The pictures coming over from Iraq clearly show the problems that can happen when the general populace has easy access to guns, weapons, explosives, etc. Someone on Hardball tonight was of the opinion that we should have taken all the weaponry away from them when we invaded, as this would have avoided and or minimized the situation we find ourselves in now.
So similarly, it would seem like this is a good time for lawmakers to finally make it clear that our 2nd amendment applies only to regulated militias (i.e. the National Guard), not individuals, and require that every civilian gun owner turn in their weapons here in the USA in the interests of a safer society. In order for this to work, there must be heavy penalties if you are caught with a gun, whether you are a law abiding citizen or a criminal. Additionally, the sale of guns and ammunition to the public would be banned, again with strict penalties for violations.
I know that rabid gun owners are choking on whatever they were eating or drinking right about now :), but does anyone think we will ever be able to pry guns from the hands of the American public? How will it be done and when?
I would suspect that the founding fathers would have used Iraq as an example of why a well armed populace is a good thing - keeping the King of England out of your face and all.
Oh we should have taken their weapons away? Why didn’t anyone think of that, what with it being so easy and all to collect weapons from x millions of pissed off Iraqs?
Most of the deaths to date have been from home-made bombs, not smallarms.
I live in the UK, where guns are relatively difficult to get hold of and legally own and gun crime is fairly low; I have real trouble getting my head around the whole gun debate, but at the moment, I’m reasonably sure that it boils down like this:
Arming a populace that has previously had little exposure to, or experience with firearms seems likely to be about equally traumatic and problematic(although for a different mixed bag of reasons, obviously) as disarming a populace who consider firearm ownership and use to be an important right.
Since we’re not providing police protection for the Iraqis yet, how would you suggest an Iraqi family protect itself from thugs? Would you personally be okay with having your weapons confiscated while your local police and criminal justice system is being disbanded at the same time?
Stealing the populace’s means to self-defense is not a way to win hearts and minds. It would only drive home the notion that we were a conquering, foreign occupier that didn’t trust the people.
I maintain that the “Founding Fathers” mindset was thus, that if people had guns (now no one was thinking about assault weapons or handguns at the time either) and the Government became no longer an entity “by the people an for the people” that the populace could stand up and take it back. How do you successfully change you’re Gov’t if the Gov’t doesn’t want to be changed and the general populace is unarmed?
I would agree. Think of it this way, somehow china decides they want to invade us and by some fluke they manage it. Assuming you think we would be better off without china ruling us, woulden’t you rather have a weapon to try and fight them off with?
It’s the same situation with Iraq, the people who are fighting belive (perhaps wrongly) that they would be better off with the US gone. We did, after all, invade their country with little reason remember?
I don’t understand how being able to resist a foreign occupation is a bad thing, and why you would want to use it as an example of why we should ban all firearms. Seems to me the original post is a reason to keep weapons not remove them.
First off, the OP should know that I am a gun owner, and I’m not foaming at the mouth.
There are major differences between Iraqi and American society. These differences seem to make such a comparison regarding gun ownership unwarranted. My dad, for example, isn’t taking his deer rifles or fowling guns out to shoot soldiers.
Gun owner here, conservative gun owner, in fact, and I’d say that Iraq is exactly why the 2nd Amendment exists. No government, foreign invaders, total anarchy, groups of thugs. Even though I support our being in Iraq, I can see the Iraqis response as being logical and proper in context. Nice try on the OP.
I think guns are more of a way of life in Iraq. A necessity.
Here in the US it is considered more of a privilege. A right.
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Two competely different aspects both requiring seperate debate. Comparing the two for your particular purpose is ardous at best.
“…not a privelage. A RIGHT unless formally divested from an individual due to that person’s own irresponsible criminal actions.”
Aside from which, the police are not there to protect youl. They have no obligation to do so. They have an obligation to stop crimes, which is not the same thing. If you are attacked, and even in the safest parts of the US it can happen, are you going to try and get out your cellphone and call the cops while someone is knifing you?
The mother of all non sequiters, no? An occupying army, a defending army that melted into the population instead of fighting where they were guaranteed to lose, long-standing ethinic tensions, religious fervor, a populace that opposed the dictator but has no reason to love the occupier, a people with no tradition of democratic politics…None of that has anything to do w/ the violence, does it?! Just take away their goddamn guns and Iraq will make Iceland look like Pandemonium. It’s all clear now.
A militia is “an army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soliders.” (from here)
The 2nd amendment says, “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.” (from here)
Seems pretty clear to me. The FF thought that it was important that ordinary citizens were armed. I concede that they probably didn’t have M-16s and rocket launchers in mind when they drafted this. But most citizens don’t have M-16s or rocket launchers. Most will have a handgun or two, maybe a hunting rifle or shotgun. Most handle these guns in a responsible, mature way. Why do we need to take away their protection from a burglar again? Oh yeah, it’s “in the interests of a safer society.” :rolleyes: Please explain to me how this will make society safer.
As should be entirely clear to you by now, you have initiated this debate by drawing a an unwarranted conclusion. What the pictures from Iraq clearly show is what happens when a state devolves into anarchy. That’s the variable here—the devolution. The guns were present prior to the rise of anarchy and had no part in it. It is therefore invalid to point to them as the cause.
This isn’t a job for the legislature. It properly belongs in the domain of the courts.
Ah yes, the magical bullet panacea. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. But rather than being flip and dismissing your proposal out of hand, let me attempt to show you why this cannot work.
There are only two types of private citizens who possess firearms—those who are currently law-abiding & those who are criminals. Of these two groups, which do you think more likely to voluntarily turn in their guns? Obviously, the law-abiding. And then we’re left largely with folks already criminals in possession of nearly all guns. (We’ll ignore for the moment those previously law-abiding and peacable citizens who you have just turned into criminals by outlawing possession of guns.) Now, the criminals, who still have their guns, will eventually realize, “Hey! Joe Blow isn’t likely to be armed any longer. He can’t protect himself and his family from me. I want his wallet. And maybe I’ll fuck his wife, too.”
And this is your idea of a “safer society?” No thanks, man and you’ve just made a criminal out of me, a previously peaceable and law-abiding citzen. I’ll probably still be peaceable, but I’m no longer law-abiding. But wait, you say. What about the penalties for possession I have enacted along with the ban? Surely those should provide some incentive to comply?
This doesn’t work either as even the mose casual survey of the literature will show. There are already stiff penalties imposed on those use their firearms in a criminal and violent manner. And yet criminals continue to do so. All you will have accomplished by levying heavy penalties is made previously peaceable and law-abiding citizens new crimes that much more serious. Which in turn is likely to make them less peaceable.
It’s always fascinating to see how gun proponents turn any question of the value or need for gun ownership by the general populace to the extremely unlikely scenario of “what if the country were attacked or what if the government needs to be overthrown”. Puh-leeze. Against a government, your puny weapons will have little effect when the big artillery are brought to bear on you (as can be witnessed by what is happening in Iraq now). Then there is the example of the poor hunter who won’t be able to kill animals with anything other than a gun. Or how will the law abiding citizen defend themselves against thugs.
Sorry but I don’t accept these flimsy justifications. What guns really do are turn weak people, criminals, psychotics and punks into pseudo strongmen. These weapons enable people like the above to wantonly kill or maim one or many others with very little effort or thought.
Taking guns away from your average person won’t stop people getting killed or maimed, but it will reduce these incidence’s significantly. It’s a damm sight harder to kill someone with a knife, a sword, your bare hands or other non-ballistic weapons and it makes doing so a lot more personal and therefore much more difficult, physically and emotionally.
In a modern society, there just is no need for the average citizen to own a gun.
And it’s always fascinating to see how gun control proponents suffer from the delusion that in any situation where “guns” and “violence” happen to be present, the former somehow, magically, caused the latter.
The gun proponents have responded to your ridiculously fantastical “arguments” about the firearm situation in Iraq with equally ridiculously fantastical worst-case scenarios. The truth of the situation is that your comments about gun ownership causing violence in Iraq are so spurious as to border on dishonesty. You expect, after an evidence-lacking emotional-appealing OP, that all the responses will be founded in anything other than the opposing extreme?
Taking away cars from your average person won’t stop traffic accidents, but it will reduce these incidents significantly. In a modern society, there is just no need for the average citizen to own a car.
We free people, as gun owners, do not have to justify our ownership of firearms to anyone, least of all to people like you.
