You fail to point out how a “plain reading” of the Federalist Papers 29 has anything to do at all with individual gun ownership.
This isn’t an answer you want to hear someone reply in the affirmative to anyway, because the answer will likely be “The Michigan Militia”.
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Very simply @milliefink: because the people who interpret the law, that is, the Supreme Court, interpret it in the same way I do.
I’d happily join up (and bring my gun) if I were called to join a Militia. Clearly you do not understand how this worked in the past. Militias were not “standing armies.” They were raised as necessary. You don’t go “join a militia” because they are riased for a specific purpose. Kinda like a posse. You’re like saying, “go join a posse.” You can’t, because until they are organized, they don’t exist. That’s why people don’t join militias in your fantasy world rendering of the 2nd amendment.
I’d much rather the US had no standing army and called up its citizenry when it needed one. I think the country’s war powers would be far less abused, and we wouldn’t have the huge budgetary sinkhole called the department of defense.
Is that a non-flailing-enough answer for you?
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No, I have actually pointed that out. Federalist 29 is a justification – and therefore a guide to the interpretation – of the 2nd amendment. The proper interpretation of the 2nd amendment is what is being discussed.
I’m pretty sick of getting bogged down in this pointless debate about the 2nd amendment, though. The law was written when all firearms were muzzle-loaded, the most advanced form of artillery was a big iron tube packed with gunpowder, and no one had yet speculated about even the possibility of mechanized or aerial warfare. It’s hardly relevant. But if you’re going to insist that the 2nd amendment is what justifies ownership of guns for you then I’m going to keep pointing out that the language of the 2nd and its supporting documents suggest that the “militia” part is actually pretty crucial to the intent of the law.
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Not true, otherwise “well-regulated” would make no sense. The colonies had standing militias.
What I have primarily argued, though this has been taken out of context, (from an anti-gun-rights-advocate? Never! Perish the thought!) is that it is the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the second amendment that justifies individual gun ownership. Which is just a fact. That’s how our government works.
Perhaps that is too fine a distinction for some?
Shall I go on?
You stated that. And I disagree with the SC’s interpretation. The SC has been known to make bad decisions and to reverse previous decisions. Given that I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to disagree too.
It’s not that is’ “too fine a distinction”. It’s that a particular SC ruling is irrelevant to whether and how changes should be made to the status quo. You can say “I factually have a right to own this gun” and I can still perfectly reasonably argue “OK, but you shouldn’t.”
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Forget the idea that militia means national guard please. Penn and Teller have a very simple explanation of this, easy to understand and short enough for the ADD. 60 second explanation YouTube
That’s fine, but, agree with them or not, I’ll defer to their legal expertise before yours.
They are entertainers, not scholars, and not particularly careful with their fact-checking. Use a better citation please.
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OK, but the legal status quo is irrelevant to the moral argument of what ought to be which is the discussion we’re actually having. Obviously because this is a thread about gun control reform.
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The moral argument? The moral argument has nothing to do with the law. Period.
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I think that’s a little extreme. Sure, they’ve shown some bad judgement over the years, but— oh, you meant Penn and Teller, didn’t you?
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That’s ridiculous. Every discussion about what how laws should change is a moral argument.
I don’t think that line of reasoning works in court. Or the real world.
It’s a right that is stated in the amendment, not a “need.”
What I don’t think you understand about the Bill of Rights is that these things that were articulated in it were believed to be natural rights that were more fundamental then government itself. That these were things that were specifically worth mentioning that the government can’t do, because these ten items are more fundamental than government.
You can’t just say, “well that’s old, we don’t need it any more.” It goes deeper than that, which is why so many people get pissed when you treat the issue of changing these rights with such a cavalier attitude.
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[quote=“wysinwyg, post:174, topic:13824”]
What’s required here is to show that “attacking the reason behind” violent crime is a) more feasible than addressing the means and b) more effective than addressing the means. [/quote]
You have a good point. Attacking the reason is hardly a simple task and is influenced by several factors. I just don’t think attacking the means is much easier, and worse, ineffective. Already they have attempted to attack the means, such as in Chicago and Washington DC. They have very restrictive gun laws and some of the worst gun crime. Perhaps you have some specific suggestions on ways of attacking the means.
[quote=“wysinwyg, post:174, topic:13824”]
This is only technically true. The majority of felons who acquire guns seem to do so through straw purchases.1 Straw purchases are technically illegal but the reason they’re so effective is because they actually are just legal purchases. [/quote]
I am not sure if its a majority or not, but straw purchases are a problem. The question I have is what do you propose to fix this? You can’t read someone’s mind. I would be interested in an idea to fight straw purchases with out greatly effecting the vast majority of legal gun purchases.
[quote=“wysinwyg, post:174, topic:13824”]
- Well, when they’re felons first and obtain guns second. Presumably some people first obtain guns legally and then become felons but I’ve noticed gun control opponents don’t like to admit this is even a possibility and engage in all kinds of essentialist sophistry to insist legal gun owners and violent criminals are necessarily disjoint sets.[/quote]
Well first off - most criminals do not get their guns through legal means and then commit crime. ~80% of the guns are from their network of friends, family, and the black market. But you are right, I am sure there are people who get guns legally and later use them in crime. How do you propose to counter this? Is there anyway to read someone’s mind or predict what they will do in the future? Would someone who normally buy a legal gun just not resort to illegal means to gain one if needed?
[quote=“wysinwyg, post:174, topic:13824”]
So after Newtown were you arguing with gun control opponents that it’s not really a mental health issue? Because I seem to remember a lot of folks arguing that it was.[/quote]
For sure the Newtown shooter was an issue of mental health. The problem again is the logistics and practicality of doing something about it. It would be a huge undertaking to merge medical records to the background check, a huge mess with privacy and HIPPA laws, and it is an incredibly complicated issue to figure out what leads to a ban, how to measure and define those limits, etc.
My point is that violent crime like Newtown, while tragic and sensational, is a small minority of gun crime. Chicago isn’t awash in blood from mental illness. It makes more sense to address the bigger issue, especially when the other subject is far from an easy fix. I suppose one could address both issues, and that’s fine, but I am looking at the practically of doing the most good in smallest amount of time.
An excellent question and one that I’d love to work on coming up with an answer for.
Yeah, well, no.
Your web site starts with a big bold graph that makes two claims:
- less than 32000 homicide + accident + suicide
- more than 2.5 million self defense incidents
Impressive, right?
Only until if you bother to follow the references provided:
- For the first claim: A page of the CDC site, in which we find out that 31K is actually a number of deaths.
It starts well: On one side we count deaths, and on the other side we count all incidents, with or without death.
IOW: apples and oranges.
- For the second claim, a link to a document dating from 1995, arguing that the NVCS survey were flawed, and making all sorts of claims to bring the NCVS original numbers from 82K all the way to 2.5M…
Note that the same paper also says:
The highest annual estimate of criminal gun use for the peak year of gun crime is the NCVS estimate for 1992, when there were an estimated 847,652 violent crime incidents in which, according to the victim, at least one offender possessed a gun.
I.E. by the paper’s own account, in claim 1 they should have used 847K instead of 32K.
=> With the actual NCVS survey data, the ratio in the graph:
- is 847K/82K ≅ 10/1
- is not 32K / 2500K ≅ not 1/80
Pardon me, but after finding that, I did not bother verifying the rest of their claims.
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I grew up with guns and hunting/etc (I still have 3 guns back home). There are those who like using guns whether that be for simply collecting guns historical/artistic/etc objects; hunting or other recreational activity e.g. target practice/skeet and those who fetishize them as talismans of power…
The fetishists tended to get marginalized by the “normal” gun owners (never asked to join a hunting party, skeet shoot, etc), so they were left to stew in their own juices and ruminate over not getting to join into any reindeer games. I think that in their isolation, they construct Walter Mitty fantasies about coming to the rescue with the aid of their trusty sidearm and also start falling into the echo chamber of like minded fetishists.
I know many people who have dozens of guns, but have no problem with the idea of gun control – these fellows see guns as tools/art-objects/etc, not as ideas/talismans – they have no desire to own mega-clips or to carry them anywhere near the general public.
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You sound just like a pre-Civil War slave owner.
Pro-tip: you’re not contributing much to a discussion of social issues when all you can fall back on in defense of your position is, “Well, it’s the law of the land, it is what it is, dum de dum, blah blah blah.”
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Guns are for killing things. Granted, some people enjoy killing things and therefore have “a different perspective,” but they’re still killing things. Also, granted that a lot of people who own and regularly use guns will never kill anything. I have done a lot of shooting, but never killed anything. But, still - guns are for killing things.
Killing things is pretty negative, if you ask me.
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