Naw The War of 1812 was a little more complex than the romanticized stories of militiamen led into Upper Canada because Jefferson said conquering those territories involved “little more than marching”. (Jefferson’s quote is oft used that way, though he said more and what he said made sense, though it was proved wrong)
But the fact of those militiamen related to the 2nd amendment was a factor, an embarrassing one. At the time, the US had a small professional army, but boasted over 600,000 “trained” militiamen. (Which amounted to 10x the military might of the territories)
Turns out they sucked, gave up easily, and (to their credit) often didn’t want to fight.
So in effect the 2nd amendment has never, ever worked to any of it’s differently interpreted purposes.
Drugs are hardly equivalent. The original controlled substances, and still the most popular, are produced from naturally occurring substances. So they would mostly still exist in some form whether prohibited or not. This can hardly be said to apply to firearms, which don’t grow on trees.
And even if we agree that there are doubts as to the efficacy of criminalizing (controlling, actually) the manufacture of some drugs, quite a few consider it worth trying. That drugs are far more useful than weapons, yet nobody seems to even consider forbidding the manufacture of weapons I think goes some way towards demonstrating the twisted priorities and values of nation states. They are incompatible with modern concepts of liberal democracy.
That is no excuse. Criminals have been carrying concealed illegally for over a hundred years. If the crime rate going down is any indication of the number of criminals, then there should be less people carrying concealed illegally than ever before.
LEGAL, LICENSED conceal carry has increased, but that shouldn’t give any rational cop concern or worry. Those people are LAW ABIDING - followed the process to get the license. The license means they aren’t felons, haven’t been convicted of domestic violence or a restraining order, and haven’t been committed for metal health issues.
Something is wrong and fucked up with their training if a towel around a hand is seen as a way to hide a weapon, vs to help a wound.
I wonder if in that last second the civilian knew just how fucked he was. He flags them down, the next thing he knows one of them is yelling to drop the gun… no gun to drop. Bang.
What does it matter if drugs and alcohol come from “naturally occurring substances”? Besides things like weed and shrooms, alcohol and drugs require some sort of process to make. Steel, copper, brass, and lead all come from nature too.
You can make something to shoot shot gun shells with two pipes, a nail, and maybe a few other bits. Guns can be made with something as simple as stamped steel, but anyone with a CNC machine could make literally what ever they wanted.
In what way? There tens of millions of gun owners in the US alone who hurt no one, threaten no one. How are they hurting democracy?
My point was that I don’t buy the argument by people who push for gun control, yet refuse to consider dealing with manufacture rather than possession. Under the pretext that making the manufacture of some things illegal has never been completely effective. Funny how that doesn’t prevent the manufacture of some things being criminalized anyway. I am pointing out the hypocrisy that while people petition The State to control firearms, it is the state itself who work most vigorously to guarantee their continued availability (at least for some people).
I was referring to nation states as they currently defined, as being incompatible with modern concepts of liberal democracy.
You miss the point. The point is that merely prohibiting the manufacture of anything doesn’t STOP the manufacturing. Prohibition outlawed alcohol; the manufacture not only continued, it flourished. The “manufacturing” of illicit drugs isn’t really “manufacturing”, but it still involves processing at some point. And just because that manufacturing is illegal doesn’t stop it from happening. There is already a strong black market in the manufacture of illegal weapons; including those that defy detection and tracing; what makes you think that prohibiting gun-making will STOP gun-making among those that want them for illicit purposes? All that does it remove legal defensive weapons from the hands of those that might actually use them for good.
I am not missing it, it is simply distinct from a different point I was making.
Nothing, particularly. If only the odd handmade firearms exist rather than them being a mass-produced item, then this drastically reduces the number of them out there. How many more are manufactured each year? Millions? Versus a few machinists making less than one percent the current output. This would reduce the number of guns out there drastically compared to simply passing laws to restrict who has them.
Aside from the irrationally of banning something because of the small percentage of people who misuse them, there is a huge number of guns already out there. Lots of places in the world have no manufacturing, but still managed to be well armed. There would still be a black market supply.
Then there is the example of the gun makers in the Khyber region of Pakistan, who use rather primitive tools to make just about anything you want. Any decent sized criminal org could set up the same sort of thing.
You would drastically reduce the number of fire arms - but the people doing harm with fire arms would still be the ones looking for and gaining access. All you did was disarm the 99+% of people who already weren’t hurting anyone. And those involved in crime can now intimate easier with traditional bats/clubs and knives. The UK now has to crack down on kitchen knives to due knife crime increases.
Many states where +5% of adults are eligible to carry concealed (FL, PA, NH, AK, AZ, VT etc) see perhaps one questionable shooting by police in a given year. Yet the LAPD, in a county of 10 million with only 200 carry permits, seems to gun down random innocents on a semi-monthly basis. What gives?
How are they with open carry, then? Do they automatically freeze and shake down open carriers even if they aren’t doing anything otherwise unlawful? Why would somebody simply having a gun imply an intent to shoot them?
Today you still need an experienced machinist. Tomorrow it will be a matter of pouring steel powder into the laser machine and going to sleep. Such printers already exist, albeit nauseatingly expensive; but there’s nothing inherently costly on the tech. Maybe the laser but even that not That Much. And then there are the yttrium DPSS fiber lasers that are a good relatively inexpensive replacement for the Nd:YAG ones…
prohibition hasn’t worked in any country it has been tried in as far as i’m aware. gun reduction has worked in every country it has been tried in. so there is that…
Actually, that was my first thought, that the guy had an injured hand and had wrapped the towel around it to protect it, maybe stanch blood loss. Naturally, I might try to flag down someone for assistance if I were that hurt. The police reaction was over the top dumb.
