Could have done the same with the Eighteenth Amendment, if desired; just go on modifying the interpretation of “intoxicating liquors” until it excluded not just low-alcohol or medicinal beverages but beer, wine, fortified wines, and so on throughout a “more positive perspective”.
But it made more sense just to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment as unworkable and undesirable in the America of that day. And ultimately, it will make more sense to do the same with the Second.
In the meantime, I don’t object to advocating interpretations of the Second Amendment that allow more rational and workable regulation of legal firearms. In the long run, though, as I said, the whole concept of private gun ownership as a fundamental Constitutional right no longer has any bearing on the civic purpose it was originally designed for, and serves no other useful civic purpose, so I vote we ditch it.
Private gun ownership can continue to exist, as it does in many other developed countries, without demanding for it a unique and distorting constitutional-right status that we don’t award to ownership of cars or swimming pools or rocket launchers or any other specific type of material object.
Even if the Second Amendment were entirely nullified, rather that simply correcting a misunderstanding about the meaning of the word “militia”…there is no reason a sensible government would forbid hunting rifles to those who simply must go punch a hole in Bambi’s Mom. Simply to fulfill the darkest dreams of ballistophiles.
Did you specify in your poll that the hypothetical repeal would be accompanied by laws actually banning their guns? If not, I think a “no” response to that question is both law-abiding and reasonable.
After all, repealing the Second Amendment per se would not do jack-shit to delegitimize or criminalize gun ownership. It would simply remove the ownership of guns from its unfairly privileged position as a constitutional right. There are lots of things that you can legally own without having a constitutional right to own them.
Of course there isn’t, and I never said there was. See my above points about having no objections to responsible, law-abiding, regulated gun owners continuing to legally own guns even if there’s no longer a constitutional right to do so.
I’ve heard that legal semi-automatics can be easily converted to illegal automatics. Was this the sort of automatic rifles the guy used? If not, where did he get them?
You bandy the notion “we as a society” a lot, for “freedoms” opposed by most Americans but supported by gun manufacturing corporations and the haters they’ve gulled.
So his were not converted semi-automatics? Cite?
Which half hates which half, again? Are you sure the hatred and disgust isn’t mutual?
The thread’s stupidity prize goes to:
Cite? How do we know he didn’t feel threatened? Or that as a good militia-man he didn’t think he was defending his country from socialists?
But even though your “no questions” assertion is inescapably false, let’s stipulate it to expose the idiocy of your further “reasoning.” :–
In your view I should be allowed to drink while driving — I might not be pursuing the illegal act of driving while intoxicated. And I assume you think the Second Commandment should be extended to automatic rifles, bazooka, etc. Aren’t these weapons harmless or even helpful when “put to use for purposes protected by the Second Commandment”?
[sarcasm on] I’m glad XT pointed out what a tiny number 58 Dead is. Our fine police officers kill at least that many thugs annually for driving while black or other crimes. And many of the 58 were Muslims or Jews or baby killers or Democrats, anyway — maybe we should wait to find out how many real people were killed.
At least three Nazis had rocks thrown at them in a recent riot and we patriots applauded when the Nazis drew knives and sent more than a dozen anti-Nazis to hospitals. Maybe Stephen Paddock was performing a similar public service.
Are you suggesting that the hotel maid should have reported a man exercising his rights under the Second Commandment? Go back to North Korea, you secular socialist!
I agree. While human life may have some moral value, that value pales into insignificance besides the moral value of gun rights.
ETA: I hope no confusion is caused by my promotion of the Second from Amendment to Commandment. This right precedes the endorsements by Jefferson, Madison et al. We’re repeatedly told by those who know best that guns are a universal right granted by Yahweh himself from atop Mount Sinai.
Put simply, do we, as a country, want these sorts of mass shootings to happen?
If the answer is no, what are we willing to change to make that a reality?
If the answer is I don’t care, I get paid by Putin to shill on a website, or my investment with gun manufacturers mean I profit from gun violence, then take a good hard look at yourself. I’m not going to call you names or drop four letter words, because you have a far worse fate–you get to wake up and be that kind of person tomorrow.
And maybe, just maybe, you may find that you want to change. Scores of people have died; hundreds injured. Are you really accepting this becoming normal?
A machine gun can carry a bullet 1000 feet? Always saw it as a close range weapon.
NO ONE at Mandalay Bay, a Las Vegas casino with probably 10,000 security cameras, thought anything odd about the guy as he was sneaking 23 high damage assault weapons and bullets to his suite?
How is this going to affect high rise hotel security? Frankly you could pull the same thing off on Times Square. Does this mean metal detectors at some hotels as well as mandatory daily hotel room inspections?
527 injuries to 59 deaths seem to be a high ratio; is it possible a lot of those injuries were from fleeing the bullets, and not the bullets?
When folks rush out to buy guns in the immediate aftermath of a terror attack like the one that happened yesterday, when the NRA and the government shush debate, claiming ‘this is not the time’ to talk about gun control, when the NRA provides huge funding to the government of the day, when people live in a state of abject fear, when any Joe or Josephine can walk into a shop and buy a gun without checks, when KIDS under 18 can buy guns in some states of the US…and you really ask if this is normal?
Of course it’s fucken normal. When gun ownership is considered normal, people die in mass shootings. When gun ownership is constrained by regulations and laws and shit, less mass shootings occur.
Meh, it’s another Tuesday, another pile of crap news coming out of the US. Be proud and stand up for your rights Americans!! So next Tuesday I can remember to turn off the news…
Why not try to repeal the 2nd Amendment?
Because for too many people “The Right To Bear Arms” has gone from being a simplistic mantra to becoming a full-fledged religion complete with saints to worship and demonic forces to vanquish. They view those that question them as lying gun-grabbers and they would no more honor any decision to repeal the 2nd Amendment then they would accept fruit from a serpent. If you think I am exaggerating then check out this thread /poll from just a couple years ago.
72% said they would ignore any such repeal. To those that say “Well, why don’t you just repeal it if you don’t like it?” I have a question: If by chance the 2nd amendment WAS repealed, would you accept such a decision?
Why would anyone have seen them? AFAIK US hotels (unlike some I’ve been to in India) don’t run the guests’ luggage through metal detectors before admitting them.
Also, he appears to have been a fairly high roller at the casino. Casino management usually don’t like to annoy that type of guest with nosy questions.
Preliminary reports are that at least two of the guns used were a .223 and a .306, I believe, which can fire rounds that will definitely travel with lethal force over 400 yards, the distance covered.
Long guns can be broken down into their constituent parts and packed into regular luggage, undetectable so long as the bags don’t go through a scanner or get opened in public. He was there for several days before the shooting, offering plenty of time to bring the armory in piecemeal. One TV commentator also pointed out that people come to Vegas with wares for gun shows, so seeing weapons wouldn’t necessarily be a red flag.
Time will tell.
Yes, also shrapnel as well as the rounds themselves.
ETA: Some of the people now in hospital will no doubt die. And being shot isn’t an automatic death sentence.
If that’s so, then I’d say that’s all the more reason to support repeal.
If the enshrining of gun ownership as a fundamental constitutional right has indeed encouraged significant numbers of people to make an irrational fetish out of it, then the sooner we remove that perverse incentive and arrive at a saner view of constitutional rights and firearms ownership, the better for everybody.
Ah, there’s that thread that manson1972 was talking about. Yes, I can see that in that thread the issues of repealing the Second Amendment and actually outlawing all guns got well and truly tangled up together.
No, the worthless gun filth including the worthless gun filth on this Board will as usual put their sick, desperate spin on it. Then in a few weeks, the whole episode will blow over until the next time. Repeat ad nauseam.
No doubt Traitor Trump is grateful to get people’s minds off Puerto Rico for a while.
And the conspiracy theories are already starting. I listened to a guy today say no way Paddock could have shot all those people from that far away, so it must be a set-up.
As to how the weapons arrived without arousing suspicion…ran across a commentator on MSNBC …Raquel Meadow?..who had a theory. It appears to her that since Las Vegas is a major venue for gun shows, its not uncommon to see someone carrying a weapon to or from a show. There are many sellers, many buyers, and the requirements for documentation are more forgiving. If she’s right about that, then a man carrying one or two long packages…that might very well be firearms…would not arouse much notice. After all, he doesn’t need to bring them all at once. And I (tentatively) understand he was there for several days.
Long story short, Vegas casinos do a lot of gun show business, so a man carrying one or more long guns is no biggie. Or wasn’t, at any rate.
In many hotels I’ve stayed at, you can get to your room without going through the lobby. Never stayed in this one, so I don’t know. However he could easily have put them in other bags. These casinos are very crowded and no one is going to pay too much attention to an older white guy, who doesn’t fit your average description of a troublemaker.