Agreed. If you feel the need to pull a gun in the real world, such as say, during a home invasion, then you’ve failed to sufficiently deadbolt your doors and reinforce all your windows. You may as well be a good sport, accept your defeat gracefully, and let the meth-heads have their way with your family.
2 Likes
You’re very well expressed. But flawed.
Guns are an easy conduit to revenge, retribution, anger release, all that stuff.
Unfortunately, 10,000 people a year in the USA find that to be that the last discovery of their lives. But not elsewhere.
Guns are not without their benefits, and I don’t think anyone anywhere advocates a total ban. Pointless. But control, that’s a different animal altogether. Management.
Y’know, so’s we can watch the news without wondering if an elementary school got shot to pieces, that kind of thing.
This site helps cast a little light on the issue: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html
1 Like
Wow, how does “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” translate into Stand-Your-Ground?
The 2nd amendment has been twisted and distorted in all kinds of ways, but that’s a new one on me.
And why does everyone pro-gun invariable not invoke the first part of the 2nd amendment? Or would they all just rather it be forgotten? Seriously - I’m just askin’
2 Likes
I love chocolate and kaijus, but would never what to eat chocolate kaijus. Advertising fail.
First off, just assuming we decided to interpret the first part as meaning an “official” militia, it doesn’t say anything about how you have to be a member of said militia, it says it’s the “right of the people”.
Second a militia refers to all able bodied citizens who could be called up to fight if needed. Regulated meant you have your ducks in a row, your shit together, everything you need to be ready. As an example in a 1792 law on militias it lists everything that they were supposed to buy and have on them. The point being, simply showing up barefoot with a gun wasn’t going to cut it, that they needed to be prepared and have the appropriate equipment for if they were called upon.
Another interesting note, the 2nd Amendment used to apply to cannons (and still does, in way). Rich people were expected to purchase cannons which were then called into service. This is a common practice from before the Revolutionary war, to after the Civil War. So I have chuckle when people claim that the founding fathers couldn’t fathom how destructive modern hardware would be, when they thought it was not just a right but a duty to have the most powerful weapon of the time. Actually, you can still buy, make, sell, or use muzzle loading cannons and mortars with out any sort of license. A lot of people like to see how far they can launch a bowling ball.
I like the bowling ball bit, sounds fun.
It’s pretty specific that the right of the people is to bear arms, not that it’s a duty. It’s a shoddy piece of drafting, but has to be seen through the lens of legal clarity. Running a militia is a different matter - yes, you need prepared and armed people.
Being a member of a militia wasn’t a duty, nor was having a firearm (or cannon), under the constitution. Some local lawmakers may have enacted local legislation that moved off the spectrum, but Congress didn’t.
The 2nd amendment is a recognition by the state (as in, the big one) that militias (at the time) were vital to self-preservation, and hence it was made ok (or clarified to be ok) to have a gun.
But you have to look at the numbers, at how many people are getting lead injections just prior to exit, and ask questions.
I believe pre-Revolution that the militia system did require everyone 15-60 to be armed (at least in some states, as they had the Indian wars). But no, the 2nd Amendment wasn’t a duty. Though I think certain things were expected from some people.
As to your other point, I still contend that looking at the numbers, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to punish the vast majority of people because of a very small minority of abusers. Focusing on the social ills that lead to crime would be the most productive use of energy to lower gun and non-gun deaths…
In a sad way, I might agree with you to a degree. There are so many guns out there now, and so much ammo, that I wonder what beneficial impact gun control would have. But nonetheless, keeping guns out of the Newtown shooter’s hands would likely have prevented that tragedy, so I’m pro control.
Controlling the guns and ammo will lead to fewer deaths, injuries and maimings than the long-term, woolier aim of resolving the USA’s social ills.
The situation the drafters of the amendment failed to preview was a society where people would have enough time on their hands to be weird with firearms. They were working from a utilitarian background, needs must. The idea that someone could sit on their own for hours, days, weeks, distilling and concentrating psychotic thoughts would have been extremely rare.
You know it seems like the world is now much more dangerous than in the past - but I disagree with that. I think there are probably about the same percentage of people who did crazy things like murder a lot of people, kidnapping, torture animals, etc. I think we just HEAR about these more often that they become over emphasized in the media. Stranger Danger, Amber Alerts, Adams Law - all these sensational cases that are called to the forefront of your mind, even though they are actually quite rare.
Back in the day if something happened, it would be something like the Lindberg baby that would get national coverage. Some story from Ohio wouldn’t make it out of Ohio. The network and exchange of information wasn’t there, especially as far back as the 1700s. I think it was probably also easier to get away with things a long time ago. People moved around and disappeared for legit reason and there was little way to track them. If you just disappeared for nefarious reasons most people wouldn’t notice, and would have no clue where to start looking if they did suspect something.
1 Like
Yeah, I’m kind of maybe maybe not on the percent of people who do bad stuff. 100% of humanity has never been entirely humane.
Thing is, to survive 150 years ago, you had to have a food or money source. That usually meant work - exhausting work - that would leave little time to contemplate or ferment. Now, people have that time, so I would venture that a greater number of the people pre-disposed to dark thoughts etc now have more latitude to develop the propulsion that ultimately leads to awful actions.
Maybe the percentages are the same, but maybe the composition of the heinous-act committing population has shifted.
Anyways - if angry 17 year olds find it hard to gun up, we might have fewer gun deaths.
I agree, but it’s already illegal for a 17 year old to purchase a gun. If he is like most criminals, he will have acquired it from a friend or relative, or the black market, which is breaking the law by doing so.
Well, the fact is that when the War of 1812 broke out, the State legislatures immediately went out of session and stayed that way - because the legislatures got up off their chairs, grabbed their own guns, and went to it. There WAS no separation of The State and The People. They understood very well that those are one and the same.
Now, they WERE in a dicey situation, that’s true. But if they missed something and the Constitution needs some editing, then…maybe they weren’t so short-sighted. Because, they provided a way to take care of that very problem. To date? It says what it says. And somebody thinks it should be changed, then by all means, go for it! That’s precisely your right, and I support your having the means to clear it up - without device, without skirting the founding document, without lobbyists and pollsters. Just nike. Otherwise, this is what we have. Not doing so doesn’t equal supporting mentally ill people running around with loaded guns, and doing so doesn’t necessarily equal hating guns altogether - but there IS a pathway to a proper solution there.
Yup. But if the guns weren’t there to be acquired, illicitly or otherwise, he wouldn’t have a gun. Granted, with in excess of one firearm per head in the USA, they’re not likely to disappear quickly. In fact, well maintained, I presume an AR15 could last 1,000 years (I’m thinking preservation of antique muskets here).
But if those guns out in circulation were slowly circulated into managed pools, there’d just be fewer out there.
Yeah, I know - it says what it says. But the NRA have a thoroughly different and more absent-minded view of what it says than I.
Change it? National referendum, lobbyists, politics - nah. Interpret it correctly? How many ways can you cut a cake when there is oodles of profit swilling around?
Mandate that each gun holder be part of an organised militia? yeah!
Not supporting gun law change doesn’t equate to supporting people running round with loaded guns - but refusing point blank to express concern in any way about gun proliferation does express a certain stubbornness, and appears an extreme and radical position, to which it is easy to attribute the quality of supporting people running round with loaded guns. The USA has become too inured to gun violence - it’s not right.
There isn’t a clear pathway other than executive order.
Oh, no you didn’t! Executive order does NOT trump civil rights - not on any level, not at any time. And this happens to be in reference to a civil right. You try that kind of stunt, you will have just turned over the entire question to the whims of whoever happens to be sitting in that chair. And, regardless of which ones you might pick or I might pick, I think the one thing we ALL agree on is that there have been some incredible idiots sitting there.
I do get what you’re saying, though. Yes, there is tremendous profit involved in that industry. And in BOTH sides of the issue, as well. (Everybody likes to talk about ‘tobacco science’, but few like to count how many millions go to the other side as well - and it’s a lot. The same will be true here as well.)
So. Money. Against civil rights. The odd thing here is, you’re telling me that it’s money that makes an amendment not worth the effort. In a country that counts you as the value of your ‘productivity’, as if you were a robot in a factory. But in other areas, there are so many billions flying around that we can’t get our rights respected! I don’t want to try to oversimplify it. It’s just not that cut-and-dried, or our problems would all lean in one direction or the other.
Just personally, I see just as much absent-minded, knee jerk stuff coming from both sides on guns, and they tend to be the loudest, as per usual. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a whole lot more of us who don’t live at either extreme. And until or unless there’s a clear and strong enough feeling one way or the other so that it CAN be changed, then this is…what we have. If I don’t shoot anybody, and you don’t shoot anybody, that’s…two down, only a few hundred million to go, right?
A few hundred million. Gotta start somewhere!
Back on topic, I’m an American, and very much against forcible disarmament of law-abiding citizens, and I definitely don’t love guns. Really, I don’t much like any missile weapon of any kind. So Mark was right to put “some” Americans in his title!
A weapon that doesn’t require that you close with your opponent isn’t chivalrous, hm?
I don’t hate guns. I’ve done some target shooting, up to and including fully automatic. (Once.) If the gun lobby would be willing to admit that guns are “only as dangerous as cars”, and accept the same kind of requirements for training and licensing and periodic testing and responsibility for how the ones you own are used, I’d be willing to compromise on that and see where it gets us. Unfortunately the NRA has built up this persecution fantasy under which they can pretend to be both the Protectors Of The Nation and the Voice Of All Gun Owners, and catering to paranoids is a sufficiently profitable business to make buying legislators a reasonable business expense.
Bah.
2 Likes
Well, I think if you harm somebody blood should splash all over, and you should get brains spattered on your face. It should be immediate and real instead of a video game. You should smell it. (And furthermore I think video games that make sport of assassination and murder are vile and that people of strong moral character will refuse to buy or play them.)
But my views, of course, are highly unpopular.
Anyway, @Dr_Awkward: is right - the genie’s out of the bottle, and no amount of righteous thetoric from either side will change the raw fact that guns are and will probably always be readily available. So I can’t help but agree totally with you about the NRA and sensible regulation… bah indeed.
1 Like
btw a lovely example of how gun control can seize up the arteries of supply:
