# Anti-gun control folks, a question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gun-control-folks-a-question/300967>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [April 25, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gun-control-folks-a-question/300967 "2005-04-25T03:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 58

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**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gun-control-folks-a-question/300967/58 "2005-04-26T14:40:59Z")

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> **Ludovic** said:  
> It’s not cut-and-dried if no living judge has issued an official statement about the current court’s position. Paraphrasing Cecil, it makes no sense to give a right to the people in the main sentence only to take it away with the subordinate clause.

Also important, I believe, is that the Miller in the Miller case was deceased before his case was brought to the Supreme Court, and therefore his side of the case did not actually get its ‘day in court.’ I’m sure certain lawyers on these forums would disagree with me, but that is my opinion.

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> **duffer** said:  
> If you have a CCP, you can buy any gun with no background check.

Not in Pennsylvania. I’ve got a license to carry concealed fireams, and I still have to fill out the BATFE 4473 and undergo a NICS check to purchase a firearm from an FFL holding dealer. So does my father, who’s had his license to carry concealed firearms for more than thirty years.

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> But most think the “gun-show loophole” means anyone off the street can show up at a convention center and buy a Tech 9.

The so-called loophole means that it is just as legal for a private citizen to sell to another private citizen (who is not lawfully forbidden to own firearms) at a gun show exactly the same long guns (rifles and shotguns) that could be sold in such a transaction outside a gun show.

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> **Harborwolf** said:  
> Not to step on one side or the other here duffer, but people were bringing up the slippery slope idea in AirmanDoors thread and it seems not to have happened.

Chicago and Washington DC would be very good counter examples to your argument. Both began with registration, and then used the refusal to allow any new registrations as a de facto ban.

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> **Soul Brother Number Two** said:  
> Second, how many concealed carry folks and the like have actually successfully “defended” themselves?

That number lies somewhere between 100,000 and 2,000,000 a year.

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> We all are aware of the statistics around handguns and gun ownership, how they kill way more family members and friends than they do intruders or attackers.

The actual number includes ‘persons known to the shooter’ or ‘acquaintances’ which includes things like rival drug dealers and gang members. It also relies heavily on the _very_ flawed Kellerman study in which he looked at only one county in Washington state, a high crime area, and then claimed his number accurately reflected the entire country.

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> Meanwhile, a police officer here in the Bay Area lays close to death because despite body armor, he was mortally wounded by a teenager with a semi-automatic pistol.

It’s already illegal to shoot people, and already illegal for a teenager to own or possess any kind of pistol. The minimum age for handgun ownership is 21.

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> **mhendo** said:  
> In my opinion, the best way to fight gun violence right now, in a pragmatic way that is likely to do some immmediate good, is for the anti-gun crowd to join with responsible gun owners in asking simply that the purchase of a gun anywhere in the United States require a reasonable waiting period so that a check can be done of the person’s criminal history.

That background check takes approximately five minutes with the NICS system and uses a database of criminal records in every state and county, as well as the FBI crime database.

Brady II eliminated the previous federally required five day wait because it sped up the process of doing a background check and turned it into a telephone call in which the FFL dealer provides the buyer’s driver’s license number and name and the system responds with the buyer’s SSN (which must be provided on the BATFE 4473) and either an approval number or a denial.

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> **Soul Brother Number Two** said:  
> And to Beer, is that the only study that correlated death by gun to friends and family, or is it the only hgorribly flawed one?

So far as I know, the study to which you are referring is one and the same as the study to which **Uncle Beer** and I have responded.

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> **Mr. Krebbs** said:  
> There are many carbines (rifles) that shoot handgun ammunition. The Beretta Cx4, for instance, shoots 9mm Parabellum (the same load that a Tec-9 fires).

Much like the H&K MP5 in both semi-automatic and select fire, using the 9mmx19 ammunition that is extremely common for handguns.

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> A principal in Pearl, Mississippi disarmed a student with his handgun, although he had to run to his car to get it. The principal formerly carried on school grounds, until it became illegal in 1995. The armed student had already killed two people before the principal returned with his handgun.

Something very similar happened in Edinboro, PA in the 90s also. Then there was the Virgina Law School shooting where yet another very similar thing happened.

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> It doesn’t take much effort to find more examples of a pistol or concealed weapon being used in crime prevention.

You’re right. [Keep and Bear Arms](http://www.keepandbeararms.com/) maintains a daily list of links to news sources around the country of stories in which people have used firearms to defend themselves from crime.

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> However, very little of the Constitution is crystal clear to us in modern times, which is why we require the Supreme Court to interpret it for us.

This is where I disagree with you. I am a reasonably educated person who can read and understand English. The Constitution is written in English, and there are plenty of other materials around written by the Framers as they wrote the Constitution from which to derive context and their thoughts. These are also in English. The Supreme Court need not tell me what the Constitution means, it needs to tell the _government_ when it has overstepped the bounds of the power the people, via the Constitution, loan to it.

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> **ExTank** said:  
> U.S. v. Miller simply addressed whether a sawed-off shotgun with a barrel of less than 18 in. constituted the sort of weapon suitabe for militia use.

Doesn’t the military use something of that nature?

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> Again, waiting periods have never been shown to have any effect on crime, and was never nothing more than an attempt to condition people to getting a gun when the state says you can, not when you want it.

My recollection also seems to indicate that there have been people killed during the waiting period when they went to purchase a firearm for personal defense. While I don’t advocate running right out and buying a gun without learning to use it, I do see that as an indication that waiting periods can cause unintended but serious damage.

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> **minty green** said:  
> You forgot “well-regulated.”

Now, what did ‘well-regulated’ mean in 1789?

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> Given that it’s pretty clear the founders were talking about state militias, one wonders what relevance the federal definition has to the question at hand, aside from the fact that it’s much more efficient to cite a single federal statute than the patchwork of state definitions.

I don’t think the Framers were stupid. They obviously had a reason for choosing the word ‘people’. If they had meant states, I’m quite sure they would’ve been able to dip their quills in the ink and write the word ‘states’.

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> **Elvis1Lives** said:  
> From where does this right you claim come, then? Not the Constitution, if its arbiters say otherwise.

The Constitution does not purport to hand out _any_ rights to anyone. The point of the Constitution, and this is evident if you read it, is to define to the government what power is specifically lent to it by the people, and the Bill of Rights further specifically prohibits the government from abridging what the Framers believed to be essential rights. As for where those rights come from, the Declaration of Independence is extremely clear on this issue as well. The people have these rights because their Creator endowed them.

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> **The Declaration of Independence**  
> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that **among these** are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. [bolding mine]

Note their use of the phrase ‘among these’ to indicate that the unalienable rights include but are not limited to what is specified. It’s pretty clear that they meant the people retain all rights by virtue of being people, and that the government is meant to have only those powers that are on loan to it.

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