The podcast More Perfect taught this non-American the key broad strokes of 2A that are very helpful for anyone else wondering how it got here. As always, turns out it’s mostly racism and power mongering rather than grand notions of human rights.
First couple-hundred years: 2A was a backwater amendment that nobody cared about at all.
1960s: Black Panthers dug it up and decided they ought to be able to use it carry guns and monitor police brutality.
A white panic and subsequent wave of gun regulations followed. Lots of white people loudly proclaiming things like “It’s ridiculous to have such dangerous tools in the hands of anyone who wants them! This is why we have police!”
1990s: Wayne LaPierre takes over NRA and decides to stop being a quiet hunter training organization and to build a political empire instead. Launches aggressive fear based marketing campaign that suddenly makes everyone care about guns.
2008: SCOTUS decides in Heller case that 2A does mean, after all this time, that everyone has a right to own zomg all teh gunz
Everyone retcons their memories to believe that individuals owning guns was some inalienable right that the founders super mega cared about.
Even if we interpret the 2nd amendment to protect “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”, that has absolutely nothing to do with the rights of gun manufacturers to profit from gun sale. If the state of NJ goes after Smith & Wesson for whatever reason they want, it still cannot be construed as “anti-Second Amentment”
In the Great Britain of the 19th century, theft was a hanging offense, as was most everything else. Whether that sort of attitude was reflected in the US in the 18th century is debatable.
I dunno, in the 1800s they hung a lot of people in the US for cattle rustling. Though I can’t think of other cases of theft met with such severe punishment. Though, they used to have longer prison sentences for theft.
Simply put, the presence of a gun in the home significantly INCREASES the likelihoods of both robbery, and domestic violence. There is no available evidence to suggest that the presence of a gun mitigates of any of these things. Adamant gun rights activists will insist that’s because there’s no data, because obviously the the things didn’t happen, therefore there is no data. But that’s nonsense; I could say that the absence of my farts have saved just as many lives, and you couldn’t un-prove the negative.
There are also far more demonstrable positive values to stair ownership and ladder ownership. Look at the data comparing frequency of use to injuries.
It is demonstrably false to say that malicious use of firearms is a criminal issue. Most gun deaths are suicides. Most other shootings involve people who know each other. Random gun crime is truly random and mostly statistically irrelevant.
It’s not hard if you understand dependent and independent clauses. Pick your source using Google. I could explain it, but you probably wouldn’t take my word for it.
I’ll give you a gun will increase the chance of it being later used in domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is the 2nd largest vector for murders, the first being involved in illicit activities (at least if you look at the break down of large cities who parse their homicide data that way.)
I don’t see how gun ownership could increase the likelihood of robbery. Unless there is a correlation with the neighborhoods where you feel like you need a gun are more likely to be the ones where you will get robbed.
Neither will owning a gun make it less likely you are robbed - it just gives you an option to defend yourself if you’re there. Where you live is the main indicator of the likelihood of robbery.
I guess that depends on how we define use. But they are also way more prevalent dangers that no one bats an eye at. No parent has ever said, “You can’t go to Timmy’s house, his parents own ladders/stairs.”
I don’t consider suicides malicious use. Malice is intent to do evil. People who commit suicide aren’t evil, they are committing self harm. People murdering others is malicious use. You’re right, most murder victims do know their murderer, and random crimes are much rarer.
You’re right, most gun deaths are suicides, and that is a different cause and set of risks than crime or accidents.
I’ll give you a real-world example, that doesn’t necessarily translate to statistics:
My friend had a small handgun that was ostensibly for home defense. He kept it on the top of an armoire in a shoe box. Not very secure, except through obscurity.
He noticed it went missing after they had some work done on their house, and had contractors throughout the house unsupervised. He had to report it as a robbery in case the weapon was used in a crime and traced back to him.
It’s the opposite. Higher rates of gun ownership are correlated with higher breaking and entering rates. Regardless of the relative economic status, location, and general crime levels of the areas looked at.
It’s also long been established that fire arms are both one of the most commonly sought items in burglaries and one of the most commonly stolen items in break ins of all kinds.
Gun ownership per capita is also inversely associated with population density. It’s known that the scary “large cities” don’t have nearly as many guns as the quiet suburbs.
More anecdotally, if you pay attention to this sort of thing. You run into a lot of reports of thieves deliberately targeting an area or house because there are known to be guns there. And there seems to be a bit of a trend in groups targeting affluent, white areas where cars and houses tend not to be locked specifically to find guns, because that is the sort of place you find them.
It’d be a bit impossible to prove causation. But it seems like a pretty good bet that if some one does break into your home. They are hoping to find a gun there.
Alright, fair point, if you advertise, make it known, or leave out in the open, you have something small and valuable, you are more likely to get robbed. One could say that about jewelry and electronics. That is why if I know someone is coming to work in my apt, I put away anything that looks like it would be an easy target later. (Firearms are already put away.)
The one person I know recently who was robbed was hit by the people he hired to move him. He is an IT guy with lots of computers and electronic doodads they came back for a week after moving him. They got caught, fortunately.
If you could point me to those stats, I’d appreciate it. If I had a big truck outside covered with gun stickers I could see how that makes one a target for both vehicle and house theft. A nondescript sedan with no stickers, and no outward indication of what is possessed inside shouldn’t have any more risk than the surrounding area. So this is where Op-Sec is important. You don’t advertise what may or may not be in your house/apt. In which case, the mere presence of the firearm doesn’t increase your chances of robbery, but the advertising of said firearm increases your chances of robbery.
I could post a dash cam video of my morning commute; every fifth private vehicle has stickers advertising that they own firearms. The ones with a size of gun for each member of the family are so adorable! /s
I’m not really inclined to do your homework for you. Especially since I’m pretty sure I remember people providing citations on all this repeatedly in past gun threads here including in response to this same line from you.
While I’m sure your “op-secing” around in full unibomer garb throwing off tails. I know you have guns, I’m sure people in your community do as well. And crime just generally doesn’t that way. There’s nobody stalking you specifically and figuring out how to Entrapment their way into your basement.
The most likely situation is that some one you know pulls something. Like shootings it’s not some outsider coming for you. It’s your dentist’s nephew.
As for organized or repeat criminals. The demographics of gun ownership are obvious and well known. Which neighborhoods are least secure typically is too. The way strings of robberies usually work is just spot checking a bunch of buildings or cars in a likely area. Then focusing on the areas that prove fruitful. No one needs to know you specifically have have x guns, their value, and the code to your safe. They just need to know that your neighborhood likely has guns, and start poking around till they find them.
I’ve got personal experience with both ends of that. My grandmother had a bunch of my grandfather’s guns stolen a few years back. It was my uncle, who had simply copied some keys while staying with her, and returned while she wasn’t home.
A few years back we had a string of strange seeming car break-ins around my town. Multiple break-ins on a given street in a short span of time, moving around different areas over time. Little was stolen in most cases, often times nothing at all. None of the torn out radios or stripped wheels of stereotype.
I had assumed it was bored teens looking for beer, cigarettes and pot. But both the detectives investigating and every person I know in law enforcement said addicts, looking for guns. This is apparently a common enough thing to be the default assumption when a string of car robberies breaks out.
Sure enough when they caught the guys they were sitting on a pile of stolen guns, including a couple of police duty weapons. And had been responsible for multiple similar strings of car break ins around the region.
One of the neighborhoods targeted was mine, including a break in on my street. My neighborhood has, I think 6 retired law enforcement people and one current State Trooper who regularly parks his squad car in the driveway.
And about 4 or 5 months before the break in on my block we’d had a neighborhood yard sale. Multiple people showed inquiring about guns for sale, and one of those retired police officers had sold an old hunting rifle to one them.
I kinda suspect those guys were targeting neighborhoods with cops, cause cops got guns. And one of the neighbors recognized one the thieves from the yard sale. The police never followed up on either, despite it being reported to them. Just kinda took the easy conviction and that was the last I heard about it.
That is part and parcel of why you can’t look at these things in terms of your own assumptions and individual framing. They’re society wide, statistical sorts of things. And just like gun violence, the realities of how they function don’t fit the common assumptions.
Not a constitutional right. Also, exercised as an individual. Which is to say, I, individually can ask for it, and sue for the lack thereof if necessary.
Not a constitutional right. Also, exercised as an individual.
Exercised as an individual.
Not a constitutional right. Also, exercised as an individual.
What does it even mean for something to be a collective right? Who can exercise it? It’s not the states. The states have powers (10th amendment: powers not delegated are reserved). People have rights (9th amendment: rights not listed may still exist). If it were a power of the states, it’d be called a power.
And if it were a power of the states, rather than a right of individuals, why would state constitutions have analogous provisions?
That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state
-PA declaration of rights 1776
That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State
-VT 1777
That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.
-KY 1792
And not just explicitly contemporaneously with the US constitution:
That every citizen has a right to bear arms in defence of himself and state
-AL 1819
The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the State shall not be impaired
-AZ 1912
The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question
-CO 1876
Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.
-CT 1812
A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State
-DE 1987
The people shall have the right to bear arms in defence of themselves and of the lawful authority of the State.
-FL 1868
Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
-IL 1970
If it all is a collective right, then why are there so many state constitutions from 50+ years ago that say it’s an individual right, not necessarily associated with militia service.
And Heller I isn’t the first time SCOTUS ruled that it’s an individual right. It’s actually Dred Scott! As horrible and racist as that decision was, it explicitly listed one of the rights Scott would enjoy would be to " to keep and carry arms wherever they went"
It’s not clearly labelled as addressing the administration of militias. And not being enumerated on its own doesn’t mean it’s not a standalone right. Otherwise the right to petition the Government for redress of grievances is only related to the ability to practice whatever religion you want.
HAhahahaha! Aside from Dred Scott, there is no court sanctified read. There’s Cruikshank, which read the 14th as not incorporating the 2nd. Presser, which says private militias can be regulated (but the 2nd doesn’t protect a right to create a private militia). It may, depend in how exactly you read it, also say that states can’t entirely ban guns from everyone, because the US government needs an armed body of people to form a militia. Miller v. Texas which says the 14th doesn’t incorporate the 2nd. United States v. Miller which says military style weapons are especially protected by the 2nd. It’s also odd in that the defendant was dead, and so the case moot before the decision rendered, and there was no defense at the court. It was strictly the prosecution-appellants that were represented. And then you have Heller I, which reads the 2nd as an individual right. And MacDonald which overrules Cruikshank and says the 2nd actually is incorporated, and applies to the states even if they don’t have their own state constitutional provision.
There’s no actual jurisprudence from SCOTUS stating that the 2nd is a “collective right” whatever that means. The closest is: the 2nd amendment being ignored, as other portions of the Bill of Rights were.
And you don’t even manage to address the objection to Living Constitutionalism: if the constitution means whatever is convenient, then it’s not something that limits. It can’t be relied upon. If it’s re-interpreted however we like for now, it’ll be re-interpreted later, probably in ways we don’t like.
