with lies, and crap you've made up.

I gave you facts. And I have no idea what "telephone survey from 20 years ago" you're talking about.

The figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses that you cite repeatedly is from a single telephone survey conducted in 1994 by Gary Kleck of Florida State University. Kleck telephoned a number of people around America and asked them how frequently they had used their guns in self defense. He then extrapolated the 2.5 million figure from his tiny sample size, based on the the US population at the time.

You cannot find Kleck's phone survey published in any peer-reviewed journal, because Kleck could not find one that felt his data or his methods measured up to their standards for publication. Kleck's sample size was too small, his questions too leading, and his conclusions did not follow from his data. There are also a number of contradictions in his data. Kleck finally "published" in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, a student publication at Northwestern University. (Yes, the sum total of all your evidence for defensive gun use in America comes from a single article from 20 years ago, printed in a campus newspaper!). The "paper" is hard to read, because it is not a scientific paper and does not follow the usual format of such papers (i.e., Abstract, Materials & Methods, etc.).

I gave you facts. *And I have no idea what "telephone survey from 20 years ago" you're talking about.

My apologies. Since you throw these numbers around frequently, and claim they are so much better than decades of national crime statistics, I assumed you understood where your "facts" were coming from.

[Kulindahr]

The figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses that you cite repeatedly is from a single telephone survey conducted in 1994 by Gary Kleck of Florida State University. Kleck telephoned a number of people around America and asked them how frequently they had used their guns in self defense. He then extrapolated the 2.5 million figure from his tiny sample size, based on the the US population at the time.

You cannot find Kleck's phone survey published in any peer-reviewed journal, because Kleck could not find one that felt his data or his methods measured up to their standards for publication. Kleck's sample size was too small, his questions too leading, and his conclusions did not follow from his data. There are also a number of contradictions in his data. Kleck finally "published" in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, a student publication at Northwestern University. (Yes, the sum total of all your evidence for defensive gun use in America comes from a single article from 20 years ago, printed in a campus newspaper!). The "paper" is hard to read, because it is not a scientific paper and does not follow the usual format of such papers (i.e., Abstract, Materials & Methods, etc.).




My apologies. Since you throw these numbers around frequently, and claim they are so much better than decades of national crime statistics, I assumed you understood where your "facts" were coming from.

My facts came from the CDC.

Are you ever going to start being honest and respond to me instead of to your fantasies about me? It would be nice to know.

[bankside]

It's fairly easy to find info supporting t-rexx's position.

http://vacps.org/index.php/public-po...tions-of-kleck

This "cdc study" really just summarised to get a figure of 500 000 to 3 000 000 defensive gun uses per year “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys."* They did not research this figure, they just published the results of other studies. Perhaps including Kleck's whackadoo gun nut study? Perhaps including a survey of NRA members "Oh yeah we shoot criminals all the time!"


*quoted by William Saletan in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health...gs_from_a.html

[T-Rexx]

It's fairly easy to find info supporting t-rexx's position.

http://vacps.org/index.php/public-po...tions-of-kleck

Thank you for that link. It's a fair discussion of some of the problems with Kleck's research.

This "cdc study" really just summarised to get a figure of 500 000 to 3 000 000 defensive gun uses per year “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys."* They did not research this figure, they just published the results of other studies. Perhaps including Kleck's whackadoo gun nut study?

Yes, exactly.

The 3 million figure is surely Kleck's.

The CDC report we are talking about here is NOT some kind of study. The CDC is prohibited from studying gun violence by the NRA. All the CDC can do is comment on what other people are reporting.

My facts came from the CDC.

What you are claiming is NOT fact, and it does not come from the CDC.

You are claiming the CDC supports the conclusion of 500,000 to 3,000,000 defensive gun uses per year, based on the report that it issued to president Obama in July 2013. The CDC has made no such claims, and it has conducted NO study into this matter. Indeed, the CDC is prevented from conducting such studies by the NRA, and this is not about to change anytime soon:

Republicans Say No to CDC Gun Violence Research

President Obama requested, in January 2013, a report from the CDC on gun violence. The CDC complied with that request with a report in July 2013. Six months is not sufficient time in which to plan, conduct, and publish the results of any national study of gun violence. All that the CDC's report to the president says it that some studies have claimed 500,000 to 3,000,000 defensive gun uses per year and that these claims deserve to be investigated (which, again, the CDC cannot do, because the NRA is afraid of what it would find).

My facts came from the CDC.

Do you now support the CDC conducting scientific studies on gun use? Because earlier in this thread, you did not:

Everything that I've seen from medical people about guns is lying with statistics

[TX-Beau]

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people REGULATE THE PEOPLE!!!

[Kulindahr]

It's fairly easy to find info supporting t-rexx's position.

http://vacps.org/index.php/public-po...tions-of-kleck

Citing Kellerman leads right back to the biggest issue with T-rexx' position: if Kellerman's numbers are right, then someone is hiding hundreds of thousands to millions of bodies annually. Kellerman's methodology is on par with Kleck's opener (I can't believe he included self-defense against animals!). And Cummings' figure is statistically lying unless it's noted that suicide is the one factor driving the result.

One statement in his (and colleague's) work is astounding: "More accurate information is needed regarding the effect of firearm storage practices on the balance of risks." That's a no-brainer, given how many firearms used in crimes are stolen! in fact, it's such a no-brainer it should be acted on without further study.

This "cdc study" really just summarised to get a figure of 500 000 to 3 000 000 defensive gun uses per year “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys."* They did not research this figure, they just published the results of other studies. Perhaps including Kleck's whackadoo gun nut study? Perhaps including a survey of NRA members "Oh yeah we shoot criminals all the time!"


*quoted by William Saletan in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health...gs_from_a.html

This doesn't support t-rexx at all:

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively.

Nor this:

2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse.

And this is significant:

The prevalence of firearm violence near “drug markets … could be a consequence of drug dealers carrying guns for self-defense against thieves or other adversaries who are likely to be armed,” says the report. In these communities, “individuals not involved in the drug markets have similar incentives for possessing guns.

How people can ignore the fact that the two greatest periods of firearms violence in the country have been periods of prohibition of substances which alter mental states is beyond me. It's why all drug-related use of guns in crime should be dropped out of the figure.

As for suicide, I want some studies on whether people would ask for help if being suicidal wasn't so looked down on and treated lightly. When you have countries on the one hand where mental health care is provided to everyone, and on the other where it's almost only for an elite few, asking whether firearms increase the likelihood of successful suicide is secondary.

[Kulindahr]

The 3 million figure is surely Kleck's.

I wouldn't be so sure. Marion Hammer used to proclaim that number -- you know, the bitch behind the Florida "Stand Your Ground" crap? She may have just made it up.

It's not Lott, BTW, someone I am familiar with. His high figure used to be 2.2 million, but I see him cited as 2.5 as well. For that matter, there was a letter to the NRA recently asserting that they should stop using the 2.5 million number because Kleck and Gertz apparently have arrived at 1.5 million more recently (unfortunately, as with most things NRA under La Pierre, no sources were provided).

I just spent a chunk of time googling the figure, and the only place I can find it is in the CDC statement and from Marion Hammer. Along the way, though, I ran across a figure in Forbes that victims take a criminal's gun twenty times as often as the reverse (! not sure I believe that, but ....), and that the Brady people are indeed wrong about the number of gun owners decreasing; the proportion is decreasing even though the absolute numbers are rising.



I skipped the rest because I'm not masochistic enough to try to sort through your lies. I'll just say I don't know where the CDC got either figure -- I can find 600k as a bottom easily enough, but couldn't find 3mn as a top figure from anywhere but them and Hammer.

[Kulindahr]

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people REGULATE THE PEOPLE!!!

That does seem to be the Constitution's view: the people are the militia, and the Congress is to provide for the discipline of the militia.

Here's an idea: Democrats should offer to vote for the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Bill, but as part of a new Militia Act that would require safe and secure storage and authorize mental health personnel who have concluded that a patient is a danger to report such to the NICS to be flagged. If a firearm was not safely stored, then a person who left one lying about and someone used it for a crime could be prosecuted as an accessory. In addition, free mental health care would be provided for anyone feeling suicidal or doomed.

All pursuant to having a more "regulated" (i.e. responsible and disciplined) militia.

[T-Rexx]

Citing Kellerman leads right back to the biggest issue with T-rexx' position: if Kellerman's numbers are right, then someone is hiding hundreds of thousands to millions of bodies annually.

Please explain this calculation. How do you come up with "hundreds of thousands to millions of bodies" which should be dying every year, if Kellerman is correct?

Here is Kellerman's paper: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056...99310073291506

What is it about Kellerman's numbers that you disagree with? How do you calculate such large numbers of people who "should" be dying?

Kellerman's methodology is on par with Kleck's opener

Kellerman published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most rigorously peer-reviewed journals in the world.

Kleck published in a student puplication at Northwestern University.

Your opinion of the quality of the comparative methodologies is not shared - by practically anyone!

One statement in his (and colleague's) work is astounding: "More accurate information is needed regarding the effect of firearm storage practices on the balance of risks." That's a no-brainer, given how many firearms used in crimes are stolen! in fact, it's such a no-brainer it should be acted on without further study.

If it's such a no-brainer that this needs to be studied, why does the NRA and the Republican Party refuse to allow it to be studied?

And, as far as thefts are concerned, you advocate more guns in the general population. Do you believe that more guns laying around will lead to fewer thefts?

This doesn't support t-rexx at all:

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively.

Please cite the study that demonstrates this. (The CDC's letter to Obama is not a study).

The scientific studies disagree with that statement:

1-3 Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense

4. Most purported self-defense gun uses are gun uses in escalating arguments and are both socially undesirable and illegal

5. Firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense.

6. Guns in the home are used more often to intimidate intimates than to thwart crime.

7. Adolescents are far more likely to be threatened with a gun than to use one in self-defense.

8. Criminals who are shot are typically the victims of crime.

9-10. Few criminals are shot by decent law abiding citizens.


http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/fi...nse-gun-use-2/

Nor this:

2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse.

Over the past 40 years, the number of households in America with guns has declined steadily.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us...vey-shows.html

Yes, I know, gun sales are up. That's because, for you gun people, no number of guns is enough to protect you. You require an ever-larger arsenal to defend yourselves against ever-fewer Americans with guns. It's an increasingly safe world out there. But not because you select few are arming yourselves to the teeth.

How people can ignore the fact that the two greatest periods of firearms violence in the country have been periods of prohibition of substances which alter mental states is beyond me.

You seem to be suggesting that legal access to mind-altering drugs will lead to less gun violence.

It's why all drug-related use of guns in crime should be dropped out of the figure.

If drugs are a major cause of gun violence, why on earth do you think such cases should be left out of gun violence statistics?!?

As for suicide, I want some studies on whether people would ask for help if being suicidal wasn't so looked down on and treated lightly. When you have countries on the one hand where mental health care is provided to everyone, and on the other where it's almost only for an elite few, asking whether firearms increase the likelihood of successful suicide is secondary.

No, "asking whether firearms increase the likelihood of successful suicide" is NOT "secondary." One of the major factors in whether or not a suicide is successful is access to the means of death. One of the reason that suicide by gun is so common in the USA is that guns are so common in the USA.

Would these people commit suicide by some other means if the convenience of a gun were not so readily available. No doubt, some of them would. But, a lot of them certainly would not.

In 2010 in the U.S., 19,392 people committed suicide with guns, compared with 11,078 who were killed by others. According to Matthew Miller, associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center (HICRC) at Harvard School of Public Health,